7 months already!

By the time this is posted, Jay will officially be 7 months old!

Being a cutie with "uncle" Steven

7 months... wow! It's September already... where did summer go?!

Jay's been sitting up, playing with his toys pretty well these days and can stand by himself with minimal spotting. He also LOVES tearing into my (already read) magazines that live under our end tables. It's official - our front room, while I would have liked to have kept it as a nice living room, is actually just a nice family room since we spend a lot of time up here as it's carpeted for Jay to play on and his toys keep finding a way out of his room into here (he has almost no toys to play with in his room as they're all currently residing in the family room, lol...). He was moving along quite well in his walker tonight too, speeding back and forth across the kitchen. He gets mad I won't let him pull over the trash can though (it's got a pop-up lid so it has to stay out).

He LOVES shows with puppets in them too, I've noticed - for some reason they catch his attention and he'll just sit and watch them the whole time they're on the screen.

Crawling under the coffee table

He loves to jump too - lately he's been quite the jumping jack, if you stand him up (and hold onto him) on a flat/hard surface he'll often start jumping like crazy, lol...

He can't completely crawl properly yet, but he does this military-like crawl where he pushes and pulls himself all over the place. This afternoon I left him sitting with his toys in the family room while I went in the kitchen to get his dinner ready. As we're in the separation anxiety phase, he soon realized I left the family room and started crying, so I called to him from the kitchen so he would know I was just around the corner. I went to go get him to put him in his high chair and there he is, doing his form of crawling and halfway between where I left him and the kitchen, like he was coming to see where I went, lol...

Sitting in the shopping cart like a big boy!

He enjoys trying new foods/tastes too - he got some ice cream cake at my birthday and loved that, daddy let him lick a cool ranch Dorito and he liked that, he liked the candy daddy let him lick tonight... we gave him a little bit of plain steamed rice which he seemed curious about. He also eats the Gerber Graduates Puffs in Strawberry Apple for a snack sometimes too (my friend let us try the banana organic ones her little girl eats - he didn't seem to like the banana flavor too much though, despite him eating banana baby food). He loves Apple and Strawberry and Grape tasting things though!

He likes to make some pretty funny noises too - his latest enjoyment is rapidly smacking his lips and the noise that makes, daddy taught him that and he gets such a kick out of other people doing it after he starts doing it, lol...

He also likes "playing" with blocks - ie: you build them up, he knocks them and makes them go "boom!" He's also riding in shopping carts now like a big boy - he LOVES being able to sit and see everything at his eye-level rather than ride in his carrier on top of the cart (which by the way, he's almost too big for his carrier now too - he has less than 5lbs til he's over the weight limit!)

Playing blocks with mommy

He also seems to understand teeth brushing, as we added that to his bedtime routine recently - he knows when I put the toothbrush to his mouth to open up for me =)

And also, I noticed tonight, when his head was back while I was changing him that his top 2 front teeth are in! The right one is all the way through and about halfway fully in while the other you can just see the tip of the whiteness broken through! So 7 months old and 4 teeth already! I knew he was getting a few more in soon, as he was really tired earlier this week and the last day or so he hasn't been finishing his bottles completely either like normal.

A day in our regular routine goes like this:

• Jay wakes up between 930 and 1045am, I change his diaper and bring him over to our bed to snuggle with me for a bit, putting on PBS (Sesame Street is on from 10-11am so he usually watches that while I hold onto him and close my eyes for a bit longer, sometimes he falls back asleep too).
• By 1130 or so he's wide awake and hungry so we get up and I fix him a big bowl of Gerber's Rice Cereal with Apple (2 servings in his bowl) and the remaining amount of formula in his bottle (a full bottle is 8oz of water with 4 scoops of Enfamil Premium Powdered Formula and the cereal is mixed with about 1.5-2oz of that).
• He eats all his cereal and then we sit down on the couch and watch some Clifford the Big Red Dog while he eats his bottle. Sometimes he falls back asleep right after his bottle, other times he'll stay awake, playing with his toys til about 1/130pm before falling asleep for his 1st nap.
• On days I work I'll wake him up about 3/315pm so I can get ready for work and we can leave around 4pm when I drop him off at my mom's.
• He usually takes his afternoon bottle around 4/430pm.
• Usually he takes another nap in the early evening while the rest of the time he plays.
• Between 7 and 8pm he eats dinner - 1 jar of veggies, 1 jar of fruit, and a 6oz bottle.
• After his dinner he plays some more, sometimes he'll take a short nap, hubby and I usually eat around 9pm (hubby goes into his 3rd shift job around 10pm and if we eat too early he gets hungry again shortly after he gets to work - eating at 9 usually holds him over for the night).
• Jay takes his medicine between 9 and 10pm, as I don't like to give it to him too close to meals in case it upsets his stomach. 
• We play for a bit after daddy leaves and then a little before 11pm we start getting him ready for bed - change his diaper, let him pick out his jammies and put them on, turn on his scent melt plug-in and his nightlight, brush his teeth and we sit down and he eats his "bedtime bottle" (8oz) while watching The Goodnight Show on Sprout. If we're lucky he falls asleep before finishing his bottle or right after, otherwise, we try to keep him calmed down, reading to him if need be before putting him down if he's still awake past 1130pm.

We have an escape artist!

That's right folks - Jay has become a little escape artist!

This afternoon I decided to leave him parked in his walker in the living room (it doesn't move on carpet) with some toys and PBS Kids shows on while I went around the corner to get myself ready to go for the day. I came back after brushing my teeth and checked on him and he was sitting there, watching TV and playing with toys, so I went to go get dressed.

I wasn't even gone 5 minutes, finishing up what I needed to do and went to go get him to get him ready to go as well (and change his diaper as it was quite stinky!).

I come around the corner and see the seat of the walker lifted upward like it often is when we pick Jay up out of it... but yeah... Jay wasn't in his walker!

I looked around and there he is, on his tummy on the floor next to his walker, playing with the toys he had dropped!

I have NO CLUE how he got out of his walker! You'd think if he fell I would have heard a thump and obviously the walker wasn't tipped over... craziness!

Guess this means he's getting put in the pack n play from now on when I get ready - no more unsupervised play in his walker, even if it's only for a minute!

Oh Eeyore...

So remember last summer when I posted about how I bought baby's 1st stuffed animal at Kohl's - a super soft Eeyore plushie??

And then remember a few weeks ago when I posted about how I took Jay to see the Winnie the Pooh movie?

Well despite him sleeping through most of the movie, he was awake for the 1st and last 10 minutes, catching the majority of the storyline with Eeyore and his missing tail.

Now that Eeyore stuffed animal has been sitting on his diaper changing table ever since he was born, but it wasn't until about 2 days after I took him to the movie that he noticed it and really took an interest to it - it was like he saw it and was like "oh hey, I remember seeing this on a big screen!" He's been attached to Eeyore whenever we change him ever since! It's pretty amusing!

It *finally* happened!!

Today my sister and I took Jay to go see the new Winnie the Pooh movie, as my sister has ALWAYS liked Winnie the Pooh and I'll admit, the new movie looked cute (I was always a Tigger fan). Technically, his 1st movie in the theater was when we saw Thor with my in-laws on Mother's Day, however Jay slept that entire trip to the theater.

He did pretty good today though - he was awake when we went into the theater and the trailers were already playing... as I went to unbuckle him from his carrier to sit him in my lap I noticed he was starring at the movie screen all wide-eyed - it was funny! He laughed and grinned a few times and stayed awake during the Disney short at the beginning (it was about Nessie the Loch Ness Monster) but he fell asleep about 10 minutes into Pooh. He let out a cry when he woke up, but was fine as soon as he opened his eyes and realized mommy was there and where he was and watched the last 10 minutes or so of the movie. There were mostly toddlers in the theater and I think I saw 1 other baby, a little older than Jay.

Afterwards we stopped at Sam's Club to pick up kitty litter and a tub of ice cream (because we keep eating the smaller tubs too fast! doh!) and while walking down the book and movie aisles I found some with characters that Jay would recognize like Curious George and Dinosaur Train and got him laughing. While he was laughing I noticed a little white bud/bump on his bottom gum and proceeded to see what it was...

...he finally had a tooth break through!

It hasn't fully come in yet but it's definitely more progress than just his gums hurting as there's finally some visible proof! It's his front, bottom left tooth, which is surprising as his top front right ones seem to be where his gums hurt the most!

Dropping my sis off at my mom's house earlier, mom told us they had the free 8x10's from our church pictorial directory shoot available for pick-up last Sunday and since she didn't know when we would be there next she got ours for us.

 

I'd say it turned out pretty well!

Jaydran Jump Up!

At my baby shower, one of the gifts my parents got me was a Johnny Jump Up as there's photos of me when I was a baby, having a blast in the thing (my sister on the other hand apparently hated it, lol...). Mom thought it was a must-have and had to get it for me.

Unfortunately, we didn't use it right away as there was no good place in our apartment for it, not to mention Jay was a tad too little to really do anything with it. When we moved we weren't really sure where to put it either, as there's not really many places in our house to put it.

When we left Jay with my parents for a few days last weekend though my mom bought one for her house and hooked it up and apparently he really enjoyed it! I made an effort to figure out where we could put in our house and narrowed it down to our bedroom doorframe and Jay's bedroom doorframe, as there's not really a lot of doorframes in our house to use it on!

He seemed to enjoy it the few times we've used it on our bedroom doorframe so far - today even he played in it for like a half hour, chewing on the cover that covers the metal bar frame and having a quite the conversation with me this afternoon! It was pretty amusing!

He can't really jump much yet, but he enjoys swinging around from it and dangling his legs, lol...

Also, today I swear he was trying to give me a kiss as he put his lips to my cheek and just held them there for a moment or so before pulling away. It was really cute!

I also *finally* got to see him flip from his tummy to his back! He's been doing it for about a month now but never when I'm around! Unfortunately though, he did it while he was on his changing table - doh!

Baby Mozart

Since I've been getting more and more hours/shifts at work lately, Jay's been spending quite a bit of time over at my mom's house lately.

I sat down on one of my breaks last week and got a text from her - my sister sat Jay down with her at their piano, he watched her play for a few minutes and decided to try it himself!

Check out my little Baby Mozart, playing away at the piano!

Weekly Update

This past week has been somewhat busy with some amusing moments as well!

Tuesday it was hot and sunny! Jay and I met up with my friend and her 1 year old and went walking for a bit at a nearby park around a mini-lake. Good thing too, as the lake offered a little bit of a nice breeze! It finally felt like summer though and I'm not sure Jay knew what to make of it as on this day he got to go out in just a onesie with no shoes or pants on bottom when usually when we go out he's all bundled up! I'm glad I bought the Huggies Little Swimmers spf 50 sunblock recently though, as it came in handy and kept Jay from getting burnt like I did! He was sweating a lot though while we were out so I went on a search to find him one of those water spray bottles with the fan on the end so I can take with us and mist him while we go for walks this summer.

It's a good thing that our basement is super freezing as it felt really nice when it was 90 degrees outside!

Also, I got my Mother's Day present - a trip to a nearby salon for a mani-pedi! And at this place you get a complimentary beverage too - neat! We're going to a wedding out of state on the 1st of July so I'll probably use it sometime the week before.

We think Jay might be going through his 3 month growth spurt as Thursday he literally slept almost all day - he didn't wake up in his crib til after noon, I picked him up and he fell back asleep and slept til almost 3pm before he woke up for food, sleeping on and off throughout the day only waking up to eat or have his diaper changed. He seemed more like himself on Friday, but I looked it up and they say increased in appetite and sleeping more than usual is a sign of a growth spurt coming and he's due for his 3 month one too... he does feel a bit heavier, as I've noticed I've had to shift him a bit when he's laying on me as my back or side starts to hurt if he's on it for too long. He's also eating 8oz bottles regularly now too - finishing off several in a day that we had to go out and buy another 3 pack of bottles so we have enough to get through the day! We weighed him on the scale by weighing daddy while holding him and then without - it showed that Jay added about 12lbs to daddy's weight, so we're assuming he's at least 12lbs by now. His 4 month check-up on June 8th - wouldn't be surprised if he's at least 13lbs by then!

Friday Jay had a few "scares." We decided to go out to a sit-down restaurant on Friday night for dinner so while I was in the bathroom putting on make-up hubby was watching Jay when I heard him shriek and scream and start crying out of nowhere! I rushed out of the bathroom to see what had happened and saw hubby trying to comfort Jay - hubby decided to play "Elmo Attack!" with Jay but Jay freaked out at the sight of his favorite stuffed animal lunging towards him, lol... poor kiddo! And at Texas Roadhouse, whenever it's someone's birthday they yell it out so everyone in the restaurant can hear and have everyone yell "yee-haw!" Well, it scared Jay, as the 1st time it happened, the birthday was just a few tables over from us. They started yelling out the person's information and his face scrunched up and he started wailing... I picked him up and held him to get him to calm down but then a few minutes later they announced another birthday in a nearby section and he started crying again. So yeah... guess he wasn't fond of that, although he didn't mind the rest of the loud atmosphere! LOL...

I had to quit the 30 Day Shred, unfortunately. It's a good work-out and it is doable, it's just I realized my knees are HORRIBLE! They can't handle the intense workout and I'm afraid if I kept up with it I'd really do something to damage them and make em even worse. So I'm watching my calories thanks to the My Fitness Pal smartphone app and I'm making an effort to go walking at least once a week if not more so I'm doing something. Plus wearing my Shape-Ups help too as I can feel those toning my legs and butt.

What else...

I started on Jay's baby book earlier this week, filling out the info so far. I need to get some pictures printed up for it though.

Also, Jay enjoyed sending text messages to people this week! I was holding him while we were hanging out in the basement on a hot afternoon and I had my phone in my hand too, which is a touchscreen. On occasion Jay likes to smack my phone, put me on who knows what screen and how he got there, lol... well this day he got it to open a text message to one of my friends. Seeing how he was hitting the screen of my phone with his hand I decided to just let him send messages to people (with a follow-up one that it was from him) and let him go to town punching in random characters! He had a blast and it provided us with some entertainment for a little while! He sent one to a few of my friends and daddy as well as both of his grandma's and my dad (as his other grandpa doesn't text). They all thought it was cute and amusing. Gotta love touchscreens!

I almost forgot last week that Jay "watches" TV now too, as I had TBS on late one night and a horror movie came on. It was about 5 minutes in when it hit me to see if he was asleep or awake, as I was on the laptop and had Jay propped up on some pillows on the couch laying next to me. I look over and sure enough, he's wide awake, staring at the TV, sucking on his binky and snuggling with Elmo. Fortunately nothing graphic had happened yet so I flipped the channel over to Disney Channel which had Little Einstein's on! Oops!

Sunday I had a Mary Kay party and got a bunch of items (at least 10) for just $41.27! I stocked up on the items I use that I was either really low on or pretty much out of and got a handful of fun extras too! It seemed like everyone had fun too! Jay spent the evening downstairs with daddy at "the man party" as hubby invited one of his co-workers over to play video games with and my father-in-law hung out with them too as my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were there for my party and with his health issues he can't be alone at the house for very long. It all worked out though - us girls did our thing while the guys did their thing.

We took Jay to church again this week and kept him with us rather than dropping him off in the nursery - he did well once again, sleeping throughout most of the service, except at the end in which he started laughing and we had to try to keep him from being too loud during the prayer, lol... the sermon was really good too (they're doing that Generations series I mentioned last week and this week's was on toddlers) and as a new parent I found it to be pretty insightful, but I'll be posting more about that in a bit =)

We also got a call this week to participate in the upcoming church pictorial directory. They haven't put one out since shortly after I started college. My family had the time slot after hubby's family so I remember him and I hanging out for a bit as his family was taking forever, holding up the photo shoots, lol... part of the problem was his brother insisted that his girlfriend at the time be in the photos and they had trouble picking one they liked that she wasn't in or something along those lines... hubby and I just remember it taking forever, lol... we setup a time for the 3 of us, not sure if we're also going to join his family to get one nice big family photo or not - that's up to them. I'm excited though as they've done these pictorial church directories for years and it's neat having them and looking at them from time to time... I remember being a kid and thinking about the day I'd get to be in it with a family of my own and now that day has come! How exciting!

We're in Elmo's World now!

I mentioned briefly in my Easter update that my mom got Jay an Elmo for Easter but I didn't mention just how much he seems to love the thing!

Jay loves his Elmo - you can tell he's smiling!

Anytime it's within arm reach of him he's holding onto it, hugging it, gripping it... it's too cute! He also grins really big and laughs when you do the Elmo voice and sing the Elmo's World song ("La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World...") - he LOVES it!

We first saw it in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago when I was out at the mall, walking and window shopping. I stopped in to see about a few more board books for Jay and I spied him starring at something on the shelf from his stroller. I looked and noticed a bunch of Elmo's on the shelf. To be sure that's what it was he was looking at I picked on up and brought it towards his face and he grinned! It was $16.95 though and I was already spending too much money that day so I figured maybe someday later on I'd go back and get it for him. I also mentioned it to my mom and she said she'd try and see about getting it for him for Easter. When she went back to get it, it was the last one on the shelf!

She brought it out for him at Easter dinner on Sunday and boy did his eyes get wide and his face lit up! It was as if he remembered it from weeks earlier! Too cute!

So right now, we think this stuffed Elmo (which is just bigger than half his size! LOL) might be his "special" toy - you know, the doll or blanket you got attached to as a kid and had to take everywhere!

The Star of Mommy's Blog

I was in Target the other day picking up a few things in the baby department (Diaper Genie refills and Munchkin food bowls) when I came across this gem of a bib:

Obviously I *had* to get it and it was only around $2.50 so why not? This is an item that every mommy blogger needs to get for her baby!

Happy (early) Easter!

This past weekend I took Jay to see the Easter Bunny for the first time ever!

He had the reaction we figured he would - a look on his face that was if he was saying "uh mommy... what IS this furry pink thing and WHY is it holding me???"

He did well though! The photo-op was hosted by The Rockford Kids Club which is a new local organization that hosts events like this one and offers discounts and deals to different places around town. An old friend of mine has a lot of involvement with it. But anyways, it was at Sapora Playworld which is an indoor playground type place inside the same building as one of the local ice rinks.

A friend of mine came with her 2 kids - her 1 year old started pulling on Jay's shoelaces, to which he gave her this dirty look, lol... it was pretty funny! Then he watched the kids running around and playing before dozing off.

Sunday was also a busy day for Jay as he got to meet his cousins for the first time ever! He has 2 - Noah, who will be 4 this summer, and Lucas who is about 4 months older than Jay. He didn't know what to make of Noah, who was a bit excited to see the baby and was playing with the toys on Jay's carrier. He was all wide-eyed meeting Lucas as he's never seen another baby that close in age to him - most the ones he's met before were nearly 1.

In other news, we're somewhat moved in now. Just tonight we got the rest of the boxes in the basement sorted and put away. We just have some boxes in the living room to put away, the office to put together and some stuff in our bedroom. Tomorrow most of our living room furniture is being delivered - for whatever reason Slumberland corporate didn't ship our loveseat with the rest of the set so that's been delivered when it arrives in a few weeks.

We've been working on getting Jay used to his crib. So far the longest he's gone in there is roughly 3hrs, which isn't too bad a start, considering the first time we tried he only made it an hour. We're really working on it this week though as it's important to get him used to sleeping by himself and in his own room.

My baby sis turned 18 today (Monday) and we celebrated with family on Friday by going to local pasta joint Lino's. We let Jay try some pasta sauce - he wasn't so crazy about it but boy did he love the little bit of vanilla ice cream daddy slipped him!

House stuff and more!

So we had the home inspection this past Monday and it went well - no major surprises, just a few smaller things that we can do ourselves or have my dad and uncle help out with.

The only issue on the main floor is that the thermostat cover or whatever needs to be replaced - you can adjust the temperature and it works but the numbers on the panel don't work - they said you can replace that for about $20-50. On the deck, we need to put support posts or something under the ends of this section that juts out (it seems to be an add on for a grill) as there's only the support beam in the middle and not on the sides, making the edges not safe. Downstairs is our main issue - there's a section along the baseboard in the lower level bedroom where it looks like there was mold or water damage. They said it's an easy fix though as we just have to pull up that section of the drywall, patch it up underneath and then replace the drywall. And they said on the outside we can just take a hoe and level out the slope on the yard above so that it's not sloping towards the house there. The only other thing is an issue with the electrical box - hubby got the details on that and they said it'd be something real simple that my uncle could take care of no problem (he's an electrician).

This in a light tan/mocha color

We went out and bought our living room furniture too, or well, at least put a deposit on it. Slumberland has their Mega Sale - 55% off stuff - going on through this week and they had some really nice 5 piece living room sets (a sofa, loveseat, 2 end tables and a coffee table) for under $1000 so naturally we jumped at the chance as it really is a good deal and we need furniture for our front room upstairs since the majority of our furniture is going in the rec room downstairs. We're planning on putting it on our credit card but have to wait til after we close so it doesn't screw up hubby's credit any, but that works out as they have to order it from the manufacturer warehouse and won't be in til around our closing date anyway.

We're also shopping around for a fridge and washer/dryer too and I plan on painting Jay's room all Super Mario Bros-esque - I'll be sure to post pics!

We're planning on closing the first week of April - around the 4th or 5th I believe. Can't believe how soon it's happening! We already started packing and I'm getting us more boxes tomorrow too as we ran out of bigger ones.

As far as Jay goes...

I need to call back the children's hospital in Madison tomorrow and set up a time next week for his appointment up there.

He also decided the bath tub needed to be turned into a fountain the other night as we just finished bathing him. Right before we had a chance to pick him up out of the tub he made a bit of fountain... and then he did it again 2 seconds later! Hubby and I were cracking up, as the surprised "whoa" face he made while doing it was the icing on the cake!

Jay also had a big day on Monday - my mom meets with a group of ladies most Monday mornings for coffee and they were throwing her a Grandma Baby Shower and had invited Jay and I to come. He got passed around from lady to lady... needless to say, he slept pretty good the rest of the day!

He's also increased his feeding too, eating usually 3.5oz, although there's been a few times he's done 4, 4.5oz and earlier today he finished off an entire 5.5oz bottle!

Jay update!

Today we had our first visit from the visiting nurse as they said one would be coming twice a week for 2 weeks to check Jay's weight and make sure he was still making progress, growth-wise.

Well, as of this evening, he's up to 7lbs even! Woot!!

The visit went alright it seemed - he screamed bloody murder when I had to strip him down so she could weigh him and he ate 2.5oz while she asked me a bunch of questions about him and my pregnancy and delivery, etc.

She'll be back Friday for another weight check up.

I ran into our landlord today for the first time in months. He saw me carrying in Jay in his carrier and helped get the door for me, asking if he was our baby or someone's we were watching. I said he was ours and the response was "Really?! I didn't even know you were pregnant!" I told him Jay was almost 4 weeks old and he was surprised too! Guess our landlord's been out of the loop! lol...

I also realized that the house we put an offer in on today is in the city and not the county so that means we can finally get library cards!! I'm so excited - I haven't had a library card since I was a kid when my dad would take me a few Saturdays a month. See, here if you live in the city, your library card is covered by your city taxes, but if you live in the random county patches well, it's $100 annually that you have to pay upfront so obviously you can see why I haven't had one in years. I'm really excited though and I look forward to taking Jay to get a library card in a few years too!

And on a sidenote...

Jay is NEVER going to have clean sleeves again. This weekend at the hospital he figured out that he can wipe his mouth off on his sleeve and he was regularly beating me to wiping the milkies off his face! We started him back on his medicine tonight and while we had a bib on him, he attempted to wipe his mouth off with his "good" shirt sleeve... this is bad because the medicine is pink and stains! We kept having to grab his arm to stop him from doing it! lol...

37 weeks is finally here!!

Today I am 37weeks and 1 day.

And 37 weeks is technically considered to be full-term, so at this point, it's all just a waiting game, as Jay can make his arrival at anytime!

In other news, the baby shower was this past Saturday - I'll be making a separate post about that soon as I need to upload some of my photos I took.

We're also expecting a massive blizzard here in the next day or so (supposedly starting sometime tonight), giving some parts of northern Illinois up to 2 feet of snow! I hear my area is supposed to get 12-18 inches. One of the things they kept saying during our birthing classes at the hospital is that they often see a huge increase of women going into labor during bad weather and snowstorms and a few friends on Facebook have confirmed this as well, saying they went into labor during snowstorms or tornadoes and the L&D floor was PACKED with other pregnant women also going into labor! Not getting my hopes up too much, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't crossing my fingers or at least keeping the thought/idea/possibility of it happening in the back of my mind! lol...

Also, I am *still* waiting on the hospital to call and schedule me for the ultrasound my clinic wants me to have to look more closely at Jay's femur and kidneys.

My clinic called early on Wednesday saying that they talked to my insurance and it was good to go and that they sent my paperwork over to the hospital and that they would be calling me soon to get it scheduled. On Thursday at my follow-up my doctor asked if I had it scheduled yet and I told her I was still waiting to hear from the hospital, so she told me if I didn't hear anything Friday to call the clinic and let them know so they could look into it. Well, Friday came and went, as did the weekend, so I called as soon as I woke up this morning. They gave me the number for the Maternal Fetal Medicine ward at the hospital and I called explained the situation to them - the woman I spoke to pulled up my info and looked, as they have me on file from the last one we did at 30 weeks, and said it was showing they hadn't gotten any recent paperwork for me and requested I call my clinic and let them know so they can resend it and that they would call me shortly after they received it. So I did and spoke with the girl I talked to last Wednesday - she said that was strange as she has confirmation showing that the hospital received the paperwork they faxed over for me but said she was sending it over again and I should hear something soon.

So... I'm still waiting.

I'm starting to wonder if there's even a point now - I mean if it were earlier and we weren't at the point where we can expect him to arrive at any time I'd get it, but it seems like a waste as with my luck we'll schedule it and I'll go in labor before the appointment or we'll have the ultrasound and I'll go into labor like 2 days later. At this point too, since hubby kinda wants to be there for this one in the event that something is "wrong," the only good time this week that we could schedule for that works with both our schedules would be Thursday morning - otherwise we'd we have to wait until next week and I'll be even further along... and the further along I am the harder it's going to be to check his femur... ughhhhh

Weekly follow-up, morning hysterics and other thoughts

Today I had my follow-up doctor's appointment, however the morning started out with quite a bit of hysterics!

I'll admit, I didn't get much sleep last night as I napped A LOT yesterday (I went to lay down for an hour and was out for almost 4 hours!) so I was a little crabby from that. Didn't help that as I was getting ready this morning I realized I could have gotten an extra half hour of sleep as I noticed the card for my appointment said it was at 830am and not 8am like I thought. Regardless, I was ready to go at 8am and went out to clear off my car.

We had a nice little snowstorm on Monday and I hadn't driven my car since so there was some some harder snow packed onto my windshield, but it only took a moment to break it off and clear. So I get in my car and go to back out and.... my car won't move. I get out and look around, checking to see if there's a lot of snow blocked around the tires and sure enough, on the entire right side of my car there's snow packed up around the tires, including the front passenger one that has crappy tread at the moment. My car is also front-wheel drive so this doesn't help. Apparently whoever shovels our parking lot thought it would be nice to shovel walk-ways between the cars, but obviously wasn't paying attention that he was packing snow up around the car tires in the process. I knew this had to be the case as when I parked it Monday I went back and forth a few times, packing down the space around my tires to ensure I could get out!

Frustrated, I take my long snow pick and try to shovel out and break down the snow packed around my tire and get back in the car and try again. No luck - just burning rubber and my car won't go anywhere. I spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to get my car out and was really frustrated and being preggo, when I get frustrated and upset I tend to get a bit hysterical and start crying! I tried calling hubby to see if he could come push me out or at least bring me his keys so I could just take his car, but he wasn't answering either as he was asleep.

I think I scared the crap out of him when I came storming inside, all hysterical, worked up and in tears quickly stating I had to drive his car this morning because I couldn't get my car out thanks to the "dumbass that shovels our lot." Looking back later today, I had a good laugh with hubby over how hysterical I got!

I was a little more calm by the time I made it to my clinic, with 5 minutes to spare (if you're not there within 15 min of your appointment they cancel it, make you reschedule and charge you a $50 missed appointment fee).

The stress test went normal - Jay was quite active this morning, I think largely in part due to the fact I had gotten so hysterical (he started beating the crap out of me during that whole ordeal too and didn't slow down much afterwards - oops!).

I lost 1lb since Monday, which doesn't surprise me as I just haven't been all that hungry these past few days and for lunch and dinner I've been eating just enough carbs to meet my minimum quota.

They had trouble getting my blood pressure - the one girl tried 3 times and couldn't hear anything so she had another girl check it and it was a little high. They waited about 10 minutes, the 1st girl tried taking it again, realized something wasn't right with her stethoscope, fixed and could hear and my blood pressure had gone down a little bit. I still got lectured a little bit by my doctor though about my blood pressure being high the first time, saying I need to be aware of that... something having to do with headaches and things that can occur at this late in pregnancy. I told her I was a bit stressed out earlier this morning and that was probably why it was a little high but had gone down...

She did say my glucose readings still look good and Jay's fundal height is measuring 34.5cm, which is just fine.

I got my appointments set up for next week - a little annoyed that I still have to go twice a week when it's obvious we have my glucose numbers under control now...

Also, all these sites and pregnancy books that say babies tend to slow down their movements near the end and that it's common not feel so many pokes/jabs/kicks from baby as they don't have much room in there to kick and punch like they used to... yeah, starting to question their expertise! If anything, Jay's movements have gotten more aggressive as the weeks go on as he doesn't like having less space and wants to make it known! Seriously, the kid has been beating up my uterus almost non-stop for the past week, only stopping briefly to nap in there! It's to the point where half the time it's a bit painful! lol...

Today also marks 1 MONTH EXACTLY until Jay's estimated due date! Can't believe how these last 8 months have just flown by - where did they go?!

Preggo Brain Strikes Again!

So us preggo ladies get what is often referred to as "Preggo Brain" making us a bit forgetful at times.

I've been having issues with my baby shower date in regards to this!

For months, I've known that it's going to be the last Saturday in January. Sure, originally Sunday was suggested, but we decided Saturday would work best for those coming from out of city/state so they could come in Friday, be there Saturday and have time to get home on Sunday so they didn't have to worry about rushing out on Sunday to be back in time to do whatever for work on Monday.

Makes sense.

For some reason though, and I have NO IDEA why, I keep thinking the date is the 30th when really it's the 29th! I know I've mentioned to people it being on "the last Saturday in January - the 30th" and my poor mom... when I left her info to remember to include on the shower invites I even wrote down the 30th instead of the 29th and she had to go back and change them before sending them out as she caught my mistake! Oops!!

And the cherry on the cake...

I had this strange feeling late last night that on the request off sheet at work that I put down the 30th instead of the 29th! I was about 90% sure I had done that so I had to stop by on my way home today to double check that and sure enough, I was right - I had put down I couldn't work the 30th instead of the 29th... oops! How bad would that have been if the 1 day I was schedule for next week was the 29th and I had to miss my own baby shower?!?!

Fail.

I got it changed though and they haven't started the schedule for next week yet (they usually do that Tues or Wed) so I should be fine, plus no one else had requested the 29th off either so yeah... not too worried about it now, but I wish I knew why in the world I have the 30th stuck in my head as far as the date goes! lol...

Newborn Care Class

Tonight hubby and I attended the newborn care class that our delivering hospital offers. We signed up for it back in October and at the time it seemed so far away... and then here it was! Talk about time flying!

It was a bit of a fun class and they moved us to the room across the hall from where the previous classes we took were, which was nice as the chairs in there were a million times comfier!

They gave us a packet of info to go over like they did in the other classes and we watched some fun videos about things to know when it comes to your newborn in the first month - how to clean em, things to keep any eye out for, etc.

They gave us fake baby dolls too to practice diapering, swaddling, bathing and dressing - she had enough extras to give a doll to each of the daddy's too so they got to participate as well.

Hubby and I both got the minority dolls - mine was Asian while hubby's was black - the dads seemed to have a bit too much fun with the beanies, styling them all funny!

Some of it was kinda no-brainer stuff, while other stuff was good to know, as I guess some things have changed recently (they no longer recommend using baby powder, you no longer need to wait til the cord stump falls off to bathe baby nor do you need to clean the cord stump with alcohol). They also gave us info about their free car seat checks which they offer once a month, as well as things you get at the hospital like free diapers, cleaning care products, and all that stuff - pretty much you can take anything under your baby's bassinet that isn't the linens. They also do footprints on anything you'd like and there's a photographer that'll take your baby's first photo too if you want.

That reminds me - I need to get started on putting together a baby scrapbook for Jay. I have my follow-up doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so I'm thinking I'll try the other Target afterwards to see about a nursing bra and then stop over at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or even Walmart to check out their scrapbooking stuff!

I also started working on some Mario Bros paintings for our apartment here since we most likely won't be in a house until at least March or April. Since we're having the Pack n Play in our bedroom, I'm doing a painting of the start screen from the original Super Mario Bros to put above that, and then where the changing table/dresser is going in our walk-in closet I'm doing 4 panels each with a classic Mario item - the red magic mushroom, the star, the fire power flower, and the 1-up green mushroom - to hang above there.

When I was at the doctor on Monday they went ahead and scheduled my appointments for next week - next Thursday is the 20th of January... exactly 1 month out from Jay's  due date! That realization kinda scared me! I look forward to meeting him in the flesh but at the same time... it just seems all too soon, like it was just summer/fall! Oh well, can't stop time!

25 Weeks!

Today we are officially 25 weeks! That means there's only 15 weeks left until Jay's estimated due date!!

I'm sure with the holiday season getting in full swing soon, these next 2 months are going to fly by - it honestly seems like December goes by way too quickly each year!

That also means that he is now the size of an eggplant - which it makes sense that he's grown more as his kicking/punching has picked up quite a bit the past few days and I've been a bit sore down in my abdomen for a good week or so now! I noticed last night that now when he kicks/punches there's some force behind it as it makes my belly move, lol... Hope he's not claustrophobic, as his "space" is starting to get a bit smaller on him!

I also can't decide who reacts to the vacuum worse - Jay or our 2 year old kitty Tiger! Yesturday I was doing some massive cleaning on the whole apartment and that included vacuuming. Tiger has never liked the vacuum as the noise scares her so she usually runs off somewhere and hides - last night she chose to sit in the bedroom window, with her tail all fluffed out, only when I started vacuuming the bedroom she completely spazzed out, trying to scale the window in a frantic to get away from the vacuum! Also, the ENTIRE time I was vacuuming, Jay was kicking and punching the crap out of me - I take it he could hear the noise and was wondering what in the world it was and was reacting to it! lol... guess in the future when I vacuum when Jay is little, the 2 of them can run off and hide from the vacuum together, lol...