We're Moving

I've been hemming and hawing for a couple of months now about making this blog space private so I don't have to worry so much about content and so I can really chronicle my true feelings about our lives.  Now that Addie has joined the family, its time for a new blog name anyway, so now seems like a good time to make the move. 

I have set up a new blog, which is private, where I will be writing from now on.  All of the posts from here have been moved over there to streamline things.  I'll leave this space as is for a month or so until I really get situated over in my new writing space.  If you want to continue to read about our goings on, feel free to drop me an email and I can send you an invitation to read the new blog, which incidentally will be at the following address:

www.ourcomplicatedlife.blogspot.com

I hope to see you all over there real soon!

Christina, Tim, Noah & Addie

Introducing....

Whew!  I can't believe its been almost a month since this news actually happened, but what they say about a second child joining your family is correct!  Chaos has come to stay for a bit.  I'll go back and update a few more things as I have time, but for now, here is Addie's birth story finally!

Miss Adeline Paige joined the family on Thursday, July 21st at 6:48am.  Coincidentally, July 21st was her estimated due date!  Even more shocking is the fact that the second it hit midnight (and I mean exactly) my contractions started at 6-8 minutes apart and ended at 6:48am when she was born...less than 7 hours later!!  It was a very intense and fast process, but there was very little drama and she did beautifully through the whole thing.  It was a long and drawn out story that started Wednesday morning at 6:45am when I woke up to get showered and ready to bring Noah over to Miss Nancy's house for the day.  The second I got up out of bed, I felt a little gush and as I ran to the bathroom, there were a couple of more little ones that followed.  This was a repeat performance from when Noah was born.  I KNEW my water had broken, but was told to call the doctor's office to go in for confirmation.  Wouldn't you know that once I got to the office, I couldn't turn any of their test papers blue, they couldn't see the ferning pattern of amniotic fluid on the slides, and when I had an ultrasound of my amniotic fluid levels, there was no significant drop from normal levels.  Of course when they tested my fluid levels, it was almost 6 hours after my water broke, which is plenty of time for the fluid to replenish itself.  I spent the entire morning in the office with nothing to show for it.  By 5pm, I received a call from the office to head over to labor and delivery to repeat all of the tests that I had already done earlier in the day.  After about 5 hours in triage at Labor and Delivery, still not turning test strips blue, walking the halls, and a couple of additional hours of listening to a little baby's heartbeat on the monitors, the residents discharged me saying that they could neither confirm nor deny that my water broke and that I was showing no imminent signs of delivering.  I can't remember a time when I have been that discouraged and angry.  Keep in mind that I have called my parents to drive in from Maine (a 7 hour drive) and have pulled Tim out of work for the day all for people to tell me that I perhaps don't know what I am talking about and that I should go home and wait for something more interesting to happen.

Flash forward a couple of hours, we were back at home and getting ready for bed.  No sooner did I lay down in bed when I had a really strong and painful contraction.  Tim was trying to read me some of Harry Potter series.  A couple more contractions later and I decided that perhaps we should time the contractions.  I hadn't right away because I had been having really irregular contractions since the previous Tuesday.  Over a week of false labor mind you got me really hesitant to time anything, never mind call back and report anything.  After 2 straight hours of contractions 6-8 minutes apart, I finally called into the after hours line and got ahold of my favorite midwife, Janet.  She urged me strongly to go back in.  By the time we got back in at 3am, I was sent directly into a labor and delivery room (at least a step up from the trip earlier).  At 3:30, I was checked and was 4 cm dilated, 80% effaced and -2 station (earlier in the day at the doctor's office I was 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced and -3 station) and I earned an admittance to stay...we were finally going to have a baby!  I was hoping to see how far I could go without an epidural, but with very few expectations.  I had to be monitored for contractions and the little lady's heart rate in order to earn my way off of continuous monitoring, which wasn't an issue at all.  About an hour later, I had my choice of places to labor.  I headed into the whirlpool tub and turned on the jets.  While the water did ease some of the tension, the pain was still there in a significant way and after about an hour or so of contractions in the tub, I headed back to the room in hopes of getting some epidural relief.  Sadly, by that time I was 8-9 cm dilated.  The midwife suggested we finish breaking my bag of water in the hopes that it was the bag of water pushing on my cervix and without it there labor would slow down enough to get the epidural in.  Unfortunately, once she broke my bag of water instead of slowing down, I dilated completely and was ready to push with no time for an epidural!!  I asked for some IV medication to help through the pushing and ended up with a blown IV access point and a bit of Stadol under my skin and that is all.  Twenty minutes of pushing later, and an epic amount of pain I cannot possibly describe and Adeline was born at an amazing 8 lbs, 12 oz, 20 and half inches in length, with a 36cm head, much bigger than we were expecting and almost a pound more than Noah at birth.  

babywearing so I can still get things done around the house and play with Noah while keeping Addie close, but for now, we are thoroughly enjoying our new addition to the family!
    

Another pregnancy update - 38 weeks

Amazingly, two weeks have passed since the last time I updated about my pregnancy progress.  I can't say very much of anything interesting has happened in the last two weeks unless you count the amount of swelling going on in my ankles and feet!  I found out I was group B strep negative, which is a little relief since I won't have to run off to the hospital early to ensure that I get all of the doses of antibiotics, leaving my mom (and hopefully dad) a bit of extra time to make the 6-7 hour drive here.  I'd love to have mom in the delivery room with me again, its just nice to have some trusted female support, but obviously my first concern is to make sure that Noah is being looked after and is happy.  Depending on when the little one decides to come and what my dad's work schedule is like, we may have Pepere here on Noah duty and Memere in the delivery room.  If Pepere's work is too busy though, then we'll have Memere at home with Noah and just Tim and I in the delivery room.  I am really fine with either plan.  Thankfully, we even have an eager backup/emergency person to look after Noah, Miss Nancy is so sweet and since Noah never wants to leave her place in the afternoons, I can't imagine he'll be all that upset to stay with her for a few hours while Memere & Pepere finish driving if that is the case.

In terms of how the baby is doing...she is great and seems super happy in there.  I am obviously anxious for her arrival so I can as the OB nurse put it last week "finally put down the baby for a few minutes."  We are all packed and ready to go, her room is ready and we even have last minute details taken care of.  The little lady just need to arrive and take up residence in the spot beneath her name on the wall!!  Like last time, we are letting the name "cat" out of the bag after she arrives, but its been decided upon for months now...not that it wasn't a long discussed and hard fought battle between Tim and I!!!


I am trying to hang in for the last couple of weeks without losing my mind.  I am just about done with all of my online course prep work for the fall, perhaps just a couple more days worth of work and then I am putting myself on vacation.  Both of my feet have officially swollen to the point of  no longer fitting into any shoes comfortably.  By the end of the day, I end up feeling like I have elastic bands across the tops of my feet.  The heat can't be helping, but sitting at the desk all day working on my course preps seems to be assisting in the swelling as well.  I've still been gaining weight at more than the typical 1-2 pounds per week, which is all excess water weight that I will at least not have to burn off at the gym once I am done being pregnant, but it is making for some sad trips to the doctor's office scale in the meantime.  Just in the last week, my blood pressure seems to be going up a bit, meaning I am now just slightly into the prehypertensive levels, but not enough to warrant an early delivery or a great deal of concern.  Time will tell if she is kind to me and decides to arrive before her official due date in just under 2 weeks or if she will have to be forcibly evicted.  Until then, let the waddling, excessive trips to the bathroom, Braxton Hicks contractions, and foot swelling continue!

Strawberry season

A couple of weeks ago, we found an adorable local farm right up the road from us.  Not only do they have awesome ice cream, but they sell farm raised, grass-fed beef and a ton of local seasonal vegetables.  We hit them up on a Sunday for some strawberry picking.  The strawberries weren't huge, but they were by far the sweetest, best tasting berries I have ever had.  Noah had a great time picking, but even more fun eating of course!  If you look behind Noah in the first picture, you can see a glimpse of my enormous baby belly.  Its bigger now, but since I don't much like being pregnant or having my picture taken, this will have to suffice.  Happy summer and here's to fresh strawberry shortcake!

You play socca?

In an attempt to find Noah an outside activity where he could run and burn off some energy, I found an outdoor soccer program through the local YMCA.  It was the only activity that would allow 3 year olds to participate.  We have been talking up the soccer since we signed him up back in May.  It didn't start until the last week of June, so we thought we had done a good deal of prep work.  Unfortunately for us, all that talking up of soccer didn't mean a thing when it came time to actually go out on the field and play with the other kids and interact with the coach.  Now in the little dude's defense, the coach was clearly not used to 3 year olds in the least.  She never introduced herself, just started off telling them to line up and start dribbling the ball.  Noah didn't know what dribbling was (and neither did most of the other kids there either).  She, unlike the coach the next net over, didn't invite the parents to join in to break the ice, but instead set the little ones up to play a complicated set of rules that involved stealing other people's ball (which is going to go over really well on Day 1 with 3 year olds) and jumping jacks (again, something none of the kids were familiar with and she didn't explain).  Tim ended up having to go out on the field with Noah for half of the practice to get him to even consider participation, but once he finally did get over the initial shyness, the little man actually got into it.  He's by far the shyest little guy out there, but as a consolation, he certainly isn't the worst soccer player!  Let's hope on Friday when we go back, we have less of a "warm up" period and more play time for Noah.  Game 1 is on Monday!!!

Weekend Recap

We had a really rare weekend last weekend where Tim actually had 3 days off in a row by coincidence.  I am pretty sure this hasn't happened since we have moved to this part of the country.  We tried to take advantage of it as much as possible by of course getting things done around the house.  We finally found some time to do a good cleaning, which was badly needed and of course we spent the day Saturday testing out potty training boot camp, which I must say was an abysmal failure of epic proportions.  What we have on our hands is a little dude who operates with a severe case of "My way or the highway."  While his persistence and conviction that his way is right may well serve him well later in life, until he gets the finer points of what is and is not socially acceptable, we'll have to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought and letting him figure out the rest.   So with his little "my way or the highway" thing going on, you can imagine that our potty training boot camp was an epic failure (or did I already say that part?).  I have read message boards that simply letting your non-interested potty trainee run around with out anything on from the waist down...that lasted 15 minutes, then "my way or the highway" man started complaining that he was naked and needed clothes on and that his rumpus was cold.  So I told him that he could have some big boy underwear, but he would need to keep them dry and to let us know when he felt like he had to go and we would help him out.  He lasted 6 hours of holding the pee, including through a 3 hour nap!!!  He is a stubborn one!  Just as we got out some games to play to pass the time, he forgot to hold it and then announced halfway through that he was going.  We comforted him, told him that everyone has accidents, and cleaned him up.  Half and hour later, he was outside grilling with Daddy and had a repeat performance.  After another clean up and some dinner, we headed upstairs for some potty sitting, where he proceeded to sit and fidget on the potty for almost 45 minutes.  He produced nothing, was too distracted to actually do anything and then when we finally cut him off and told him it was time for pajamas and bed, he screamed that he had to go.  Sound like manipulation much???  Oh yeah, we were seeing ourselves becoming huge victims here.  So we did the next step in our boot camp plan.  In the event o epic failure, bail out and run the other way.  I have actually read and heard from a couple of sources that the absolute best thing to do with a potty resistant little person is to stop caring, stop bringing it up, stop pressuring, and let them have control and tell you when they want to start the process.  So we packed up all the potty paraphrenalia, made a big production of putting it in the shed and told him he would have to tell us when he wanted to use the potty.  And that was that.  Incidentally, Wednesday night he randomly announced that he really needed to go right before his bath, forcing Tim to run to the shed to retrieve a potty chair.  He managed to hold it until the potty arrive and as soon as he sat down he peed in the potty like he had been doing it for years.  We've seen no repeat performances since, but at least we know he can physically do it now.

After such a failed day Saturday, we decided that out of the house was a better idea for Sunday, so we headed to one of the local beaches.  Now, keep in mind that a beach around here is lake shore, not ocean front property, so that is something to get used to for us.  Sylvan beach is perhaps not one of the first choice places to make a first impression of the lakes and the beach scene around the area.  Its not one of the nicer beaches we have been to, but perhaps my expectations are too high having grown up in Maine near the Atlantic.  Noah did have a great time playing in the sand and getting dirty.  We were all fine until a 4 foot long dead fish carcass washed up on the beach just down the beach from us!  Um, disgusting!!!  Thankfully, it was getting close to Noah's naptime, so we packed up and headed for home.  We'll have to do more research next time on where to find a clean, family-friendly beach around here.

I have to say at least we enjoyed each other's company and the down time we had for a change.   We all know down time is going to be a hot commodity soon!

36 weeks...A month to go!

I had my 36 week appointment with one of the midwives yesterday.  Janet is one of my favorite in the office, you can just tell she's been there and sympathizes.  We talked about how close I am to the end and she checked out the swelling I have been having...with just one foot (no both would make too much sense).  My right foot is easily twice the size of my left most days now and it of course seems to get worse throughout the day.  Chances are only the right foot is swelling because of the way the little one in there is laying, usually with her back on my right side.  It may just be that the extra pressure of her on that side isn't allowing the fluids to move as freely.  I was told to try and lay on my right side more often to see if that would help any since I already prefer laying on my left side.  I can also try to keep the foot elevated as much as possible or stick it in some cool water (hello kiddie pool!).  If none of those attempts work over the next few days, then it appears as though I will be relegated to one freakishly swollen foot until princess pea makes her grand entrance.  In other news, I have also developed a pretty annoying case of pregnancy induced carpal tunnel, which had started waking me up in the night and preventing me from getting back to sleep.  While there isn't an easy fix for this one until delivery, I have started wearing wrist braces as much as possible, including while sleeping and I actually slept pretty decently last night (aside from the multiple trips to the bathroom). 

Other than my discomforts, the baby is doing really well, she's head down and has started to drop a bit.  Her heart rate was right on track as is her growth (based on my belly size).  Right now, they are estimating her to weigh in around 5 to 5.5 pounds, and growing beautifully.  I had my Group B Strep test and will find out whether I need IV antibiotics for the delivery or not next week.  For now, I am on prescription anti-viral medication until the delivery to prevent the little lady from getting passed the cold sore virus that I got handed down from my mom (and I of course handed down to poor Noah...before they did routine anti-virals).  Her days in there are numbered and am I ever glad about that fact.  Let's just hope that they pass by quickly!

Dude, for the love, get on the potty train

I need to begin this post with an apology to the 16 year old Noah who might catch wind that his Mommy was talking about his potty habits (or lack there of) on the Internet. Sorry dude, trust me, hardly anyone reads this and if they do, they love you anyway!! I promise not to share this with any future romantic interests.

A letter to my sweet dude as you turn three and a half,

Noah, my sweet little dude, you have GOT to get over this stubborn attitude towards the potty. Mommy is tired of changing your diapers. We've been more than patient with you, letting you direct us in when you were ready for the next step, but dude, there are other steps beyond saying that you don't want to sit on the potty. These steps involve you actually sitting there (without a diaper on) and doing your business in there instead of in the diapers....PLEASE!!! Everyone I talk to says to keep encouraging you, but to let you tell us when you are ready. Dude, you are 3 and a half in 2 days....its high time to be ready.

Mommy and Daddy have tried everything we can think of to make this an interesting and rewarding process...2 different potty chairs and a Cars potty seat for the big potty, learning to pee sitting down and standing up, targets you can pee on, countless offers of stickers, reward charts, M&Ms, shopping for awesome bog boy under wear, reading books, watching a potty movie repeatedly, testing out the Pull-ups waters, letting you come with us to the bathroom. What else can we do dude? We have been working on trying to get you excited about this since you were 2...if you are counting, or could do basic math at 3 and a half, that would be close to half of your life, a year and a half. Come on dude, do something, make the move...I swear it won't kill you, it might actually be nice for your rump to not have to sit in diapers all of the hot summer long...but what do I know??

Now don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with me not wanting to wash diapers or help you out, it has everything to do with the fact that you are so smart and know exactly what to do to make this transition happen, you just stubbornly refuse to do so. You do know that in a few weeks your baby sister is going to come along and you'll see how tiny of a little person she will be. Babies need those diapers, not 3 and a half year olds who can feed themselves, occupy themselves, be trusted to not throw themselves down the stairs, dress themselves, and give me the occasional teenage-level attitude. There is a big difference...study it, learn it, and apply it when you consider whether or not to leave that next deposit in your diaper or in the potty.

Love and smooches,
Mommy

Our daycare debacle

Since moving out here last August and losing our beloved Nana Lou (who we still keep in touch with by the way), we had some less than stellar success with the daycare situation. I have to give myself a bit of a pass in that we worked to set up daycare before we moved out here and more importantly before we knew exactly what part of this area we were going to be setting up home. What this all meant was that I was setting up interviews with family daycare providers blind to the practical travel logistics, so I went with the sure thing and chose to focus our search close to campus since I knew I would be working there everyday, and it would be at least close to something. Of course for our housing, we ended up finding and deciding on a place closer to Syracuse at the very tail end of our visit out here, which ended up leaving me as the pick-up AND drop-off person for daycare since it was 30 miles north of our place and close to my work. Even more convincingly, Tim's job was 55 miles away in the opposite direction of our home, which meant about 80+ from campus and daycare...not a reasonable person to be picking up or dropping off sadly.

We visited and spoke with 4 or 5 different daycare providers in the Oswego area, some were okay, but certainly none were Nana Lou. One of the places we checked out was a home-based daycare with a former preschool teacher as a provider. Her set-up was nice with an enormous play space and kitchen and bathroom attached. She seemed dedicated to the kids and to really enjoy her work. Unfortunately, just as we were signing paperwork she mentioned that she was in the middle of a divorce and was having a bit of emotional turmoil just as we were getting ready for a major transition. Being the trusting person that I tend to be, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and we stuck with our plan for Noah to start half days a few days before I was officially expected to be on campus.

The transition was a bit rough and there were quite a few tearful drop-offs. This was never the case with Nana Lou, but in all fairness, Noah had been with her since he was 10 weeks old. Things seemed to settle in after a couple of weeks, but little things kept nagging at me. The provider was exceptionally concerned all the time about getting the parents to work the shortest work day possible so she could do other things besides care for children. She refused open until 8am, which meant throughout the fall semester when I was teaching a class starting at 8am on Tuesdays and Thursday, Tim would be responsible for drop off one of those days a week...all 80+ miles of it (the other was his day off mercifully)!! In addition to her later starts, she also demanded (quite harshly at times) that Noah be picked up before 5pm each day except Fridays...Fridays she didn't work past 4:30pm!! Now I certainly understand the desire to have a life and to have time off, but choosing to run your own daycare seems to beg a bit more dedication to hours since you are technically supposed to be accommodating the working schedule of the parents who are asking you to look after their kids. There were a couple of times I was a couple of minutes late (due to a meeting or a colleague stopping me in the hall) and upon my arrival, the provider would raise her voice at me about the few minutes I was delayed all the while watching me struggle to find Noah's belonging and dress him for the outdoor weather. Yeah, she yelled at me in front of my child, never bothering to get him dressed ahead of time to speed our departure.

She frequently reminded me that she was more than willing to accommodate any requests we had about Noah's care. I found out a few months into the fall semester that she had the TV on almost all day long, so I politely requested that she limit the amount of TV Noah was watching. She smiled and said that some of the other kids were used to the TV and that she didn't want to disrupt their schedules. I asked then if she could be sure that the TV was off during naptime, she countered that a couple of the kids wouldn't go to sleep without the TV on. Unfortunately, Noah wouldn't sleep with the TV on and we went through countless months of no naps on day care days, which results in two kinds of ugly evenings...either a really grouchy Noah until bedtime, OR Noah would fall asleep on the 35 or so minute ride home and the "nap" would continue sometimes until 7pm when he would wake up cranky just long enough to eat dinner and then would promptly go to bed for the night. Either way, the routine lack of naps would completely ruin our evenings. For an entire academic year, we planned nothing for the weekday evenings.

Aside from the obvious commute issues, especially with summer break and my fall semester of completely online teaching looming, the straw that broke the proverbial camels back was the providers insistence that "problem children" were charity cases that she needed to take on. While I admire her conviction that she should care for and help out any child no matter the previous history, after the first couple of months, there was never a time when there wasn't at least 1 child that Noah would come home and complain about. He would say that the other boy would steal toys and hit him with them, he would say that the provider wouldn't always back him up. Of course toddlers tell tall tales at times, but with a constant barrage of consistent stories and then me finally staying long enough one morning to observe some of this behavior myself, I couldn't deny Noah's stories any longer. When that boy left, others followed, always a charity case of some sort with parents who clearly didn't spend enough time teaching manners, and reasonable behavioral expectations. All the while, the provider never once mentioned the trouble it seemed to be causing Noah, I would hear those stories from Noah himself.

Enough was enough and I needed to quit the commute anyway, so the search started for a new place for Noah to spend his days while I work from home. This time I had time and space to be much more selective and am I ever glad I did. I interviewed close to 10 different providers, some on the phone only, some on the phone and in person, but all with Noah with me so I could see how they interacted with him. All of the places I visited were acceptable, and certainly a step up from our Oswego daycare experience, but it wasn't until we visited Miss Nancy's house that I began to think that anyone existed that even close to rivaled Nana Lou. Miss Nancy is one of those rare souls that cares for children out of sheer love of doing so. She has been the unofficial neighborhood sitter for the last 15 years and finally decided to get a license in the last year or so. Aren't we thankful she did! Noah loved the place from the moment we began our initial visit and the transition has been seamless, no trauma, no tears (until its time for me to pick him up for the day), and we absolutely adore both Nancy and her son Kenny who assists with the preschooler (including Noah) during the day. Its been just over a month and I can already say that its the best transition we have had since moving out here. And the best part, the new little one will be joining Noah at Miss Nancy's house there in January when I return to teaching on campus!

Thank goodness for small favors and Miss Nancy!

Oh my pregnancy

One of the few things I will not regret about missing 10 months or so of blogging is a record of my pregnancy. Its just best that way! Especially if we ever plan on considering a baby #3. To say I am not a happy and comfortable pregnant person is a bit of an understatement. This time around was no different than my pregnancy with Noah and I imagine my favorite part of the whole pregnancy ride will be the end...just like last time! Goodness I love the babies, but the journey to them is just not a good one for me.

The first trimester started with a bang on the night after Thanksgiving dinner. I was almost exactly 6 weeks pregnant. That lovely home-cooked meal came back with a vengeance and I continued with the extreme nausea right through Christmas, the New Year, and the remaining few weeks of my winter break. It stopped just in time for me to start teaching my Spring semester classes, which I suppose is merciful and prevented me from having to excuse myself mid-lecture to lose my lunch! I spent much of that time on Zofran ( a drug originally designed to help with the nausea of chemotherapy!!) to relieve the nausea and prevent me from losing every meal. Of course nothing is a perfect cure and at least every other day I would spend some portion of my evening worshipping the porcelain gods. In addition, I also possessed the typical first trimester fatigue and would consistently fall asleep on the couch for a couple of hours before Tim would drag me upstairs to bed where I would sleep for the rest of the night.

Almost immediately upon entering the second trimester, the excruciating back pain started. These are not just aches, but searing, stop you in your tracks, take your breath away types of pain in my lower back and down my leg. One of midwives at my 16 week appointment recommended I try out a chiropractor since it had been such a help to her during her last pregnancy. Ever the optimist I scheduled an appointment for the following week and prepped to pay out of pocket...apparently the insurance doesn't believe that chiropractic care warrants any coverage, and physical therapy is covered only if you have an accident or acute injury! I did get a bit of relief for a few month from the visits, not complete pain relief, but at least an increase in my quality of life. Sadly, the further along in my pregnancy I got, the less effective the adjustments were getting, so I have stopped them now figuring the money invested in them was not actually worth the 15 minutes of relief I would get out of them....the chiropractic tables were to die for though...a spring loaded middle so I could lay on my belly comfortably and take all the extra belly weight and pressure off my back, simply lovely!

In mid-February I had my big anatomy scan and gender reveal. I am too much of a planner to wait until the end to find out. Besides, I frequently distract myself from the discomforts of pregnancy with window shopping and nursery planning! We were assured confidently that Noah's predictions of having a baby sister were indeed correct, and I was over the moon excited to go shopping for all of the adorable baby girl clothes!!!! This meant that the majority of my maternity clothes (which were for early pregnancy in the summer and late pregnancy in the winter for Noah) were completely opposite seasons and not so useful and all of Noah's baby boy clothes would need to be replaced this time around with baby girl clothes. No matter, I've been having fun shopping and have managed to stay within a reasonable budget just the same!

I taught all of my typical course load through the entire second trimester and aside from having to sit at the stool in the front of the classroom instead of stand to lecture, my students only noticed the size of my belly continually increasing and were very understanding of my occasional lack of energy. In the midst of all of this back nonsense, I started experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions. Thankfully, their frequency and the annoyance of their presence really has been the only problem with them and I haven't had any official preterm labor or dilation with them. But when you get the feeling that your belly has morphed into a boulder 2-3 times per hour everyday starting at around 19 weeks, it gets old FAST!! I am still having them even now late into the third trimester, and while I was told to call the office if I had more than 4 per hour, I haven't been following that rule unless laying down and resting and drinking a ton refuses to stop them, which it has every time. So, its been a lot of laying down and resting, taking breaks throughout the day (which is easier said than done while chasing a 3 year old), and toting water bottles and finding bathrooms every where I go.

Just as the semester was coming to a close I reached my third trimester and my parents were planning a trip out this way to visit and to help with the furniture moving and nursery room decorating. As they were driving, I was sitting with Tim for over 4 hours at the doctor's office, ultrasound office, and back to the doctor's office for a little bit of a bleeding scare at 31 weeks. I did not seem to be dilating and there was no obvious explanation for the bleed, so I was immediately hooked up to the non-stress test monitors and forced to watch a video on how many horrible things can happen if a mom goes into preterm labor (gah! I know, you think I did this on purpose??). The little lady had a bit of an elevated heart rate at first, but started to look fine on the monitors after I downed a couple cups of water (guess that just goes to show she is going to bring the drama even before officially arriving!). I managed to somehow have only 1 BH contraction while I sat there for a half an hour, which would be a low scoring record for me in this pregnancy, but is probably due to the fact that I was sitting very still strapped to monitors with my feet propped up and having Tim fetch me the waters!!! If only my whole pregnancy could have gone that way, I would have been completely comfortable with no complaints!:) Still with no explanation for the bleeding, I was sent off to lunch and then an appointment with the ultrasound office downstairs. An hour later, and with a comforting confirmation that we are still having a girl (especially comforting since we were planning to decorate the room that weekend), I was back up in the OB's office for the results of everything. There was indeed a confirmation of blood in my urine, but no dilation, a normal level of amniotic fluid, a happy baby (as long as I keep chugging the water), and no other apparent issues. The nurse practitioner thinks I may have had some very small kidney stones that irritated things. Since then, I haven't had any additional bleeding, so the mystery remains I guess.

I a am now almost 36 weeks (on Thursday to be exact!). I am counting down the days until the little one arrives and alternate between extreme despair in how long I still have left to go and utter amazement that it will all be a memory in about a month or so! Thursday's appointment with the midwife is the start of the land of the weekly visits, so princess pea's time in there really is getting limited. I'll try to post at least one belly pic before she arrives. I hate pictures of myself and don't really have any of me pregnant with Noah either, so at least I am not behind the 8 ball in that regard. In the meantime, the end of the day ankle swelling and constant contractions and back pain continue for now, but the little one's nursery is completely done and now my favorite room in the house!

The room is decorated in mostly black and white, with purple accents. You'd be amazed at how hard it is to find purple baby items, everything is in pastel pink (no thank you!). So we spent a lot of time hunt through non-baby items to find the right things to put in her room (thank you Hobby Lobby for liking black and white damask this spring!). This is a view over the change table. The table is immediately below the picture and is the same white one we used for Noah. My mom sewed an awesome black minky dot cover for the pad and I found some perfect sized black rectangle basket/bins to hold all of the cloth diapers (yes from the newborn stages this time around), and other such essentials.


To the left of the change table is a bank of Ikea storage bins that we kept from when it was Noah's playroom. We have cleaned out the drawers for infant toy storage and other essentials and there are a few empty drawers for the inevitable things still to come. On the storage system is her perfectly matching black and white damask lamp that I got at Target. The base was regular price ($15 or so), but the shade, which couldn't have matched more perfectly with the rest of the room was on massive clearance at $3!! Tim installed some floating shelves and I decorated with some finds from Hobby Lobby (all 50% off!). There is a purple picture frame for our first family picture, a purple butterfly perfume bottle, a white gardenia in my Memere's old white milk glass vase, a mini wire replica of the Eiffel Tower, one of our Willow Tree figurines, and a decorating plate with her initial on it (yes, its an "A"...you'll have to guess from there until she arrives). You can also see the valence my mom and I sewed to match the bumper fabric and the vinyl wall quote that is my absolute favorite part of the room.


Here is a close up of the quote. In case you can't read it well it says: "Ladybugs all dressed in red, waltzing through the flower bed. If I was little just like you, I'd dance among the flowers too." Love, LOVE this. I found it online at Etsy from a this seller in case you are in the market for some super easy wall decorations without all of the painting hassle!


On the right of the change table is the door and then the armoire (again from Noah's baby furniture). We switched out the knobs on the armoire from the light blue from Noah's room to a set of purple polka dotted ones Tim found at Hobby Lobby. Just to the right of the armoire is the TINY closet and the crib. The bumper is Noah's old one recovered by my awesome Mom in black and white damask fabric. The bottom sheet is a lavender with white polka dots, and the crib skirt is another one of my mom's masterpiece's with white fabric and 3 stripes of ribbon sewn on, two purple with a black stripe in the middle. The glider has been relocated from Noah's room and the pillow there is another Hobby Lobby find that matched the rest of the room perfectly!! All we need now is the baby!


I'll update more on the pregnancy as I have weekly doctor's appointments and news worthy information, but for now the countdown is on...31 days until the due date!

10 months in review to "catch up"

I have so much to catch up on that the task seems a bit overwhelming really. Its been almost a year of not regularly posting here and while I am not apologetic in the least (if you had seen my life's to do list you'd understand), it does kind of bother me that there isn't a fun record of the last 10 months of our lives to look back on. Sure I have memories, but those fade and I forget all of the hilarious and witty things the little dude says. I can't really make up for lost time and that's okay. I've enjoyed the time with our little family and I am going to try to pick up from here and move on.

Let's see if I can even summarize the last 10 months...

We've all established that we no longer live in Boston and are now occupying space in the Central New York area not far outside of Syracuse. The suburb we live in is adorable and if we could transplant the area back to New England, I'd be in seventh heaven! Tim and I were actually driving through the community/neighborhood where Noah's current daycare is and were drooling over the houses...best part is, they are totally affordable. Downfalls to this area, the job market is pretty stagnant, especially for Tim's upcoming IT search once he graduates in December. Also, there's the small matter of the OBSCENE amount of snow. I mean obscene, depressing to the point of desperation, and add that to my slightly pathological fear of driving in the white stuff and it makes for a very long winter...and it happens every year. So for now we hope for job opportunities back in New England so we can move back to the land of logical winters, even if the housing costs are double! In reality though, we are here for another full year at the very least. Faculty job season only comes around once per year, in the fall, so I will be putting out application packets this fall in the hopes of being able to settle some where permanently next summer. Only postings at private schools (NO MORE STATE BUDGET ISSUES PLEASE) in New England will be considered, so it may take a year or two of hunting, but here's hoping for some awesome prospects!

On to other updates...

Tim managed to secure a job before we had officially moved out here, which is not only amazing in this poor economy, but doubly amazing in this area of the country, which is not especially prosperous. His position was technically a transfer of location within the same company, it was a bit of a pay cut and his commute is 55 miles one way, but we are certainly thankful to not have to figure out how to make the move and survive day-to-day off of one income, which if you knew what they pay state university professors here, would not be an easy feat. He is still working on his IT/Business degree from UMass Lowell, but officially only has 4 classes left to take in the fall semester and he will be officially done!! I am so utterly impressed with his ability to maintain sanity while working full-time and taking a full-time course load during the academic year. Summers are his time off from school, and it is nice to have the extra free time with him. Tim moved out here driving our older Grand Am and after missing the first OB appointment due to a dead fuel pump, having a gas leak, a coolant leak, and countless other issues, he is now the proud owner of Millie, a 2006 Milan, which was passed on to us from my parents...thank you Mom & Dad for that favor!!! Other than that, its status quo for the "Daddy man" of the house. He's been an excellent support while I have been struggling through the pregnancy for the better part of the year. Let's hope for some more awesome Daddy/Noah bonding time in the next couple of months while I handle newborn and breastfeeding duty!

Other than the impending arrival of our newest family member in a few weeks, my updates are minimal. I am the reason we moved here, my job status remains the same...for now, and I have been trying to take things in stride as much as possible. I'll save the pregnancy updates for another post since its not been a quiet ride thus far.

As for Mr. Noah, he continues to be the best (and sometimes most challenging) part about our days. He is such a sweet person and really tries his toddler best every single day. I amazes me how well he has adapted to such a drastic move and change in his life.

It did help that an enormous yellow moving truck was involved with the physical move. He couldn't get over how impressing that truck was. If there had been a back seat to the thing, I would have strapped his car seat in there and made his entire lifetime. He settled quite nicely though for a visit in the front seat when we arrived though (you can barely see him with the reflection, but his little pacifiered face is in the truck window there).


Daddy really was the best moving truck driver ever, especially when he offered front seat views to his best dude.


So after a week or so of non-stop unpacking, organizing, and rearranging, we were finally settled in. We purposely kept Noah's room as similar as possible to his room in MA so as not to disrupt his life entirely. Looking back at this, it doesn't seem possible that when we moved here, he was still sleeping in a crib.


The town home, while much nicer kept than our rented condo in MA, is admittedly very small for our needs. It does have three bedrooms though, so the 3rd bedroom started off as the guest room and Noah's playroom. Only about half of his toys fit in there though as it really is a very small room.


Once were were finally unpacked and settled, we took some time to explore the area while I was adjusting to my new position. The NY State Fair is really something to see, almost as good as the one we used to have down in NC while I was in graduate school. Noah milked a non-threatening plastic cow and was very impressed with all of the animal, though admittedly only from the safety of Mommy's arms much of the time. I guess that's what happens when you start off life as a city boy...not much livestock to be found in the greater Boston area!


We took advantage of the area, and went on two different wine tours, one in September around the Seneca Lake wine trail with my brother who was over for a visit, and one of the Cayuga wine trail with the in laws when they were visiting in late October. Both were spectacular, in terms of the wine and the scenery. Again if the winters weren't so hideous and the region wasn't so far from family, the Finger Lakes would be an absolutely beautiful area of the country to settle. Regional wine and countless wineries to visit is my idea of heaven! Noah even enjoyed one of the wineries! Glenora Wine Cellars is situated on the west side of Seneca Lake and has an amazing amount of space to roam around...plus absolutely beautiful event spaces overlooking the lake...yes please! Noah especially enjoyed the over sized wine barrel that you can just barely make out in the picture below and the freedom to run amok on the lawn.


We all enjoyed the late summer and early fall weather in the are, which is admittedly very nice. We checked out the farmer's market in Syracuse, Noah worked on the lawn...


and his bike riding skills (which sadly leave a lot to be desired most days!)


Given that the area is really quite agriculturally based, we checked out the Fall Festival at one of the orchards near campus. Noah not only enjoyed picking out a pumpkin, and trying all kinds of apple treats, but he was dubbed a junior fireman for the day as well!


Since the festival was so big, we never did get the chance to pick apples that day, so we drove a bit south of Syracuse and hit up one of U-pick orchards for our annual apple picking. Noah found some nice low branches with plenty of apples and was able to help out this year.


In October, we had visits from Memere & Pepere B, who thankfully arrived the day after Noah announced that he was ready for his big boy bed. We had been reminding him that the bed was in the storage space for when ever he was ready for it. On Thursday morning he woke up and announced he wanted it, by Saturday night it was set up and ready to go. So when Memere & Pepere arrived, we put them to work! Down came the crib and change table and up went the big boy bed. My mom and I spent the afternoon shopping for the bedding (which I had already picked out thankfully) and he slept like a champ in his bed from night 1 and has never looked back. I absolutely cannot believe how easy the transition was, I guess that just goes to show how much it paid off in this circumstance to let him make the decision.


After slaving away at his big boy room on Saturday, Memere & Pepere joined us for a trip to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo for the day to check out the animals.


Before the winter hit for real, Noah and I made the last batch of "Dirt Pie" for the summer whereupon Noah ate his weight in Cool Whip and I did all of the real work.


Next thing we knew it was Halloween! Noah decided he wanted to be one of the Things from the Cat in the Hat this year, so I took advantage of the simplicity of the costume and made it from scratch...red sweat pants, a red t-shirt with an iron on Thing 1 decal, and a winter hat adorned with a poofy blue craft store boa and we had a fabulous Thing 1 Noah costume. I lost track of how many compliments we got on the costume. Unfortunately, the Thing 1 t-shirt didn't so much hold up in the wash, but if anyone is looking for a Thing 1 wig, its up for grabs for this Halloween!!


We had a fairly uneventful November, other than the small matter of discovering we were expecting baby #2 in the summer and making a trip back to Maine for Thanksgiving to eat turkey and spread the exciting news!

Before we knew it, early December arrived with its mountains of snow. I've already lamented about my hatred of the winters around here, so let's focus on the fact that at least one of us thinks all that snow is simply the BEST THING EVER!!! Guess who??? Yeah, the one who doesn't have to drive in it or shovel it of course!


We managed to find a short window in the incessant snow storms long enough to drive out of town for the Christmas holiday. Noah and I left a bit early for some relaxation and invasion of Memere & Pepere B's house. Daddy joined us on Christmas Eve after working a full shift and driving the 6+ hours! As usual, we had a great time in Maine visiting and Noah got spoiled as usual. One of his favorite Christmas gifts was an easel from Memere & Pepere, which he promptly broke in by creating one masterpiece after another the day after Christmas.


On the 27th, we celebrated (a little late) for Noah's 3rd birthday! It seems crazy to me, even now that he is almost 3 and a half that we are already reaching this milestone. We had a Grinch themed birthday party, per Noah's request and again (for the second time in 3 days) Noah was spoiled with gifts and then we all ate too many cupcakes! If you are keeping track of the birthday party/snow storm co-occurrence, you'll be happy to know that this year didn't disappoint again. Maine got a major snow storm overnight and through the early part of the day on the scheduled day of the party. Thankfully, the snow stopped by mid-afternoon and almost everyone was able to make it to the pizza dinner party by evening.


January brought on major morning (all day sickness) and big surprise....endless amounts of snow, which continued all the way through February. Mercifully, the morning sickness ended just as January came to a close and my Spring semester of teaching began. But we managed to get in a good amount of playing outdoors as the temperatures didn't dip terribly low in our area, and as I said previously, some one REALLY liked all that snow!


We also found ways of entertaining ourselves indoors, like creating Noah-powered vending machines out of enormous boxes Daddy occasionally brings home from work. Speaking of this picture...it is one of the last you will ever see of Noah with a pacifier (or pac-i-er) in his mouth. Just before spring hit for real, Noah was on round 35 of the disgusting illnesses that he brought home from daycare (a whole other post entirely), and was so congested and miserable that he couldn't really use his pacifier. After almost a week of not using it, he was feeling better and we decided to make an end to the paci madness. We hit up one of the local stores with an awesome selection of trucks and told Noah if he made it one more week without needing the pacifier, then the "pacifier fairy" would come and drop him off the logging truck he had been eying in exchange for all of his old pac-i-ers. With little more than an occasional mention of them, he sailed through the week and on Saturday morning he was thrilled to accept the trade of his pacifiers for the awesome logging truck! The transition was actually much easier than we anticipated and has already helped to move those paci fangs back where they belong! Now if we could only be as successful at the potty training (yet another whole post for some other time!).


As spring attempted to arrive in our area, we made a couple of day trips. One to Rochester to visit the Strong Museum of Play, where we sat on the front steps of Sesame Street!


We also took Noah to his first major kids event, Sesame Street Live. He seemed to love the show much more after the fact and has been asking to go back and see it again for months now, but an hour and a half show is just too long for a 3 year old to sit through, even with an intermission! (Check that majorly short haircut in the picture below...to say I was not pleased with the woman who did that was a serious understatement. It has just now grown out and we took him last week back to Snip-Its for a haircut, where we paid more, but at least got a great haircut for the little dude!)


We had Memere & Pepere L. and Aunt Beth out for a long weekend visit for Easter. Noah partook in the traditional egg dyeing festivities and ate his weight in ham over the course of the weekend.


Finally, in mid-May my semester ended and we celebrated with some "margaritas." Fear not, we are getting neither the toddler or the pregnant Mommy drunk off of anything. A bottle of club soda was substituted for the tequila and we could all drink as many tasty beverages as we wanted. It was the perfect way to start off the summer.


I'll post a couple of other shorter catch-up posts about all things pregnancy related and Noah's daycare switches (yes, there are multiple). But for now, I am back to the land of online course prep since I have the luxury of staying home and teaching from here with the new little one until the spring semester starts in late January!

Job Satisfaction

I don't normally talk about my work much here, mainly because I worry about who might come across this, but since the blog isn't searchable and I haven't written on it regularly in months, I am taking advantage of the journal space to vent my feelings in as vague a way as humanly possible.

Things in academia are tough, I knew this going in. Its not really a place that is designed for women, specifically those who want families...meaning the type of families that you can enjoy and not farm off to the nearest 24 hour nanny. I have seen cases where women are truly able to make it look like its working. Notice I said "look like its working." Perhaps their level of job satisfaction is similar to mine (i.e., in the toilet), I simply don't know because it is just not something we talk about...ever! Women in academia are supposed to project a model of a perfectly running life. That way when other young women come around to look at becoming part of the club, we all make it look like a breeze. What a joke of a front that is.

Being female automatically puts us behind the curve in terms of hiring, prestige, salary, and expectations. What makes it worse is that typically the most successful males in academia are those who can have both a career and a family because they have a stay at home wife/mom at home to run the house, keep everything clean, raise the children, and serve as a an out of office secretary. See the problem? I am the one who is supposed to take the main role (not by any means the only role, Tim does a ton at home), and I am supposed to be able to somehow keep up with the men in the career portion. Its a setup for failure and guess what I am doing? Yep, failing! Not failing in terms of the school's expectations of me, but failing in terms of the expectations I have for myself. Some of it may be the nature of the university/department in which I am located, some of it may be that I have/will have very young kids, some of it may be that I have set the bar too high for myself (meaning I would ideally expect to keep up with junior male faculty in the department), but probably, most of it is that I am just flat out chosen the wrong field to try to do it all.

Sure, my students really do seem to appreciate me, they gave me spectacular professor evaluations last semester (4.6 out of 5, which is equivalent to ratings typically earned by the best and most popular seasoned veterans). The department chair seems to appreciate my hard work in the teaching front and has mentioned how pleased she is with my progress. BUT, that is all I do. I teach, I prep for teaching, I grade assignments, I meet with students who need hand holding and to ask me stupid questions that are clearly answered on the syllabus, and I spend insane amounts of time sending emails to students about the same things over and over and over again. Every time I think I am just about to find myself some time to analyze some data, or write and revise a manuscript and quite honestly...do the things that I really want to do, that time slips through my fingers and I end up in a surprise meeting with a student who "has just stopped by for help," or in a mandatory workshop with the overlords of online instruction so that I can get "educated" on how to teach a class in an online format for the fall semester so I can be home with the new little person.

I haven't had more than 2 hours in the last 8 months to sit down and really do some of my own research and while I did want a bit of a break from the research, I didn't want to feel like I had to abandon it entirely.

UPDATE: I originally wrote the above rant in early March after a particularly horrible meeting with my faculty "mentor." In said meeting, she indicated to me that I had become seen as high maintenance and whiny for having the gall to state out loud all of the clearly obvious inequities that are running rampant throughout the department. I have since gotten the courage to publish this post now that the department has received an outside and objective assessment of its functionality, which entirely confirmed all of my concerns and complaints about it. While its nice to know that I am not the only one who sees the departmental issues for the problems that they are, its also a bit discouraging for 2 outside sources to essentially confirm in writing that your job really is a nightmare situation that is in desperate need of an overhaul (oh, and no budget or administrative backing for said overhaul by the way). Through all of this, however, it has become increasingly apparent to me that this job is simply not the right long-term fit for me. This realization is not only comforting, but also heartbreaking. Its nice to know that it is possible to find some place better, more stable, and more interpersonally functional than where I am at not. At the same time, however, it also exceptionally discouraging to think about starting the job application, interview, moving, and adjustment phases all over again!! Just yet another delay to truly being able to settle into a permanent home.

It snows here, have you heard?

It snows here. And that the the world's largest understatement! We, come to find out, moved our butts to the snow belt of the U.S. Why? Why? Why? Routinely, the Tug Hill area of New York, which is mercifully about 40 miles northeast of here (just far enough) is the single snowiest area of the country each winter. We don't live there, but we do live close enough that we don't escape much of the poundings.

In early December we literally had 8 days of almost nonstop snow falling, and at some seriously significant rates. Tim went outside at the beginning of the nonsense and took this picture. Keep in mind, that was at the beginning...a great deal more fell after that.


December in the area broke the record as the single snowiest December on record in Syracuse, NY with some where over 72 inches of snow. In a four day stretch, the records snow that we got 43.9 inches of snow....in one four day stretch. I no longer desire ever see that much snow again...not ever!


Noah is having a blast playing outside in all of this mess. He is fabulously "helpful" with the shoveling at least. The snow is mostly all lake effect snow, which is really light and fluffy. The only problem is that its sole function is to mess up the roads. Its too dry and fluffy for snowball fights, snowmen, or any of that normal New England snow fun. So we shovel it out of the way, more falls, later, rinse, repeat...and repeat...and repeat



As I said, Noah is loving it. He doesn't have to drive though. On the way to give my last final exam in the middle of December (meaning I absolutely HAD to be on campus), I hit absolute white-out conditions. Thankfully Noah was home with Tim that day and I didn't need to drop him off at daycare. I left home with an hour and a half to drive about 30 miles. I got there 5 minutes late for the exam and am thanking my stars that I made it there at all. That morning I prayed to higher beings I didn't even know I believed in!


And Noah still loves it!!


After almost 2 months of utter winter chaos we got smart and started piling up huge amounts of the snow from the driveway near the front in one big heap. After a few weeks of packing down, we finally had enough snow for a tunnel. Tim had a great time building it and Noah had more fun testing it out.


So, in sum, while Tim and I are lost in a miserable winter tundra, Noah is one VERY happy camper!


P.S. If anyone wants snow, come and get it! Oh and to top things off, our current temperature is -3! Jealous aren't you?

Brushing off the dust

It seems like it might be time to start writing here again. I am so out of touch though that I have lost the knack for picking topics to write about. As I mentioned a long while ago, I had an exceptionally busy first semester as a full-time professor....EXCEPTIONALLY busy! I have never worked that many hours per week in my life and if I never do it again, it will be too soon. Thankfully, I lived to tell about it and this coming semester (starting Jan 24th), I will be teaching the same classes again, which means no new course prepping for me! Coincidentally, for the following semester, the Fall of 2011, I will also be teaching the same classes again ALL ONLINE, hello working from home in my pajamas! Normally this sort of thing is reserved for more senior professors who are too lazy to come to campus, or those who have lots of grant money that allow them to avoid campus. I will have an equally good excuse, but of a very different nature! I will have a tiny newborn needing time to bond with Mommy at home! Yep, Tim and I were finally able to find a space in life to continue working on the family and are expecting a new little family member some where around July 21st. We are obviously beyond the moon excited, especially with the suburb timing of a summer arrival for the baby, which means I don't have to have an unpaid semester of absence, which is really more maternity leave than I would have wanted.

At this point, I am 13 weeks along and things seem to be going swimmingly, just as last time. I've had all of the necessary blood work and aside from failing my Vitamin D level test in an abysmal fashion (hello 17 of the normal 35!), but with some additional supplements until the snow stops falling and I can get some sunshine, I am right on track with everything else! I have had an ultrasound at 8 weeks and saw a sac with a little bean in it with a heartbeat of about 170 beats per minute (right on track for that gestational age) and heard the heartbeat on the doppler at my 11 week appointment a couple weeks ago. I am scheduled for the big ultrasound and the quad screen for genetic testing in about a month or so in the middle of February.

The first trimester has been just as uncomfortable and couch-napped filled as the last time around and as I type I am still praying to the all day sickness gods to cease and desist...like NOW!! The nausea started Thanksgiving night in spectacular fashion and has been relentless ever since. At 8 weeks I was prescribed Zofran for the nausea, which mostly works but gives me in exchange unrelenting headaches, an exchange I am willing to accept for now, but with any luck the medication won't be necessary in the next week or so once I am firmly settled into the second trimester.

Noah seems genuinely excited about being a big brother now, but the initial reaction was certainly concerning. When I told him that Mommy had a baby in her belly and that he was going to be a big brother, I was met with stunned silence. When asked if he wanted a baby brother or a baby sister, he said "No." Okay, then, this is going to go well. The level of enthusiasm was lackluster at best until I started ordering some newborn cloth diapering supplies, which coincidentally came with a free Noah sized diaper. Suddenly new Noah diapers and the thought of being able to help out Mommy and teach the new baby how to play and presto, we have a converted toddler who might actually be excited about this situation! Occasionally, Noah will ask if it time for the baby to come out yet, which he states will take place by "taking apart Mommy's belly and putting it right back together!," but he also seems to understand that the baby needs to get bigger and bigger before he or she is ready to come out. It will be really interesting to see how things progress as my belly gets bigger and more in his way.

There is definitely some belly there now, and I have had to switch all of my non-yoga pants to maternity for comfort (that and those belly bands truly are annoying and never stay where they belong for me).

Hopefully, its a smooth ride, a much easier semester, and I can keep everyone a bit more in the loop about our lives. For now, I'll watch the snow fall (big surprise given the Syracuse stats for the winter) and go find a snack to try and quell the nausea.