Saturday, August 28, 2010

It's Getting Close!

Eric's mom is coming in today...in 1 hour, 45 minutes to be exact :)  Wow, I should really get off the computer and get a shower and get dressed, huh?  We'll be leaving the house in about 45 minutes to head to the airport.  Now that help is coming, I know it's getting close!  Baby girl will be here in just 5 days.  HOLY COW!  Eric will be home Tuesday morning, although I wish he would come home earlier.  He was told if anything happened that he needed to come home early, they could get him a flight out.  Family comes first.  This conversation came up because I had a little fall yesterday.  I had to take Murphy to the vet (AGAIN) and she was so excited to be back at her second home that she pulled me so hard, I tripped and fell over.  I landed on my knees and kind of on my left leg a little but didn't impact my belly at all.  I had a little cramping but no contractions or bleeding or anything else so I figured I was ok.  About an hour and a half later I wondered if I should call my doctor, just for some reassurance that there was nothing to worry about.  I didn't talk to the doctor until almost 3pm (the fall was at 9am) but she said I should be fine, just do kick counts (10 kicks in a 2 hour period) and if I start contracting or bleeding to go to the hospital.  Thank God everything's been fine.  Our little angel is still kicking me like crazy so I have my reassurance that she's ok.  In fact, she's been kicking so much that I don't even have to time or count her kicks, they're so frequent.  Not to mention the jabs to my bladder and her pushing her butt up into my lungs...  :)  I'm glad everything was ok and that I worried for nothing, but I kind of wish Eric was coming home early anyway.  Today's his birthday afterall, wouldn't it be nice for him to fly out tonight??  :)

Well, I really should get in the shower now and get ready to go to the airport.  I don't know when I'll be checking in again...probably Wednesday night/Thursday morning since I'm sure I won't be sleeping at all that night!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Murphy's Plastic Surgery

Our poor pup has had quite an ordeal over the past 6 weeks.  When Maddie and I returned from our trip to Baltimore in July we went to pick Murphy up as soon as we had dropped our suitcases off at the house.  We were so excited to see her and quite surprised when we left covered in blood!  Something happened to the very tip of Murphy's tail while we were gone and it was spurting blood out of it when she got excited to see us (and she probably hit it on something again since her tail never stops moving!).  I tried to keep it bandaged during the week but it was still bleeding the following Monday so I took her in to the vet to have a look at it to make sure everything was ok.  We spent close to $25 for a big bandage that was supposed to stay on for a few days.  We took her back a few days later for them to assess it and they rewrapped it.  This cycle went on for 4 weeks...I told the vet they were going to have to put me on the payroll if we kept this up!  Well, after 4 weeks the word "amputation" started coming up.  I was worried about dealing with her tail as I was getting closer and closer to my delivery date with the baby.  It wasn't easy for me to bandage Murphy's tail myself and it wasn't easy to clean the blood off of the walls every time she walked by wagging her tail.  Eric and I went ahead and made the decision for them to take Murphy's tail on Tuesday, August 10th.  I was supposed to drop her off in the morning for the surgery and the vet said she should be able to come home that afternoon.  Well...the afternoon rolled around, the vet tech called me and said the vet wanted to keep Murphy through the weekend.  I immediately saw $$ flash in my eyes thinking of the added expense of overnight stays.  I asked how much it was going to cost me per night and the tech said they weren't going to charge!  Thank God for that!  The vet wanted to keep Murphy because she needed to be heavily sedated, she needed her bandages changed frequently and her case of "happy tail" kept making it bleed...the problem in the first place!  We JUST picked Murphy up yesterday, Monday, August 23rd.  She was supposed to be gone for a few hours and it turned into 2 weeks.  And I'll be honest with you...I was starting to get used to not having any pets in the house!  Well, after that big long story, here are a few pictures of Murphy's newly remodelled tail.  Poor thing has to wear that big ol' cone too :(  She keeps running into things with it, can't drink water with it on, can barely pick up her toys with it on, but at least she can sleep with it on!  When I take it off of her, she wants to chew at her stitches and we can't have that!  During her stay at the animal hospital she managed to get the cone off one night and chewed a few stitches out, which they had to replace.  She's scheduled to get her stitches out Friday morning so I don't want to let her get at them to delay this process anymore!

Oh, I was supposed to be posting pictures now :)  Enjoy!  The world's most beautiful tailless Silver Lab.







Sunday, August 22, 2010

My Madeline

Maddie has been so incredible lately!  Some days I feel like I'm being too hard on her, or expecting too much of her for being only 2.  I hold her to a higher standard than most parents hold their children, but I don't use her age as an excuse...I expect her to use her manners and be on her best behavior.  I see it paying off in how well behaved she is.  She is just absolutely amazing.  Don't get me wrong, she has her typical "toddler" moments but overall she is one of the best behaved 2 year olds I know.  She says "please" and "thank you".  She says, "yes please" or "no thank you".  She says "excuse me" when she burps (sometimes she needs reminding).  She also tells me "God bless you" when I sneeze.  These are all things I would never expect a two year old to be capable of doing, but she proves that if you start them out young, they can be expected to have these habits already formed at a young age! 

So, today Maddie played by herself and entertained herself ALL DAY!  This is HUGE.  She only sat on my lap for about 5 minutes today, ate 3 good meals and is only sitting down to watch tv now (at 7:00pm).  Her imagination has REALLY taken off lately and she continues to impress me with her knowledge every day.  Yesterday she said to me, "Mommy, I like to eat flowers."  I said, "Oh, are you an animal?"  "Yes, I'm a jaguar".  "Really?  That's nice.  What other kind of animal eats flowers?" (I thought she would say a rabbit because of watching Bambi where Thumper eats the clover flowers).  She replied, "a puma".  I didn't even know she knew what a puma was!! 

Maddie likes to pretend to be different animals or people.  Today she was a hummingbird, a babysitter (miss Stephanie...who watched her about two weeks ago), a baby lion, a puppy and a vet.  Whatever she is, I'm the mommy version of it.  So, when she was being Miss Stephanie, I was Mommy Miss Stephanie.  It's so cute to hear her come up with these things!

Maddie's really into dressing up now.  She doesn't have any dress up clothes, but she has a princess crown, some bracelets and necklaces, her sunglasses, my shoes and my purses.  She puts on her sunglasses (puts the case to my sunglasses in the purse), a couple necklaces and bracelets, the crown and a pair of my shoes (or slippers), puts the purse on her shoulder and then tells me she has to go somewhere.  She goes to the vet, she goes to the store with her "poucons" (coupons), takes Snuggly to school and sometimes she goes to Lowe's or the car wash (thanks Daddy!)  :)

Most of the time Maddie calls me Mommy.  Not too long ago she started calling me Mom.  I'm not sure if I like that!  When I would give her something, she'd say, "thanks, Mom".  She's not consistent with it, so it's ok :).  Yesterday she was calling for me when she was awake saying, "Mommy, where are you?  Mommy?  Mommy!"....long pause..."Mother!  Mother!".  I couldn't help but laugh.  (thank you "Are you my Mother" and other books).  Today when she climbed up on my lap she called me Mister Mommy.  I asked, "did you just call me Mr. Mommy?"  She said, "yes". I just laughed.  Then I called her Mister Maddie and she laughed histerically like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard in her life. 

I have so much fun with Maddie.  I complain a lot, but I think it's just because I'm tired.  She really is a good girl and I'm so thankful for her.  I hope by already having her established with good manners (mostly) that she won't give us too hard of a time when the new baby comes next week.  I can't believe she's going to be an only child for just a few more days.  Please pray the transition goes smoothly and that she adjusts well to Grandma B staying with her while I'm in the hospital!

Full Term

As of this past Thursday I am full term!  37 weeks, with only 2 weeks remaining until our scheduled c-section.  (11 days from today!!)  Everything continues to look good at my weekly appointments.  At each appointment they weigh me (yuck!), check my blood pressure, check for protein in my urine (sign of preeclampsia), measure my big ol' belly, listen to baby's heartbeat and answer any questions I have.  Maddie enjoys going to my appointments and laughs at the sound of the baby's heart.  She's such a good girl at each appointment.  She doesn't even ride in her stroller anymore, she just walks right in, I pick a lollipop for her, she climbs up in the chair to sit and wait patiently while she eats her lollipop.  When she's done with her lollipop she gets down and throws the stick in the trash and gets right back in the chair.  She's so friendly with the doctor and nurse, she even kissed the doctor the last two appointments. Isn't that crazy??  I guess she likes doctors as long as they aren't checking HER! 

As of Thursday I think the baby dropped.  I'm not 100% sure because I don't remember experiencing this with Maddie, but this baby has all of a sudden gotten so heavy and hard to carry around.  I feel more pressure in my lower abdomen and have a much harder time bending over (not that I could easily bend over before that anyway!).  I have to pee more frequently (yay...) and I'm definitely doing the pregnancy waddle now.  Two symptoms that are supposed to improve after the baby drops are not happening for me, though.  I still can barely eat anything at one sitting, which just causes me to be hungry pretty much all day...  Also my heartburn was actually worse for a couple of days.  So, who knows, maybe she didn't drop afterall and I'm just imagining things :)

I still have a lot that needs to be done for the nursery but I'm not energetic enough to get it done.  I've entered "maintenance mode" for now and I'm just trying to keep the house picked up and keep on top of laundry.  I'm not doing a lot other than that, and that's enough!  I'm going to try to get to bed earlier this week, I've been doing a bad job of getting in bed much before 10 or 10:30.  I know I need more sleep than that, especially since I'm interupting my sleep to get up three times a night to use the bathroom.  :)

Well, I guess that's all the updates for now.  I'll post about Maddie's goofy self later, or maybe tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Mind of a Preggo...

My mind is running around in circles.  From the moment I open my eyes in the morning until I close them at night (and sometimes beyond that even) my mind is in overdrive.  I can't seem to keep my calendar straight in my head like I used to.  At least my phone has a great calendar to keep track of everything and give me reminders!  I'm trying to keep active with Maddie and I have dr. appointments and Murphy's had a lot of vet appointments lately too.  So keeping up with all of it is overwhelming.  Here are some things going through my mind right now...

1.  3 weeks and 2 days until our c-section!  While I'm relieved to know the date our baby will arrive, I'm nervous that she could potentially come early on her own.  I'm also relieved to know that I've already been through a c-section once so there shouldn't be any big surprises in my recovery.  However, BECAUSE I've been through it before I know what to expect and it terrifies me.  My recovery with Maddie was pretty easy, I was doing step aerobics at 4 weeks postpartum!  This time I have a toddler thrown in the mix :)  Also, when I was pregnant with Maddie I didn't really read up on all the information about c-sections.  I was very unprepared and didn't really know any of the risks involved.  Now that I've been through it, I'm fully aware of all the risks and that terrifies me. 

2.  I've been trying to keep Maddie active and out of the house now that she's out of Mother's Day Out for the rest of the summer (she goes back Aug 30th).  On one hand I want to keep her busy and get in our last few weeks of one-on-one time since she'll be missing out on that soon, on the other hand I don't want her to get so used to getting out of the house that she gets bored and restless being at home after the baby comes!  I wish I knew the "right" thing to do with her at this point.

3.  It's getting harder and harder to stay active with Maddie!  A couple of weeks ago at one of my appointments my doctor told me I have a small hernia, which is why I've been having a lot of belly pain since mid-late June.  It seems to get progressively more painful for me, especially when I've been on my feet a lot or when I "over do it".  This makes me want to stay home in the mornings and conserve my energy for the evenings when it seems there is so much to do.  Tonight I wrapped my baby wrap around my belly to apply pressure and that seems to be helping a little.  At least I know I'll be able to get the kitchen cleaned up before bed tonight!

4.  My poor Murphy (the dog) had to have her tail amputated today...it had been bleeding from an unknown injury for the past 4 weeks.  There was nothing more they could do so we made the decision to take it off.  I haven't seen her yet so I don't know how much tail they left.  They said she started trying to lick at her tail as soon as she woke up from the surgery so they had her pretty heavily sedated and wanted to keep her overnight with heavy sedation.  We'll pick her up tomorrow shortly after noon and she'll have to stay sedated at home for several days.  Poor puppy!

5.  Maddie has turned into a hitter.  I don't know if it's something she picked up at school or if it just comes with the curiosity of a 2 year old.  All I know is that I'm the target :(  It doesn't seem to start out with the intention of hurting me but once I address it, then the evil streak comes into her eyes and she hits me on purpose.  I'm being consistent with time outs when she hits but I guess she forgets the "lesson" after a couple of hours...so the hitting/time out cycle continues through out the day.  Hopefully we can get this under control in the next 3 weeks!!

6.  I've come to the realization that the nursery will NOT be ready before baby comes.  I still have too much to do, have sewing I wanted to do and when I look at it I can't get my mind to slow down long enough to remember how to use a pattern :)  I have some crafty ideas going on in my head that I want to do for the nursery as well but they might not get done either.  Poor second child...  :)

7.  I have gotten a lot of other baby stuff ready.  I sterilized bottles and all other feeding accessories.  Even though I'm planning to breastfeed again, I learned my lesson with Maddie...we didn't have any bottles or anything sterilized because I was determined I was going to nurse her.  Well, my milk didn't come in soon enough for her and she was STARVING so then we had quite the fiasco trying to get everything sterilized (it took more than one attempt, believe it or not!) while we had a screaming baby :)  It was a pretty stressful event for being home from the hospital for less than 24 hours!  This time we're prepared!  I also washed all baby clothes from newborn through 3 months, organized a few drawers and cabinets to make space for baby stuff and started staging baby stuff near the bassinet in our room...now we just need baby to come :)  (oh, and for Eric to install the car seat bases when he gets home!)

I guess that's it for now.  Although, since my mind never stops, I'm sure I'll think of more that I wanted to share as soon as I publish this post.  :)

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Mom's Night Out

Ahhhh...I had a relaxing two hours with a whole nail salon full of moms tonight!  There were chips, cookies, cupcakes, more cookies, mojitos, wine and bottled water for me :)  I had a pedicure for the first time since early spring and a manicure for the first time sinc 2007!  Woah, I was WAY overdue!  It was so nice to get out and be able to relax with my cold bottle of water and a chocolate chocolate chip cookie without having to share with Maddie or watch to make sure Maddie wasn't getting in any trouble and to not have her trying to touch my wet nail polish.  Oh, and it was nice to have my toenails painted since I haven't been able to touch my toes comfortably for the past couple of weeks!  :)

I hired a babysitter for Maddie tonight.  I've struggled with using babysitters before and have never really wanted to leave Maddie at home with someone I don't know.  I got the name and phone number of a really nice girl and she was available on short notice (I just called her yesterday!).  It made it easier for me to leave Maddie since I wasn't going to be out late.  I knew I would by home around 8:00pm so it was no big deal for Maddie to be awake until I got home (her usual bedtime is 8).  I just don't know how she would handle having a stranger put her to bed...

Maddie did well with the babysitter for a while but for the last hour I was gone she said she just wanted to watch tv and didn't do anything else.  She was sad and wanted Mommy and wouldn't respond nicely to any questions the babysitter asked.  When the babysitter asked what Mommy always does (wanting the response "comes back") Maddie responded with, "nuffing".  She was grumpy and just wanted to be left alone.  :(  Oh well...at least she didn't have to call me to come home right away.  I just hope I can use the babysitter again and Maddie can be happier.  Maybe she'll do better next time. 

I'm so glad I went out for my mani/pedi tonight that I'm seriously not worried about Maddie having a little anxiety about the babysitter...it's something she'll get used to and I could easily get used to having regular Mom's Nights Out!