Weekly Update 6.26.11 (just roll with it)

Well, obviously it's been more than a week since my last post, so here is a quick update over the week that I missed. Aunt Annie was in town and came over for a sleep-over. We built a gigantic fort in the living room and I got to listen in the bedroom next door as the two of them whispered way past Henry's bed time. It reminded me of sleep-overs with my Aunt Cindy and I didn't really mind letting someone else take over the bedtime duties for one night. Although, I am not sure how well Annie slept with the cats jumping over her, exploring the new structure. (Note: Henry is wearing pj shorts in this photo, despite how it looks.) We celebrated Father's Day with Grandpa on Saturday since Annie was still in town. We ate brats (Henry's favorite) and ice cream cake and we all had green and blue tongues for 2 days afterwords. Also, I think I discovered the source of the one-eye squint smile.
On actual Father's Day we took Papa out for ice cream and donuts and drove to the lake to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful evening. But the nice, comfortable weather ended on Sunday. It’s been hot this week folks. HOT! So we have spent the majority of our time inside the house. Henry ran through the sprinkler with the neighbor for about 15 minutes on Sunday. Then they moved on to stomping in the mud followed by riding bikes, then climbing trees, then jumping on the trampoline. It’s funny, when he is playing by himself he can draw or paint or play with legos for hours but when he has a friend over the maximum amount of time allotted for each activity is 15 minutes. Things move so quickly I can barely keep up. I will have just gotten the basketball from the garage and they have already moved on to the sidewalk chalk. But other than those three hours of circuit training play time with the neighbor, the rest of the weekend the past week have been pretty mellow. Last Saturday I woke up to find a little boy and an orange cat in our bed. Apparently both of them were frightened by the thunder of an early morning storm. Those early snuggles made for a lovely, slow morning. Cool and dark, we all stayed in bed way too long and then took our time eating breakfast and laying around the house reading the paper and playing with Legos. It would be safe to assume that nothing productive happened in our house that day until after 2:00. But really, who am I kidding, that’s how most of our Saturday mornings go.

The baby seems to be acquiring new real estate in my abdomen at rapid rates these days. He/she has recently taken over the space that once housed my bladder, forcing me to use the bathroom every 16 minutes. My stomach has been evicted from its 10 acre compound in the spleen district, and moved to a cramped 2 bedroom condo, just south of my liver. I can tell that space is limited since it continuously sends out search crews of stomach acid up my esophagus. Ironically, this forced downsizing has had zero impact on my appetite. If anything food just moves through faster, making it so I have to eat every 32 minutes (every 2 bathroom breaks). The size of my “bump” has forced me to start lying about the due date. It has to be done in order to avoid the “twins” joke. Telling a pregnant woman with a 5 year old son that she probably has twin boys in her uterus is a misdemeanor in several states. It’s true, don’t do it. I can still fit in to my jeans with the help of a hair tie and a belly band but I learned an important lesson last week about the security of one’s belly in a belly band. They need a warning label: Belly bands will roll up over your belly if you sit for more than 3 minutes. Unfortunately, a coworker had to be sacrificed to order for me to make this discovery. A kind old man that held the door open for me one morning as I hopped out of my car and ran across the parking lot with my shirt and belly band rolled up under my chest, revealing not only my entire midsection but also my jeans that were held together with a raggedy old red hair tie, stretched to the max and covered in knots of yanked out old hair. Once the door shut behind me I felt a cold breeze and slowly reached down to find flesh where I should have found several layers of fabric. My only comfort is that the sun had not fully come up yet and that he was an old man, so he probably had cataracts or at least terrible night vision; I hope for his sake. I’ve also lost the ability to pick anything up off the floor, a stumbling block I hadn’t expected until the 7^th or 8^th month. With Henry I was still able to pick things up off the floor well into my 8^th month using my feet-hands skills: a cleaning technique I perfected as a child. A combination of extremely long toes and several years speed cleaning tiny Barbie doll accessories with both my hands and feet has made me foot-hand ambidextrous. But right now I have so much hip and thigh pain I can barely pull my own pants on, let alone grab a tiny Lego wheel with my second and third toe and drop it into a 1 foot high bucket. I currently require 5 pillows in order to get my 6 hours of interrupted sleep: one for the back, one for the belly, one under the leg and two under the head. Honestly, I am not sure that Wade even fits in the bed anymore. He may be there somewhere but since I go to bed at 8 and wake up when it’s still dark outside, I really can’t be sure. I am also convinced that I have developed pregnancy narcolepsy. On Monday I sat on the sofa watching Henry play with the cat. What seemed like seconds later I awoke to Henry telling me that the neighbors came to the door to ask if he wanted to play and he let them into our house to show them our new cat. I was on the sofa, 2 feet from the door, sound asleep.

I love the advice people give pregnant ladies. Everyone does it, it’s impossible to resist because every mother has a story. I didn’t understand that when I was pregnant with Henry and got annoyed by all the stories, but now I understand where it comes from and appreciate the camaraderie that comes from sharing the experience with other Mamas. It’s a life changing experience that never goes the way you have planned, and most of the time that makes for an interesting story. The stories range from non-helpful: My child’s arm fell off in the birth canal, to very helpful: teach your husband to put powder on your face because otherwise you will look like you were dipped in a vat of Vaseline in all your pictures. The good news is that because I am not able to retain a memory for more than 30 seconds, most of the scary, non-helpful stories float right past my long term memory. Of course I remember my own experience with delivering Henry and am determined not to make the same mistakes that I made this time around. And one piece of advice that has stuck in my head, probably because I heard it from so many of my friends is get a doula. So we did. She’s great and gives never-ending amazing massages and will cost us less than a new stroller because our doctor’s office pays half the expense. I did a lot of research on doula’s and this is what I found: women who have doula have a 50% lower rate of c-sections, 40% lower use of forceps and a 60% reduction in labor time. Sold! Plus, I like the idea of pulling the “You’ll have to have a c-section” card out from the nurses because I heard that at least 3 times with Henry and honestly, it’s just a cold-blooded thing to say to a woman in labor. A doula is like a bodyguard. A massaging bodyguard.

On Wednesday we have our first sonogram. It’s going to be a different experience because we get to find out the sex. I’m so excited to find out; I honestly don’t know how we had the self-control to wait with Henry. I can’t wait to start on my sewing projects and to decorate the room. Plus it will be nice to stop debating over names. I have a list of 12 people that I have to text with the news and strict instructions that I have to do it BEFORE I leave the doctor’s office.

That's all I've got today (thank goodness, right? Rambling post there, sorry). I'll catch up with you all on Wednesday with the big news....twin boys! Just kidding Gigi.

Henry wisdom

Remember today when you and Papa were smiling in the car and I was smiling and we were laughing and I was talking about the clouds and that one that looked like Papa with a beard? I was looking at the sky and at the pavement and at the grass and just thinking to myself: What a wonderful world. What a wonderful life. I mean, I was really thinking that the whole time, Mama. Well, except for the pavement, that was actually a little boring.

Weekly Update 6.12.11

Whew. That was an exhausting week. On Sunday evening Aunt Annie came in to town and we had dinner at Gigi and Grandpa's house. It was a short visit and Henry had a great time showing her dance moves and telling jokes at the dining room table. She will be back in town tomorrow for a few more days and we plan to spend most of our afternoons and evenings with her. On Wednesday we brought a new friend in to the house. Beatrix the cat. She is a great addition to the family because she will pretty much let Henry do anything to her. He picks her up, covers her in pillows and blankets, chases her around the house, calls her name 200 times a minute and she's totally unfazed. We had such luck with Bea that we decided to get the dog a try. We met her a couple of times last week and she seemed like such a good-natured, even tempered dog. It was a no-brainer. Well.....what we have learned from this experience is that getting a new cat might be a no-brainer but getting a new dog definitely requires a brain. The dog was sweet and very cute but she was not a good choice for a family with cats. She chased the cats and was so strong that Mama really couldn't control her. After a couple of incidences with the cats we decided that it wasn't a good fit. The humane society gives each family 4 days to try the dog out and if it doesn't work you can bring it back. So we did. It was sad. Henry was okay with it though, surprisingly he is so busy with Bea he really didn't even pay attention to the dog. We did do some fun things with the dog over the weekend. We took her to the lake and Henry got in the water with her, which was super fun. We took a super long hike in the woods and I was kicking myself the whole time for not bringing my camera. The wildflowers were so pretty and Henry had such a good time in the water. On the next cool Saturday we'll have to do it again.
Well, that's about it. We have a busy week ahead of us. Wade has 2 shows. Henry will be busy building with his legos and running through the sprinkler. Mama will continue to be hungry and tired all the time. The baby is 5 inches head to rump this week and has been squirming all over the place lately. We are all so excited to find out the sex. Wade and I both think it's a boy, Henry is hoping for a girl. We shall see.....Have a great week ya'all.

Weekly Update 6.7.11

Hi. Sorry that I'm running a little late this week. We had a busy weekend, and by busy I mean lazy, and by weekend I mean week. Okay, we weren't total blobs the entire week. We had a few moments when we got a lot done (and by we I mean Wade).On Monday we headed for an afternoon Royals baseball game. Wade and I figured we would be lucky to make it to the 5th inning considering that we have a child that will not sit still long enough to eat an entire meal, let alone watch one of the slower spectator sports available. But Henry understood what the baseball game was all about: getting snacks from the snack guy. I explained that, yes, of course we want to watch the guys run around, and cheer for the blue team and all of that...BUT the way that we make doing that fun is by eating large amounts of totally bad for us snacks. Within 3 minutes of arriving Henry was ready for a hot dog. Then he wanted a milkshake. He shared my nachos and then was ready for peanuts and cotton candy. Of course we didn't let him go near the cotton candy for we know what a large amount of pink dyed sugar will do to our son, it isn't pretty. Anyway, there was plenty of squirming and a little complaining and several trips to "explore" but we made it all the way to the end of the 7th inning. By then Mama and Papa were also ready to go. Grandpa got to take his grandson to his first Royals game, all is right in the world. We even got to drive Grandpa's convertible to the game, which in the end may have been more fun for Henry then the actual game. On Tuesday Henry, Gigi and I headed to the Topeka Zoo to feed the giraffes. Gigi has a photo but I need to show her how to send it to me, so maybe I'll add it later. But for now, picture it in your mind. A huge giraffe mouth, the size of your head, with a 4 foot tongue (okay that might be exaggerating a little) licking your arm in an attempt to grab a tiny piece of lettuce. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Gigi fed the baby giraffe which was also fun but lacked the element of terror provided by the giant papa giraffe head coming down and almost chewing off your arm with it's gigantic teeth (I could be wrong there, I'm not sure that the giraffe had teeth).
I think I can comfortably sum up Wednesday-Friday in this way: Henry wakes up late with Papa, they rush to Gigi's house, Henry eats eggs and toast (it's always gormet at Gigi's), Papa rushes to work, Mama has been at work since before the sun came out, Henry plays with Transformers, Legos and kicks around the ball with Gigi, Mama eats lunch at 9:30 because she has been at work since before the sun came out and she is also constantly hungry these days, Papa drinks a large double shot from LPT, Henry helps Gigi clean her house without complaining (this must be a secret power only grandma's possess), Mama picks up Henry from Gigi's, Mama and Henry play Transformers and eat a snack of either banana peanutbutter towers or cheerios, Papa comes home, Mama complains that she doesn't feel like cooking, Papa goes to get take out, Henry squirms around while eating dinner-driving Papa crazy, Henry takes a shower, Papa cleans the kitchen (which is made much easier given the fact that we ate take out), Papa reads Henry a story and turns out the light, Henry stalls going to sleep for 15 minutes to 1.5 hours by calling Mama in for kisses, hugs, lullabies or really any other snuggly type activity for which Mama is a total sucker, Mama goes to bed, Papa stays up too late watching movies or playing music.
On to Saturday. Mama hit the farmers market early and scored some veggies, a coffee cake and a very large decaf coffee from LPT. The decaf played a good trick on my body, I felt more energetic. Of course that may have been the mountain of sugar syrup and chocolate that they added. Either way it gave me enough energy to do some cleaning. Here's the thing about cleaning though, I can make it maybe an hour cleaning and then I require a 15-20 period of staring off in to space which is just the perfect window of time for my child to dump out all the toys that I just spent the hour picking up. So in the end I just settled for reading a book and sent Papa out to do yard work. Yay pregnancy!
In the afternoon we checked out a cat at the human society. And a dog. Yes, I realize it is crazy to get a cat and a dog 5 months before we will be welcoming another addition to our family but the hubby is being pretty persistent about it, which isn't usually his style. So we'll see what comes of this. I have a feeling we are going to be a 2 cat, 1 dog, 2 child family very soon. Yikes!
On Sunday Wade built the frames for our veggie garden. This was no small task given that it was 94 degrees outside. Henry and I popped out occasionally to provide moral support and water and plant a bush and swing on his swing.While Wade was working hard outside, I was working hard inside trying to find the perfect fabric to make a baby quilt. Of course the one I love is floral and girly and I am afraid to start making it for fear that I will be setting myself up to have a boy. But I think I'll start anyway, hope he likes flowers. :)
This afternoon I had my second doctors appointment. Henry came with me, which I was afraid might increase my blood pressure but no, it was fine. Right when we walked in I saw the doc fly by in her scrubs so I knew we were in for a long wait. We played for an hour building ramps out of magazines for Henry's race car and then had a 2 minute appointment with the doc. She's awesome, upbeat and positive. My blood work has all been good, including the gestational diabetes test (yay!) and I have gained back the weight I lost during that torturous first trimester. Henry thought it was pretty cool to hear the baby's heartbeat. He said he wants to come back next time....but I don't think that will happen because next time we have a SONOGRAM! And we are finding out the sex of the baby, so be sure to tune in the first week of July for the exciting news.
Well, I better go make some dinner (yes I am actually cooking this time). I'll leave you with this story. I called Gigi's house this afternoon and Henry answered the phone:
H:Hello?
M: Hey dude, are you answering Gigi's phone all the time these days?
H: Yes, pretty much. Yesterday the US Government called.
M: Really? How do you know?
H: It says it on the phone, Mama. (duh!)
M: Did you hang up?
H: No, they talked to me about drilling and President Obama and some other stuff. Kept me on the phone for like an hour or so.
M: You know, you could have hung up.
H: Not on the US Government, Mama.

Henry wisdom

This morning in the car on the way to Gigi's.

"Papa"

Yes

"You know what's weird about life?"

Hummm. No what?

"Feelings"

Good point.

Weekly update 5.29.11

This week has been pretty quiet. Aunt Susie, Uncle Ted and Bagel are in town, staying with Gigi and Grandpa, so there has been some excitement for Henry during the time he spends with Gigi in the mornings, but everything at the Kelly household has been pretty much the same ol' thing. We were all pretty exhausted by the time Friday came and really looking forward to a 3 day weekend. On Saturday morning we went to the garden center and Gigi found some lovely shade plants for our front yard that Wade is planting right now. In the afternoon, Wade, Grandpa and Uncle Ted had a rib cook-off. Henry was the bbq assistant and had all the appropriate gear for job. He was very helpful taxing food and utensils back and forth from the grill and handing out samples of brats to all the judges. Henry loves beer brats. It's funny, the kid spent most of his life as a vegetarian and just one taste of beer brats and he's hooked.

The competition was pretty fierce and in the end the result was a 3 way tie, which means that all 3 kinds of ribs have to come back for the next cook off.
Henry also got to shoot some baskets with Papa and throw a baseball around with Mama. He is practicing catching with a mitt for the baseball game tomorrow. He's pretty sure that he'll catch a fly ball.
We are headed over to the neighbors for a bbq this evening, provided that all of us can stay awake. We are a sleepy bunch around here today. Tomorrow Henry gets to go to his first Royals game. We are hoping to make it to the 5th inning. Hope you had a great weekend.

And....we're back

Well, well, well....look who decided to show her face around these parts again. Yes, it's true, we have been MIA from the blog world lately. But I promise to make it up to you with this mind blowing post spanning the past 2 months with Tom Brokaw-like reporting and National Geographic quality photographs. Okay....that may be a stretch but stick with me anyway cuz the kid is cute and sometimes says funny things. Here goes...

March:
Explaining St. Patricks Day to an inquisitive 5 year old is challenging. Mainly because my understanding of St. Patricks Day is limited to drinking beer, wearing green, and and eating corn beef and cabbage. After many confusing attempts at an explanation for what this holiday is all about, Henry settled on Wear Green Day. For this photo he also grabbed all his green toys on his way out the door.



Drawing robots has become one of Henry's favorite activities. Except for when he is sleeping, it really is the only time that he stops talking.

April:
Henry's friend Sophia came over and helped us dye eggs. We dyed 24 eggs before they told me that neither one of them like to eat hard boiled eggs.



We usually spend Easter with my parents but this year they were out of town and we were on our own. Easter is not the same without my Mom's amazing strawberry pie, so I had to make an attempt. I had a little trouble with the pie crust but overall it was a success. I ate 2 pieces, despite my horrible morning sickness. We are planning a trip to pick strawberries in the next couple of weeks and you better believe there will be a lot of strawberry pies in our future.
The Easter Bunny was pretty good to Henry. He got more candy then any one child should have. Fortunately, he forgot about the candy after a few days. Unfortunately, Wade and I did not. :) It was a freezing cold morning but that did not stop Henry from doing some serious Easter egg hunting.Found the money egg.
Some of Henry's other favorite activities are:
Having a "Battle of the ages" with Papa.

And sorting Lego robots.
On his birthday, Papa built Henry a 3 story tree house. Henry and I decorated the house with balloons and a Happy Birthday banner and I forgot to take photos. But catch a few photos of Henry exploring his tree house. He did the "I have a tree house" dance for 20 minutes which I think is exactly what Papa wanted for his birthday. :)
May:
Mother's Day flowers
Big news!
Helping Mama plant some flowers.
Riding bikes with the boys.

Celebrating Graduation!





I hope to do a better job at keeping up with the blog now that I am feeling a little better. Have a great week friends.

Weekly Update 3.13.11

At 7:14 am I tiptoed to the kitchen. Quiet as a mouse I made a pot of coffee. I had a vision of sitting the back bedroom, sipping coffee and quickly downloading the photos from the week to throw together a blog post. Then I would move over to my sewing machine and put together my last square for my quilt and work on the embroidered robot that I am making for Henry's Easter basket. I poured my coffee, let the cat out, opened the window just a crack and turned on the computer. The house was silent. Well mostly silent except for the sound of little footsteps. I figured it was just the cat and then I remembered that the cat just went outside. Then I heard someone say, "I just feel like getting some paper and drawing. I just want to draw my dream and then go out for a bike ride and then eat some breakfast and then play some soccer and then dig in the dirt and make you a mud cookie. Mama, are you ready to go?" So much for my plans. But I'm stubborn so I gave him his paper and markers and sat him at my sewing table to draw his dream. He's been talking pretty much constantly since he walked in the door. He told me his dream and asks me to take a peak at his drawing every 30 seconds. It's driving me a little nutty, so let's speed this along.
The weather is wonderful right now. We've been working outside all weekend. Well, when we weren't watching the Jayhawks win the Big 12. ROCK CHALK. Anyway, Papa pitched the old baby swing yesterday and threw together a disk swing big enough for kids and adults.
Wade also single-handedly took apart the little play house in our back yard and rolled the base of it to the front yard to be the bottom of Henry's tree house. Then he got the outline for our garden set up. Henry has picked the one on the left for his garden. He's interested in planting root beer plants, strawberries, blueberries, garlic, carrots and red bell peppers.


But the main thing Henry is in to right now is Angry Birds. I made the mistake of getting the game for him on my phone and I haven't made a phone call for 6 days. Just kidding :) What I love about Henry and Angry Birds is that he can only play for a few minutes and then he gets the urge to "make a level" which means he wants to draw out his version of what he just played and then have me pretend to play it. We have a busy week ahead of us and are looking forward to lots of warm weather and Jayhawk basketball. Have a good one.

Weeky Update 3.6.11

I'm hiding away in our extra bedroom to bring you the weekly update. It occurs to me that you're probably thinking, "weekly update? Please, it's been almost a month since your last post" and it's true, monthly update would probably be more accurate, but bear with me, people, I'm doing the best I can. I've stolen this moment away from cleaning the bathroom, which I will regret later when Henry's friends come in from outside and have to use my messy bathroom, but oh well.

The real downfall of me not posting on this blog every week is the fact that I can barely remember what we did this week, let alone the two week prior to it. I can tell you that Grandpa and Grandma B came in to town to see Tangent Arc at their Lawrence CD release show. They had a big crowd there and I think every one had a good time. We didn't get to visit with Grandpa and Grandma as much as we would have liked to but Grandpa did get his bike all set up for, hopefully, many bike rides along the levee this spring.

Henry has been having friends over a lot lately. We are trying to keep him busy with kids his age since he isn't at school anymore. Here is his buddy Sophia. She think Henry is really funny so Henry lays it on pretty thick when she's around. He told me when she came to visit on Friday that he was "going to get all romantic with her" and then asked to call Papa for tips on how to get romantic. It was a crack up. On Friday Henry, Gigi and I went to KC to check out the Moon Marble House. They are a local business that sells handmade marbles and we got to watch the artists at work. It was pretty fun and before we left Gigi bought Henry 9 new marbles. Thanks to Gigi and Grandpa, Henry got to go to his first KU basketball game last night. He thought it was a lot of fun cheering for the Jayhawks and loved the adventure of doing something new. The Marching Cobras had us dancing in our seats at half time. We have a pretty quiet week a head of us. No big plans