out of steam

Here we are at 39 weeks and 6 days, due tomorrow! Yesterday evening I hit a wall and I am just so ready to have this baby. This pregnancy has been harder here at the end than my first was for sure.  Baby Russell has been dropped low in my pelvis for a few weeks now and to a pretty extreme extent this past week.  Basically it feels like I am bruised from the inside out when I walk! I'm also having these awful stabbing pains down my legs from pressure on my sciatic nerve. I am in awe of people who have lots of kids if this is what pregnancy #2 is like!

I am hoping labor starts soon and we get to meet baby Russell sometime before October! This momma is gonna have to start driving one of those automatic chairs around wal mart pretty soon.

mind games

What a long night! Last night around 10 I watched project runway on our DVR and goofed around on the iPad. I was a little worried our A/C had gone out again because I felt really hot and uncomfortable! Then realized it was kind of coming in waves with some Braxton hicks. (checked thermostat and it was fine :)).  After an hour and a half or so I decided to follow some tips I have been given by my midwife to calm the bh contractions so I could get some sleep.  I drank some water and took a warm bath, then read for a little while in bed, laying on my left side.  Contractions stayed basically the same through all this instead of fading.  Maybe every 15 or 20 mins?  Some stronger than others so I wasn't recording the times.

I think I finally fell asleep at 1:30 or so, but woke up with a few pretty strong ones at 2:00, 3:00, and 3:30. I got up at 4 thinking about all the things I need to do if "this is it".  I put a load of laundry in, folded some diapers, read over the "when to call" list from the birthing center, and now here I sit, waiting and timing.  Here's my data for now!

4:20, 4:33, 4:45, 4:54, 5:05

I found a Hugh Grant movie on tv, but I am hoping to get a little more sleep before Palmer gets up at 6:30ish.  It's exciting and also maddening to not know if this is real labor or just practice, but I guess only time will tell! 38 weeks and 6 days sounds good to me. . .but remember I went past my due date with Palmer.  I will update later, one way or the other!

change is hard

Especially for a toddler!  Palmer started Mother's Day Out last week at a church near us in McKinney.  Even though we went to Meet the Teacher the prior week and he got to see his classroom, my sad boy cried off and on the whole five hours :(  Of course I cried too!  I hate to think of him missing me all day, but know that we just have to get through this rough spot.  We took him to the same church's nursery on Sunday morning to leave him for a shorter time and although he still cried, I think it was the right thing to do.  It's been a doozy of a few days for him since he ALSO stayed in the nursery during my mom's group meeting at church in Plano Monday morning.  I'm hoping with practice he'll realize that mommy always comes back and he should play in the meantime!

The highlights of an otherwise rough day. . . Palmer loves his backpack, lunch box, and getting all dressed with shoes for school :)

cloth love entry #1- blueberry cover

Since I've become a *little* cloth diaper obsessed over the past 15 months of using them, I have decided to start featuring some of our "fluff" on the blog.  Who knows, maybe I'll rope in a few of you who hadn't considered cloth diapering before ;)

My sister-in-law Lauren was so generous to host a cloth diaper shower for me where I got some awesome new things to add to the collection for new baby Russell on the way!  This is one of those items.  Sorry Russell. . . you're ALREADY having to share with your brother!

This is a Blueberry Coveralls Diaper Cover with snaps in Monkeys.  I love the print and how it's a whole different color scheme than a lot of our other diapers.

Palmer is modeling this cover over a Little Lions dyed premium sized prefold diaper in green.  You can see the prefold peeking up above the cover just a tad where I didn't get it tucked in- woopsies!  (Behind the scenes- this prefold is secured with a Snappi diaper fastener, a T shaped grippy apparatus of sorts).  We are loving the fit and function of this cover so far!

buy used!

Here is my haul from the 75% off sale at Divine Consign this morning.  It is a three day sale hosted twice a year in Plano where you can get kids clothes, toys, and gear for great deals!  The final day, items get discounted even more and although the selection isn't as good as the first couple of days, the prices are awesome!  I bought some clothes for Palmer in the next size up, as well as a couple shirts for Russell.

7 long sleeved shirts (Gymboree, Osh Kosh, Baby GAP, Old Navy, etc)
3 hoodies (Carter's, Gymboree, Children's Place)
1 long romper (Gymboree)
1 footie PJ (Carter's)
1 pair slippers

Not bad for $12.99, right??

Check it out in the spring where they'll have all the warm weather clothes out!!!  Or if you need winter stuff, they have the same sale in Grapevine a month from now!  I've been to both events and always find good deals.

crochet for cloth diapers!

I have crocheted a few things over the past 2 years or so, but kept it pretty simple with mostly blankets. Although, I did do some crocheted snowflake ornaments last year that were a little complex and I can't wait to make more this holiday season!  Anyway, most crochet patterns I've followed have been pretty simple so when I took on this project of crocheting a diaper cover I definitely referenced the internet quite a bit to decode the instructions.  Here is a picture of my progress before I added the leg cuffs, waistband, and tie.

If you aren't familiar with cloth diapering, some people use wool covers (either hand knit/crocheted or interlock wool) because they offer good moisture resistance while allowing baby's bottom to get some air.  This is great for preventing & curing diaper rash and keeping them from burning up in the summer.  Wool covers are worn over an absorbent diaper like a prefold or fitted that is not waterproof on its own.  I have several pieces of wool in my diaper stash right now, but decided since it is pricey that I would experiment with crocheting a cover (also called a soaker in the CD world) on my own!

I decided to make my first soaker for baby Russell since it would be smaller and take less time than one for Palmer.  I picked up some Paton's Classic Wool yarn from JoAnn's after figuring out that Hobby Lobby has a VERY limited selection of yarn that's 100% wool.  It took a few nights (and YouTube tutorials) to complete, but here is the finished product!

I'm happy with how it turned out, except I don't like how the variegated yarn clumped the colors together in a few certain sections.  This has to do with that part of the soaker being crocheted "in the round" instead of in zig zag rows like on the lower area of the soaker.  Oh well!  Live and learn.  It's also not as soft as some of the knit wool I have purchased since I used pretty cheap yarn.  Maybe I'll get some of the good hand dyed stuff off Etsy once my skills improve :)  Knit items also seem to be more supple and have more stretch than crocheted due to the shape & density of the stitches.  Too bad I prefer crochet!

Can't wait to put this on little Russell's bum in a few weeks!!!

unpleasant "firsts"

Palmer has had a few "firsts" of his life over the past few days.  Unfortunately they are things we would have been glad to skip altogether!  He had his first fever Friday night, along with his first (and second) puke, and his first sick visit to the doctor.  I knew something was wrong when he was cranky all day and felt a little warm, but it got really obvious when he was all of a sudden burning up, crying and shaking in a pretty scary way around 6:30.  We turned off the oven and the burners from all the food we had cooking and rushed him to the closest kids urgent care.  His fever was over 103 and he proceeded to throw up all over the exam room they put us in.  They graciously moved us one room over so they could clean it up, and of course he threw up again :(

I was a total mess crying right along with him!  It came on so fast I was worried it was something more serious than a typical virus, but we got sent home with some anti-nausea medicine, instructions for giving motrin, and their reassurance that it would probably pass within a day or so.  Here we are at 3 full days and our poor boy still runs a fever every time his ibuprofen or tylenol starts to wear off.  He's only thrown up 5 times, so at least he is able to keep water and some small snacks down throughout the day.  We've been watching a lot of free kids shows OnDemand and some new movies from Wal-Mart (Dumbo & Lion King today).

Typically I stay up with him for an hour or two after he gets his medicine in the middle of the night to make sure his fever starts to go down and keep him from throwing up in his crib.  Last night we watching Tangled that I had DVR'd and got some good snuggle time in.  Even though the circumstances are less than ideal, it's special to have some quiet time with my big boy before the new baby arrives!

Here's sweet Palmer in his towels/boppy/pillow setup on the couch that has been his main hangout lately.  Again, I'll say what I've said for the past couple of nights, fingers crossed that tomorrow he wakes up fever-free.  In the meantime, he's still darn cute!