As I've completed my sixth month of this pregnancy (already...) I'm starting to notice a few third-trimester things approaching. Though I'm not there yet, it's not far off now. My back is starting to ache, and I'm having trouble finding a comfortable way to sleep at night. Also I've started to get heartburn already, enough that I plan on getting some Tums at the store. I had a little heartburn with Ethan, but it wasn't too bad until I was in labor. So far I've been having bouts of heartburn that are almost as bad as that.  I'm also starting to swell up on my hands and feet. Maybe it's because of it being a HOT summer, or maybe this is a girl thing with my body. Even though I had Ethan in August, so all along I was expecting to swell like a balloon, I didn't have much swelling at all with him. When I had Natalie --in FEBRUARY-- I swelled up so much in the last two months that my sister's three and a half size larger shoes, even unlaced, didn't fit me. I had to wear slippers when I went out. This time my rings are already fitting tightly and my fingers and toes look a little sausagey by the evenings. My latest picture, taken on Tuesday at 24 weeks, is posted. We took it after coming home from the Wiggles show, hence the car driving around my belly.

We found out that my mom is going to be having surgery next week (on Tuesday) to remove her gall bladder. Only it's not going to be an easy surgery, because though they usually do the surgery these days through a laparoscopy, my mom has too much scar tissue from her previous surgeries. So she'll be having a traditional surgery, which is going to require many weeks of recovery time at home. I'm glad that the scare we had a couple weeks ago was "just" her gall bladder and not something else, like more cancer, but this is going to be a long recovery for her. (A couple weeks ago I got a phone call from my stepdad letting me know that they went to the hospital because my mom had some pain in her stomach that they wanted to get checked out. I asked if I should come over, and he said "No, we're just sitting here waiting to get it checked out." I figured by that, that they were waiting in the triage waiting room area, like for a sprained ankle or something else non-urgent. He really played it down to me, because in reality, she had been in so much pain that they called an emergency squad to rush her to the hospital, and my entire family (that is local) was there except for me. I told my sister that if anything like that happens again, I don't want them to assume that I got the whole story from my stepdad!) Anyway, I was glad to hear that the problem was with her gall bladder and not something worse, but the next several weeks are going to be hard on her. She's not one for enjoying laying around waiting to recover -- any more than I'm a stellar patient at preterm labor "chair" rest!

August 16, 2006
Last night was the big night - we went to see the Wiggles! A grand, and a little overwhelming, time was had by all. As they were waving goodbye to leave the stage, Natalie was on my shoulder crying. (I picked her up and stood with her in my arms for the final song, since everyone was standing and she couldn't see.) The poor girl, she said "I don't want it to be over!" It was so cute seeing her dancing along with all the songs. She was so excited. (This coming from the kid who just recently started telling us that "Ethan likes the Wiggles. I just like Dora." Yeah right.) Ethan watched the whole thing pretty much just wide-eyed, taking it all in. He spent most of the concert on either my or Phil's lap (I'm so glad we bought him that seat). He danced along a little, as long as we were clapping or moving his hands for him. Other times he would really start to giggle and laugh, but mostly he just sat there wide-eyed. At the end, after they had left the stage, I asked him, "Ethan, did you see the Wiggles?? Where were they?" He turned around and pointed right down to the stage, with a big smile on his face. Tonight we were at church (as we are all week, since it's VBS and I'm having a grand time being in the nursery...) and for a good 20 or 30 minutes solid, he rode a Little Tykes push car around the room. Every time he made his way over toward me, he pointed to the car and said "Wig' tar!" (Wiggles car) then he'd wave and say "bye bye", and go on his way singing "toot toot! toot toot! ...car!" I think it all made quite an impression.

We had a successful second birthday party this weekend. Ethan had a bunch of friends that couldn't come, but he had two friends there - Trevor and Josiah. His other good friend from church didn't make it because her mom was feeling sick. (This particular friend really seems to really like him. We've caught her kissing him on the cheek many times the last few weeks. And they always seem to sit together - even tonight - at the table for snack time.) Ethan loved his Blue's Clues cake.  The weather was the perfect day for a picnic party - the high was about 83, with a slight breeze, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The park was completely packed, though. We did get a shelter house but it was at the very back of a picnic area, behind some bigger -very FULL- shelter houses and the play areas, so there were a few people who had trouble finding us.  My mom brought her baked beans and some homemade ice cream, and we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, and I brought a fruit salad and the cakes. It was a perfect summer birthday party picnic. I'll be having two kids with likely indoor birthday parties, so I was hoping to have the ability to have Ethan's outside occasionally. Last year it was too hot, and he was coming down with roseola on his birthday. (I didn't know it at the time, I just knew he had not been feeling well all weekend.) Everyone was healthy this year - we just ended up with a few scrapes from playing outside, and of course some mosquito bites. It took a few tries, but Ethan got his candle blown out all by himself, and this year he dug right into his cake! Not with his hands like last year, but he had no question about it first either! Lately he's been making "cake" with all his toys. He likes to stack things up and then bring them to me, saying "cake! cake!" 

Here is a picture of Ethan's birthday cakes. The Blues Clues cake was a white cake with my buttercream icing. The other one was a chocolate chip chocolate cake, with homemade (not my home, but a friend's) strawberry jam filling, and I made milk chocolate buttercream. Yum yum! This week I've started taking a Wilton cake decorating class, and our instructor told us that we needed to use plain white Crisco for the 'buttercream' frosting, otherwise we wouldn't have a pure white icing. Of course I don't usually eat cakes with pure white icing because I know it's not really BUTTER cream, despite what they may call it! I won't be buying Crisco -yuck- for this class. I found out this morning that there is a non-hydrogenated shortening alternative that I can get at a local vegetarian food store. It won't taste as good as my frosting, but it will hold up better for my class, since I need to make enough to keep and use for each of the four weeks of the class.

There are a couple other pictures from his birthday down at the bottom of the page.

We were exhausted on Sunday, his birthday (and my arms felt like I had been lifting 100 pound weights all weekend from making all the stars on the Blues Clues cake!) but we did get over to get his picture taken in the afternoon. (After nap time, of course!) The pictures turned out really great this time, so I had LOTS to choose from. His hair was being a little post-nap uncooperative, but the photos we got are so cute. They will be in at the end of next week. And yes, I will - I WILL - get some sent out. Along with Natalie's 4 year birthday picture, from 6 months ago. Maybe people should just start sending me SASEs so I actually remember. No really, I will get them sent out this time. 

Natalie had speech therapy this afternoon, with a new therapist. I don't think I have mentioned this. Two weeks ago, at the end of our session, Bonnie (Natalie's therapist, whom she had gotten very comfortable with finally after a few weeks) told me that she had recently quit, and that would be her last session with Natalie. I tried to put on a happy face about it in front of Natalie -- you could see she was about to cry anyway -- but inside I was pretty angry. After our initial evaluation, we had been put on a waiting list that was almost three months, then we finally got in. Then for the first week, then the second, (was there a third? I don't remember for sure) I got a phone call the morning of her scheduled session and was told that her therapist would not be in that day. For whatever reason, I don't know, but I finally asked to be transferred to a different therapist. In came Bonnie. After one week with her, we had the fourth of July, then she was on vacation the next week. Three weeks later we finally got back to see her, and it went well for three weeks. By the third week we went in, Natalie was learning extraordinarily fast and getting really comfortable with Bonnie. So much so that when she was called back for her session, she ran off with her without a single backward glance at me. For Natalie that means she is really comfortable. Then after that third session, Bonnie tells us that would be her last. So we got put back on the waiting list for another therapist. A week goes by, and last Tuesday I called to check on things. (I didn't want to wait for them to call me, and possibly get lost in the system.) They told me that she had just gotten placed that morning, that they were about to call me. We're now going on Wednesday afternoons, with a therapist named Sara. She seems very nice; I think we will like her a lot. During the middle of her session (I'm listening in with the headphones in an adjoining room, with one-way glass) Natalie just says out of nowhere, "I like my other teacher best." So they had to talk a bit about where Bonnie went and what kinds of games they'd play now, with Sara. She seems more likeable to me than Bonnie was. Natalie isn't so sure, though. I told Sara that it might take a few weeks, though, since Natalie is generally slow to warm up anyway, and with the stop and starts with Bonnie, it might be more of a challenge this time. She was making such good progress before, though, so hopefully she'll pick back up.

August 9, 2006
Yesterday was our Eighth 8-8:

It's so hard to believe that we've already been married for eight years. Now suddenly, one whole decade doesn't seem very long off at all!  Maybe we'll actually get back to Gatlinburg for our 10th anniversary. We had said on our honeymoon that we would come back there, to our cabin, for our fifth anniversary, but then we had a one and a half year old to take care of. Two years from now, Natalie will be six and a half, Ethan will be days away from four, and the new little one will be a few months from two. Hmmm, still seems a little unlikely, but it could happen...

Our friends Ashley and Ben watched the kids and Phil and I went out for a kid-free dinner at Bravo. Then we just spent some time walking around Polaris Mall, holding hands, and talking like grown-ups. When we first got out of the car, both of us admitted that our first inclination was pop open the back and get the stroller out. It felt a little strange to just walk into the mall with no attachments - other than my purse, which I did have to wear on my shoulder instead of popping it into the stroller basket!

We did spend much of the day together, but it wasn't doing anything very fun or exciting. Phil is moving his office to a new place, so we spent most of the afternoon (as well as today) moving desks and chairs, law books and files, and a conference table to his new office. Well, I didn't really do any of the heavy moving -- I have a good excuse -- but Phil did, along with my sister, Phil's paralegal, and a guy we hired for a dirt cheap rate. I just focused on trying to keep the kids from being too bored, and out of their way. (I had to go because we used our van, along with my stepfather's van, of which I'm always the designated driver.) Natalie had fun being the door-holder. I tried to keep Ethan with me most of the time, and out from underfoot, but most of the time he insisted on being with "Nah-nee". That's how he's saying Natalie's name these days. Up until recently he just called her "sis". (Now it sounds very much like the name I've always used for my older sister...) He's also developed another favorite phrase lately - "me too!" Second favorite has become "me do" (he wants to pull off his own socks now and pull up his pants after every change), but "me too!" (said just like that, with the exclamation point) is heard constantly these days. Me too wants whatever Nah-nee has. Me too wants to do whatever mama and daddy and sister are doing. Me too wants us to know that he should be unbuckled from his car seat as soon as the car stops. And just in time for his birthday this weekend, he's very excited because "two!" is his favorite number. He counts higher (more on that later) but if you ever ask him how many of something he sees or wants, it's always "two - peeees". It's hard to believe our little guy is already turning two this weekend. He's having a Blue's Clues ("boos coos") birthday, which he's excited about. We picked out most of the party stuff already, and I just need to pick up the cake pan tomorrow.

Yesterday morning I had my 23-week checkup. I had another ultrasound to check my cervix, and it hasn't shortened at all, so everything is still looking good. They are going to do another ultrasound at my next appointment, as well as probably the fetal fibronectin test, since I'll be 27 weeks, and all the problems started around week 30 with the last two times. Hopefully everything will still look good and I can go back to seeing my midwife instead of the doctors (who do the ultrasounds). Not that I mind the doctors at all, but I really like Liza. I did get to see our baby's head again this time (she was head-down right over the cervix). I was amazing at how much she has grown in the last four weeks! No new pictures this time...as if I'd actually get them posted anyway! (I know, I know - the last one's now FOUR weeks out of date!) I also will be having the gestational diabetes glucose screening next time. I already have the YUMMY (gag) orange drink waiting in my fridge. Previous times I had a long appointment to look forward to, as I was given the drink at the appointment and then had to wait an hour. They are letting me take it before coming in, and they'll test me when I get in, at the one-hour mark.

I'm happy to report that the nausea has now been officially gone for some time, as have the debilitating headaches. Hopefully those won't return. I still have moments of nausea (which I never experienced this far into pregnancy before) but it just comes and goes. Mostly it has just been replaced with constant, persistent HUNGER! You may remember that at my last appointment, I'd only gained a little over a pound so far the whole pregnancy. Well, the last four weeks, I made up for that with a vengeance. I put on TEN pounds last month! Really! I was amazing to see the scale, even though I knew it might look something like that. The nurse checking my weight didn't say anything, but I saw her eyebrows raise a little as she kept inching the weight up a little more, and a little more, until finally it balanced. My doctor told me that I need to start "watching it". She told me that it was still okay because I didn't gain hardly anything up to this point, so my body really was just probably making up for the three-plus months of not being able to eat very much. But, she told me, if that trend continues... Yeah, I know - I can do that much basic math. My hunger really is amazingly persistent these days, though. I feel like this pregnancy is showing me all the stereotypical symptoms. First the "morning" sickness. And now, an appetite that can't be satisfied, and with it, cravings for chocolate. (Still haven't craved pickles and ice cream yet -- I'll let you know.)  I think about chocolate all the time. A week ago in Sunday morning service, I suddenly started smelling chocolate. All in my mind, of course, but it was as real as if someone were sitting next to me eating a candy bar and not sharing any. I can't remember off hand what I craved with Natalie's pregnancy, but I think it was something good for me. With Ethan, it was broccoli. Now this time I want chocolate. And in the absence of chocolate, pretty much anything else will do. I want to eat good food, too, but the desire for chocolate is never far from my mind. After going so long with just nibbling at my meals, and before pregnancy, having maintained very decent portion sizes for a long time, it's just amazed me how much I want to eat. For breakfast, I regularly pour a second helping of cereal. I eat a normal lunch with the kids, but by mid-afternoon, I get insanely hungry again. I've been doing good at keeping peaches and other summer fruit around to snack on - especially during the day, I want the kids to see me eat (and therefore request for themselves) good food too. I just feel hungry all the time, like I've never experienced before. Hopefully it will indeed "even out" soon and I won't go on to gain another 10 pounds this month, and the next. I'm also trying to drink a LOT (to keep away those contractions) so you'd think that would help quell my hunger pains, but it doesn't.

There's a lot more I could write about tonight (including a scare my mom had last week with sudden stomach pain) but I'm just going to restrain myself and only note one more thing. I need to start wrapping this up since it's getting late, and I'm going to attempt to take the kids to the fair tomorrow. (Not to mention that I've already written the equivalent of a book tonight.) I know I've mentioned this before, but it never ceases to amaze me how smart Natalie and Ethan are. Will it be possible for all three of our kids to be so naturally brilliant? (Nope, I'm not a bit biased, either.) The other day I was counting with Natalie and she got all the way to 40, with only a couple stumbles, at 20 and at 31. I had to help her with those numbers, but other than that, she went all the way up. I just sat there, amazed. I had no idea she even knew anything higher than 20 -- I'd certainly never worked with her on it specifically, but she has been doing some dot-to-dots lately, and maybe it just suddenly clicked with her that there's a pattern to how the numbers go. And then, a few days ago we were driving in the car and the kids were talking to each other. Then Natalie started counting, and Ethan joined right in with her. Natalie said "one", and Ethan responded with "two" (of course), but then they continued to go all the way up until ten. After that Natalie kept going by herself, but I couldn't believe it that Ethan knew all those numbers!