The Best is Yet to Come

My view today

2012-02-01T16:35:00.001-05:00

I won't be left out! Even I can remember to post one picture a day. I didn't even have to leave my bed to do this.

8 months

2012-01-24T11:31:00.001-05:00

My sweet, sweet baby is 8 months old today! He's super busy now and crawls around on our bedroom floor (and leaves trails of spit up) seeing what he can get into. He's learned how to open drawers, so I have to make sure he doesn't pull the furniture on top of himself. He still doesn't like to sit up, but he can do it. When we try and make him sit up, he just wants to stand. He can brace himself and stand for a long time, and thankfully he doesn't cry when he falls even though I still jump every time. We've started to actively make him sleep through the night because he started waking up way too many times at night. NonSuperwoman suggested that we have some sort of white noise machine in his room while he sleeps. I've been playing music on his ipod ever since she suggested that and his sleep improved so much! Some nights I play classical music, some nights nature sounds, and tonight it'll be his Native American Flute Lullabies. Last night, I was telling one of my friends at church that we were finally going to make him sleep through the night and she told me I HAD to do it cold turkey. I don't HAVE to do a dang thing. I told her that for the first week MrC would be going in to put him back to sleep when he wakes up instead of me going in to nurse. It's only been 2 nights and last night he didn't wake up at all. I don't think it's fair for me to go from nursing him or bringing him to our bed whenever he wakes up to all of a sudden he has to stay in his crib and cry when he doesn't even know why. That's just me, raise your kids how you see fit. Once he has a few days of realizing there will be no more midnight snacks, if he continues to wake, I'll consider letting him cry.

I finally packed up every single 0-3 month size clothing because they no longer fit at all. He's been doing so great with eating. In the morning he has 2 ounces of fruit mixed with 2 tablespoons of yogurt, and 1 tablespoon of oatmeal. In the evening he gets 3 ounces of veggies (when I pureed his veggies I added in some butter) mixed with rice cereal and olive oil so that he doesn't get to taste the butter. He still won't eat avocado's and I won't be wasting anymore money on trying to make him like them. I'm starting on finger foods. I was trying to give him bread, but he kept gagging himself, so I think I might try cheerios instead. He still has no teeth, but I'm not complaining because it's much easier to nurse a toothless baby. He loves looking out of the window especially when the trash truck comes. When it snowed and he looked out and saw all the white, he looked up at me like "ma? do you see this?" He got super hype and almost jumped out of my arms.

His favorite toys are his lion chair (he's trying to rip the lion bald), my water bottle, and his monkey with a chime inside of it. We keep that one in his crib, so in the morning instead of waking up to cries, I wake up to him shaking the monkey and playing. When he's ready to get out he crawls to the end of the crib closest to the door and gets loud. If we don't come, then he cries. This kid is awesome :)

Teething? Greedy? Insomniac?

2012-01-10T07:36:00.001-05:00

If you don't want to share it, don't eat it around Judah. This week he has jacked me for an apple and a peach. He seemed to enjoy gnawing the peach, so I made him some peaches/yogurt/oatmeal for this mornings breakfast. He also loves licking his reflection. There's a little mirror on that toy so Judah used that time for a little make out session. I'd much rather it be there than my bathroom mirror, because he has made that a dirty mess.

We've had some rough nights lately. Some nights this boy just refused to sleep, so I've been quite tired. Last night he did a great job though! He only woke up once to eat and MrC was the shuttle service, so I didn't even have to get out of bed . I feel brand new :)

My brave baby

2012-01-04T01:09:00.001-05:00

Judah's upper GI study went well yesterday, thanks for the prayers! we had to hold his arms and feed him a bottle of some white stuff while he was under the xray. He did so well! The staff was playing and laughing with him so he never got scared. He didn't cry until I took the bottle away. The tech ran over with sugar water for me to dip his pacifier in while we finished watching the monitor. the doctor said there isn't anything wrong internally. We have an appointment with his pediatrician today to go over everything and hopefully the office has a nutritionist I can talk to. I'm excited to see what his weight will be, hopefully it's going up a little faster than it has been.

Let's reach some goals!

2012-01-03T02:02:00.001-05:00

I actually made some resolutions this year. I started working on them in December when I decided that I needed to make some changes, so I've been at it for 2 weeks now, and I notice such a difference.

My first resolution is: just do something. Do a little something productive each day to keep the house clean and my life in order. It took me a few days to get myself into a rhythm of what this exactly means for me. I typically get very overwhelmed when I have a lot to do and I end up doing nothing and then our house ends up looking a mess. When I sit around in clutter, I get sad. I had an awful cycle going. Lately, I've started just looking at and handling little chunks. When I go down to refill my water bottle before bed, I'll give myself 10 minutes to straighten up down there. If I can't finish it in 10 minutes, it's ok, I can do some more the next day, but at least something was done. If I finish before my 10 minutes is up, I go straighten up the living room. Since I've been staying on top of all the housework in my 10 minute window I can normally put away any clean dishes, wash whatever is in the sink, wipe down, the counter, sweep the floor, and put away anything we've left out in the living room. Yesterday I wanted to take down the Christmas decorations. I started during Judah's nap. When he woke up I fed/played with him and didn't do anything else until I put him down for bed. Once he was sleeping I told myself I'd work for an our and then be done. I finished putting up my decorations in 30 minutes and used the rest of my time to sweep, dust, and clean the kitchen. I've always known I work better with time limits, so I'm going to get back to that this year. Another thing I started doing (I think I read it in Good Housekeeping Magazine) is immediately handling anything that will take me less than 30 seconds to do. The author of the article said she tackles anything that takes less than a minute, my lazy brain will talk me out of 60 seconds of work, but who can deny a 30 second task? Instead of throwing my coat or purse down on the couch, I take the extra 5 steps to hang it up. Instead of throwing my clothes on a chair and letting it pile up for 2 weeks (seriously, I've been doing that for the past 3 years, I've had enough) I put them where they need to go. It's something so simple, but it's really helped me not have any clutter hanging around.

My second major resolution was to get our finances in order. We're going to do the 21 day financial fast again starting on Sunday, and use that as our starting point to getting our financial house in tip top shape. One of the goals I want to accomplish is going on vacation at the end of the year. In order to reach that goal, I need to be more diligent with our money.

My blogging time for tonight is up, but I'll probably keep blogging about the finance aspect. I'm going to talk to my money savvy twitter pal Singlema tomorrow about some stuff.

Also, pray for Judah today y'all. We're going to get a gastrointestinal test done today at 1:30 at Children's Hospital. I pray they find absolutely nothing wrong with my sweet baby. Go on ahead and touch your computer screen and agree with me :)

2011

2011-12-31T15:15:00.001-05:00

Judah's first Christmas

2011-12-29T01:50:00.001-05:00

We had a great time hosting Christmas, more pictures later!

7 months

2011-12-24T04:12:00.001-05:00

My sweet baby is 7 months old today. He's 11.7 pounds and 24 inches long. He likes standing up a lot which means he falls down sometimes. It scares me, but I don't want him to react in fear, so I just say "boooom" really loud and we laugh. Judah really likes to caress faces, but only if he likes you. He's not crawling yet, but he will pull on stuff in order to drag himself a few inches to get a toy. He's almost sitting up unassisted, he can do it for a little while, but then he topples over.

We took him to a specialist on Thursday to discuss him spitting up all the time and the fact that he's still so small. Let me just reenact the conservation we had at the end of his evaluation.

Dr: we need him to consume more calories. Give him butter and sugar in his food.
Me: I'm not doing that!
Dr: (laughing) why not?
Me: that's not nutritious, I'm not giving my baby sugar.
Dr: a calorie is a calorie, and he needs more of them
Me: those are empty calories
Dr: he needs calories, any calorie is good when you need to gain weight.
Me: well he won't be getting it from sugar and butter, I tell you that.

We went back and forth until I said, "you might as well stop, cuz I ain't doing it." He cracked up, my ma looked at me and shook her head, and I did a hoodrat neck roll. I told him I'd find other ways to fatten Judah up that won't turn him into a hyped up obese 5 year old that only eats ice cream and puts butter in frosted flakes. My plan of action includes baby yogurt mixed in with his morning fruit and potatoes or brown rice along with olive or coconut oil with his evening veggies. Those are calorie boosting items and they have nutrients to keep him healthy. I have whole grain rice cereal to put in his bedtime bottle for an extra calorie boost at night. If any of you have any ideas, let me know because now I'm determined to show this Dr that you can fatten babies up without setting them up with poor eating habits. Butter and sugar, I'm still shaking my head.

Secret Santa

2011-12-22T14:22:00.001-05:00

As soon as I opened my secret santa gift I knew it was from Adrienne! We talked on twitter about my pretty scarf from Nerd Girl that somebody stole, and she sent me one that is just as pretty. She sent it in the cutest box and she included a journal. Now I'm just ready for it to get cold here, because I'm ready! Thanks!

You Vote!

2011-12-16T14:31:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to decide on neighbor gifts. I know I want something food related but I don't know which items I want to make.

Popcorn:

cinnabon popcorn?

caramel corn?

Nuts:

Burnt sugar pecans?

Burnt sugar cashews?

Cookies:

Oatmeal butterscotch?

Chocolate chip?

Hot Chocolate jars?

What do y'all think? Any other inexpensive ideas you have for me? Do you deliver gift to your neighbors?

Before & After

2011-12-13T02:57:00.001-05:00

I really thought Judah was going to sleep through the night tonight. Imagine my disappointment when I just looked over at the clock. The conditions were right, little baby, you didn't try hard enough!

I don't think I can finish this post in a logical manner. I'll attach pictures and just go back to sleep. Enjoy the before and after picture of my fireplace. I finally painted it the other night. I was so tired of those ugly stencils, I'm glad they're gone forever. Hopefully I'll go get our stockings today, I haven't found any that I like yet.

Secret Santa Time!

2011-12-09T05:59:00.001-05:00

Judah slept through the night again :) I think once we get a handle on this spitting up business, we'll have many nights of full sleep!

I'm doing Secret Santa again this year. I love being surprised every year, thanks Psonya for hosting this! In case you're struggling Santa, here are some things I like:

The Steelers- I'd enjoy a Steelers scarf, hat, or sweatshirt. My only request is please nothing with number 7 (Big Ben, the quarter back) his character is still questionable to me, so I don't wear his stuff.

Nail polish, natural body products, perfume- I like everything except red polish and rose based fragrances.

Slippers and socks- I'm a size 9 and I love cute slippers with lots of cushion. Our downstairs is cold so I always wear them, it's only a matter of time before I wear my current pairs out.

accessories- earrings, necklaces, bracelets, charms, scarves, gloves, I like them all!

You don't have to go by this list at all, but if you were stuck, I wanted to help!

Pass the salt, butter, and steak sauce

2011-12-07T05:10:00.001-05:00

Last night was MrC's company's holiday dinner. There are only 5 of them in the Maryland office, so dinner had a grand total of 10 people and 2 of us were wives of employees. We got there 45 minutes late because his ma was 2 hours late coming to watch the baby. I was so mad but I remained the pleasant daughter in law that I always am. Dinner was at.Clyde's of Columbia and it was such an underwhelming meal. Not one person ate all of their food. The cooks clearly did not believe in salt or butter. My side dish was green beans and shredded carrots. Y'all, who serves shredded carrots on a plate? That is a salad topping not a side dish. I couldn't even get them on my fork so I only ate 2 carrot strings. Not a lick of seasoning was on either of them. Aside from the most bland meal I've ever had, the night was fun. MrC has only been on the job 3 weeks but 2 of the people are from his old company so they've known each other for 3 years. MrC is the only black person and when I say they love them some MrC, I really mean it. His coworkers wife knew all about us because her husband always talks of his travels with MrC. The other dude was telling everybody how MrC always picks the best restaurants and how he texts me a picture of his plate every time. They knew my name, they greeted me with hugs, and MrC got $100 in his holiday card. For 3 weeks of work, I say this company is a winner. MrC and I have had 2 date nights 2 weeks in a row, we getting real fancy around here!

(time to go back to bed now.j again, excuse any delirious typos)

Crafty

2011-12-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

I have been in such a decorating/ crafting mood lately. Pinterest probably has a lot to do with that, but I tend to get like this around Christmas. I'm currently working on a chest I got at the thrift store for $24 and a picture I got for $4. I haven't quite decided which direction I want to go with the picture, I have 3 different ideas swirling around:
cork, fabric, chalk. Yesterday on pinterest I saw the cutest bracelet idea! You take a charm and tie a string to it and you have an instant bracelet. That's perfect for me because it doesn't dangle or make noise so Judah won't pull at it. I don't have any charms, but maybe I'll ask for some this Christmas. Speaking of Christmas the only decorating I've done so far is making my wreath. Hopefully this weekend we'll get a tree and finish up making this place festive. I'm making some ornaments too if I ever get around to it. I need a nanny to take care of this baby while I craft (and sleep and eat).

I guess I found a good blogging time, when Judah is up way too early nursing (or playing or attacking). Excuse any typos, I'm about to go back to sleep.

Pictures to go with Yummy post

2011-12-05T16:35:00.001-05:00

The last picture is Judah's reaction to prunes. We'll try them again tomorrow!

Yummy!

2011-12-05T10:30:00.001-05:00

We had a pretty good weekend, how about you folks? Friday night we went to my company Christmas party. Obviously you can't see us very well in the picture, I wanted y'all too see those 2 ridiculous appetizer plates. We got there right as cocktail hour was ending so we missed the hors d'oeuvres and were a little bummed about it. I did defend my title as the first person in the buffet line 4 years running, so I was ok that I missed out on garlic fries. MrC asked the waitress if there were any fries or southwest rolls left and she had the, kitchen cook us a huge plate of both. The 2 of us failed miserably at clearing those plates, but it was tasty to try.

On Saturday I didn't get out of bed until 3 because Judah had a rough night. I had to do something productive with my day, so I went to buy a coat and get Judah's produce from the organic market. Judah and MrC really bonded when I left. I was putting him to bed and he was on my chest, MrC was next to us and his head was at my shoulder while he looked at tattoo pictures on his phone. Judah kept reaching out and stroking MrC's cheek. He finally just flipped himself down there so he could see what daddy was looking at.

Last night I spent 3 hours making Judah's food for the month. I pureed prunes, apricots, pears, apples, plums, peas, green beans, potatoes, and squash. They're freezing in ice trays now and then I'll bag them up tonight. We have a good system going. He eats 2 cubes (2 ounces) twice a day. I take the frozen cubes out at night and put them in his little bowls in the fridge and they're thawed by the time he's ready the next day. I like using the ice trays because it's so easy to combine flavors and track portion sizes. 1 cube of carrots and 1 cube of peas and now he has peas and carrots. I can make any combination I want once I finish introducing each food to him. Making his food is fun and easy and since I do a bulk cooking session it doesn't require more than 30 seconds a day to get his food ready. This week his new foods will be prunes and apricots. Next week green beans, pears and apples are getting introduced. I'm allergic to melons, so I like to take my time when giving him new foods to make sure it doesn't cause him any problems. I'm praying we stay issue free!

6 months

2011-11-29T06:49:00.001-05:00

My sweet baby turned 6 months on Thanksgiving. He had his doctors appointment yesterday and he's still 23 inches long and he weighs 10 pounds 14 ounces. We have an appointment to meet with a specialist to see why he's still so small. The Dr thinks he may have reflux since he spits up so much. Judah never seems uncomfortable after meals though and spitting up doesn't ever bother him. I've prayed over him, so I'm not worried about it. He does so well at the Dr. He got 4 shots and cried when he got stuck, but stopped as soon as it was over. He didn't get a fever and he wasn't fussy at all this time.
Over the past 2 weeks Judah has gotten super happy and independent. We can put him down and walk away and he'll play alone for a long time. He seems to think covering his face with blankets and bibs is a fun game. Even when I take it off, he just pulls it back. He's doing well with sitting up with support, and he can sit alone in the frog position for about a minute before he tips over. Judah acts like he's ready to crawl, he's pushing up and rocking so I'm keeping an eye on him in case he decides to take off one day. He loves eating peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash. He doesn't like bananas or avocados. He wouldn't even swallow the avocado. He made the "what the heck is this" face and spit them out. I gave him peas and he ate then right up and I tried the avocado again right after and he spit it out again.
I put him in the nursery at church for a bit on Sunday. They said he did well, but he got upset when a parent checked their child out. I guess he was ready to escape too.
He's guaranteed at least 3 thirty minute naps a day, but sometimes he'll go a little longer. Last night, he slept through the night! I put him down at 10, and I woke up at 5 and realized he was still sleeping. I had to pump because things got uncomfortable, but that's a good problem for me to have if it means more uninterrupted sleep in my future. He woke up at 6 and I'm feeding him now and I'll put him back in the crib to see how much longer he'll sleep.

Old man Judah

2011-11-21T12:09:00.001-05:00

Judah sleeps like he just finished a 12 hour shift at a warehouse. I guess trying to snatch everything mommy has in her hands really wears him out.

Just a baby

2011-11-10T02:13:00.001-05:00

I'm so behind on reading blogs and posting on mine. While I'm watching the end of Top Chef I'll take a minute to talk about my sweet laughing baby. He likes eating sweet potatoes, squash and peas. He likes to take the spoon and feed himself which leads to a very messy baby. I'm only giving him one tablespoon of food, but when he turns 6 months (Thanksgiving day) I'm going to allow him to eat for real. Right now I'm just introducing him to different flavors and getting him used to the process. He wants to sit up all the time now. When I put him in his boppy, he pulls forward and won't lean back. He can't do it without support yet though. We're working on going to bed independently right now. I'm going to miss holding him and rocking him every night, but I still have nap time! I just finished night 2 and he hasn't put up too much of a fight. He likes to flip over and play even when he's exhausted and I just have to keep flipping him back over so he won't hype himself back up. I am not a fan of crying it out, and I will not be making Judah do that. I keep telling him to chill out and just be a baby, but he insists upon growing up. Let me get some sleep now before bright eyes gets up.

Nursery

2011-10-31T03:27:00.001-04:00

Judah's room is almost complete! This is all we're doing right now for his safari themed bedroom. I'll get a better picture of his brown and cream animals that are on each wall of Judah's room. Eventually we're going to have a table and chairs for him, a bookshelf, and a toy chest, but a 5 month old has no need for any of those things. We also still need to buy a door for his room so he can have a quiet room even when his momma is being loud and watching tv in her room (like right now).

Help Me, 5 Months, and GO HOME

2011-10-24T14:27:00.001-04:00

I'm so happy we've been making actual progress in the house. I'll have pictures soon :) we need to clean up first. I'm going to make a cleaning schedule and post it because it's quite ridiculous. I washed clothes two weeks ago and they're still sitting at the foot of my bed.

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My sweet baby is 5 months old today! He's 10.2 pounds now, so he's holding steady with his one pound per month weight gain. I've been recording him since he thinks he should talk/screech all the time now . I'll be posting some videos as soon as my silly self learns how to upload things properly. We just started him on solids. We were doing the rice cereal but he was so unenthused about it, I decided to go ahead and give him some sweet potatoes. He loved them so much we had to restrain him to keep him from jumping us to eat them. We're going to give him bananas today. I'm only giving him a tablespoon mixed with some bre.astmilk once a day and we'll eventually move to twice a day and then I'll up the quantity. I love making baby food, it's quick and easy. Judah is trying to figure out how to be mobile. We put some toy in front of him and placed him on his stomach and he really tried to figure out how to get to them, before, he would just look at us like "I'm not here for your amusement, I will not perform for you." He really enjoys sucking on his fingers/fist/wrist as well as my collarbone and yesterday he tried to eat my leg. He passes out smiles all day long and he loves to stare at his pretty momma. He's beginning to reach out if you hold out your arms to pick him up, and if it's me, he'll actually move his body to get closer to me so I can take him from whoever has him. He's been trying to like my dad, but that man makes it so dang difficult. As soon as Judah wakes up from a nap my dad is in his face talking. Judah likes to take some time to look around, then flip over, then talk to himself and eat his hands before interacting with people. Oh well, one day they'll be able to peacefully coexist.

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I need some recommendations from you people. Do you like your dryer? Do you like your fridge? What make and model is it? If you have one that you hate, mention that too please! Also, do any of y'all use cast iron cookware like this? I think as I replace our pots,I want to go with cast iron, but probably not the Le Creuset brand because those prices are ridiculous. I'll build my collection one pot at a time so maybe by 2015, I'll have a set!

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I came into the office today because I really wanted to work, buttttttt I haven't done one report yet. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. My boss decided to actually come in today too, and she won't go home, so I can't go home. I'm going to be so sad if I have to stay until 4:30. GO HOME!

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Right now my focus is on Operation Lactation. The goal is to get a freezer full of milk for the baby so I won't have to be a slave to the pump or this baby during the holiday season. Last week I had to use all of the milk I had stored up (and by all the milk, I mean 10 ounces. I'm pitiful) because I was going to be gone for 3 feedings. I was panicking thinking I wouldn't have enough for him to eat and that I would have to give him some formula. As part of Operation Lactation I'm taking Fenugreek capsules to get my supply up and I baked lactation cookies (basically take any oatmeal cookie recipe and add brewer's yeast and flax meal). I haven't had an increase of milk yet, but I have been thirsty as all get out because of all the extra pumping. My plan is in effect until at least Thanksgiving. Y'all probably don't want updates on it, but I'm going to give them to you anyway!

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I showed my ma pictures of my friends 10 day old baby and she said: "ohhhh. He's funny looking." Ma, I didn't say he was cute, I said he was here and he was sweet. Newborns are supposed to be ugly anyway, so it's ok, I'm sure he'll get cute just like Judah did :)

Living Room Colors

2011-10-19T08:41:00.001-04:00

Get it together

2011-10-17T12:36:00.001-04:00

I really need to get in gear. I took off over the weekend which meant I did nothing outside of feeding the baby. I didn't cook, I didn't put away the laundry I washed on Wednesday, and I barely got out of the bed. It really was quite lovely, but now I just want my house in order. We have a lot to do still and we're making no progress.I figure if I blog about it, I'll be motivated enough to get some stuff done. First off, our dryer stopped working last week and our freezer cuts off periodically. Those are two big expenses that aren't in the budget right now, but I just keep singing Jesus Will Work it Out (no seriously, I sing it at the freezer daily) and I trust that he will. MrC and I can't agree on the living room color scheme. I'm going to have to put together a formal presentation to convince him I know what I'm doing. We also haven't picked colors for the guest bedroom or the office/exercise room. I need to pick fabric for my curtains and the chairs I bought 2 years ago to reupholster but I haven't done that either. Oh, our vacuum cleaner is broken. I keep meaning to take it apart to see if I can fix it, but I haven't. I want new floors, but that's not high on the priority list right now. We have a leaky window in the kitchen that we need to fix before the snow comes and a hinge broke on one of our cabinets. I'd really like new cabinets and a new counter top in the kitchen too. You know what would help me get all this done? If HGTV came and did it. I'd be really appreciative. We're a cute little family, we could be on tv. A nice windfall of money would help too. I don't mind doing the work myself, we just need somebody to pay for it. I'll set a goal, by January 1, everything that we can afford to get done will be done. That means at LEAST the house will be painted. I'm going to do do better, starting with today's trip to get groceries. Be back tomorrow, hopefully with some actual progress reports.

Bedtime?

2011-10-14T15:17:00.001-04:00

I don't have anything to talk about still, so we'll just look at what Judah looks like when he's being disobedient. he had a late night and early morning last week so I took pictures like I always do!

Busy Baby

2011-10-06T23:35:00.001-04:00

Judah has had a busy week with his momma always snapping pictures. Waking up? Snap a picture! Walking the neighborhood with Auntie? Snap a picture! Trying to play in your jumper but you're too light? Snap a picture! Playing with your toys or playing with Daddy? Of course I'm snapping a picture!

4 months old

2011-10-04T12:47:00.000-04:00

My sweet pea is 19 weeks old today. At his doctor's appointment last week he was 23 inches long and 9.2 pounds. All the men in my and MrC's family are over 6 feet tall and the doctor said Judah will be too. In the past month he has gotten so animated. When I say good morning his face lights up and he's ready to greet the day. This past Saturday he started laughing at my sister. It was a crazy loud and wild laughter and he would only do it for her and he hasn't done it since. He really loves my sister and always has. I wonder what it is about her that makes him smile and laugh so much? When he first started smiling he wouldn't do it for any outsiders except her. He's consistently doing 6 hour stretches in his crib at night and then a 4-6 hour stretch after he eats. I'm thinking about starting him on cereal soon, but I need to do my research to see what kind I want to make. He's doing really well in his crib at night, but doesn't really like taking naps there during the day. I normally just let him nap in his play pen downstairs or on my bed. He's still taking 3 naps a day, two 30 minute naps and a 2 hour nap. I think he has a lot of my personality. When we went to lunch with Jameil and others he was so quiet and ended up taking a nap. As soon as we put him in his car seat he started smiling and laughing. When we went to the wedding he just stared at everybody. People were talking to him and trying to make him laugh, but he wouldn't respond. As soon as my sister and I got him back into the room he started talking and laughing and kicking. I can't blame him, I don't really like outsiders that much either. He'll go to anybody as long as they're calm. My dad is always to hyped up and irritating so he still doesn't like him. One night my MIL was over and she was fussing at my niece about procrastinating and was all worked up. She was holding Judah and he was wailing because she was too amped. MrC told her she had to calm down if she wanted Judah to chill out. She looked at Judah, took a deep breath, apologized to him for being upset, put her hand on his head and said "peace in the name of Jesus" and he instantly rested his head on her shoulder and was silent. It was so funny. He's been trying to sit up lately. This morning my ma had him in his Boppy pillow and he was really trying to straighten up like a big boy. Yesterday we were doing his leg exercises and he was pushing to stand up all on his own. Normally I have to give him some assistance to get him straight up, but he was doing it without any pulling from me.

Now that we live in an actual neighborhood we're thinking about participating in Halloween. I want to pass out candy with Bible verses (my sister said find the scariest verse in Revelation and put it on there) to all the cute little kiddies. I also want to dress Judah up as a lion so he can be the Lion of Judah! (Can y'all tell I'm a church kid that never got to participate in Halloween growing up!?)

odds and ends

2011-09-29T09:40:00.001-04:00

Turkey Burger Recipe

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I really love cloth diaper days. I chose to try and cloth diaper because they're so cute! Since I plan on having 4 kids, I figure any money saved is probably a good thing and since I got the one size fits all diapers I can get a lot of use out of them. The downside is they look huge on Judah because he's so toned. I think I prefer the Bum Genius brand over Fuzzibunz.I only have 5 diapers though, so cloth diaper days are once a week right now.

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We're having another chore talk. I'd be embarrassed to let anybody in my house right now. Today and tomorrow I will clean like crazy though, having everything in disarray makes me frustrated and sad. I'm going to work super hard today and tomorrow and then do nothing on Saturday but sleep and play with Judah. Oh, I won't be doing the dishes though. I absolutely refuse, lol. If I have to touch them, I'm throwing them away. I wish I was joking, but I've done it before.

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I need to do Judah's 4 month post.

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MrC has found a nice little job interview groove. Two companies are pursuing him right now. Yesterday I was chanting that there would be a bidding war over him, that would be a ton of fun!

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Let me get started on operation clean up: again. Now I see why my ma was always walking around talking about "everything has a place, everything in its place." I totally get it.

Wedding Fun!

2011-09-28T00:04:00.000-04:00

Wedding Weekend

2011-09-26T15:31:00.001-04:00

Over the weekend we had a family road trip. MrC's cousin was getting married in Charlotte, NC so MrC, Judah, my sister and I went down to celebrate. The invitation said the event was formal and after trying on all my formal dresses on Wednesday night, I had to go shopping Thursday. Thankfully I didn't cry because my dresses almost fit.I'm back at an acceptable size and If I wanted to give up breathing, I could have made something work. Thursday I went to TJ Maxx and quickly realized I didn't know what I was doing, so twitter came to my rescue. I ended up trying on 20 dresses in TJ Maxx and Ross and then posted the dresses that actually looked decent on twitter for their opinions. I ended up buying 2 dresses and I let MrC pick the winner. I

A little before 4 Friday morning we started our road trip in the rain. After a stop at Denny's for breakfast and a short visit with MrC's grandparent's we rolled into the city at noon. Our room wasn't ready yet so we changed the baby out of his jammie's in the bathroom and decided to walk around for a bit and get lunch. As we were walking though one of the buildings I got a tap on my shoulder and it was one of my twitter pals @cocoisspeaking! I thought that was the craziest thing that we just so happened to bump into each other. Friday night we went to dinner with Val and Tyler. Somehow my sister and Tyler got into a math tournament. Tyler is smart y'all! That night my sister wanted to go out so I went with her. Y'all, I have never been to a club, allow me to share my experience with you. My sister thought it was the funniest thing and called her friends to tell them about her old married sister's night out.

It was early (cuz you know I have a baby to feed and all and I need my sleep) and we walked to the next block where there were 4 clubs. The first one was just 10 people sitting a bar. I had no idea why I needed to show my ID to get in there. We walked back out. The second place had a $10 cover charge. No sir. The next place was free until 11. As I was standing there getting my wrist band this man walked up on me and put his hand on my waist. No go! I jumped to high heaven and moved away. We went inside and had the pleasure of being the first people in the club so my sister gave me a tour. While we were standing there tweeting, dude walked up on me again and I screamed then looked at him and said "you better stop walking up on me or we're going to have a problem." He apologized and walked away. After about 10 minutes the girls in their finest club gear started coming in and I knew I needed to leave with my church dress and flats on. When we were walking out we saw security fighting the dude that kept walking up on me. They put him in a hold and walked him across the street and threw him on the ground. I think he was on some kind of drugs. We waited until he walked away before we started walking to avoid me having to attack him if he came near me again. We walked around downtown for a bit and then headed back in. My first night out on the town lasted all of an hour!

Saturday we met Jameil, Rashan and Chanel for lunch. We went to this place Jameil picked called Lupie's Cafe. Let me just tell y'all, the burger was delicious but the Oatmeal Butterscotch cookie I had for dessert was absolutely divine! I love cookies and that just may be my favorite cookie now. I will not rest until I can duplicate that cookie. Dear neighbors, you will be getting oatmeal butterscotch cookies for Christmas! After lunch my sister and I did a little shopping before going back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding left a lot to be desired. It was a rooftop wedding, sounds pretty, right? My sister and I had gone up on the roof the day before and couldn't figure out how on earth they were going to have a wedding up there in that tiny space. Apparently they hotel hasn't figured it out either. From most of the seats you couldn't see the wedding party, from some of the seats you couldn't see the bride and groom, and from all of the seats after the first 2 rows you couldn't hear anything. I love, love, love weddings and I cry at every single one, but this time I just sat there looking at the awful wigs that were in front of me. The bride looked stunning as I knew she would though and the bouquets were peacock themed and wonderfully awesome. The reception turned out to be more of a cocktail reception meaning there wasn't enough seats for everybody. My feet weren't ready for that. After an hour I went back to the room and changed my shoes and I changed the baby into his pajamas because I saw he was getting sleepy. He ended up going to bed 1.5 hours early sitting in my sister's lap. He was fighting so hard to stay awake, poor thing. MrC's cousins stood by and commentated Judah's thoughts as he drifted off to sleep. The food didn't really go with what I thought a formal wedding was. One of the menu items was chicken tenders with honey mustard sauce. I ended up taking the breading off my tenders and putting the chicken in my pasta which was quite a tasty treat.

After the wedding we all went out bowling. It was a ton of fun even though I learned my husband cannot bowl. At all. He bowled a 54. Even though he did awful, it was fun hanging with other young HAPPY married couples. I couldn't hang too late because the baby was in his grandma's room asleep and I needed to be back for his next feeding. He woke up as soon as we wheeled him back into our room. Sunday we did a little shopping and headed home.

New milestones

2011-09-22T20:01:00.001-04:00

I've been encouraging Judah to actually take his toys and play with them. Yesterday I waved those keys in front of him for 40 minutes trying to get him to reach for them. Today it took a lot less time for him to show interest! He didn't really play with them, but he did pick them up.

Fear

2011-09-20T14:15:00.001-04:00

My ma and I went to get the blinds for Judah's room over the weekend because JC Penny was having a sale. I was about to get the cordless blinds because I didn't want Judah to accidentally strangle himself at some point. The cordless blinds were ugly, they looked cheap, and they cost more than the blinds that would have been perfect for his room. My ma had a talk with me and I got the corded blinds that are perfect and I'll place a command hook on the window frame for the cord.

Judah's room is next to the garage. If somebody wanted to, they could climb on our garage and into Judah's room if I left the window all the way open. I never do. I keep the window locks on which prevents the window from being opened more than 2 inches. When I was a toddler I popped the screen out of my window and was halfway out when my dad walked in the room, saw me, and grabbed me. Just in case Judah turns into a miraculous 4 month old and learns how to climb out of his crib and walk, I never take the window locks off.

My ma is sewing Judah's curtains. I picked a nice canvas type material because it's heavy and reminds me of a safari. She was asking what length I wanted them. I told her I needed to do some research because I wasn't sure if long curtains were a strangulation hazard.

After hearing that my ma decided she needed to have a serious talk with me about fear. As I was talking to her I started welling up all over again. I try not to be scared, but I'm terrified of something happening to my sweet baby. There have been days that I would randomly burst into tears at the thought and then I would spend time holding Judah and praying for his safety and my peace of mind. I know the spirit of fear is an attack from Satan, so I'm working hard to not let it consume me, but it's been hard for me. I'm going to write out some scriptures and put them up in my bathroom so I can have some peace. At the end of our conversation my ma said "What's that saying? God protects babies and fools. You and Judah are both covered."

p.s. His room is going to be awesomeness times 12. I can't wait to finish! And today I'm trying the cloth diapers again. I'll blog about my cloth diaper rationale and my experience so far tomorrow (or Thursday, y'all know how I do). I also have a video of Judah explaining to me why he shouldn't have to take a nap, my phone said it was too big to send, so I'll have to try another way.

Jerk!

2011-09-15T20:30:00.001-04:00

My momma tried me today. If it were anybody else, I would have kicked them in the shin. Picture this: my backyard. spray painting some stuff for Judah's room.

Ma: What's that on your legs?

Me: *jumps around, swatting legs*

Ma: Stop girl, up at the bottom of your shorts. Are those bruises!?

Me: *looks down* Those are my stretch marks you jerk!

Ma: No, those aren't stretch marks, they're bruises *comes over to inspect* oh

I would fight her if she wasn't my momma. I really don't understand how she knows nothing about me. I distinctly remember having a conversation with her about how I get really dark stretch marks and they eventually fade after a few months of oil rubs. Also, I need longer shorts. My cheeks were hanging out the back and I'm sure the old man next door was either super disgusted or very pleased.

Baby at work

2011-09-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

I took the baby to work with me today. He had a great time talking with my coworkers, but it seriously wore him out. I also got my cloth diapers today. I really need to up my supply if I'm going to go this route. I only have 5 of the kind I like.

Tonight MrC and I had a talk about house responsibilities. I've been super tired lately because I end up doing most of the daily house tasks. He does stuff when/if I don't. If I leave dishes in the sink for a few days, then he'll do them. After dinner, I think the dishes should be done immediately. We'll see if we can strike a compromise. My other issue is nighttime with the baby. MrC sleeps so hard so I don't expect him to get up in the middle of the night, but he can put the baby to bed and handle back pats. As I type this, MrC is on his 4th trip upstairs to pat the baby. I'm glad it's not me tonight!

I got nothing

2011-09-13T16:54:00.001-04:00

Night 2 of Judah in the crib didn't happen. This time I blame MrC! I took the baby upstairs to get him nice and mellow for bed, and then I woke up hours later with the baby on my chest and MrC sleeping in front of the tv downstairs. If he hadn't fallen asleep during the football game, he could have gotten the baby off my chest and put him in the crib. See how I'm totally not to blame here? I'll try it again tonight.

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I'm trying out cloth diapers today! I have the fuzzi buns brand. I just ordered 2 bumGenius diapers to try out as well.

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Our neighbors across the street have a 2 month old. They gave us a bag of clothes he outgrew yesterday, most of them he never wore because they were too small. The fact that my almost 4 month old can fit every single thing in that bag made me laugh. We know 4 people having boys in the next 2 months so we're going to check and see if any of those 5 babies needs some clothes.

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My dad just called to say we needed to go to North Carolina to walk the land he just purchased. I swear this man is bored. Yeahhhhhhh. I'm thinking no, get off my phone.

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My sister is racist. She hates white nectarines. They are delicious.

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I know 2 people that have had 4 accidental pregnancies in a 5 year span. Of course these are people that didn't even need to have any babies. One of them is having her third baby tomorrow. She has to drive 2 hours to pick up her child's father from school tonight so he can be there for the birth.

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We're having turkey burgers for dinner tonight. The recipe promised they'll be juicy and delicious. If they are, I'll share the recipe. Tomorrow we're having ribs in the slow cooker. Thursday, chicken on the grill. I love food. What y'all eating?

Back in Action

2011-09-12T11:59:00.001-04:00

Heyyyyy y'all! Last week I was so wrapped up in the paint project that I thought would never end that I completely neglected this blog. Well, neglected it more than I usually neglect it. During last weeks rain and flooding my ma and I started painting the house. We did Judah's room and the hallway/foyer. I really underestimated how difficult it would be to paint and work and care for a baby. It took a week, but it looks so nice! Once I get the decorations up, I'll post before and after pictures. Our foyer used to have a blue ceiling with green walls and a black and white marble floor. It was as ugly as it sounds. Now the walls are gray and the ceiling is white. I love it! The banister is next. My ma is ready to do the kitchen and living room. I'm ready for a break. Maybe next week.

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Judah slept in his crib for the first time last night. I was watching the video monitor that Psonya sent me like it was a tv screen. Judah did great, I did not. He whimpered at 3:30 and I ran in and got him. Shame on me. I'll do better tonight. During the day he's been babbling so much more, it's really cute. We had a really funny conversation the other day. I don't know what we were talking about, but he was loving it.

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I'm a contractor. My 2 companies are meeting to today to discuss my review/raise. My boss at the company I'm contracted to just called and asked me to be in charge of a major project. I sure hope that gets reflected in my raise. I'm currently on the phone with her wowing her with my great ideas. Well, I had some crazy ideas, but after I realized they probably weren't going to pay off my house or double my salary, I started giving her good ideas.

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God really favors me.

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I have a formal wedding to attend on the 24th. All of my formal clothes are form fitting. I don't know if they fit this after baby body. I'm going to up my workout plan the next 2 weeks and see what happens. I'm not even going to try on the dresses until the 22nd. If they don't fit, I'll cry and MrC will give me permission to go buy a new dress and the problem will be solved.

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I wonder if I can post every day this week? I think I can!

Nursery

2011-08-31T09:25:00.001-04:00

We still haven't painted, or gotten all the finishing touches together, but Judah's nursery is almost ready for occupation!

3 months old!

2011-08-25T10:17:00.001-04:00

My sweet baby turned 3 months old yesterday! He weighs 8 pounds now and just started fitting into his 0-3 months clothes. He is smiling at people more now, which is so delightful! When he saw my sister 2 days in a row last week, he had so many smiles for her. It was like he was saying "hey, I remember you from yesterday, we had fun!" He's also started making sweet baby sounds and gurgling now. Up until last week it was mostly grunting sounds. About 2 weeks ago he began to roll over to one side. His new ability scared him a bit at first. He would roll over and then look around like "what the heck just happened." He continues to love mobiles and the fan. When he's on our bed and the fan isn't on, he looks up at it and then looks at us like we broke it. He eats every 4 hours, but if I time our evenings just right, I can get him to do a 6 hour stretch at night! He does really well at night and I pray this continues. After our night nursing session at 10 or 11, I put him in his bassinet and he goes right to sleep on his own I feed him again when he wakes up sometime between 2-4 and I put him right back down and he goes to sleep again. I've been getting us in a consistent afternoon routine because we are going to transition him to his room in September. We give him a bath every other night and he loves them, I can't wait until he's old enough for bath toys and splashing! It's pretty easy to tell when he's sleepy, he'll start to tug at his ear or grab his hair. if we don't put him down for a nap after that cue, he begins to start fussing at us. If we ignore that he starts crying and it becomes a bit more difficult to get him to sleep. Taking him outside normally instantly calms him, and if we can't go outside, back pats and custom songs from mommy normally work. A few times there was too much stimulation going on and Judah got over tired, he is not a pleasant baby to get to sleep once he reaches that point! One thing we've always been able to count on since we brought him home from the hospital is the baby on chest move. He cannot resist it! If we're tired and he's not, or if he's fussing for absolutely no good reason, we put him on our chest and lean back and we get some sweet peace. Judah's not a big crier and even before he does cry he give us 2 warning shouts to give us time to fix the issue before he starts wailing, isn't that nice of him? The past 2 days he's started really trying to suck his pointer finger. He pushes the pacifier out and inserts his finger all the time now. MrC and my momma aren't having that at all! My ma was like "ohhh no, that's what your momma used to do and we aren't going through that with you Judah!" I didn't stop sucking my finger until I was 13, we're trying to keep Judah from following in his momma's footsteps! I think I'm finished boring y'all with all my sweet baby's development, stay tuned for pictures of his nursery!

Almost Finished

2011-08-22T12:50:00.001-04:00

I was so productive this weekend! On Friday I declared that my house would no longer look like a war zone, so I set about tackling the rest of the stuff that needed to be unpacked. While MrC took Judah with him to the barber shop, I cleared out that crazy looking room. Jameil made sure to throw in the appropriate amount of threats throughout the day to make sure I finished by her deadline of midnight. By 11, I had everything finished. My sister came over on Saturday and she ended up watching (ok, napping) with Judah while MrC and I went to the store. We went and got some houseplants, and Judah's crib! He is getting to busy for the bassinet, he ended up scooting to the top the other day, my baby clearly needs more space. Tonight we'll be getting his room together. That's the very last thing we need to accomplish before we can declare ourselves totally settled in. Now we can move on to the fun decorating!

What type of plants do you have in your home? Where are they located?

I need to go to bed

2011-08-18T01:11:00.001-04:00

i can't sleep. When I can't sleep I look through the pictures on my phone. Here's what my sweet baby has been up to this week. Judah does well with putting weight on his legs, and he's been pushing up higher trying to hold up that big head for longer periods. I've been meaning to weigh him because this dude is heavy. He's still so much leaner than every other baby at our church, but he's solid. I can't believe my baby will be 3 months old next week!

Football and shopping

2011-08-15T15:08:00.001-04:00

On Friday night MrC and I went on a date to the Redskins/Steelers game. We had a blast! Judah stayed with my parents so we could have a grand baby free time. After the game we noticed that some people didn't take their souvenir cups with them. So we did what any self respecting married couple would do... we went around and picked them up. By the time we finished we had 10 cups and 12 popcorn buckets. Of course we sanitized them when we got home and MrC put together nice Redskins gift packages for his friends that are fans.

Saturday, Judah and I got up and went for a long walk around the neighborhood. I just turned down whatever street was shady, this is a big neighborhood! During our walk I met an older lady that told me she just got back from a peach festival. I love peaches so I ran in the house, gave Judah to MrC and went to the festival. I got a peach smoothie and a hot dog. They had a barbecue pit set up but the line was longer than I was willing to endure. They also had cobblers and pies, but I don't believe in cooked fruit. I'm glad got out early because it started storming like crazy. We've had quite a few huge storms the past few days. I'm glad we got the huge tree in front of our house cut down on Friday. It was right in front of Judah's room and we didn't want to risk a huge branch coming into his room one day. When Ms. Elvis across the street saw the tree was down she said to MrC "Y'all cut the tree down!? Thank God, it looked a mess." Well tell us how you really feel then!

Sunday I missed church because I overslept and was tired from dealing with a fussy baby Saturday night. My ma and sister came over yesterday afternoon and we decided to go to the outlets. Judah was really well behaved. My ma threw a mini tantrum: "I don't understand why MrsC won't just have another baby and give me this one." My sister and I just looked at her. That lady is crazy. We had dinner at Americantina and it was SO good. I got my favorite dish, tacos al carbon. They were the second best I've ever had.

First road trip

2011-08-10T08:09:00.001-04:00

We went down to North Carolina for MrC's family reunion over the weekend. Our 4 hour road trip was quite peaceful. Judah knew he was in a new place and spent the weekend staring at everything and everybody. He got a chance to meet his great grandparents so I snapped a few photos because that's something I never got to experience. MrC's grandad is huge. He has the biggest hands I've ever seen. Look how tiny Judah looks next to him! MrC's grandma is the most talkative woman I've ever met and she goes on random tangents, you see Judah looking at me trying to figure out why she talks so much? I was cracking up later because MrC and I were both trying to piece together a story she told us and neither of us knew what she was talking about. What we both heard made no sense. He's supposed to ask his momma to clarify it for us. It was a pretty good weekend, we're going back down next month for a wedding and hopefully we'll be able to stay a little longer.

Happy Baby

2011-08-05T10:30:00.001-04:00

Get Out

2011-08-03T16:20:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had to put somebody out of my house. I had EnvirocAir scheduled to come clean my air ducts and carpets. They had a coupon special that I to do both of those things for $64. When the guy got to the house he smelled like he had just eaten cigarettes. Seriously, if you work in a service industry and have to enter into homes for a living, air yourself out if you smoke. It's just rude to bring that stank into my home. Anyway, I handed him the coupon and showed him which rooms I wanted cleaned. He looked and determined that 2 of the rooms needed a deep clean for an additional $29.99 for each room. Dude please. I told him the basic clean would be sufficient. He said he didn't want to do a half job. Sir, I'm not paying for that. He then asked to see the furnace and asked when we last had the ducts cleaned. Since we just moved in, I didn't know. After looking at the furnace he said it was dirty and if they didn't clean the furnace too we'd be wasting our money because the ducts would just get dirty again. He said to clean the furnace it would be an additional $199. Dude, I am not paying you that. I will pay the $64 I intended on spending and that's good enough. He kept saying he didn't want to do a half job. How you going to do me a favor with my money? He asked how much I wanted to pay. I told him $64. He said he would call his boss. Of course his boss didn't answer the phone so he offered to do everything for $199. Maybe you didn't understand me. I said I would pay $64. If you're not going to do it, you can take your equipment and leave. He left and threw the coupon down in my front yard. For real? EnvirocAir, that's a nice hustle you're running, but I am not the one.

Clean it up!

2011-08-01T11:02:00.001-04:00

SimplyB: I plan to nurse for a year. MrC had asthma when he was younger and I had really bad allergies. I want to help Judah in the health department as much as I can.

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Nerd Girl: Skillet chicken- Get a seasoning that you like. I used a hot and spicy cajun style spice that I got from Ross. Cover your chicken with a lot of seasoning, I used chicken leg quarters. Get your cast iron skillet really hot. Add enough olive oil to coat the skillet once it's hot. Put the chicken in the skillet in the skillet, let it get browned nicely on each side and pop in the oven at 350 until the juices run clear.

I enjoyed that chicken so much I made 5 pieces and ate 4 (not all in the same day!) It was juicy and flavorful and easy.

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My carpets and air ducts get cleaned tomorrow. That brings me so much joy I don't know what to do. Seriously, I can't stop thinking about it. Something about a professional clean just makes me giddy.

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My parents came and helped us do some things around the house on Saturday. We were grateful for the help and have definitely learned you have to take the good with the bad. MrC had to stop my dad from murdering newborn squirrels that he thought were mice. Thankfully, my nature loving hubby saved the squirrels and helped their momma find them again so she could move them to a new home. MrC, my ma, and I were running from window to window watching the squirrel pick up her babies from our backyard and move them to my neighbors tree.

My ma and dad and I got in an argument about closets. I thought it was funny. My ma took the baby and just left the room to avoid hitting my dad with a hammer.

Me: *whispering to my ma* I don't think he knows what he's doing, that's not right

Ma: honey, that's not right

Dad: Yes it is, I know what I'm doing

Ma: No, that's not the way it goes

Dad: Yes it is. you do it this way so stuff can sit on the shelf. This ain't going nowhere, I got it in the studs, this is sturdy

Ma: Ok, but that's not how the shelf goes

Dad: Yes it is, this keeps stuff from falling off the shelf

Me: Daddy, that's upside down

Dad: No it isn't

Me: Yes it is

Dad: *rolls eyes and flips shelf over*

The shelf looked so stupid y'all. Even Judah knew it was upside down. I think my dad smokes crack in his spare time.

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I have to renew my drivers license by my birthday on Thursday. I hope I have another good hair day tomorrow.

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Judah has been super fussy during the day since Friday. On the flip side, he has been AWESOME at night. He'll eat before we go to bed, and then fall asleep on his own. He wakes up once during the night around 2 am. I feed him, put him back in his bassinet and then we go right back to sleep. He wakes up around 6, which is when I need to get up anyway and I nurse again and start my day while he goes back to sleep. I was talking to some friends at church and my friend's hubby summed it up best "I have to be awake during the day anyway, so cry all you want, just be quiet and sleep at night." Yes and amen. We've found a few positions that help keep him calm during the day, but hopefully this fussy phase will soon pass. I don't like to hear my baby upset.

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I really loveeeee how everybody knows how to parent Judah except his parents. I took him in somewhere on Friday to drop something off for work. My coworker was demanding to know where Judah's blanket was. It was 100 degrees outside. I put his burp cloth over his legs and said that was his mini blanket. When I was at my parents house and Judah kept fussing my parents kept telling me to feed him. I knew he wasn't hungry, but after the 85th time, I just gave in. This is my dad every single time Judah whimpers:

Dad: He's growing, MrsC, he is growing

Me: Mhmmm

Dad: You're going to have to feed him more because he's growing.

Me: Mhmmmm

Dad: Go ahead and feed that growing boy, he is getting bigger

I swear to beans one day I'm going to yell, "of course he's growing, it's what healthy babies do. Shut the heck up. He'll be growing for the next 20 years, so I hand him sandwiches nonstop?"

After I fed him on Friday and he still was acting crazy I just looked at my parents waiting for their next bright idea. They finally shut up. I told them that baby wasn't crying from hunger.

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I want a bissel steam and sweep for my birthday. I know my parent's aren't getting me anything, but maybe my MIL will be in a giving mood this week. Hmmmmm

Boy in Blue

2011-07-27T01:44:00.001-04:00

2 months old

2011-07-26T12:25:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Judah had his 2 month check up. Since I knew he would be getting a lot of shots and MrC was going to be out of town, I got my mom to come with me in case I turned into drama mama when my baby cried. Next time, I'm leaving drama grandmama at home! Judah's not a big crier unless he's hungry or tired. He was a little fussy yesterday morning so I ended up feeding him when I got to office. Initially, I wanted to wait until after his shots, so I compromised and let him eat off one side and was going to give him the other side after. I also had a bottle ready in case my sweet baby went crazy during his appointment. Judah is now 7.1 pounds and 20 inches long. The doctor was checking him out and said he looks great. He's alert, he holds his head up really well and he loves to study faces. The doctor turned Judah toward me and our eyes locked and Judah would not break gaze at all. The doctor moved/turned/twisted and swayed his body all around and Judah made sure his head was pointed in my direction so he could see me. I guess he was ready to finish eating! The nurse was getting his 4 shots and his oral vaccine ready and I decided to give him the bottle while we waited. She came in with her tray and my momma was mad this lady was about to torture the baby. He loved the oral vaccine. She started to just squirt it in his mouth, but he surprised her and started drinking it. She laughed and said babies don't normally do that until 6 months. Judah comes from a long line of greedy folks so of course he was going to make sure he got to eat whatever she was offering. They did 2 shots in each thigh. Judah was peacefully resting on the table and the nurse stuck that first shot in. His face was shocked! I thought my momma was going to cry. Thankfully the nurse was lightning quick so Judah screamed out with each injection, but as soon as my ma picked him up, he was quiet. All his morning fussiness subsided. He was silent the whole way home. My ma gave him the rest of his bottle, we stretched his legs so they wouldn't get stiff, and put him down for a nap. He was really tired after the shots. When he woke up he was fussing more than usual. I stretched his legs out, fed him, and he went right back to sleep. We did that pattern until this morning. He had a mild fever last night 100, but I didn't give him anything for it and the next time I checked him, it was lower. I slept with him on the bed with me and when I woke up this morning he was just staring at me. Now that he's mastered staring and focusing in on people, I hope smiling is next!

In the office today

2011-07-21T13:01:00.001-04:00

I need to:

Do a spreadsheet for our budget. I'll handle this by next week
Call the air duct cleaning people. They're running a special to get all your ducts cleaned and your carpets cleaned and your dryer vent cleaned. We need all three services. I'll call them today
Hang new rods/shelves in our closets. We can't put our clothes away until we replace the flimsy things she installed, so I guess I should get them by next week.
Go renew my drivers licence . It expires August 4. I need to make sure I have a good hair day by then and head on in there.
Get groceries. We have water and pita chips at the house. I'm pretty sure that's not acceptable.
Get a wedding gift and 2 baby gifts. And then remember to mail them. My ma is going to help me make the wedding gift. I think she'll love it. Yep, this is totally about you!
Find my thank you cards and mail them out. I promise I'm not trifling internet peeps. As soon as I find that box I'll send you your thanks.

I want:

an over the door shoe rack. Anybody have one that they like? Where did you get if from?
cinnamon sugar pretzels with sweet cream cheese icing from the restaurant by our house. Maybe tomorrow?
to go to the store but if I leave this building, I probably would drive straight home to my babies.
a step stool for my kitchen and my bed. The previous owner of the house was way shorter than me, how did she reach anything?
Judah to smile at me. He only gives me "milk drunk" and "I'm 'bout to get that good sleep" smiles and those don't count. I want a "face lights up cuz my momma is here" smile.
a nap. I've got to stop going to bed at 3

back on the job

2011-07-18T10:09:00.000-04:00

I'm back at work today. I cried as I was leaving out so I just gave MrC and Judah a quick kiss and ran to the car. I cried for a bit and then decided to have a little talk with Jesus instead of being a wimp. It didn't take me as long to get to work as I thought it would. Morning traffic is a lot friendlier than evening traffic if I leave the house by 7. I keep telling myself this is temporary. Soon, I'll be able to be at home with Judah and not have to come into the office every day. I may have to leave work early today because I didn't leave a lot of milk for Judah. I told MrC to call me when he gives him his last bottle and I'll leave then. I have a shower curtain to put up at work so I can pump. My mom was concerned Judah wouldn't take to the bottle today since I haven't been giving him one. MrC called and said there was no issue, he guzzled it down. Ok, let me stop talking about Judah before I get upset and leave work!

Our move Saturday went well. We had a ton of help so it went quickly. The only frustrating thing was the master bathroom. MrC and I went up on Thursday night to do some cleaning. My MIL said she wanted to come help. I gave out assignments. I was cleaning downstairs, MrC had the upstairs hall bath, and my MIL had the master bath. We all worked for about 2 hours then went home. When I went back on Friday I looked in the bathroom and the shower was dirty, the toilet was dirty, and the sink was dirty but my can of scrubbing bubbles was empty. I was so confused. I called MrC and politely asked what his momma was doing while they were upstairs. He said "she cleaned the window and the floor." Here's the problem. I had already cleaned the window, and the floor was still dirty. Except for 2 tiles. I laughed and just kept it moving. Saturday when we were getting moved in my SIL needed something to do. I needed her to get away from me because her non stop talking was irking everybody so I asked her if she would go upstairs and sweep and clean the bathroom. She said sure. I kept seeing (and hearing) her downstairs where we were and I kept wondering if she cleaned the bathroom. The guys came back with the moving truck and they were all carrying stuff in and I see her carrying boxes.

Me: T! That's their job. You are a house slave. Please stay inside.

T: It's ok, they like to abuse me, I can carry stuff

Me: Did you clean the bathroom?

T: Yeah

So I went on about my day. Later on I went upstairs. And went into the bathroom. And found a dirty shower, sink, and floor. I didn't look at the toilet for fear that I may mollywop her with the toilet brush. I don't understand!!!!! If they didn't want to or didn't have the ability to clean the bathroom, why didn't they say so? Nobody even cut on the water in the shower to rinse it. It was bone dry and had hair in it. I was so done with her. Then she had the nerve to say her ma was going to come and bring her daughter so they could both help. Y'all should have seen how quickly I shut that down (in the most polite way ever.) I shall be cleaning the bathroom as soon as I get home tonight (well after I hug and kiss and nurse my baby.)

First project

2011-07-11T15:42:00.001-04:00

On July 7 we bought the house! Yesterday we completed our first project, changing the locks. When we were shopping for door handles I told MrC how much I loved this style of handle, but since it was $20 more than regular knobs I put it down. We were going to look at something else in the store and passed the discount section. This lovely set was in there for the same price as the regular knobs. I love discount sections!

Catch up

2011-07-06T09:53:00.000-04:00

We've been trying to go to closing on the house for over a week. Looks like it'll finally happen tomorrow morning. There was a lot of really random stuff happening. Last Thursday the lady at the bank was like "this has never happened before. I'm really sorry." I can't remember what happened that made her say that, but I'm just being patient. It's happening for a reason even if I don't know what that reason is. One of the papers they sent us had this crazy down payment on it. It was $9 more than we even had in our account. Shooooot, I almost typed this back to them "y'all have our bank statements. Y'all know we ain't even go it. Try again." Needless to say, MrC deleted that. I told him we'd be at closing Kanye shrugging looking around trying to figure out who was going to come up with the rest of the money. That amount was an error, but we haven't gotten the correct amount yet.

My ma and I went over to the house last Saturday to see if Yoli was still in it. We were in the backyard and peeking through the windows. MrC said she was going to have us arrested if we didn't leave her alone. My dad went and did the same thing on Monday. Our family doesn't have boundaries. She should just be grateful we didn't ask to come inside this time.

************

I've given up dairy. 'Tis a sad day for this cereal, pizza, quesadilla loving gal. When I have dairy Judah throws up like crazy. He throws up all the time anyway but throw dairy in there and it's like he's pouring the milk back out of his nose and mouth. I also have to give up chocolate. Dude gets super fussy when I have it. They say it can give some baby gas and cramps. The days after I have chocolate are spent holding Judah and patting his back. I almost didn't realize it because he is really easily calmed, at first I thought he just wanted extra love on those days.Then I realized those days followed extreme cookie eating sessions. The past 2 days Judah has been held and comforted because I ate a bag of Milano cookies in 2 days. He seems to be back to normal today though. He was screaming Sunday night (ok, it only lasted 40 seconds, but for a baby that doesn't cry often, it alarmed me) and I was trying to figure out what the heck went wrong. Guess it was the cramps. We've been pressing his body against ours and he calms down instantly. I've apologized to him so many times.

*************

I have 9 pounds left to loose to reach my pre-pregnancy weight. I had my 6 week check up yesterday. The doctor looked at me like she wanted to punch me in the face when I told her I don't take bc pills. I just can't handle the hormones. I figure we made it 2 years before we messed up last time, we can probably do that again. I think she'd be really mad if I popped back up in her office pregnant next month.

**************

I need a pedicure like yesterday. I've had to be responsible and wait since we don't know how much money we need to bring to closing. It'd be a pitiful shame to be $50 short because I wanted to hang out at the spa.

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I'm putting MrC on the night shift tonight. The other night I had to punch him 10 times to get him to wake up and roll over, so we'll see if actually hears Judah tonight. MrC sleeps really hard, but he claims he'll be able to hear his son. Oh and y'all know how MrC thought a changing table was unnecessary? Well he certainly is using the heck out of the table Jameil, Psonya,and Nerd Girl sent us. I keep wanting to tell him to get off my changing table and change the baby on the bed.

**************

We bought living room furniture the other day. I am so excited about decorating!!!!! Right now though, I'm more excited about taking a nap, so I'm going to do that.

1 month

2011-06-24T14:18:00.001-04:00

Judah had his 1 month check up today. He's 5.7 pounds and 19 inches long now. The doctor said he was focusing well and he'll follow you with his eyes but only for about 45°. He had to get a shot so there was 15 seconds of crying after that. The doctor said everything looks great so I'm a happy momma! Right now he's my complexion it's fun to see him get darker and darker. The skin on his face is peeling now so all that hair covering his face that made him look like wolverine is slowly going away.

At 3 weeks I transitioned Judah from eating every 2 hours (sometimes 3) to eating every 4 hours (sometimes 3). My mom had to convince me I wasn't going to starve him and he'd let me know if he was really hungry. The longer breaks between feedings have been wonderful. Once I even slept for 5 hours straight. That was some good sleep.

Judah's a good baby, I think I'll keep him around for awhile.

First father's day

2011-06-20T10:56:00.001-04:00

As you can see by the bright eyes in the picture, Judah's eye infection healed up. We've been making him wear mittens most of the time now until he learns not to put his fingers in his eyes.

MrC and I went to the Wharf with my dad yesterday morning and got a bushel of crabs for a father's day feast. MrC had never been to the wharf so I knew my dad would delight in going with us and talking MrC's ear off. Then my dad showed MrC how to steam crabs. MrC got dressed for war. He had on his work boots, a work out shirt, and he folded his pants up like he was really about to do something intense.

My SIL and niece came over to bring MrC a strawberry shortcake and stayed to watch How to train your dragon. They both lost their fathers, so I think they just wanted to be with family yesterday.

Weekend Activities

2011-06-13T09:40:00.001-04:00

I thought I posted this last night. Guess I fell asleep sooner than I thought...

Friday Judah's eye was draining liquid. Then it started swelling. Then it was draining puss. It was disgusting. His doctor said they couldn't fit him in on Friday, but they really wanted me to get him checked so they told me to take him to urgent care that day. So I called urgent care at 4. They said be there at 5 for paperwork and his appointment would be at 5:20. At 5:19 the nurse was coming in to check my baby. His temp and weight were fine (he was 4 pounds 15 ounces) so we waited for the doctor to check his eye out. When the doctor touched his eye to look in it, grossness came out so he ran to get swabs to do a culture. He decided it was an infection so we have drops for his eyes now and they'll call us with the culture results tomorrow to make sure these drops are going to get the job done. We were out of there with the prescription by 6. It was a delightful experience. Poor Judah is now confined to mittens because he sticks his fingers in his eyes constantly and that's probably how they got infected.

Saturday morning we went to our house inspection! We go to closing on June 30. We're so excited. The inspection went well. We get the full report by Wednesday, but the inspector didn't find anything major wrong with the house. The inspection took almost 3 hours, and the dude was thorough as heck. MrC was following him around talking his ear off the entire time. I got tired after the first 2 rooms and kept sitting down not paying attention. I just need to wash the house down to get rid of their germs and grime and the house is move in ready.

I want to have a "Life is Sweet" dessert party for people to come see the house and see Judah, but I don't know how quickly we'll be able to do that. The house needs some landscaping. I don't think I'm ready to actually plant anything, but if we pull up the weeds and add some fertilizer, then I think we'll be ready for guests. I apologize if this post isn't coherent, I'm quite tired, but I'm too busy watching the game and folks have been over here visiting all day so I haven't slept. Judah should be waking up in a minute so after this next nursing session I'm going to go to bed.

Labor: part 3

2011-06-07T07:12:00.001-04:00

I opened my eyes at 6 a.m. and asked what was going on. Then I started moaning in pain. I was so freaking out of it. The nurse magically appeared by my bedside and she said she wanted me to sit on the ball to help move my labor along. The contractions were even more intense than before, and I didn't think that was even possible. When the contractions were coming I didn't want to hear any talking or any noise. It was so funny because the contraction would start, MrC would say something and I'd look at him and hiss "shut up!" and then when the contraction was over I'd apologize. Once, he wouldn't shut up, so I hit him. Yep, I was delightful! After the contraction was over I caressed his face and apologized, but everybody realized they needed to be quiet when I was going through. Whatever anybody had to say wasn't important enough for me to listen while my insides were being squeezed. The nurse put me on the ball and MrC sat behind me holding me. The nurse told me to do a deep moan every time a contraction came. My goodness, that worked. Then she told everybody to just talk me through the contraction. They would look at the screen and see when it peaked and tell me it was almost over and I was coming down. That was really helpful too, I liked knowing once the peak passed.My ma said my eyes rolled back a few times and she thought I was going to have a seizure, lol. I couldn't stay on the ball long because the monitors were going crazy and the nurses watching the screens were getting nervous, so she put me back on the bed. I didn't feel like being flat so I got on all fours and told her I really wanted to push. Everybody came over and held me and I remember saying "I've got to change my mindset, because right now I feel like I can't do this." Once I said it aloud, I was able to cope. I kept telling myself the intensity will soon be over. Childbirth does not hurt, it's just tiring. And that I could do it. The nurse came over and checked me when I finally got in the bed correctly and I was 9.5 centimeters dilated. Her eyes got wide, she pushed the button for the nurses to come running in and they called my doctor. Nobody expected this to be happening right now. Lights flew on, equipment was wheeled in, and they told me I better not push. Once I realized that I was in such discomfort because the end was near, it didn't hurt anymore. I was able to relax because I knew my body listened to me.The on call doctor came in and checked me and broke my water. It made me laugh. Then I got the sillies. Every time I moaned I reminded myself of the episode of "My Wife and Kids" when Michael told Calvin to just say "Mmmmmm, is that right?" whenever his wife talked, so that's what I kept doing. After every moan, I would laugh, point and say "is that right?"

Nurse: Hey, that sounds like pushing. I told you not to push

Me: It is pushing, I feel like pushing so I'm going to push

Nurse 2: Lawd! Let me put on some gloves in case she shoots this baby out

On Call Doc: *I'm not delivering this baby, goes and stands outside the door*

Nurse: Your doctor is coming, just wait

Me: You guys are more than capable of delivering this baby, let's just do this.

Nurse 2 took the position of standing by my HoHah watching me, but nobody in the room would touch me. Then I ripped off my clothes. Why? Cuz I felt like it. They kept trying to cover me and I kept swatting them away. It was much more comfortable to be free. I also started randomly praying. I said a prayer that the delivery would be quick, Judah would be healthy, and some other random stuff. My doctor came running in the room mad as heck.

Doctor: Nobody even told me she was in labor

Nurse: Nobody knew she progressed really quickly! She was asleep.

My doctor sat down at my HoHah, and a person grabbed each leg.

Nurse: When the contraction comes, go chin to chest, hold your breath and push.

Me: ok *tried it* oops, wait, I messed up, let me try again. *tried again*

Doctor and Sister: His head is coming out!

Nurse: Do you want to see.

Me: Ewww, no. I took my glasses off an hour ago, I have no desire to watch this part *pushes again*

Doctor: Ok, wait for the next contraction to push

Me: I don't want to wait, can I just push now?

Doctor: You can do whatever you want

Me: *pushes*

Everybody: You're done!

Seriously, from the time I got off the ball to the time I pushed him out seemed like 5 minutes but I guess it was at least 30 since he wasn't born until 7:02. At some point somebody put a towel over my boobs, I guess they'd had enough of my peep show. They didn't give Judah to me right away because they didn't expect him to be so tiny. They did some quick checks on him and cleaned him up before giving him to me. I got to hold him for a while and then MrC and the nurse wheeled him to the nursery. We started laughing with the night nurse because I told her she was going to be there when I delivered and she did not believe me when I first said it. I thanked everybody and my doctor disappeared (she was in a funky foul mood.) The day nurse came in and apparently they had been talking about me.

New Nurse: Girl, I heard you're a rock star!

Me: Who me?

New Nurse: yeah you. Did you go to any classes?

Me: No, I read some books

New Nurse: What books did you read, we need everybody to act like you

Me: *looking confused* Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Supernatural Childbirth. They talked a lot about the mental aspect of labor and delivery

New Nurse: *writes them down* Seriously, we need every mom to be like you. You did awesome.

Me: Oh, well thanks. Can I order breakfast now?

And that was it. My mom said that she was getting mad at everybody when they wouldn't just deliver me when I was clearly ready. She didn't want to fuss because she knew that would bring me stress. She thinks everybody was scared of my doctor and that's why they refused to touch me. Maybe they were all offended by my nekkidness. In the end it didn't matter because all was well, and I could totally do this 3 more times as long as I get to visit heaven's relief section for a few hours break!

Sleep and smile

2011-06-06T13:40:00.001-04:00

My sweet baby

Labor: Part 2

2011-06-05T16:15:00.000-04:00

We got to the hospital and I went to check myself in. The lady looked at me and said she thought I forgot about them and wasn't coming. There was another couple sitting there waiting to be checked in and we started talking and joking around. Her doctor made her come over because her BP was really high and they were going to induce her too. She was maddddd about it. We talked for a good little while over some delicious free fruit punch from the nourishment room. Eventually we each got put in our rooms and I got started with my nurse. Everybody kept asking me if I was dilated. Was I supposed to watch a you tube video and be checking myself nightly? I had no idea so we had to wait for my doctor to come check me. My first nurse was quite lovely! I let her know she didn't need to explain anything she was doing to me, just tell me to look away and handle the business while I'm distracted. She did a great job with the IV stuff and getting my blood drawn. My doctor came in and checked me. I wasn't dilated at all so she was going to start the cervix softening medication. It's a shoe string that she sticks way up in your HoHah. Wayyyy up there. I was not pleased with her big ole fingers digging around in there. She got me started on that at 2:30. MrC and I were just chilling in the room watching tv and hanging out. They said I could eat so I ordered some dinner and we sat around and waited.

That evening my night nurse came. She was a black Christian lady that served in the military and was so friendly. By then my ma had come to the hospital so we all just sat around and talked. I decided that I really liked her and I wanted her to be my nurse when I had Judah so that meant he needed to be born before she got off at 7:30. I had a little talk with Jesus and Judah to let them know the plan and then I went back to relaxing. The contractions started to intensify and come a lot more frequently by 10pm. They had to come put me on oxygen because Judah still wasn't digging the contractions. They were coming every 2 minutes I was getting uncomfortable. My ma and sister went upstairs to go nap. MrC cut on my worship music and we spent some time praying and reading scriptures. I had some frankincense and sweet almond oil that MrC rubbed on my back to help alleviate the pain. I even had him hook up my diffuser and put in a "chill pill" oil mix to help me calm down. After we finished praying I decided to try and get in a little nap. I put on my eye mask and sprayed my pillow and sheets with lavender to get some rest. Maybe around 1 I started getting REALLY uncomfortable and asked MrC to tell my ma and sister to come back down. I was at the point where I just wanted to cry. They kept asking me my pain on a scale of 1-10 but I have no idea what 10 pain feels like so I didn't know what to say. Thankfully I was on twitter and half my timeline was up with me :) Everybody was offering encouragement and helping me understand pain, lol. I felt like I was being dramatic and I refused to be one of those hollering women on tv, so I was just trying to deal with the discomfort.One mom said to me "the moment you feel like you're about to jump out the bed to escape the pain, that's when you're ready. Don't be afraid to ask for pain medication. It's ok. Your body is working really hard." My nurse kept saying the same thing. Since my labor wasn't started naturally, the medication was fighting with my body anyway, so the pain was going to be a little more intense. I started throwing up but I really enjoyed that part because I felt great after it. MrC was holding my bowl, my ma or my sister would rub my back, and then MrC would ask questions like "when did you eat ham?" At 2:30 they took out the cervix softening medication and I had an hour before they would start the pitocin. I looked at the nurse and told her I didn't want to feel contractions that were worse than what I was currently feeling and I wanted an epidural. She told me it was too early and checked to see if I had dilated any. I was 1 centimeter dilated. She had to stick her hand allllll up in there because Judah's head was so low and he was blocking what she needed to check. She told me she'd have to sit me on the ball a little later to try and get my body going because it was going to be a while, but once I started Judah would probably come quickly because of his position. I decided to stop tripping and remember the stuff I read in my birthing books. I needed to calm the heck down, so on my hour break, I took a shower.

The contractions were SO intense by now and 1 minute apart. MrC sat outside of the shower and I sat down in the shower and we both fell asleep. When I would wake up I repeated to myself "this is what your body was created to do. God knew what he was doing. It's not pain, it's just intensity. Stay calm, your body will respond as it should." I refused to think any negative thoughts that would hinder my body from responding as it should. When I finally got out of the shower MrC gave me a rub down with sweet almond oil and I got back in the bed. At 3:30 the nurse started the pitocin. And I'm pretty sure I blacked out. I have no recollection of 4-6 a.m. I might have died. Or maybe Jesus took me to heaven to give me some relief. I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't in the room anymore.

Labor: Part 1

2011-06-01T06:11:00.001-04:00

Alright, here's my labor and delivery story :) It's long. Well it's not long, but I'm feeling talkative. I'll post it in parts.

Picture this: Sunday, May 22, 2011. My parent's house. Late evening.

Ma: Why don't you have pants on?

MrC: We aren't at home, put your pants on!

Me: But it feels like Judah is about to fall out of my va.gin.a. It's uncomfortable with pants on, so I took them off.

MrC: You're nasty

Monday Morning. The Count's apartment.

I was feeling so lazy Monday morning. I was hoping to be in and out of my doctor's appointment really quickly. Got there and passed the first series of tests then went back for the non stress test. While hooked up to the test I had a contraction. Judah did not like it at all. His heart decelerated after the contraction. The nurse went and showed StalkerDramaDr. StalkerDramaDr walked in 5 minutes later and said

StaklerDramaDr: Well, MrsC, we're going to go ahead and have this baby today.

Me: What???

StalkerDramaDr: Yeah, you're at 36 weeks. We see the fetus didn't like the contraction and at this point we don't want to risk anything. Let's just get him out healthy. Head on over to the hospital.

Me: Well alright then.

Nurse: It might not be today, induction can take awhile. Tell your family not to rush

Me: Shooot, if I have to be there, they have to be there too. I'm calling them right now.

Me (to front desk ladies): Well guys, I guess this is goodbye. It's been real, I'm about to head over and have the baby *waiting room of pregnant women look up at me in a panic*

FDL: Awww! We're going to miss you. You've been one of the most bubbly pleasant patients we've had in along time. We'll miss seeing you every other day.

Me: Thanks for all your help these past few months. I appreciate y'all.

Then I got in my car and called MrC.

Me: Hey babe, we're about to have a baby

MrC: Whatt?

Me: Yeah, she told me to go to the hospital now. Judah didn't like the ONE contraction I had during the test.

MrC; So what are you about to do?

Me: Go home. I got stuff to do.

MrC: I knew it. I'm on my way

Then I called my momma:

Me: Wanna meet your grandchild today?

Ma: Whattt?

Me: Yeah, I'm about to get induced. Well after I go home first.

Ma: I'm on my way.

So then I went home. And proceeded to tweet about it. And make pulled pork sandwiches and french fries. And send my time sheet in to work. And dance nekkid in the middle of the floor (of course that's when MrC came home and demanded I get focused.) And then I took a shower, shaved, exfoliated, and greased myself up. By the time I finished that my ma was there. I danced around for a bit more and then we headed over to the hospital.

Home

2011-05-30T04:49:00.000-04:00

I left the hospital Thursday, Judah left Friday. We also moved into my parents house this weekend while we wait for our house to be ready. It's been crazy, I highly discourage moving and giving birth in the same week! The first 3 pictures are from the 25th, the last is from yesterday. We're adjusting well and today family is stopping by to meet Judah.

Judah is here!

2011-05-24T15:09:00.001-04:00

I had Judah at 7:02 a.m. He's 4 pounds 7.4 ounces and 18 inches long. Since I had him at 36 weeks, he's in NICU so they can watch his breathing. It's a little faster than they'd like. I was live tweeting the induction, but I'll share the delivery probably tomorrow. Fun times!

At the hospital

2011-05-23T13:36:00.001-04:00

Looks like we'll be meeting Judah soon! DramaDr is making me get induced. I'm getting hooked up right now. Talk to y'all later.

They got me

2011-05-21T08:24:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had to go to work for a mandatory meeting. Since we've been going through so much with our client lately (you're fired, rehired for a year, maybe rehired for 5 more years) I didn't know what to expect from the meeting. My coworker came and picked me up because he didn't want me to have to drive out there and he lives right down the street. I got to work and was having fun talking to all my coworkers that I haven't seen in over a month but then I started getting suspicious. I hadn't seen the woman that organized the meeting, surely if she was flying in from the Midwest she would have been there 30 minutes before the meeting started. And I hadn't seen the pharmacists on our account yet. They're always on time, and they always come and speak, where were they? At 2 o'clock the 3 people that were in my office all of sudden had to go to the bathroom sooooooo bad. Then my boss came running in saying they were waiting for us upstairs to attend the meeting so we started walking toward the elevator. And then she oversold it. As we were walking down the hall she said "I have no idea what this meeting is even about," and then I realized I never got a meeting invite. Surely a meeting that featured the VP of our department and the COO of our company would have had a meeting invite! I turned the corner and saw all the presents and baby balloons. My coworkers were throwing me a surprise shower and they really got me. I figured that my work friends would get me something for Judah, but I was not expecting them to actually throw me a shower. If I wasn't so gangster, I would have cried. They menu was chips, cookies, brownies, and mini candy bars because they know I hate cake. It was delightful! There were even people there that I didn't even think knew my name and they took the time to get something for Judah. I had a lovely time and I'm truly grateful to have work friends that took the time to do something like that for me.

After the festivities yesterday I had to go return something to Target, and MrC and I decided to just go ahead and get Judah's furniture because we had only seen it at one store and wanted to make sure we didn't miss out. We went to Burlington and the dude brought out the huge box and we were getting ready to pay. MrC was standing in the ridiculously long and slow moving line and I was sitting down eating cotton candy and a cheese pretzel. As I was sitting there having a grub fest, something just didn't feel right about the furniture. I still liked it, but for some reason I didn't think we should buy it anymore. So I whispered, "God, go ahead and work this out." Wouldn't you know the sales person came running up to MrC saying he couldn't sell us the furniture anymore because it was the last set and somebody had it on layaway already. I have no idea why we weren't supposed to buy that furniture.

When we got home, MrC pointed out that our move out day is next Saturday. Yeahhhhh, in my head I thought I had 2 more weeks to pack things up. Thankfully my ma and MIL had already come and helped with most of the hard packing, so there isn't much left. If my dear sweet husband had time to do as he's told, we'd could be finished this packing thing today. But since MrC actually goes to work everyday, he has a lot less free time than I do and he's a lot less rested. Last night he fell asleep mouth hanging open, phone in hand, sitting upright in a chair. It's 8 hours later and I packed up 3 boxes, went to bed, got up, and typed this blog post and I'm still looking at him knocked out in that chair. I had to stop because I had the boxes on the bed and since he was asleep I couldn't get them off the bed since the were full. You know that saying "never wake a sleeping baby?" Yeah, I apply that to MrC. By Monday afternoon, everything except the moving of our big furniture should be complete and then my baby can rest until Judah gets here.

I'm ready for breakfast and I need to start on my to do list for the day, talk to y'all sometime next week! Lawd, MrC just woke up. He's pumping his fists in the air chanting about how he's ready to tackle the day. Y'all pray for Judah, his parents are slightly strange.

Really?

2011-05-17T16:33:00.001-04:00

MrC and I were watching a bathroom renovation show on the DIY network last night and we started discussing having them come to our house to do some work. Our kitchen and yard are both huge, so they would be able to easily do fancy renovations there, but the bathrooms are too small for the fancy stuff they do on those shows.

Me: They'd have to extend the master bathroom in Judah's room in order to do a cool renovation for us.

MrC: Our bathroom doesn't touch Judah's room

Me: Yes it does

MrC: No it doesn't

Me: Yes it does

MrC: No it doesn't

Me: *I'm not doing this all night* Then what does it touch?

MrC: Not Judah's room

Me: *sigh, here we go* Yes it does, one wall is our bedroom, the other wall is the hallway, the other wall is Judah's room, the other wall is the front of the house

MrC: *pauses* No

Me: Then what does it touch!?

MrC: Not Judah's room

Me: Dude! Then tell me what the 4 walls touch! Do we have a 3 walled bathroom? Is it a triangle? Huh, say something logical!

MrC: *pauses (probably realizes he's wrong but he's too ornery to admit defeat)* Isn't there a window in the hallway? You walk up the stairs, turn right and Judah's room is on the left, then there's a window and our bedroom is on the right.

Me: THEN WHERE IS THE BATHROOM? Is it suspended in space? Hanging over the edge of the house? A triangle wedged mysteriously so it doesn't touch the room right next to it?

MrC: I don't think it touches Judah's room

Me: *I swear I could stab him right now. This is why I don't debate with him!* Then please tell me what it touches. I just told you that it did.There is no hall window, the window is in our bathroom. Because windows are normally on the outside walls of a house.

MrC: Are you sure? Do you have a picture?

Me: I'm going to stab you

This is MrC's debate style: ignore all logic, never present anything logical of your own, and still maintain that you're right even when it's clear that you're not. And my style is to attempt to prove you wrong, succeed at proving you wrong, then threaten you with violence until you admit that you're wrong. I actually do have picture proving that I'm correct but I knew if I showed it to MrC then he still wouldn't agree with me, so I didn't waste my time showing him. I bet he will deny this conversation ever happened the next time we go into that house. I got the receipts! I'm going to pull this out next month and proceed to do a victory dance around the entire house.

Paper cuts for 2

2011-05-16T17:41:00.000-04:00

Dear Jameil and MrsTDJ,

I'm coming for you both. I would never, ever, ever say that to somebody about a gift! That was totally MrC. I don't know why people think I'm rude *bats eyelashes innocently* MrC is the out of control one. I have to silence his rudeness way more than he has to silence mine.

Oh and Nerd Girl, nice try on explaining that sympathy card. Auntie knows nothing of any of my doctor's visits. That mess was just trifling.

*******************

We packed up a lot of our apartment and put it in storage this weekend. For some reason, this place still looks full. My mom came over on Friday and did all the manual labor for me. MrC was working (he came and carried all the boxes/crates) but my mom filled them for me and I labeled and organized everything. She is awesome! Even when I tried to do stuff, she would just stare at me and demand I sit down. She also tried to give away half my stuff claiming I have too much. It has come to my attention that I don't know what "rest" means. My philosophy has always been "rest when the work is done." I've had to change that, it's been a learning experience.

*******************

Why do people assume that because you're sharing information, you're complaining about it? I'm just telling you what's going on, I'm not complaining about it. Calm down with your lectures.

*******************

We washed all of Judah's clothes this weekend. Even though he has over 30 0-3 months onesies and about the same in 3-6 month clothes, he has no 6-9 month outfits. He has some 9-12, and even some for when he's older than that, but his 6-9 month bag is empty. For some reason I found that hilarious. I was also amused by the vastly different sizes of clothes that claimed to be for the same age/weight range. Some of those onesies I feel like i should just eat so he can put it on now because they look so tiny!

*******************

We spent the weekend at my parents house. I cannot handle my sister going out and not coming back in until 4:30 in the morning. MrC and I were both born old (I was born an old prude, he was born a slow old man) so we've never been "clubbers" but my sister goes out with her friend because the girls brother works at some club and they can get in free. I couldn't relax my brain to sleep knowing she wasn't in the house and it was raining outside and she probably had some alcohol. I ended up texting her asking if she was still alive a little before 4. When she confirmed that she was, I was able to start to settle into sleep. She came in and decided that she needed to tell me all about her night. Her friend had to spend the night because she was drunk. I guess I have to get used to this since we'll be living with them for a little while. I wonder if I can lock my sister in her room?

********************

One of the things I love about my parents is that they've always had an open house. Our house was the hang out place when we were younger. Since we got married, MrC has fully embraced this "we are one" and he fully believes that my parents house is his house too, lol. Thankfully for him, my daddy always wanted a son, and MrC is the perfect suck up child for my dad. I wish y'all could have seen the way MrC was hyping up my dads deviled eggs, or heard how they were talking and laughing while watching bull riding. Mannnn, shut up. My daddy was eating it up too. MrC always makes faces at my sister and me as if he's saying "I got your daddy now suckas!" He's probably right, that man don't even love us no more. Anyway, .MrC always invites folks over my parents house. We go over there most Sunday's after church and whenever we're there and the doorbell rings, everybody always looks at MrC. It's ALWAYS one of his friends. MrC don't even be asking if he can invite people over he lives under this "I'm awesome, my friends are awesome, of course MrsC's parents want them over." One of his friends comes over almost every week and this dude talks so freaking much. Yesterday, he was on some super duper talkative stuff and he would not shut up. He talked my dad half to death and my dad ended up going into his room to take a nap. He then talked MrC to sleep. Then he came upstairs with me, my ma, and my sister and talked to us for 2 hours. Y'all!!!!!! I love this dude dearly, and my momma likes him too (she's always trying to find him a girlfriend) but yesterday I wanted to tape his mouth shut. At one point some more of MrC's friends came over and dude realized he had a larger audience and he talked without a pause for about 15 minutes. My sister went and stood in front of him and just stared at him. When he asked what she was doing, she said "I can't believe it's possible for one person to talk this much, so I had to look and see how it's possible that you're doing this."

*********************

I told my momma she better give MrC some daggon rules before he moves in or else this dude is going to take over their house. Shoot, he got too comfortable with my family over these past 8 years.

********************

Y'all know I'm joking right? I love that MrC is comfortable with my family and that my parents love him like a son so don't start with me! (But for real, these meal requests have got to stop. This fool requested stir fry and macaroni and cheese for dinner and my dad made it for him. What in the sam hill kind of random meal is that?)

The thought that counts

2011-05-12T16:38:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'm going to present 3 different gifts that Judah got at the shower. I'm not going to state my opinion or my reaction, but I want yours. Before I even get started, I'll say, we've been abundantly blessed by friends/family/e-friends/strangers. That table full of bags and boxes is what's at my parents house waiting for me to come wash and put in containers and that's what it looks like after we consolidated everything. We are grateful because we had nothing for Judah. Now we have almost everything we need and a lot of our wants too.

***********

Now, person #1 is one of my dads sisters. We sent her an invite to the shower, but she lives about 6 hours away and had no other reason to be in the area that weekend, so she obviously didn't come. My parents went down to her area last weekend for my cousins (not her child) college graduation. My aunt told my ma she had a gift for Judah because she really wanted to get a Thank You card since our picture was on it. Cool. She went into her wallet, and pulled out $1 and gave it to my mom. How would that make YOU feel? How would YOU respond?

***********

Person #2 is one of my dads sisters too. She sent me a card for the baby shower. On the outside of the card is a rainbow and flowers and it reads "Hang in There" and the inside of the card reads "Things are bound to clear up soon." Yep, a sympathy card. Just a sympathy card. It didn't accompany a gift, or include anything else. How would that make YOU feel? How would YOU respond?

***********

Person #3 is in either MrC or my immediate family member. Said person could probably be called a hoarder. This person always gives interesting gifts. Sometimes you end up delighted at the grab bag of things you get. Sometimes you sit around and try to figure out the rationale behind the gift. At the shower this person got Judah a "My First RandomCollege Tee" onesie. Neither MrC nor I went to this school. It's not a famous school. Nobody we know has ever attended this school. Everybody was baffled. We didn't open this gift at the shower, so it was just a few friends and family around when we saw this gift. This is how it went:

My best friend: *whispers* ummm, what college is that?

Me: *whispering* I have no idea. That's why I didn't pull it out at the shower, I knew it was going to be something odd.

Family Member: *baffled* did you go to that college?

Gift giver: No

Mr or Mrs C:*to the gift giver* Where the heck did this random onesie come from?

I will not disclose which one of us said that, but it was the person directly related to gift giver. Feel free to guess which one of us was that rude (I swear if all of y'all pick me I'm going to paper cut you with my sympathy card.)

As I'm sitting here writing my thank you cards, those three what the heck moments popped in my head and made me laugh. If they happened to you, how would it make you feel? Have you ever had a WTH moment when opening gifts?

Taking a break from packing

2011-05-11T16:53:00.000-04:00

For a healthy person spend an awful lot of time with doctors. Every time I end up at the hospital for more observation the nurses go through their questions and then whine "why are you even hereeeeee? There's nothing wrong with you." I know that, you know that, Judah knows that, but StalkerDr just wants to know where I am at all times in case she gets the urge to see me. My appointments today all went well. I had to remind the nurse that I said this baby wasn't coming until June and she needs to stop trying to tell him otherwise. He isn't stubborn or lazy, he's mellow.

A few days ago I noticed my face plumped up a little, and I think it's so cute! I keep smiling in the mirror because I like to see my full cheeks. I also can't get my wedding rings off anymore but my fingers aren't swollen. This pregnancy thing is fun and interesting. I like it a lot. I guess that's a good thing since we want 4 kids.

On Monday while I was hanging out at the hospital, MrC was at a chocolate factory! Most of his work sites are vacant, but on Monday he had a day full of appointments with people which is why he couldn't go to my appointment with me. When he came in he had 4 chocolate bars that they gave him when he told them he had a pregnant wife :)

Ok, I need to get back to packing up this apartment. I need some order so I can finally relax. I finally packed my hospital bag last night. It's a shame it took this special message from Jameil to force me to do it.

I said June!

2011-05-09T21:37:00.001-04:00

I spent my morning at Maternal Fetal Medicine and my afternoon at the hospital. It was the perfect way to spend this gorgeous 75 degree day, inside hooked up to monitors talking to Judah about obedience.

I woke up not even wanting to go to the doctor or anywhere really. I was feeling so lackluster that I didn't even change out of my sleeping bra into a real one. I just wanted to go in, get tested, and be back home in 1.5 hours. Yeahhhhhh, nope! My appointment was at 8:30, they didn't see me until after 9 because their computers crashed and their first patient was really late. Then Judah decided he should just dance throughout the entire test. He danced, kicked, flipped, and would not do his breathing so we got a 6 out of 8 points on the biophysical profile. After that test I went into the back for the non stress test. If he passes at least one of the tests, I get to go home. Well Judah decided he didn't want to pass the non stress test either. He danced, he kicked, but his heart would not do the appropriate accelerations to pass the test. The nurse tried so hard to get him to pass, but this is MrC's child. If you try to agitate him, he will not give you the satisfaction of a reaction. The more they tried to harass him, the more he just sat there. They placed a buzzer to my belly, he didn't even jump. They shook my belly, he refused to be excited about it. It's funny because he never reacts when they try those methods, it makes him stop moving. I knew he was fine, he's just a chill fellow like his daddy. He'll move a lot but he does not like it when they try to force him to do things (MrC all the way.) In fact during the ultrasound the lady said "this is one of the most active babies I've ever seen." He also likes to rest his right foot on his forehead, but that's not really relevant to this story.

Anyway, he didn't pass the non stress test either which meant we got a 6 out of 10 and had to go to the hospital for more monitoring. The nurse felt really bad, but it's not her fault Judah didn't want to cooperate today. They told me to head right over. Welllllll, I was hungry. If I was hungry, Judah was hungry. I don't play nice with others when I'm hungry, so I decided to eat before I went in order to avoid having to write another apology letter to a doctor. I went and got 2 oranges and a tuna sandwich and then went to the hospital. I couldn't risk being stuck there with no food and it was already 11:30. They hooked me up to the machines and then the nurse told me I could order lunch, so I ordered a cheeseburger and pasta salad for second lunch. MrC had to do site visits today for work and he couldn't come until he was finished. One of his sites was a chocolate factory! When he got there at 3, he had chinese food and chocolate. Our second try to pass the biophysical profile was at 3, so she came in to get set up and Judah passed with flying colors. He was doing his practice breaths the entire time. She wanted him to do a big movement for her so she decided to shake my belly -___- Ma'am my child does not respond to that! I got MrC to come over and talk to him "Judah, we're ready to go son, help your momma out and do your big movements." Judah heard daddy and proceeded to shimmy and shake and pass the test :) The doctor came in a while later and said she wanted me to do some more of the non stress test because she wanted more heart accelerations. I was hooked up for about 30 minutes and the nurse came running in. She snatched the cords out of the machine and said "You passed, get out, I've had enough of your baby today." I laughed so hard because I was beyond ready to go too! It was after 5 p.m. She told me to get dressed and run out, and I did! I did not want to stay another minute.

Soooo, all is well. Judah is still fine, I'm still fine and I can continue to remind these dramatic doctors that Judah ain't coming until June!

Currently Reading

2011-05-06T16:35:00.001-04:00

Living Room

2011-05-03T16:26:00.001-04:00

**We're making great progress on the house, and it looks like by the end of June, we'll be in there. We're mailing back our loan papers today. Looking up interior design always lifts my mood so that's what I did today. And MrC came home to take me to lunch because he realized these hormones were playing games with me today. I'll leave out the part of random sobbing on my part and neither one of us could figure out what was wrong. I'm back in my right mind now and laughing at my random moment of emotional despair today.**

MrC said he'd like blue to be the featured color in our living room. That was a huge surprise to me because all the other times we talked about living rooms, we discussed a warm feeling like oranges and dark reds for that space. Our apartment has a burnt orange accent wall and all the other colors blend with that and I like it a lot, but I guess we're moving in a different direction for the house. I'm cool with him liking blue, so I've been looking up some pictures so he can tell me what he likes the most so I can design from there. If the living room is blue, we're going to have to make the whole downstairs play off this blue. I'm thinking a nice seaside oasis look, I hope he is too.

(New England Home)

I like the feel of this. The kitchen walls look a few shades lighter than the living room and it seems really calming. We have two entries to the living room and putting a molding around it would be nice. Wait, let me check my pictures and make sure there isn't something there already...ok, nope. My momma can help me put up the molding so we can be all fancy and stuff.

(armonia decors)

This is a pretty blue, but I hope he doesn't pick a shade this dark, because it'll make the room look really small. We're going to have dark furniture (4 kids in our future, the first is a boy, it'd be foolish to buy light furniture!) so that would shrink the room even more. But seriously, why is there so much going on in this picture?

(Ashley Goforth)

I really like this! I'm glad she has those dark brown pillows on the couch, because I could totally see the whole couch being that color and this room would still look inviting. I have two chairs that i need to cover that have a wood trim. I'd stain the wood dark like the legs on that table thing and then cover it in light color. A dark couch and dark tables would look lovely with that. And then I'd make two large floor pillows to go in front of our fire place that will be a nice pop of color! Maybe I'll add some of that pop to the lampshades too. I hope he likes this room the best, because it clearly has inspired me!

(Carmen)

Like this! But with a dark table too. A couch is nowhere in our budget right now but when we're ready, I'll already have the exact design down. That's enough ideas for now. I'm going to show him the pictures this evening and see what he thinks.

Just Rambling

2011-05-03T10:13:00.001-04:00

Man, staying in the house sure does limit the things I have to blog about. I'm pretty sure there's an unlicensed child care service on the top floor of our building. I kept seeing parents bringing kids in last week as I looked out my bedroom window all day. The toddler that lives across the hall hates bedtime, maybe because it's so late. At 10 or 11 every night we hear her throwing a tantrum. This is not to be confused with her morning tantrum that she throws on our back porch as she runs from her family, or her evening tantrum that she throws in the stairwell. I know they'll be happy when she gets more words in her vocabulary so they can figure out what the heck she's so angry about all the time. I'm thinking about learning Spanish just so I can sit and listen to this little girl describe why she's so mad. We're moving out of our apartment at the end of the month. We'll either be moving into our house, or into my parent's house. Being on house arrest for most of the day means a lot of time for anal retentive planning. I've researched storage units, moving vans, and even created a packing schedule. I started with things I wouldn't want other people to have to pack up for me in the event I was unable to assist. This week I'm starting with the closet full of clothes I can't wear, the dresser full of night clothes I can't wear and all these shoes I don't wear. Next week I tackle all other personal items including everything but the essentials in the bathroom. Week 3 will be things like our artwork and knick knack stuff and also the kitchen and appliances. That'll leave me one more week for random things and organizing our suitcases to move into my parents house for a few weeks. And don't worry, I probably won't be doing 90% of the work. I have packing help coming over *waves at busy body mommy*. Alright, time for me to go have a little talk with Jesus because I'm in a mood something serious today and I'm ready for it to be gone.

Judah's room: beginning stages

2011-04-28T23:23:00.001-04:00

I've started buying things for Judah's room. I saw this lamp during my field trip yesterday on marked down to $24.99. It's currently at Babies R us for $45. Hopefully I'll be able to find some more pieces from this collection for cheaper than they have it at Babies R Us, if not I have a few gift cards I can use to get some of the matching accessories.

We didn't buy the furniture yet, but I think this is the set we're going with. MrC agreed with Serenity23 that changing tables are unnecessary, but I really want one! I can't imagine not having one. I promised him I'll turn it into something useful once all the kids are too big. Since we'll probably be onto our next child when Judah is ready to get his big boy room, we'll just use this furniture set again. It's sold altogether at a price cheaper than what I was looking at originally.

We did buy this bedding set yesterday. It was $50 at Burlington. The set I originally wanted was $180. I don't know what the heck I was smoking, but I must didn't see that price tag. I love Judah, but I don't love him enough to spend that on his bedding. I don't know if I love me enough for that. Anyway I don't like crib bumpers like that, I'm getting a mesh one in case Judah's face ever gets trapped next to it so he'll be able to breath. I'm going to cut up the bumper and get my mom to make another blanket, and I'm going to make some wall decals, and I'm going to decorate the hamper with the leftover pieces.

I found some bamboo blinds that were really cute, but since I don't have the measurements for the windows yet, I can't get them. We're making house progress, so it won't be long now!

That's all we have decided on so far. Sunday we'll probably go to another store and look. I've been doing a good job of obeying my doctor's house arrest requests. We were in the store for about an hour and then I got uncomfortable, so we wrapped it up and went home.

Let's all panic and act brand new!

2011-04-27T09:24:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm hanging in the apartment all day every day (except for field trips), I'm getting better prepared for our upcoming move/baby. I'm slowly but surely getting design ideas together. I'll post some pictures once I get a complete room idea.

*************

Y'all my momma has been acting brand new. Lady, you have known me for 25 years and all of a sudden everything about me is new to her. When I was walking past her on Sunday she stopped me to look at a bruise by my knee and as I was telling her about it and she was feeling me up, she commented that I had really nice legs.

Me: shut up!

Her: what? Do I tell you that all the time or something?

Me: Are you trying to make fun of me?

Her: *confused* no

Me: Last year you looked at my legs and started laughing and then talked about how fat my calves were and how I had no discernible muscle.

Her: No I didn't!

Me: Yes you did! You talked about me and Corey and you kept laughing. Daddy had to stick up for me!

Her: Well your legs are nice, and they're not all tight and swollen. That's good.

Later on that day we were sitting on the couch and my legs were on her lap. We were all talking about spots on our body that were super light, or lacked pigment and I showed her one on my leg. Then she found what she used to tell me was my birth mark...

Her: OMG, what happened on your leg right here?

Me: You said it was my birthmark when I was little (it's lighter than the rest of my skin and it looks like a little houndstooth pattern)

Her: I've never seen this before. You've always had this?

Me: Yeah, for as long as I can remember.

Her: wow, that's interesting. So you don't have hair on your legs? Like you don't shave them or anything?

Me: No, I just never grew hair on my legs

Her: I wonder why that is?

Me: Aunt Flo and Grandma didn't have hair on their legs either, I figured I got the trait from them

Her: Really? My sister doesn't have hair on her legs?

Aunt (not Flo): nope, neither her or momma

Me: Why don't you know these things mom?

This woman don't love me y'all. I'm going to leave out the part where she just realized I have a mole on my neck. A mole I've had my entire life. A mole I've talked to her about before. Judah, I promise I'll do better than this woman that claims to have birthed me.

**************

People are funny. Why do they always want you to be dying of something? I didn't tell too many people I was on "bed rest" because people just take stuff too far. When I was checking myself into the hospital last Monday the nurse was asking me 20 million health questions and at the end she said "you're so boring, why are you even here? You don't have any of these problems!" Duhhh lady, I just need to chill out. I was trying to get myself some Italian Ice on Sunday...

Mom: What are you doing!?

Me: Scooping Italian Ice

Mom: What did the doctor say!?

Me: Thou shall eat ice?

Mom: Sit down and ask somebody to get it for you. You are supposed to be resting.

Me: I'm not an invalid, but fine, come get me some ice woman.

Aunt: Are you ok?

Me: Yeah, I'm just on a little "bed rest" not strict or anything, she just wants me to take it easy.

Aunt: Were you spotting?

Me: No

Aunt: Having contractions?

Me: No

Aunt: Your blood pressure was high?

Me: NO! I'm fine, my body was working too hard, she wants me to chill out so it doesn't have so much to do.

Thankfully she realized I was not about to sit and play let's make up health conditions and we moved on and all had some yummy mango ice.

************

Time for me to get ready for my appointment today. Judah passed his first test on Monday and then fell asleep during his second test. Shoot, we were there for 1.5 hours, I was tired too! He wasn't in any distress, he just wasn't going to play games with those silly doctors, so they still let me go right on home since sI passed my tests too. Hopefully we can both pass all the tests today. Praying for a normal doppler (me), an 8/8 on the test with the name I can't remember (Judah), and a passing score on the non stress test (Judah). But first, lunchtime!

A devotion on rest

2011-04-25T07:37:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed my devotional this morning, so I thought I'd share. It's from Girlfriends in God. I'm headed to a doctor's appointment in a few minutes. I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend. I actually wore a dress and real shoes! I need to get my ma to send me the picture she took so I can have proof that at least once this year I left the house in something other than my new balance's.

April 25, 2011

Quiet Waters of Rest

Mary Southerland

Today's Truth
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul (Psalm 23:1-3, NIV).

Friend to Friend
For most of my adult life, I have wrongly equated being busy with being productive. I am guilty as charged when it comes to living each day in overdrive. My Day Timer has, at times, been my Bible. The result has always been exhaustion, burnout and watered down living. Everything looked great on the outside – but when I was alone, just God and me, we both knew that the façade I had so carefully erected was a spiritual monument to self-promotion and pride-filled goals. The house built upon the sand seemed like very familiar digs - and I was not alone.

We are all masters of rationalizing our way to approval. The problem is that the approval we gain comes from impotent and lifeless sources. I am convinced that if we are willing to surrender our lives to the tyranny of the urgent, the enemy will keep them coming – people who need you immediately, those who clamor for your attention above your family and personal relationship with God, the person who can talk to no one but you, and the list goes on. What ego strokes they offer - and what futility.

I have always loved music and began taking piano lessons at the age of five. I will never forget that first piano lesson with Mrs. McKenzie, a very sweet, elderly woman who played the piano beautifully. Her hair was slightly blue, her house smelled like lemon drops and she had clocks that chimed and rang every fifteen minutes. I was so excited and so ready to play the piano like my sister who played for our church worship services. Betty was an amazing pianist and I was desperately hoping that same musical ability filtered down to me.

"Let's get started," Mrs. McKenzie said. I climbed up on the piano bench, waiting for her brilliant instruction to begin. She placed a bright, red piano book in front of me and invited me to open it to the first page. I was disappointed to see only little, black pictures. Where was the music? Where were the songs? Mrs. McKenzie smiled as she patiently began to explain the musical symbols pictured in the book before me. I soon grew restless. "What's the matter?" she asked. "I want to play the piano, please," I sweetly responded. With a knowing smile, she said, "We'll get to that." I was not happy. On and on – for what seemed like hours, Mrs. McKenzie pointed to funny-shaped black symbols, named them and explained their meaning. I was not impressed. I just wanted to get my hands on that keyboard!

Sensing my impatience, Mrs. McKenzie pointed to one of the symbols on the page before me and said, "Mary, this small, black box is called a 'rest' and is one of the most important symbols in music." I simply did not care. It did nothing but sit on a page in useless and unproductive silence. I wanted music. "Do you know why rests are so important in music?" she persisted. Obviously, I had no clue. She then said something I remember to this day, "The music that comes after the rest is the most beautiful music of all." At the time, I did not understand the deeper meaning of those words, but life and time have illustrated their importance and their truth.

The best part of life comes after we rest in God. The most beautiful service follows time at His feet. Rest is a powerful part of our life song. Just as the rest in music prepares the listener for what comes next, time spent in rest is an invaluable time of preparation and restoration. Yet, we often buy the enemy's lie that to rest is a waste. The psalmist disagrees when he writes: He makes me to lie down in green pastures … He restores my soul… (Psalm 23:2-3).Now that word "makes" takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to God's work in and through us. Understand that if we refuse to rest, the Father will "make" us rest. The good news is that time spent in rest is the prelude of God's restoration power.

For years, I filled every waking moment with activity. I lived by the principle that busy people are productive people. It was only after I crashed, spending two years in a deep, dark pit of burnout and depression that I learned the eternal value of rest and stillness. This pivotal life lesson is stated in the simple words of a shepherd: Psalm 23:2 He leads me beside quiet waters. The psalmist writes this soothing promise from the perspective of a shepherd tending his flock of sheep. A good shepherd understands the truth that sheep are never fully at ease around rushing water because every sheep innately knows that the weight of their wool – when wet – will drown them. A wise shepherd understands that he must lead his sheep beside still waters, to a place of rest. The sheep only has to follow.

Today, make the commitment to carve out a daily time to spend in rest.Sit at His feet. Allow Him to restore, replenish and refocus your heart and mind. Then rise to serve Him and lead others to the "quiet waters" of rest.

Let's Pray
Father, forgive me for the arrogance that keeps me on the run, trying to prove my worth. Teach me how to rest in You, Lord. Help me learn how to say "no" to those things that keep me from sitting at Your feet. Give me a hunger and thirst for You that can only be satisfied by time alone with You. I love You, Lord.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Now It's Your Turn
Consider the following questions:

Why does it really mean to "be still before God"?
What "time thieves" do I need to eliminate from my schedule?
What long-term commitment do I need to make concerning rest?
What areas of my life seem to be out of control and need to be submitted to God?

Choose a time and place where you can rest.

Read Psalm 23 every day and record the benefits of rest in your life in your journal.

Sit back and relax

2011-04-21T17:40:00.001-04:00

I've had 4 doctor's appointments this week. Thank the good Lord for great health insurance. I've had over 25 appointments this pregnancy so far and I've paid maybe around $120 in copays. Judah and I are still fine, but they won't let me off home rest. I'm debating on going to church this Sunday. MrC said I'd just sit in the back and do not get up until it is time to go. That's so hard for me!

So, let's talk about work. I'm a contracted employee but I never really have any interaction with the company that actually signs my paychecks. So at the beginning of the week I told the company I'm contracted to about the bed rest thing. Alice and Z are the people I report to on my team. They were both super understanding. Today my company called Alice about something else, and Alice told them that they needed to find coverage for my fairs next week because I'm working from home until the doctor tells me otherwise. I planned on calling my project manager today after I heard the latest news from my doctor. When she called me, she wanted to play 8 million and 5 questions. She wanted to know who was going to keep track of my hours, who was going to make sure I did my work, how am I working from home. Ma'am, nobody checks behind me while I'm in the office, so why do I need somebody now? I answered the questions to the best of my ability and she said she would call Alice to talk to her. I sent Alice a heads up email including what I told my company. Alice emailed back "why do they care what you do if I don't? If we're going to pay you, why do they have a problem with it? I said you can work from home, that should settle the issue." EXACTLY!!!! Alice called me and was basically letting me know that I don't need to worry, they weren't going to make me go out on disability this early and she's fine with me working from home until June if I need to. I told her if my company had an issue, I'd just come in the office on certain days so they can stop tripping. Alice is so great because she said "girl please. If we need to tell them you're in the office we will, but you are not leaving your apartment."

My appointment today went well. The blood flow levels are still too elevated for the doctor to allow me to go drive around and be at work, but Judah was doing quite well. He passed the Biophysical profile test with an 8 out of 8. They tested to make sure he was moving, make sure he was using muscles (he kicked me, kneed me, and I'm pretty sure gave the doctor the finger), he was practice breathing, and that the amniotic fluid was at a good level. After all that moving during the BPP test Judah messed around and fell asleep during the non stress test. In order to pass the test his heart rate had to increase by 15 for at least 30 seconds. Yeah, that doesn't happen when you're sleep! Toward the end of the test, he woke up because he had the hiccups and then he started moving around. The nurse stayed in the room with me the whole time so she could hear all the movement even though the test wasn't responding the way the doctor wanted too. She thinks Judah is just too young to pass the test, but at 32 weeks (next week) he should be able to pass. Either way, nobody was alarmed and there was no more talk of steroid shots or delivering early. Next week I get a non stress test on Monday and Thursday. The nurses at Maternal Fetal Medicine (the folks I've been seeing for the last 15 weeks) are much better than the nurses at the hospital. They explain everything and actually monitor the test as it's occurring. My ma and I had a grand time talking to the nurse as I was hooked up to the machine for an hour.

I've been taking one field trip per day on my home confinement. I think tomorrow I'll go get my nails done. Since I'll be seated the whole time, it counts as resting. Today I went to lunch with my ma and then to Hobby Lobby and she pushed me around in the wheelchair. I need to go to BJ's tomorrow to pick up my god daughter's birthday present (diapers) so I'll roll around the store so I can't be accused of violating my rest orders. It's time for my afternoon nap now, I'm really enjoying this home confinement thing!

Pregzilla!

2011-04-20T18:11:00.000-04:00

I was going through my pictures looking for a cute photo to add to my thank you cards when I started laughing at being caught making faces at MrC. I hate it when my evil ways are captured on film. I swear I really do like MrC!

Oh the drama!

2011-04-19T23:50:00.000-04:00

I had an appointment on Monday evening to check on Judah's growth. I had planned to just go by myself, but I ended up leaving my purse at my parent's house and my ma volunteered to bring it to me and said she would attend my appointment. MrC said he would come too since he decided to work from home that day. So we all headed into Maternal Fetal Medicine for my 4 p.m. ultrasound appointment. Judah's heartbeat was 144 when she first measured (not bad) and then he kept on moving so she couldn't get anymore good readings. His weight is 3.2 lbs which is right on track. But his abdominal growth was a little small so she came and checked the blood flow through the umbilical cord and went and showed the doctor. When Dr. Neale walked in I scowled. She knows I hate to see her because it shows on my face every single time. She told me that his abdominal growth is in the 8th percentile and they want it in the 10th and because of that my twice weekly appointments will start this week. Fine. Dr. Neale, ever the overachiever, decided to look at the blood flow herself. Some number is supposed to be at 4.1 and mine was at 4.7-4.9. That's when she started talking crazy talk. She told me I had to go to the hospital now so they can do a non stress test and that I had to get a steroid shot just in case we had to deliver Judah this week. Say what now? Lady, Judah's birthday is June 3. You better realize this. My ma was feeling bad because she felt she let me work too hard over the weekend. Then the doctor told me I was on bed rest. Not strict bed rest, but no more work. Lady, I want my paycheck, we need to come to a happy medium.

I went over to Labor and Delivery and of course they weren't ready for me yet. So they got me a chair and we hung out in the hallway for an hour or so. They have a nourishment room with free water and fruit punch. I love fruit punch! Let me shorten this story. They hooked me up for the non stress test and after an hour they said Judah wasn't doing what they wanted and I needed to do the test again. You just realized that after an hour? So she got me a cup of punch and made me lie on my side for an hour and test. Then she finally came in and gave me my steroid shot at 8. First of all, it was in my butt. Which is probably better than my arm because there's so much more meat there but I didn't expect that. This nurse just wasn't the nurse for me though. She started off talking about how it was going to hurt because the liquid was thick. Keep that to yourself heffa. My ma and MrC were laughing because I was looking crazy. Then she was telling me when she was going to stick me. I had to finally say, don't tell me, just do it. That thing hurt like heck and seemed to last forever. My left cheek still hurts and the shots make my hips sore. The doctor finally came in to see me and she said she wanted me to stay over night because they couldn't pick up on his movements and heart fluctuations even though I could feel him moving the entire time. I was pissed. I rolled my eyes and just turned away from her. MrC was so disappointed in how I treated her. I plan to give her an apology not tomorrow, because I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on her. They moved me to a permanent room and MrC went to get us some real dinner and essentials. I had just been eating snacks because I was told it was a 30 minute test and didn't expect it to be after 9 when I finally got real information. My new nurse was awesomeness. She smelled like Jergens lotion and competence. She told me exactly what we were testing and showed me how to work the bed/tv and such. I finally got some real food around 11 something and she came in and readjusted the machine every time I moved into a position that affected the readings. My mom got to go home since MrC canceled his work trip for the next day so he could stay with me. A little before one Nurse Awesome came in and said that the readings looked great and she was going to campaign to get me out of there that night if I sat still for an hour so the reading would be continuous. She came back in during that hour and I jumped and said "I didn't move, I swear!" She laughed and said that Judah had moved, readjusted and left. Around 2 something the doctor came and said I was free to go, the tests were great. Thank the Lord. I was very happy.

So what did I learn? 1. Eat real food so Judah can party like a rockstar since that's obviously what they needed. 2. Make sure the nurse actually checks on me. 3. Steroid shots in the booty aren't fun. 4. Don't be mean to the doctor's/nurses. They're trying to help me.

I had to go get another steroid shot today at the maternal fetal medicine center. This nurse was so much better. I told her not to tell me when she was going to stick me. MrC handed me a magazine. She pointed over my shoulder at a picture and asked me what it was and I was explaining it she stuck the needle in and was done before the pain even started! MrC laughed because she distracted me like I was a toddler. I sang her praises and told her she was awesome. She was also nice enough to stick me at the top of my butt so I don't have to sit on the injection site. Hopefully this will be my last steroid shot.She said next week we'll be on better terms and no needles will be allowed. I agree! We're praying the doppler's read normal on Thursday since I'm working from home this week and staying in bed except for bathroom trips and stretches/yoga moves every few hours. MrC will be in New Hampshire on Thursday so my mom will be with me. I'm not allowed to go to any more appointments by myself because I threatened to streak down the hallway and demand my freedom multiple times. Apparently, that's not acceptable.

(p.s. it is inhumane to have a person sit in a room without panties on for hours. I asked Nurse Awesome if I could please put my panties back on and my ma started cracking up. I felt violated sitting there all unprotected.)

Shower Crafts

2011-04-19T09:05:00.001-04:00

I don't like games. I do love crafts so that was the best part of my shower. At the shower we only played 2 games. One was the left-right game. You sit in a circle (we had 2) and pass a token to the left or right according to the story being read. The other game was to guess the retail price of certain baby items. Nothing like hearing somebody say a can of formula is $5 or a hands free double breast pump is $25 ($379.99). Twas hilarious.

For the crafts we started with decorating holiday themed bibs, but that was practice for the big craft- quilt squares. People had such creative ideas and I can't wait until my ma finishes it. The last picture are the squares that will actually make the quilt, we had a few rejects. MrC's crazy friend wrote "don't believe the hype," cuz he is so anti everything. He knew I wasn't putting that on Judah's quilt. Another person wrote a scripture about death. No thanks. My mom's crazy friend decided to glue a wooden monkey to her square and write "we love you beary much." Think about that. She glued something non washable to a blanket and then wrote something that didn't even fit. When she held it up, the whole room looked at her like "wtf?"

I was blown away by some of the squares and the one that almost made me shed a thug tear read: Jesus Uniquely Designed A Home. I had a wonderful shower and I'm glad 60 people came out despite the tornado warnings!

Shower Outfit

2011-04-17T09:30:00.001-04:00

When I walked upstairs at the beginning of the shower, my own momma didn't recognize me. Geez, I'm going to start working on actually looking cute more often. I had fun at the shower yesterday. It rained, so we had to be inside. I'm grateful people still came out even though we were under a tornado warning.

Quickly Ramble

2011-04-14T13:16:00.001-04:00

I haven't read any blogs this week. I've been so dang busy with work and this baby shower that I insist on helping with. Oh and goofing off after I finish my work. I've had 2 trial runs with baking and frosting cookies. Today I'm going to the school of you tube to get my final technique down. In my head I have a really cute outfit to wear for my shower. Let me find a picture because I'm sure this didn't come from my head...(this is taking a long time to find)...(no seriously.I'm looking for an image of a gray sweatshirt shrug thingy. I got it at the gap outlet yesterday. It smells like feet in here. Back to google)...(I give up. I can't find it.) Anyway I guess I'll show y'all a picture next week of what I wore because I don't feel like looking for it any more. I'm going to go get some purple and silver accessories to go with it. And I'm wearing my hair in a fro hawk. (wait I found a picture sort of.)

Well it's kind of like this. It's a long sleeve open sweatshirt thing. I got a long white tank top to go with it and black leggings. The sweatshirt thing hangs down and covers my butt so I won't feel like a floosy.

It's time for me to go get my eyebrows done and drop in Forever 21 for some jewelry. And get some crazy bread from Little Ceasar's. And reschedule my dental appointment. And write a reminder to pick up my 2 gallon pail of Mango Italian Ice when I leave work. Ohhhh my coworker just brought me a chocolate covered strawberry! I feel the love.

Weekend Crafts

2011-04-11T12:51:00.000-04:00

This weekend I had so much fun hanging at my parent's house forcing my mom and sister to let me help with my shower. I had a surprise bridal shower in 2008 so I didn't get to help with anything. This time, I just keep showing up when I know my mom is going to be working on the shower so I get to help. I also keep getting coupons for stuff I know they need to buy so my mom will let me go to the store with her too. If she asks me "why are you here?" one more time, I'm going to drop kick her though.

We went and got the paint yesterday since it was on sale, but we didn't get it colored yet. I had out all my color choices and we have it pretty narrowed down. Now I'll just wait to get everything for the room and see how the colors look against it. We got the Harmony zero VOC paint since I'll either still be pregnant or the baby will be here when we paint. We got enough to do Judah's room, the trim for the whole house, the bathrooms/laundry room, and one other room.

The fence in my parent's backyard needed to be repaired and like a good son in law, MrC was the assistant. On Saturday and Sunday MrC and my dad were slaving away in the backyard for hours. My sister even went to help for about 30 minutes on Sunday. She came inside to blow her nose and never went back out, lol.

I meant to take a picture with my niece, because people always think we're sisters (or that I'm her mother even though I would have had to have her when I was 12 and I certainly wasn't getting down like that at 12) because we look so much alike. She helped on Saturday with our crafting. She kept asking "why don't y'all just buy this stuff?" They definitely don't do crafts and stuff at her house, so she was side eyeing us when we handed her a case of diapers and said "get to rolling." My best friend came over to help on Saturday too. It's funny because she is always down for whatever I'm doing even though I haven't been able to return the favor for her yet. My mom worked her half to death on my wedding and shower and she's always just so happy and willing to help. One of my friends whose wedding I was in last year and whose shower I planned has yet to show up or respond to calls/texts or be the one to tell me she's not coming to my shower even though I already know. Can y'all tell I'm in my feelings about it? My ma thinks she's just having a hard first year of marriage so I should be patient with her. I really can't stand people that can't "rejoice with those who are rejoicing" So if this a habit of hers, I don't see us having a strong friendship. Even if you didn't want to help with the shower or anything, it's common courtesy to at least return a phone call. When she got married last year, they bought a huge new house and got it custom built. We were also house shopping at the time but their budget was clearly larger than ours, lol. I was so excited about their house you would've thought I was getting a room there. We stopped by to see the progress of it almost as much as they did! They're our friends, they were happy about their new home and so were we even though we wanted to be where they were and weren't yet. I never let my feelings about my situation cause me to not be happy for hers. Random vent over.

I added all the finishing touches to the diaper cakes. We made 3, a giraffe themed, a monkey themed, and a whole safari themed cake. I'll post those pictures this weekend. On Sunday I made 2 towel cakes that are zebra.

We (and by we, I mean me) had this great idea to make candles in the shapes of animals and give them out as favors. I consulted with Martha and she had a simple way to make cookie cutter candles. o_O That crap was hard y'all! We had wax spilling everywhere, headless animals, broken tails- it was not a success! Thankfully, my mom had the glass candle jars left over from my wedding so we decided to make brown and green votive candles instead. It was much easier, and much more successful! We colored them using crayons and my sister became an expert colorist and wax melter. She was jamming to Jennifer Hudson when I snapped her picture. We have to add the finishing touches to those on Friday. My friend is busy tying bows this week for us to glue on there. I'm so grateful for her help :)

A grand time was had by all this weekend (well there was a brief period Sunday afternoon where I considered becoming a murderer. But only twitter needs to know about that. I'll let y'all continue to think of me as goodness and light!) Tonight I'm going to try my hand at making and frosting cookies, so I'm sure I'll have pictures of that this weekend. I'm so glad I made them let me help. I need somebody else to get knocked up so I can help plan their shower! I think I'm going to go buy some cheap picture frames and put up some creepy ultrasound pictures at the shower!

Judah's Safari Nursery

2011-04-08T13:44:00.000-04:00

Housing Update: We still haven't moved into the house yet. The bank ordered the BPO this week and they'll let us know what's going on next week so we can schedule our inspection. Since I'm 7 months now, I'm about to get everything together in case I'm not present when people are moving our stuff in.

This is the inspiration picture that started it all. The furniture in the nursery will be this same color. I like the colors in this picture, but the carpet in Judah's room is a dark gray/blueish color and we probably aren't going to be changing it any time soon. I think I really like that bamboo curtain rod. Can I use real bamboo or do I have to go find some overpriced rod? I'll look into that.

These are the bins I have registered for. The changing table is open, so these will be placed under the table to hold things.

These are the possible wall decorations. Once we get the nursery set up, I'm also going to order a painting with his name on it that reflects the color of the nursery. I'll probably also get a scripture or a quote painting for his room too. I don't know if I'm sold on the tree. There's a small little wall by the door that it might look cute against, but I won't know until we actually get in the house and hold it against the paint.

We're buying the paint this weekend, since there's a sale at Sherwin Williams. I think we're going to paint the two side walls a tan color (those walls have the windows and the closet) and then the wall the crib will be against will be a light green.

Any of y'all have any ideas? I'm designing each room now just in case somebody has to paint the nursery for me while I'm delivering the baby! Next up is our bedroom :)

Hair Journal- Bentonite Clay Shampoo

2011-04-06T16:10:00.000-04:00

This is more for me than y'all. I tried to write out a hair journal, but I lost it. If I post it here at least I'll know where it is.

Last Thursday was hair washing day. I'd been having some bad experiences with products, so I decided to strip down what I was using and start fresh figuring out what products were going to become my staple products. I know my hair loves Oyin Whipped Pudding and Oyin Burnt Sugar, so I kept those. I decided to make my own shampoo. I used this recipe from AGRLCANMAC. I didn't use a separate conditioner because I wanted to test out the shampoo. After shampooing I put one of MrC's tshirts on my head to semi dry my hair. I left it on for 45 minutes and then I put in my Hair Dew leave in and my whipped pudding. I'll definitely keep this step. Waiting until my hair wasn't sopping wet made it feel a lot better. When my sister was doing my hair that night she said it felt grainy so probably didn't rinse as well as I could have. By Tuesday, my hair started smelling like dirt and it doesn't look clean. I'm going to try this exact same procedure again tomorrow but I'm going to add in Giovanni Nutrafix Hair Reconstructer as my conditioning treatment. I don't think I'll stick with this shampoo, but I have enough left over for one more wash. Next week I think I'll make an African Black Soap shampoo.

Picture Day

2011-04-04T11:51:00.001-04:00

We went and took pictures this weekend :) I learned a lot from our little photo shoot.

1. Even though my dad loves photography and has the expensive camera and stuff, he's not very good at it. It's just not his calling. We're going to go take some more in May with someody a little better at angles and lighting.

2. I'm a lot bigger than I feel. MrC's friend saw me yesterday for the first time in about a month and said "whoa." I looked at the pictures and said, "whoa." In my head I'm slim and sexy, but reality isn't really agreeing.

3. MrC is a hater. All this eyebrow drama started because of him. I've always loved my eyebrows, they're just not thick. Every time I say I'm going to get my eyebrows done MrC starts laughing and yells "you ain't got no brows man." I think he's just jealous because he has enough eyebrows for 3 people. Look at my picture, my eyebrows look just fine. I'm done with that loser.

4. MrC talks too much. In 1/4 of the pictures he is talking. In another 1/4 of the pictures I am reacting violently to all his dang chatter. There are pictures of me punching him, cutting my eyes telling him to shut up, and looking at him asking why the heck he keeps talking while my dad is trying to take the picture. His main question was "is he taking it yet?" Of course soon as he opened his mouth to ask, the picture was snapped. Shut up and smile. There is a series of pictures where I'm facing him and about to grab his face with both my hands and tell him to shut up. I'll have to post them once my dad gives me the cd- I look evil. MrC was glad my meanness was captured on film.

5. I don't understand abstract. America's Next Top Model I am not. We were supposed to be staring off into space and MrC looks awesome, but I look so confused. We're going to crop me out of those and just let MrC have those as proof of his handsomeness. Those were the best pictures of him all day and the worst of me. My bad.

6. One of us doesn't know how to fake smile. It looks like when you tell a 4 year old to cheese. I won't say who, but it sure ain't me.

7. People don't think they should ask to take your picture. MrC was on one knee, and I was sitting on the other under a cherry blossom tree and all of a sudden 3 random strangers exclaimed "how cute!" and started snapping away.

8. If I hold my pee for 2 hours, it gets very painful. And I hobble and pray I don't wet myself. And I yell pull over as soon as a see a port a potty. Thankfully, I carry a public restroom kit with disinfecting wipes and spray, hand cleaners, tissue, and toilet seat covers. It made the experience a lot more pleasant.

Not successful

2011-04-01T12:23:00.000-04:00

Nerd Girl asked if I was able to get some eyebrows last week at MAC. Funny story about what happened...

Last Saturday MrC and I went to a children's consignment sale. It was pretty cool, we found some stuff at great prices that we were able to take off our registry. After leaving there we headed to Macy's to go talk to the MAC ladies. There were 2 working when I got there. One had on a super short and tight dress and I could see the control top portion of her tights. I decided she was not the person to help me because clearly she lacked good judgment. The lady I wanted to help me was helping somebody else, but she told me to sit down and she'd be with me in a minute. While I was waiting a third employee came in and she looked a straight fool with her makeup and I pleaded "please, Jesus, not her." She didn't see me and went to help somebody else and the lady I was waiting for asked if Miss2Tight2Short could help me because she was taking longer than she thought. I told her I wanted an everyday lip and eyebrow because I don't wear much makeup. She said alright, and went and got some stuff. She started on my eyebrow with a pencil and was explaining what to do. Y'all, when I looked at the finish product I looked a mother effing fool. First off, her technique was terrible, I had two distinctly different eyebrows and her fake nail poked me in the eye twice. I was looking at her wondering if she was even looking at me. I saw one of her coworkers look at me like "what the heck is happening????" But I didn't say anything because the last time I was at a MAC counter MrC ended up walking away because I embarrassed him (the dude was SO rude. So I told him so. This was back in November, I blame the new pregnancy hormones. I told my mom and sister that they weren't allowed to purchase anything and that we had to leave because his customer service was unacceptable. They went back without me a few hours later and said the dude was so polite and he was shaking as he started helping them. My bad dude, my angry voice is serious. I don't use it often. I didn't curse or anything I just said "you don't think you're being rude? Well you are. blah blah blah", no need for any more details, lol) So anyway, I didn't want this situation to turn into another embarrassing my husband episode and I knew if I started talking, I wouldn't be rational. She did give me a nice neutral lip, so I bought the lip gloss and left. By the time we got to the car I was sobbing. How ridiculous she made me look, plus something MrC said, plus hormones (I'm shifting blame on everybody) sent me into a tail spin. MrC spent five minutes with a tissue making my brows look like they belonged on the same face and trying to calm me down. When I told my mom later what happened she said "you don't remember a few years ago when we went to that MAC and they did your sister's makeup? I thought we swore off that location, those girls are circus artists." Then I remembered the blue eye shadow fiasco.

So no, Nerd Girl, I still don't have pretty brow fill in techniques. I have also sworn off any MAC counters in department stores. I've had lovely make up help in the stand alone stores and not one good time in a department store. Lesson learned.

So much to do!

2011-03-31T10:44:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy week for me. Open enrollment started for my client on Monday. They were terminating their contract with us, so we weren't doing anything with the enrollment meetings. On Monday we got a year extension on our contract. Which meant that we now had to staff and attend 120 open enrollment meetings over this next month. I'm in charge of open enrollment, so I've been emailing, calling, ordering, and meeting all week. I'm glad this happens right before my review :) Any slacking I did throughout the year is forgotten because of how awesome I am at open enrollment.

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I'm working from home today because it's so dreary outside and I don't fell like being in the rain. While I'm here, I'm going to trim my ends, make a shampoo, deep condition my hair, and finish researching these shower favors. This lady at church wants me to teach a 30 minute class this Saturday on re-dedication. She told me last night. Between work and getting my own self together. I don't think I have time to put together a class. I need to email her and tell her that. Two days notice is not acceptable.

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I'm revamping my hair routine again. I think I figured out which products are making my hair act a fool. Now I need to narrow it down to which ingredient it is that makes my hair so freaking dry and off balance. I am tired of the splits :(

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I just put a load of delicates in and I started laughing because I thought of Inner Diva and Jameil. The load consists of 2 pairs of sweat pants, 1 pair of yoga pants, and 2 bras. Gotta take good care of my favorite clothes :) I bet if they could they'd sneak in my window and dump bleach in my washing machine.

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Alright, it's taken me 2 hours to type this little bit because I keep stopping to do my actual job, let me go finish being productive! I hear Winterset trying to get my attention. The washing machine is by their tank so maybe she's intrigued by the sound, either way, when I walk over there everybody better be in that tank!

Is it lunch time yet?

2011-03-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

A huge THANK YOU to SimplyB for sending me a spa finder gift card! I really, really appreciate it :) I got it yesterday and squealed with delight. I shall put the gift card to great use this weekend.

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You know that person at your office that you think is going to ruin casual Friday for everybody? Yeah, that's me. Funny thing is, we don't even have casual Friday. A bunch of people just randomly decided to wear jeans on Fridays so now we have an illegal casual Friday. Today I decided that if I have to work on putting a bunch of presentations together, I deserve to be comfortable, so I wore sweat pants. At least they're black. Every single day I wear tennis shoes to work. I also wear jeans on days that aren't Friday. Like Tuesday, and Thursday. Nobody has ever commented on it though, I wonder if they even notice? I can easily get a doctor's note if somebody has something to say about my non professional foot gear.

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We were going to go take our maternity pictures this Sunday, but it's supposed to snow. I don't know if I see myself posing by the cherry blossoms with snow falling. I guess we'll have to do it later in the week, but I really wanted my sister to be there and she'll be out of town next weekend. We'll see what happens.

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At my last ultrasound they took a picture of BabyC that is so dang creepy. He looks like he's smiling which should be an "oh how cute moment" but we were both freaked out.

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We're going to a children's consignment sale in the morning to see what it's like. By we, I mean I'm forcing MrC to go to a consignment sale with me on Saturday because my sister is busy and I want to go and it's by the Amish market and we can go eat pretzels after and then I'm forcing MrC to go to MAC so I can get a new lip gloss and see if they can give me some eyebrows since God won't let my eyebrows be great. If MrC looks at me and screams "you ain't go no brows man" one more time I'm going to shave his off in his sleep. He thinks it's hilarious that I go get my brows done because he said he can't see them anyway :( It's a shame because I feel so fly after I get them done and then he pisses on my joy, lol.

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You know how Ludacris yells out "Luda" in his songs? (or how he used to? Does he still rap? Well that's not really relevant to this story anyway.) The same way he yells Luda is how MrC yells Judah. I'll be in the bed and MrC will get the urge to talk to his son and come in the room hollering JUDAH! Then he gets right next to my belly and has the loudest conversations ever. I'm trying to teach him to kick his father in the face when he comes in disturbing us.

Good Job!

2011-03-21T11:37:00.000-04:00

Nerd Girl was the first one to correctly guess BabyC's name! MrC and I had an interesting time picking out his name. We finally reached the agreement that if I let him name our first child, I get to name all the rest. Then the middle name war started. For weeks I tried to convince everybody that his middle name should be Jetswifter. Would you believe not one person agreed with me? We ended up deciding on MrC's middle name for the baby too. That's how we arrived at Judah Emmanuel.

Thanks for playing guys! Now I need to figure out what I'm sending Nerd Girl as her prize.

Let me spell it out for you

2011-03-18T07:56:00.001-04:00

Somebody has to get it today. Read the clues from the first 2 days, combine it with this and remember your Sunday school lessons.

His name is a person, a people, and a place.
Person: didn't want his brother die, decided to sell him instead (well that sounds bad, lol)
People: Hebrew
Place: kingdom

THANKS for playing guys :) I really think you only need one guess today, but try not to exceed two.

PRAISE the Lord, it's Friday and it's going to be 75 degrees here. Have a great weekend!

Try again

2011-03-17T07:22:00.000-04:00

Nobody got it yesterday, let's try again. The name is mentioned 797 times in the old testament and 11 times in the new testament. If you go to church or read your bible at all you've heard it. Before MrC suggested it as BabyC's name, I had no clue who this person was, even though I knew the significance and what the name meant. The name is not a book in the Bible.

Jameil tried to help me make an easier clue but I wouldn't listen. If nobody gets it today, I'll post her clue tomorrow. Two guesses folks!

Guess BabyC's name

2011-03-16T09:19:00.001-04:00

Alright! You get 2 guesses today. If nobody gets it today then I'll post another clue tomorrow.

BabyC's name is in the Bible. It can be found in the old and new testament, but it's seen more in the old.

Contest tomorrow...

2011-03-15T15:18:00.001-04:00

I think I want to play "Guess BabyC's Name" tomorrow. I'm probably going to make it a give away. Dean Braxton came and spoke at our church last night and he was really good! I was going to buy the CD or DVD of his message and use that as the giveaway, then I realized that would mean I had to remember to buy it after church and actually get to a post office. That could take me 6 months, lol. He wrote a book too, I'm going to see if it's online because buying and sending directly without having to actually move is more my style. So tomorrow morning I'll some clues and the rules posted. (Rule #1 Jameil il Fabulosa you can't play!)

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I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and at least one apple every single day. I almost fixed one for breakfast this morning but I was running late. When I get home though, PB&J will be consumed!

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Booking spa appointments makes me smile. It makes me smile so very much. Booking them while they're discounted makes me smile like a wild banshee. Oh spa week, I love thee! I especially like that I informed MrC of my appointments when I know he didn't feel like listening so he wouldn't ask me any questions or tell me I didn't need to go. When he realizes that between now and the time I have this baby I plan to go to the spa at least once a month, it'll be too late. I firmly believe pregnant women need spa days, when my sister has her baby, I'll make sure I treat her to regular spa treatments.

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The other day MrC was being belligerent, so I ran in the bedroom and got a belt and started beating him while he was trying to fix his dinner. Do y'all know he hit me in the face with a tortilla? I wasn't spanked as a child, but I don't think that's how it goes. I thought I dished out the punishment and he was supposed to stand there and take it. We looked so crazy because we were both laughing and I was still trying to hit his legs with the belt and he kept hitting me with that tortilla (that he still ate).

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At our church, the ushers seat you and they just fill in the rows as you come in. Since I'm now a VIP member of the bathroom, I need to sit near the end of the row. The usher last night was telling us to sit smack dab in the middle of the 5th row. I would've had to cross over at least 10 people every time I needed to go to the bathroom. I told him there was no way I was going to sit there, it would be a bother to everybody. He kept saying he wouldn't seat me anywhere else. In a sanctuary that holds 2,500 he wouldn't point me anywhere else. I don't argue with folks so I said ok, and walked away and just go to another usher because clearly this old man was feeling some kind of way last night and I know most of the ushers aren't like that. Honestly, if I was a visitor, I would have walked out of the sanctuary and went back home. I asked another usher if I could sit close to the end of a row because I pee a lot in the evenings and don't want to be a distraction. She hugged me, said "mama, I don't want you to have any accidents on my watch," grabbed her stuff, and gave us her seat right by the door. I promise y'all I wanted to thank her each and every one of the 5 times I had to get up during service to pee. BabyC must have found the speaker just as interesting as I did because he was super active during the service. His karate chops combined with me laughing was too much for my poor bladder.

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Last night I realized I can recognize the kids I teach by their cries without turning around and for most of them, I know what's wrong. I need to save this skill for my own dang kids, lol. Even MrC was impressed with my accuracy.

I forgot my earrings...

2011-03-11T13:31:00.000-05:00

Don't worry, I didn't leave home with my hair like this. I don't feel like I'm getting bigger, but from every body's comments, you'd think I was suddenly 850 pounds. If it wasn't for the nice sales ladies at the mall the other night telling me I'm small compared to when they were 6 months pregnant, I might have had a self esteem issue by now. I still think I'm cute so I'll just be ignoring anybody that tries to tell me otherwise!

Thanks everybody for your help with my outfit selections, I'll be ordering my clothes tonight. If y'all didn't help me, there's no telling what I would have thrown on!

What do you think?

2011-03-09T13:18:00.001-05:00

Last night I went to the mall to try on sundresses. I posted the pictures on twitter, I won't be putting them here! In dresses, I look twice my size because I poke out in the front and the back- not cute! I think I'll be going with something a little closer to what I feel comfortable and know I look good in. What do y'all think of these colors/items?

Feels good...

2011-03-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

...to be completely up to date with everything. I don't have any pending things on my desk at work. There aren't any dishes in the sink, no crumbs on the floor. Everything is clean and in order.

...to have all our food for the week cooked already. I got a 4 pound pack of ground beef last week because I wanted spaghetti and the big pack was on sale. Yesterday I decided to cook it all and make our meals for the week all at once. I made spaghetti,sloppy joe's, chili, and tacos. I put a label on each container so MrC would know the appropriate side dishes to pull out and dinner/lunch will take less than 10 minutes to prepare every day. Maybe I'll do the same thing next week with chicken breasts.

...to be planning my baby shower. My family is finally listening and doing what I want. I'm not a fancy person, I just love cookouts and hanging out. I wanted my wedding reception to be a cookout at a park and my bridal shower to be a picnic in a backyard (they tried but a tornado decided to show up that day.) My baby shower is going to be a big cookout at my parent's house. Drop in for 15 minutes or 3 hours, it doesn't matter. Bring your husband and your kids, all are welcome! The guys will probably be playing video games, kids can play outside, and the gals can chit chat and hang out. I'm definitely not having a bunch of games, because I don't like them. I will have a station set up so that you can pick a holiday out of a bucket and then design a bib and onesie that correlates with your holiday. If anybody has any more ideas like that, leave them in the comments! It's a safari themed shower on April 16, if you're in Maryland then and want to stop by, let me know!

...to have my March spa appointment (manicure and pedicure right before we do our pregnancy pictures) scheduled and my April appointment will be scheduled next week. I felt like God was high fiving me when I realized spa finder wellness week is the week of my pictures and Spa Week is the week of my baby shower. I shall be beautified for each event!

...to know that at the end of each day MrC is waiting to give me a massage so I can sleep comfortably.

...to know that God supplies all my needs :)

What about you?

Help me please!

2011-03-07T11:28:00.001-05:00

We're going to do our pregnancy pictures at the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

I think the backdrop will be so lovely, so I'm really excited. I really want to climb up in a tree but that's probably illegal and it's definitely unsafe. Neither of those things will stop me from attempting though.

Now I need to decide what to wear. I'm not a fashionista by any means, so I definitely need help with colors and accessories. I'm going to post some of my ideas and please, please, help me out! I prefer fitted clothes on me because I have a big butt and now a growing belly and loose clothes just aren't flattering. I saw myself from the side in my bath robe and I realized why MrC calls me Big Bertha. I need to stick to things that offer me some shape!

I like this Ann Taylor top, but I don't think a gray shirt is the way to go. But this style is pretty cute, I think.

Or I could get a fitted tank top and wear a pretty jacket or cardigan over it. I have 3 weeks to get my outfit together, so I'm pretty flexible at this point.

If you happen to see something you think might be cute (shirt (small), pants (medium), shoes, necklace, earrings) feel free to email me or leave me a link. The shirt doesn't have to be a maternity top, I've been wearing my regular shirts and if it's too tight I can always just get a medium, but the pants do have to be maternity because I promised BabyC I wouldn't have any more zippers cutting into my belly.

{Y'all know I'm obnoxious. If nobody helps me I will post this every single day until I either get help or have no more readers. Please don't make it come to that.}

I'm procrastinating...

2011-03-01T11:16:00.001-05:00

Here's the latest creepy 4D picture of BabyC from our appointment yesterday. MrC got a chance to come with me and he had a good time being able to see the baby move around. Normally when he comes to the visits we don't have time to play around with 4D, but I got the cool sonographer yesterday and she loves to see 4D as much as we do, so she took some time to show us.

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This morning Marberry decided he had enough so he was busting out. That stupid little turtle scared the crap out of me. I was super jumpy this morning because the lady upstairs was making so much noise while I was in the shower and I thought somebody was breaking in our apartment. I got out, did a quick check then went into the bedroom to lotion up. Then I heard yet another crash. I stuck my head out the room door and saw the front door was still locked and decided to walk around and check the windows. I walked by the tank and saw Winterset acting all crazy and then I realized- there's only one turtle in here. I looked down and saw Marberry under the tank. I tried to tell MrC that he had too much water in there, but he didn't want to listen. I used MrC's tshirt to help me pick him up because animal scratches probably aren't safe when you're pregnant and then I dropped him back in the tank. He was surprisingly heavy.

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Excuse my always messy bathroom. I took a quick belly shot this morning for my journal.
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I tried to snap a picture of my beautiful smiling face along with the coils, but it wasn't working out so I fixed it. No face, just hair. This weekend I'm going to pull the coils apart and wear a coil out. We'll see how it turns out!

I'm ready for a nap

2011-02-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

We did the registry this weekend! I should be ashamed for taking this long, we can walk to Target and Babies R Us from our apartment. We did Target (because that's convenient for everybody) Babies R Us (I love that place!) and Amazon (that's where I put all my cloth diapering supplies.) I figure most people will do Target anyway and if it goes anything like our wedding, they won't even use the registry, but it's all good. I was in the store balking about prices and hollering things like "this is absurd!" and "are they crazy?" I think I saw a sign for a second hand baby sale today on the way to my appointment. I'm going to go check it out and if I find stuff cheaper than what I registered for, I'll just buy it myself and take it off the registry. No point in anybody overpaying for baby stuff. Thank God I plan on having 4 kids and I'll make sure to get our money's worth. But those $400 cribs? Heck no. We went over to the cheap section and picked the best from those. Our furniture for the living room didn't cost us that much, no way a new baby needs something that expensive.

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There's a picture MrC snapped of me as I was trying to get off the ground at the store. My oh so loving sister is standing next to me completely ignoring me and he was busy laughing and singing "make way for the big girls." They both keep making fun of me. When they heard me coming down the steps my sister said "here comes the big one" and MrC proceeded to yell "boom, boom, boom" with every step I took. I think MrC is just glad he can pay me back for all the weight jokes I made about him in middle school (he lent me his shirt one day during gym class and it was a 4x! We were 13, it was hilarious to me).

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This morning my car wouldn't start. My tank was on E last week and I didn't drive it all week. Oops. Thankfully MrC was home and he handled it for me. Now we're sitting at the dining room table working from home together. Well he's working, I'm doing the same thing I do at work.

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There's a tornado watch going on right now. They said 70 mph winds were coming. I don't have time to be blowing away.

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My sister did my hair in coils last night. My big head took 3.5 hours to do. We were all ready to curl up and cry by the time we finished at 1 am. It's cute though, I'll try and get MrC to take some pictures for me.

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Does anybody have any snoring remedies that work? For the past two nights I really wanted to do bodily harm to MrC. I almost pushed him out the bed the other night. He volunteered to sleep on the couch tonight, but I don't want him to be uncomfortable and that's not a good solution.

Buying for baby...

2011-02-24T15:29:00.001-05:00

Of all the things to worry about, I pick a dang registry. I've really been putting off doing my registry (as some of y'all have realized!) First I was waiting to figure out where the heck we were going to put the baby. Since we're buying a house and he'll have a room, I got ready to move forward. But then I thought about what to put on the registry. Some of my family thinks I'm stuck up and that I think I'm better than them. Of course that's not true and it's mostly my HaterAuntie that feels this way, but some of the things I want to put on the registry make me feel stuck up. MrC and I use all natural products on ourselves, so of course we want that for BabyC. But most folks buy Johnson's and Baby Magic and I don't like the ingredients, so I don't have plans to ever use that. But natural products cost more and I don't want people to look at my registry like "who the heck does this heffa think she is?" I'm also considering doing cloth diapers (and making baby food), but I don't even want to mention that aloud because I don't feel like hearing "girl please, you'll get tired of that and put your baby in disposables like everybody else" or any other opinion I didn't ask for. I know I can always take back any unwanted gifts, but does that make me seem ungrateful? People give out of their kindness, I don't want them to think I don't appreciate it. Am I over thinking this? Maybe I should do the registry, let y'all see it and tell me if I'm a stuck up poodle and then I'll redo it if necessary.

What are some must haves that I should register for? The only thing BabyC has right now is a robe and washcloths (courtesy of TiffanyinHouston.)

Special Attention

2011-02-23T15:59:00.001-05:00

I have a "special attention" pregnancy, not to be confused with high risk. If you call me high risk, I'll probably kick you in the shin. I've been closely monitored by my team of doctors this entire pregnancy. When I was 21, I was diagnosed with Lupus. I had the symptoms since I was about 15, but my pediatrician was too worried about STD's to take the time to listen. When I was 23/24 I switched insurances and started going to a different doctor. He wanted to run his own tests on me to see exactly what was going on. Turns out, I didn't have lupus. He diagnosed me with Sjogrens. When I found out I was pregnant I had just switched insurances the month before and had to find an entire new set of doctor's. I went in to get my pregnancy confirmed and when the doctor saw I had been diagnosed with Sjogrens she set me up to go to the hospital and meet with the Maternal Fetal Medicine team. MrC and I went in and had a long meeting with the director of MFM about how they were going to handle my pregnancy. They ordered an EKG, an eye test (that I never did because I got confused about opthamologists versus optometrists and then I didn't know which insurance to use and eventually so much time had passed and she didn't bring it up again so I said forget it), and made me collect my urine for 24 hours so they could test it (that was so gross!) All of my tests came back in the clear. Their main concern has been with BabyC's heart. Sometimes the fetus can have a heart block which leads to a slow heart beat which can be fatal. Because of this from weeks 15-25 I've had to go get a weekly ultrasound where they check BabyC's heart. Starting at week 25, I go every other week. I'm currently at week 23 and there haven't been ANY issues and I know there won't be (well one week they could tell I forgot I wasn't supposed to have caffeine and I had 5 glasses of iced tea the day before my appointment. BabyC was off the freaking hook for two days, but it definitely wasn't a slow heart beat. Oops!)

The other thing the doctor was worried about was me having a Sjogrens flare up. I very, very rarely have any issues concerning Sjogren's I'm actually convinced the doctor's made this all up, but that's not the point. It can affect a lot of different parts of your body but the only issues I've ever really had are swollen painful joints (knees and toes for me) and fatigue. If I'm tired, I just go to sleep (even at work) and if my joints are swollen I whine for 30 seconds, then pray, then sit my too busy behind down so my body can recover. I was prescribed medication a few years ago but the only times I ever took it was when I knew I was going to be doing a lot of walking for multiple days. It's really not that bad, so I just deal with it. The doctor said that if I started having flare ups, they would need to put me on steroids so I won't pass any antibodies to the baby. She told me that toughing it out was not an option as long as the baby is in me. That's something I really don't want to have to do, so we prayed about it and kept it moving. Another thing that all the doctor's are insistent upon, that I don't like, is that I have to deliver at 38 weeks. I tried to manipulate them and put them against each other to get to go longer- but those ladies won't budge! They all said the same thing "once we get you to full term, we want to just get the baby out alive and healthy." In my mind I'm determined to make it to at least 39 weeks since these heffas with their fancy book learning and knowledge don't want to let me. They didn't say I have to have a c-section, but on the day I'm scheduled to deliver, they will give me medicine to induce labor if I haven't started. I'm already going to have a talk with Jesus and BabyC so we can kick start this labor on our own and not have to deal with unnecessary medication. The day before I'm scheduled to go in though I'm going to pamper the heck out of myself. Manicure, pedicure, get my sister to do my hair, and get a wax because I'm hoping the pain will jump start labor (If I have the baby during my wax appointment, can I get my insurance to cover it????)

I don't really tell too many people what's going on because I don't have time for people that add their worry and doubt to a situation. My faith has this covered. I told a few of my friends when the doctor's were first running their tests. Every single one of the friends I told immediately grabbed my shoulder and my belly and prayed for peace and health. I was so grateful for that, because in the very beginning, I was a little overwhelmed. I even had a twitter friend that would email me encouragement. A totally unplanned pregnancy along with all this extra stuff was a lot to process. It took me a few weeks of praying and talking to faith filled people before I got myself together, but now it's nothing but excitement. I always knew I would enjoy pregnancy and I'm glad this experience has been so pleasant. I get to look at BabyC wiggle and squirm evey week and it's so much fun that I'm glad I have over dramatic doctors that insisted upon all this monitoring.

Anyway, I just wanted to share after Jameil wondered why the heck I was tweeting from doctor's offices 2 days in a row. Once a week at the hospital, once a month at the OB/GYN. BabyC weighs 1 pound and I'm up 8 pounds. We're almost in the third trimester!

Errands

2011-02-21T17:18:00.001-05:00

I haven't been to the grocery store in awhile because I didn't want to carry the bags. I got some produce from the Amish market on Saturday because I was suffering from fruit and veggie withdrawl. Now it's time to get some real food in here so MrC is taking me to the store right now!

I'm looking forward to...

2011-02-18T11:27:00.000-05:00

*Having a real mirror in a room with real lighting to take pictures in front of so I can stop with all the bathroom pics.

*Giving myself a much needed manicure this weekend. Teal nails have been calling my name!

*Sharing the story from beginning to end. Very soon.

*Letting my ma and sister feel BabyC move this weekend. He has some force behind his movements now. I feel him all the time. It's so much fun.

*Having pizza for lunch. I love pizza more than I could ever begin to describe!

*Finally getting groceries! We have pineapples, tortellini, and condiments in our fridge. The snack cabinet consists of lorna doones and nutella. I'm so ashamed, lol!

*Hearing that they accepted our offer. God, can you make that happen today please? Thanks.

*MrC getting a new job. He's been diligent getting his resume out there, it's time for things to happen. Hey God, let's add that to your to-do list for today too!

*Getting some pants that fit this weekend! I can still put on all my clothes but I can only zip my size 8 pants and I only have 2 pairs of those. Most are size 4 and 6 and they don't even begin to zip up anymore. I have a belly band but that thing doesn't seem to like my butt.

*scrapbooking with my sister this weekend. I need to get my pictures printed out!

What are you looking forward to?