Pirating Around

Here are some pics from the WC Halloween Parade ~ It was great to see everyone and to watch the kids enjoying their costumes and all of that free candy! The parade excitement utterly wore Luke out, and he spent the majority of the time passed out cold on his adoring Aunt Becca, before being tucked into bed by her and Flava Flav.

Ultrasound News

Well, I wanted to post about the Halloween party/parade, but something is wrong with blogger at the moment and I can't upload pics.


I am thrilled to say that we had a wonderful 20 week ultrasound today. Deuce looked fab ~ Right on track for our due date and kicking and squirming away. Everything checked out just right. Thank God.

For some reason I felt more anxious coming up to this ultrasound than I remember feeling with Luke. Perhaps just a feeling of "how on earth can I be so greedy as to expect or hope to have TWO healthy babies??". But God is good and it was nothing short of a total thrill to see the pics of my sweet baby groovin around inside of me. We got some pretty good 4-D pics which I will upload as soon as we get around to taking them off of the fridge and scanning them. Pretty cute little kiddo, if I do say so myself.

Get yourselves prepared for another "baby pool" from us ~ last go round Jen won $640 for getting the date and sex right.......

(By the way, I have to note that after thinking "boy" my entire pregnancy, somehow and against all logic, for some reason that grainy little black and white alien skeletor baby of mine seemed, well, more like a girl to me. So now I am totally confused and have absolutely no 'intuition' as to what gender of baby I am carting around in this round little bally of mine. And if someday you read this, oh child of mine, and you turn out to be a boy ~ Please forgive me for saying that you looked girlish at 20 weeks gestation. )

As soon as blogger is working again, I will post some pics of our little parrot dressed up with his pirate parents at his first Halloween Parade ;)

He wakes up running.

I wish that I could wake up as joyful and energetic as Luke does. I am a morning person (unlike a certain person who shares my bed.....) but I still don't hold a candle to the kid. We have a morning routine that consists of Nate going to get Luke after he has been babbling in his crib for a while. Nate changes his diaper, and brings Luke into our bed for some family cuddle time before Luke and I actually get up for the day. This morning Luke awoke at 7, and Nate went to get him as usual. Its a dark and very rainy day in PA, so it was still dark in our room at 7 AM. Luke came into bed and we stuck him in between us as usual, but today, as it was so dark and 7 am is on the early side of Luke's waking up continuum, we tried to keep our eyes closed, instead of playing with him as we usually do. Luke thought this was HILARIOUS! He cackled with delight, while sticking his sticky little baby fingers directly into our eyeballs and nostrils gleefully. He grabbed onto Nate's nose as though it was a handle, and gave us wet slobbery suck-face "kisses" until he had us both cracking up. Then he commenced with his favorite "non grabbing or kissing Mom or Dad" bed activity ~ Scaling Mt. Pillow in his quest for the holy headboard. Luke LOVES our wrought iron headboard. He climbs up the mounds of pillows and can now reach up to the very top of the headboard. Once he has reached his goal he literally screeches with the thrill of the conquest. Luke is being a parrot for Halloween ~ and I swear, standing up way above our heads, cackling and screeching, he sounded exactly like one. I raised one eyelid and looked up at him ~ my little man, arching his back with laughter, wearing his striped pajamas and his polka dot socks, looked EXACTLY like a bald escapee from a mental asylum. The cutest little escaped lunatic you could ever hope to see, let me tell you.

In other news, Luke seems to be phasing out his middle of the night (3 or 4 am) feeding. Last night he went to bed at 7 as usual, and slept till 6, had a bottle, and slept till 7. This is wonderful, and has been the trend this week, with him even sleeping as late as 8. Heaven. The only issue is that he has me very effectively sleep trained......I wake up around 3.30 every morning waiting to hear him. One beautiful side effect ~ this morning as I was laying there I felt Deuce start to move.....and when I put my hand on my belly I felt two distinct kicks from the outside. That was the first time this has happened this pregnancy. I have been worried that this pregnancy would not be as thrilling or special to me now that I have already "been there done that" if you will. But in the still dark of the night, feeling those two distinct little "hello's" from my tiny unborn babe with my hand....tears came to my eyes instantly. I honestly think that it was the first moment that I truly became aware that there is a baby in there. Our baby. And I love that baby already.

Excuse the bad pic, I need to take some new ones.....this Luke and I having a wrestle during dinner the other night....he in his PJ's and me in my gross gym clothes. I won the wrestle with a convincing pin/tickle combo maneuver. Someday Luke will likely tower over me, so I'm taking my wrestling victories while I can still get them. :)

Looking Back

I already can't believe that he was this small. This was about 2-3 weeks after Luke was born. My guy, smiling in his sleep.

Other Children Are the Devil

And so is my Dog.

I'm just kidding on the other children part, but I will say that large herds of children and the germs they carry certainly seem to do the work of the devil. We had a great playgroup yesterday....here is a pic of Luke, Ryan and Stella playing away and swapping lots of spitty little germs. Luke got to see all of his buddies while I got to have a fantastic lunch and chat with my girlfriends. No one was sick at playgroup, but by 6PM Luke was DRUNK TIRED, I could not even get him to stay awake long enough to get all of his food into him. I finally gave up trying, and just let him go to bed at 6. He was out like a light immediately. Highly unusual, to say the least. I knew something was coming. He was up twice last night, also unusual, and clearly had a fever the second time. By morning, it was at 102. Blast. We were supposed to go to bible study at 9 AM, then over to my friend Jennifer's for lunch after that.....but instead we changed back into our pajamas, made up some oatmeal, and hunkered down for a day in. Luke is sleeping, I am in my sweatpants lingering over coffee and using the computer as my excuse to not do some of the things that I should do. I got a HUGE stack of pictures yesterday from Snapfish, so I really need to get to work on the ole' family photo album. Combine that with the Halloween costume making that I did on Tuesday with my Mom, cleaning up for showings all week, food shopping, cooking, and its been quite a domesticated week for me! Huzzah. Playgroup is just so much fun nowadays ~ Its just crazy to see how far these babies have come since we started it ~ Luke was maybe 10 weeks old at that point, and they were little more than cute little moray eels that hung off of our chests nursing all the time while we chatted about deliveries, the babies weight gain, us being fat, and nursing issues......now they are almost all mobile, climbing steps, standing up, chattering and bopping one another in the head gleefully. It's just so much fun to get to watch Luke interact with other kids....and when he looks up and catches my eye and gives me a smile like the one in the pic above, it absolutely melts me.

Onto the dog. On Tuesday we had a showing at 1. I had to go to the fabric store before hand to get fabric to make Luke's Halloween costume with. That took WAY long, the store had relocated, so simply finding it was a frustrating and annoying adventure. Then Luke decided to take a giant blowout poop right before we were to enter the store....back to the car, parking lot diaper change....then a spit up all over me and the interior of the car......Note ~ Don't even bother going into a fabric mega store when already frustrated, annoyed, and behind schedule. I was sweating, balancing Luke on my baby bump, holding mad tall bolts of fabric in my arms, and generally wondering what the heck my problem was ~ All I could think about was how my Mom raised 3 of us, was always homeroom Mom, was always making costumes or clothes by hand, and baking, and taking care of sick friends, and making things for people etc etc etc.....and here I was, unable to find the fabric store and buy fabric with just one baby. Did she have more hours in her day? Or am I just totally inept? Anyway. I digress.

Finally got out of there.

Raced home because I had to pick up the Dog ~ God knows Captain Excitement can't be at the house during a showing ~ him and his "Wheaten Greetin'" would ensure that the people did not buy the house. Got him and went straight over to my Moms house. Fed LUke lunch, and decided that as it was such a beautiful day we should get outside and play in the grass for a bit. I am trying to love the Dog again, so I wanted to play some fetch, and have some fun with him and the baby. I took some pics (above), threw some sticks, and generally was just having one of those lovely Hallmark moments with the boys. In the last pic you see Luke crawling over towards Mully, who is laying in the grass. In the very next moment, Mulligan started rolling in Ecstasy in the grass, gleefully grinding himself into the ground......My heart sank as I instantly knew what was happening. He had either found something dead, or the poop of some creature, and was rolling in it in unabashed delight.

I freaked. Ran over. Sure enough, my shaggy dog was panting with deer-poop-induced lust ~ COVERED in it.

I started crying. It was nap time, but I knew that I had no choice but to deal with this immediately. He could not come in the house that way, and I could not leave him outside to continue to get more disgusting. With no real choice, I went into action.

1. Called Nate while crying. Told Nate that I was either going to kick, or give away the Dog. Asked him if he had a preference. Nate asked me to please not do either, but he was up in Boston and in the airport so he could not really talk. Hung up. Cried some more, told Mully that I really didn't like him, and generally felt sorry for myself.
2. Call the Dog Groomer, see if I could get Mully in for an immediate appointment. No, said the dog groomer, not till next Friday. Heart sank. Could not leave shit-encrusted Dog in that condition for a week.
3. Fake-kicked the Dog (Just to make myself feel better), and asked him to please run away wile I was inside setting up his bath. Please.
4. Ran inside, stole shampoo from upstairs, cleared out items from the dog shower in the mud room at my parents house.
5. Got quaking stinking dog into mud room.
6. Turned on shower. Lathered up Dog. Shamed him into standing still.
7. Dealt with baby. I would put Luke at one end of the mudroom, and RUN back to the dog shower to lather feverishly while watching Luke crawl as fast as he could towards us. Let Luke get right up to the edge of the wet, soapy, shitty mess, and then scoop him up, put him back at the far end of the room, run back to the dog, and repeat. Over and over and over. I was sweating, and wet, and smelly, and just PISSED.

Luke missed his nap and was relatively cranky for the rest of the day. I missed Luke's nap, and was relatively cranky for the rest of the day. Mully is still unsure of what his position in the household is, but he knows that he is low low low on the totem pole at the moment.

After tossing and turning that night, thinking about my literally poopy day, I came up with "Operation Mulligan".
Mully is a part of our family. I have been frustrated with him, and complaining about him, but not doing a whole lot to really make the situation better. Nate comes home tonight, and we are formally laying out the plan for "Operation Like Mulligan".
It involves a daily commitment to long walks and/or trips to the dog park, and a concerted dual effort to improve his behavior when people come over. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

(P.S, is "poopy" not a word??? Spellcheck says that it isn't. In my world, it is)

Disclaimers

I'm learning as I go here with this whole blogging thing. One thing that I have noticed, is that when I have to start a post with a disclaimer, something has gone amok. So I begin.

My husband is a wonderful man. He is a smart, funny, witty guy and a fantastic provider for his family. He has some of the best interpersonal skills of anyone I have ever met. To know Nate is to like him. I love him more than I can say. Just one more time, I want to reiterate that I do think that he is smart. Whatever happens in this post from here, let it be clear that I (generally) think that Nate is a really smart guy.

That said, we move onto the post.

Here was how our morning conversation went.

Me: Today is a big day, I am giving Luke yogurt for the first time. If he tolerates it well it probably means that we don't have to deal with a milk allergy.

(*as a refresher, please think back to the bloody ice cream incident*)

Nate: He's not allergic to Milk, it was probably all the sugar and other things in the ice cream. He's fine.

Me: Sweetie, a milk allergy manifests itself in pretty specific ways ~ Bloody mucousy poop being the main one....What I am hoping is that Luke didn't have a dairy allergy, it was just that at 6 months his little body wasn't yet capable of handling the dairy, and that's why he reacted like that. I'm hoping that now that he is older and supposedly "ready" for dairy, he will tolerate it just fine.

Nate: But he's been getting dairy forever.

Me: What do you mean?

Nate: You know, you have been nursing him for 8 months.

*the sound of ice creaking can be heard in the kitchen as Nate approaches the thin part*

Me: What do you mean? What does that have to do with dairy products?

*Creaks louder*

Nate: You know, he's been drinking milk. From you. You have been nursing him.

Me: Are you calling me a COW? Are you SERIOUS?

Nate: What, cows milk, your milk, whatever, its all milk, right?

I'm going to end the play by play there.

I love my husband. And I am not a dairy cow.

More gratuitous pumpkining

Another day, another pumpkin.

Just for good measure, here is a rather bad pic of Luke showing off his new wild and crazy skill, standing around not holding onto anything. I just set him down and he stands there for up to a minute now before a self satisfied plop down onto his sweetly padded diapered bum. He is so pleased with himself, its fun to watch.

CONGRATS AUNT JEANNIE

The entire M family is thrilled for you ~ You are going to make a beautiful bride and a wonderful wife. Wishing you and Tim all of the blessings and happiness in the world. You have so many years of love and laughter ahead of you, and we cant wait to share them with you. I am so thrilled and honored to be a part of your big day!

We love you! Congrats!!!

What Color

What color eyes does or will Luke have?

If you click on the picture I think that you will see a bigger version. Feel free to comment with your opinion :). My blog is comment lonely of late.

The Rookie

So Luke has learned how to throw. He loves his red ball and can now palm it ~ so our games of catch have evolved quite a bit (more like a traditional game of catch, you know, where one person throws it to the other and then the other person throws it back.....) rather than ball chasing around the house while Luke Whoo hoo's with joy and flaps his arms wildly around. Not that that wasn't a fun version, but still......

Someone also turned on his talking switch. Ma Ma is his favorite. I cant even begin to pretend that it necessarily means me, as I have seen him Ma Ma at the dog, at Nate, at a bottle, and especially at magazines....but it still makes me happy to hear it! Ba Ba Ba and the Ga's are also a part of the daily repertoire. I swear he says "Hi" on occasion, but I'm sure that's probably my overactive Mama imagination.

We would have been in Italy right now, on day three of our trip. Instead we are in WC, with a sale sign in the yard, a baby in the belly, and Luke in his crib napping away. I thought that I would have been more sad about missing out on the trip, but the upside of a new home and a new member of the clan make me happy about the way that its all shaking out. We decided to go to Grand Cayman in Nov instead of our Italy trip ~ taking the baby along for a week of pure R&R. I can't wait. Anyone out there have any 12-18 month baby boy summer clothes that they want to let me borrow?

Toothed

Toothed:
1. (in most vertebrates) one of the hard bodies or processes usually attached in a row to each jaw, serving for the prehension and mastication of food, as weapons of attack or defense, etc., and in mammals typically composed chiefly of dentin surrounding a sensitive pulp and covered on the crown with enamel.

So my favorite little Mammal is now among the toothed. He has yet to use aforementioned tooth as a weapon or defense (and consider yourselves warned, there will MOST CERTAINLY be a post about that when he does) , but he is getting quite good at using it for the mastication of food. Woot Woot. My gummy wonder-kid is morphing into an actual person right in front of my eyes.

The process of attaining the tooth was not so much fun. We got to welcome diarrhea, slight fever, and an overwhelmingly generalized malaise to the household on Luke's behalf. We also got to experience a bout of teething induced anorexia, as trying to get food or liquid into the kid was apparently torturous to Luke. The poor kid was standing around yesterday, clinging to the coffee table and crying, then when we would look at him he would start laughing, then segway right back into crying.........again and again and again. I got to see exactly what living with a pregnant me has been like for Nate lately! Poor Nate. Someone buy the guy a bottle of scotch.

It was so sad to see my easy going and good natured kiddo trying to be his normal self.....but failing. Pretty much anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am one of the least patient people on earth. Not proud, but it's a fact. One of the things that always worried me about becoming a Mom was this crazy level of patience that my Mom, and other Moms I have seen seemed to have. I was terrified that I would be as impatient with the baby as I often time am with myself, with my computer, with the Dog, with repetition, with innocent strangers who walk too slowly in the airport or any public space, etc etc..........But I am shocked and thrilled to say that somehow I have patience with this child. It literally amazes me. Instead of getting frustrated or crazy from his fussiness, all I can think about is how my poor guy is hurting. I know I am waxing sentimental right now, and please understand that this is not intended to be a pat on the back to myself, this is simply me expressing my shock at how much Mama's love their babies. The endless diarrhea (and resulting clothing changes and laundry), the spitting up, the gross teething snot and drool.....the refusal to eat, the baby anxiety......somehow just makes me love him more.

I had a big revelation/breakthrough yesterday. Usually I do my food shopping on Mondays, with Luke. I strap him into the Bjorn and away we would go........until recently when my ever expanding belly started getting in the way ~ I can no longer use the bjorn. So the past few weeks I have been just putting Luke in the shopping cart seat. He loves it, for about the first 8 aisles. I do a lot of dancing around, singing, coming up with relatively safe things to let him chew on/play with etc.....generally I look like a fool but it keeps the kid happy until we get to the last few aisles. Then some shrieks usually start. By the time I unload the contents of the cart (working around my belly) while keeping Luke from stage diving out of the cart, then get the bags back into the cart, from the cart to the car, from the car to the house, and from the bags to the fridge, I am usually utterly miserable. I'm cranky just reading about it.

Anyway, my breakthrough came yesterday, when I realized that I have a HUSBAND! Who just happens to be Luke's DAD! Sooooo, I went off to the grocery store solo, while Luke and Nate hung out at the house. I am entirely embarrassed to admit how wonderful it was. I took my time. I even THOUGHT a few times! I lingered in front of the produce, actually able to THINK about what I wanted and needed for the week! I didn't sing one stupid made up song out loud! I didn't break a sweat! I am usually so busy trying to do everything on my own that I don't do a good job of asking for help. I have a new retreat, its called the grocery store. I think that I'm going to really milk this and start driving to Wegman's to prolong my experience. And if you see me at the grocery store starting off into space in the veggie aisle, please don't disturb me, its as close to meditation as I get these days.

Some pics

Too busy to update on all thats going on. Going to see Springsteen tonight and can't wait. The kiddo is great.

Luke the helper

Here is a pic of my helpful son with some paper towels.......another favorite in Luke's life. OH the things he can do with just one roll of those sweet sweet paper towels! In addition to how much fun the white storm of paper is when he unwinds an entire role, there is nothing quite so delicious as a mouthful of soft fuzzy paper towel. Mmmmmm.
Here is another one of him climbing up our stairs (supervised, of course, for all those out there longing to call those people who take away unsupervised kids a'la Britney Spears). While the dishwasher has lost none of its luster in Luke's eyes, it has some competition.....the TOILET! So shiny and white, with its cool porcelain and the loud and exciting flushing action.......ahhhh the toilet. Unfortunately for Luke we keep it safely tucked away upstairs, so the little bugger has learned to scale the entire flight of steps to reach his princess. (Again, supervised, of course).

In non baby news, we got an offer on our house yesterday, after just the second showing. We are hashing out the terms now, but hopefully by the end of the day we will have reached terms that are amenable to all parties involved (but most importantly, to US!) Will update.