Baby Cuatro's Wishlist

I am very hesitant to put out a wishlist when this is my fourth child, and really, what do I not have that I would need?  But as my sister points out, the first two were a decade (and many safety recalls) ago, and the most recent addition was swathed in pink.  So in the interest of giving out some ideas to those who would like to celebrate Cuatro's appearance with a much-appreciated gift, here it goes:

• Sleepers in the NB, 0-3 and 3-6 month ranges.  Everything from Emily is pink, hearts, or flowers.  No gender neutral here.  And fall/winter babies need several snuggly soft sleepers.  I hit Once Upon a Child and "treated" myself to a couple of sleepers, but not enough to prevent doing laundry twice a day.
• Receiving blankets in boy colors.  Again, Emily can only contribute her pink and purple ones.  Was hoping for more of the green/blue/brown variety.
• Snugglebunny Fisher Price rock and play.  This is the one item I may buy if I don't get it as a gift.  I have read wonderful reviews about it.  We already own a good swing and bouncy seat, so this should wrap up the "baby gear" list.
• Boy accessories, like hats and soft, cuddly socks.  I am focusing on buying quality this time around--not that it will be used again (Egads!) but I love a comfortable baby in soft, cuddly clothes.
• As always--diapers, wipes, a handmade quilt (are you paying attention, Aunt Carrie?!) and many visits so that I can hand over this baby and take a shower or nap....whichever seems more pressing at the time! :)

Emily: 19 Months Old

 I know, a few days late, but when I'm not in school, I barely know the day of the week, let alone the date!  Emily has been making leaps and bounds in the development department.  She is talking sooo much now--she knows the names and sounds of a dozen animals, says "happy!", "I love you", "momma", and "dada" at appropriate times, and sometimes just jabbers away about nothing.  She has been showing interest in the potty--she follows me in constantly, loves to be the "flusher", and lets me know when she has used her diaper.  On a whim, we bought a froggy potty at Walmart just to see what she thought of it.  The first day we had it, Emily dragged it into the living room, pried her diaper and shorts off, and sat on it for almost a half hour.  Today, after her nap, she said "oh, pee!" while grabbing her diaper and tried to get her shorts and diaper off fast.  I helped her, then she ran off for the froggy potty and brought it in.  She sat for about thirty seconds and wouldn't you know it, she actually peed in the potty!  So maybe we will have an early trainer on our hands!
STATS:  Only one I remember from the doctor's office is her weight: 25 pounds, 14 oz.

F is for Failure

Had my monthly visit with Dr. E on Tuesday, and I finally wised up and asked for the first appointment of the day (since we're out of school).  I am officially up 6 pounds total and everything measured right on schedule. Baby's heartbeat was 150.  Lots of movement and little kicks.  Dr. E suggested I go ahead and take the glucose test (I was always going to have to take it early--you normally don't get take it until 28-30 weeks) since I was already there.  Her nurse called me yesterday to let me know I failed (big surprise) with a level of 160.  Not horrible, by the way!  So I'm officially checking blood sugar levels 4 times a day and writing down all food intake in a food diary.  Honestly, eating high protein/low carb makes me feel more energetic anyway and having to write it all down keeps me very accountable.  There's hope that it won't take me 6 months to get back in those pre-pregnancy jeans if I stick with my diet :)
Back to Dr. E for my next check up on July 13, and off to perinatalogy for a growth scan on July 31.  Baby boy was measuring a little big last time (almost a week over) so they want to keep an eye on size.

Just "Plane" Adorable Bedroom!

 With three days off work (school is over, robotics camp starts up next week) and Emily still in daycare (because I have 2 days of training and 5 days of camp coming up, and it didn't make sense to mess up the routine for just a few days) I decided to get some things wrapped up in the new baby's room.  Yes, I still have 18 weeks to go.  But my deadline is not 40 weeks--it's 32 weeks.   Because that's when I have to go back to work and there will be no time to do this room!  
What I thought would be an easy paint and border job turned ugly.  The previous owners used latex primer on all the wood trim, so it doesn't stick at all.  You can use your fingernail and peel off an entire section of paint!  So Tim and I had to scrap all of the woodwork before we could even get started.  Also, the previous owners had big storage towers from a closet system in the room and they cut out the baseboards to make the systems stand up against the walls.  So Tim is currently replacing two walls of baseboard trim.
Once we got the room scraped and primed, it was time to start painting.  I knew I wanted to do a border so we did two blues--Moroccan for the top and Blue Chaise for the bottom.  The airplane border goes with two very personal items for the baby's room:  2 airplane prints that were in my dad's room when he was growing up and 3 metal plane decorations that were in Timmy's room when he was a baby.

 I found this hand print and foot print set on sale at Walmart for $5.  It had monkeys on it, which didn't really work with the room.  So I peeled the monkeys off and used 3-D stickers of airplanes and clouds that I found at Hobby Lobby for a couple of bucks.  I thought it turned out great!

We installed a new ceiling fan (goodbye wicker and brass!) and I bought the valance from Amazon.  It was a little pricey but matched the colors in the room perfectly.  Now we just need to finish up the baseboards and reattach the closet doors.  Our crib will be coming with Aunt Carrie and the changing table is currently being stored at the in-laws' house (we stuck it there during the move).  Once the furniture is in place, I can add the last of the wall decorations....including his name ;)

Father's Day 2012

 We started our Sunday with breakfast at Timmy's favorite, Bob Evans.  Emily was an angel, smiling and waving at the older folks at the table next to us, sitting nicely in her booster seat, and eating all of our scrambled eggs and pancakes.

 Then it was off to the Home Depot for some trim and a new screwdriver!  We like to live large ;)  Emily was a little obsessed with the balloons they had tied everywhere, so a nice employee with a box cutter set one free for her.  I was very paranoid that she would let it go and wail as it drifted to the ceiling, so I tied it to the tape measure I keep in my purse.

Sunday night we had some friends over for a cookout.  They brought tons of food and Timmy was the grill master, so we stuffed ourselves silly.  Emily was very charming for everyone.  She danced and did the gestures to "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed" and ran away with everyone's sunglasses.  What a great weekend!

Momma Drinks: 22 Weeks

 I'm over 21 weeks, but not quite 22, so we'll go with the bigger number :)  Last of day of school today (yay!) and I'm very happy to have the summer to relax.  Not that there will be much relaxing with Emily running around, but maybe I'll get a break every once in a while since I've hired two previous students as babysitters for the summer.  The hydrangeas in my yard are probably shooting up steroids, they are so big!  One bush is about 12 feet tall!  So I thought I would share a couple pics of the lovely flowers in addition to my lovely belly.

With Emily, it wasn't extremely obvious that I was pregnant until I hit 30-32 weeks (by "obvious" I mean that strangers didn't mind asking about my pregnancy since they were sure I was not just a big fatty).  With this pregnancy, maybe it's the multiple kids or stretchy uterus, but I've been obviously showing for over a month now.  It's still a "cute" preggo belly--pretty centered in the middle of my belly region, all the weight gain (4 pounds!) just in the small volleyball area.  My feet aren't swelling that much yet and everything else still feels like it's normal sized.  
What's Next?  My next doctor visit is Tuesday (6/19) at 9 am.  We will be scheduling my glucose screening for next week too.  Then back to the perinatalogist for my growth scan on July 31st (possibly earlier and more frequently depending on how badly I fail this glucose test).  Unlike my past pregnancies, I've actually been following the diabetes diet pretty closely for the past couple of months, with the occasional slip up of bad carbs (ice cream before bed, or a piece of candy from my stash in my work desk).  So maybe I won't fail that badly this time or at all!  But with my history, I'm still going to get more biophysical profiles and scans--but who doesn't love seeing the baby on the screen?!

Dare to Compare

Now that we've had the anatomy scan, everyone wants to know if this pregnancy feels "different" since we're having a boy after having a girl.  Well, I have noticed several differences, even though these would be specific to me, and probably not to the general population.  And no, the heartbeat has never been an indicator for me--it was the same for Emily and this baby from the get go--175 at the start, dropping to 150-ish by 15 weeks, and around 140 by the 20 week mark. 
And the thing is, I have known without a doubt that this baby is a boy from the minute that test showed me 2 lines on Valentine's Day.  Mother's intuition?  Probably.  Because it's not that I was hoping and praying for a boy--believe me, with all the girl stuff we have, I would have been great with another girl--it's just that I never wavered from the absolute truth that this baby would be male.  So maybe I noticed the differences between the pregnancies more clearly because of knowing that I was having a different sex before the technician waved her magic wand.
I can sum up the differences in three words:  hair, smells, and crying.
1)  HAIR:  With Emily, I had that "glow".  My hair grew 3 feet in those 9 months (not really, but it seemed that way!).  It was shiny, silky, never frizzy.  With this pregnancy, my hair is falling out at a rate that would equal baldness in about a year and a half.  It's not that shiny, it's in a ponytail most days since it's not that lustrous, and there's no "glow".
2)  SMELLS:  With all of my pregnancies, some smells were commonly bad, whether it was a boy or girl:  no meat cooking, no burning stuff, and....did I mention the meat?!  Bacon, hamburger, sausage, it was ALL bad and sent me running to the toilet for some quality bowl hugging time.  But with Emily, those aversions started to calm down by 15 weeks and pretty much stayed away.  With this one, I can smell a brush fire from 5 miles away and it completely shuts me down.  In the car, I'm like "Tim!  Do you smell that?!  Oh, god, that's awful!  Oh, I can't take it!" and he usually responds something like "We drove past the county dump 17 miles ago, you gotta calm down".  Let's just say that my sense of smell has become (and stayed) extremely sensitive.
3) CRYING:  Yes, I was emotional at the beginning of my pregnancy with Emily because of the rush of hormones.  But with a boy, I am off the charts.  Every commercial causes me to tear up:  the Beneful commercial with the black lab chasing the tennis ball, the Pampers "every baby is special" one, previews for "A Baby Story", etc.  Country songs on the radio get me going, and don't get me started about the "love that got away" songs....I am a disaster.  When Emily skins a knee or gets her booster shots, I have had to leave the room in tears.  It's just pitiful!  And I'm dehydrating!

Oh Boy!

 We had the anatomy scan today and everything was great!  All parts are developing as they should and right on schedule.  All measurements were between 19.5 and 21 weeks.  Baby's heartbeat was 136.  The doctor's office was running almost two hours behind because they had a fetal echocardiologist using one of the rooms and seeing his own list of patients.  We were afraid we would have to leave Caroline behind because she was in the middle of her math SOL test when I went to pick up the kids for the appointment, but luckily, with the wait, Timmy was able to run back to King George to get her and Emily.  So all of the kids were there for the big reveal! 

 Close up of baby's foot.  See the toes in the left picture?  The foot is aiming towards the left.

 Side profile.  Baby was very good about staring straight into the screen but was very stubborn about giving us the side view.  I had to move around and use the potty just to get the baby to shift sides.

Drum roll please......it's a boy!  I saw the "winkie" floating around between the wide open legs before the tech could say anything!  In the picture above, you have a wonderful view of the twig and berries (butt to the right, legs pointing towards the left).  Mother's intuition told me from Day One that this one was a boy.  Timmy just couldn't believe it.  And the kids were soooo excited!  

Caroline's 10th Birthday!

 I almost titled this post "Caroline:  120 Months"!  Caroline's birthday is actually today (June 5th) but we wanted to visit the American Girl store in DC so we celebrated this weekend.  Caroline invited her BFF Lauren B. for the festivities.  We sat in traffic on Saturday morning for over 2 hours due to the fact that 495 was bottle necked down to one lane for "construction" (is that what we call it when 18 guys watch 2 guys do all the work??).  Tempers were flaring (mainly mine) and some choice words may have been yelled at the stopped cars (probably me). 

 But we got there and had a beautiful lunch!  Candice the waitress earned her big tip by being the best waitress ever and she made Caroline feel very special (birthday sticker, singing happy birthday, candle in her milkshake, etc).

 CJ enjoyed herself and demanded a couple of outfits from the new summer line.

 Then we went to the neighborhood pool for the first time and headed back home to celebrate with a cookout and ice cream cake!

 Caroline makes a big wish for a unicorn....

 Did I mention that everyone enjoyed the cake?

 Caroline was one lucky birthday girl--she got tons of presents!  Timmy and I gave her a nightgown, beading loom set (to make bracelets), a Casio keyboard and stand, and a gift certificate to the American Girl store.  Cammy brought a dress (in pic above) and ordered a bathing suit set. 

 Caroline was especially tickled by Aunt Kiwi's presents!  LOTS of beautiful new clothes and a handmade quilted pillow with her name on it!

 Did I mention that Caroline was super excited about her new pillow??

Emily had to get in on the pillow love too!