Summatime!

 I got this adorable muscle shirt from my friend, Emily, who bought it while she was working as an English teacher in Honduras. It was a gift at my baby shower and now it finally fits Johnny, who fills it out quite nicely with his big muscles... and big smile.

P.S. How adorable is his little farmer's tan?

The impossibility of my pregnancy diet

 When you grow a human there are all kinds of things that you should be eating to help this human to grow and to keep you (the host) healthy. I'm finding that all of these "regulations" on my diet are impossible to meet every day because there are so many! See below:

1. Okay, as a pregnant woman in my 3rd trimester, I am supposed to be taking in at least 2600 calories a day. Which doesn't seem like a ridiculous amount of calories, but having an active toddler to look after and feed makes it difficult for me to feed myself that many calories in one day... that come from nutritious foods.

2. I should be consuming 2 eggs a day, which seems pretty easy, but unfortunately I can't handle the smell of cooking eggs. One of those pregnancy things. The only way I've been meeting this regulation is by making a bunch of deviled eggs and eating them throughout the week for breakfast. If I run out and don't get a chance to make more... well, I try to get a breakfast burrito or something but I just can't physically choke down scrambled eggs.

3. I am also supposed to be taking in 80 - 100 grams of protein a day. Granted, a lot of the things I like have protein, but they also require some preparation... which requires time which happens to be in short supply.

4. My midwife said that I'm slightly low on iron and need to up my iron intake, so I take an iron supplement in the morning and in the evening. She also told me to eat more iron-rich foods and to pair them with foods rich in vitamin C... not an easy thing to accomplish, actually. I do make a smoothie in the afternoon that contains oranges and spinach (among other things), I get in the occasional cup of nettle tea, and we've been trying to eat steak twice a week, which all sound great, right? Unfortunately, I have difficulty doing them every day, mostly because of regulation #5.

5. To make sure I'm providing enough calcium for my skeleton and my baby's, I have to drink at least three glasses of milk. Normally, this would be easy because I can drink milk like water, but guess what? Calcium inhibits iron absorption. So all of that iron I'm supposed to be having can't be consumed around the same time as my milk drinking.

Basically, it's impossible for me to make sure that I'm eating/drinking everything I should be to provide the best nutrition for myself and my baby (and to keep from risking out of birthing at my birth center). But I am trying! I get points for that, right?

For the weekend

This past weekend John's parents took Johnny from Saturday morning to Sunday evening to give John and me a chance to get Johnny's room ready and wrap up some small house projects. The plan was to move Johnny from the nursery into his own room, which used to be our office. However, the preparation of his room required an awful lot of work; work that I couldn't do by myself with Johnny around and John couldn't do by himself since I needed to help make decisions. Therefore, John and Gail volunteered to take Johnny for 36 hours to give us the time to finish up Johnny's new room. So, that's what we did!

It's not totally finished yet, which is why I haven't posted any pictures, but we went with a construction theme and he still is in a crib. He's just not ready for a "big boy" bed yet. The advice I've gotten is to stick with a crib as long as possible and don't move him until he's ready... so that's what I'm planning on doing.

Being without Johnny for a whole weekend was really strange for me. It was the first time he had spent the night away from me... in fact the longest I've been away from him is about six hours. I did manage to keep myself from going over to see him until Sunday afternoon, but it was a struggle. I felt so lost without my little man to dote on and feed and talk to; I felt especially strange on Sunday morning when I woke up on my own around 6:45am and didn't see his sweet little face first thing. At the same time, it was great to have a break. I managed to get some projects finished that had been nagging at me for months and his room is finally finished and ready to go, a huge weight off of my shoulders! Being a mom is so strange because on Friday night I was longing for a break, but the second he left on Saturday I really missed him. I suppose that will never really change.

I'll post pictures as soon as the room is done, promise! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post in the meantime since Johnny was gone all weekend. Perhaps tomorrow...

When seemingly good ideas go bad

Remember when I said that Johnny was practicing using a spoon and was doing pretty well? Well, yeah. This would be the aftermath.

That's yogurt, by the way... just in case it wasn't obvious.

Using a spoon

I've been working on getting Johnny to use eating utensils... well, actually, only the fork. He's done pretty well with the fork, but the spoon scares me because it can be such a perfect catapult. I'm not a fan of wet messes, thus I have put off introducing the spoon. Selfish? Definitely. Do I care? Not particularly.

Anyway, I have been working with him on the spoon for a few days and this is what we have achieved:


Pretty sure you're not supposed to put the spoon in your mouth upside-down, but hey, we're still working on it.

I'm on ur computer, checking ur emailz.

I don't let Johnny play with my computer, but John is much braver than I am... so thank my husband for the photos.

Look at my teeth!

Johnny's molars have been growing in for the last few weeks and now they are actually close to functional! I tried hard to get a good shot of the inside of his mouth, but he wasn't happy about me forcing his mouth open... so this is the best I got.

Swimming... kind of

Johnny has a bit of an obsession with our pool. He loves going outside and dipping his hands in the water, trying to get his feet in it and scaring the crap out of me when he tries to dunk his leg and practically falls in. So, we tried doing the swim thing since our weekend was GLORIOUS and it kind of worked out. Well, not really. He ended up just walking around the pool and touching the water every now and then.

We tried putting him in the water and it ended in disaster... hence no pictures of the screaming child.

First beach day of the season

My friend, Carly, and I took our kids to the beach last week for a nice walk on the boardwalk and then some play time in the sand. Carly's little girl is almost three months old so she slept most of the time while Johnny did some sleeping on the walk and then proceeded to explore the beach. He really enjoyed walking yards away from our site on the beach and not looking back... which means I had to chase him down over the sand... quite difficult when you're seven months pregnant.

Anyway, the first couple of steps he took on the sand ended in a face-plant right into the sand... which was adorable and pretty painful for him since he kept rubbing sand into his eyes. He still enjoyed the beach experience though.

Flava Flav probably did this as a child.

This is a little old, but I uncovered it and felt I should share.

Food as toys

Lately, Johnny has needed a lot of attention and has wanted me to hold him for most of the late afternoon. This really makes getting dinner ready difficult [insert know-it-all reader comment here: "Wait until you have TWO babies!" I know, I've used this before, but I've been getting that comment a lot lately.]. Of course, while he's being so needy his usual toys can't hold his interest. So, I have to improvise to distract Johnny from my legs for a few minutes while I get dinner ready. You've already seen the spray bottle and the apple below worked well, too.

The problem with food as toys, however, is it often generates a lot of work for later. See, every time Johnny took a bite of the apple, instead of swallowing it, as most children or adults would do, he would spit that piece out.

Blech, apples.

Notice the apple pieces stuck in the collar of his shirt.

Apple bits strewn about the floor where they were stepped on and tracked through the kitchen.

Messy? Yes. Effective time filler? Yes. Worth the ordeal of picking up the pieces and mopping the floor? Perhaps, depending on how desperate I am to finish the task at hand.

From my perspective

This is what I see when I look down. And yes, those are boobs, but I was smart enough to throw on a bra before taking the picture. I keep getting comments about how small my belly is and how I don't look 7 months pregnant, but really, I think I look every week of it from this perspective. There are feet down there somewhere. And I am actually wearing pants, but you wouldn't know it from looking would you? People keep asking me if I feel like I'm carrying differently from the last time around and I don't feel like I am. The only difference is in the belly button. See that little bump on top of the mountain? I'm pretty sure I didn't have a popped out belly button last time... or if I did it wasn't until way later. Otherwise, everything seems pretty much the same, to which everyone replies: "Oh! Then you're having a boy!" I guess we'll see in two months...

16 months

I'm 16 months old today!

Well, I see that I haven't posted about my monthly birthday since I was 10 months old. I crack that up to my mom not letting me around her laptop for fear I'll break it in half; a valid fear, yes, but I can be civil with the correct bribe. Like chocolate chips.

I am totally and completely mobile and rarely enjoy crawling; even if there's a cool tunnel I'm dying to check out, I'll skip it if it means I have to be on my hands and knees. I'm not quite running yet, but I have mastered the art of walking quickly. I'll be in my room, waiting for my mom to grab a diaper and then BAM! I'm in the play room, threatening to pee on the sofa. I still enjoy the occasional book, but I'm starting to dislike staying one place for too long, depending on the time of day. Right now I like books about animals, especially this one about cats that has moving parts. I'm not a big fan of organized activities that places like Gymboree are into, but I like exploring places like that. I have no problem leaving Mommy behind to check out something that has caught my eye. So far I haven't managed to lose her, but I suspect as I get faster and she gets bigger (she's been gaining a lot of weight lately... especially in her belly... weird) I might have a better chance.

Chocolate fu manchu

I've been pretty good about sweets throughout my pregnancy in that I only indulge a little bit after dinner. I'm like that normally, so I haven't been using that "eating for two" excuse, which is good. Every now and then, though, I get this overwhelming craving in the afternoon for a little chocolate and I usually don't keep much on hand. Except in the form of chocolate chips because, as my sister-in-law Leslie said in her blog, you should always have all the ingredients necessary for chocolate chip cookies just in case. And I take her advice very seriously.

Anyway, so I was nomming on some chocolate chips and Johnny decides that he wants some too. Normally he isn't interested in what I'm eating, but this day he was. So I gave him one. And then another. And then another. And then a few more... until he developed this cute little mustache:

Well, it's not so much a mustache-shape as a chocolate-dribbling-out-of-the-mouth shape, but I'm not picky about what qualifies as a mustache.

Chicks dig the 'stache, Mom.

This face

melts my heart and makes me laugh hysterically at the same time. I got him this used Fisher Price kitchen set from a mom I know and it has a little "radio" that plays three or four different songs. There's a spicy Latin beat that I will always shake my shoulders to so I can make him laugh, so he will skip all of the other songs and go directly to the Latin beat to watch me dance. It's nice that my kid thinks I'm funny... even if the neighbors think I'm strange.

So I lied

We're not back in action. Our Internet has been on and off for the last week or so, hence the lack of blog posts. Sometimes we'll have access for a few hours and sometimes for only a few minutes. Supposedly it's been fixed, but I don't think I'm the only one lying... anyway.

On to the reason you visit: Johnny. And this video is of him spraying himself in the face with water from a spray bottle.

I was making dinner and needed about ten minutes to get things finished up, so I handed him the spray bottle, an item he had coveted from afar and had never been allowed to touch. As you can see, the results were awesome.

Well, I guess you can't see all of the droplets of water that have formed on his face, but whatever. It's an excellent picture to show off how good his hair looks since I fixed it. No more chop-cut for this guy!

Back in action

Sorry everyone! Our Internet has been on the fritz lately and thus, I have been unable to access the blog for enough time to write a quick update.

The biggest news is that we finally met my nephew, Jack! John, Johnny and I went up to Los Angeles last weekend and stayed with Leslie and Sim and hung out with Lisa, John and Jack. The reports all proved true: he's adorable. Johnny was not particularly interested in Jack, though I expect that will change as Jack gets older... or maybe Johnny will remain as independent and anti-social toward other children as he is now. It remains to be seen. Anyway! Cute pictures were taken and will now be shared:

Listening skillz

Johnny's listening and comprehension have increased about 20-fold from this time last month. Last month he could follow the occasional command (like "bring the book over here"), which I thought was mind boggling. Whoa! A child that can understand what I'm saying?! Awesome!
Now, he can follow complex directions and I'm pretty sure he understands everything that comes out of my mouth. Today he picked up my sunglasses and I said, "Those are sunglasses and they go over your eyes. Can you put them over your eyes? Open them and put them on like Mommy." Lo and behold, he did it. Having never done it before, he just listened to what I said and then followed my directions. We're working on putting things away and he's developed a desire to put all of his stuffed animals away, but it definitely does not apply to the things he pulls out of the kitchen drawers and leaves on the floor. If I'm adamant about him putting away a spatula, he will pull open the correct drawer, put the spatula in it and then pull something else out. So I guess he's still listening to directions, he's just being a little smart ass.

Normally I put up some kind of video or picture, but this is a little hard to document... okay, actually, we keep the camera downstairs and whenever I think to videotape Johnny following my directions, we are upstairs and I decide it's not worth it. It's a hassle to get my pregnant butt up and down the stairs these days so I just avoid it when possible. [Insert know-it-all reader comment here, like, "Just wait until you have TWO babies! Then see how easy it is to go up and down stairs."]