Moving On

* M has been doing incredibly well both using the potty and sleeping in his big boy bed (we've been getting up between 8 and 8:30am). D doesn't like the potty we have for him ($5 at a tag sale, so much thought didn't go into it...) and I agree that it's poorly designed, especially for little boys. So we are probably going to be getting this model:


* That down there is my belly as of last week. It's safe to say I'm not getting any smaller. After this next appointment, I will be going weekly. The end of this pregnant belly is in sight! Baby is doing very well. She has started hiccuping on a regular basis and after a while, she gets annoyed and does this big roll to the other side of my belly. She's still very interactive when she hears voices near or feels a hand (or a seat belt strap...) on my belly. She'll go right to the side she hears/feels something and starts poking that bony heal everywhere. D has really got to see this in action the past fews nights because we aren't doing much other than sitting in this heat! During the times she is most active, my belly will literally bounce so much that D, who is looking straight ahead, will spot it out of his peripherial and turn to look. He then starts talking to the baby and will put his hand on my belly and they'll play for a few seconds. Exactly what she was looking for...attention. We are so excited to meet this little person(ality).


* D has his huge physics test next week and is so tired of studying. He has had a physics class every day for the past 14 months and is just getting sick of it. Don't blame him. He told me that the test is in the morning and he doesn't have to go back to work, so I'm taking him out to lunch when he's done (kinda like a date since M'll be napping at Mom and Dad's!). And when M gets up, we have plans to bring him to a relatively local fair to experience the rides, the food, and the ambiance of fall fairs that we enjoy so much. Should be a fun day...after the test, that is.

*The nesting phase of this pregnancy is going so well that D declared that I should get pregnant annually. For which he promptly got slapped. I have lots of piles that are disappearing and lots of lists that are all crossed out. I still have a few more piles and lists to go, but mainly it's packing for the hospital and the weeks we're at Mom and Dad's. We may be home on the weekends, depending on D's schedule, to give M some time at home (not that he cares, really) and to show him how it'll go with Baby there. If the back and forth is too much for everyone, we'll just hang at Mom's like we do a good portion of the week anyway! We are really blessed to have this much help, I wouldn't want to do it on my own (where's the fun in that?!) (and especially with D's crazy schedule) and I'm all about having my kids bond with involved family who love them and are good role models.

* An item or two on my remaining list involves putting together a few things for M while we're away from him. I think I'm going with the theme "God Made Me" since I can't help but think of that while this little (not so little?) life is growing inside of me! So I've made him a few books with pictures of him doing things he likes, a few pictures-of-him foam puzzles he can put together, and we got him a few fun things to do from the store that hopefully will occupy him for a minute or two and give Grammy and Grpa a rest! I still have to record the books on tape for him and do a few other little things, but I am having so much fun doing it. Throwback to my teaching days :).

* Just finished a great summer read and am about to start C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Not exactly beach reading, but I'm sure I'll learn more from it.

Micah had taken an interest in cooking a few months ago when we visited a local library. They had a kitchen set that was loaded with all the tools and food a child needed in order to make a fabulous meal or twenty. He "cook"ed (as he calls it) for at least 45 minutes at the kitchen set and anything that holds our little man's attention for 45 minutes is worth looking into to purchase for our home. Auntie Kristina and Uncle Nicky Nick bought M a Play-Doh cooking set for Christmas and he was fascinated with it, so I reintroduced it to him and again it held his interest for long periods of time. We visited other libraries and after playing with the trains and Legos, he'd go to the kitchen for the rest of the time. Probably helps that I'm in the kitchen a lot since I make 90% of our meals from scratch and he's always there "helping" me. All that to say that I decided that we were in the market for a kitchen set, so I went about pricing them and seeing which one I liked and hoping for a coupon or a sale to pop up somewhere along the time. But, even better, Dad popped up with, "Hey, I can make him one of those."

I knew he could because he has developed into a wonderful craftsman in the short time he has had his workshop, but it would take a lot of time and effort and Dad is a busy guy. But we went over a design I really liked and worked out some dimensions and were all ready to go to the store to get materials when he disappeared into his workshop and declared that we didn't need to go anywhere because he had most everything he needed. I told him to tell me every penny he spent because these things go for at least $100, so he was already saving me money and besides I didn't want him paying for materials since he was already going to be putting lots of time into it.

He wouldn't let me see it until it was almost completed because he wanted it to be a surprise. It looked amazing in the final stages, but when he and Mom showed up one day to drop it off, he had really outdone himself. And of course he deemed it a birthday gift for M so I couldn't give him anything for it, but even more special than that, our kids will have a very cool kitchen set handmade for them by their Grandpa for (hopefully) generations. Too cool. Here's the tour...GREAT job, Father, you are one in a billion!

We woke up one morning, about three months ago, to discover our van missing. It was so surreal to see David and Micah standing where I had parked the van the previous evening. D called “Honey!” through the open living room window in a voice that told me something was up, but nothing too extreme. I thought maybe M fell and needed a kiss (this kid doesn’t do band aids…) on his boo-boo. Too bad it couldn’t have been that!

We called the police (D’s cell phone connected him to a call center like four towns over, so they had to transfer him to our city’s call center…) and the officer was there within ten minutes. He asked us some info so he could complete the Stolen Vehicle Report and he was gone in another ten minutes. Before we called the police, though, I called Mom just to see if there was some possibility that she or Dad had borrowed the van. Funny what your mind immediately jumps to – “stolen” wasn’t the first thing it processed. Poor Mom was thrown off by the question with a, “Um no, Jessa, we wouldn’t borrow your van without asking you first…” yeah, I kind of figured that, but it was worth a try. So began the dissemination of information. We called our insurance company, too, and the real fun began. Apparently we needed to initiate two claims: one for the van (auto) and one for the contents of the van (homeowner’s). The auto people sent out paperwork that needed to be filled out and returned and the homeowner people said to make a list of items in the vehicle, their replacement value, and how long we had had each. I got right on that.

Everything was moving along nicely with me thinking they’d never find the van and certainly not before our claim was settled. I didn’t care what had happened to it and while I certainly enjoyed everything about owning a van, I didn’t want that one back after it had been stolen. D took a different viewpoint in that he wanted to know what had happened to our new-to-us (for two months) van and hoped that it was still in good working order. Both of us got part of what we wanted: exactly ten days later, while we were enjoying a very yummy lunch at Red Robin (D was in the midst of working nights) I got a call from our local police department. I didn’t hear it and right before we left the restaurant, D checked my phone, saw a missed call with a message, and called my voicemail (No, he usually doesn’t check my cell phone or messages, but he had been bugging me the whole time the van was missing to keep my phone charged and on me at all times because they’d be calling my phone. So he’d check my phone as often as me when he was around!). Anyway, back to the police: they very quickly told us that they had gotten a call from a police station in Long Island, NY and spouted off some number for us to call. D called the number and it was the tow yard who said they couldn’t give us any info and spouted off another number that would get us to the police. The officer I talked to was helpful and totally had the New York accent down nicely, which was entertaining. Yes, they did have our van. Yes, it was operable. No, he couldn’t tell me much more than that. A person (maybe more) was arrested after being pulled over in the van and that they were from Long Island, not Connecticut. Can’t imagine the route our little van took to get to that point, but D Google Mapped it and it was about 150 miles from us, over two and a half hours away.

Then the run around began. We weren’t going to go to Long Island if our van was just going to be deemed “totaled,” so they insurance people sent out a claims adjuster. Except that this guy couldn’t just walk into the tow yard. No, that would have been too easy and convenient. He needed special paperwork from the police and the police needed paperwork from us (the van’s title and something saying he can look at the van in our place) in order to give the special paperwork to the claims adjuster who would in turn give it to the tow yard. After much back-and-forth with the police, the tow yard, the claims adjuster, and the insurance company and two trips to the UPS store to overnight things (we were reimbursed for this very pricey expense!), one week after we found out where our van was, the claims adjuster was finally able to get in to see it. The guy was supposed to see it two days after we notified the insurance company the van had to been found. But that took a bit longer…

I get a call back not an hour after the claims adjuster arrives at the tow yard, “I’m looking at your van,” he says, “I’m assuming it didn’t have any big dents on the sides or the back.” Umm, no. The conversation got more exciting from there about the van smelling like smoke, bags of teenager’s clothes, and other knicks and dents here and there. It all ended in the words I wanted to hear since we knew they found the van, “I’m just going to take pictures for my boss to review, but I’m considering your van to be a total loss.” Yaaaay! No driving to Long Island to get it (Grammy and Gpa were going to drive with us, there and back, for which D would have had to take an entire day off…), no worries about fixing it up and hoping some then-unknown damage didn’t pop up in the future. We could start fresh!

All we had to do was sign a few more documents and our check would be on the way. Seemed easy enough, and that part was, but the check amount seemed suspiously similar to the amount we indicated what we had bought it for (which was a good amount under the book value). Dad was not satisfied with that number and got on the phone to the insurance company as “our father and our insurance agent,” which he told the lady we had been working with when she inquired who he was calling as, “and I’m upset as both!” he added for good measure. Long story short, I guess they use a bunch of numbers to come up with the amount they’re going to pay out and she used a combination of numbers that got her close to what we had paid (dad got even more upset when she told him that, to which he replied, so if they paid nothing, that’s what you’d give them!? Of course not, was the answer…). After an hour or two, the nice insurance lady called back and magically found over one thousand more dollars that could be added on to our check and we got that amount in the mail a few days later! In the meantime, we had also gotten our homeowners checks (it’s a two stage process, of course, why should it be over in one shot when we could do double the work?!). So ended that part of the process. All we had to do was find another van…

Which was much easier said than done. We didn’t want to buy new or even a few years old because we didn’t want to go into debt, so it turns into a picky process when buying used vans. And it didn’t help that there weren’t a lot of options because apparently everyone keeps their vans until the very end! Anyway, after much Craigslist-ing by D and keeping our eyes peeled wherever we went, Dad and Mom ended up spotting our new ride by the side of the road in a nearby town. The price was right and the van was even nicer (even had an automatic car starter and a six-disc CD changer…). And hopefully that ends the saga of the stolen van. In case you’re wondering, D’s Volvo got booted out of the garage and (after a much-needed garage clean-out), the van took its place…albeit a snug, but good, fit!

Been really busy around here catching up with things after our still-talked-about Farm Vacation. Stuff like researching new cell phone plans (iPhone may be in my future???), organizing and purging our file cabinet, gathering things we'll need for the hospital and after, stocking up on the "organic" diapers we use from Amazon (bought exactly 900 size 2 and 3 diapers for a total of $130, half of the original cost) and RiteAid (bought three packs of diapers, one was $4.49 and two were $2.49 with coupons!), and preparing for M's second birthday party this weekend. Basically, I'm nesting. There are a few more little projects I want to get done before Baby arrives, so we'll see how that goes. I have a few posts lined up, but these cute-cute pictures of my little man will have to do for now. He's been busy, too:

My baby is officially not a baby anymore :(. He's moved out of the crib and into a big boy (toddler) bed. Our neighbor so kindly gave us the bed a few weeks ago and I was initally planning on bringing it to Mom's house for when we're there after Baby arrives and setting up bunk beds in M's room. However, as it would work out, our room at the farmhouse had a cot at the ready for M. We had packed the pack n play, but D said to give the cot a try and see what happened. Well nothing happened, really. He went to bed around 8:15pm that first night and woke up around 7am the next morning (the sleeping hours changed the second night, but he slept fine again). Easy enough. When we got home, D said he wanted to set up the toddler bed, which was still in our garage, in M's room before M went to bed. We did a quick room-shift and M didn't seem phased by it at all, which surprised me. I thought we'd have some issues since we weren't sleeping in the same room with him anymore like we were at the farmhouse and it was his room so he knows all about what he could have access to if he just crawled out of bed. We did our usual bedtime routine and just casually added, "You're in a big boy bed now, but you can't get out by yourself. You have to call Mommy or Daddy and we'll come get you." It didn't seem to make a big impact on him and I was bracing for a big crash or some playing-with-toys noise, but it never came. When we went to check on him an hour or two later, I snapped some pictures of his cute self. He did call me around 4:45am, but it just seemed like he was cold, so I put his blanket back on him and sang him a song or two and that was that until 8:15am. So far, so good with this bed thing. I guess he does transitions better than I give him credit for! This week, a big boy bed...next week, moving up to the big boy Sunday school class and all of this while still potty training. What more can happen in the life of an almost-two year old?!

Farm vacation pictures to come, but I wanted to update Baby happenings (The above belly picture was taken on vacation near a river M loved splashing and throwing rocks into!). The day before our little getaway, I was scheduled for my ultrasound. Mom came with me and brought M along since I thought he'd get a kick out of seeing Baby. And he did. For about six minutes. Then he popped off of Mom's lap and waved bye-bye to the baby and the ultrasound tech and started towards the door. Oh well. He was concerned, at first, about the jelly on my belly, but when I told him that it felt like glue (which he likes), he called it "ooey gooey" and was fine with it. Anytime you ask him about seeing the baby, he'll inevitably tell you about the ooey-gooey. Mom took him across the street to a local library and I stayed for my actual appointment.

In short, Baby is not huge, but not tiny, either. S/he is in the 67th percentile for a 31.5 week in utero baby and weighing in at over four pounds. My amniotic fluid is average and everything else is fine, so we just make big babies and I just get big bellies when I'm pregnant. I'm definitely more swollen this pregnancy than with M, when I just swelled my last week. I'm sure the too-many-to-count 90+ degree days have a lot to do with that, which is why I will never plan on being pregnant in the summer again. January sounds nice, even February.

Anyway, these last eight weeks, Baby is supposed to gain about a half a pound per week, which puts us over eight pounds...which is awful close to M's 9 lb 1.4 oz birth weight. We'll just have to see, my doctor keeps telling me he's going to do all the work anyway, so who cares if I have a big baby! Uh, does he see the belly I have to haul around everywhere for the next two months?! I saw a different doctor while my doctor was on vacation and he was the one who ordered the ultrasound, so when I saw my doctor this time I told him I knew he wouldn't have ordered it, but I didn't want to cancel it just in case of something. He told me I was right, but it's nice to know that the baby is doing well.

The one thing that the technician seemed impressed by was the size of Baby's cheeks. She must have gotten 10-12 pictures of the cheeks because she couldn't get over how big they were and how cute it was. All the while I was thinking, the baby is under five pounds, how can she possibly have cheeks?!? Aren't there other, more vital areas to fill in first?? Baby was also blinking, which was cool to see. We could see the general outline of the iris at all times because the eyelids are almost see-through, but we were able to faintly see them in action. She, however, didn't cooperate for a good 3D picture this time because she was smushed up against the placenta and was very comfy there. She even turned her head away a few times. Stinker. She did manage to hold relatively still (which is quite a feat for this one...) for a very cute profile picture. D so kindly scanned the ultrasound pics for me to post:

I've never really officially heard of a farm vacation, but I guess I assumed they existed. I mean, why not? There are dude ranches and just about any other type of vacation for something you want to experience at least once in your lifetime. D actually had the idea, I had more of a beach/ocean vacation in mind when we sat down to search out our options for a mini vacation. However, when we found this place,

Liberty Hill Farm

I was totally hooked. M will absolutely love interacting so closely with the farm animals and he'll get to see what they actually do (and help out with some of the chores). This kid remembers things I wouldn't expect him to, so he'll probably be talking about it for a long time! There seems to be a ton of things to do on the farm and in the surrounding area...and it's about three hours north of us so it has to be cooler than here, I'm assuming! The river rafting would have been fun, but I'm sure not going to attempt it in my present state. And we'll stay away from all the hiking, but other than that, we can't wait to experience life on a farm (in it's most basic and simplistic form...).

We've booked two nights for the middle of August, so technically we'll be there for about three days and two nights. It's a bed and breakfast of sorts, so it includes breakfast along with a family-style sit down dinner with fresh, homemade food from the farm. Outdoors, eating good-for-you food, spending time with my men...not sure life could get any better than that :)

D was working nights all last week, so we wanted to spend some quality family time together before we only got to see him for less than three hours a day. I picked up the State Park library pass, which made it free to enter the park, and we stayed for a few hours before M's naptime. I'm considering getting a season pass for there next year because I know M will love it and I'm assuming Baby will, too. I like the fact that you have plenty of opportunities to interact with nature versus just swimming at a local swimming pool. Nice, too, is the short twenty-minute ride. Dressed in his bathing suit, shirt, hat, and water shoes (aka Outdoor Gear), M had a great time playing in the little stream and then the big river...and playing with all the other little kids that were there that he couldn't stop staring at!

The odd child that we have loved the big river, didn't care so much for the little stream, as evidenced by the different levels of enthusiasm in the videos below!

I wanted to document M’s potty training process so I can refer back to it with each successive child being fully aware that the same method doesn’t necessarily work with each child, but wanting to at least try it.

I think I started getting books and DVDs about potty training back in April or May. We’d read and watch and read and watch, poor guy. Then I officially brought the potty chair out of storage, but didn’t pressure him or insist he use it. I let him run around without a diaper on so he could see and pay attention to what actually happens when he goes potty, since, up to this point, he did it without thinking. He didn’t really go potty on the potty, at this point, but he was definitely starting to associate the words peepee and poop-poop with what was going on and that was a big step. Then he kind of just lost interest, or I wasn’t pursing it at much, or whatever it was, we didn’t make anything of it for a few weeks. During that time, though, I kept repeating to him, “Peepee and poop-poop go on the potty” or ask, “Where do peepee and poop-poop go?” and he’s say, “Potty!” Then one night as my very-hard-working husband and I were spending our Couple Time together, he pops out with (ever so romantically…), “I really think M is ready to be potty trained. I’d like you to really help him with it because I think he’d learn quickly.” I think I knew he was right, but I wasn’t really looking forward to cleaning up all the messes and I had the great excuse of being pregnant and just putting it off until after Baby was born. But D was right. So the next day I began to resume the diaperlessness and I have to say it hasn’t been bad at all. Sure he’s had some accidents, but nothing that wasn’t easy to clean up and those times were used as a great learning opportunity to redirect him to the potty. We moved the potty chair out of the bathroom and into the living room at this point because I found that his biggest obstacle was stopping what he was doing. So I had to come up with another campaign slogan, “Stop what you’re doing, go potty, and then go right back to what you were doing!” That seemed to work well and there were a lot less accidents when the potty was moved and he was reassured that he could resume playing as normal.

It was last week, though, that I decided that the only time M would wear diapers was during nap and bedtime. Now it was D’s turn to be a bit hesitant. I tried it out and it worked surprisingly well. I’d bring his potty with us on errands, but we never had to use it and we’d be out for two hours at a time. His MO is a bit different from what I expected, but then that’s usual for him, he doesn’t do anything by the book. He will stop what he’s doing, go to his potty, go peepee, put the potty seat back down (it always has to be down when not in use, according to M. These OCD tendencies come from his father…fyi), and continue on with his play. He will say, “Poop-poop!!” if he needs to go and then we’ll meet him at the potty, but he’ll never come up to us to ask to use it, he’ll just go straight there and sometimes the only reason I know that he has gone pee is because I hear the top slam down. I had chocolate-covered raisins at the ready as an incentive, and I did use them a couple of times, but he didn’t care and so I stopped that (never really felt comfortable with that whole getting a treat for pottying thing anyway, so it worked out). If you make a big deal out of it (which most kids like…), he just gets annoyed and says, “All done,” as in, “Ok you can stop now, it’s over and I’m already playing again.” Odd child. However if you do make a big deal about it when he is running to the potty saying, “Peepee! Peepee!” he won’t go (says, “all done”) and then he’ll go elsewhere (as in not on the potty) a few minutes later. We caught on rather quickly to that and just help him pull down his underwear, if he needs it, and let him run off to the potty. It’s just a funny scene to behold. Him running. Us trying to follow at a distance. The room getting awkwardly quiet as we try not to notice him, but are wrapped up in observing this new behavior of his. Him shutting the lid and running off to continue whatever he was doing… Another thing that has helped him is the, “Quick! Run! Run! Quick!” You’ll see him all of the sudden pop up and start running while saying, “Quick! Run! Run! Quick!” Then he’ll stop at the potty and start doing his business. I think he likes the raised voice (he doesn’t ever shout, though, because he probably doesn’t want to alert us to anything!) and the running part, which is his custom-made incentive, I suppose.

I found a great deal on underwear at Target: 7 pair for $4.48 on clearance. They are Sesame Street, which we don’t watch, so we just describe what’s going on in the picture on each underwear and how not to pee on the nice puppets. They’re cute, but totally look like underwear, so Mom got him boxer briefs (lol!!) that look more like shorts than underwear for her high-traffic-area house. He still hasn’t completely mastered the pulling down underwear and/or shorts part, so I let him run around in just the underwear and these boxer briefs are a bit more modest and look oh-so-adorable on him!

Since this week is the first real week of just briefs (and we’ve been staying with Mom and Dad since D is on ovenights all week), I didn’t really know what to expect, but he started off with a bang. The first night we slept here, he woke me up at 1am to go peepee and then woke up in the morning with a dry diaper! Completely shocked me. He woke up the next morning around 5:50am to go peepee, even though he had gone some in his diaper, and went back to bed until 7:30am. He hasn’t woken me up the past few nights, but will go pee right before I put him to bed. He awakes up with a wet diaper, but definitely not soaked like he usually was. All in all, I’m completely and utterly impressed with how he is doing with this whole potty training thing.

How is he out and about? Well he had an accident early on in church on Sunday, but then went potty on the potty two other times in church before we left (aside: he went to the big boy Sunday School class upstairs and colored a picture that is now on our fridge!!). I usually have to see if he’s displaying any signs of needing to go because he won’t tell anyone when he has to go and that can be a problem when his faithful little potty friend is not nearby. So I have been spotting these signs and we rush to any available potty before an accident can occur. Today we were coming out of Whole Foods after having eaten lunch there, shopped a bit, and before that having played for an hour and a half at the library. All of the sudden, near the cart return of all places, he stops, pulls down his shorts and says, “Peepee” as a seemingly never-ending stream of pee lands itself in a puddle under a cart. I was trying to shield him as much as possible, but of course he had to pick the busiest area of the parking lot to go to the bathroom. I was mostly proud and only somewhat embarrassed : ). Oh and the only other incident of note was on the way home from the lake D, M, and I visited on Saturday. He insisted he didn’t have to go before we left (he NEVER has said yes when we ask him if he has to go), so sure enough, three minutes down the road we hear, “Peepee! Poop-poop!!” Poor David quickly found a patch of grass to pull over on and I whipped M out of his carseat and onto his potty that was stashed in the back next to him. Sure enough, he told us the truth! If that’s the worst of it, we’re golden, but who knows. We just take one day at a time and enjoy what is turning out to be a relatively easy potty-training experience. I’d say he’s fully day-trained because he can hold it for a few hours if it’s not an emergency and partially night-trained. I think we can have this wrapped up by the time Baby makes her appearance, if things keep on this track. What a nice thought: only one child in diapers!

This neat little flotation device was recommended to me by a lady at a pool store. I didn't know how well M would take to it, but I hadn't tried anything else with him yet, so he didn't know any different. It's called a Puddle Jumper and they are the neatest invention. I looked them up on Amazon just to learn more about them and they had a five-star rating from parents of kids in the 30-50 pound range (what they're recommended for). So I went to the pool store (because I had a coupon and because I could get it and have M use it that oh-so-hot day) and tried it on the little man and he happily walked around the store with it until he spotted a ball that he'd rather play with (which he wasn't allowed to because I'm no fun like that). This kid has been jumping and floating and swimming in the pool ever since. Everyone is amazed at how well the thing works, how much M loves it, and are even wondering if they make them in bigger (adult) sizes! Anyway, here is a little clip of it in action. They have different colors, the red one is a ladybug and the green one looks like a monster. I liked the orange face best...and it's gender neutral :).

Mom said that this picture doesn't do me justice, in that I look smaller than I actually am. I believe the doctor that I saw today (not my usual one) would agree, who, after measuring my belly and poking around the same area, declared, "My, I think you have a big baby!" It's the most excitement I've had all pregnancy, and I'm not complaining. He went on to explain that while I'm 28 1/2 weeks, my fundal height is measuring 30 1/2 weeks. It's not the most accurate measurement, but that coupled with the hugeness that is my belly put him over the edge, I guess. So he signed me up for an ultrasound at my next appointment in two weeks. I'm already in my third trimester, which means I go to the doctor every two weeks for a bit then it changes to a standing weekly appointment. I tried not to act too excited when I asked if he thinks that they might move up my C-section date. I got the obligatory, "Just because the baby is big doesn't mean all the organs are fully developed" answer, but we'll see what answers the ultrasound produce.

Other info I found out: I passed my glucose test so I don't have to do the three-hour one like I had to do with Micah. They didn't tell me last time to eat a light meal, wait two hours, and then get my blood tested, so my sugar was one point over the cutoff. I was not a happy camper about that, so this time I adjusted: ate an egg, waited a few hours, and then went for the test. It worked out much better!

One other conversation of interest that took place between the doctor and me: I had mentioned I had a son and that he was born a big boy, so a few minutes later he asked what I had said I had, a boy or girl. So I told him and he said, "So this one is a girl?" I replied that I didn't know and he commented on being old fashion and how it's coming back in style because more and more people aren't finding out these days. It was just the way he said it that made me think that he had slipped up and said something he shouldn't have, but I can't be positive and I didn't ask him to confirm anything. D said I'm probably reading more into it than I should and he's probably right, however we'll find out in October! The baby's gender is in my file, but they probably have a warning posted on it that I don't want to know. Anyway, just an interesting conversation to note...possibly. D said I just should have asked if she is a girl, but where's the fun in that?! My standard answer to people's, "What are you having?" question is still, "A baby" :).

If this baby is anywhere near as cute-cute as our firstborn, then we're in for some really adorable sibling pictures:

Mom had a going-away-to-Germany party for Nick on Friday and during the party we had another family photo shoot (we had one a few weeks ago at Grandpa's 80th birthday party with the entire extended family). Since I don't have the time to put a caption with each picture, I'll just generally tell you about them! We did a mix of family members, generational pictures, family pictures (D was moonlighting, so our family pics consisted of M and me...and Baby who has quite the personality already. Ugh?), and you'll see M there at the end taking over Auntie Karen's camera and doing his best to capture the surrounding activity. I told Auntie to email me the pictures he ended up taking (a lot with his chubby-chubby finger(s) in view), so I'll post those when I get them. He is now into photography (not to be confused with his on-going and simultaneous interest in animals, tools, trucks, kids' songs on YouTube, swimming, Richard Scarry books, and LEGOs...), so Auntie said she'd give him the digital camera Dad gave her to give to Ana many years ago that is still in working order! He'll have a blast with that. And so will anyone who can stand his repetitive orders of "Mimle" (as in "Smile") and "Cheeeeeese." It was a fun time, per usual, and the pictures seemed to have come out great. We'll have to schedule a photo shoot when D can be there, too. It's hard to keep track of him these days...M didn't see him for two and a half days last week because of his busy schedule. Granted the pool was great compensation, but he was so glad to have Daddy back on Saturday. Now for the photos, get ready to see the cutest 22 month old ever...