"An efficient fat storage system"

If no one has ever referred to you as such, well, then you're doing better than me.  That is how my doctor referred to me at my last appointment.  I think it's code for, "holy shit woman, what are you eating?!"  He's not a jerk either.  Apparently my body thinks we're gunning for a Weight Watchers/Nutrisystem spokesperson job after this baby is born and that that can only be accomplished by dropping my metabolism to zero.  I had PNEUMONIA last month for God's sake and still gained 5 pounds.  I mean, really??  Let's just hope my efficient fat storage system turns into an efficient fat purging system in 3 months.

So with very slim hopes of passing my glucose test in 2 weeks I've been eating no sugar/low-carb.  And it sucks.  And I caved and ate pita bread last night.  And baklava.  And then I woke up this morning, got on Pinterest, and decided to make these:

They're called "energy balls" but they're basically no-bake cookies.  Audrey ate 3 before I cut her off and they are currently taunting me from the fridge.  I'm an idiot.  But in case you're interested (or looking to transform into an efficient fat storage system yourself), here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup dry oatmeal (I used old-fashioned slow-cooking oats)
• 2/3 cup toasted coconut flakes (optional)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup ground flaxseed or wheat germ (I used flax)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
• 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
• 1 Tbsp. chia seeds (optional)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed.  Let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.  Once chilled, roll into balls of approximately 1 diameter.  Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.  Makes about 20-25 balls.  Yum.

Shy guy

I think my kiddo is going through a shy phase.

That, or maybe he just takes after his momma and is shy in general.

And a blusher.

So, he’s been asking for our super-sweet babysitter for months now. Literally, waking up and requesting that she read him a book instead of me. (Really?) So, our calendars finally aligned this past weekend. A good friend of mine was in town, and so the hubs and I headed to dinner sans-kid. T's reaction when she showed up? To literally hide his face in my shoulder. The kid who would not stop saying our babysitter’s name on repeat for months now seemed to be pretending that if he didn’t see her, she wasn’t there. Oh, and he was a nice light shade of crimson from the neck up, a la mommy.

A crush in action? Or complete shyness?

This week, he and I took a trip after school and work to go and see his old daycare provider and her husband. We’ve been talking about this for a few weeks now. He was totally excited to see them – and “Toots” (his favorite of her dogs). So…We leave school in a hurry because we can’t wait. We talk about them in the car. We pull up. Big smile. We get out of the car. We run to her side gate, run through it and up to the door. And then he sees them. And freezes. And hides his face again behind my leg. And won’t talk. And blushes. And while he likes playing with her toys – he takes almost an hour (an hour!!) to warm up to her enough so that he doesn’t have to drag me across the room by the hand to show her his Cars band-aid.  It was raining a bit out, so it wasn’t great weather to play outside, which he was desperate to do there. When we were leaving, we stopped to play for a bit in the side yard that he spent so many days in – and there – that’s where he finally warmed up completely, showed off his new pedaling tricks, said he didn’t want to go home, and finally blew kisses good-bye.

But really. Is this a new phase? Or is my child turning into his blush-at-the-drop-of-a-hat mommy?         

Worst Mom Ever

For the record, when I checked the weather early yesterday to plan T’s clothes ahead in my head for the rest of the week, I focused on the “highs” in the 70s part. I also had a friend’s email on the brain, who is coming to town this weekend and mentioned the warm weather and maxi dresses.

When I stuck my head outside of the front door this morning to double check the temperature before getting T dressed, I might not have thought about the hot, humid air getting stuck under our front porch and not being exactly accurate.

So the fact that my child is at school in shorts and a t-shirt with no sweatshirt or coat in the pouring rain when the weather on my phone is showing at 43 degrees and a windchill of 37…totally not my fault, right?

Total. Mom. Fail.

Those who blog together...

get knocked up together.  As in, within days of each other.  It's a tad freaky.  But yes, Vickie and I are both preggers and due a whopping 5 days apart.  Because she has her babies early and I have mine late this means these kids will probably end up a month apart, but for my sanity I'm pretending they'll be close (i.e. I won't be 18 months pregnant at delivery). 

I'm super excited for Vickie and Chris's little girl on the way and I'm waiting not-so-patiently to see whether we'll be giving Audrey a brother or a sister since we've chosen not to find out the gender again.  I can say that being pregnant with a toddler is hilariously different than when it's your first.  The first time around I was cooking myself all these nice healthy meals, getting plenty of rest, fluids, massages from the hubs, you get the idea.  This time around the most I can usually manage is a frozen burrito for dinner, sleeping 6 hours a night if I'm lucky, and generally forgetting to do basic things like hydrate myself and take prenatal vitamins.  If I didn't have a small torpedo attached to my stomach I would honestly forget I was pregnant half the time.  I figure this kid will either be dumb as rocks (see: frozen burritos above) or I'm teaching it from an early age that mommy is busy and he/she will need to be patient (I'm hoping it's the latter...).

Audrey is still not quite sure what's going on with me.  She knows I have a "big belly" and has banished me to the edge of the couch when we read books because she can no longer open them to her satisfaction on my lap.  She also asked why we couldn't just go buy a baby at Target rather than go through the whole growing-it-for-9+ months thing, which I totally get.  I think I must be in nesting mode already because last week I decided to clean out all the closets, put all the clothing-type items up on eBay, and am working on getting a garage sale together next month for everything else.  I also decided I wanted to redecorate our living room, which the hubs has (amazingly) been semi-indulging me in.  He still doesn't know that Audrey's room is next but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right? 

I do have to give a shout out to all the Texans and southeners down here who have been super-nice to me so far in this pregnancy.  Perhaps Maryland is full of a-holes or I'm just not far enough along for the comments to start, but people have only said nice things to me and it is so nice.  By the end of my pregnancy with Audrey I was afraid to even leave the house because I couldn't walk 5 feet without some stranger coming up to me and letting me know that a) my due date was wrong b) I needed a new doctor b/c obviously mine didn't know squat about due dates c) I must be having a boy b/c no one gets that big otherwise (oops - my bad) and my all-time fave d) that my boobs had not grown sufficiently to feed my child and there was clearly something wrong with me.  Gee, thanks RANDOM F-ING STRANGER.  Had I not been the size of a small whale at that point I seriously would have clocked that woman.  But I digress. 

So, here's to babies and frozen burritos (yes, I ate one for dinner) and now I'm going to go chug that bottle of prenatal vitamins.

Just a day in the life

Did I mention yesterday that I was lucky enough to get projectile vomited on, in my birthday suit, seconds before hopping into what was to be a relaxing shower, by THE CAT, from a ledge? That has to be a lucky-charm type thing - no other explanation for how I could have possibly been lucky enough to experience it. After hitting her bullseye (me), the cat also managed to puke in every crevice around the toilet, which was ultra fun cleaning up for me.

Today, I got home from work to find that our bathroom toilet had flooded. Though tank-water doesn't have the gross factor that cat puke does, it was another ultra fun clean up for me. Around the same dang toilet. Did I mention that the hubs is out of town and I know nothing about toilet repair?

Oh, and in my post-flood frustration, I decided to get out my spa gift certificate to make an appointment tomorrow because after all that cleaning and I deserved it...out of our cheap hidden-in-the-closet-for-extra-drawerspace dresser. Yea, so in the process, I couldn't get the drawer open right away, so I tugged on it, perhaps a little to hard, because I took the front of the drawer right off.

Happy Monday. Sigh.

Pink!

My kiddo is all boy, as you probably know pretty well by now.
My hubby is as macho as you can get, as you probably have figured by now as well.

Well....

We're adding some ruffles and lace and pink to the mix this summer.... a baby girl is on her way!

While I think we're collectively terrified about how it is humanly possible to take on the responsibility of another kid without a) scaring T for life and b) going broke -- we're also super excited at the idea of completing our family with a little sister for T. I get all mushy when I think of T learning to look out for and protect his future little sister (that is, if he gets out of this hitting/kicking habit sometime soon and starts to be nice to girls again) and of Chris having a little princess wrap him around her finger.

And it WILL happen.

The hubs, who is currently trying to convince me that little girls can, in fact, wear the same blue that their big brothers do and that pink lacey newborn bloomers set the stage for encouraging her to become a stripper later in life, is going to be playing princess dress-up and daddy beauty-salon in the not-to-distant future, mark my words.

So...now it's out there. I've been a bit hesitant to talk about this pregnancy, anxiety being a key reason. But it's time. Some lady in my office building touched my belly yesterday. Blech. Not cool, strangers!

Now....time to start the PINK shopping!

Get ready hubby...it's (going to be) a girl! 

Four

That is, this is the fourth time that Chris has been gone for the majority of the week that T ended up sick.

Sigh. Not a good track record for me.

He’s had this lingering cough since, well, the week of the third yuckiness – right before I left for my work convention and before he wound up with a week-long fever with the hubs. February was not a good month for the little bugger.  But since the cough wasn’t slowing him down at all, I basically just chalked it up to allergies and went on with my business.

Last night he went to bed and the second he laid down, he started coughing more than normal. By 9 o’clock I was up in his room giving him some cough medicine to hopefully help him sleep. By 11:30, it had turned into a wheezing, terrible sounding thing that lasted just about all night long. He did sleep peacefully from 12-2:30, a plus, but that, of course, was the dog’s cue to get up from bed, start growling at the door and prowl around the house. Thanks guard dog, I needed that. By 3 AM, I decided that the boarding kennel seemed like a very wise move for the pups the next time the hubs went out of town. By 5AM, I decided we’d be taking another trip back to the doctor’s office this morning (and that caffeine would be a Wednesday necessity).

Diagnosis? Basically, his on-going cough didn’t give his lungs a chance to recover – so they were inflamed. She said the cough sounded like croup – but the breathing tests were fine, which is good, so most likely, the month of coughing resulted in him sounding the way he does because his poor lungs need some down time. We start the steroids tonight and hopefully this knocks out whatever yuckiness is left in him!

I’m preparing for the side effects now: I was warned of him possibly having a ferocious appetite and a lot more energy "to redirect" (read: get in trouble with) than usual. The thought of both of those side effects in my always-ready-to-eat child who only-runs-never-walks (and likes to test his boundaries on a daily basis) partly makes me giggle, and partly, makes me want my pillow and a nap.