Monthly Archives: September 2009

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This Just In — Breaking News

I would like to officially announce that I feel better.  This means that on a continuum of normal Jaime before pregnancy to worst moments of pregnancy experienced thus far, I have moved closer to normal Jaime.  I can’t tell exactly how far I have left to go to get to my actual self or how to know that I have left the worst moments behind for good, but I am definitely moving in that direction!  WHEEEEEE!!!!

Indicators:

  • Nugget is “pinging” me.  I feel this little one squirming around in there.  Just TINY little pings, small enough that I wonder if I’m making it up.  But I’m not.  This baby is saying hi to me and it is really cool.
  • I feel cute in my new clothes.  I’m pretty sure I could have cared less what I was wearing during weeks 6-13 of this pregnancy.  I was too miserable to bother.  And week 13 was still really hard, but week 14 was better than that and week 15 was better than that.  We are seeing improvement.  I would say that week 15 has been my first real hope that I will survive this.
  • I puke only once a week, if that.  Ahhh, this is such a HUGE improvement!  Sorry to offer too many details, but the actual event of puking is far less painful and I don’t worry anymore that I’m going to die without air because I can’t breathe.  SO much better.
  • I want foods that I know I like instead of thinking, “Ugh that sounds SO disgusting.  I know it should be good, but ew ew ew.”
  • I have been leaving my house.  I ask the twoddlers what we should do today and I am actually likely to be willing to do what they suggest!  This is very new.  Previously, I didn’t even ask.  And when they volunteered their best ideas of “Outside” and “Libebby” and “TCBC” in hopes that I would take them somewhere, I would just sigh and feel sad that I wasn’t able to be my normal Mommy self.  Now, I notice that I am willing to try to attempt things and I ask them for suggestions.  I think that all 3 of us are feeling better about this improvement.
  • And perhaps most importantly, when I wake up in the morning this week, my first thought isn’t, “I cannot leave this bed.  Ugh, I can’t do this.  How will I possibly care for children today?  I can’t even think.  Ugh, I feel awful.  I HATE the first trimester (which quickly morphed into ‘I HATE the second trimester’).”  I find that it doesn’t scare my socks off (as much) for Matt to go to work and leave me by myself, completely nonfunctional with our poor kids who could really use a parent who is capable of sitting upright and playing with them.

So!  I’m calling that improvement!  I may not fully be normal Jaime yet, but I’m not broken Jaime nearly as much as I was.  Today, my good friend called and asked how I was and I said, “Good!”  And she said, “Jaime, are you good?” so that I would know I didn’t have to lie to her.  And I was able to say, “Yeah!  I’m actually good!  When compared to before, I’m better!”  Hooray for a turning point at week 15!

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Mommy Makeover

If I lived in a large urban area like New York City, I would have been picked up off the street for a much-needed makeover weeks ago.  You know, the shows where they walk up to you and say, “You need a spa day/new wardrobe/salon visit, and WHAT are we going to do about your hair color!”  And then they politely criticize your current choices and weasel you into receiving a new wardrobe in front of millions of viewers.  Yeah, I would SO have been chosen by now.

I am a tired pregnant mommy.  I look like a tired pregnant mommy.  Since leaving the professionally-dressed world of work and entering the stay-at-home-mommy phase, I didn’t exactly let myself go or anything!  Generally, I’m a jeans and comfy shoes girl and I like cute shirts or sweaters with my jeans and comfy shoes.  I decided not to buy clothing in 2009 because I don’t really need new clothes and it seemed like a good experiment to try and give up something that I usually do out of boredom rather than need.  But then I became pregnant and sick and exhausted and cranky and I have fallen off my pedestal of cute and comfy mom to the dredges of barely rolled out of bed but at least I showered mom.  It’s been sad.  Thus, the need for a makeover show to take pity on me.

My maternity clothes are all shorts and summer clothes because I spent the spring and summer of 2007 being ENORMOUSLY pregnant with my cuties.  I bargain shopped for them on eBay and got some great deals and they are all extremely adorable options, but I’ll freeze my giblets if I wear them for this pregnancy.  Given useless maternity clothes coupled with the decision to avoid purchasing clothes in 2009, it was going to be tricky to wear clothes at all this fall and winter given that I already don’t fit into anything I would normally wear.  I considered going pantsless since nothing fits, but as Becky recently said, we can’t have a pantsless Jaime!  Dear friends to the rescue!  I have been given tons, literally TONS! of cute maternity clothes to borrow.   Ironically, my clothes have all come from 2 friends named Becky… isn’t that hilarious??  One of the Becky’s also gave me her sister’s maternity clothes collection as well.  My wardrobe has taken a drastic upswing in the fashionable and ooo-ahhh chic departments.  These girls were all working at the time they were pregnant, so I have all these great options.  I’m upgrading beyond my former jeans and cute tops level to a whole new level of career-ready cuteness!  Not only am I leaving behind the trimester of sick and yuck, I am also not reduced to yoga pants and tshirts any longer!  I have dress clothes!  I haven’t worn dress clothes regularly for several years!

I have chocolate brown corduroy pants.  Ahh.  I have some gorgeous dresses.  I have khakis and black dress pants and jeans and tons of adorable tops to pair them with.  I have long-sleeved items… I have never had long-sleeved maternity wear!  And all of these clothes fit amazingly well!  It makes a huge difference in how I feel for the day when I can choose to wear something smart and sleek and chic instead of something baggy and blech.  It affects my whole mood for the better… I feel like classy tired mommy instead of sloppy tired mommy.  The psychological effects of feeling like you look your best cannot be underestimated.  And I didn’t pay a dime!  It’s like I got the sweet makeover from a tv show without all the public shame and criticism of how I was such a specimen of what not to wear before the Beckys rescued me.  Thank you, Beckys!  Thank you for making me feel better even though I’m still tired mommy!  I keep digging further into the new clothes bins and saying, “Oh wow!”  And Matt, darling wonderful man that he is, keeps saying, “Sweetie, you look adorable.  Have I seen you in that before?”  “No!” I squeal with glee, “no, you haven’t!  It’s new!  It’s all new!!!!!!”  It makes me happy.

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Peas

Add peas to the ever-increasing list of foods that must be supervised when eaten by twoddlers.  My kids have been jokingly trying to cram Cheerios up their nostrils for several months.  I say jokingly because they literally wait until we are watching and then hold their breath and place the Cheerio just so and see how long it can sit there until they have to breathe again.  It is purely for entertainment value!

Today, I gave them lunch and sat at my computer posting while they ate.  When they were done, I came out to clean them up and Zach had his finger in his nose (not at all uncommon around here) and said, “Boogie!”  He did have stuff on his finger… what is that?  At first I thought it was peanut butter from his sandwich… did he put peanut butter up his nose?  Ew!  Then I tipped his chin back and noticed something bright green in there… hey, that looks like a pea!

The poor boy HATES when we use the boogie sucker on him… something about the suctioning and the being forced to hold still combine into an awful experience for him!  I held him (and held him down… he is quite a squirmer and extremely strong) and tried to get the pea out.  It was hard because the boogie sucker opening is tiny and the pea was the same size as his nostril… conveniently enough.  I finally got it out and looked in his nose again… there was another pea.  I was practically in tears at this point… had he not picked his nose and I thought his finger had peanut butter on it, I wouldn’t even have checked and he would have had 2 peas stuck in his nose!  My gosh, why wasn’t I watching him at lunch?  He could stop breathing!  (It should be pointed out that it is highly unlikely that he could stop breathing… he has another perfectly functioning nostril and his throat is unobstructed and it is just a pea.  My anatomy and physiology training should have reminded me that he’d likely snort it through his nose into the back of his mouth and swallow it without even noticing, but I can’t think rationally when my child is screaming because I’m trying to dislodge a pea from his nose!!!!!)

I got pea #2 out.  Guess what?  Hello, pea #3!  At this point, he was traumatized, I was traumatized, Matt was helping me hold him down because he had had quite enough of the boogie sucker, and Rissa was traumatized because her brother was screaming and no one was paying attention to her or that she was concerned and didn’t understand.  I got pea #3 out after multiple tries.  I couldn’t be sure there weren’t more but I couldn’t see any more peas and he was actually making boogers now instead of pea juice, so I snuggled him for a long time while we both calmed down and I proclaimed us “done with the boogie sucker!”

They napped, we had a lovely afternoon, and we went to “Cack-o Boy-o!” (Cracker Barrel) for dinner as a family.  It was awesome.  While at the table, Matt said, “Uh oh!  I see bright green in Zach’s nose.  I think that pea #4 is in there.”  We got home when dinner was over and I pulled out the boogie sucker again.  I couldn’t find the pea and Zach was breathing fine, so we assumed that he worked it through and was fine.  Oh my.  It was terrifying and ridiculously funny all at the same time.  Our friend Joe said, “Ahh, so he’s in the putting everything up his nose” phase.  I didn’t know there even was such a phase, but if there is, he is clearly there.  No more peas without supervision!

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Our First Event-Free Saturday

We have enjoyed a string of wedding weekends in September!  Today begins our first weekend in September without a wedding to attend, so I thought I’d give pictures and stories from our weekend fun all month.  Being pregnant is so great for formal wear.  I have all these pretty dresses that I am SOOO not skinny enough for any more and I don’t wear them because they look a little… tight.  But now that I’m pregnant, the freedom sets in!  OF COURSE the belly area looks tight, Nugget is in there!  Forget that it would have been that way anyway even if I wasn’t pregnant… I am, and so it is all good.  Ahh.  Stretchy fabrics and a fantastic reason to have a big belly bump and butt.  There is nothing like a pregnancy to help you flamboyantly display all your bulges and demand that people claim they are adorable.  I could live like this. 🙂

On Saturday, September 5, the four us headed to Lincoln, IL for Laura’s wedding to Andrew.  This was a VERY special day!  We were so thrilled to be able to attend — everything about it was wonderful!  We thought about not bringing the twins but this was the first time that my college crew of friends would be together, and we wanted to see each other’s kids, so we just brought them along and made it work after Laura and Andrew invited our kids and said it was fine if they came.  Laura was so gorgeous!  Her family is like a second family to me, so I loved seeing them all together and celebrating.  We got ourselves home late because it was hard to leave and we had a wonderful time!

Gorgeous Laura in her gorgeous dress! Dear friends reunite! Brian and Becky scored some overnight babysitters for their 6 month old twins so they took the opportunity to get away and rejuvenate with friends! You can see the Olson 4 and Laura and Andrew, and Beth and Jon and their daughter Natalie, as well as Ben and Lynn with Isaac and their little girl on the way. These people are SO very special to me -- I had a wonderful experience in college and all of my best stories revolve around these friends! Matt D. is missing from the picture, with his wife and new son. Of the 9 of us, SIX married one of the others in our group! Matt and Andrew were the only ones there who did NOT go to college with me. Natalie was very sweet and social... she instantly claimed Rissa and Zach as her new friends and made them feel liked and special! She reminds me very much of her mommy in this way :)

Natalie would walk up to Zach and Rissa and give them a forced hug. Eventually, my kids just knew it was coming and would turn around, ready for the hug, and ready to offer one back. Gotta love those early social skills! All the little ones kept taking over the dancefloor. They were intrigued by the disco ball and the revolving lights! For Laura and Andrew's first dance, Matt and I retrieved our children from bolting out to join them no less than 5 times. They are quick when they have something in mind that they want to do! The other 2 cuties are Laura's niece and nephew, the flower girl and ringbearer. Lighting remains one of the coolest things ever for little people. The only lights they could reach were the ones decoratively draped over the trees in the reception hall, so they spent lots of time touching those. Zach figured out that if you turn the individual bulbs, they turn off... and sometimes they turn off the entire string of bulbs prior! He was practically bursting with this new-found power of controlling lights by touching them and wanted to show Rissa how it worked. She was duly impressed.

On Sunday, September 13, we attended Eric and Leslie’s wedding.  Eric and Matt work together.  We did NOT bring our kids!  Our friends Kat and Jeremy and their daughter Adele offered to have Zach and Rissa over to play at their house.  Zach and Rissa were THRILLED and we got an evening by ourselves!  It was fun to visit with people we knew from Matt’s work, including several friends who have moved and came back for the wedding!  One of Matt’s coworkers just had a little guy and they also spent a bit of time in the NICU.  I instantly bonded with he and his wife… there is an entirely different set of milestones in the first week of parenting with a NICU baby and only other NICU parents understand how different it is.  It was SOOO fun to sit and talk with a group of girls I enjoy very much while the Man Table sat and talked about… well, something.  Probably work?  🙂

Eric and Leslie danced together the standard way for their first dance and then they broke out this entire choreographed sequence that was extremely awesome. They were so happy! We ate dinner with our spouses/dates, but then the groups broke up into 2 tables: the Man Table... ... and the Fun Hotties Table, woo-hoo! (could Nugget be ANY more prominent?)

On Saturday, September 19, we had TWO big events to attend!  In the morning, we drove to Morton, IL for our first Pumpkin Festival.  Andy is from Morton and he and Maria and Will go every year and we’ve just never been able to make it!  I’m not really from any one place so I don’t have a festival from growing up.  As a result, I have claimed all of my friend’s festivals and I go to those.  So we went!  Zach and Rissa loved the parade and I loved that they had no idea why floats kept pelting them with candy or what to do with all the handfuls.  They kept handing them to Matt… if only they always forked all their candy over to Matt!  Gotta love these moments while you have them.  There were horses and one little pony and we literally had to grab ahold of Rissa and drag her backward to keep her from charging the “HOSIES!!!!!!”  Both kids got a “bawoo!”  Both kids got to sit with Will and Unto Addy and Auntie Mia, as well as all 4 of Will’s grandparents.  And both kids tasted their first tastee ice (we ventured into popsicles via the 100% fruit bar method so they had never tasted sugary, flavory, colorful ice stuff).  Ahhh.

Hanging out at the Morton's Pumpkin Festival parade!!! Rissa samples her first tastee ice. It was a success! Zach samples his first tastee ice. Also a success, although he didn't want the whole thing and it was more fun to spill and make stains with than to drink :)

We got home WAY too late and the twins missed their nap completely.  Which was horrible because we were headed to Janine and Josh’s wedding that afternoon and I desperately needed a nap too, but we ended up getting home just in time to head off to the wedding.  I wear out really easily these days, it is so sad.  Thankfully, Miss Lei was coming over to sit in the house until they woke up and then play with them for the afternoon, and they managed to fall asleep at 2pm in their cribs, so they had a late nap day but not a no nap day.  Whew!  Matt and I got dressed and hurried out the door.  The wedding ceremony was lovely and very carefully planned… I enjoyed it very much.  And then we went out to a coffee shop we used to frequent when we were young and single, then young and dating, then young and engaged, then young and married.  (We instantly became old when we had kids).  I guzzled a smoothie and Matt sipped an iced mocha and we pretended we were young again.  Then we went home and got our kids to take them to the reception!  It was a very fun day and we learned an important lesson:  mashed potatoes are the very best product you can find for hair gel.  If you need your hair to stick, use the mashed potatoes.  Works every time.

Janine and Josh! The glorious cake made by friends of the couple (and also friends of ours). We didn't get to taste it because bedtime came earlier than cake-cutting time so we had to head home. This is parenthood... you miss out on awesome stuff and tell yourself it's okay. It isn't, but it is. Olsons at the reception sporting some amazing mashed potato hair! Janine and Josh invited R and Z to the reception part and they were VERY excited about the whole thing. It helped that so many of the guests were friends of ours and they could run table to table and work the adoring crowd.