Hot Women American Perspective

I ordered a new wrap for the baby. The navy blue Moby wrap is too stretchy to work for us much longer. Also, I wanted a thinner material for the warm weather that is part of living in So. California. It is made from cloth from the Czech Republic, and it is called Vatanai, and I am ordering it in the 4.5m length in the Naglikti color (blue whales and fishes pattern). It is a woven cloth, so I will be able to tie the baby onto my back and it should be easier to clean up the kitchen and cook with him back there. We shall see. ;-) At any rate, I placed my order yesterday, and the Canadian middleman said that they could get it in 1.5 weeks from Europe, so hopefully it will get here by mid January. There is a news story this morning about a tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo yesterday. One young man was killed and two others were wounded by an escaped Siberian tiger named Tatiana. One disturbing part of the story was that apparently there was nothing wrong with the door to the enc...

Here are some pics from today. Baby A is 6.5 weeks and a little over 10 pounds. His medicine made all the difference. He still coughs occasionally, but he is SO much better. And he is easier to care for; his personality improved a lot. Before he couldn't be awake without crying/nursing. Now he is content to look around at things/me. And I felt thin today in my size 6 jeans, and wanted to share. ;-)

Baby A is the sickest one now. :-( We went to the doctor again today and they gave him a script for Erythromycin. I hope this helps him. He has trouble breathing through his stuffy nose while nursing, and he tends to pop off a lot earlier than he used to. He coughs and gags, sometimes spitting up from all the coughing. The doctor said his lungs were "crackly". He has not had a fever, though, and he continues to gain weight well. He was 10 pounds today, up from 9.5 pounds last Monday. The other boys still cough, but not very often. My cough is still bringing stuff up from the left lung. I might go to the doc again this evening, depending.

Bad news and good news. The bad news is that my fever came back yesterday, I had body aches and a bad headache and not much appetite again. I even threw up a little, but I think it was from the violent coughing. Baby A threw up all over me twice yesterday. And J threw up at preschool after lunch. The good news is that I fit into my size 6 jeans this morning. I need to get a pic, but Baby A is due to wake up any moment and I don't have time right now. I ate a decent dinner last night (roast chicken, fresh green beans and Japanese sticky rice), and ate the same as leftovers for lunch. I'm also being better about staying hydrated. And my milk supply was up last night and today, so I think I must be on the upswing. My supply was probably jolted because he was on a fussy/constant nursing jag the past few days and my supply was down.

I'm in a hurry this morning. Baby A is in his car seat and starting to wake up. I'm recuperating from a fever yesterday, still coughing and sniffling. My friend called yesterday. You remember. The one who was on Harvard Law Review with Barak Obama. DS-17 asked what that was and I said it was a prestigious school newspaper. ;-) Her news is lately she has been doing a lot of speaking engagements around the Los Angeles area. When organizations call up wanting Senator Obama or his wife to speak, they are often not available, as they are in Iowa or some such place. So they offer one of his old law school buddies to talk instead. And that is what she has been doing. She will get 2 days off for Christmas, then she has been asked to go to Iowa for 10 days and help campaign over there. I can't wait to hear how that goes. BTW, everybody else in the family is sick. The baby least so, thankfully. Good thing I am breastfeeding. It was REALLY hard to take care of him yester...

The biggest shock came this morning. I woke up at 7am, realizing that I had just slept another 5 hour stretch. Baby A slept 5 hours, fed, then slept another 5 hours. The most he had slept before this had been 4 hours then 3 hours then 2 then 1, 1, 1. I was so much more rested this morning. The really surprising thing was that we had gone out last night to the Hanukkah party at the local synagogue and he had slept for 2 hours in the Moby wrap. I thought that was great, but I was going to be in for a busy night since he slept so well just prior to bedtime. The party turned out to be fun. We lit this giant menorah that is on a main street near me. The kids got "gelt", which was actually real money. A lizard man came to entertain the kids with a presentation of lizards and snakes. And there was a little video of the story of Hanukkah for the children. And there was food. The best part was seeing a wonderful group of the kindest people you could ever imagine. This is...

In the top picture, he is sleeping in his bassinet. Note the white blanket. I crocheted that myself over these past months. I did not put a border on it, as I ran out of time when he came 3 weeks early. I used a shell and cluster pattern. The lower pic shows him in the Moby Wrap. He is really getting bigger now, he is about 9.5 pounds. That is 50% bigger than when he was born.

I have a theory. Babies deprived of love/cuddling early in life can develop major personality faults. The reason I mention this is that there was another shooting yesterday. A 19-y-o boy shot a bunch of people in a mall in Omaha yesterday and then shot himself. He left a note saying he wanted to go out in style. Anybody who decides to kill innocent strangers is someone with no feelings of empathy. I think the term for that type of person is a sociopath. How does a boy get to that state? I bet he had a bad relationship with his parents. I am not saying parents take the blame for everything. I am sure there are organic problems in the brain that can cause people to "go off". But my point is that hurting a baby early in life leaves a scar so deep that it can't be healed. Babies left to cry unattended learn not to trust the world. They learn that the world is a cold, uncaring place. Wouldn't this person be more likely to grow up angry and violent than a baby...

I don't know if you remember that I complained that the kids gave me a cold when I came home from the hospital with the baby? I was never able to throw it off, and in the last 2 weeks things got worse and worse. I was coughing all the time. Poor little A would be sleeping on my chest and he had to deal with me going through loud coughing spasms right by his ear. I was hoping to avoid antibiotics because I really did *not* want to have thrush this time, like I had with my last 2 kids. There is no good treatment for thrush that I know of, or at least none that worked for me. So I complained to my OB yesterday and they had me come in so they could listen to my lungs and stuff. I obtained a prescription for a Z-pack and took the first 2 pills yesterday afternoon. This morning when I woke up it was like a miracle had occurred. I felt 75% better. Yay! And my sore left breast is suddenly better, too. I must have had a low level of mastitis in the duct sinuses behind the nipple...

I'm still learning about nursing and taking care of babies too. Yes. After 6 babies and 19 years. Here is my newest stuff. The picture above shows me trying to perfect my use of the Maya Wrap. I have been going onto the website called TheBabyWearer.com to find more creative ways to use the baby carriers I already have. Little A loves to be carried, so he seems to appreciate it. At least he cries a lot less than when he is put down between feedings. I read that it is best to keep the baby as high up as possible, and the rings as high up without them being directly on the shoulder. I must be doing something right, because I was never able, with any of my prior kids, to get them in the upright position in a ring sling. Little A loves being upright and he settles down so nicely whenever I am able to do it, so it is worth the effort for me. And it is easier on my back/shoulders. This is an old-style Maya wrap. No padding. But it works great and I feel so frugal using the sa...

Not much has changed since my last post. One step forward was that I followed through on my idea to bathe him at 9pm instead of during the day. I am usually dead-dog tired at that time of night and it's not my idea of a good time, but the plan was to experiment and see if he would sleep a longer stretch. It worked. He slept straight through until 1:30am instead of waking before midnight. *AND* he did it in his bassinet on his back, instead of prone on my chest. So much more relaxing for me to be able to sleep in any position and turn over. I had trouble getting back to sleep because dh and I are still getting over colds and coughing at night, but it was very successful. He then slept through 4:30am and after that nursing we stayed in the recliner and dozed until 6:30, when I needed to wake up ds for school. I did not want to get up at that point. It was raining hard (very unusual) and I was so cozy and warm with A all snuggled up on my chest. I do like dozing along with ...

Here are 2 pictures that illustrate what I have been doing the past few weeks. Nursing and caring for baby. The first pic shows A nursing. He is an avid nurser. I weighed him yesterday and he was 8.2 pounds with his clothes on. I am so proud of both of us. Proud of him because he is really a great nurser. He does not fall asleep after several sucks as some babies do. He can go 30 minutes on each breast while he is dozing, and continue to get more and more milk, especially the rich hindmilk, as the milk lets down again and again. And I'm proud of myself, because I am still struggling with soreness, and I don't let that interfere with nursing. The soreness is getting less and less, but at the first latch-on, it still feels like stepping into a hot bath with an open sore on one's foot. Ouch! Tomorrow is his actual due date. Yay! So from now on he will start getting more "mature" instead of going through his fetal development. I am looking forward to se...

Baby A weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces on his 2-week check up today. That is really good! If you recall, he was 6 pounds 4 ounces at birth, then by the 3rd day he was down to 5 pounds 14 ounces. They want the babies back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks. We exceeded that by almost a full pound! Woohoo! I must be producing cream. :-D

I forgot to mention that dd and her boyfriend dropped by last weekend while they were on their way back to Camp Pendleton to see baby A. They looked so cute together. DD is now 19 and her boyfriend just turned 21. He has been on 2 tours of Iraq since they started dating 2 or 3 years ago. He just signed on for one more year and another tour of the middle east. They look remarkably well rested considering they were out late the night before at the military ball in San Diego, then drove north to his parent's early the next morning for some sort of Veteran's Day observance where he was honored for his service (hence he showed up in uniform).

I forgot what my personality was like before I got pregnant. I don't do well with pregnancy hormones. The high levels of progesterone make me anxious and snappish, like a bad case of pms for 9 months. It is very hard to be nice around the house to my family during that time, especially at the end of pregnancy when walking around the house becomes a chore, much less bending over to pick up after everybody. But now everything is better. I have so much more patience. When ds asks me questions, it is so much easier to respond kindly and even to suggest ways he can "help" me in the kitchen, etc, even if his help means things take a bit longer. It is good for him and for the family. Maybe it is a mixture of lower hormones and higher prolactin. I'm a super-mothering machine. ;-)

I am finally feeling more organized, and like I can handle my life. What I mean is, I was able to run a few errands with the baby yesterday, and it wasn't as bad as I feared. He cried a lot less in his carseat than I imagined he would. And he was a picture of contentment in his sling, which I used when picking up the boys at school and at La Leche League. Speaking of La Leche, I had a moment there where I thought of my online friends. Well, a couple of moments. There was a pregnant mom sitting next to me who told me that she was due any minute. I asked her exact due date and she said November 18. I said, "oh my gosh! I was due November 26! You are due BEFORE ME!" Well hopefully her time will be here soon. She will be tandem nursing her baby with her toddler. But I remember feeling the frustration with my other pregnancies as time went on. I was so shocked to give birth early this time. Definitely not like me. But my fears did not come true about an early bi...

Here I am today, day 8, in my fat jeans. These are size 10. Two more sizes to go for the size 6'es.

with my left hand! A is nursing great. Still painful at latch, but improving. his bilirubin was 10.4 on day 3, which was good. anything under 12 is good. my cbc showed plenty of hemoglobin ans rbc's. thing is, the second day I came down with a sore throat. the whole family has a cold. great timing, huh? sunday is bris, or circumcision. tons to do here. no time for posting. i will update more later.

My milk is really coming in today. I think I might try to pump what A doesn't eat for himself. I don't want to lose my abundant supply because of his youth and inexperience. ;-) I passed a clot yesterday the size of a walnut. And there was one I found the day before the size of a pistachio nut. I wonder if there was retained tissue from the placenta. In 5 prior kids, I have never passed tissue like that before. The good news is that after that happened, the bleeding finally slowed down and the cramping is about 1/4 of what it was. The bad news is that I think I might have lost a lot of blood. We are going to get a CBC run on me today to make sure I have enough red blood cells and to make sure the white count is not too high. I also have night sweats, but that could be from the changing hormones, not necessarily a uterine infection. I have been a little dizzy the past 2 days upon standing up. Good thing I am not driving a car this week. My neighbors, MIL and everybod...

Here are some pics of A's birth. I guess those crampy contractions I felt on Saturday night into Sunday were the real thing after all. I went to the hospital to get checked. I was worried because I had a little bloody show and I realized I had not felt kicking for a number of hours. I drove myself to the hospital to get monitored. At that time the contrax were frequent but mildly crampy. That was around 9am. Got there and when they checked me, I was 2.5 to 3cm dilated with some thickness left in the cervix. That was a big change for me from long, closed and 3cm thick just 3 days prior. The nurse suggested I walk the hallways for a bit and see if things changed. They did. Next check I was 3+cm dilated and fully thinned out. I did more walking, and the contrax came closer and harder. I called DH to get the kids with grandma and get over and meet me in the hospital. I also decided to get medication. I think I was really not in the mood to be in labor. It was a complete su...

I had my OB appointment today. The uterus measured 39cm today, and so the doc and I looked at each other, and he seemed worried. I asked if he thought there might be too much amniotic fluid, and he decided to send me down the corridor for an ultrasound. The ultrasound was fun. Baby measured right on for the due date of November 26, 2007. He appeared to be 6.5 pounds. My cervix measured a full 3cm thick (cast iron, remember?). His head circumference was right at the 50th percentile. The amniotic fluid measured 18.8cm, which is a high-normal measurement. Over 20 would be polyhydramnios. {Edit: a quick read around the internet states that over 25 is polyhydramnios. Normal measurements are between 5 and 25} I asked the doc what that meant, where it came from and what it would change with regard to the treatment of the baby and delivery. He said polyhydramnios could indicate diabetes, and the baby's blood sugar would need to be watched carefully after delivery. My blood sug...

I'm ready. I'm ready to meet this baby and fall in love with him. In my imagination, he is cute, with perfect tiny parts and a sweet face with full cheeks. I can't wait to snuggle him on my chest and smell his hair. I can't believe how old my other kids are. And I'm still in love with them, after all these years. It is amazing our capacity to love. In families, love only multiplies, never subtracts.

...and ready to go! The baby is now in the proper final birthing position. He is head down and his body is lying on the left. And he has been stuck there for at least 1 full week now. For the prior couple of weeks before that, he was head down but his body swiveled from left to right, depending on which side I slept on. And before that he was flipping head up/head down. He is right on time, compared to my other children. They were all birthed from that same position. It is great that he is being so cooperative. I don't want to need a cesarean section for my 6th birth, and almost no docs will deliver a breech baby any way except a c/section. I read something online yesterday that made me think. This gal had given birth and she had taken her heparin shot that morning, not knowing she was about to start real labor. So she was not allowed to have an epidural. That makes sense. Bleeding into the spinal area could be bad. Nobody had mentioned that yet. Good thing I read ar...

My pool is finally getting cleaner. There is a layer of silt along the bottom of the pool now, but the 3-inch deep pile of leaves is gone. I figured I would have to do this all by myself. The pool man came today, I caught up with him as he was on his way out. I asked him if he vacuumed the pool and he said no. There were too many leaves. Just keep emptying the bag from the Polaris and eventually the leaves would be gone. OK, I had removed most of them by hand using the net and pole the past few days anyway, so whatever. I asked him if he shocked the pool with chemicals as well and he said yes. He says he has too many pools all in the same bad condition to spend all day vacuuming a few. I think I have emptied that mucky Polaris bag about 15 times in the past few days. Not to mention untangling it in the first place from the concrete-anchored basketball hoop that had been blown into the pool. This is the second time I have had to fish that horribly heavy contraption out of th...

The "bad" news (I use quotations because while I find it disturbing, my OB says it is standard) is that there was a trace of protein in my urine. No sugar. I looked carefully at the strip myself, and saw the one square was clear yellow, and the other square was yellow with a greenish tint around the leading edge. My blood pressure is 115/63 though, which negates any concern related to protein in the urine. As spilling protein and high blood pressure could indicate toxemia/pre-eclampsia, but that does not appear to be the case for me. So what *does* it mean? Doc says my kidneys are working overtime to filter for 2, and that they will tend to spill protein/sugar off and on no matter what I eat, and it is not related to what I eat. Not to over do the sugar, of course, but I don't have to completely stay away from it either. I mean, I HAVE to eat SOMETHING. I'm HUNGRY. OK, I'll stop shouting. But don't stand between a pregnant woman and her food. Reall...

Here is today's belly pic at 35w2d, with a pic of my youngest DS. Went to Lamaze refresher at the hospital last night. It was nice. Only a couple of hours, including a tour. I really wanted the tour because I had to switch my care to a different hospital. The one where I delivered my 2 youngest, you may recall, got rid of their maternity wing. So now I have to drive much farther, 35 minutes as opposed to 10 minutes. I guess in a pinch I can still go to the old hospital and deliver in the emergency room, but that doesn't sound good to me. So I will try to leave the house earlier in labor this time and see how things go.

Here are some pictures I took this morning, all within a mile of my house. This giant pine tree fell half into the tennis court of a local park. Here is another downed tree in the same park. I will have to call the electrician after the winds die down. I wondered why the light never came on last night. Pretty dramatic walk to the bus stop with DS this morning. Another local tree. I noticed the neighbor did not trim their tree this year. I can't comment directly on the wildfires ravaging the southern California area because thankfully there is no fire currently burning in my area. The smell of smoke is strong, though, and the sunlight has turned an amber color. I would like to send my wishes for everybody affected by the fires that their houses and family and friends and the brave firefighters all stay safe. :-(

I have had low blood sugar episodes in the past, and they seem to come on very quickly during late pregnancy. No surprise there, with another little being sharing my blood glucose. I was at home yesterday when I felt the symptoms starting, so I went into the bathroom and used the blood glucose monitor, curious what blood sugar level trigger the symptoms of dizziness, sweating and shakiness. My blood sugar was exactly 60. An online search showed that was hypoglycemic, but not dangerously low. I ate a meal, as I was hungry, along with some candy to bring the numbers up. I still didn't feel very good afterwards, and 45 minutes later my blood sugar was up to 137. Anything under 140 after a meal is OK. This morning I checked my fasting level upon awakening and it was 82, which is perfect. I think my problem is that I am insulin resistant. It showed up on my 3-hour glucose-insulin test. I recall the second hour of the test showed elevated insulin levels, and the blood sugar wa...

Doc is having me start every week now. I guess because I am of advanced maternal age. So Thursday mornings are IT. And the FFN test results from yesterday are negative. That's good. I don't really want to have the bub this early. I think he must be head-down because the contractions I have cause SO much bladder pressure. Eeeek!

The appt was mostly good, but a little bad, in my opinion. I spilled a trace amount of sugar into my urine. I know my body has a hard time handling sugar, and I haven't exactly been an angel about the sweets, but in 6 pregnancies, this is the very first time this has happened. I asked the doctor about it right away. He said as long as my fasting glucose is under 105 that I don't have gestational diabetes. My last 3 readings were 90, 88 and 80. On the other hand, I feel that I probably should lay off the frozen Snicker bars and other chocolate confections. It was probably a bad idea to buy them during pregnancy in the first place. I hope I don't develop GD. To do that would put me at high risk for diabetes later in life, and that is one horrible disease. I remember when I was taking differential diagnosis examinations in chiropractic college. I told a friend of mine if the question was multiple choice, choose diabetes because diabetes causes *everything*. I'm...

Here is a joke sent to me via email by my mother in Washington State. HUMOR FOR LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS): I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me. Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. To write with a broken pencil is pointless. When fish are in schools they sometimes take de bate. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months. A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal. Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking. We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply. When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A. The math professor we...

Today it started. I walked into the mommy-and-me class with my youngest and the ladies looked at my belly. One of them said, "are you *still* pregnant?? Haven't you had that baby YET???" I said, "Thanksgiving." So is that in 3 weeks? 2 months? No, closer to 5 weeks. Then another mom chimed in "you look so small." I plastered my dress to my belly to show how large the bump was, assuring her that the baby measured average like all my kids, then she said, "I mean the rest of you is so small". That one made me smile. I said "that's the whole idea. To have the baby and be back to my normal size." I know the first gal didn't mean any harm. It is just that I want to try to savor these last weeks of calm before the "baby storm" starts. And to parade my huge 8-9 month belly around town. I was thinking today of the preemie moms who miss out on that part of the third trimester. I am determined to enjoy it with...

We had a blast at the Science Center in Los Angeles yesterday. My oldest DS turned 17 last Monday, and this is where he wanted to go. We baked cupcakes, got the gang together, and headed out. I asked DH to take care of the youngest, because I didn't want to worry about him running away in the crowd, and we were going to watch an IMAX film. We ended up watching one about Dinosaurs in 3D. I have some pictures from the science center, and a couple from DD's college apartment too. It was the first time I had been there. I had driven by in the past, but I couldn't help her move in because of my condition, and I have been avoiding long drives, too. She says she is OK there for now, but she looks forward to finding a place next year with fewer roommates (there are 10 there now counting her). Here is the birthday boy (17) on the high wire bicycle: Little brother (8) was also barely tall enough to ride the bicycle. He had been turned down based on height last time, so he wa...

Here is a piccy from my camera phone. It had a few strange artifacts, probably due to other people using flash photography at the same time, but I think DS looks SO cute in his little snow suit. He was waiting for ice skating class to start last week when they showed up with the Stanley Cup and let people pose with it for 30 minutes before leaving again. So here is my 4-y-o. Edited to add: DS is the boy in the red cap. And the Stanley Cup was won by the Anaheim Ducks hockey team this past season.

Here is the list from before: Here are the things I have accomplished: * finish potty training youngest DS (age 2.75) He is doing great on this. Very few accidents. * purchase a Moby Wrap. Done. * purchase a Miracle Blanket. Done. * locate the newborn boy clothing, launder and place it in baskets under the changing table. Done. * call the caterer and get things set up as much as possible for the bris (Jewish circumcision get-together on baby's 8th day). I'm excited, my favorite caterer is still in business and has me on his calendar. Yay! Still yet to do: * ask oldest DS to set up the bassinet again. * pack hospital suitcase including Maya wrap ring sling and Over the shoulder baby holder ring sling. Pack baby's bag with coming home outfit. * type up Thanksgiving recipes/menu for my mom in case I'm not available to help out on T-day. * make and freeze lasagnas/casseroles. * wash and install newborn car seat. * boil parts for breast pump.

Going to the Karate Tournament yesterday reminded me of old times. Soke Kubota was kind enough to introduce me, on one occasion, to Mr. James Caan, a movie star and student of his. This picture was taken of the 3 of us around 1997, after Soke and "Jimmy" Caan had a workout. Imagine my surprise when Soke gave me this signed photo to remember our fun Chinese lunch. The signature reads, "To Mary Ann, my best always, James Caan" :-D

I try to go to the Karate Tournament every year. This is the group that I used to practice Karate with before moving away from the area when I got married. These people are amazing. And none of them seem to age for all the years that have passed. I think it is because they are in such incredibly good shape from the heavy Karate workouts. Soke Takayuki Kubota was kind enough to pose for a picture with me. So here I am, at 33 weeks of pregnancy, sitting with one of the top Karate masters in the world. For the curious, here is his official website: http://www.ikakarate.com/

Everything went great at the OB checkup yesterday, by the way. My ffn test was negative. Good thing I avoided you-know-what before the exam, lol. My blood pressure was around 90 over 60, typical pregnancy bp for me. The urine had no protein or sugar. The heartbeat was 150. And the fundus measured 1/2 week ahead at 33cm. So all systems are go. Doc says if we can keep the baby in until after Oct 15, he will feel *very* confident about guaranteeing the baby's health. I don't think it will be an issue. My cervix was long and closed when he checked it. And my usual pattern is lots of practice contractions, no movement of the cervix until the last week, which should be around mid-November, not mid-October. Organized my closet today. That is where I found the potty lid. Piled under loads of junk, bags, boxes and wrapping paper tubes. Here is what it looks like now. I think I'm "nesting". :-D

Here is the closest picture I could find on the net. My potty lid is actually from 18 years ago. I remember I had it for my oldest kids. Joseph already tried it out and I think this will help us when we are out and he has to go potty. He is doing great this week. Only about 1 accident per day. Sometimes he ends the day in the same pants he started with. I'm so very proud of him. And he is also learning to sleep in his big-boy bed. We set up a twin mattress on the floor of his room, since he started sleeping on the floor anyway and ignoring the crib. And I read to him in a reclining position now, instead of hunched over on the floor. I think he is beginning to see how nice it is to have a big boy bed and pillow, with sheets and blankets. Except last night I still found him on the floor wedged behind his door and had to carry him to bed.

DD says that the biggest adjustment to apartment living is getting used to getting her own meals every day. Every meal. Every day. Day after day after day. I laughed. Last year she was in the dorms and could swipe her meal card twice a day for an all-you-can-eat cafeteria situation. Then she comes home to visit and after she gets her cereal in the morning, there was usually some sort of lunch happening and home-cooked meals for dinner. I always prided myself on serving decent dinners for the kids. I want them to get used to it so they will cook for their families when they are grown up. My mom did it for me and I want to pass on the tradition. I think part of her difficulty lies in the fact that she likes to eat nutritious food. Many students simply eat lots of fast food. It is cheap and filling. But she wants to do better than that, and that takes effort, especially when one doesn't own a car. The supermarket is a few block's walk away from her apartment, and she...

I am up 18 pounds total as of today. I was a bit shocked to step on the scale, but when I put the data into the weight tracker and saw it on the graph, I realized that I had not weighed in for 2 weeks. I had gained a full 2 pounds, but that is appropriate. With 8 more weeks to go, that keeps me on track to gain 26 pounds in the pregnancy. Baby is gaining 1/2 pound a week now and it has to come from somewhere. I guess all those frozen Snicker Bars and Dove Chocolates didn't kill my weight gain pattern like I had feared. Only 7-8 more weeks of indulgence, then I'm back on my stricter eating habits and watching my weight. Until then the mice will play....

Did you know that we are in the middle of another Jewish holiday right now? It is called Sukkot. As Jewish people we eat our meals and sometimes even sleep outside in "booths" called a Sukkah. It commemorates a time long ago when there was so much work to do at harvest time, the farmers would actually live in the fields in booths until the work was done. It also commemorates the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, when the Hebrews lived in fragile booths and didn't have real homes. The boys were so excited to see the walls and roof of the Sukkah up. They were even more excited when I told them that they were old enough to decorate the Sukkah themselves. It is traditional to hang fruits/vegetables from the ceiling. We use plastic fruits/veggies from Michael's Crafts. And we like to also hang twinkly lights. It is very pretty out there eating our meals under the lights. Here is a picture of my crew in the middle of decorating. I took the pic through the ...

Here is my belly. The top of the fundus has been in contact with my ribcage for over a week now, and the reflux is fairly constant. But this is pregnancy stuff. Same as when I was in my 20s.

Anything for you, Devan. :-D New potty training update first. HE USED THE BIG POTTY AND IS SO PROUD HE KEEPS DOING IT!!!!! This may not sound like a big deal, but it really helps with my feng shui, so to speak. Now when DH or I want to take him out with us, we don't have to drag a full potty, although it is convenient to leave it in the minivan on the floor between the seats, but all we really need to bring is the potty seat insert. So picture us at any restaurant or store and we hear the dreaded words, "I have to go potty" 80 I know I even have a folding potty seat insert stored in some box somewhere. Ah well, I'll probably locate that after he doesn't need it anymore. Potty Training Synopsis (for boys--girls tend to potty train themselves) 1. Encourage the little one to sit on the potty and try to tinkle. Find a time, such as when you are drawing his bath, that it will be almost irresistible. There is something about the sound of the rushing bath water th...

I feel like my life is revolving around the countdown for baby. 9 more weeks and counting. The potty training is going well. We have made it to level 4. He is wearing Fruit of the Looms under his pants now. He is still afraid of the big potty, but I just located the padded toilet seat insert from the garage that he can use to sit on the big potty. Hopefully he will find it cute and want to try it out. I'm pretty relaxed about the whole thing. We went to the park today, and I brought the potty in the car. I was pretty sure he would have an accident during play, though, which he did. He was wearing corduroy pants which were very absorbent. His socks didn't even get wet. He looked so shocked and walked bow-legged all the way to the car. I think it might have been a "learning experience". :-) I also went through all the older boy clothes and divided them by sizes and donated a bunch of stuff that was not to my liking. For example, all the "camp" t-...

...when I told them that the ffn test had been performed about 4 hours after DTD. They later told me that the ffn tests for protein, and that semen or blood *will* cause a false positive. Not maybe. Will. I didn't know. I had heard rumors on the internet, of course, and mentioned it to the doc office in the afternoon, not the morning, but I guess doc was CYAing. So there were a couple of good contrax and a few very small ones. More of an irritable uterus. And the little guy had a nice heart rate that responded well to his kicking and the contrax. She said his tracing looked "beautiful". Another good thing was that I got to go scope out the parking situation. I haven't been down there for my official hospital tour yet, and I didn't want to have to walk a mile to L&D in full labor. They have these nice parking spots in front of the ER that are for maternity drop-off. I'm still a little perturbed to have to be going to a new hospital this time. T...

It's not as dramatic as it sounds, lol. I tend to get preterm-ish bh contrax with every pregnancy, and never delivered before 9 days before the due date. I had been getting more this past week and complained to the doc about it at my checkup this am. I told him that they were coming sometimes every 3 minutes in the evening about every 3 days. Which is really typical for me. He did an ffn test to be safe, and told me my cervix palpated as long and closed. I just heard from the doc office that the ffn was positive and I need to report to l&d to get on the monitor. I asked if BD 4 hours before the test might cause a false positive. They said even if it is a false pos, I need to be monitored. I'm not too bothered, because I really have been worrying about the little guy. I'm a worrier, and the little one has been having a lot of hiccups, which I also told the doctor about. He assured me the hiccups were fine. So now I'm waiting 45 minutes for dh to get home from work. N...

This is my daughter's first year in an apartment. She has been calling me more often now, and the former attitude is gone. I'm glad. She and I had always been close. Maybe staying here all summer just got on her nerves. Of course, now it is her roommates who are getting on her nerves. She ended up with a group of party animals, and she feels out of place. She is stubbornly refusing to stay up until dawn smoking and drinking with the rest. I told her I was proud of her for being herself, and not feeling like she needs to "be cool" like that. She goes to sleep at 10pm with ear plugs in her ears so the partying doesn't bother her. Hopefully the kids calm down when classes start next week. In the meantime, her roommates cook in her pots and pans and then "forget" to wash them. I asked her about the vacuuming situation and she said that though her room is spotless, the rest of the apartment is in "squalor" with so many fast food wrappers...

Here is my belly at 30 weeks. I barely fit into this dress, which is really a nursing dress. But with my wardrobe dwindling quickly, I need to squeeze into all the random clothes I can. Only 2 more months (or so) and I'll have a lot of my wardrobe back again. Or at least the pieces that are amenable to nursing an infant. I'm feeling mostly good. I had a little tummy upset a couple of days ago. Not fun when the intestines are cramping and the little one is kicking right into the spot. 8O Otherwise I have not reached the completely miserable stage yet. I am able to bend over to pick up toys off the floor, but I prefer to make the boys do it as good training for them. I can still run errands, but if I overdo it I tend to get a lot of contractions afterwards. I'm not too worried about the contractions. Of course I'll run to the hospital to get checked if they come too close together, but the painless contrax prior to 38 weeks never led to anything with me in the ...

I have a lot to do this week. Yesterday, I hardly had time to catch my breath. I got up early, got myself and everybody dressed, got DS to the school bus and went to work at the office. When I got home after lunch, I pulled together the snow pants, jackets, knit hats and gloves for the 8-y-o and 4-y-o for their ice skating class. They had a great time. Then home again, rushing to cook dinner, and greeting the babysitter because it was back-to-school night for the 3rd grader. Good thing I went because this is going to be a challenging year. DS will need to pass tests at school on material that we never studied at home. He will need to extrapolate from prior spelling tests to spell new words altogether. And tonight is Rosh Hashana. I already baked the special bread, Challah. The house is smelling good. And there is a nice beef stew in the crock pot. I got some apples and honey as well. Apples dipped in honey is a traditional food for a sweet new year. I told my 4-y-o about...

Also, the question was asked, exactly how did I get all the kids to post like that underwater? Here's how it went. I wanted to make sure that I took a good group shot of all 5 kids before September, so I could include it in my Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) cards. All of my kids love the water, and I thought an underwater shot of the entire crew would be unusual and fun. In June all of them came to live with me from their various locations. DD returned from college, and DS-16 from his Dad's house. One problem was that DS-8 was scheduled out for a 3-week vacation with his dad from mid July through the first week of August. Also, earlier in the summer, both of the youngest boys were unable to hold their breath underwater. They were in private swim classes, though, and that program emphasized how to hold breath underwater, among other safe-swimming strategies. So I decided that mid-August would be a good time for it, and made a mental note. I needed all 5 kids to be *home...

Someone on another site asked for pre-baby to do lists. After I posted, I thought it would be fun to share it here: There isn't too much to do before baby, as this is my 5th boy in a row. But I do have some plans: * finish potty training youngest DS (age 2.75) * purchase a Moby Wrap * purchase a Miracle Blanket * ask oldest DS to set up the bassinet again. * locate the newborn boy clothing, launder and place it in baskets under the changing table (still set up from prior ds). * pack hospital suitcase including Maya wrap ring sling and Over the shoulder baby holder ring sling. I love to have slings in the hospital. The nurses can't believe that the baby is so happy and content. :-D * type up Thanksgiving recipes/menu for my mom in case I'm not available to help out on T-day. * call the caterer and get things set up as much as possible for the bris (Jewish circumcision get-together on baby's 8th day). * make and freeze lasagnas/casseroles.

I know it is the natural way of things. Teenagers' relationships with their parents grow in friction until they feel driven by a need to move out of the house. I don't know why I hoped to be spared this little ritual. But I swear it was tough having my dd here all summer. Most times when I would say something to her she rolled her eyes. I could site a laundry list of further transgressions, but you parents of teens probably already know the story. So she wanted me to meet her dad today with all her stuff in the car. He wasn't available at a convenient time for me, so we set the rendezvous for Thursday evening (last night). DD said that was fine, but she figured I'd want to spend one more day with her. Ya. I really want to spend ONE MORE DAY with a sullen, moody, hermit who only emerges from their inner sanctum (bedroom) to eat all my popsicles. So I got a babysitter to come over and watch the boys because we had to remove all the seats from the van to get all...