A Rare and Remarkable Event

Shh.... read this post very quietly.

Bubby actually took a nap the other day!

OK, most parents of 18-month-olds wouldn't exactly be impressed by this as most 18-month-olds nap every single day. Given the chance, wouldn't YOU nap every day? Yeah, me too.

Alexander, however, has almost given up on naps all together. In fact, it had been almost three weeks since his last real nap. Eh... kids these days with their exuberance and wakefulness.

So this rare and exciting occurrence had to be photographed. Enjoy the sleepy yar.

Hair Club for Infants Welcomes Newest Member

I had an ultrasound yesterday that showed Ava already has hair! It looked like short blades of grass spiking up all the way around the top of her head. (I knew I shouldn’t have been watching The Simpsons… fetuses are so impressionable.)

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of her spikey ‘do. But please enjoy this shot of her foot:



(Don’t see a foot? Well, ultrasounds are sort of a rorschach test… so consult your local psychiatrist for an interpretation of your test results and possible medication.)

I’m just over 32 weeks and things are looking good. I’ve had more swelling and a bit of an increase in blood pressure. Not big deal, really, but it is enough to land me a day of peeing into a jug just to make sure I’m not headed for drama. We’ll also have more frequent testing from here until delivery with weekly non-stress tests and more ultrasounds. So far, though, this is the BEST PREGNANCY EVAH!

Art Farty

Art is one of Alexander’s all-time favorite activities. Painting, drawing with markers or crayons, gluing stuff to other stuff… it’s all good. Here he is working on one of his latest masterpieces… a valentine’s heart for his grandma and grandpa. (Yes, he likes to work with his shirt off. Artists are so eccentric sometimes...)








We are calling this the “Yar Period” of his artwork. Magnifique!

Mommy-Eye View

This is how Bubby looks to me now...

"PAH!" (translation: up please!!)



"MWAH!" (translation: I love you, Bubby!)






Happy Valentines Day, All Y'All. I hope all your "pahs" are met with "mwahs".

Just a Little Off the Sides, Please.

Bubby has been sporting a look we've called a "skewed mullet" for some time. As bad hairdo aficionados know, a mullet (aka hockey hair) is a style that is short on the sides and long in the back. People that cultivate their own hockey hair like to repeat the mullet mantra of "business up front, party in the back." Bub has never had a lot of hair. As his hair has slooowly grown in, the sides have grown slightly faster than the front or back. This is the "skewed mullet" look with a "business up front, party on the sides"... I'm sure it'll catch on amongst hipster rednecks someday.

The skewed mullet evolved into more of a mad scientist coiffure.



This was an especially amusing look first thing in the morning. He woke up every morning looking like he just invented a flux capacitor. When exposed to humidity, this crazy mad scientist hair would turn into ridiculously adorable curls. He was our precious little hygrometer.

But, as much as we enjoyed the naturally kitschy styles his hair grew into, we had to draw the line somewhere. How would we even get a stocking cap to fit if we let him grow a three-foot bouffant? At some point hair hilarities become impractical.

So we decided to finally give him his first haircut. As terrifying as it is to approach your toddler's head with scissors, it had to be done. It's not a great haircut. OK, it's not even a good haircut. Despite the distraction of Sesame Street AND a tasty snack in front of him, he still kept reaching his hands up on his head as if he was trying to protect his hair. He knew his mother had no skills, and was trying to follow-up quickly with a hair brush.




Well, I was able to cut the craziest of his crazy hair and no one got injured. I did probably cut a little too much right here…




But I still call that success. He looks pretty cute. No bad haircut could take away his cute.





And like some weirdo stalker/fan, I saved the clippings from his first haircut in a little ziploc bag. What am I going to do with it? I have no clue. This was one of those rare milestones with a tangible byproduct - so it seemed like it should be saved.

True story.

News from the Gestator

I realize that an important announcement has not yet been made here for all you (ok, three) blogevillians. As sweet and endearing as the name “Bean” is, we’ve decided to go with something less Love-Cobain-esque. From here on, please refer to Bean as….

(drumroll please…)


(cue the trumpets…)


(ok, now a little more drum and a little less trumpet…)


(now pet the kitty and reflect on your day…)


(now wonder what that annoying trumpet and drum music is all about…)


(oh, right…)




AVA JUNE !!!!!



You may remember the name Ava as being our favorite girl name in the last pregnancy. We had it on hold in case Alexander turned out to be less boy and more conveniently-placed-umbilical-cord. Well, we still love the name, so we are sticking with it. The “June” part is after Tim’s mother, L’Shaneequa. (Although the name “June” seemed more appropriate to honor his mother since that was the name she preferred to go by, and it was her actual name.)

Ava’s been doing pretty good, as far as I can tell. She seems to enjoy a similar flair for fetal drama that her brother did. I had a biophysical profile test last week, which is a timed ultrasound test. She had 30 minutes to do what she needed to do (which is mostly move and flex like a miniature body builder) or else we would fail the test and have to go to labor and delivery for more monitoring. Twenty minutes into the test and she wasn’t budging. The nurses put loud buzzers on my belly, they had me move, they had me drink sweet stuff, NOTHING was getting her to budge. Then, with the tech getting visibly sweaty and literally one minute to spare, Ava finally moves. (FYI: she’s been much more active lately… she just hit a lull there for a few days when I was sick.) So at this point I am speculating that Alexander left some notes behind in the womb on how to make doctors and nurses freak out.

While her love of drama is just as big as Alexander’s, she is physically much smaller. She is actually measuring about a week behind at this point. At the ultrasound last week, when I was 28 1/2 weeks, they estimated she was 2 lbs 9 oz. Not bad, right? Well, at 29 1/2 weeks Alexander was estimated to weigh FOUR pounds. So, by comparison, she is a petite flower.

After that biophysical profile, the doctor noted my (er...her?) amniotic fluid was a bit high. (To which I defensively said “YOU’RE a bit high!” I need to stop those knee-jerk reactions to negative news.) I have no idea what this news really means. Doctors like to say things but not give you much context because they can’t explain semi-complex medical issues adequately in a three-minute timeframe and they trust patients will google it later anyway.

Of course, where the real doctors give too little real information, Dr. Google gives too much unreal information. If you consult Dr. G, you have to be willing to filter out the vast majority of useless crap you come across. The Internet is, like, 99.999% worst-case-scenarios because no one writes about boring outcomes. You’re left with maybe 0.001% of your 2 MILLION Google hits containing actual, realistic, useful information. So consulting Dr. Google is not for the faint-of-heart or the gull-of-able. After weeding through some tales of terror, I’ve come to the conclusion that high amniotic fluid is just another one of those things that doctors can find “wrong” with you if they look hard enough. The odds are, it doesn’t mean squat. (If it does mean squat, I’ll worry about that later… but for now, I’m sticking with my squatless theory.)

Oh, another thing a doctor quickly mumbled at me recently is that I’m anemic. Not a big shocker there, or really a big deal. Just more pills to pop. You should see this old-lady-style pill caddy I have. It’s massive. There are places for morning, afternoon, and evening pills for each day of the week…it's huge. It’s like a tacklebox for the geriatric non-fishing crowd.

I’m sure my wise doctors will be springing a pee jug on me at some point here to make sure I’m not developing pre-eclampsia… I'm right around 30 weeks right now, which was when I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia last time. Right now, though, I’m pretty optimistic. I have swelling in my hands and legs, but it isn’t anywhere near the level of swelling I had when I was pregnant with Alexander. I can still actually recognize my appendages and they still appear to be in human form. My blood pressure has been high – but usually well controlled with the “take it easy” lifestyle and prescribed dope. So I think things are looking pretty good right now.

So…yep. That’s the pregnancy update. Still just puffy and gestating. More news as it happens.