Sunday, April 21, 2013

Just Because

A post just because how often do you see a business man in a booster seat?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Wee Babe's First Day at the Park

While I believe that 80 degree weather is completely inappropriate for the beginning of April, it only took a day of it before I was ready to get out of the house and try out Z's park legs. My house had enough of his destructive tendencies and needed a rest. So to the park we went.

We started out on the baby swing, which the child loved at first but quickly became ho hum about. After a while we explored the bark. He isn't walking yet and only had shorts on so I wasn't keen on him crawling around but he didn't seem to mind sitting and handling those little wooden chips. A couple of times I had to mediate the choices he was making to put them in his mouth, but overall he just wanted to sit and feel. After a while I started to get bored and basically forced him against his will to try out the play structure. The metal wasn't too hot so I thought he would enjoy crawling around on it, which he sort of begrudgingly did, including a not so happy first slide experience. After that, there was no more enticing him back up, so to the bark we returned. Again he was perfectly content in the bark and again, after a while, I got bored faster than he did. But we spent a solid hour at the park, it was nap time and I felt fully justified in carrying my upset child to the car and away from his beloved bark chips.

The weather has since returned to sane spring temps and I've had to work so we haven't braved park attendance again, but I have no doubt there will be more bark chips in Z's future. Just please don't tell me all the awful diseases he can contract from them. For now I do not want to know.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

21 Weeks Pregnancy Thoughts

Here I am barefoot and 21 weeks pregnant. I keep thinking I'm bigger than I was with Zachary since I started showing almost immediately with this baby girl, but thankfully for my psyche, I think I'm on schedule for my size. Whew.

I also can't believe how blessed I've been with morning sickness. Even though Bitty Girl has caused more nausea than Wee Babe, I still can't remotely complain since I basically went from zero nausea to just noticeable nausea. And since Z was able to entertain himself while I lay in bed and took naps with me, life in the Marler home remained copacetic.

I am happy pregnant woman. Especially since the light simmer of baby movements has begun. And yet, even with really easy pregnancies and the amazement of feeling life inside me, I still can't believe women do this over and over again. Does this make me a bad person? A friend of mine said something similar. That the only reason she went through 9 long months of sacrificing her body for the sake of another was that darling baby at the end. That baby was worth it all. And now that I have my Wee Babe, I can finally say that Bitty Girl will definitely be worth all of the discomfort. She is what I need to keep my mind on when I wheeze up the stairs and wake in the middle of the night to pee.

4/14/13 - I feel compelled to add that this pregnancy kicks trash in one very important way - no shots, no suppositories or other drugs (that make me crazy in more ways than one) needed to convince my body it really is pregnant. Thank heavens for that.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Our "Life" Puzzle


Seven months ago, Matthew sent me a link to a 24,000 piece puzzle and wondered if I would be interested in attempting it. And now, after many many hours, including having to redo a large portion after a devastating poor moving decision, it is complete, framed, and installed on our basement wall. As you can tell from the top picture, it nicely takes up just about the entire wall. Holy Mackerel.

We took our sweet time as we assembled the first half, but as Z got more and more mobile and more and more curious about what we were working on, including tasting some pieces, the pressure was on to finish. We worked on nothing else for two or three months just so we could complete the darned thing and get loose pieces out of the hands of our darling son. No sewing, no blogging, no anything other than necessary tasks, caring for the Wee Babe, and working on the puzzle.

I am happy with how it turned out, but I am happy to have free time again. Especially important now since I get to turn my attention to Bitty Girl's baby quilt.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Announcement Time

Can you tell from the picture, what type of baby we're getting next? This is the picture we texted out to my family to announce our news. My sweet sister-in-law came up to visit and brought up both a little girl and a little boy rattle to help celebrate whichever way the Ultrasound went. As you can tell from the picture, Z is oh so excited to welcome his little sister to the world.

As I said, my sister-in-law Natalie, and four of her children, came up to visit for a few days of their spring break and we thought it would be fun to have them be apart of the action. Zachary fell asleep on the way to the appointment so a teenage nephew and niece kindly offered to stay in the car with him while Natalie, her 8-year old son Brenner, her 15-year old daughter Caitrin, Matthew and I went in to the Dr's office.

The ultrasound ended up being a very entertaining event. After checking other important body parts, the ultrasound tech finally asked if anyone had any predictions. Brenner was the only one to pipe up with his hope - BOY! After a minute of looking around, she said she thought Brenner just might be wrong. She couldn't be super sure because of the odd angle so she would have to come back to that area. That bit of hesitation was enough to give Brenner hope that he was getting the boy cousin he wanted. But after checking again, she was now 90% sure our baby is a girl. All of us looked around with big grins on our faces, but Brenner dropped to the floor at his mother's feet in a puddle of despair. We don't feel bad for Brenner though. He is one of 18 grandsons on my side of the family and is in the middle of 13 grandsons born in a row. He has plenty of buddies with whom to play. Meanwhile, this little girl makes the 6th granddaughter. My parents are just as excited as we are, and Matthew's parents are just happy to have two grand-babies!

Let me clarify that our excitement for baby Adelae in no way detracts from our love and devotion to our baby Zachary. But 3 years ago I felt strongly that there was an Adelae on our way to our family, and now we finally get her. We feel very blessed.