We really do have the cutest boy ever.



Parker's first night in his big-boy bed

Well, technically, it's only half of his big-boy bed, the mattress was delivered Thursday afternoon, so this is just the box spring & his crib mattress.

Good thing we just spent several hundred dollars on a new mattress, kiddo.

This is where I found him Thursday morning (surrounded by books & blankets):

But, I will say, that since then, he has done an amazing job of falling asleep right on the bed, pretty much where we left him.  I was pretty nervous about suddenly giving him free reign in his bedroom at night, but so far we have yet to find him asleep face-down in his toy box.

Gardening

After "helping" me plant my flowers on Saturday, Parker is obsessed with the garden.

I gave him a little shovel & bucket & he played all afternoon moving dirt from an empty planter into his bucket & then dumping it out.  It did require a little vigilance on my part to make sure that he didn't up-root (or step on) all my newly planted flowers, but he was having a great time.

Memorial Day Weekend

I'm starting to realize that my plans for Memorial Day Weekend tend to be a little over-ambitious.  But, for this year, my plan was that in the morning: Parker & I would go run some errands while Keith painted the nursery.  In the afternoon, Parker would nap while I went to Home Depot to buy some plants & then get them in the ground before he woke up.  At which time, Keith would be done painting so I could spend the early evening doing the decorative painting in the nursery.

Seems reasonable, right?  Except that Parker napped for just over an hour, messing the whole thing up.  Which is how we ended up with a little guy looking like this:

For a while, Parker was content to help me plant my flowers on the back deck, but quickly he got bored with that & wanted to go in the front yard.  I left him alone in the front for less than five minutes, and then came to find him running around the front yard with a (wet) can of paint from the nursery.

You should have seen what he looked like before I took his shirt off!

But, he did help me plant a few of my flowers in the front yard.  Mostly by moving them from one location to another.

But, we did manage to get the nursery painted, and most of my flowers in the ground, so I guess it was a pretty successful day, even though the painting took two days to finish.  I'll post photos of the nursery, if I ever get around to taking them.  I spent all afternoon on Sunday doing a decorative "wallpaper" stencil across one wall.  I did it in a subtle tone-on-tone with matte and gloss paint.  Unfortunately, subtle seems to be a fancy word for invisible.  After hours of frustration & work, you can barely see it.

Monday afternoon, we went to my friend Jaime's house for a BBQ with our MOPS table.

Parker loved the bikes and their water table (yet another toy that he'd have if he had cooler parents).

21 Months!

Believe it or not, our little guy is 21 months today!  He's getting so big & so smart, it's amazing.

I'm not sure if it's because he's glad to have us home or what, but Parker has been a non-stop chatterbox since we got home from vacation.  Although we occasionally can pick out a word (Mama, Daddy, Doggie, etc.), it's mostly gibberish, but very emphatic gibberish none the less.

Parker's starting to get excited about baby sister's arrival.  Occasionally, you can actually get him to answer "baby" when you ask "what's in Mama's belly?"  He's taken to patting my belly, and the other day he gave my belly a kiss.  It was SO sweet, at least until he then started kissing Daddy's belly, and then ran over and started kissing the wall.

Parker is a super-duper helper, he loves to help set the table, and every evening he helps Daddy put his lunch box away.  This means that every morning, Keith has to go on a hunt for his lunch box, but it's still pretty sweet.  Yesterday, Parker pulled all the dirty laundry out of the hamper and put it in a laundry basket, he then pushed the laundry basket out into the living room so I could take it downstairs.  If only he would stay this helpful into his teenage years.

The other day, Parker discovered how to drink out of the bathroom faucet.  He was washing his hands, and next thing you know, he was drinking.  This will require more constant vigilance to make sure he doesn't drown, but he was pretty proud of himself.

After months of practice, Parker has learned how to buckle the seat belt on his high chair.  He doesn't always get it right, but he's pretty proud when it goes in.

Parker's current obsessions are: Bikes, Balls, and Bubbles, pretty much in that order.  Every time we go into the garage, he screams "bike, bike, bike!" begging to go for a ride.  Daddy took him for a long ride this afternoon, he had an awesome time.  When we go for a walk, he points out every bike we see, as well as all balls & basketball hoops, this boy honestly has quite the one-track mind.

29 Weeks

One of my resolutions with this baby was to try harder at getting "belly shots" to document how big my belly was getting.  I think that with Parker I have all of two pictures, from 32 and 38 weeks or so.  Fortunately, I now have a tripod, so I can take the photos myself without bothering Keith (not that he's unwilling, but he's got better things to do with his time).

So, here's a progression of where we've come so far, not to mention documentation of how quickly my hair grows (I got it cut two days before I found out I was pregnant):

                               4 weeks                                                               9 weeks

                                       10 weeks:                                                 13 weeks:   

                                       14 weeks:                                                     16 weeks:

18 weeks:                                                           20 weeks:

22 weeks:                                                           24 weeks:

25 weeks:                                                           27 weeks:

29 weeks:

I know that I'm getting pretty big, but I actually think I feel smaller than I look.  I remember being really giant and uncomfortable at this point with Parker, and except for the sleeping, I'm still fairly comfortable at the moment.  Although I do have moments where I feel like our little girl has a death-grip on my lungs, but walking is still fairly easy.  This could have something to do with it being the 2nd kid, Parker isn't really okay with me sitting around all day with my feet up.

I wish I was one of those Moms who keeps a journal for each of her babies as she's pregnant, documenting her thoughts & emotions as she's preparing for baby's arrival.  But I'm not.  Let me assure you, if something isn't on this blog, it isn't documented anywhere else either.  So, let me get a little blog-y for a moment (you don't actually have to read it).

Finally, after months and months of nausea, my "morning" sickness has gone away.  It started to taper off around 22 weeks and was completely gone around 24 weeks.  In the past few weeks I've started to get my energy back enough that I feel like I can be moderately productive during Parker's nap time, evenings still tend to be a loss though.  Baby girl is starting to get much more active, I still don't feel like she moves around as much as Parker did, but she at least moves enough that I don't ever get nervous.  As focused as I've been on the misery of this pregnancy for the past six months, it's kind of crazy to believe that we'll have a baby girl in the house in the next 8-12 weeks.

I started working on my birth plan this week.  When Parker was born, my birth plan went out the window in the first five minutes, and we still had what I consider a "favorable" birth experience (although I could have done without the four hours of pushing).  So, I'm not holding too firmly this time, but I do have a better idea of what I want, so we'll see how it goes.

I went to the Dr this week, baby's heartbeat is strong and everything is going well.  Although, I did get the (expected) lecture on my weight gain, so this week I'm journaling everything I eat.  Having spent my entire life watching every little bite that I eat, I wish I could go through this period in my life without worrying about the scale.  I totally understand that less weight gain = easier delivery (in theory), but I do get tired of spending so much time thinking about the scale.

This weekend we're getting baby girl's room all ready.  I'm looking forward to having it done.  It will be nice to have a place to store everything I've been making/buying, but I also think that it will help make this feel a little more real.

My biggest fears at the moment are:

1. What I do with Parker when I go into labor/how I get to the hospital.  Parker's delivery was so unusual (driving myself to the hospital, no pain until well into active labor), I'm a little nervous about how this one will go.  I'm hoping for a more  "normal" delivery with gradual labor pains, slowly progressing, which would give us time to get Keith home from work and someone to come take care of Parker.  But, I'm really concerned that if it goes similar to last time and I don't already happen to be at the hospital when the pain starts, things could go really quickly and I'm stuck at home by myself with a 2-year old.  I've put Keith in-charge of worrying about this part, but so far he's been pretty busy and I haven't been all that great about letting go, so my mind's not quite settled.

2. Nursing - I'm REALLY REALLY hoping that everything goes smoothly in this department this time.  I really can't imagine going through the 2-person feedings and pumping every two hours (day & night) with Parker running around.  So, here's hoping that my body does it's job and perhaps a slightly more patient baby this time.

Okay, that's about as close as I get to journaling.  I'm (We're) starting to get really excited about this little girl and ready for her arrival to complete our little family.

Helping Mama Cook

Parker helped me make coleslaw to go with our pulled-pork sandwiches.

Mostly, that meant that he ate coleslaw.

Notice how he's adding the fresh-ground pepper?  No question, he's his Daddy's boy.

Finger Painting

Our third attempt at finger painting has finally been successful.  I covered the entire kitchen counter in wrapping paper & let Parker go crazy.

He had a great time...at least until he wanted to start painting the cupboards, at which time he wasn't so happy with Mama.  It took him 10 minutes in the bathtub to calm down enough to remember that he actually likes baths now.

But, except for the rather traumatic ending, he had fun smearing paint all-over the paper.  Next time, I might give him a matchbox car to drive through the paint, I think he'd have fun making tire tracks.

Today's Project ~ Changing table covers

I am finally starting to feel well enough that I can start on all my sewing projects for baby girl.  I have an extremely long list of things I'd like to do before she gets here, and I'm starting to think that it's not all going to happen.

Especially if every project goes as well as today's.

These are the 3rd & 4th changing pad covers I've made, so I thought that it would be a quick & easy project.  I already have the pattern created, how hard could it be, right?  Well, turns out it was a NIGHTMARE!  By the end, I was so tired & frustrated, my sewing skills totally went to pot & my only goal was to finish.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, but I do know that the first one I made ended up being FOUR inches too long!  Seriously, I've made these before, how is that even possible?!?  I'm not really sure, but I still haven't fixed it yet.

In addition, I'm using a different fabric for the fuzzy part; for Parker's cover, I used the minky dot fabric, which is kind of fuzzy & slippery, but not too bad.  For this one, I used the "ultra cuddle" fabric; well it's cuddly (it's what I used for Parker's blankies), but it's a little like cutting & sewing jello.

When we selected the "bike" theme for Parker's room, I quickly learned that it was an impossible theme and I would never find anything (fabric or otherwise) to fill the room.  I thought that with a light purple & grey theme, things would be easier.  As you can see from the dark purple & black changing pad, not so much.  That was the closest color I could find, and also why I ended up spending hours sewing jello today.

I have enough fabric to make one more cover, I might eventually get around to sewing it, but I can tell you this, if little girl needs another cover after that, she's getting it from Babies-r-us.

Today's Project ~ Homemade dishwasher soap

We ran out of dishwasher detergent this week.  I saw a "recipe" on pinterest a while ago, so I thought I'd try it out.

I actually had all the ingredients on-hand, mostly left-over from a soap-making attempt that Dianne & I did over 10 years ago.  (Yes, Dianne, it really was 10 years ago, I was still in my apartment in Ballard at the time)

So far, so good, it seems to be working okay.  Of course, our dishwasher has been a thorn in our side from the moment we bought the house, so if the soap didn't work, I'm sure we'd just blame the dishwasher.  Although we love the granite countertops in our kitchen, the rest of the high-end upgraded appliances in our kitchen have so far proven to be a total waste of the previous owner's money.  I'm just waiting on the refrigerator to go-kaput and we'll have hit them all.

Sorry, I digress.  At least the dishwasher detergent works.