And the Bomb Keeps Ticking

On Sunday evening I started feeling some major intense contractions. They weren't painful at all. Mostly felt like I was flexing my stomach as hard as I could, except I wasn't doing anything. They weren't regular by any means, but it was exciting anyway! So on Tuesday I went to my OB appt and he said I was almost dilated to a 2. I went home excited that I had gotten so far without feeling anything (if anyone remembers, I felt every contraction from a 0 to a 10 with Vincente. Mostly I was feeling back labor... very very painful). Anyway, Tuesday after my OB appt, I kept having the irregular, very intense contractions all day. They got so intense that I would kind of space out during some of them. Heh, at one point we got home from WalMart and Russ asked me where the house keys were and it took me over a minute to think about it and tell him where they were. Then about 20 minutes later, in between contractions, he asked where is backpack was, and since I was fully functional, I told him right away where it was. The loopiness is a weird feeling.

Anyway, so that went on until Tuesday evening (last night) when we started playing Wii Bowling. I had a few contractions, but eventually they went away, and I didn't feel any contractions at all, all night (and I know because I woke up two or three times to go pee and once to take some Tylenol for my sinus headache). So I haven't been feeling any more contractions, which is kind of sad, but whatever. None of these contractions have been painful, so that has been nice. Well, some have been a little uncomfortable, but nothing like my labor with Vince. 

Now I am back to waiting. Oh, and I lied about not have any more contractions, when I got up this morning and started moving around I had a few, and just now I had one. Not as intense as they were yesterday, but at least they are coming again. Yay contractions! I never thought I would be sooooo excited to have contractions :D 

I'm pretty sure this baby is going to come by the end of the week. It only took me about 6 days to get from a 2 to a 10 with Vincente. I'm expecting this baby will come just as fast, if not faster. But we'll see. Maybe I'll just keep having these crazy contractions for two more weeks. Alas. 

Wish me luck!

Ticking

I feel like a time bomb, except I WANT this one to go off. Yesterday I had this sudden burst of energy and started feeling GREAT (I think it was mostly the pseudophedrine and acetametaphine, but I think part of it is because baby dropped - at least, I'm pretty sure she did).

Yesterday after I napped, I started feeling really anxious and nervous. And I was having really strong Braxton Hicks contractions pretty frequently. If I hadn't already convinced myself that I'm going to completely ignore contractions and anything else labor related until I feel like I need to push, I would have thought I was going into labor. The nice thing about it - the fact that I'm having contractions that aren't painful at all. I think it's because she's facing the opposite way than Vincente was. I know that Vincente was facing forward when I went into labor (causing oodles and oodles of back labor, and probably part of the reason my labor was so looooong). I think Little Sister is facing toward my back, which supposedly means less back labor, so I'm thinking that may be why the contractions aren't painful. I just hope I'm dilating some with these contractions. With Vince, each contraction on the road to a 10 was painful. I'm hoping I'm at least getting close to a 2 or 3 with these contractions... so when real labor starts, I won't have so far to go.... *shudder* I don't know what I'd do if labor is like it was with Vince. 

Anyway, so I started getting all "nesty" today - put up the co-sleeper, pulled out all the baby girl clothes, trying to find something suitable for a coming-home-from-the-hospital outift. I actually didn't find anything, so we'll probably go shopping tomorrow for something cute. I cleaned up, did laundry. Basically wore myself out. So, tomorrow I'm going to take it easy. I have a Dr's appt (and I'm probably going to ask about an anitbiotic, just to be sure that this sinus infection will go away before baby is born). 

Yesterday when I started thinking about going into labor, I felt very NOT ready for this baby. Now I feel mostly ready. Except I've got to make arrangements for Vince and for someone to drive me to the hospital, because I'm pretty sure she's going to come before my mom's planning on being here. So yeah. Not getting my hopes up, but starting to realize that we are actually going to add another member to our household in the next few weeks. WEE!

The Anti-Anti-inflammatory

A fetus. Yes. Because I'm pregnant, I can't take an anti-inflammatory, and you know what I want right now more than anything else? Ibuprofen. Like I would kill for it. My sinuses are killing me, and there is no way I'm going to be able to sleep EVER if the swelling doesn't stop. They're draining pretty well, and I don't feel nearly as congested as I did. I mostly feel swollen.

Oh yeah, so let me tell you what's been happening.

Ever since about the end of my first trimester, I've been congested. It happens. My sinuses get overproductive, and I get congested. It's usually not too uncomfortable, I just have to make sure I sleep with extra pillows at night.

Well, on Friday a week ago, I started feeling a sore throat coming on. I didn't think too much of it, because a sore throat isn't too inconvenient, and usually goes away after a few days. Well, then that night, I couldn't sleep. By the next morning, my congestion had turned to sinus infection, and something was going on in my lungs. By Saturday evening, I felt like I had been hit by a train, but no fever. Weird. It was like having the flu without really having the flu.

So I rested up over the weekend, Russ took care of things around the house for me (much MUCH appreciated) and I started feeling a lot better. By the time Russ went back to school/work on Tuesday, I felt like I was on the mend. My sinuses were still congested, but I felt like they were getting better. Wednesday night rolled around, and Vincente started crying in his sleep that night. Only a few times, so we thought maybe it was just a nightmare or something, but then he started coughing. And it sounded just like me. 

Last night was hell at our house. I am not trying to exaggerate either. We had humidifiers going in my room and in Vince's room, but still, Vince woke up crying around 11:30pm. Just as we were getting ready to go to bed. So we let him lay in our bed for a while, but he wiggles too much, so eventually, around 12:15, we put him back in his own bed. Well, that worked for a little while, in fact, just long enough for me to stop tossing and turning because of MY congestion. So around 2am, I got up with Vince. Russ came in after a few minutes when it was obvious that Vince wasn't going to be calmed down. So we put on Finding Nemo, and Vince settled down. We gave him some Tylenol, and Russ went back to bed while I watched "Memo" with Vince. Around 4am, I tried to get Vince to fall asleep in the rocking chair with me to the very last 30 minutes or so of Nemo. Needless to say, by then he wasn't very interested in sleeping. Finally, after the show was over, I just put him in his bed and let him fall asleep. I thought about going back to bed, but I couldn't breath, and I couldn't get my sinuses to clear up, so I just stayed up, knowing that Vince would be crying again in an hour or so. I watched this week's episode of House, and then just as it was over, heard Vince crying. So I took care of Vince for another hour. Finally, around 5:50, he went back to sleep, and I decided to lay down and attempt to go to sleep for a little bit. By the time Russ got up half an hour later, I decided sleep was not for me, and got up with Russ. 

And I was hysterical. Lack of sleep is not good for a sick, pregnant woman. Especially one who is emotional anyway. It was bad. I ate breakfast with Russ, then got in the shower around 6:45, hoping to stand in the nice hot water until it was all gone. No such luck. Vince woke up not more than 10 minutes after I started enjoying my hot shower. I got him to lay on my bed with me for about 15 minutes, but then, just as I was getting comfortable (i.e. being able to breathe through my nose again) he woke up, crying. 

So... yeah...

I'm running on absolutely no sleep.

The one friend that I would feel like I could call to watch Vince so I could sleep has two sick kids of her own, so I can't call her. 

My visiting teacher is in the middle of leaving her husband, so I can't call her.

I'm alone, sick, tired, and I have a sick kid to take care of... 

Help me...

Flying By

The past week has flown by... mostly because I developed a disgusting sinus infection that has been taking over my entire upper respiratory system. Yeah. It sucks. Major. Then I thought it was turning into the flu, because I felt like I had the flu, but no fever. Where's the major germ killing heater when you need it? I feel like I get over stuff better when I have a fever to go along with the nastiness.

Anyway, rather than go into the morbid details of my sick week... well, the being sick part of it... I will post a few pictures. 

Oh yes, and the blessing of my sick week? Well, I was only congested until Friday night - that's when things got ugly (couldn't sleep at night because I could breath, coughing my lungs out with every breath, blowing all sorts of nasty mucus out of... well, you get the picture) so the whole weekend (from Friday night until Monday evening) was just miserable. Sick and miserable. I got a blessing Sunday morning, went to Church (which I wasn't really planning on doing), started feeling worse after Church, anyway, you get the idea. So Russ had a four day weekend (for President's Day) which means he was home all weekend to take care of me. We discovered that I have a hard time taking it easy, and so Russ had to force me to take naps and take it easy - but I did it, and I'm recovering (sort of). The best part of me being sick was that it happened when Russ was home to take care of me. I don't know what I would have done being sick in the middle of the week... I don't want to think about it.  

Anyway, so the fun part of our week - 

Watching Vince run around the house naked (barely hiding his man parts with his Snuggle).

Cooking yummy-licious stuffed mushrooms!

Papai cuddling with Vince on the kitchen floor after Church.

Papai reading Vince bedtime stories (Russ translates Vince's favorite books into Portuguese - so this one is about a 'passarinho' looking for 'minha mãe.'

Vince finally playing nice with other kids! He let them play with ALL of his toys, and didn't even care. These are some friends from Church we had over for dinner on Sunday (against my better judgement... but we had fun anyway!)

Wow, I was Fatter Last Time

So, I've been looking through pictures of me when I was pregnant with Vince... I gained SO much weight with him! It's weird, though, because I am up to 154 lbs (which is only about 12 lbs less than my weight when I delivered with Vince). ButI don't think it's nearly as much fat as it was with Vince. I got sooo huge. I still have a little more than 4 weeks to go, so I don't want to jinx myself, but here are some pictures to compare (granted these two pictures just show my face, but I think that might be a pretty good indicator of my overall weight gain).

The me on the left is pregnancy #2, and the me on the right is pregnancy #1. These pictures were both taken at about the same point in my pregnancy. I think they may be a week or two apart, as far as gestation goes. 

With Vince, my pre-pregnancy weight was about 112 lbs, and my weight just before delivery was 167 lbs (OH MY HECK I WAS HUGE!!). With this baby, my pre-pregnancy weight was probably 120-125 lbs (I never got quite as small as I was before... but then I don't think I was finished growing when I got preggo with Vince). So far I'm up to 154 lbs... I don't think I'll gain 13 lbs in 4 weeks (that would be crazy) so I think I'm doing a lot better this time. I'll probably have a total weight gain of about 30 lbs, which to be honest was my goal.

The pictures are also taken from different angles, so that throws things off, but I can tell they're much different because I've been looking at myself in the mirror, waiting for my face to explode. And I've been waiting for my pants to get tighter, and my thighs to get huge, and my love handles to triple in size... and nothing is happening... yet.

Floors and such

I am looking for a runner rug to put down my extremely long, bare hallway (mostly to catch all the junk that's tracked back and forth down the hallway - so I can just vacuum instead of having to sweep... sweep... sweep)

I don't want to have to put more than one rug down, so I'm looking for one that is about 14' long. The only place I've been able to find runner rugs that long is at Overstock.com. If anyone knows of any other places to find them, let me know.

This is my favorite design so far, but it's also the more expensive rug (closer to $200).

These next ones are mostly too busy and bold for me... I like the more subdued look of the red/tan one above. But these are the more affordable rugs (closer to $100).

These first two are my favorites of the more bold rugs.

These two are just a few other options... not ones I'm particularily fond of...

Dishwasher Juggling

In a normal home, when you ask your husband to empty the dishwasher, you feel pretty safe about his eyes, apendages, and your linoleum floor. Yeah, not so in my house. If I ask my husband to empty the dishwasher, chances are I'm going to get a little juggling act. 

my desk!

I finally got my new desk put together! I am super excited. It is very pretty and holds everything really nicely (except my scanner... it doesn't hold my scanner very well ... the stupid thing is too long for the rolly-out shelf, but I stuck in on there anyway).

It also has doors, but we didn't put them on tonight because we didn't really want to put it together tonight anyway, we were going to wait until the weekend, but the card table that has been holding my computer is borrowed from ACS and is due back tomorrow (along with all the other stuff we borrowed from them when we first got here). So I needed a place to put my compy, and now he has a home, and he is very very happy.

I would take a picture of mine and upload it, but it's not all the way put together, so I'm just going to put the picture from the website :)

So, there is what it looks like - minus the ridiculously out dated CRT. I mean, really, who has a CRT monitor these days? (no offense if you're still using one... it must be a hand-me-down, I completely understand, we went through our days of hand-me-down computers, too) Anyway, I love my desk.

Now it's time to put little Vince to bed. I've let him stay up way too late as it is.

Quickie

I haven't written in a while, and I always hate that. Sorry, no pictures to go along with this post - although my camera is holding a few pics of Vince reading on the potty (adorable, let me tell you). I'll post those when I have enough time to sit down and let the pictures upload.

Potty Training - it's going well, we're mostly just putting him in pull-ups and telling him to "have a potty break" every 30 min. or so, and asking him if he needs to go potty. Usually, the answer to that is "NO!" although I think he's starting to say "No, thank you" since I've been redirecting that one. Earlier today when I asked if he wanted to eat lunch he said "NO! Thank you." Hee hee, self correcting is hilarious in little kids.

Baby #2 - I have my first OB appointment today in about an hour and a half. I'm going to go take a shower and get ready, since Vince fell asleep on the way home from the Presidio (we had to drop Russ off because it's a little rainy today). I'm really excited, but kind of anxious to find out how this little chickie is doing. I keep having Braxton-Hicks contractions. Mostly they happen in the morning, but any time is good for them. They are particularily uncomfortable, but as long as I just ignore them, they are bearable. It's a new experience for me, because I never really had Braxton-Hicks contractions with Vincente. The midwives would ask me every time and I would be like "My uterus does what?" Yeah... so I'm already feeling better about this baby's delivery. If I'm having Braxton-Hicks contractions, that means my body knows what the heck it's doing this time. Last time I think my body had no clue what was going on. So, we'll see.

Russ and school - he's doing pretty well. I'm trying to be supportive and let him study as much as he needs to. Some days are better than others, because some days I just want him to hang out with me and not study, which is completely selfish. Oh well. It'll be all good.

The mama - I am exhausted. Worn out. I wish I could sleep more. I don't sleep well at night (congestion from being preggo - starts at about 12 weeks for me and lasts the whole time), and having to pee. If Russ gets out of bed at ALL, I wake up, and then because I have to pee so badly, I can't go back to sleep unless I pull my achy, stiff body out of bed and go pee. So I do, and then I go back to bed, only to be awoken again when he gets up to go to work. Which is early. This morning, though, I completely slept through him getting up and getting ready! It was amazing. And then I had the fan on in my room, so I didn't hear Vincente at all until I got out of bed at 8 and went in to check on him. Of course he was just playing in his room. Sweet kid. I'm trying to keep the house clean, you know, do all the stay-at-home-mom stuff. Playgroup with the other RS sisters is a beautiful thing. Naps are wonderful... too bad those don't happen very often... in fact, I can't remember the last time I had a nap. *sigh* some day.

Anyway, this turned out longer than I thought it would, and I've gotta get ready to go, so yeah... hope you enjoyed the little updates.

Potty Training - Day 4

In some ways, today was much better... in some ways, it was much worse. I think I'm more stressed out about potty training when Vince is in regular underwear (as he was for the whole morning, until lunch) than when he is in pull-ups (as he was practically from lunch time until bed time). He actually stayed dry the whole morning (except once, I think) and then right when Russ got home for lunch, Vince had another accident. 

Getting him to sit on the potty willingly was still an ordeal for most of the day. Finally, just before Russ got home, he started sitting on the potty willingly, and mostly by himself. He kept that up for most of the rest of the evening. He went through about four pull-ups, and while I'm sure him peeing in the pull-up isn't going to be particularily productive, I'm more worried about him willingly sitting on the potty. You win some, you lose some. Right now, I want to win the sitting-on-the-potty war more than I want to win the getting-him-to-ask-to-go-to-the-potty war.

As soon as we start the day with him being willing to sit on the potty, I will graduate him to normal underwear for the whole day (maybe... I might take that back... I just need a break some times - in a pull-up, I can read for a good 15 minutes before I have to put him on the potty again, and he usually stays dry between then). I have a Dr's appt in the morning, so that will kind of thwart our potty training for the day. I'm going to try to get up and get ready for the day before Vince is awake, so as soon as he wakes up, we can do potty training right up until we have to leave for the Dr's office. We should get a good hour and a half in. And then we'll spend most of the afternoon (until he naps) potty training in regular underwear, then after nap, do the pull-up routine again. I would put a pull up on him for our trip to the Dr's office, but I don't think he's ready to try out a big potty, and I don't have one of those convenient fold up potty seat things. 

He did say once to me this evening (around 7pm) "Mamãe, I pee pee in pants." While that's not exactly what I'm waiting for him to say, the fact that he informed me at all about his bodily functions is a HUGE step forward for us. We just change his pull-up and have him try to pee on the potty after a pull-up "accident". 

So, despite being very discouraged this morning (around lunch time... he didn't seem to be improving at all), by the time the evening rolled around, I was much more encouraged. I really think it has something to do with him wearing a pull-up instead of underwear. When he's in underwear, I'm all high strung, and watching him really closely to make sure he doesn't pee all over the house. If he's in a pull-up, I just let him do his thing, asking him every now and then if he needs to go potty, and making him sit on the potty every 30 minutes (or when I see him dancing around).

Oh yeah, that's the other step we've made - I think he's starting to better understand his bladder control, because he's started doing funny things when he needs to pee, like walking like a penguin, and the best one - lifting his leg (like a dog). Both are really hilarious, and I'm glad that he now makes some kind of sign that he needs to pee. I really think he's starting to understand the potty thing. It makes me feel like he will get it down before Little Sister comes. 

There is hope... and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And I am wearing out my poor pregnant body. I'm starting to regret having started potty training at 7 1/2 months pregnant, but we've made too much progress for me to feel good about stopping now. Heh, so as long as potty training doesn't put me into pre-term labor, he'll be potty trained before I have this baby!

I can't wait.