Eventful

The past two days have been quite eventful.

First of all, yesterday morning, Miss peed on the potty for the first time. She did a potty dance to celebrate (and not a stupid one like on that dumb commercial).

I'm actually not really trying to potty train her right now. I don't especially think it's a good idea for me to be juggling a new-newborn and the "Mama-I-Have-To-Go" dashes to the toilet at the same time. Plus, I honestly think she's a bit young still to be pushing it. Give me a few months with Baby Girl, and then maybe we'll go there. But for now, Miss is just quite fascinated by the potty. She has started asking to go on the potty, though until yesterday morning she had never actually gone. But yesterday she made her dad and me proud. I don't really think she even knew why we were whooping and celebrating, but she did seem to get a kick out of dumping the little potty into the big potty and flushing. She likes to wave "bye-bye" to the contents as they swirl and disappear. Whatever works!

Then last night after Miss went to bed, I realized that I was having regular contractions that weren't terribly long or close together, but enough so that I began to wonder about them. I was on the phone with my hubby who was driving to a weekend gathering with his brother and cousins (5 hours away!!) and he suggested I call the nurse just to see what she said. I didn't think much of it, but since Baby Girl is breech still I thought maybe they'd tell me at what point I should consider coming in or something. Well the nurse I spoke to kind of freaked out and said I needed to get to L&D right away and was making all these dire statements about the baby being breech and so on. So, basically, I got a neighbor to come over until my babysitter could get here, threw the last few things needed into my bag and headed for the hospital. My hubby turned around and started high tailing it home. Thankfully, I was just monitored for a few hours and though my contractions stayed fairly steady, they didn't get stronger and I didn't show any signs of labor progressing in that time, so they let me go home. Today the contractions have gone back to being irregular, so that's good!!

And today we went to the air show here in town. It's the second largest air show in the world. We've lived here for two years but I've never made it to the show. This year, we just had to take Miss. See, she has a bit of a fascination with planes. She could spend hours siting on her Daddy's lap looking at pictures of planes in magazines or watching videos of planes flying on his computer. This is how I found them the other day after he came home from work:


She totally loves planes and says "Pay!" and points up anytime she hears one. She had a great time at the air show today. Here she is dancing around a bit as we were sitting and watching planes take off for a while.

She did get kind of bored after a bit.

I think she likes to watch them flying much more than to look at them parked on the ground. We did get to see some really cool things though. We saw the Goodyear blimp, both flying around pretty close up and also parked on the ground. I have to say it was kind of strange to see such a huge thing parked on top of the tiny little box on the bottom of it.

Here is the most enormous plane ever. They had another one that was flying maneuvers all over and it was amazing to watch this behemoth plane float around in the sky like it was nothing.
Then there was this stealth, remote-controlled, spy plane thing that can take crazily detailed photos from over 60,000 feet in the sky.
And then there was, well, this.
I have no idea. . . But we had a great time. By the end of it I was wishing I had rented one of those motorized scooters to haul my booty back to the car, but it was worth it to watch Miss enjoy the planes and the people watching so much.

Enjoying Every Minute

Today was a fabulous summer day. One of those days when everything seems to slow down just a little bit and you get the chance to soak up every ounce of summery goodness.

We started the day with gymnastics class. Miss loves gymnastics class. She is my little climber and loves to roll around on the floor, so I thought she would enjoy it, and she sure does. She dances around, jumps on the trampoline and the mats, climbs up the wall of bars like a little monkey, and is working on a killer pull up and L-sit. Today she was in rare form just being her funny silly little self. She throws her arms in the air and marches around, makes funny faces and jumps. I love to watch her in there.

We came home from gymnastics and went right to the pool, where we soaked up the sun and splashed around. Miss is getting more daring in the water and likes to splash in the fountains or try to sit on the mini fountains. We had lunch and ice cream and more playing, and she fell asleep in the car in the three minutes it took to drive home. My girl knows how to play hard.

After her nap we went out and enjoyed the backyard. We took a few shadow photos.

We enjoyed the landscaping, which is so hard to keep clear of weeds this year with the amount of rain we've had, but it's still peaceful and private and colorful and ours.

And there's nothing like watching my girl point to a flower and say "Pi-ee" (pretty) and then lean over to smell it like it's the most special thing in the world.
And of course, what would a summer day outside be without some bubbles??? Miss has learned to blow bubbles, but still seems to eat more than she blows. I think the problem is that some of the bubble blowers we have are kind of like pipes and have to be put in your mouth and blown, whereas others are just the normal ones you hold up and blow through. She treats them all like the pipe kind, and thus ends up with lots of bubble stuff in her mouth. It's awfully cute though, and today she was kind of blowing bubbles out the corners of her mouth while she had one of the bubble sticks in there. Very talented!
To top off the day we had the most fabulous dinner outside on our deck. Homemade brats that my hubby grilled and fresh-from-the-farm sweet corn on the cob. Literally, I picked up our CSA produce box today, so the corn must have been very recently picked. It was some of the best sweet corn I've ever eaten. And homemade brats beat store-bought any day.

It was a full and happy day.

And to give a quick update on Baby Girl, I went for another ultrasound and appointment yesterday. She is looking wonderful and healthy. She is still breech. I am still trying chiropractic (every other day) and moxibustion (once a day), plus all my other little strategies to get her to turn. She seems to be trying pretty hard and a few times I thought for sure she was going to make her move. If she doesn't flip by Tuesday I am scheduled to go to the hospital for an external cephalic version, which of course is just my doctor trying to turn her manually by pressing and pushing on my belly. Wish me luck!

New Furniture and the Amazing, Unbelievable, Ridiculously Enormous Belly

We have had the same old furniture in our house for ages. Seriously, the couch we have been using in our family room is the one I bought when I was an intern, in 2002. It was cheap and kind of junky then. It is now comfy, but sadly lumpy and old-looking. It has been moved to our sunroom as I recently ordered new furniture and it was delivered last week. I am so happy with it! My hubby has been wanting a leather recliner for as long as I've known him. He now has one.

And the new couch is wonderfully comfortable and should last forever. I got what I think is a pretty long-wearing upholstery (I had small children and black dogs in mind when I picked it) in neutral colors, so this will be our couch for many many years to come. Interestingly, the upholstery I picked kind of reminds me of the fabric that was on the couch my parents had in our house when I was growing up. I didn't realize it when I picked it. Didn't realize it actually until just now. That couch lasted a long time, so hopefully I made a good choice. Unfortunately the rug we have had in the family room doesn't really work with the new stuff, so it will move into the sunroom, where we need a rug anyway, and I am looking for a new rug for the family room. You may notice the dark brown, kind of grungy looking cushions under my hubby in the photo below. Those are the cushions I've been keeping piled on the floor for propping my butt up to get Baby Girl to turn!

It's been a while since I've posted a belly photo. It's also been quite a while since I measured my belly. I keep a record of my belly measurement and weight in my pregnancy journal, as I did when pregnant with Miss as well. I looked and saw that my belly measurement as of yesterday (four weeks pre due date) is an inch larger than my belly measurement ten days prior to Miss's birth (which would have been one week pre-due date) and almost two inches bigger than it was at this point in my pregnancy with her. Whoa belly.

So even if for no other reason, Baby Girl has to flip to prevent one of two possibilities from happening: 1. my belly explodes, 2. the weight of my belly pulling so far forward forces me to fall on my face. Just kidding. But I'm still working on the turning thing. Baby Girl seems to be trying hard to get herself turned in the right direction. She's still moving around like crazy. I have a moxibustion appointment tomorrow morning, and went to my first chiropractor appointment yesterday to get a shot at the Webster technique that is supposed to align the pelvis to make it easier for the baby to turn. Still hopeful. Still smiling!

I Have Good News and Bad News

I wanted to post an update on Wednesday after my appointment, but our internet was down all evening.

Sooo, the great news is that Baby Girl is growing right on schedule and looks fabulous. She is about six pounds, is practicing her breathing and has lots of fuzzy hair!!

As I'm sure you can guess, the bad news is that she's still breech. Thus, I have not had much time for blogging. Or working, or cleaning my house, or anything else for that matter. I am either taking care of Miss or putting myself into some sort of contorted position to hopefully help this baby flip herself. I know last time I posted about this I mentioned being on knees and elbows a lot (which I am right now too!). But I've been reading more and more and have tried many things beyond the knees and elbows. Here are some of the things I'm trying as often as I can:

1. Elevating my hips while on my back. I put the couch pillows down and put my butt on them with my head and shoulders on the floor. Sometimes I roll myself from side to side in this position.

2. Knees on the stair landing, walk hands down three steps, hang there for a minute or two with arms straight.

3. Playing music to the lower part of my belly.

4. Playing my recorded voice to the lower part of my belly.

5. Shining a flashlight on the lower part of my belly. Sometimes running the flashlight from where her head is down to the lower part of my belly. "Come to the light little Baby. . ."

6. Moxibustion! I haven't actually tried this yet, but I have an appointment for Monday morning.

7. Sitting in a very full, very lukewarm bathtub for a very long time.

That's not really everything, but that's most of it. Once it stops raining, I have every intention of going to the pool as much as possible and doing handstands in the water. I am not messing around. I really need this little one to flip!!! I have another ultrasound and biophysical profile scheduled for next Wednesday.

On another, related note, I got some other kind of good news. I had been under the assumption that if I had to have a second c-section, the possibility of my ever having a natural delivery was gone. But my doctor had never actually told me this, so I asked her on Wednesday. She said that the situation would be more complicated of course, but that a regular delivery after two c-sections wouldn't be totally out of the question. It would be dependent on seeing that the scar from my last section had held up well and she would want me to wait at least two years between births. Then it would be a possibility. So, while that doesn't make me feel too much better about the possibility of having to have another c-section, it helps some. Of course, that's getting way ahead of the game here, and I am not giving up yet on this Baby Girl turning herself in the right direction. So keep the good head-down vibes coming!!! I will try to post a little more frequently, but if I don't, just know that I'm probably elevating my butt above my head in one way or another and not able to manage a keyboard too well :) Flip, Baby, Flip!!!

35 Weeks, 17 Months, and Some Good Old-Fashioned Summertime Fun

Yesterday marked 35 weeks in my pregnancy. Baby Girl is growing and all is going quite well. She is still moving around like crazy and a few times I've thought she might have turned, but I'm pretty sure she's still breech now. I'll find out for sure on Wednesday. Only five or so weeks to go!

Tomorrow, Miss is 17 months old. She has had a major increase in language in the past few weeks, which has been so fun. We have been at my in-laws' farm for the past week, and some of the new words she has started saying since we've been here include, "pond," "elk," "water," "bug,"and "deer." If you are familiar with my in-laws' farm, these words make perfect sense. If you're not, I'll just say there are a lot of animals mounted in the house (elk, deer, mountain lion, turkey, goose, duck, antelope, and a huge salmon, to name some of them), the property is on a lake and there are lots of ponds around. She also has recently started saying "Wow!" which she kind of says with a similar inflection to Joey on the old show "Blossom" (I think that's the right character/show), and she is putting a few words together on occasion. This age is so fun and I'm enjoying every minute with her.

We've been having a great time this summer, just doing fun summertime stuff. Here's a sample of some of the good times we've had in the past week.

Fun in the pool.

Trying to get Daddy to put on the swimmies first.

One for Daddy, one for Miss.

Playing on the riding toys.

Bubbles!

Swimming at the beach.

She loves the sand.

Speaking of old-fashioned fun, today I was out hanging Miss's diapers on the clothesline, which always feels kind of like an old-fashioned thing to do, when I looked over and saw my husband raking hay in the tractor. I had a moment of feeling all "Laura Ingalls Wilder" or something. Except I guess maybe they didn't have tractors in "Little House on the Prairie," did they? Whatever. It was a cool moment. And I got this cool photo.

The girl can dance

I love wedding receptions. There is no better place to let loose and dance yourself silly. Where else do you get to hear such a variety of songs, all just perfect for dancing? You can do the "Twist," throw your head back and sing loudly to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," shake your booty and rap all the words to "Ice Ice Baby," slow dance to any number of great love songs, seemingly always played two at a time, and do all sorts of line dances. Songs like "Love Shack," "Groove is in the Heart," "Takin' Care of Business," "Shout!" and so many others just beg to be danced to. It helps that at all of the weddings in my husband's family, he and/or his brother and/or cousin(s) play DJ or jam out as the band (they were the band at our wedding) and always have an uncanny sense of how to keep a party rocking.

We went to a wedding this weekend for one of my hubby's cousins, and this one did not disappoint. In fact, it was especially fun because not only did I get to dance and enjoy the music, but I got to watch Miss have her first taste of the wedding reception dance floor. It took her a little while to warm up, but once she did it was just fantastic to watch her.

At first she didn't want to get down on the floor. She was very puzzled by all the dancing people around her and just wanted to observe what was going on. She danced with Momma.

She danced with Daddy.

Then she got down on the floor, but was still a bit reserved. She just hung around close to my legs and continued to watch for a bit.

She watched the big boys getting down.

We did the "Hokey Pokey."

And finally she started warming up.

Started to feel the groove.

And finally, pure dancing joy.
She had so much fun. She loved the music. She loved watching the dancing. She loved doing the dancing. And by the end of the night she was so tired she was just running all over the dance floor, I think to keep herself from falling down and passing out in exhaustion. It was a blast. It is so amazing to me every day to watch her do and experience new things. And P.S., my girl's got some killer moves!