Vague updates on Mr. Jim.

Jim looking adorably dopey on the porch.

Jim is turning into a ridiculous little thespian and likes to pretend things.

Exhibit A
He has this soft little green ball that he loves. Playing catch with it is part of his afternoon ritual of ambushing Dad the second he walks in the door for raucous games of tackle, chase, PT, and other assorted roughhousing. The other day, though, it became apparent that the little ball had gained weight dramatically when Jim picked it up, suddenly bent double, and began staggering around the floor with cries of "Ooh, heavy! Heavy ball!" He was actually really convincing.

Exhibit B
As everyone knows, dinosaurs are extremely seggy* and must be feared. Jim has lately taken to insisting on looking at pictures of "Seggy dinos!" If the picture is especially alarming, he'll touch the teeth with his index finger, then yank it back and go "Ow ow owwww!" and insist that the wounded digit be smooched. This also applies to stuffed animals and embroidered dinosaurs on his favorite pajamas.

Crazed imaginings aside, Jim is doing terribly well. He can now sing the Alphabet Song and attempts to ride his tricycle correctly, although he can't quite coordinate his feet to do it for more than two feet. On the down side, he thinks using silverware is for chumps and hiding from diaper changes is hilarious.

*scary

30 weeks = panic time?

How far along? 30 weeks.
Total weight gain/loss: Up 16 pounds.
Maternity clothes? I'm kind of running out of things that fit. Plus it's getting cold (for Georgia, anyway) , and I just can't justify buying a maternity coat to wear for like ten weeks, so I've been living in Noah's hoodies. Yeah, I look like a bum.
Stretch marks? No new ones, hallelujah glory be.
Sleep: It'd be a lot better if Jim would sleep past 5:30 in the morning, but my bladder has actually been treating me better lately, so I'm relatively happy.
Best moment this week: Nothing in particular, but watching Jim play in the leaves has been pretty good.
Movement: She's about 50 times more violent than Jim was. I hope this doesn't mean anything for when she comes out.
Food cravings: MEAT. I could could up a couple pounds of ground beef and just eat it plain.
Gender: Weiblich.
Labor Signs: Nej.
Belly Button in or out? In, but getting weird.
What I miss: My back not hurting. Owww.
What I am looking forward to: Having an outside baby and not looking like an elephant seal.
Milestones: 75% done! Ten weeks to go sounds craaaaaaazy.

30 weeks with Jim, just for reference.

I'm noticing that I've been worried about completely different things this time than when I was pregnant with Jim. I'm much much much less worried about actually having a teensy baby. Last time I was really concerned that I was going to break Jim or something, but it turned out that newborns aren't nearly as fragile and complicated as I expected. Taking care of them isn't easy, but it's pretty simple. Food, diaper, sleep, repeat every hour around the clock. I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to complete exhaustion and nightmarish sleep deprivation, but I'm not afraid of it. I know I can survive the first couple months, after which I can go back to a luxurious six hours a night.

What's really scary is the actual having-the-baby part. Last time I didn't think it could possibly be that bad. I thought it would be a big mind-over-matter thing, 'the only thing to fear is fear itself,' etc. But in reality? As it turned out, labor really freaking hurts. And sometimes it ends with a really traumatic c-section. So I'm a little terrified. I'd like to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) if possible, and I know the odds are in my favor (about 70% success rate with VBACs at this hospital) and that needing a c-section for a transverse baby last time was just a fluke, but I'm a total wuss, so I am dreading it. I hope I actually get to push this time, though. That'd be nice. I'm mostly just afraid of going through six millions hours of painful labor just to have another c-section.

And yeah, I know I know, healthy baby is all that matters. But can you really blame me for not wanting to get cut open again?

In which Lottie shows her face.

I almost titled this one "In which Lottie shows her face and is also discovered after many weeks of hospital bullcrap to have a working heart," but that seemed both too long and syntactically awkward.

Sometime in earlyish August, we discovered A.) that Lottie is a Lottie and not a William or a Charles or a Daniel and B.) that Lottie appeared to have an irregular heartbeat. Now, being fans of large numbers and other scientifical things, we were aware that it was likely not a big deal, since many fetuses have irregular heartbeats at that age and just grow out of it, but still, it's a little worrying, you know? So naturally we set up an appointment at the first available time to see the resident high-risk OB for a fetal echo. We went to that appointment in late August and discovered... that the guy who does the echos wasn't there after all, and we'd have to come back another time. So we did. We waited another two weeks, came back, and were told again that the echo guy wasn't available after all, and we'd have to reschedule.

So, the next appointment was on Wednesday, October 9. That is, for those keeping track, about two months after first being told that our baby possibly had a heart defect. It's a long time to wait. But hey, we're patient people, so we came in Wednesday morning all ready to finally find out, aaaaand... Yeah, that's right. Dear Dr. Echo was gone again. Yep. Like I said, we're pretty patient, but that was kind of hard to swallow. So we decided to just hang out at the hospital all day long until he got back from his pedicure or whatever.

As it turned out, we were there for a bit over six hours. We got to go see the nurse practitioner, who told us very little of interest (except that my uterus is measuring about two weeks ahead, which is mildly interesting - I think it was about the same with Jim), and I got my glucose test finally, which was about as delicious as it was last time, only with a different flavor. I highly recommend choosing fruit punch over orange if you ever have the option. Still waiting to hear if I've got the beetus, though. And then finally around three o'clock we finally got to go have the echo done.

Long story short: Lottie is fine! Her heart looks awesome, everything is where it should be, all bits are functioning correctly, and there are no more signs of any irregularities. So that's good, yes? Plus, they gave us a shiny CD of ultrasound pictures, so I can actually show you! Success at last.

(Be warned - there are a LOT of ultrasound pictures here. If you are not a doting grandmother, you probably will not make it the whole way through.)


Here's Lottie at 11w6d at the NT scan, which was months and months ago. Note the hand in front of the face; she apparently likes it there.


A marginally more human-looking one from the anatomy check at 19w4d (the same one where we heard about the possible heart issue).


Again, from the 19w4d scan. Again with the hands.


Only one we could get of her face from that ultrasound. She kind of looks like the cowardly lion, yes?


22w4d, and looking very cerebral.


Also 22w4d (this was one of our consolation prize scans, since the good doctor wasn't there to do the echo).


And another! The poor ultrasound tech felt bad so she gave us a lot of 3-d pictures.


And this one's from Wednesday. Kind of a weird shot, but you can see her arm in front of her face with her nose and mouth poking out under it.


And from the side.


She apparently has one freakishly huge hand. Noah says she will probably go in circles when she learns to swim.


Creepy face-out-of-nowhere.


This one kind of looks like Jim did.


Mandibles!


And there's the hand.


Grouchy face and giant brainy cranium.

So there you have it. A nice healthy heart and 15 weeks of ultrasounds. And can you believe she's due in exactly three months today? Crazy talk, man. I don't think we're ready.

Jim the Expert Baker

Jim has been wanting cookies all morning. He brought me his stuffed animals, lined them up, and demanded 'cookie! milk!' for all of them. So I promised him we'd make some cookies. Unfortunately, the poor guy doesn't understand that we have to wait for the butter to soften first. So we keep going out to check if it's ready yet, and each time he comes back disappointed. Finally, he goes out without me to check on his own, and comes back holding the butter proudly aloft.

Jim: COOKIE!
Mama: Jim, it's not ready yet. Go put it back on the table.
Jim: Ready! Cookie!
Mama: Jim, do YOU know how to make cookies?
Jim: Da. (in an 'of course I do, woman' tone of voice)
Mama: Okay, how do you make cookies?
Jim: Mix in a circle.

...well, that is the gist of it. I guess since I'm no longer needed I'll just go take a nap and let Jim bring me the cookies when they're finished (although I suspect they'll taste remarkably like well-mixed butter).

Oh, the humanity.

Lately Jim's naps have more often just been 'quiet time' during which he can sleep or read his books or play with blocks or what have you. So Noah and I didn't think much of it today when he spent the noon hour clapping his hands and chortling to himself instead of sleeping quietly. Until, that is, I came back down the hall from a bathroom visit (damn my shrinking bladder).


Five points to anyone who can guess what's on his hands without reading the rest of this post.

So, anyway, I came wandering down the hall while Jim carefully put the finishing touches on a particularly impressive tower. The second he heard me coming, he rushed to the gate across his doorway and started waving at me. "Poop," he yells. "Poop! Poop! Poop!"

Fool that I am, I didn't stop immediately. I waved back and gave him a half-hearted "Yes, Jim, poo-" but before I could finish, the smell hit me. Then I noticed his hands. And his face. And the walls. And the glue holding his spectacular tower together.

Naturally, I yelled for Noah immediately. He stripped and popped into the shower with Jim while I assembled all the supplies I could muster and started wiping down Jim's room. We haven't sorted through everything yet, but I think we only have two or three victims of Jim's experimentation to throw away, so it could be worse.

Still, I'm using this as an excuse to zip Jim into a full-length onesie before naptime every day. Backwards, if need be.

V-day!

How far along? 24 weeks.
Total weight gain/loss: Up eight pounds. Weight gain is finally starting now that the morning sickness has tapered off.
Maternity clothes? Need more. I have one pair of jeans, two dresses, and about five shirts that I can wear.
Stretch marks? No new ones.
Sleep: Awful! Horrible, wretched, miserable, etc. At least 3 pee breaks per night and a sore back in the morning. Sigh.
Best moment this week: NOT peeing my pants when Jim and Lottie pounced on my bladder simultaneously from opposite sides. Major victory, I say.
Movement: Tons of it, and very vigorous. I swear this girl is trying to claw her way out through my cervix right now.
Food cravings: Sweet things of all sorts. Anything from oranges to cheesecake.
Gender: Girl! Checked and double-checked. :)
Labor Signs: A couple Braxton-Hicks contractions every day.
Belly Button in or out? In.
What I miss: Having a bladder somewhat larger than an eyedropper.
What I am looking forward to: Finally getting that fetal echo done (scheduled for October 9th now - we'll see if they change it).
Milestones: Viability! At 24 weeks, Lottie would have a decent chance of survival if she decided to come out early. Mildly reassuring.

Jjim's 24-week update, for the sake of comparison.

Much-needed updates.

Sigh. It looks like I'm not going to be able to post any pictures any time soon, since our main computer is on the fritz and the camera adapter has gone mysteriously missing. So it seems we're all going to have to make do with a giant wall o' text. Enjoy.

Jim
Jim is awesome. He is talking SO well lately. He's putting two and sometimes three words together, and his vocabulary is now huge and more-or-less understandable (to us, anyway). His funniest mispronunciation is 'geesh da!' which means 'I love you.' I have no idea why, but it does. I'm also fond of 'seggy,' which means 'scary.' In addition to his immense store of words, he also now knows all his colors and shapes, and he can count accurately to three (he can identify if there are one, two, or three dinosaurs in a picture, for example, but anything more than three reverts back to two as a default).

One of his favorite activities at the moment is telling stories. A couple nights ago he insisted on 'reading' The Cat in the Hat to me. His story went more or less as follows (with page-turning as needed): Babies! Cat! Hat! Rake and cake and fish and book and milk and boat! CRASH! Uh oh! Thing two and thing two! Uh oh! MESS! Uh oh, mama, SCARY! Mess! Clean up clean up clean up! Good job!

Yeah, Jim speaks exclusively in exclamation marks.

In other news, Jim continues to be the most stereotypical boy that ever lived. His favorite things are dinosaurs ("Dinos! RAAAAAAAAAAR! Seggy!") and rocket ships ("Rocka sip! One two three two five BOOOOOOM!"). He has more or less stopped building houses with his blocks and now exclusively makes rocket ships, which are just like houses only more vertical. He gets very annoyed when they don't actually lift off when he yells BOOOOM.

Alas, the poor kid is also pretty accident prone. He bashes some part or other practically every day. On Sunday he took the worst fall I think he's ever had. I was upstairs sleeping in (hurray for Noah!), so all I heard was the CRASH and the WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, but upon going downstairs I heart all about it. Apparently the poor kid decided to just jump off the couch and land forehead-first on the edge of the coffee table. His entire forehead was one hugely swollen goose egg, with a horizontal line running the width of it. He still has about two inches of line left on his forehead. As you might expect, he actually quite enjoys telling that story, too. It goes: CRASH table! Hurt! Ice coooold! Hurt!

On a less pleasant note, he's also decided that hitting/kicking/headbutting/tackling/etc are all enjoyable activities. He's a pretty painful kid at the moment. Noah usually gets it all out of his system with some controlled games of tackle, but he still gets into the occasional hitting fit. We've started doing time outs in his room (just two minutes or so), and that works pretty well. Hopefully he grows out of it soon.

The Baaaaaaaby
As you all probably know by now, Baby No-no is a girl! We've decided to call her Charlotte Mae, and we'll be using Lottie as a nickname. We just had an ultrasound Wednesday, during which we got many adorably creepy 3-D pictures that I can't show you because of computer issues. She's apparently around a pound and four ounces, which puts her at roughly 50th percentile across the board. I'm kind of curious how accurate the ultrasound estimates will be this time, since they had Jim at around 70th percentile right before birth but he turned out to be a teeny tiny baby.

The Wednesday ultrasound was actually supposed to be an echo with a real live doctor to check on Lottie's heart, since the tech found a murmur at her 20 week ultrasound. Alas, the doctor had some kind of emergency elsewhere this time, so we didn't get the full work-up, but the tech looked at it and said that as far as she could tell, everything looks normal and there is no murmur to be seen. So hopefully she's outgrown it already! We're going back in another two weeks to get the full echo done, though, just to be sure.

I tend to think she's okay, though. She's the most vigorous little thing in the world, and already hurts my poor bladder/cervix/ribcage/etc more than you'd think any 1-pound creature possibly could. My biggest struggle at the moment is convincing Noah that she needs cute girl things. He's convinced that she can just wear Jim's old camo and tractor gear until she's a teenager. I've managed to get him to consent to a few cute girly things from the thrift store, so I think we're on the right track.

The Rest of Us
Noah and I have been completely consumed with working on the house lately. So far we've painted both upstairs bathrooms (which included spending a full week stripping wallpaper, yeuch - I will never ever ever again buy a house with wallpaper in it), finally finished the dining room ceiling (almost - still have to sand and paint it), redid the stinky closet downstairs, patched and painted all the duct-tape-covered holes above the stove, and thoroughly sorted out the fireplace room. We've got a huge long list of projects still to be done yet. Other than that, we have been pretty boring. This weekend we're going up to Charlotte with grand plans of apple-picking with Emmy and Ilya. I'll take a lot of pictures, of course, but it looks like nobody will be able to see them for a few weeks yet. Such is life, ja?