The End is in Sight!!

I went to the OB for a check up today. Since I never envisioned that I'd make it to 38 weeks, it was kind of surreal to be there for that appointment. I had already decided that we'd have to discuss inducing labor because I'm concerned about the size of the baby. I really didn't even have to bring it up. Dr. Spirek walked in, took a look at my swollen face and said, "I don't like how swollen you are. You make me think preeclampsia(which means dangerously high blood pressure.) Although my blood pressure has been normal/borderline high, I am exhibiting some of the other symptoms of preeclampsia and I think she's just starting to worry a little about it. I told her my concerns about having a big baby and needing a c-section to deliver and she assured me that she was NOT planning on letting me go 40 weeks with this pregnancy. I was so stressed out telling her about how sick I've been feeling and about how stressed I've been about the move that I just started crying. I'm really not much of a cryer, but I think that the stress in combination with two really crummy night's sleep just put me over the edge. I think the doctor was a little taken aback and she decided to go ahead and just schedule me for an induction. SO, I'm currently scheduled to go in late Monday night and get started on an IV to induce labor. She'll come in early Tuesday morning and break my water, and hopefully we'll have a baby by Tuesday afternoon!! All this depends on whether our little guy decides to make an appearance on his own. I'm still 3 cm dilated, so I guess it's always a possibility. Anyway, this time next week, I'll be holding my baby. It gives me a lot of relief to know that there is an end in sight and I don't have to be miserable much longer!

These pictures are from Monday, my birthday. We went to Cracker Barrel in the morning with my Mom to celebrate. Maura was so much more interested in the crayons than she was in posing. She loved the strawberry pancakes, though!

That evening, Brent, Maura and I went out to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. It's been nice not having to cook while I feel so uncomfortable. This is Maura "smiling."

This is Maura's "turn around with it(meaning the camera) face." Maura had a ball eating all my salad bar food! I love that this child loves fruits and veggies. Recently she's started eating(and loving) salad. She calls it "crunchies." The first night, she started pointing and asking for crunchies. Since neither Brent nor I could decipher what in the world "crunchies" could be, we started pointing to everything on the table. Finally, we had to just ask her what crunchies are. She got a funny look on her face and said, "Umm, umm, umm...SALAD!" She sounded like a foreigner who is having difficulty translating a word into English and says, "how you say this in English?" It was so funny. She's been eating salad ever since.

Brent with his beloved hamburger and french fries. I just about fall out of my chair if Brent ever orders anything other than a hamburger at an American style eatery! What can I say, he's a man of habit. I was glad he got to enjoy his hamburger on my birthday.


Here's my sweet cuddle bug. She's started to really enjoy kisses. We'll ask her for kisses and she'll deliver and then she says, "I love kisses!" She's also started saying, "I love Mommy," and "I love Daddy," "I love the kitty." It's too sweet and heart melting. Also, Brent says to her every night before bed, "I love you very much, and I will always love you no matter what you do." Now, every night, Brent starts with "I love you very much and I will always love you," and Maura ends it with "No matter what you do." It makes me teary eyed just to think about it!

Here's looking at you, kid!!

This is the face that Maura made when the baby at the next table started crying. It was so funny. The baby was just a little hungry, but Maura was extremely concerned. I wonder what she's going to do when the baby brother REALLY cries!?!

Little cheese ball! This is the goofy smile that we now get when we ask her to smile for the camera. It's also the face that she makes every time she looks in the mirror, and she wants me to make the same face.

This is when we asked her about what she'll do when the baby brother cries. She got VERY serious and had to think about it for awhile and then she said, "Not going to poke him." My coaching is getting through!! We've been discussing gentleness and hugs and kisses and not poking the baby. It'll be so interesting to see how she reacts to this baby. I know she'll love her brother in the long run, but it may take some adjustment when she realizes that this baby is NEVER GOING AWAY! I can hardly wait to be home as one big family of four!

Happy Birthday to miserable me!!

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. Yes, I've officially reached that age at which you can never really be considered "young" again. I remember meeting people in their thirties while I was in high school and thinking how OLD they were. I realize, now, that 30 isn't so old, but it isn't so young either! It's just hard to believe that it's ME turning 30! I think back to all the things I thought I might have accomplished by now, and I don't think I've done most of them. I have accomplished some of the most important things on my list, though, such as get married to a wonderful man and have children(well, almost plural). I will say that the one thing that I really thought would have happened by now has definitely not. That thing is delivering this baby! I truly, truly thought that I would have this baby before my birthday. At the time of this post, it's a little after 9pm and it's looking pretty doubtful that this little guy is going to make an appearance in less than three hours. So, I'll never be able to say that I had two children before I turned 30! I feel like since it's almost my birthday, I've got the right to complain just a little. I have reached that terrible miserable point in the pregnancy. I thought I was miserable last week, but I was wrong--it's gotten worse. For the past three days, I've been nauseated and unable to eat or drink very much. My ribs and back are sore and I'm crampy all the time. I have zero energy and even less enthusiasm! I'm SOOO ready to meet this little guy--and I'm still two and a half weeks away from my due date. What am I going to do??? I really thought I might be going into labor on Friday night because I had contractions for about 1 1/2 hours, but then they went away. How disappointing!! Anyway, I guess that's enough pity party for now.

We opted to celebrate my birthday with my family tonight because we could eat earlier and enjoy our visit more. We went over to my parents house for a yummy dinner and lots of presents. Here's my cute girl with me on my birthday. When I told her we were going to Mommy's birthday party, she said, "We're going to Mommy and Maura's party." She was absolutely convinced that it was her party too!

Maura and Grammy. I wish we could at least coax a fake smile out of her, but it's just not going to happen right now. She's way more interested in seeing the finished picture than she is in the process of taking it!

Enjoying our dinner(or as much of it as I could actually eat). Notice my face is swelling. My hands, face and ankles always seem to swell at the end of my pregnancies. NOT pretty.

Maura helping me blow out the candles on my birthday pie. Candles are the thing she's most interested in when it comes to birthdays. She talks about them for days afterwards.

Me and my sweetie. OK, you can really see the swelling in this picture. It's amazing how different I look just about two weeks after I give birth.

Lorie and Micah got me these cool new crocs sandals. They're super comfy and I probably will live in them when we get down to Georgia. From what I hear, flip flops are the ONLY shoes in summer there!!

My mom made me some beautiful fabric luggage. I think I might just have to repack my hospital bag now(which has, by the way, been packed for three weeks. Anxious, anyone?)

Maura and her "yittle" bibles. These are probably her favorite thing to play with at my parent's house. She says that the red one is Grammy's and the green one is Maura's. They always "read" John 3:16 together.

Finally a DVD recorder. We've tried multiple times to buy one and have always been thwarted. We're hoping that we'll finally be successful in taping things off our DVR and transferring some of our videos. YAY, thanks Brent!!

OK, below are some super cute pictures of my girl that I couldn't resist adding in.

We were all out in the yard yesterday taking care of some yard errands. Brent was trimming, I was weeding and Maura was "helping," which basically meant that she was walking around and touching all the flowers. All of the sudden, she started talking about kissing the flowers. She would bend down and kiss each tulip. Needless to say, it was absolutely adorable. As she was dressed in her scrubby lawn clothes and my camera was ALL THE WAY upstairs, I opted for a reprise today so I could take some pictures. Here's Maura enjoying the garden.

We've tried explaining that flowers are supposed to stay in the garden so that they can make us happy and we can enjoy looking at them, but this little tulip was just a little too tempting.

Going in for a kiss. She loves balancing on the landscaping rocks and playing with the flowers. She's pretty good about being gentle and just gently touching them all.

My little flower child.

My lavender bush bloomed this year for the first time in the five years that we've lived here. We're really enjoying it, and Maura is loving to smell the flowers.

I wish we could always be so young and carefree that we stop to smell(and kiss) the flowers.

First Swim of the Season

Well, it's the end of April, so it must be time for...swimming!! Yesterday it was in the high 70's and I was ROASTING while we were playing out in the yard. Today, while Maura napped, I got out the pool, fooled around with the stupid pump for about a half hour and finally got the wretched thing blown up!! I filled it a little too, so it wouldn't be frigid by the time Maura used it. When she woke up from her nap I asked if she wanted to go outside and swim in her little pool. She was so excited that she actually started jumping up and down. My girl is a water bug!! We couldn't get that swimsuit on fast enough and she was standing anxiously by the door as I finished grabbing all the things we would need in the backyard. She tore out the door and was in the pool in about five seconds flat!

Our friends Emily, Sydney and Shauna called just as we were walking out the door and came over to join us on our first swim. Emily and Maura had an awesome time splashing around together.

It was Sydney's first real swim. She's gone to the pool with her parents before, but never been able to sit alone and play. She loved it, despite all the splashing that was going on.

My wild child taking a breather from all her splashing. She ran from one end of the pool to the other, splashing and "pretending" to fall down.

Don't these kiddos look like they're having a ball?

We're so excited that warm weather is finally here so we can enjoy water play. Maura spent time in the pool nearly every day last summer and I certainly don't expect that to change, especially in the tropics of Georgia!

Sydney loves the water!!

What a cool character. I bought her these new glasses from Gymboree. She LOVES sunglasses, which is really funny for a child who won't really wear hats. I guess she likes looking like Mommy--I don't go out without my sunglasses.

Stylin' and profilin.' We thoroughly enjoyed our first swim and I've already promised that we'll go again tomorrow!

Out and About

As my due date approaches, I'm getting anxious about being house bound with a newborn and a two-year old, so we've been making plans to meet friends and get out of the house. It's my last chance for freedom for awhile! On Tuesday, we met our friends Julie and Lainey at one of our favorite places--the Children's Museum. We had so much fun playing together. Julie is another stay-at-home mom and we've been planning to get together for a play date for the past year. I'm glad we finally made it happen--I just wish we hadn't taken so long to get together.

The girls loving the river table. How can you beat getting a chance to splash in some water. The girls loved floating their boats.

Lainey just a splashin'. It's such a change for me to photograph a child who will actually look at you and smile when a camera comes out. Maura could take some lessons! Lainey will turn two in a little over a month.

The girls cruising together. So cute. They both loved this John Deere gator. I think they wished it would actually go somewhere, though.

Maura's absolute favorite exhibit--the Bubble room. When I told her we were going to the Children's Museum in the morning, the first thing she said was, "play in the bubble room?" She loves bubbles and especially loves that she can do all this by herself. That's VERY important to her these days. She could spend hours at this big bubble table just dipping her wand in the bubbles. Standing beside her in that picture was a tremendously annoying kindergartener. I had to keep telling him to leave her alone and stop grabbing her wand. It seems like every time we go to the museum lately there's a huge group of annoying children. I think I'm going to have to start calling before we go in order for my two year old to have a fighting chance to play on the exhibits.

Julie and Lainey enjoying the full body bubble. Lainey loved this. Maura doesn't care as much for it because it involves standing still!

Lots of fun "flying" the plane. We even had lunch together after the trip to the museum. It was just a really fun day out.

Fun At Liam's Party

We were invited to a birthday party for our little friend Liam on Saturday. Farmer Liam had a really cute farm themed birthday and the kids had a ball playing at his party. Here's the highlights.

Liam loved his cake--he wanted to pull each and every piece off it. I held his hands while we sang "Happy Birthday" to avert any crushed cake/burnt finger catastrophes! When his mom, Amy, took the cake away, he cried. It's hard being two and not exactly understanding what's going on!

Our friends Jeremiah, Dawn and Lily. Jeremiah was demonstrating proper party blower blowing technique. Lily was fascinated.

The best picture I could get of Liam. He's actually harder to photograph than Maura! I took the opportunity to take a pic while he was lying on the floor!

My little cutie pie. She loved all the farm themed toys and bugs and snakes. She's going to love having a little boy around the house so she'll have boy toys to play with. She LOVED the tent that they had set up and she's still talking about how it fell over!

We love parties!! Maura really enjoyed her cake and ice cream too!

Belly shots

For some odd reason, as I get closer to the end of each pregnancy, I become so nostalgic about being pregnant, and a little sad that it's coming to an end. I don't LOVE being pregnant, but there are aspects about it that I love. I love feeling my baby move inside of me and knowing that it's depending on me to keep it safe and healthy. I love the sense of well being that I have while I'm pregnant and the expectation of all the wonderful things to come. I love the thought of getting to meet my little one in a few short days or weeks and all that comes with that. So, despite the fact that I wasn't going to do belly shots with this pregnancy, I became a little sad at the thought of not documenting how I looked while carrying my little boy and how sweet my girl is when she kisses and hugs her baby brother. Optimally, I would have decided all of this about two weeks ago, BEFORE all the ugly stretch marks appeared on my belly! This is new territory for me--I didn't stretch with Maura, but this baby is coming WAY out! So, stretch marks and all, I had my sister, Lorie take some pictures of Maura and my belly. I know you all love me out there enough to look past the stretch marks and see how sweet the pictures turned out.

Maura giving the baby "brudder" a big hug. She frequently hugs my belly and talks about the baby "brudder" coming to live in the baby brother's room.
Not really sure why this picture turned out so tiny, but it's a good example of what Maura does every time I ask where the baby brother is. She comes over and lifts up my shirt to expose my belly, then points directly at my belly button. Apparently that's how he got in there, and that's how he'll get out!

Maura pointing at my belly button. It's actually pretty cute. I had a small accident while cooking awhile back and underestimated how close my belly was to the stove when I lifted a pot lid. The steam scalded a small place on my belly which has now healed over and scarred a bit. Now, when Maura sees it, she goes "Aww, I burned my belly," and she wants to give it a kiss.

Baby brother hug. It's hard to capture on film, because the hugs last about .2 seconds.

Quick kisses. Hopefully she'll be interested in kissing the baby brother after he's actually born too. I think she knows there is going to be a baby brother, but I'm not sure if she understands the reality of him being here to stay--forever!

Sweet girl and Mommy. I love how sweet and expressive she's becoming. She's a little personality and she knows what she wants these days. She's becoming VERY opinionated about dressing and will tell me, "No like that one, pick another shirt." Dressing is becoming MUCH more difficult these days. We just have to find ways to compromise.

Officially the silliest picture we took! We bribed her with dried pineapple to get her to even participate in the photo shoot and here she was asking for more. I told her that Mommy tastes like pineapple and she licked me!! What a goof!

Warily eyeing the tummy. Keeping an eye on that baby brother, perhaps? Maybe a preview of coming attractions.

My sweet girl is very sparing with her kisses, so we treasure each one we get!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I'm glad now that I had Lorie take them. I always want to remember what it felt like to carry this baby and love him before he was even born.