Amy

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I went back to the dr on Wed. She said I am a fingertip dilated, still 50% effaced and the baby is at -1 station. She told me if I were to go into labor in the next week, she would put me on meds, but after that, she’d let the baby come. So, here we are at Friday night and nothing so far. I am still having quite a bit of contractions but I try to get off my feet and drink water when I have more than 2 in an hour. I don’t know if they’re technically called Braxton Hicks contractions since I know for sure I’m actually progressing from them, but I’m not in active labor, so I guess they might be. I am seriously doubting I will be lasting until 40 weeks but I don’t expect anything to happen in the next few weeks.

I’ve had a terrible time with heartburn, foot and leg cramps and general sleeping problems in the past week. Last night my calf completely locked up. I don’t think I’ve ever went from sleeping to standing up so quickly in my life. Even Scott woke up and asked if I was ok. Which I wasn’t for a few seconds there. I could not even move my muscle. I’m getting quite uncomfortable even in my maternity clothes. I was aching to be in my pj’s this evening. Where there was absolutely nothing stretching over my belly. Even though I know it’s too early for the baby to come, I would be okie dokie with not being pregnant at this point. It’s gotten to the uncomfortable stage and I’ll definitely be ready for her to come, even if it’s only a week or two early instead of 6 or 7.

I got Emma’s 0-3 mo clothes out and in Lexi’s drawers and closet. I haven’t washed them yet, I want to wait until it is a little closer. Last night we finished registering at Babies R Us. There was more to register for than I thought. I thought we had everything but there were some non-essentials we scanned. We also picked out her coming home outfit and her First Christmas outfit. Both are pretty cute, but for the price, they ought to be! Babies R Us makes way too much money off of their stuff!

I briefly talked to S, H’s mom from Columbia. She just had her new baby 2 weeks ago. H is still proving to be brilliant. She is not even 2 yet and counts in English AND Spanish, says her ABC’s, can spell several words and if I heard her right, she can write her name. It wouldn’t surprise me. Wow! Emma knows her colors, can say “a-b-c”, and can pronounce all the numbers (and knows when there are 2 of something) and letters, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten with that.

I think Emma is going to potty train herself. Before or after bath time she has been very interested in sitting on her potty and this past week, went several nights in a row. The other day I was changing her diaper and told her if she wanted to poop, she could tell me and we would go in her potty. Not 5 minutes later, she came over and held her diaper and said poop and we ran to her potty were she promptly pooped! I was so surprised. She hasn’t gone in the potty at all since then, but it is great that she is not afraid of it and it was her idea to go. I’m definitely not pushing the matter, but if she wants to go, then so be it.

Scott got switched to another shift at work. Same days, but opposite shift as what he is now which means he will be on nights for two months instead of one. Yucky. And he has heard nothing but bad things about the guys on the new shift. Great.

I’m having a contraction. Gotta go lie down.

We’re actually headed off to dinner with D&D in a few. Scott took Emma to MIL for the evening and we’re actually going on a double date! First one in a while. D will have her 3 month old but she’s as easy as pie.

I’m supposed to be off of my feet “as much as I can” but that really hasn’t happened too much. I went to the dr on Tuesday morning for my check up and then Tuesday afternoon because I had some bloody discharge and was noticing the braxton hicks contractions too. She checked me and I was closed but I got checked again on Thurs to make sure and I was still not dilated, but I was 50% effaced and the dr did say the baby’s head seemed set in place. I think she set lodged. I think she was meaning engaged but maybe didn’t say it so it wouldn’t scare me?? I was supposed to stay off my feet this weekend and drink lots of water and I have to go back next Wednesday for another checkup. I’m fine with this baby coming early, I’m just not fine having her now. It’s way too early and I don’t want to be stuck in the hospital for who knows how long with them trying to stop contractions. And it certainly isn’t to that point. I mean, just being effaced is not a biggy, I’m just concerned with progressing anymore.

I hate when I wait so long to post. Now I have lots of stuff to talk about and not enough time in one sitting to get it all out. Well, the big thing this past week is we went to stay at Mom and Dad’s new “mountain house” in Maryland. They bought a second house in the city my dad is from and near where all of my extended family lives. To try to beat the hurricane last week, we decided to leave early on Thursday. We didn’t get out of town until 6pm and I thought it would be a good thing because (hehe) Emma was going to sleep at her regular bed time at 9 and would sleep the rest of the way. Uh no. Well, I did get the bed time right but she only slept until 11 when we had to stop and then stayed awake until we got there at 2am. And then, we had to unload the trailer and set up all the beds and didn’t get to sleep until 3:30-4am and she was still AWAKE. And THEN woke up at 6:30am. And THEN didn’t take a nap until 1pm on Friday. Uh yeah, we were tired. Thankfully, there was enough of us that we could take turns on Friday taking naps. She wasn’t that bad in the car. She cried several times but overall, I would say she didn’t really well for such a long drive. But man, we were all tired from entertaining her the whole time. I couldn’t tell you how many times we sang Ring around the Rosies and Miss Mary Mack.

The week went well. Scott and Dad worked their butts off on the house all week. Emma kept Mom busy. Heather and I scrapbooked when we had any break of 30 minutes or more. And the family dropped in every day to visit. It was SO nice to stay at the house with no other family and to have the family come to us instead of us staying in the car half the day. Emma actually got her normal nap all but one day. Which I was really worried about knowing from previous trips how crazy our days could be.

Emma got in a “fight” with my two cousins, 6 and 2. She actually pushed the 6 year old down and the 2 year old brother got mad so he pushed her and then Emma was pushing both of them. The 6 year old thought it was great and was laughing the whole time but the 2 year old was taking it very seriously that his brother was getting pushed. It was really cute actually. She of course got the no pushing talk when it was over. She also got to play with my 3 yo and 4 yo girl cousins. She really liked them but I don’t know how much they liked her. The 4yo tried to take Emma’s baby in the baby stroller and Emma had an absolute coniption. She sat down on the floor and balled her eyes out, yelling baby, baby. I felt really bad for her because I know she was “concerned” for baby but she really has to learn to share. She is not good at it in general and this was probably the worst episode of non-sharing yet. I know she will learn, but apparently not without some emotional scars along the way.

Emma’s vocabulary seemed to flourish while we were gone. She said gate and clothes and even said a little sentence one day. She said, “Pap, ball, get it.” And she really meant for my dad to get the ball she had just thrown. She has learned big and what it means. She will say big bubble or big plane. She knows some colors, brown, blue, green, purple, pink, red, orange. Not all the time though. She misses the mark sometimes but her favorite seems to be blue. That one is usually right. She knows two and when there are two of something. When she has two babies, she’ll say two babies. She can’t count to two, but she sure knows what two means. She has started just in the last day or two to say A and B. It seems as if when I start singing the alphabet she starts babbling some letters. She has learned what “poot” is. Which with her daddy, it is reinforced constantly (rolling eyes). Tonight was funny. Tomorrow I am giving a bridal shower for my other friend getting married and MIL told her they would go shopping tomorrow. Emma says, “mart!” Meaning, Wal-Mart. We don’t go there that often do we?? She also learned ice cream at the mountains. She said cookie today which I know is usually one of the first words babies learn, but I don’t give her a lot of them, so I guess that’s why. And she definitely knows park and knows what one looks like. Any time we pass an actual park or a church with a sliding board, it’s park! park! park! She likes the swings and sliding board the best. This week was cow. There are cows everywhere up there and she wanted to see them. Ever other second was cow! cow! cow! She is bossy as ever. Telling people when to come on and when to sit down, when to eat.

This week at the mountains we visited the coal miner’s site and the 9-11 PA crash site. I thought I would be overwhelmed like my sister was at the 9-11 site but after seeing ground zero, I don’t know, I guess nothing can compare. It was quite saddening to think that’s where people’s brother, sister, mother, father passed on. The thing I was amazed at is how close the plane came to hitting a city. It wasn’t a big city but only a mile or less away were places even more people could have gotten hurt.

One more weird thing from this week. I woke up I think Wednesday morning at about 5 and really felt like I needed to pray for someone. So I did. Then I went in and checked on Emma and I felt one side of her and then the other and couldn’t find a breath. I lifted up her arm and it fell down without any kind of resistence. Which is kind of weird for her. My stomach jumped in my throat and I started to pick her up and she moved her head from one side to the other. I still don’t know whether I was praying for someone else or it really was Emma I was praying…whether I was just feeling her at all the wrong spots and was just paranoid. I don’t know. In any case, it scared me really badly and I couldn’t quit crying when I went back to bed. Scott was awake when I went back to bed and I told him. It scared him too so we went and got Emma and she slept the rest of the morning with us.

As I mentioned, tomorrow I am helping give a bridal shower tomorrow. Last one for awhile now I hope. Since we have been out of town, I spent today getting EVERYTHING ready. I’m exhausted now. Scott is on call for work for the hurricane again. He may have to leave at 8am for the coast. He’s getting off early tonight because of that and at this point, I may as well wait up for him. I think I finished everything for the shower that I can tonight.

I guess I should slip in something about the pregnancy. I am 31 weeks now and have gained over 20 lbs. I feel like it. I get out of breath SO easily. The baby feels like she must be 5 feet tall in there when she gets moving. Scott felt it the other week and said it felt like she was moving furniture in there. That statement made me laugh but more than that, I loved that he felt so much movement. He kind of validated all this uncomfortable-ness I’ve been feeling. Mom and Heather felt it too this week and Heather couldn’t believe she was making that much movement. It’s weird when you start feeling elbows and knees and heads and butts moving when before it was a little tiny kick that seemed like a toothpick was trying to poke. We are having such a time with this baby’s name. I’m tired of fighting with everyone about her name just being Lexi instead of Alexis. Dad wants Lexi Kate and wants to call her Katie. Fine, I’ll name her Alexis Kate and you can call her Alex, Lexi, Alexis, Lexis, Kate, Katie, Ally. I don’t care. I’ve already got it ingrained that her name is Lexi and that’s what I call her without even thinking now. No, for real, though. I really am having such a hard time with it. I even broke down and bought a baby name book this week.

I found Emma a quilt for her toddler bed (which we don’t have yet). Mom and Dad are bringing my cousin’s dresser/changing table and a new white rocker back from Maryland so I can start organizing her room a little. I keep getting so scared when I think of having this baby. I am totally overwhelmed at the thought of taking care of two children. Just the thought of having the go through the whole baby stage is just, well, depressing. Babies are as cute as buttons and sweet as angels when they are little but darn, they are a lot of work. There are times every once in a while that I get really excited about it and can’t wait to have her here and then there are others like when I have to get Emma ready for bed by myself that I just don’t know how I’m going to handle it. And I for some reason seem to be avoiding the whole work situation. Besides Scott’s grandmother, we still don’t have any childcare worked out for when I go back to work. I know she is available but she already watches one boy full-time and two other smaller grandchildren on an as needed basis and I just don’t want to give the poor woman another full-time child to watch. And I really don’t want to start it again because once you start, it is hard to explain why you’re stopping. Mom was supposed to contact a customer who formerly was going to watch Emma before we moved. I haven’t heard anything on that though. I don’t know, I just feel so unprepared for this baby. And she’s coming right after both of these weddings this fall and right after (or before) Emma’s birthday and right before Christmas. Scott was already talking about me fitting in some dress for his Christmas party. Um, no. I just can’t wait until I hold her and realize that she’s one of the most precious things in this whole wide world and no matter what I have to do, I’ll make sure it all works out.

We’re up in Maryland this week. Have lots to write, but not now. Later gator.

Time seems to be going by in a flurry. I can’t even remember what we’ve done. Oh yeah, Thursday we got Emma’s ears pierced. Friday/Saturday we went out of town for my friend’s wedding. Since then, we’ve been busy around the house.

Emma’s ear piercing was a complete on the fly thing. SIL has been mentioning it for a year now and Scott and I were at the mall on Thursday by ourselves. Emma was in a good mood and for some reason, I was feeling courageous for the both of us. So, we did it. She cried after about 5 seconds and then really cried. She leaned her head over on Scott who was standing in front of us and the girl got the other ear. She cried even harder but then we gave her a lollipop and then it was ok. She has asked for them off several times since then and I almost caved in every time. There was no real reason for her pain or aggravation! But now, I don’t want her to have to do this twice. Her one ear is getting a little red and she cries when we try to clean it. Hopefully it will all heal ok. She does look awfully cute with the CZs sparkling!

The wedding was surprisingly excellent…I even enjoyed myself. I was a little worried for awhile. The bridesmaid’s lunch was at her aunt’s house and they had all kinds of yummy food. Some kind of chicken with coleslaw thing. I should have gotten the recipe. Then we had the rehearsal that afternoon. Somewhat boring as we just went up and down the aisle twice. The rehearsal dinner was great! We ate at the only restaurant on the mountain and it was SO good. Each person chose between 3 dinners. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Lots of toasts given and the FOB wrote and sang my friend a song. Saturday we got up really early to eat and go get our hair done. At first, I actually told the lady I didn’t like my hair. With such short hair, it was kind of limiting to what they could do. So we were going to do a few spiral curls on top but she ended up doing all of long hair curly. I told her it was way too much. I looked like a 12 year old. So, she straightened the hair around my face and it ended up really cute. We ate lunch back up on the mountain and then got ready at a lady’s house near the chapel. All the problems started then when one of the bridesmaid’s dress wouldn’t go on. We ended up having to sew and pin the dress together 5 minutes after the wedding was supposed to start. At the same time, my friend’s wedding dress was not fitting the same. Maybe she had lost weight or something but the dress was sagging some. She was halfway walking on her dress the rest of the day. But she didn’t trip on it or anything. So the ceremony was only 20 minutes, not much to talk about. Scott and I left the reception a little early, like 7:30. It was a nice reception but we were just sitting there mainly as everyone else danced. We stayed until all the traditional stuff had been done, but then left to get home to Emma. But they had to keep her awake because we were delayed when we blew a tire on the interstate on the way home.

Lexi has been moving an awful lot the past two days. Yesterday I could barely do anything without being kicked or stretched out. I’m also having a few Braxton Hicks contractions every day. I don’t remember them this early or strong with Emma.

Tonight we went to a coworker’s of Scott’s house. He helped them put up crown moulding. Well, actually, they bought the wrong thing and they ended up putting up chair moulding. They cooked us dinner. Emma played with their 10 year old. She LOVED her trampoline. Which is odd because I just said yesterday to Scott I never wanted one of those in my back yard. I may end up eating those words.

We had a good friend that used to go to our church suddenly get killed yesterday. He was about 40 years old, married with 3 kids ranging from about 6-16. He owns a construction business and was moving a ladder around a house and it struck power lines and killed him. We are all shocked by the news. He was a fantastic guy and I feel so horrible for his family.

The end of another long weekend. Scott worked and the weekend always drags by when he isn’t running around everywhere. His mom and dad came over Saturday. Emma cried big crocodile tears when they left. So she was quite happy to find them back at the house for dinner. We went to Wal-Mart where MIL got her the ATM. It really works. You have to put in a card and a PIN to get the bank to open. She has played with nothing else since bringing it home. I really wouldn’t mind it so bad if she could learn her numbers, learn how to use them in a sequence and then learn how to turn the dial to open the bank all by herself. Today we went to church and then to Scott’s grandmother’s for chicken and dumplings for his cousin’s birthday. Yum. Emma thought so too. She was a wild maniac. Big time show off in front of everyone. She was dancing and jumping and screaming and running and everything. She has taken to calling me Amy all the sudden. It’s about half and half with Mommy now. She has gotten very clear at saying Mommy instead of Mammie but the past week or so she has learned mine and Scott’s names and tends to call me Amy, especially when she is telling me to do something (which is about the only time she wants to talk to me). She has learned a few more words. She says round and happy when she plays with her Little People school bus. I think she knows the colors blue, green and maybe yellow and red. And tonight I asked her how many baby dolls she was playing with and she correctly answered two. Another hit toy is her bath crayons. Last evening she cried when Scott took her out of the bath and tonight she has been playing with them for awhile. I just heard Scott ask if she was ready to get out and she firmly said uh-huh. It seems in the past week or two she seems bigger. I don’t know if she’s actually have a growth spurt or just because she is understanding and communicating more or what, but she is almost seeming like a two year old now. There was a little girl at Arby’s on Saturday. Emma and her were checking each other out. I thought the girl was at least two and maybe three. I asked her grandmother who was with her and she said she’d be two in December, which is a month younger than Emma. I was thinking geez, does that little girl look older or do I just see Emma as a baby still and not as old as others see her. Who knows. But I can tell she is doing a lot of learning lately. She is the bossiest little thing. She definitely has the leader not follower gene in her. Mom said she has decided to hand her business down to Emma because she could tell she had that go-get-him attitude. All I could say was, oh, so we need to find Emma a rich husband.

We’ve decided with the girls’ rooms to basically redo Emma’s room and let Lexi use Emma’s crib and bedding. I think Lexi’s nursery will look quite different though because the walls will be purple which is quite different than the yellow and green we had Emma’s. And Emma’s new room will be pink. I haven’t found the bedding I want but Pottery Barn had it and sold out. It was a pink floral patch quilt look. Scott is going to make Emma’s toddler bed. As soon as we have some extra money, he is going to make it. I am so hesitant to put her in a toddler bed. We have gotten really good at bed time with her crib. She goes down easily when we take her in there and falls asleep by herself with her baby. Nap time of course is altogether different. I rock her to sleep either watching some tv or I take her in her room and rock her on her glider. I then have to put her in our bed because she won’t nap very long in her own crib. Anyway, bed time is more what I’m worried about and she is doing so good with that.

I have been starting to think about what to do with my job after Lexi comes. I know I can not work with two kids at home and continue at the same rate I am now. I am thinking that it would be good for Emma to go to some type of day care but keep Lexi with me. I hope my manager goes for that. If nothing else, I would still like to work from home even if I have to keep them in day care. I just don’t think I can handle getting them to day care and getting to work 5 days a week. I know a gazillion people do it but I just don’t think it’s for me. I really, really, really enjoy being home with Emma and don’t want it any other way but I know I can’t stay home with 2 and get the same level of work completed. And I know it would be good for Emma to be around some other kids and she enjoys getting out. I just don’t want it to be a 40 hour a week thing with her.