Impending Baby Update

Yep, sorry, that's the best title I could come up with at the moment!  With 9 weeks to go... which can be really long or really short at the same time, as any pregnant person knows, Impending Baby is pretty much on our minds, well, all the time.

Especially when she has hiccups, which is twice a day at the very least and sometimes in the middle of the night.  Which, on a side note, is one of those very reasons why I just can't understand those "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" people... because between the constant and very noticeable movement and the daily hiccups that ALL my kids had in utero... I mean, how can you mistake that stuff for anything but a living tiny being?  They (the people that didn't know they were pregnant) seem to all say Gas, but if your Gas feels like that, you had better RUN, not walk, to the nearest doctor 'cause you got some major problems!

But anyway.

The Mom's sale that I am excited for can't come soon enough... it's all the way in mid-March, but I wish it were NOW so I could get those last few things and be DONE.

Some family dropped off some baby stuff (a lot of which used to be mine anyway... haha) for Impending Baby, except they both had boys, and I had given them boy stuff.  So... she owns a lot of Blue, and Camo, which is always okay by me.

I made sure the girl stuff was front and center for the picture...

Not that she needs a lot of girl color things, but maybe a few items to balance out all that Blue, which we'll grab for Mega-Cheap at the Mom's Sale.

Even with 9 weeks still to go, I find I have to hold myself back from installing the car seat and base in the car.  Just to cross that off, you know.

Name?  Well, not crossing that off for a while, I guess.  3 and 4 didn't get an official name until they were born, and since we don't even have so much as a list, it'll be the same thing this time.  There are ideas, sure, mostly from the kids, but they haven't made "The List" status, so don't get too excited.

Not much else in the Impending Baby department to discuss, except she's stealing my iron as I dropped 2.5 points since the end of October.  I haven't gained much weight but the belly is there, eating is still terribly disgusting all around, as usual during pregnancy I don't want food, but I get enough in and she takes enough of it, as she is estimated to be a perfect 50th percentile weight at her scan at 30 weeks and 5 days.

27 week belly

30 week belly... it's growing!

Ain't she cute?

Other January occurrences were our Big Ass Snowfall, which of course the kids thoroughly enjoyed.  RJ couldn't barely get around the day it came down so he and I weren't out all that much.  (Thank goodness... high-stepping through the darned snow was not high on my priority list.)  Riley stayed out until her hands were so cold and wet that she was in tears.   Sledding on the back hill was not great at first, due to the fluffiness of the snow, but as it started to melt in the sun and freeze overnight, it got much better after a few days.  

He got about 3 feet from the back door when I realized that unfortunately for me, I was gearing up and joining him.  Hoo-rah, folks, Hoo-rah.

Riley tries to make it up the hill.  More than half the snow hasn't even come down yet. 

View from the back door. 

Trudging up the sledding hill a few days later.

Geared up and ready. 

Inside snow play when the going outside gets too tough.  He had to pick out animals that lived in snowy places first before he could play with them.  

Corned Beef and veggies in the Crockpot, perfect for a snow day!

Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows is totally mandatory. 

Snow Cream for dessert.

And now it's February.  With 9 more weeks till Impending Baby and our return trip to Carseat, Diaper and Strollerville.

My Gifted Education Failed Me...

Early in school, I was suspected to be qualified for the Gifted Program.

But, as the story goes, I apparently suffered from Pogonophobia - in other words, I was afraid of beards and the people in them (mostly men, but you can never be too sure...).

I'm not sure how I survived, people, because it WAS the mid - 1980's, and men were covered in hairy mustaches and beards at every turn.

And, as you might guess as to where I'm going with this part of the story - the child psychologist for my school had a great, big beard and I guess that didn't fly with me.  So I wasn't tested until a few years later, and subsequently accepted into the Gifted Program.  In short, gifted was fun in elementary school, fun in middle school, and then they pull the plug out of the fun and call it things like "English Seminar" and just expect you to conform and join all the advanced placement classes.  This also did not go over well with me, but that story is for another time.  The only thing you need to have in mind when you read the remainder of this post, is that I was educated as a Gifted Child.  Don't forget that, okay?  It's entirely relevant.

At this point, Mom, my main reader and probably the one who accesses my page so often that it shoots my stats up in the triple digits per month, stop and relax a little!  As my main advocate during my school-age years, you might think that I think that you made the wrong decisions, since I named this blog "My Gifted Education Failed Me...."   Just keep reading, you'll see where I'm going.  You did perfectly fine, and I wouldn't change it for anything!!


My Gifted Education failed me because...

It has taken me 5 days to realize NOT to drink my tea at night.  Not just at night.  As in, I make it right before I go upstairs to bed, and I drink it while sitting in bed.

Sounds relaxing, right?

A good idea, perhaps?

Not when you're 28 weeks pregnant and have a baby playing trampoline on your bladder.

No, sir.

This is NOT an intelligent choice at all.

At first I thought, No Big Deal.  I'll drink one cup of tea, in a little bit I'll pee one time, then go to sleep for the night.

Let's remember, I'm one of the smart kids, right?

Remember now, this is NOT the first trimester where I'm getting up to pee all night.  We've left that arena, and I have been sleeping through peacefully for many weeks now.

Before the tea decision, of course.

After the 5th night of insanity, I took to pencil and paper to figure this out.  I needed to know the formula behind the variable "P," defined as the quantity of urine my body needed to put out in multiple trips to the toilet between the hours of 12 and 4 AM after consuming ONE cup of tea at bedtime.  It seemed entirely impossible (not to mention amazing) to produce that much of "P" from just ONE cup!

Here's what I came up with:

So now, obviously, I've learned to drink my tea at dinnertime.  Most nights, anyway.  

Keep On Truckin'

Well hi there!

I knew it'd been a while, but I didn't think it was THAT long of a while.

But it was.

And here we are.

Thanksgiving came and went.  We ate.  We were happy.  I made bone broth outta the big ole' bird, and we're still using it.  Most likely because I freeze most of the jars down in the basement fridge and promptly forget about them.  And also probably because I am not utilizing my crockpot for wintery-soupish-goodness like I should be (and if you didn't get the connection, the wintery-soupish-goodness would most likely use a liquid base, i.e. - bone broth in this house!).

But I DID just pull out some bone broth to have by itself to try to conquer the nasty-ass cold I suffered from the week after Roger got done with his heart shenanigans.  I'll get to that in a minute...

First, here's a peek at Thanksgiving (and bone broth!):

RJ's preschool Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving

Small kids' table

The Rogers sharing a piece of pie

Mmmm Bone Broth

So that was November, mostly.  We did a LOT of cool homeschool stuff in November, but I am considering making a side blog (linked to here, of course) to post just our homeschool stuff.  'Cuz I know my Mom likes to see that stuff... also because it's nice to have as a reference to look back on, and actually, according to the stats, there are quite a few people who check in here regularly (Hi!).  So, if you care about what we're doing over here for school, it'll be there, instead of mixed in with all our family stuff and whenever I decide to rant about things.

Here's some other randomness we did in November:

I made gluten-free sourdough bread!  With a starter and all.  GF bread just isn't the same as real bread, so I won't be doing this too often.  We actually don't eat much bread as a family anymore at all, which I think is a plus. 

These sisters got in trouble for still being up when they're supposed to be sleeping.

Chase's 7th & 8th Grade Band had a really cool Star Wars themed concert. 

And... we went to Home Depot!  Okay, fine, that happens ALL THE TIME. 

December was taken up mostly by Roger's cardiac ablation surgery, which, let me sum this up in the shortest way possible, was going great until they found other issues while in there with the catheters, and then so they took an extra long time and eventually decided that they should pass him on to a more experienced doctor down the big ole' city.  So the poor guy had 2 separate ablations performed, 5 days apart, with him having to LIE STILL (totally the worst part for this ever-moving guy), BUT... his heart is, dare I say, practically beating normally??  Why, yes it is!  It's so weird, actually, because he has always had this wonky, crazy all-over-the-place heartbeat as long as I've known him.  We'll see what comes of his follow up testing to get the real picture.  

Then Christmas!  

Grammy & Grandpop sent Riley and RJ the most fun gift... a book to open every day of December!  We had so much fun with this! 

Tricker, our Elf, even came to the hospital to watch over Roger.

Look at that regular old boring heart rhythm! Woohoo!

I took a picture of this sign, after traveling up and down by elevator 5 times to the cafeteria in half an hour... once for sushi, and 4 times for the frozen yogurt that my hungry husband kept asking for more of.  Not eating for 19 hours does not go over very well with him. 

We made chocolates. 

Overnight crockpot breakfast casseroles are our go-to when hosting family Christmas morning. 

Santa came! 

Christmas mess!  

Homeschool Blog link coming up soon.  I hope!