Grapes or Wrath

With Rex, you have two options. Feed him grapes or face his wrath. This morning he confronted me like this while I was making breakfast.



So we had grapes with breakfast today instead of with lunch like we usually do.



We used to have grapes a lot last summer but over the winter, the price got up to nearly $4 a pound so it has been a while since we have eaten any grapes. The price is coming down now so we've had them a couple times in the last few weeks and it is like this every time. Whenever he sees the fridge open, he dashes over and opens the bottom drawer and drags out some grapes or even the whole bag. I keep telling Rob I'm going to start keeping them in the garage where it is cool and Rex can't find them. At least it is fruit though and not junk food!

Photo Shoot

I am 29 weeks along today and decided it was time for another photo. Here it is.



When I was done, I wanted to take some photos of Rex to show off his new haircut. It is amazing how much he looks like a little boy (rather than a baby) when he has his hair cut short. He wasn't really in the mood but I managed to get him to sit still long enough to get one good shot of him.



He quickly became less and less cooperative, not wanting to sit still at all.



Finally, he let me know that he was totally done- AND that he wanted the camera now!

The Cow Says... Beee?

Rex knows a lot of the sounds that animals make. I can only do videos that are 20 seconds long so I got in as many as I could.



They aren't all perfect but most are pretty close. Except for the cow. The cow says, and always has said, "beee" according to Rex. I have no idea why he started doing this but I think I know why it stuck. Rob and I used to laugh and laugh at him doing that and once he realized he could make us laugh, he just kept doing it. I have only heard him say "moo" for the cow probably 3 times. Another funny thing is how he has to build up to make the sheep sound- "mmmmmBAAA!" The dog sounds an awful lot like a duck and cat says "ow" rather than the full "meow". Or maybe the cat is just in pain, I'm not sure. But he does a very good rooster, duck and tiger!

Sick Of It

Rex had a little bug last week, as I mentioned, that seemed to move through quickly and did not keep him down too long. Being the mama bear that I am, we still went to see the doctor on Thursday even though he seemed much better by then. He had a little rash on his neck and I really wanted to get that looked at too (it's fine). Unfortunately, he picked up some more germs while we were there and on Sunday night was sick again. Argh! I had my antibacterial wipes out and I was trying to wipe down everything and anything he might touch. I also sat us away from everyone else in the waiting room. So despite my efforts, poor Rex got sick twice in one week. The second round was quick and he is totally fine again. I'm just glad I didn't get it myself because I can't fight off anything right now. Here's what Rex looked like for a good part of Monday.



There hasn't been too much else going on around here lately. Rex needs another haircut but we have not had a chance to get him in with him being sick. Rob has been really busy at work this week. And I've been busy with growing a baby- we are in the last trimester now. Time is just flying by with this pregnancy. It is very likely that my doctor is going to induce me a week early so really we only have 11 weeks left. Or less if the new kid decides to come before that- yikes! While there isn't much to do to prepare for the baby, we have a lot of work to do for Rex's new room. Rex is going to be moving into one of the other bedrooms so we can use the nursery for the baby. We have an idea of a theme in mind but can't really decide how we want to carry it out. I have set a deadline of April 30th for the room to be done so we really need to get going on this project. This is our problem with decorating- we can agree on colors and a general direction for it but have a hard time actually picking things out and getting it finished. We have some really good ideas for his room though so hopefully we will get it together and finished soon!

Give Life - Donate Blood

I added a little something new to the blog yesterday- the give life/donate blood badge I found on the Red Cross's website. I have donated blood since shortly after my 17th birthday when my high school held a blood drive. It seemed to be a good way to get out of class for a while and here I am, almost 16 years later, still donating. I have to take a little break now while I am pregnant so I thought maybe I could encourage someone else to go. Some people are not eligible to donate but you can check here to see if you might be. If you do go and get turned down, try again! I was turned down once last year because my iron was too low (usually it is really high) so I went back two days later. I was fine that day and was able to donate. You can make appointments with most or all blood banks so the process for whole blood donation is not very long at all. Don't be scared about the needle- the nurses all do this so much that you can hardly even feel it. It is so easy and a fantastic way to help someone else out- AND you get to eat cookies and ding dongs when you finish!

27 Weeks and 1 Day With the New Kid

Here is a photo of me from today when I am 27 weeks and 1 day along in my second pregnancy.



I am almost into the third trimester- just a few days left now in the glorious second trimester. Not that I really find it so glorious, just compared to that last trimester it seems pretty good. I went to the doctor last week and everything was great. I had my glucose test and despite still being on a sugar high from Valentine's Day (only two days before my test), it looks like it turned out fine. I feel pretty good most of the time. Occasionally I have a little heartburn or feel a little short of breath but that's it. I feel the little guy moving around a lot during the day but it is still fun and not uncomfortable at this point. He usually gets really active after dinner and Rob gets to feel him move around then too. We bought a replacement bouncy seat this week since Hercules destroyed the one we had. I bought the same one again so now we have some extra parts if little Hercules here decides to break the new one too. Just have to get a double stroller, baby book and box of diapers and we are set!

King of the Laundry

Rex has been helping me so much around the house lately. Here he is, assisting with the separating of the laundry.



As I mentioned recently, Rex is climbing on everything. So the other day as I was trying to sort our laundry, he climbed up on the bed and decided to get right in the middle of everything. Not a lot of help, but he is so funny and so cute that it is okay with me if he does this. I have no idea why he was wearing his beanie around that morning- just part of his charm, I suppose. I think his true desire was to get to the pull chain that works the ceiling fan and light (that's what he is staring at in the photo), not actually help me. We managed to get our clothes clean that day which is more than I can say for the last few days around here. Our productivity has been pretty low lately. Rob hasn’t been feeling too great for over a week. Not really sick, just kind of a cough and tightness in his chest. He got some stuff from the doctor yesterday though and is feeling a lot better now. I’m doing pretty good but I had a headache Monday night and most of the day yesterday so I was useless those two days. I’ve been putting off my grocery shopping for a few days now and this morning thought, “Ok. Today we are going to get going early and get our groceries this morning!” It was a good plan until Rex woke up and I discovered he had been sick (puking- sorry if that is tmi) at some point in the night. I got him and all his stuff cleaned up and he seems to be doing pretty good- no fever and no more incidents. And he seems like he is feeling just fine. I don’t know what to think besides maybe he has a tummy like his mommy’s because I get like that too. Anyhow, no shopping or going out for us today just in case. It would totally be a pizza night except I got take-out for us last night due to the headache and we are not the kind of family that is okay with eating out two nights in a row. We need some real food around here and I’m not sure what to do about that. I think we are all on the mend now and will get more accomplished in the next few days.

It's the Climb

Rex is going crazy with new developments lately and one of the biggest is climbing. Climbing everything. About two weeks ago, he figured out how to climb up on the couch. Once he mastered that, he realized he could climb just about anything. This includes all chairs, couches, beds, several attempts on his Fisher Price musical toy table before he was stopped and also an attempt at climbing onto the table in his playhouse.



Although Rob and I were the ones to stop him from climbing on the musical toy table, he stopped himself from going any further on the playhouse table. He had already climbed onto the built-in chair and was standing on that, trying to figure out how to get from the chair onto the table when I took that photo. I'm sure he will figure it out before long. Another thing he has figured out is how to take pictures with my camera. He calls this one "Mama's Got a New Pair of Shoes".



His speech is really progressing quickly now too. He is adding words all the time and some even sound like they are supposed to! Some of the funnier ones are "o-shoe" for shoe (Irish shoes, maybe?) and "gaga" for socks. I don't know how he gets "gaga" from sock but whatever. It reminds me of the Friends episode where Phoebe tries to teach Joey to speak French- that one just might be my favorite episode of all.

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

We had a very nice Valentine's Day weekend. Most of our valentine-y things actually happened on Saturday, Feb 13th. I made a nice dinner that night for us which included some special cupcakes for dessert.



The cupcakes looked exactly like I wanted them to but they did not taste so good (too dry). I used a recipe from Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. I have not had very good luck with recipes from that magazine. In fact, the worst thing I have ever made came out of a past issue. It was an asian steak salad and there was nothing good about it. It all went straight in the trash. I made a roast and it seems we are finally figuring out how to cook a roast the way we want it. Yay!! The secret is to get a chuck roast and cook it in an oven bag in the oven. We've cooked them many, many different ways in the crockpot and even on the stove and it never was the falling-apart-roast like we wanted. You always had to slice the meat. It wasn't perfect still but with a few adjustments, it will be. Anyhow, our dinner was very nice and the cupcakes were okay but my favorite part of the day was when Rob brought these home for me.



Wow! I was so surprised and excited when he gave me these!! He went out Saturday morning to do a few things which I thought probably included getting me a Valentine's Day card but I was totally not expecting this. They are so beautiful and smell great. Good job, honey ;o)

We watched the Daytona 500 race on Sunday which took a long time. Chunks of the asphalt on the track came up and it took a couple hours to repair that. Glad nothing like that happened 2 years ago when we were there! Rob actually picked the winner too so he was proud of himself. The winner, Jamie McMurray, was a longshot to put it nicely. In fact, I heard them say that Vegas had him down for 30:1 odds. Too bad we didn't make a trip to Vegas and place some bets- we could be rich right now! I planned on making lettuce wraps and buffalo wings to snack on while watching the race but it didn't happen. It was a nice relaxing day and I had a good time all weekend with my two sweethearts.

A Few Complaints About Old Navy

This may not be a very exciting post to read but I have some griping to do. I keep having one bad experience after another with Old Navy! First of all, I hate that they started charging $7 for shipping instead of $5- I realize this is to allow me to shop from multiple stores (Banana, Gap, Athleta and PiperLime) but I never do! If everything I buy is just from Old Navy, I think I should only have to pay $5. They also now charge a $6 fee if you just return something rather than exchange it. Chumps. I have been trying for about a month to get Rob some new jeans from there. I have been to both stores in Des Moines and been checking online and I have had no luck. Finally, they had them online when I checked on Sunday. I selected two pairs and put them in my cart only to have them removed from my cart when I tried to pay because they said they didn't actually have them. By the way, that was after about 10 minutes of trying to get through their super-slow site and getting several error messages about not being able to find the old navy server. I checked again last night and was able to FINALLY order them though I keep waiting for an email telling me that they aren't available after all. On to me. I ordered a pair of maternity jeans in December and the ones that came were not the size they claimed. I have other ON Maternity pants that are the same size or smaller and they all fit just fine but these were way too tight on my legs. I exchanged them for another style that was very similar and the same size fits perfect. However, I'm quite sure the latest pair had been worn by someone before. And that is not the first time that has happened to me! A few years ago, I bought a pair of jeans from the Old Navy store in Clovis, CA and I was so in love them- just that perfect pair of jeans. I would have bought several pairs just like them but it was the last pair and on the clearance rack. I realized when I got home that someone had worn them before. I was mad but loved them too much to take them back. That time, things worked out pretty good though because whatever idiot wore them and returned them left $20 in the pocket for me! Not so lucky this time but I'm still going to keep them. I'm sure we will keep shopping there because we are always happy with the clothes we get but geez, could they just make it a little easier for me just one time?

UPDATE (2/17/10): The clothes all were delivered on Monday, on time and everything was there. However, it seems Old Navy has changed how they are making their "loose painter jeans" and it is not so good. They are way tighter and don't fit the same at all. I even looked at the comments left on Old Navy's site about these jeans and there are tons of complaints about this change. Since I seem to be in a mood to complain about ON, maybe I will leave a comment too. Rob has worn this same style of jeans for the 5 years that I have known him and probably even a lot longer than that. He doesn't seem too bummed about it but I feel bad for the guy. And I don't anticipate looking for a replacement for these- not a lot of fun. Hopefully they will bring back the old style and make everybody happy again! My shirt and Rex's shirt are great though so yay for that.