A Swift Kick in the Gut

I've certainly been feeling a lot of those lately, and in the same spot, which let me tell you is getting quite uncomfortable. I think the poor little guy has run out of room and is preparing his exit strategy. In fact, we had a bit of a scare last weekend when we really thought he was coming. Contractions were 7 minutes apart for over an hour and there we sat looking at "his room" which resembled a storage shed more than a nursery... Yikes!

No joke, it looked like this:


Nothing like a swift kick to jump start you, huh?... Don't get me wrong. I've been feeling pretty anxious for a while about the lack of progress on his room. It's just that with everything going on with me being, well, completely useless other than as a gestating machine, it's been hard for Robb to find the time to get it done. I completely understood, but that didn't keep me from freaking out none-the-less. Only now we were BOTH freaking out because the reality really set in that this baby CAN come anytime now, so no more dilly-dallying.

And so in a day, his room went from this:


to this!:

HUGE difference!... I couldn't believe how much he did in just one day! We still have stuff to do in there, but it's all relatively small decorating stuff to do, like finish the mural, put up the new blinds, put the new futon cover on (purple just wont do anymore), put the little monkey rug down, etc... Nothing that will prevent him from USING the room like not having a crib would have, ya know?... I'll be sure to post more pics of the nursury once it's completely done! :)

... And based on my last check up (yesterday) it sounds like it's a good thing we got moving!... We've already dilated to 1 CM and the doc thinks we're likely to blow in the next week or two (if that long!)... Wholly crap! We're still not due for another month!... But I'm incredibly grateful we've made it this far considering we didn't know if he'd make it al all...

Hard to believe we'll be meeting him soon. I can hardly wait!

Food Issues

I am having some serious food issues today... Being nearly 9 months pregnant now, I am ALL about the food these days. Thoughts of it probably occupy a good 75% of my waking hours and at least 40% of my non-waking hours... It's also become quite obvious that my son is all about the food too. He practically does barrel rolls every time I eat, which let me tell you, as he gets bigger is getting quite painful, so stop that, you hear?!

It also seems like, today especially, what I want to eat I don't have and what I do have, I don't want to eat.... It's getting quite frustrating, damn it. Especially living here in the midwest when I'm used to living in NY and having whatever I want delivered in 20 minutes or less just by picking up the phone. Ice cream sundae at 2am, not a problem... Waffles with scrambled eggs and bacon at 8pm, not a problem. Can't get it delivered (ha!) or don't want to wait, I could throw a rock and hit a store that probably had what I wanted.... Ugggh, I miss that!!

I just finished lunch and have to say it was quite unsatisfying... during my first trimester, when I was lucky to keep ANYTHING down, I practically lived on this microwaveable Thai Ginger soup. That was about the only thing I could eat... Then suddenly, one day the thought of it alone was enough to make me toss it... Apparently one got left in my office and I thought I'd give it a go since it's been months..... Not so much. Let's just say when you're craving scrambled eggs and cheese with bacon on a kaiser... microwavable Thai Ginger soup is not a good substitute.

We are going to get Pizza 51 for dinner tonight, which has me all giddy... I've been craving it a lot lately and it's the closest thing to NY style pizza I've been able to find out here (you hear that Da Bronx?!)... but damn it, I want bacon and I want it now.

Clearly We Have Failed as Parents

Like most toddlers I suspect, Zoe has been having a BLAST playing with the ornaments on our Christmas tree. Needless to say (although I'm obviously saying it) we've made sure to put the most 'child friendly' ornaments near the bottom for her to play with. Although her reach clearly exceeds what we were willing to believe and some of the "indestructible" ones aren't nearly as indestructible as one may think... So let's just say there have been some casualties and I see a lot of gluing in Robb's future.

Now, Robb being the Simpsons fan he is, he's acquired a couple of Homer Simpson ornaments over the years and we designated them as "Zoe friendly"... Cause let's face it, every parent looks forward to the moment when they yell out to their child, "Zoe, stop eating Homer!"

Now behold exhibit A, the Homer Simpson ornament in question...


Being the dutiful parents we like to think we are, we of course refer to the ornament as "Homer" since that is, in fact, who it is a representation of... and being the dutiful toddler learning to speak, Zoe refers to him as such. In fact, she's somewhat obsessed with Homer. Perhaps because of the bright colors, or the incredibly annoying sound file it plays when she hits the button, I don't know... but she adores it none-the-less...

So here is where I believe we have failed as parents (no, oddly enough the failure does not begin with us introducing our 2 year old to Homer Simpson)... Let me set the scene... It's Christmas day. Family is gathered around the child to adore her (of course) and fawn over her every move. My mother is engaging her in a game of "name that picture", which Zoe proudly does as she shouts out every answer in her Klingonesque way... and then it happens. My mother holds up a picture of Santa Claus and says "Zoe, who is that?" to which my daughter proudly exclaims... "Homer!"... The room of course errupts in laughter and all I can think is, "ooops".... Clearly we have failed ;)

Christmas 'Ham'

Our Christmas tradition for many years now has involved the obligatory Christmas ham with usual trimmings... yams, wild rice with dried cranberries, brussel sprouts in a hollandaise sauce, etc... Festive, yummy and relatively simple to prepare (which is one of the things I like best about it, besides the yumminess of course). However, thanks to our darling daughter, there is apparently a new Christmas 'ham' in town... Weighing in at about 28 lbs and 36" no less. Yes, our sweet little girl has proven to be quite the stage ham!

Last week was Zoe's very first Christmas pageant!... I was thrilled at the thought of silly school productions starting already!... After all, she is only two. Now, considering she (and her classmates) are only two, there wasn't a whole lot for them to do other than stand there and look cute, or in many cases, bewildered, scared, hysterical, you know, usual two year old stuff... except of course for our little ham. I think (lord help us) she was born to be on stage!... Her face lit up when she saw all the people there to watch 'her', cause lord knows they were all there to see 'her' and not their own kids, right?... suuuuuuure.

We've never seen anything like it. OK, well, being her first show, we really haven't seen anything like it... but still, it was a riot. There she was all bouncy and happy... gigglefest '09, that's for sure!... She danced and clapped and laughed.. She was, well... a ham... the cutest little ham I ever did see :)

But don't take my word for it.... See for yourself : (Note: Due to compression, it's hard to tell who is who. She's the one in the white top and red Santa hat)

From Videos

And the winner is...

Turns out it's a good thing they let me come home because some of my ideas would definitely not have worked in that room! For the moment, the nursery is actually my room since I'm not allowed to do stairs... which means I've been spending A LOT of time looking at those walls.

It's a decidedly smaller room than Zoe's and as much as I LOVE the idea of the green and chocolate color combo, those colors will be WAAAAAY to overpowering all over the walls. It will make the room feel even smaller and that's not what we want. Yet I still really want to use those colors and keep my jungle theme.... sooooooooo...

Behold, the winning design solution:


It's perfect, I get my colors, my mural and I won't turn my son's room into a tiny cube that will leave us all feeling claustrophobic. We're not going to paint the main walls white like they are in the sample pics, we're going to leave them the 'Haze' color they are now, which personally, I think will work better. We're also going to do different curtains and stick with the wooden blinds, which I think will look awesome. I LOVE the rug in the sample room and I actually found it, but damn, it's expensive!... Ouch!... Still trying to wrap my head around that decision.

I can hardly wait to get started :)