Merry Christmas!

Just thought I would give you all a bit of "Don'tcha just wanna squish those cheeks Christmas cheer!" Enjoy!


Merry Christmas, all!

Now that I'm in my 2nd trimester...

Since I previously made a list on what I missed during my first trimester, I figure that I should now update my status (a much more positive note!) and create a top ten list of what I am LOVING about being in the second trimester. Enjoy....


I LOVE....


1. Not being reminded daily of what my own vomit tastes like. It doesn't taste good.

2. Being at the stage where I look pregnant and not just "spongey", but I'm not at that point yet where people look at my swollen frame and think, "Oh, for the love of all that is holy, stick that woman with a pin or something."

3. Schwan's chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. You could fill the Grand Canyon with it, bury me at the bottom of that chocolatey abyss, and I would eat my way out in less than twelve minutes. Take that, David Copperfield.

4. Still having an petite ankle bone....and a visibly larger calf. They are still two separate entities....as God intended....

5. Feeling the baby moving and kicking around in there! That is SOOOOOOOOO my favorite part!!!! I'm at that point where I can feel the kicks, but I'm not at the stage where they make me piss myself.

6. Being able to eat an entire Bartolli's skillet pasta dinner--meant for two--all by myself and at WORLD RECORD pace....and not feel guilty about it at all. Yep....did it yesterday....AND followed it up with some Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. That's just sheer talent no matter what you say.

(Let me just explain right now...and I'm not even kidding....that I just took a break from my blog writing to eat ice cream--simply because I've said "Ice Cream" in my blog twice so far, and I can no longer deny the urge to indulge. I'm better now...)

5. Having energy to do.....well....anything.....

4. The crazy dreams that I have when I'm pregnant. They are so entertaining. I had a dream last night that I was hanging out with Anthony Hopkins, and we invented a cream that I could rub on my stomach that would allow you to temporarily see through your skin and into your womb to check on your baby. Anthony and I were sitting at the my neighborhood park, drinking an Orange Julius and waiting on our big appointment to become bazillionaires when I woke up. He was in the process of telling me that, because he was so rich already, and because I was his BFF, that I could have his half of the money, too. That was the point that Ava started coughing through the baby monitor, and I woke up. Boo.....I was so close to getting that pool in the back yard....

3. At what other stage in your life can you say, "Honey, I think I actually was able to snarf down an extra 500 calories today" and get the response, "Way to go, babe. Good job!"???

2. My boobs are glorious.

1. I can blame any unpleasant flatulence on my unborn child and totally get away with it. It's not my fault that the kid broke my farter. Got issues with it? Talk to the fetus.

And the gender is.....

IT'S A BOY!!!!


That's right, my friends....that is a penis! Ava is getting a little brother, and we are having a son!

What cracks me up by this picture is how obviously proud of his goodies this boy is. He appears to be literally holding his feet up by his head just to make sure that we can all get an up close and personal look at how much of a boy he is. He is soooooooooo Eric's son.

And no....we haven't figured out a name yet. I have my favorites....Eric has his...... Eric is all about the hyper-masculine names. I swear, he would name his son Thor Ironballs Lawrence if he could.

Not happening.....

I'll keep you updated.

You have GOT to be kidding me....

Okay folks.....Here was my week up until today....just so that you can get a mindframe of the week we are having BEFORE today's incident (to be explained....be patient):

1. Ava gets sick while we are out camping. One snotty toddler.....check.

2. Eric comes home sick from work and is sick in bed for the next two days. One sick husband...check check....

3. I get cocky about how great my prenatal vitamins are. I brag about how wonderful they are to make me escape any sort of sickness--just in time to end up getting TKO'ed with a sore throat and way too much pain in my left ear. One wife and mother shoving her foot in her mouth and eating crow.....check check....oh shut up.....

4. Two days ago, our main kitchen sick decided that it wasn't going to drain anymore. Awesome.

5. Yesterday, our coffee maker decided that it was going to stop working completely. If you know my husband or me AT ALL, you would be gasping aloud right now because you know that not having coffee in the morning is like taking a crack pipe away from a meth addict. Headaches ensue.....there is shaking and twitching.....not pretty.....

Okay....that was our week leading up to this morning. Got it?

Eric was back at work today, so I got up, got Ava up, fed her breakfast, all the normal stuff. It's 8:30 in the morning when Ava finished eating, so I walked over to her booster chair to pull her out. As I pull off the attachable tray, it decides to come off so fast that my arms shoot backwards. My right elbow smacks my glass of water behind me on the kitchen island and causes it to fall crashing to the tile floor below in a million shards of glass.

As any mother would, I immediately grab my daughter's legs and feet (Luckily, she was still in her booster seat because I hadn't undone her belt yet) and start searching for any cuts or bleeding. None......good......

Suddenly, I think, Hmmmm, something feels weird.

Sure enough, I glance down at my right foot to see a big piece of the glass sticking out from the back of my foot. Like where my Achilles tendon is....yeah, there.....

I try to figure out a way to crumple down to the ground without falling into yet more glass, and I pull the glass out of my foot. That was Kristi's first bad idea of the day.

Immediately, my foot starts having blood running out of it at a pace that made me, the owner of said foot, a bit uncomfortable....

Well, it's not pumping out of my foot, so I must not have hit the artery. That's good, I thought. Gotta stay positive, right?

It was about that time when I starting trying to figure out exactly how, when I couldn't place my gushing foot down on the floor, I was going to get my daughter out of her chair, get both of us out of our pajamas and into clothes, get both of us into and car and to a doctor without problems.

I wasn't. Period.

So, what do I do? That's right, I'll call Lorraine, my super-sonic-helper-extraordinaire neighbor (See my past blog entry from when Ava threw nail polish on my kitchen floor--she's the same woman who saved us then) who proceeded to grab her son and run over to my house. This woman should have a cape and some sort of super hero theme song playing in the background at all times. She runs in, grabs me, helps me to the couch, wraps my foot up in a towel, runs over and sweeps up the glass, takes Ava out of her seat, changes her clothes and diaper, and is helping us into her van in less than 15 minutes. Get this woman a trophy, seriously.

While I was waiting on her to change Ava, I called my doctor only to find out that they couldn't get me in until 11:15.

"Would you like me to put you down for that time?" The nurse asked.

It's 8:30 in the morning....I won't have any blood left in my body by then....

"Uh....yeah. That would be great."

Lorraine says, "I'm going to take you to my friend, Christine's house. She is a nurse."

Of course she is. All superheroes have that cool sidekick who can heal. I should have known.

When we get there, Christine cleans up my foot and sticks some sterile tape on it to keep it closed until my doctor's appointment.

After leaving Christine's, Lorraine takes me back to her house to enjoy a cup of coffee (remember, my coffee maker is broken) before the appointment. It's official....this woman is a saint--a van driving, diaper changing, glass sweeping, coffee wielding gift from above.

Finally, 11:15 arrives, and I make it to the doctor's office. In order for him to figure out what to do, he had to open the wound back up with his fingers to see how deep it was. Uh huh.....that hurt BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. Just to let you know.

"We don't do stitches here, so I'm going to have to try to glue this closed, okay?"

"Okay." I responded. This was Kristi's second bad idea of the day.

Have you ever imagined what it feels like to have a gaping wound pried open and super glue poured into it? Well, it feels like.......Hmmmmmm......Oh yeah, HAVING A GAPING WOUND PRIED OPEN AND POURING SUPER GLUE INTO IT.

He then put the sterile strips over wound and said, "Now, try to stay off of it for atleast 48 hours to help your chances of not tearing the wound back open. If you do, your only choice is to go to urgent care and get stitches.

This is where I giggle like a school girl and gently remind the dear doctor that I have a two year old. Stay off my feet for 48 hours.....yeah.....I'll get right on that.

Anyway, I'm home now, and I'm trying to keep my foot up as much as possible. I have a sore throat, an ear ache, and a glued-shut wound on my foot. I'm blowing my nose every five minutes, peeing every ten (remember, I'm still pregnant during this joyous occasion), and walking like I have a tree trunk for a leg. I'm a hot mess.

And for whatever reason....as if on cue.....Ava is crapping her pants almost every hour--way more than normal today. I think she is getting a kick out of watching me try to get up, pick her up, step over the child gate to her room and get her changed without stepping on my right foot. I nurse her for the whole first year of her life, and this is the thanks I get.

Well....that's my day. I thought I'd write about it since I sure as heck can't get up and do anything else. Grrrrrrrrrrr.........

(Okay....while I was here writing this blog, Lorraine the Super Neighbor walked over to my house just to make sure that I was okay. Get that woman a Klondike bar.....)

Uh oh....

Okay.....so here was my pregnant belly at 20 weeks during my first pregnancy with Ava.... Got that....20 WEEKS....

And here is my belly at 13 weeks with my current pregnancy. That's right....13 weeks....almost TWO FULL MONTHS earlier than the last picture from my last pregnancy....



Yeah....that can't be good.

I may or may not fit through doorways by the end of this pregnancy.

I have this eerie feeling that I may end up rivaling that bratty girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turned into a giant blueberry. In case you never watched that movie, let me help you out a bit:

Yeah.....that may be me....minus the blue.....

And if ONE MORE PERSON asks me if I'm "sure that there is only one in there"......

New ultrasound pics!

Here's just a couple of pics for you to enjoy! We had our first trimester ultrascreen appointment this week (at 12 weeks and 5 days pregnant). We did find out that the chances of Down's Syndrome or a Trisomy abnormality were around 1 in 10,000, so that's good! Anyway, here's a few shots to enjoy!

Here's a side view....

And here's a shot from the front.....

I still can't believe that just four weeks ago, this baby looked like a kidney bean, and now it looks like an actual human being already. That's just NUTS.....and wonderful....

To close, I'll add a cute picture that was taken of my daughter and me at the beach while in San Diego. And yes, my 21 month old has a better tan than I do. Any wise cracks about how badly my skin needs to see a sun ray, and I WILL come out of this computer just to kick you in the throat....and then I'll blame it on the pregnancy hormones and get away with it.

Cute picture, huh? Go ahead............Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. No really, say it.....with meaning this time....

Ava at the zoo....

Okay....so this isn't going to be very long....just a couple of pictures to wrap up our trip to the San Diego zoo. I was so excited that we were going to be visiting there. I was there once in college, and I remember that the zoo was just amazing. When I heard that there was going to be a petting zoo for kids there, I was soooooooooooo excited for my daughter. Ava has books on sheep and goats and horses, so I just KNEW how much she would love to pet them "in person".

Here's what I got.....

Here's Ava with the actual animals. Notice how she actually runs AWAY from them. Not at all interested in these adorable and furry creatures.....

And HERE is my daughter with her favorite thing to pet during her zoo experience....

That's right....it's the animal's scratching post.

She ran around like it was Christmas morning, and only stopped to pet that stupid animal butt scratcher. Over and over and over....

What a weirdo....

Almost (urp) out of the (gag) 1st trimester....

Okay, my friends.....I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I've been missing in action for a couple of weeks. It's not that I don't love you. It's just that my fetus has been doing a Jackie Chan-sized whoopin' on my entire body. I should have known that I wasn't going to get as lucky as I was for Ava's pregnancy. The worst thing that I dealt with with her during the first trimester was fatigue. With this one? YOU NAME IT. If it sucks, I've been dealing with it. I feel like a wrung-out washcloth by the end of the day, and I'm only allowed to take a Tylenol or chew on a Tums. Yeah....that'll help a heap.....

Let me tell you what I miss already during this, my lovely first trimester....

I MISS.....

1. Not knowing every nook and cranny of the inside bowl of our toilets. I was perfectly happy not wretching so hard that I would smack my forehead on the seat while simultaneously wishing I wasn't so "up close and personal" with every peppered spot that I needed to Clorox.

2. Clear skin. For the love of all that is holy.... Is it safe for pregnant women to bathe in and/or drink ProActive? Seriously....

3. Waking up in the morning and not immediately counting down the hours until Ava's nap so that I can lie down. I'm writing this entry as she is napping, and I'm already telling you that I'm going to be kicking myself later for not taking this time to sleep. I can't even explain how much that is NOT like me.

4. The outside. I am in the middle of an Arizona summer.

109 degrees outside

+

The massive increase of your body temp when pregnant

=

Torture and/or certain death.

I am used to taking my daughter outside every day for atleast a walk, and now we are in weather that neither a toddler nor a pregnant woman can handle for more than ten minutes without shrinking into a twitching little puddle on the ground. I'm getting cabin fever to the point that I actually look forward to going to the grocery store--I get to leave the house, but I go to someplace that is still air conditioned. When you actually look forward to surrounding yourself with produce and canned goods, there's a problem. Don't get me wrong...I love my home....but I'm so sick being in it all the time I could die. Plus, the fact that "The Wiggles" are playing throughout the main room, I sometimes feel like sticking my head in the oven.

5. Pooping. 'Nuff said.

6. People looking at me and not having to wonder if I'm pregnant or just hit the Krispy Kremes a bit too hard.

7. Not taking six prenatals and two omega pills per day. I'm starting to sound like a change purse when I walk.

8. Pooping.

9. Being able to change my daughter's poopy diapers without doing that gag-face where your nostrils flare, your mouth drops open and your tongue shoots out. They never bothered me before I was pregnant, and now I can't peel that thing off her butt without sounding like I'm about to cough up a furrball.

10. Pooping.

But.....I'm only two more weeks away from the 2nd trimester, and I'm so excited about it that I could throw a party....with banners, balloons, those stupid horns that you blow and an air-filled projectile uncurls....the whole shebang......

Look for an invitation soon in a mailbox near you.

Baby's first picture!!!

Well, here's our baby's first picture!!!!

Yep....we went in for our first prenatal appointment this week. I was seven weeks and two days along. Looks like a gummy bear, huh? I have to admit, I feel so much better now that I have seen that little heart pumping away!

So get this....and let me begin by saying that this is not a fabrication. I have to preface that because this really sounds like it couldn't possibly have happened. Well.....maybe not in your world......

As all of you pregnant women out there know, you have to start every prenatal appointment with a urine sample. My husband was there at the appointment with me, but he had to run to Best Buy to buy a memory card for my phone (so that we could video the heartbeat.....yes, we forgot our camera, and this was our next option--don't judge). Of course, they call me back fifteen minutes early, and my husband wasn't back yet.

So.........I had to take Ava back to the bathroom with me while I peed in a cup.

If at all possible, moms.....don't EVER do that......ever......not ever......

I sit down and get my urine sample without incident, and as I stand up to wash my hands, I place the "cup-o-pee" on the counter.

(You DO all know where this is going, don't you?)

I was turned around at the sink for all of two seconds before my toddler reached up and knocked over my urine sample. And we're not talking a simple splash out of the cup. Oh no, my friends....we are talking about smacking the bottom of the cup in such a way that it flipped up in the air like a Brian Boitano triple axel and splashed back toward my daughter's stunned face. Within moments, she was covered in her mother's liquid filth from head to knees.

Immediately, I panic. Not only do I not have a change of clothes to put on her, but I just squeezed out every drip of urine that I had. Ugh.

I spent the next five minutes cleaning up the floor while simultaneously thanking God that atleast Ava didn't have her mouth open. I washed Ava up as much as I could at the sink and luckily was able to squeeze out a bit more in a new cup before my appointment. It was the one time that I was actually thankful that I had to urinate every fourteen seconds.

It was in the exam room that Eric showed up, and I immediately handed Ava off to him. It took about four seconds before his nose crinkled up. "She smells like piss."

"Don't worry....it's my pee." Somehow, that came out like it made it better.

He looked at me like I had just flung my own poo.

"Gee....thanks for telling me that she was covered in urine AFTER you handed her to me," he said as he tried to wave his newly soaked shirt dry.

Whoops.

Oh well, the way I see it is that I was about to have my uterus groped by a complete stranger. The rest of my family can smell like pee for a minute. I still win.

Atleast my nails were pretty... for a second....

So.....what is this you ask????

THIS, my friends, is what happens when I decide to paint my fingernails for the first time in two years. That's right.

Normally, I think logically. I think to myself, Self, there is no need to have pretty fingernails because you are a stay at home mother, and nobody cares about your cuticles. Tuesday, though, I get a wild hair and think, I wonder what it would feel like to scrape the mashed bananas out from under my nails, pull out a file and some polish, and actually try to have atleast one part of my body look cute for a couple of days.

I'll tell you....the above is what happens.

Yep....the above picture is what happens when you are in your first trimester of pregnancy (which we all know makes you so tired that a nuclear bomb could explode, and all of the newly pregnant women out there would still have their chin resting in their palms with drool slowly oozing down to their elbows with each comatose muscle twitch). I finished painting my nails, and let me tell you, they were beautiful...like Revlon commercial beautiful. I put down the bottle of polish to admire my work, and then in true "pregnant brained" fashion, completely forgot to put it away.

Enter Ava, my 19 month old tornado...I mean toddler.....

Within seconds, this child grabs the bottle of polish, runs into our kitchen (where our nice tile floor is, of course) and proceeds to chuck it to the ground like it is one of those Fourth of July poppers.

Now--cut to me jumping over the back of the couch to sweep up my joyfully squealing child in order to save her from the millions of shards of broken glass that surround her tiny bare feet. She was fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.

I plunk her down in her high chair so that I can pick up the glass and wipe up the polish. I sprint to the bathroom only to find that I am completely out of nail polish remover. Fan-freaking-tastic.

I call Lorraine, my neighbor who has saved my behind in more instances than I can count, and within minutes, she is knocking on my door with nail polish in one hand and paint thinner in the other. She was like a stay-at-home MacGuyver. In no time at all, the floor had no evidence of being so violated by fuschia enamel, and Lorraine was out the door in one angelic blur.

Atleast my nails look nice. I thought as I glanced down to admire my work once again.

That was about the time that I noticed that the scrubbing of the floor with polish remover and rags had completely desecrated my nails until they looked like they had melted into a puddle at the tips of my fingers.

Guess I need to fix those. I thought for a millisecond before I realized that my nailpolish was now all soaked in rags and resting in the bottom of the trash can, and Lorraine just walked out with the rest of her polish remover.

Crap.

So, it's a week later, and my nails are still half melted and half chipped off by my other hand. I couldn't get my hands to look more white trash if I tried. I swear, I'm going to put a piece of straw in my teeth and start talking about "chewin' tabaccey" just to finish the facade....

I swear, though, for those five minutes, my hands were stunning.

Sigh.....

Welcome to my life...

Well, hello there....

Let's start with the pleasantries, shall we?

My name is Kristi.

I'm married to Eric.

We have a daughter (almost 19 months as of today) named Ava.

I'm taking a break from my job as a high school English teacher to be a stay-at-home mother

....and I just found out that I'm preggers with number two.

Got it? There will be a test later.

I figured that this would be a good time to start a blog so that I can document my experiences as I get more and more pregnant and have a toddler at home who is very much entering that "What exactly do you mean by NO?" phase. Oh, what crazy shenanigans will ensue, I'm sure.

I got the positive result just a couple days ago on July 7, 2008. That means, this baby should be popping out somewhere around March 22, 2009. That is, unless he or she decides to mess with mommy and force the date up by three weeks (Long story...but let's just say that Ava was stubborn before she was even out of the womb) .

So....here's the kick in the pants for you all today....

The day after I got my positive result, I ended up with HORRIBLE diarrhea.

(Oh, maybe this is where I tell you that this is MY blog, and I tend to be very straight-forward and descriptive about whatever happens to be going on in my life at that time. If that has to be about my bowel function...so be it....)

Moving on...

I tried to think nothing of it. Well, atleast ignore it as much as you can as you are pushing your grocery cart swiftly down the store aisle to the restroom while trying to simultaneously hold your cheeks together. I mean, come on, I'm pregnant. This must just be a pregnancy symptom, right? I didn't have it with Ava, but all pregnancies are different I hear.

I stopped trying to ignore it somewhere between noticing blood in my poo and feeling like someone poured a mixture of Clorox bleach, apple cider vinegar and death juice into my intestines.

So...I go to the doctor. It went somewhere along these lines...

"Doc. I think my stomach is going to implode. And, if I push any harder, I'm going to push out a four week old embryo. I'd like to keep the baby in there long enough to not look like tiny sea monkey if I could."

"Hmmmmmmmmm.......let's do some fecal testing."

"Great idea. Let's do more work on my already fatigued bum-hole. It sounds fabulous."

"Well, if you want, I can send you home with some of the containers, and you can do it yourself when you go to the bathroom. Then, just bring it back in."

"I can't think of a better way to spend my day. Let's do it."

This man sends me home with FOUR containers that I have to fill to a certain line with my own poo. I'm not sure if you are understanding the gravity of the situation here. I'm on the can every five minutes so that I can shoot out the equivalent of a firey liquid dime, and I have to now do it in a poo catcher contraption, scoop it out with a wooden tongue depresser and put it in a container until the preservation liquid gets up to a certain line. I quickly realize that this is going to take approximately thirty-two poo experiences to fill ONE bottle. By the time these are filled, I will either be all better or dead with a poop scooper in my hand and my pride nowhere to be found. Lovely.

And...as all you pregnant women with hightened smells out there know, there is just nothing better than sitting there whiffing your own poo-funk when you can already smell what Mrs. Johnson cooked for dinner across the street six days ago. Yea me.

So...as this first post greets you, Ava isn't even awake yet, I am trying to get over this intestinal thing, and I'm hoping that my little sea monkey isn't in there holding what will one day be a nose and saying, "Thanks mom. This horrifically smelling womb is just awesome. Well done."

Uh oh...gotta go. Mr. Poo is knocking on the back door.

Welcome to my world. It's quite a ride...