Quickie

I started this post earlier in the day and then got distracted by something. Now I'm too tired to put much effort into it. I am happy to report that Lila seems to be done with the fever this time around. Now I'm going to go snuggle with kitties.

Filling in the Middle

Now we've settled on a middle name, so The Boy has officially become Eli Sebastian Peeler. And no, Eli is not short for anything.

I'm 28 weeks pregnant, which puts me officially in my third trimester. I had another appointment with the doctor yesterday and will now be going in every two weeks. By this week, Eli weighs 2.25 pounds, which is about the same as a Chinese cabbage. Of course, my uterus is consistently measuring two weeks bigger than normal, so he could weigh more than that! He also measures 14.8 inches from the top of his head to his heels. (where do they come up with these measurements? 14.8? why not 14.773?)

Lila, sadly, has another fever. This one has been going since Friday or Saturday. We didn't take her temperature and discover that she was actually sick until Saturday afternoon, but upon reflection, I think she was probably sick on Friday afternoon as well. We went to the doctor today, where, I am happy to say, they did NOT take any blood or give her a catheter. They did send me home with a sterile cup and a lab slip though. Now I have to convince her to pee in the potty this evening.

Only missing the middle now

I'm pleased to announce that, as of this morning, our baby actually has a first name! The middle name is still open for debate, but he will be Eli _________ Peeler. At last! I can stop referring to him as The Boy! (Though I have grown rather fond of that nickname.) I was beginning to think we would still be debating names in the delivery room!

I'm also beginning to think that I'm going to be retired before I can finish typing out this post. My desk is right next to my bed and Lila has recently taken to getting up on the bed and chattering/making constant requests while I'm trying to do anything on the computer. If only she could understand that I would be done in half the time if she weren't distracting me...

She has also just made the discovery that there's no one to stop her from disobeying when she's alone in a room. This week has been filled with things like drawing on her arms, scooping food onto the table, writing with pens on inappropriate surfaces, pulling books off of shelves, and generally playing with things that she knows she is not supposed to touch. I've been trying to teach her that she needs to make good choices even when no one is around. And to myself I say, "Yeah. Good luck with that."

Fizzing Whizbees

As of Saturday, I'm 27 weeks pregnant. Only 84 days to go! The Boy is really starting to get big. That means I'm really starting to feel pregnant. He weighs almost two pounds - that's about the size of a head of cauliflower - and he's about 14.5 inches with his legs extended. Unless he's larger or smaller, which is always possible. He supposedly sleeps and wakes at regular intervals now.

So, I was in the bathroom this morning, fixing my hair, and the house was relatively quiet. As I stood there, I became aware of a little fizzing noise. I started tracking it down and had settled on Doug's toothbrush when the noise stopped. I found it slightly alarming that Doug's toothbrush was making spontaneous fizzing noises, but what can you do?!?

Well, thankfully, I found out this afternoon that I was wrong about the source. After my shower, I was in much the same situation and heard the noise again. This time it lasted long enough for me to track it down and verify the source. It was coming from the battery pack that was hanging out of a rooster-shaped paper lantern on the counter. Still slightly alarming, but at least the toothbrush isn't possessed!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, this is crazy... Doug is not going on his business trip after all! For weeks, I've been stressing out about it and then, three days before he's supposed to leave, somebody at Dell decides that they need to save money. They paged him yesterday morning to tell him that he can't go after all. I'm relieved, of course, but it's a bit of a mental shift because I'd been preparing myself for his absence for so long!

On a completely different topic, Lila has started having "bad dreams". And boy are they strange. The first one (that we know about) involved a bad noise, apples, and flying. The girl talked about apples for days afterward because we have a few apple trees in our backyard and this dream reminded her that they'll start putting out fruit soon. She is beside herself with excitment over that one.

Then, a couple of nights ago, she comes into our room in the early morning saying, "I don't like the monkey bite me." Umm... what? It took a few times to understand her because, (a) we were half-asleep, (b) she had a pacifier in her mouth, and (c) what she was saying made no sense. We finally determined that it was another dream, this one involving a girl monkey who was laughing and biting her.

This morning, it was something about a dinosaur biting her, a dog and a kitty, and her hands being dirty. This should prove to be an entertaining phase...

Stretchy Pants

The Boy now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches. That measurement, from head to heel, is about the length of an English hothouse cucumber. That is different than your average cucumber, which is shorter. His weight will more than triple between now and birth as he rapidly puts on baby fat. I'm curious to find out whether he'll be on the small end of average, like his sister, or ginormous, like his father was at birth.

He's slightly perturbed with me today because I'm wearing maternity jeans with a thick elastic band around the waist. It's not all that tight, but apparently it's tight enough for him to feel it. He keeps squirming and kicking at it. I seem to remember Lila doing the same thing when I wore some shorts with a similar waist band. Sorry, son, but occasionally I've got to wear something besides Stretchy Pants.

Lila just woke up from her nap and she's knocking on the inside of her bedroom door. This is something she's started doing recently and I don't get it. She just feels the need to knock sometimes. If you ignore her, she'll come out on her own. It is fun to go and knock back to see what happens though. She'll either keep knocking and you can play a little game or she'll open the door to see who's there.

the new 'hood

I don't know what song this is or where she learned it, but Lila is walking around, singing, "Shake it to the left. Shake it to the right." Hmm...

This is completely unrelated, but I just realized that we have not had a party at our new house! We've had some leadership meetings and had people over to hang out, but no real parties. Clearly, this must be remedied. Now I have to think of a reason to have a party. Think. Think. Think. I've got it! We'll have a Daylight Savings Time party! [you think i'm kidding...]

I'm trying to get a neighborhood Bible study set up here in our new 'hood too. There is a neighborhood Yahoo group and I've put out a couple of calls for other moms who'd be interested. I've only heard from one other mom who's both interested and available, but I've gotten a couple of replies that are like, "I'm not a mom, but..." So I'm thinking of expanding it to an evening group open to all women.

For someone who's introverted and likes to spend time alone, I sure do put a lot of effort into trying to get extra people into my house. Interesting.

NEVER refer to a pregnant woman as 'fat'.

You know, I'm pregnant. Every day, all the time. But sometimes I really feel pregnant. Today's not so bad, but last night I felt like a tick. Seriously! And I'm nowhere near done with the growing yet! You know that look that pregnant women get toward the end of their pregnancy? In those last few weeks they start to just ooze weariness and they wear a look that says, "I am so done with this."

I'm convinced that that feeling is all part of God's plan. Labor and delivery and having a newborn are highly stressful and frightening things. But by the time the baby is ready to be born, you don't care anymore. You are so ready to get that kid out of your body that you'd be willing to go through anything! You may question why God is trying to kill you with this thing that people keep referring to as a Miracle, but you aren't worrying (too much) about what you can't control!

Do me a favor and DON'T remind me of this fantastic bit of insight when I start to have That Look. It's really something that can only be appreciated in retrospect.

Please don't meet the Spartans.

So, Friday was my Monthly Mystery Movie Night. Same old thing - I went to the theater, got a ticket to the latest show (before 11 p.m.), and went into it with no idea what to expect. This month was a total bust. The movie, which I had never even heard of, was 'Meet the Spartans'. It was a spoof of '300' and it was just... stupid. And not in a funny way.

I sometimes appreciate stupid humor. I saw 'Balls of Fury' and thought it was hilarious! Extremely juvenile, but hilarious. I got so disgusted with this movie that I left after less than half an hour. I wanted to leave after five minutes, but I made myself stick around to see if it got any better. I did pay $8.75 to see it, after all. Ugh! I had much more fun watching 'Groundhog Day' with Doug on Saturday!

On a more pleasant note, The Boy is up to about 13.5 inches now, head to heel. He was using some of those inches to try and push his way out through my side yesterday, but it didn't work. He weighs a pound and a half. So much bigger than the speck he started out as, but still so bitty! If you'd like a food to compare his weight to this week, try a rutabaga. A long, lean rutabaga. Or a baby.