Another Funny

THE MIRACLE OF TOILET PAPER


Fresh from my shower, I stand in front of the mirror complaining
to my husband that my breasts are too small..

Instead of characteristically telling me it's not so, he uncharacteristically
comes up with a suggestion.

If you want your breasts to grow, then every day take a piece of toilet
paper and rub it between them for a few seconds.'

Willing to try anything, I fetch a piece of toilet paper and stand
in front of the mirror, rubbing it between my breasts.

'How long will this take?' I asked.

They will grow larger over a period of years,' my husband replies.

I stopped. 'Do you really think rubbing a piece of toilet paper
between my breasts every day will make my breasts larger over
the years?'

Without missing a beat he says, 'Worked for your butt, didn't it?'

He's still alive, and with a great deal of therapy, he may even
walk again, although he will probably continue to take his meals
through a straw.


Stupid, stupid man.

Cardiology Appt.

There were a few concerns going into today's appointment with the cardiologist. First of all, at his last Cardiology appointment back in August it was discovered on an EKG and subsequent Holter Monitor study that Lincoln was having more frequent than usual PVCs. The main worry was that these PVCs would cause dangerous heart arrythmias. At that point in time the Holter Monitor study showed no arrythmias...but there was some concern that a rhabdomyoma was developing in his heart and wreaking havoc.

The other main concern was that the new seizure medication that Lincoln was started on a month ago can have some serious heart side effects. The one the neuro mentioned was the lengthening of the Q-T interval. The cadiologiist explained that this was of concern because it could cause dangerous heart rythmns and arrythmias (which I am beginning to understand are the big bad when it comes to cardiology).

Well, we started out the appointment with a weight check. In which the nurse informed me that he had lost weight since his appt in August. I was like...yeah, thanks. Apparently in August he weighed 13.4 kilos (roughly 29lbs 8oz) and today, 6 months later, he weighed 13.0 kilos (about 28lbs 11oz). Sigh.

We then moved on to a heart ultrasound. The tech took about 15 pictures, focusing in on one area near the bottom of he heart. It always makes me a bit nervous when they zoom in! Lincoln was fascinated watching his heart beat away on the monitor. He didn't squirm or make a peep once! After awhile he drifted off to sleep, so it was a very pleasant experience this time (last time he cried throgh the whole thing). Because he was asleep, we were also able to get the full lead EKG done as well. This is what can detect the PVCs and measures the Q-T interval.

The doctor reviewed the results right away, and told us that there were some "echo-bright" areas at the bottom of the heart. But he also said that nothing appeared to resemble a rhabdomyoma, and that that area often appears "echo-bright" even on normal hearts. He then said that the EKG looked great. There were no PVCs and that the Q-T interval was totally normal. He wanted us to go ahead and do another Holter Monitor study next week just to make sure that everything looks okay over a longer period of time. But everything looked good today, and we have another follow-up in 6-months. :)

Double Nursery

Here is the double nursery, almost finished. We are waiting on 1 more piece of art, a new rug, and the wall letters for June. I am going to do a little 360 degree video once everything is complete. But here are some pictures if you want a preview... :)

Doorway out of the room on the left, closet (stocked full of diapers) on the right. Ren. faire paraphernalia on the dividing wall in the center of the picture.




More closet & closet doors loaded with stuffed animals. Yes, I have always had a weakness for stuffed animals. I used to have over 200 while gorwing up, and I have a hard time passing them up in stores now that I have a kid(s). Even though Lincoln has only ever shown interest in a couple of them. Sigh.

Above the closet are the wall letters that I made for Lincoln the week before he wass born. It is made out of leftover fabric from the friends & family quilt everyone helped us to make. Right now that quilt is being stored until we get Lincoln his own room set up.




See all of the animals! Yes, it is a sickness...

Below them is Lincoln's crib. We decided that this new crib was sturdier than the one he used to be in and since it is likely that he will be in it for quite awhile to come, we gave him the new one, and June the old one.




Here is a cool picture frame that I picked up at Target. It is 1/2 way full of pictures of Lincoln and pictures of Andy & I. The other half will be pictures of June and pictures of the 4 of us together. :)




Inside Lincoln's crib. Still got the "cowboy" theme going on with the sheet & bumper set. ;)




Nightstand full of sheets & mattress pads. Basket of teddy bears of all colors and cowboy nightlight.




Bookshelf full of books & more stuffed things. Also a white noise machine, nightliht, and baby monitor. Next to that is the couch. Sometimes we hold Lincoln while sitting on that couch, read to him, and let him fall asleep in our arms. Once Lincoln & June are sharing the room, it will be nice to read to them both together whie sitting on the couch. :)




Other side of the couch, and the location of June's crib. :)




Shelves above June's crib, with some stuffed magnetized letters that are shaped like, and spell out animals.




Close-up of June's crib with her very pretty Gerber Daisy bedding set. You can see the little green outfit laid out in the crib. If the weather is cool enough, this will be her "coming home" outfit. :)

Song That Inspires

Find Out Who Your Friends Are
By Tracy Lawrence

Run your car off the side of the road
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere
Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare

This is where the rubber meets the road
This is where the cream is gonna rise
This is what you really didn't know
This is where the truth don't lie

{Chorus}
You find out who your friends are
Somebody's gonna drop everything
Run out and crank up their car
Hit the gas, get there fast
Never stop to think 'what's in it for me?' or 'it's way too far'
They just show on up with their big old heart
You find out who your friends are

Everybody wants to slap your back
wants to shake your hand
when you're up on top of that mountain
But let one of those rocks give way then you slide back down look up
and see who's around then

This ain't where the road comes to an end
This ain't where the bandwagon stops
This is just one of those times when
A lot of folks jump off

{Chorus}

When the water's high
When the weather's not so fair
When the well runs dry
Who's gonna be there?

{Chorus}

You find out who your friends are
(yeah, yeah)
You find out who your friends are

Run your car off the side of the road
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere
(Well man, I've been there)
Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare
(Man, I've been there)

Man, I've been there
Oooh yeah.

This song makes me smile everytime I hear it. I hope that Andy & I have friends like this, and that in turn we can be friends like this to others...

Weekly Weigh-In & More...

Well this week went much better than last week because he isn't sick or throwing up his solid foods anymore. For some reason he is still refusing bottles, so we have to trick him into drinking them as he is falling asleep. If he wakes up enough to know what is going on, he usually gets very upset and it ruins naptime, so we have to be very sneaky! But I am hoping that eventually he will start drinking milk from the sippy cup or straw. Right now he will only drink water from a sippy, and soda pop from a straw. Goofy little boy. ;)

Feb 16: 1353 cal
Feb 17: 1030 cal
Feb 18: 1016 cal
Feb 19: 1461 cal
Feb 20: 1080 cal
Feb 21: 1465 cal
Feb 22: 1160 cal

Average for the week: 1224 calories/day

Lincoln's weight: 29lbs 5oz! So much improved from his weight at the doctor's office 1.5 weeks ago where he was 28.5lbs.

My weight: +42 lbs. Well, I guess my prediction was off. I am now thinking that I might end up closer to 45-50lbs up for this pregnancy. Oh well. It will all come off eventually...

June's weight: Should be around 5.5lbs this week!


OTHER NEWS

At my appointment today we discovered that I am now 1cm dilated! This is pretty exciting, but also scary, because she is still breech. So, if I were to go into labor before she flips or before the doctor gets a chance to flip her...it is automatic c-section. I know that a c-section isn't the end of the world, but it would certainly be ideal to be able to deliver in the normal fashion. A c-section would require a 4 day hospital stay, and some serious lifting restrictions once I were to return home. This would be a much bigger immediate impact on Lincoln than I would like. But I guess we will just see how it goes. Baby sister might like to make a big impression on the family right from the start...

Right now we are looking at 37-38ish weeks to attempt an external cephalic version (ECV), and our doctor likes to perform the c-section that same day if the ECV fails. I am still hopeful that she will flip on her own before then...

Arizona Renaissance Festival 2010

Belly dancing videos!








More camel riding pictures of my two favorite guys!










Jousting videos and pictures!










Some of the characters we saw!








Me being a character!



I hope my sister Jamie doesn't see this. As an ex-longbow competetor, I am certain she would laugh her head off at my technique (or lack thereof)! But at least I had some fun, and didn't hurt myself (or anyone else). ;)




June's shield!




Lincoln's new weapon to go with his shield from last year! A double-sided battle axe! Andy is planning on painting it up sometime.

A Quick Comparison

I was just struck by how similar these two photos were...

Ren. Faire on Feb. 13 2010!



Ren. Faire mid. Feb. 2009!

19 Months Old and Growing!!

Here are a bunch of photos and video from the past month. He is doing really well these past few weeks. He has been happy and enjoying his days much more, despite continuing seizures. We are not sure what has caused the attitude change, maybe the new medicine (Banzel), but we are loving every moment of it!

Video of Lincoln with his music table. One of his favorite toys!



Renaissance Festival from last weekend! There will be more pictures and videos of this posted this weekend as well. We had a blast, except for our turbo in the Subaru going out on the way there. Lincoln seemed to enjoy it quite a bit more than last year even. He still isn't crazy about the petting zoo...maybe next year? He loved the swing ride, the music, and the shows though! Lincoln & Daddy riding the camel! Andy wanted me to do it with Lincoln, but I thought that there was no way I would be able to get back up off of the camel once I sat down. So I took pictures and videos instead. :)







Lincoln, daddy, and Chris (Andy's coworker who came with us to the Festival) watching belly dancing! It was a pretty good show complete with bellies (large and small), scarves, and fire eating!





This is the last thing we did before we left, and I am so glad that we did! Lincoln LOVED it, which thrilled Andy and I to no end. He giggled and laughed harder than he has in probably at least a year, if ever. It was a wonderful sound and sight (even with the cheese falling out of his mouth)! :)





Lincoln napping on the couch.





Lincoln napping on Daddy on the couch. ;)



Lincoln going for a ride on his new "big brother" tricycle. He enjoys it pretty well, but Andy had to build some straps to keep his feet on the pedals.





Lincoln and Daddy watching the Olympics together. Lincoln really seems to enjoy watching the snowboarding events, which is pretty funny, if you know Andy's family. ;)



Here is another picture of Lincoln checking out the outdoors in the early evening. He loves crawling up to and touching the metal screen. I think because it feels funny and makes a funny noise when he scratches or rubs it.

34 weeks!

First of all, another new blog format. The other one was just too busy for me, and the dark color behind the text made it hard for me to read. So I thought this one would be better, for now at least. Be warned...I might change it again though. ;)



Things are going great. Only six weeks or less until we get to meet our little girl! We are excited, but very very nervous. I think we are both still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Anytime we talk about her, somewhere in our conversation one of us says, "I hope she is healthy".

It is really too bad that we are both so guarded about having kids. Instead of it being a joyous experience for us, we are both riddled with fear and anxiety throughout the whole process. It was a struggle to have our first child, and then to have issues come up after his birth, it really was unexpected. Now however, we are almost expecting something bad to happen, and are having a hard time really believing that everything will be okay.

Unfortunately, it seems that we are still waiting for our "perfect" baby, and many of our future plans hinge on how June comes out. Obviously we love Lincoln more than words can express, and we would never/could never replace him in our hearts or minds, but a developmentally normal and healthy child will add a sense of normalcy to our family that we currently lack. It would be wonderful to experience everyday worries that are normal to a mother of a toddler; babyproofing for a walker/climber/someone who opens cabinets and drawers, what activities to do during the day to keep a busybody busy, teaching words and numbers and colors, worrying about schedules and naptimes and routines. Most of this stuff we barely deal with at this point with Lincoln. We love every moment we have with Lincoln, and it melts our hearts when he learns something new, but we also hope to God that we will get the oppourtunity to see what a developmentally normal baby does as she learns and grows.

**Fingers crossed**

A Little Perspective.

This is an article that was posted on one of the mommy forums that I visit. It is very much written for mommies, but can also be for daddies too. Take a moment to read and reflect. It will make you smile. :)

Raising Children
by Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.

I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast.Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, and finally what the women on the playground, and the well-meaning relations -- well what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything.

One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome.

To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago pouring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made.They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did " Hall of Fame.The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs.The times the baby fell off the bed.The times I arrived late for preschool pickup.The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp.The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.

And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.

And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were.

All clear!

The high alert montioring is now complete! No more cervical checks or NSTs for the forseeable future! Everything still looked great today. Cervix was measuring 2.3cm, and baby June did great on the NST. I am continuing to see Dr. B weekly because at 35 weeks with Lincoln I was already 3cm dilated. This would be next week for this pregnancy. I asked Dr. B if she thought that the same thing would happen again, and she said no. She thinks that all of that was due to Lincoln's problems, and that my body somehow knew. She said that one of the known risk factors for preterm labor is a genetic condition in the baby. Interesting... I am slightly more inclined to believe that the issues with my cervix were due to damage caused during the D&C from my first miscarriage. And that my body hadn't had the chance to fully heal up before getting pregnant with Lincoln. In the end, it doesn't really matter because Lincoln was delivered at a healthy gestation, and it is likely that June will be as well.

June was measuring on time today. Just shy of 34 weeks, and weighing 5lbs exactly! :) Still breech though...sigh.

Weekly Weigh-In

First of all, I hope you noticed the new blog background and header! I am really excited about it, because I was getting a bit tired of the old one. It had been up for almost a year. :)

Now moving on to the check-in...

Lincoln's weekly weigh-in is cancelled again. He started eating solids again off and on last Wednesday, and really just these past couple of days has started to eat actual meals. I shad stopped tracking calroies for the past 2 weeks, but am planning on picking it up again tomorrow. I know that we have fallen below our goal everyday for the past few weeks. I just hope that it hasn't caused him to lose too much weight. At his clinical evaluation (big waste of time, btw) he weighed 28.5lbs. So he was down about 1/2-1lb at that point from his illness.

I have basically maintained my weight from last week. I am up a total of 38lbs at this point, which is what the nurse weighed me at last Tuesday as well. Hopefully by tomorrow I won't have gained any more weight. If I have June at around the same gestation that I had Lincoln, I am still suspecting a total weight gain of about 42lbs. I am hoping that breastfeeding works out, and that the weight comes off quickly after she is born. But I am really not too worried about it at this point in time. I am enjoying my sweets while I have less guilt about it. ;)

Baby June should be weighing about 5lbs now. I am thinking about asking for Dr. B to do a quick growth check tomorrow. We will see if she has the time.

Some more pictures from the holidays...

Love is...

holding your future in your arms.

For our wedding we had little candles made with this saying on them. It is more true than ever as time passes and that we now have a son and a daughter on the way.

Here is my love boiled down to a goofy little rhyme. :)

First comes love...

Minutes after our engagement, 7/4/02.

Then comes marriage...

Our wedding, 7/19/03.

Then comes a baby in a baby carriage...

The birth of our son, 7/19/08.

And another baby in a baby carriage... ;)

Our daughter due in March.

And the family that surrounds and supports us in everything that we do.

My sisters and I, this past summer at Carlsbad Caverns.

My parents, Chris & Debra, and my sisters, Jamie & Jennifer.

Andy's parents, Jim & Kathy.

Andy's brother, Joe.

Andy's sister, Sarah, and our nephew, Danny, shortly after his birth, 7/4/07.

Our neice, Jo-Jo, born 12/7/08.

I love you all very much. Happy Valentine's Day!! :)

Song That Inspires

I have been spending a lot of time in the car driving from appt to appt recently. I often have the radio on so that I can sing along the songs to Lincoln. He really thinks that it is pretty fun. I have been noticing that a lot of the songs I listen to (mainly country because it is easy to sing along with) have good life messages that teach and/or inspire. Here is one we listened to today.

Tim McGraw
Live Like You Were Dying

He said: "I was in my early forties,
"With a lot of life before me,
"An' a moment came that stopped me on a dime.
"I spent most of the next days,
"Looking at the x-rays,
"An talking 'bout the options an' talkin' 'bout sweet time."
I asked him when it sank in,
That this might really be the real end?
How's it hit you when you get that kind of news?
Man whatcha do?

(chorus)
An' he said: "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'."

He said "I was finally the husband,
"That most the time I wasn't.
"An' I became a friend a friend would like to have.
"And all of a sudden goin' fishin',
"Wasn't such an imposition,
"And I went three times that year I lost my Dad.
"Well, I finally read the Good Book,
"And I took a good long hard look,
"At what I'd do if I could do it all again,
"And then:

(chorus)

Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what youd do with it.
An' what did you do with it?
An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it?

(chorus)


I guess this song is just reminding us that we should try hard to live everyday the way we really want to, and not to put off the important things like life and love, friends and family. :)

Enjoy your day, lovelies. Have a great weekend, and happy Valentine's Day!! :)

Sharing Feelings

This blog post really spoke to me. I thought I would share it with all of you.

By Lori Borgman
May 12, 2002

My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking what she wants. She smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answer mothers have given throughout the ages of time. She says it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes. Of course, that's what she says. That's what mothers have always said. Mothers Lie.

Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin.

Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two).

Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class.

Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want. Some mothers get babies with something more.

Some mothers get babies with conditions they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close.

Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you.

Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then , months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. It can't be possible! That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime?

I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes appear as speciments without flaw -- rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.

As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echocardiogram, there's no such thing as a perfect body.

Everybody will bear something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it. Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me.

How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day.

How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists hammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the cliches and platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike.

I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one -- saluting you, painting you as a hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this. You didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, "Choose me, God! Choose me! I've got what it takes." You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you.

From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.

You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require intense and aggressive the next. You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin, and my sister-in-law.

You're a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more. You're a wonder.

I don't agree with the "you're a wonder" aspect of this post...because most days I feel like I have been run over by a truck for some reason or another, and I highly doubt that I have gained the strength and grace of someone who has been at this parenting and advocating for a special needs child thing, a whole lot longer than 17 months. I only hope to be able to gain that perspective and peace of mind in the years to come.

I do however, completely relate to the shock and awe that she mentioned toward the beginning of the post. The whole "something more" thing really just yanks the rung out from under you, rocks your world, and changes your life so completely, that you can't even begin to fathom where you would have been without the "more".

Except everywhere you look, you can see. You see everyone else around you with children who are without the "something more", and you can see where you and your child should have/could have been if things had been different, and sometimes, you just wish that you were them. I sincerly hope that someday these raw feelings go away, and I am able to see my life, my family, and my son for the wonder that they truly are...to never again wish for only "ten fingers and ten toes", to stop struggling with the reality of our new lives and the path that I had never imagined our family to be on, and finally, to learn to appreciate the "something more" in our lives.

Thanks for reading.

Still Good

At today's appointment, June looked great again on the NST. Lots of good movement and great heartrate accelerations. My cervix is holding strong at 2.75cm, so perhaps a little longer than last week even! So, all good news! Except...baby June is being stubborn and is still in the frank breech (butt first) position. I really hope she flips soon!

So the "intensive monitoring" period is almost over. One NST this coming Friday, and then another set of NST/OB appts next Tuesday, and a final NST next Friday. If everything still looks good, then we will NOT be having an appointment the following week. However, once I get to 36 weeks, the appointments for normal OB patients go to every week again. So we may get a 1 week break from appointments before going back in every week again. Le sigh. ;) Just kidding, the frequent appointments make these few months fly by, and it is good to keep tabs on what June is up to in there, and what my body is doing to keep her safe and healthy in there. :)

Funny enough, I am now starting to worry that she will not be coming early at all, and will instead come at the end of March or need me to be induced in early April. I really just need her to come between March 12 and March 30, so that my mom will be in town to watch Lincoln for us. Ideally somewhere around March 17th would be the very most ideal. I wonder if June will get the message??

Weekly Weigh-In

The weekly weigh-in for Lincoln this week is cancelled. Lincoln has been sick and refusing/puking all solids and some liquids since Thursday last week. I stopped bothering to count calories or even weigh him today (although he will likely get weighed at his clinical evaluation on Thursday so we can see how much weight he has lost--I am guessing at least a pound). He seemed more himself today, although still refusing solids, he had much more energy. Hopefully by tomorrow or the next day we will be back to at least soft, easy foods, like yogurt, jello, and ice cream.

I am up +36lbs now. This is almost as much as I gained during Lincoln's pregnancy (37lbs), so it looks like I will be going over that by a handful of pounds. Oh well.

June's estimated weight for 32wks 6days is 4lbs 13oz. She is getting so big! Cool, huh? We have another dr. appt. tomorrow, so I will be posting a status update tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Now to leave you with a picture of Lincoln and I just before the Winterhaven Hayride (to see Christmas lights) this past December. We all had a great time, but Lincoln really LOVED it!

Our (my) Collection Grows!

We spent several hours at the Gem and Mineral Festival today. We were (I was) able to get three more specimens to add to our (my) collection. ;)

Our first purchase was a pretty piece of Crococite. Andy liked it because it was from Australia and he thought the name sounded like Crocodile....which made him think of the movie Crocodile Dundee.



The next find was a little piece of Sulfur. I have been looking for a nice (and inexpensive) Sulfur specimen for the past two years. So I was very happy to pick this one up for only $17!!



This was our big find of the 2010 Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. Andy and I both fell in love with Cavansite four years ago when we saw an awesome $5k specimen at our first show. Now obviously we can't afford anything quite so lavish, but we have been on the hunt for a nice and reasonably priced piece of Cavansite for the passt four years. Today we were finally able to pick one up. We are thrilled to add this one to our collection!




Here are a few other rocks and minerals that were added to my collection at Christmas time, that I have yet to share with you here on the blog.

These first two are gifts from Andy's parents. This is a pretty piece of Petrified Wood. And the next is a piece of Brazilian Agate. Aren't they nice?

Now these two are gifts from my father. I helped him pick these out at a neat little mineral shop in Portland. The first is a huge smoky quartz. I don't think I have ever seen such a large and nicely shaped piece of smoky quartz anywhere before. And the color is very dark, which I really liked.

This one is called Titanium Quartz. I thought this was the most unique thing I have seen. I doubt that it is 100% natural, but I haven't taken the time to look it up on the internet to find out for certain. According to the tag at the rock shop, the specimen is from a mine in Arkansas though. The colors are very brilliant and metallic. It is really something that should be viewed in person to do it justice.

Anyways, we had a good time at the show, despite Lincoln having a nasty nasty cold. At one point we were able to get him from inside one of the shops to outside on the pavement before he puked up his bottle from coughing so hard (much to the relief of the shop owner, I am sure). :) So it was a successful day all around.