Cool and Awesome

It's funny; Grant is getting to the point where he actually has an opinion (sometimes) about what he's wearing, and he has started to categorize certain clothes as "cool and awesome."  So far he hasn't told me that any of his clothes are "not cool," so hopefully it'll still be a while before we're fighting over that!

A while back I went to Carter's and bought some clothes for the boys to wear either this fall or next spring (I like to buy them off-season when they're on sale when I can).  So I found these cute dinosaur pajamas for Grant, and they had long pants so I just put them in his closet to save until it gets cooler.  But Grant noticed them a couple of weeks ago and insisted on wearing them.  They're not really any different than all of his other Carter's pajamas, but for some reason he thinks these are especially cool.  And Drew has some that are similar (in that they're another t-shirt/pants set).  Grant gets so excited when they're both wearing their "cool and awesome" jammies together.....they excitedly run around and admire themselves in the mirror.  Here are both boys wearing their "cool and awesome" jammies one morning:

When he first wore these pajamas, Grant wanted to wear them every night, and would freak out a little bit if I told him they were dirty.  Now we've found a couple of other sets of jammies that he also considers "cool and awesome" (basically, any cool-looking t-shirt paired with wind shorts).  This is definitely something I didn't expect from my three-year-old son; I guess I'm going to have to start taking him shopping with me to make sure he approves of what I pick out!

Today I took the boys to the shoe store to find some school shoes (since school starts tomorrow- YAY!).  I've always bought them brown shoes (because they're good for both school and church, and I only have to buy one pair per season).  But this time we went with tennis shoes for both of them.  Grant was excited about them and said immediately when he put them on, "I can't wait to show these to Daddy!"


Pregnancy: 33 weeks

Belly shot from last night:

I had a bit of a scare on Friday......I had a lot of painful contractions, one after another, when I was laying in bed reading.  I came downstairs, drank some water, and they eventually went away.  So I went back upstairs and laid down again, and the contractions started again.  I called the doctor on call, and she said to drink 3 large glasses of water, then come into the hospital if they didn't go away.  Finally after about an hour, they did go away and I finally went to sleep (at around 4am).  It was unsettling.....I have no idea why that might have happened.

Otherwise, I'm just feeling tired and very big now.  The boys start school tomorrow (I didn't mention this already, did I?), and I am just so ready for some time to myself.  I feel bad because I'm such a boring (and impatient) mommy right now, but I am just SO BURNED OUT!  So I think this will be great for all of us. 

Some other pregnancy facts at 33 weeks:
- I haven't been wearing my rings for about two or three weeks now.  I'm not really swelling badly, but my rings were getting tight and I am more comfortable without them.

- The baby gets the hiccups at least a couple of times per day.  It's so fun feeling and watching my belly bounce every couple of seconds!

- Drew and Grant each have these little cowboy cap guns.  One day last week, Drew lifted up my shirt and touched the gun to my belly (sounds weird and disturbing, but I don't think he meant anything malicious by it!).  He shot it, and the baby immediately bounced.  He did it two other times (she jumped each time) before I took it away from him.  Poor thing, it scared her! 

Baby update- 32 weeks

I haven't done one of these in a while.  The weeks fly by so fast, which is good in a way because this summer is really starting to take its toll on me.  I absolutely HATE August in Texas with small children.  There's no other way to put it.  It's impossibly hard to find things to do with them, since we can't be outside (except maybe before 9:30am and after 7pm) and they rarely behave when we go out in public (but anyone who has read this blog for any time is probably tired of me complaining endlessly about all of this!).

So even though I'm really ready for the boys to start school on the 31st (one more week to go), I am just in no hurry to have this baby.  I actually really love being pregnant.  I always have, except for my last trimester with Grant when I couldn't find any relief from that horrible sciatica.  I'm still very comfortable, and I just love feeling the baby rolling around and kicking.  After my pregnancies with the boys, I remember thinking back a couple of months postpartum, frustrated at all of the things I'd already forgotten about being pregnant.  So this time I'm trying to take things slowly and trying to make mental notes of how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking at each stage.

The boys and I went to see my doctor on Friday for my 31-week checkup (I've been going every two weeks since 27 weeks).  I had only gained a pound since my last visit, which was an improvement from the four pounds I had gained in the previous two weeks.  So now I'm up to a total of 30 pounds, which is definitely okay (especially since this baby will most likely come in another 6 weeks, like the boys did).

Names, Names, Names!
This is the main baby-related thing on my mind right now.  Instead of narrowing our list down, I just keep adding more (and getting more confused).  I've been scouring the baby name blogs and message boards during my free time in the past week (partly explains why I haven't written on the blog), doing searches on the names we like and trying to find reasons to cross some off our list.  But I just keep finding more that I like!  So my favorites right now (some from our previous list plus some new ones) include: Lauren, Molly, Sarah, Caroline, Madeline, Meredith (Dean still likes this one a lot), Susanna(h) (not Dean's favorite, but I like it a lot). Claire is a middle name option that we like, and I think Madeline would be a cute middle name too (Sarah Madeline or Molly Madeline).  Thoughts, anyone?  Please?

Funny big brother story: this happened a few weeks ago, but I don't think I've written it on the blog yet.  I was upstairs with the boys and the baby suddenly kicked me in the side, and it hurt quite a bit (usually it doesn't hurt at all when she kicks).  I said, "OW!" and Grant asked what happened.  I told him that the baby kicked me and he said, "baby, do NOT kick Mommy or I'm going to give you a spankin."  I asked how he was going to give her a spanking, and he said, "I'm going to come in there and give her a spankin, and then I'm going to come out of you."   Um, okay.....

Wood floors- before and after

 Here are two pictures of our formal living and dining rooms with carpet (I'm taking this from the front door; you see this room when you look to the left as you walk into our house):

The carpet actually doesn't look too bad from far away.  But up close, there were sections that were in pretty bad shape.  For example, about a month after Drew was born, Grant got into my fingernail polish and hid behind the dining room table, having a grand time spreading it all over the floor and curtains (which were eventually removed when we painted this spring, and haven't been replaced yet):

And then of course there was this large cat pee stain against the front wall of our house.  As soon as we moved here three years ago, Amminadab (our neutered cat) started spraying in a number of places around our house.  We didn't notice for a few months, and he eventually became an outdoor cat when we tried a few different things to get him to stop.....and nothing worked.  And we got this carpet professionally cleaned about a year ago....even they couldn't get this stain out!

Here's the room after they tore out the carpet and laid the leveling material down.  I was shocked by all of the dust.   I really wish they had warned us, so I could close doors and cover furniture.  All of our downstairs surfaces needed to be wiped down when they were finished.

And after!  

We chose engineered wood; I haven't taken a close-up picture of the boards, but they're 5-inch planks and it's a dark-colored oak.  We think it looks perfect with our furniture and wall color.  And it's hand-scraped, meaning that it has some texture to it (thus it's supposed to do a better job of hiding scratches and dents that inevitably will occur with small children). 

For a couple of days after it was finished, I was SO careful about the boys walking and playing on it.  But now I'm doing better, and we've dragged most of their toys back in there.  I've never had wood floors before, and I'm just so afraid of damaging it right now!

Grant keeps shutting the computer and telling me. "that's enough," so pictures of the bathrooms will have to wait.......

New floors, etc.

The closer I get to having this baby, the less motivated I am to write on the blog.  I only have probably 8 or 9 weeks left (I turned 30 weeks on Monday), so during the boys' naps I'm always either resting or working on one of my many still-unfinished projects! 

Last week mostly centered around our new floors!  We had wood floors installed in our formal living and dining rooms (where we previously had carpet), and tile installed in our master and guest bathrooms (where we previously had carpet and linoleum).  We think they all look great!  I will hopefully post some before and after pictures at some point this week.

Some other things we did last week:

The boys have recently discovered how fun it is to pull all the cushions off the couch in our formal living room.  They jump and scream and tackle each other on it.  We probably made a horrible decision from the very beginning by allowing them to jump on it (they jump on most of the furniture in our house.....bad Mommy and Daddy!).  But this couch really is a piece of junk.....it still looks okay from far away, but it has cat pee stains on one of the sides and cat scratch marks all over the rest of it (one of the reasons why this cat no longer is allowed inside our house).  Here Drew is screaming and Grant's covering his ears and screaming right back:

On Tuesday (the day before the floors were going to be installed, and I knew we'd be stuck at the house for the rest of the week) the boys and I went to the Children's Museum.  The boys had fun splashing around and playing in the outdoor water area.  Every day last week was so incredibly hot, with almost no clouds in the sky.  I felt like I was melting out there at 10:30am!  We didn't stay too long.....the newest wing of the museum was closed because the A/C was broken, so all of the open sections were really crowded (and most areas of the museum are a little advanced for the boys anyway).

On Wednesday morning (the day the guys were coming to start on our floors), we went to Wal-Mart to buy some materials to make our own play-doh.  I have all of these good intentions of doing fun activities with the boys, but now almost the entire summer is over and I haven't done any of them!  So many days we just end up doing the same old thing, so last week I wanted to try extra hard to try some of those fun things I've been meaning to do for weeks. 

So the boys had fun mixing the ingredients and making the play-doh, but it just didn't harden up the way it was supposed to.  So instead I just took out our regular store-bought stuff and let them play for a while.  They had fun for about 30 minutes, and I don't think it ended in a screaming fight or a huge mess.....so I guess I would consider it a success!

Might as well begin the political indoctrination at an early age!

On Thursday morning, we made a "bubble bath" in the sand/water table in our backyard.  I don't know what I was thinking.....I made bubbles out of our dish soap instead of using their (tear-free) bubble bath.  Drew only got it in his eyes once, and thankfully it didn't seem to bother him much.  They had fun dropping their cars into the bubbles and then trying to find them.  It was a fun way to spend some time that we'd normally be watching cartoons.

Also, on Sunday night we convinced Grant to sleep through the night without a diaper.  He's been potty trained for months, and he never wets the bed during naps.  But for some reason we've continued using diapers at night, not really wanting to deal with changing wet sheets in the middle of the night.  But for three straight nights, he has done great!  Every morning he wakes up dry, and he claims that he wakes up during the night to go potty (he never wakes us up, so I don't know for sure).  We are so proud of him!   Today I told him we could go buy a toy because he's been doing so well sleeping in his underwear, and he said, "yay!  I can't wait to tell Daddy!"  We went to Target and he picked out a "karate chop" Buzz Lightyear (he's on a major Toy Story kick even though he hasn't seen the newest one). 

Hopefully I'll post some before and after pictures of our new floors in the next couple of days....

It's not what you think!!

I signed up to take a meal to some friends tonight who recently had a baby.  The boys and I met my friend Jennifer and her boys at the park in the morning, then I had to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  It was a frustrating trip (as most grocery trips are these days), and I realized when we left that I'd forgotten white wine (one of the ingredients for the chicken dish I was planning on making tonight).  I haven't bought wine in at least five years; I enjoy it but we just don't drink it.  So the only time I open a bottle of wine is to make this particular recipe, and I happened to run out the last time I made it.

So back into the store we went (I had just caused a minor scene in the checkout line with the boys a few minutes before), and we went straight to the wine aisle.  I found what I needed and tried to look casual as I took it up to the checkout line.  It was so weird, but I felt like I needed to explain to the checkout lady why I was buying it!  And I know they weren't, but it felt like everyone in the store was noticing me and judging me.  Here I am, this woman who is very obviously pregnant and very obviously annoyed by the horrible behavior of her kids, who leaves the store then comes back a few minutes later to buy alcohol!  But while I was trying to casually explain that "I know this looks suspicious but I need this for a recipe," I felt even more stupid!  

What's worse, it took forever to check out because the receipt printer kept eating the paper, so the lady had to work on the machine for a minute.  When I finally got my receipt, I turned to see the manager (who was helping out with bagging) handing me my bottle of wine wrapped in a brown paper bag!!  Now I really felt like a wine-o.  Again, I said something silly to him about this looking very suspicious, which probably made me seem even more suspicious! 

At least it wasn't scotch or whiskey or vodka, and I'm sure those people didn't even give it a second thought.  And I'm not one of those people to be embarrassed by buying tampons or things like that.  So it surprised me how ashamed I was; I guess I just was afraid of being seen as an irresponsible mom who is putting her unborn baby in danger because she can't handle the stress of raising the two kids she already has!