Post-Halloween post

This is Gus. He was the most popular attraction of (and newest addition to) our Halloween decorations this year.

This is Stuey, short for Stuart. We felt bad for him because it rained on him almost the entire time he was on display. He was probably happy to get back into his dry box and head to the attic for another year.

I bought some dress up hats a couple of days before Halloween, hoping to go back the day after and find full costumes on sale. I didn't make it, but Gabriel still loves his hats.

This may be one of my favorite pics of him of all time. He looks like a goofy cowboy from an old Hollywood western.

So who looks better in the hat?

I just had to say a few more words about how much fun we had this Halloween season. Gabriel especially. He still turns to me every couple of hours and says with a very dramatically sad voice, "Halloween is over". I posted his costume pictures while he was out trick or treating with Jav, and they ended up going to a different street on our neighborhood for the annual Haunted House that a couple puts together every year. I knew it was extremely popular with our residents, but we wondered if Gabriel was ready for that many "scary guys" to pop out at him. Well, it turns out they do a bang-up job, Jav said, and when they realize it's a younger child going through, all the bigger people stay still while he or she is making his way through. But a couple of things still popped out, like a big fake bat that dive bombed them from nowhere. He's still talking about that too. He never cried or wanted to turn back, just held onto Daddy a little tighter. The other great thing was that most of the houses surrounding the haunted house also do Halloween in a big way, so he got to do some old-fashioned trick or treating. By the end of his journey he was an old pro. I was actually a little sad, too, when we boxed up all of our decorations Sunday.

Happy Halloween!

At the last minute he decided he wanted scary black hair, but it was too late.

A close-up of my less than stellar attempt at being a makeup artist.

If I had donned an orange t-shirt I could have been mistaken for the Great Pumpkin this year.

With proud Mamaw and Poppy.

With very frightened Tito. (This is my favorite one).

Crazy for scary guys

Gabriel is mad in love with Halloween this year.

I think it all started when we were at the grocery store and they had put up an animated witch and skeleton to lure people into the Halloween section of the store. The witch worked from the get-go, but we could never get the skeleton to do anything. So every time we had to go shop, he wanted to see the witch. It's probably the only way I have been able to get him excited about going shopping. Then we visited the Target display one day where they had several sizes of animated skeletons, including one he figured out how to run himself, and he has been hooked ever since. We took a trip to the temporary Halloween store that sets up in an empty store front to add to our decorations this year, and he spent the entire time going from one ghoulish creature to the next with his mouth hanging open. Some of these were really frightening and I kept thinking he would show some sign of fear, but no. He calls it the "Scary Guy Store", and I've promised him another trip there next week when Daddy will be out of town all week.

Then we put up our decorations, and it has now become an evening ritual to go out and plug in our lights once it's dark. We also turn on "Gus", our new and really scary animated skeleton, for a little while since the rest of the day he spends hanging in our garage. We fear that someone might steal him if we leave him out all day and night, so he's only up while the lights are on during the evening. As soon as it's dark, Gabriel starts asking if we can wake up Gus and turn on the lights.

He's been wanting me to buy a pumpkin but I told him we should probably wait and go to a pumpkin patch with Daddy. In all honesty, I wasn't even going to get one this year because we don't have any place to put one on our porch that can be seen from the street, and I hate throwing them away every year. It just seems so wasteful. I didn't think he'd even remember, but he's asked about it every day and I finally remembered to tell Jav that we need to go pick one out. Today we are heading to Chico, Texas for my friend Cobra's memorial service, and we're hoping to spot a Farmer's Market or something along the way. I actually think he's into all of this enough to enjoy carving a Jack O'Lantern this year.

He has two Halloween books that I had put up with the decorations, and he wants to read one or both or them every night before bedtime. He's also been asking me to have a Halloween party. One of my biggest dreams in life is to throw a huge Halloween party one day, so I tell him that one day we will have one. I mean going all out with decorations inside and out, and scary food and music. But this isn't the year for it! I keep him happy by telling him that they will have a Halloween party at school next week, and he gets to wear his Halloween t-shirts all week (they don't want them in costumes at school until they're out of diapers and I can't really blame them!) And then, of course, the ultimate prize: trick or treating in his new skeleton costume Saturday.

It amazes me how much more he's understanding about everything these days, but especially this. Although Jav points out that this is my favorite holiday and time of year, so he probably picks up on that and has run with it! To be honest, I can't wait to take him to a haunted house (several years down the road, of course), but in the meantime I am looking forward to that trip to the Scary Guy Store just as much as he is!

The good, bad and ugly of pregnancy

When I found out I was pregnant again, and made it past the "scary" time, I told myself that I would really try to enjoy this pregnancy - seeing that it will be my last. Those first four and a half months were so rough, though, between worrying about what might go wrong and being nauseous all day after 2 pm, every day. Once I started feeling a little better, I did start to really enjoy it for about three months. The baby started moving, which really is a miraculous feeling. To know that my child is growing inside of me is something that moves me so profoundly that I really can't stop to think about it too hard or I wouldn't be able to go about my day.

When I hit around eight months, I started to hurt more, especially my legs. I know I've gained more weight than I should have, even though I haven't gained any more than I did with Gabriel (YET). But this big guy seems heavier than Gabriel ever did. And I was working with Gabriel, which meant I could sit and put my feet up more all day long. The constant being on my feet has really taken a toll on me, especially at night when my legs get stiff from not getting enough blood flow. I can barely walk when I get up and have to stand for awhile to make sure my legs will work. Then I started having these really bad back spasms when I stood still for any length of time (like to cook or do the dishes). That seems to be better now, and we're thinking it might have been related to the 100% humidity that we had during that time. I was still walking Molly up until a few weeks ago, but then I had a really bad walk one day where it felt like all of my belly ligaments were starting to sag and I ended up having to actually hold my belly with one hand while I slowly made my way home. So walks are done for now, which makes both me and Molly sad.

One of the hardest things about this physically has been not being able to play with Gabriel like I want to. He's so much more mature and never stops moving now. I feel like all I do all day is tell him "Mommy can't get on the floor anymore", "Mommy can't run right now", "Mommy can't jump", "Mommy needs to sit down and rest". He's probably ready to trade me in for a newer, funner model at this point! But he has been really sweet about it, and loves to kiss my tummy to say hi to the baby. I'll have one especially sweet memory after his nap one day. Gabriel woke up crying from having a bad dream, so I took him to the rocker and held him. The baby got hiccups and Gabriel happened to be laying right where he could feel them, which he thought was pretty funny, and I thought was wonderful.

There are things emotionally going on too, like thinking too much about what it will be like after the baby is here. Will I be too tired all the time to be a good, fun Mom like I want to be? Will I be cranky and snappy all the time? Will I be able to lose all of this weight? Is trying to breast feed going to stress me out so bad that I can't enjoy either of my kids? (I did not have a good experience with Gabriel, so really want to try again with this one). Obviously, living in the present would be a better idea since I can have no way of knowing any of these things.

One of the most surprising emotions that has hit me recently is a sadness about the relationship between Gabriel and I. I know it will change forever when the baby comes, and I feel sometimes like just holding onto him and trying to spend as much time as I can with him before that happens. It's not that I think we don't have enough love for two kids, it's just this melancholy and nostalgic feeling that I haven't quite had enough time with just Gabriel. This was a feeling I never expected to have. And I think I'm even empathetic about how he's going to feel to have to share us with another kid. But my sensible and wonderful husband says to just think about the fact that we are giving him a brother, and how much happiness we hope that will bring him one day. That does make it better.

I'm getting excited about meeting this new little guy. I wonder who he will look like, will he have lots of hair (Gabriel didn't), will his personality be similar or completely opposite of Gabriel's. Fun stuff to be thinking about, and sometimes I still have to pinch myself that this is really happening. So despite all of the physical and emotional toll this seems to be taking on me, I still think that being pregnant is the best feeling in the whole world.

Annual Halloween decorating

This will be the annual shot where we get to compare how much he's grown since last year.

Daddy's little helper bee.

Not a Halloween pic, but I love this picture.

Gabriel is really into Halloween this year. He loves the big, animated characters, which he references as "scary guys". He could spend hours at the Halloween store just going from one to the other. I had thought maybe he could be a fireman or something this year, but he wanted to be a skeleton. So we are letting him wear the body part but ditching the mask, mostly because it freaks him out but partly because you can't tell it's him at all. I got a face painting kit and we'll see if my creative side kicks in when it's crunch time. We have a fun ritual every night now of going out, plugging in the lights and hanging up Gus, our resident scary guy that we keep in the garage so he won't get stolen. It amazes me that he has no fear whatsoever. Such a boy.

I'm so lucky. No I mean REALLY lucky.

Today is my wonderful hubby's birthday. I will start off this post by saying that the ONLY bad thing about marrying someone as truly thoughtful as Jav is that it becomes way too easy to take him for granted when we are in the swing of this crazy thing called life.

But it hits me in little details throughout my days and evenings how much I love him and why.

He has the patience of Job and never lets my frenetic impulsiveness or moods disturb his calmness. He puts up with my Type A personality with something I can only call amusement, which seems to totally work for us.

He never complains about anything. If I give him extra honey-do's on the weekend (which is usually already packed full of things he is trying to get done), he just tries to get them done with no protest.

He is a hopeless romantic and isn't afraid to cry when his emotions get the best of him, something I think makes a man somehow more manlier.

I have as much fun watching old movies with him as I do watching baseball playoffs. We recently took four nights to watch Dr. Zhivago, which I had seen twice but he had never seen. I came away from it with a much deeper perspective sitting there watching it with someone I love.

He has the best laugh I've ever heard, and he uses it often. And he makes me laugh.

He makes sure to talk with his Mom almost every day.

He is a terrific Dad, and one that I know will be the best role model I could hope for. And as an extra bonus, he's warm and loving, and really gets into being a parent. He is involved just as much as I am, even with the messier parts of parenting.

He'll eat just about anything I put in front of him, and even if he doesn't really like it will say it was "interesting".

No matter what we little mundane things we are doing or what errands we are running, during any given second of every day, I love being with him.

Happy Birthday Honey!

Potty training woes

I'm not sure if it's because we didn't wrap our brains around this one particular part of parenting soon enough, or if Gabriel is just a little slower than average in developmental stages, but we are having a time with potty training.

We bought him a potty chair too early, I realize now. I think he had just turned 2? Or maybe even 18 months. He wanted to sit in it lots at first. Now he protests almost every time I ask if he wants to sit in it. I started the T. Berry Brazelton book on potty training, but realized Gabriel had not reached all of the steps showing that he is ready to try this (Dr. Brazelton's approach is that they have to come around on this ON THEIR OWN, without much pushing with Mom and Dad if you want long-term success).

But the pressures of society, I guess, got us thinking that we really needed to start thinking about this since he's three now. We set up a box of favorite books by the chair, and said those were his special potty chair books now. This worked for a little while. But now he tries to take the books to his room instead of leaving them in the bathroom, which just starts another conflict. We started using pullups in the hope that he would not like the feeling of being wetter, but he doesn't seem to mind walking around completely soaked. This makes me frustrated and guilty that I forget to check him more often.

I asked my friend Christine for advice, and she said I should be taking him to sit on the potty chair every two hours or so. Well, trying that often makes Gabriel really upset, which is one of the things Dr. Brazelton says will do alot of damage. Christine also suggested letting him wear normal underpants so that he would really feel the wetness, as long as I was prepared to do laundry all the time. I haven't convinced myself that this would be a good idea yet, mostly because Gabriel just doesn't seem to mind being wet.

I've tried reasoning, comparisons to other kids, even tears. It just doesn't seem like he's the least bit interested, which is very disheartening to me. I'm trying to resign myself to not put any pressure on him, but it's getting tougher since I wanted to be farther along in this process when the new baby gets here. I've been told that he will probably regress a little bit when that happens, but right now we have no place to regress from!

Gabriel has triplets in his Mother's Day Out class that turn three in December, and their Mom already has them trained. I realize this was probably out of monetary necessity (she also has an almost one-year-old.) Can you imagine having to buy all those diapers? - UGH. But this made me feel like an utter failure. I still want to ask her what method she used if I can catch her one day. But in the meantime I think I will just lay off for awhile until I come up with a new plan. Or maybe I need to let Gabriel take the reins and just try to gently guide. I have no idea. AAGGGHHHHH!!!!

Flu scare

I try not to be a paranoid person, but I know I probably am when it comes to Gabriel, and now to this baby. And frankly, this Swine Flu thing is scaring the heck out me. There have been six deaths in North Texas. The first four victims had underlying health issues. But now there have been two deaths of perfectly healthy children. And this morning on NPR, they had this frightening story for us. And until last week, I assumed Gabriel would be a candidate for Tamaflu if he had any symptoms, but no, it's kids 2 and under.

So for now we are taking some precautions, like avoiding big crowds. Our parish's big yearly fundraising event, the International Fair, was yesterday and we decided not to go. We've also decided to avoid Mass for awhile, because I have a theory that sometimes people think they have to still go every week even if they're sick. For now we are still sending Gabriel to his twice-a-week Mother's Day Out, but I'm getting more and more nervous about it. We decided that unless were notified that even one flu case had shown up, we'd continue to send him. I know most people just stay really sick for 5 or 6 days, then get better. But the randomness about the truly awful cases like the one in the NPR story is what terrifies me.

I was also nervous about taking the vaccine whenever it finally shows up since they appear to be rushing it through, but I guess I have to trust my doctor and the CDC (and a big dose of God), that the risk of not taking it greatly outweighs the risks from the vaccine. The way they are dragging their feet, though, the baby may be here before I get a chance to take it. According to everything I've read, his best protection will be for all of us to get the vaccine.

So we will be a pretty paranoid family for awhile, but we all think it's for a good reason.

A few more birthday pics

Tia Sandie's idea. Gabriel is still saying it a week later even though it's all washed off now.

Jav and his Dad.

The first time we broke out the croquet set, and the first time Cade and Macy had ever played.

My sweet niece and nephew enjoying the new swing set.

Our wonderful neighbors, Billie and George. We're so happy they've become family to us.

Our little mingler stopping to watch a quick ping pong match before moving on to other things.

Showing off his new remote control bulldozer to Tita.

She was one of a kind

The bench that Cobra and Mark brought to Gabriel just out of the blue one day.

I lost a good friend Monday. I've written about Cobra in my blog before. She had been battling many health problems for years now, and her heart finally gave out Monday morning. She was 66 years old.

We met 9 or so years ago when I was matched to be her Literacy tutor. We became really good friends during the process and had stayed in touch even though the training stopped when I found out I was pregnant. What I'll remember most about our friendship is the times I would go over to her house to tutor, and we'd end up just talking and laughing for the entire two hours instead. I came to look forward to those Saturday mornings just to catch a little of her spark and carry it with me all week.

Her real name was Diane, but she changed it to Cobra while living in Iran with her husband, Mark. She was a fascinating person with a rich history that I was still learning about. She had 4 kids that she had some issues with after divorcing their Dad and running away with Mark (the youngest was 16 at the time), but she has since made peace with them about that and many other things. She had never told them about her dyslexia and reading issues, even though several of them struggled through school with the same problems, but she came clean about that too.

She loved to cook and garden, and you never left empty-handed after visiting her. She would pile me up with little knick-knacks she had seen and thought of me, homemade fudge during the holidays, fresh veggies she had extras of, or best of all, her homemade fig preserves right off of her many fig trees each year. We just finished off the last of it about a month ago, and when I called her in the hospital two weeks ago, she said she had more at home to give me.

She was very spiritual and believed in omens and visions. She claimed she had dreams about people's futures. She understood and was respectful of many different religions. She was also very talented with arranging flowers, even though they were mostly silk, which I just don't get into. She did several weddings and sold arrangements at craft booths here and there. She and Mark helped out with our wedding, and she immediately became fast friends with Jav's family from Mexico even though there was a language barrier. Cobra was just like that. She broke barriers and exceeded expectations about what human beings could be like.

She was so excited when I told her about the first pregnancy, and ended up falling in love with Gabriel and he loved her right back. She always had gifts for him when we visited. We made a point to visit about once every three months or so, and last saw her in late July, just before she flew to Michigan to spend two weeks with her kids, grandkids and one great-grandson, all of whom live there. Now I'm so thankful to God that she was able to make that trip.

She taught me about strength, perseverance, gratitude and giving. In the midst of all of her pain and health battles, she never stopped living like she wanted to, and never stopped thinking about other people and what she could do for them. I'm very thankful that she became part of my life, and I'm really going to miss her.

What I learned from Gabriel's birthday party

Taken the morning of the party, he is already so excited he won't sit still for a picture.

The cake.

He has his new dinosaur t-shirt on I bought for the party.

We threw another backyard birthday party for Gabriel Saturday. Even with only inviting immediate family, Godparents and kids, and our few neighbors that we're really close to, the guest list turned into 21 people. A few couldn't make it, but it still seemed like a lot of people. We followed the same idea as last year and set up the ping pong table in one corner of the yard, and added a croquet course on the other. The new swing set proved to be pretty popular with the kids.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, especially Gabriel, who is our little party mingler. He greets each new arrival with a big hug. He never stops moving, and goes from one group of people to the other to see what every one is doing. He sometimes will stop mingling and join them for a little while, but then he's off to the next grouping. The thing I'll remember most (besides the things I have listed below), is the look of pure joy on his face when everybody sang Happy Birthday to him, while he sang right along with us.

I, however, did not have as good of a time as I did for his birthday last year, and was very upset when it was over (probably due to complete and utter exhaustion). After giving some thought as to why, here's what I have learned from this year's party:

10. The minute I finally have time to relax a little and maybe even play some ping pong or croquet, everybody's ready to go home.

9. My dog apparently doesn't like the way my uncle moves around. He was a new addition to our guest list this year since he now lives here instead of Fredericksburg. We're very happy to have him with us, but he moves very awkwardly due to his strokes and we couldn't get Molly to stop barking at him and had to lock her up in the garage. She's never done that to anyone before.

8. The kids love it when it's pinata time, but I am starting to hate pinatas. Last year my niece almost got whacked in the face. This year it was almost Gabriel. For a few seconds I thought he had been hit. This was the point where my blood pressure got up so high I could feel it, so I went to lay down.

7. Planning a sit-down meal instead of just snack foods when you've invited more people than your table holds is a big mistake, especially when it's too hot for anyone to want to sit outside. Which leads to...

6. Apparently late September is always going to be hot, or at least the day we plan Gabriel's party will be. What happened to our 75 degree highs from mid-week?

5. No matter how much planning we do before hand, we are still scrambling to do tons at the last minute, and are busy throughout the party. It's very frustrating to realize the party has ended and I got to see very little of it going on. I have to piece together what happened by watching the video.

4. Small doses of family are good and welcome at this point. Large doses are bad. Just very bad.

3. Never attempt to throw any kind of party when you are 42 and 7 months pregnant. Your hormones and nerves do not understand the concept of "party time" at this point.

And the things that kept me going:

2. I value my husband's patience and willingness to jump through hoops more and more each year. And I think I might lose it without his sense of humor and ability to calm me down.

1. No matter how much work it is, how many things seem to go wrong, or how exhausted you are afterwards, if Gabriel had fun it was all worth it.

And he did! (More pics to come).

The sadness of Puff

This post goes along with my post about Gabriel turning three. Last week I was sad to hear about the passing of Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary. I dug out my Best of PP & M CD, which is the same as my parents' album I listened to as a kid. I love many of the songs, and of course grew up listening to Puff, The Magic Dragon. But even as a youngster I could sense something sad about that song. I think I thought it was really sad that Puff had no one to play with after the boy moved onto other things.

I played the song for Gabriel on the way home from Mother's Day Out. When they got to the last verse, and the words go, "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys," it hit me that I was listening to the song for the first time as a parent, and the sadness took on a whole new level. My baby has turned into a toddler, and it's truly just flown by. Needless to say, I almost had to pull over with tears running down my face and Gabriel asking, "Mama are you ok?" repeatedly from the back seat. Maybe it's good to be reminded of how fast they grow up so that I will try to enjoy every living second of having him little, before the dragon ceases his fearless roar.

Happy 3rd Birthday Gabriel!

The very excited Birthday Boy after waking up Sunday.

Gabriel helps out by reading the plans to his Dad.

Allison, Gabriel and Andrew enjoying all of the guys' hard work!

The entire outside crew.

The inside crew.

Sunday my little man turned three. I can't believe it! This was the first year he was totally aware of what it meant, and was very excited when he woke up that morning. Plus we had told him that Daddy and his Godfather, Uncle Keith, were going to put up a swing set for him. Uncle Keith has put up several swing sets, play houses, trampolines, and various other last minute toys, so we told him the best gift he could give us would be to come and help Jav, whose experience is just beginning!

Keith brought his oldest son, Matthew, to help out (I think he's 13 now). About two hours after they started working, the rest of the family came hauling Aunt Christine's homemade spaghetti sauce (she calls it "gravy", having come from an Italian family by way of New Jersey), meatballs and sausage, more gifts and homemade cards for Gabriel, and money to help out with the swing set. These people take their position as Godparents very seriously! And they give Gabriel so much love.

I did what I could to help out with the rest of dinner, but Christine basically took over and had everything ready by the time the guys finally finished 4 hours after they started. They said the instructions were only pictures, and most of the pictures were wrong. I think Jav would still be working on the thing for Christmas if we hadn't had Keith's help! We sat down to our fantastic dinner, while the kids hurried so they could go outside and play on the new toy. Gabriel was running around shouting, "It's finished! It's finished!" Allison and Andrew helped him try out everything, including the see saw which Gabriel had never been on before, and Allison sent him flying off of it when she sat down on her side. But he was a trooper and jumped right back up yelling, "I'm OK!" Thank goodness for thick St. Augustine grass!

We had bought a small cake for Gabriel (the big one will come for his party Saturday) and had tons of ice cream for cones for everyone else. My personal find was a gallon of Bluebell Chocolate-Covered Strawberry, which I'd never seen before and couldn't make my buggy drive by at the grocery store. I think it's my new favorite flavor. Gabriel sang Happy Birthday to himself with everybody else and blew out his candle (Mommy was really tired by then and only put one on instead of three for some reason). We were all exhausted but really happy at the end of the day, and knew that we had all made one little boy very, very happy.

Ode to the perfect tuna sandwich

When we were on our honeymoon in Scotland, we spent the second night of our trip on the island of Skye. I wish we would have had a little more time there to explore the place. It was a picture-perfect quaint fishing town. (I had to find this pic on Google. Our only pictures were taken on my non-digital camera at the time). Once you are in town, many of the buildings are painted in pastels along the main walkway. We had a terrific dinner in a little pub, where I ate the best fish and chips I've ever eaten. The next day we were off to Inverness, which involved half a day of driving and going right along Loch Ness. After leaving our bed and breakfast we decided to stop at the local bakery to pack up some sandwiches, chips and cookies to have a picnic somewhere along the way.

We ordered tuna salad sandwiches, and then forgot to say "crisps" instead of "chips", which of course means french fries anywhere in the UK. That caused a bit of confusion and several looks from the ladies behind the counter like they were used to dealing with rather slow Americans. We started our drive and eventually made it to Loch Ness, where there were several places to stop and take in the view, as it is much more enormous than you might think from watching those shows on Discovery. We found a nice spot, and even though it had started sprinkling, we opened up the hatchback and laid out our picnic. Those sandwiches were so delicious, I can't even put it into words. They had added red onion, and celery, and maybe cucumber, but I couldn't figure out anything else. While we were eating, a gentleman drove up, got out of his car in full kilt regalia, and began playing the bagpipes. I'm not making this up! It's a big tourist thing, and you are expected to leave some money in the hat he places in front of him. The whole experience was so surreal and special, but when we talk about it or tell the story to people to this day, the thing we rave on about the most are those tuna sandwiches.

I've tried to replicate the flavor. I've added the three ingredients I figured out that day, plus I play around with others, but I can never get them to taste as good. I know that some of this is location related. Things just taste better on vacation than they do back in normal, hum-drum life. But as I was planning how to mix it up and try again for dinner tonight, it hit me that the bakery may have had access to fresh tuna straight out of the ocean. Or even if they used canned tuna, a can of tuna from Scotland is probably a heck of alot better tasting than a can of Chicken of the Sea! So I think I will give up on my quest to taste the perfect tuna sandwich again, unless someday we find ourselves back on the Isle of Skye, where I will then flat out ask them what they do to them to get them to taste so good. And by the way, whoever thought of that name, Chicken of the Sea? Probably a rather slow American.

First carousel ride

A little over a week ago, we went to lunch with Jav's family for his Mom's birthday at Cheesecake Factory. That place has some GOOD food, although I think their menu is so extensive that it's hard for people to make a decision. They need to pare it down a bit. We decided to split three different kinds of cheesecake for dessert: Chocolate, Red Velvet (with delectable cream cheese icing), and Dulce de Leche. I tried really hard to not pig out and eat more than anyone else.

After we finished, everyone was really full, and Jav's Mom and sister had the brilliant idea of walking into The Parks mall to let Gabriel ride their huge indoor carousel. So we all took a little walk to walk off our lunch, and Jav was voted the one to ride with Gabriel. He was a little apprehensive, but mostly excited. He picked out a horse and when the thing started moving, I don't think I've ever seen him smile that big! It was great fun to watch and try to get pictures every time they sped by. He of course wanted to ride it again, and this time picked out a tiger to ride. It really did make the day even more special. Now I know it will be a blast to take him someplace that has even more rides-once I'm in a little better shape to do that!

The laziest day I have had in a long time

What does a schedule look like on a nonstop rain-filled Saturday, when it's just me and Gabriel and he has a cold?

7:am Get up, feed pets, empty litter boxes with hazmat uniform on, take out garbage (gee I miss Jav right about now).

7:45am Gabriel wakes up, still has low-grade fever, we realize we're stuck at home again all day. Sigh. Call brother to cancel on my late birthday get together in Weatherford today. Double sigh.

8:15 am Turn on Noggin, fix waffles and bananas for breakfast.

9:am Work on computer for awhile while Gabriel watches Dora video. For the hundredth time.

10:am Read the paper while Gabriel reads some truck books. Do some laundry.

11:a.m. Play in Gabriel's room. Make a dinosaur playground out of his Sesame Street garage, including a swing I rig from string and a thick rubber band. Try to remember the different voices I use for all of his little cars. Build some skyscrapers with blocks in the living room. Knock all the skyscrapers down.

12:pm Watch the rain and some hummingbirds out of the picture window.

12:30 Fix lunch - quesadillas

1:15 Read a bunch of books and get him down for a nap. He falls asleep before I finish singing to him, which is just so sweet. Finish up the laundry for the day, print out some Real Simple recipes I copied from the magazines and start a binder.

1:45 Nap time for me, too.

3:45!!! Wake up and take a shower. Ahhhhhh.

4:00 Gabriel wakes up and wants to play some more. We have juice and pretzels and turn Noggin on again. I clean the master bathroom, the only real productive thing I did today.

4:45 Rest and watch Ni Hao Ki Lan with Gabriel and try to learn some Chinese.

5:15 Turn off the TV and play some more in Gabriel's room, and push cars back and forth down the hallway.

6:30 Go to Chic-Fil-A for dinner. It finally stopped raining for about 15 minutes. Sing with the Laurie Berkner CD while driving. Get stuck in a massive traffic jam coming home due to a bad accident. 2 police cars, 1 ambulance and 3 fire trucks try to squeeze past the traffic, even on two bridges where there was no place to pass. Even Gabriel was concerned after awhile. Tried not to look at the accident, and said a little prayer for all the people involved as we drove past.

7:15 Finally make it home and eat dinner. Yummo! Decide to have ice cream for dessert. German Chocolate, my favorite. Double Yummo! Gabriel is an extremely happy camper about now.

8:15 Decide Gabriel doesn't need a bath since we have done absolutely nothing all day.

9:00 We talk to Jav, calling from his cousin's wedding in Mexico. He sounds a little tipsy, but it's good to hear from him.

9:30 Finish reading books, turn on the lullaby glow-in-the-dark toy that makes jungle animals go around in a circle on the ceiling, Gabriel almost falls asleep watching it. He murmurs, "Mama I had a really fun day today" to me, and I tell him I did too! I just about melt I love him so much.

Speech, and what we've learned

A ton. Gabriel is now talking all the time. He wants to describe everything, and he wants confirmation from us that we understand him. He wants all of his toys to have conversations with him. When he first started talking, I could probably only understand 30% of what was coming out, and most people's percentage was much less. I know how frustrating this was to me, and apparently it was frustrating enough to him for him to get better. Which I'm thankful for, every day. I can now understand about 90% of his very long sentences.

Part of his problem was lower jaw development. The poor kid had huge cheeks when he was born, and even though they've been steadily thinning out as he's grown, he still needed to strengthen those muscles to say certain sounds. This was figured out by our awesome ECI therapist and coordinator, both of whom I appreciate SO MUCH, for all the great information and tools they've given us over the past year. The second problem, I think, was just an overall slowness to develop fine motor skills. That's one of the fascinating things I've learned over the past year is that speaking and eating with a spoon all stem from the same part of the brain. He had trouble with both until just a few months ago. And the final thing giving him trouble (and this still does) is talking too fast and laziness to say things clearly. He just rushes through it and I have to remind him to slow down and say it right, so other people can understand him. But I can be proud that Jav and I have worked SO HARD in trying to improve his speech, (Gabriel's worked hard too), and even though we still need to work on a couple of consonants, we are seeing the results.

I'm not sure whether or not he'll still need therapy. Jav still has some trouble understanding him at times, especially over the phone. We were supposed to have our final Re-Evaluation with the Speech Therapist and our Therapy Coordinator this past Wednesday, but through a series of misunderstandings on their part, they didn't show up. I think this will be very valuable information to have, though, in our decision as to whether to keep going (which from this point will be paid for out of our pocket because our insurance doesn't cover any of it and he's too far along to qualify for the FW public school therapy program.) They will basically give him the same tests, updated a little due to being a year older, that they gave him when he started the program and see how much he's progressed. So we're trying to reschedule before he turns 3 a week from Sunday.

All of this has made me very interested in possibly furthering my education and pursuing some type of career in early child development or speech therapy when I have to go back to work. Supposedly the therapists are so badly needed right now that they all set their own hours, which would work beautifully with having to take and pickup kiddos from school. I'm not sure, though, how it would work with school holidays or summers, and that's still the only thing giving me pause.

I'm just so glad to be able to communicate with him now, all the time!!!

Just some baby stuff

When I was pregnant with Gabriel, his defining characteristic was that he got the hiccups. All the time, all day long. But I don't remember him moving around very much at night.

This baby (and we have picked out a name but are going to wait to tell everybody except for Gabriel), has had the hiccups a few times in the past few weeks. But his defining characteristic is that he likes to move. Especially at night. All. Night. Long. Which both thrills me and wears me out a little. And it's not just in one spot, so either he's huge already or he really knows how to get around in there. So I can pretty much guarantee he already has his days and nights mixed up.

Gabriel has started saying good morning and good night to his baby brother and kissing my belly. It's really sweet and I think he's starting to grasp what's happening and get excited about it. On PBS there is a little daycare-like setting in between shows where they teach preschool type things. One day recently they were supposed to make a scrapbook with pictures showing what made them different from other kids. At one point the teacher asked the kids at home if they have any brothers or sisters and Gabriel shouted YES!.

Pretty cool.

Big boy bed!

We finally put together Gabriel's bed Sunday, and I was (of course) a little apprehensive about how he would adapt. Even though we've been talking it up for weeks, he seemed a tiny bit worried when they started taking down his crib. But when Jav and his Dad started bringing the pieces of the new bed in, he started to get excited and even wanted to help. I caught him at one point in the kitchen banging on the wall with a REAL hammer, luckily before any damage was done. The first night I woke up once an hour thinking he might be scared or confused. But he's been doing great, and sleeping all the way through the night and having pretty good naps too. So far he's still waiting for me to come and get him out of it in the mornings, but yesterday he was already on the floor playing after he woke up from his nap. He's pictured above with his two Curious Georges, one of which belong back at his grandmothers house. They are his best buddies right now.

Busy, busy, busy

I feel like our house is just a nonstop whirlwind of activity lately. There seems to be so much going on.

I'm fully within the nesting phase right now. I'm having Jav rearrange furniture in the whole house, not just kid rooms. I've decided you need to live in a house at least three or four years before you should buy any new furniture. Some of our early big and bulky purchases just don't work in our rather small family area, due to some strange quirks in our house. One is the angled fireplace. It's pretty to look at, but it cuts off an entire chunk of the room and really limits our space. Another is the floor being at a slightly different level halfway across the living room (which used to be two rooms until previous owners decided to take the wall out). The result of these two things is that we're having to try out different arrangements of the furniture to see if anything works best.

I've got several other projects going right now. I'm trying to clean out closets, drawers and cabinets to make room for baby stuff. I had 7 bags of clothes and other stuff that I gave away with the first sweep, and I'll have another 6 or so for this coming Friday. I'm also working on trying to catch up and straighten up our pictures. We had saved some to one website, and the rest to another. So now I've got them all in one place, and all backed up to an external drive. I still need to catch up on copying the last-year ones from the computer to both places now. THEN I need to figure out which ones we've printed out and which ones never got printed. THEN I want to start putting them in albums, in our hallway gallery, and into a makeshift scrap/baby book for Gabriel. All before the next one arrives. Good luck with all that.

Gabriel's birthday is fast approaching, though, so the month of September I'll stop doing all of this and concentrate on getting the house and yard ready for his birthday party. This is always a great excuse to do some Fall cleaning. I want to clean the windows, inside and out, clean blinds and cabinets and baseboards and ceiling fans, hose off the front and back porch, and wipe down all of our wood furniture with lemon oil. Since I am moving slower than normal, this will take me the entire six Mother's Day Out days I'll have until his party.

His theme this year is dinosaurs, but the only things I'm really incorporating that into are the centerpiece for the cake, the actual cake and a pinata. We're working on his gifts, and finally decided to chock up the money for a swing set this year. His Godparents are going in on it with us, and (God bless 'em) have agreed to come and help Jav put it together. He's going to be so excited!!!

Mother's Day Out starts back up on September 8th, and I think I have all my ducks in a row ready for it. I got my immunization update signed by his doctor, and we'll go "meet" his teacher on September 2nd. The assistant teacher from his class last year will be his main teacher this year - yay! He absolutely loved Ms. Amy, so I know he's going to be fine.

So I'm trying to do all of this, plus walk Molly three mornings a week and do my pregnancy yoga fat-burning DVD three times a week. And do you know that the nurse practitioner at my OB/GYN had the nerve to suggest I might want to try 7 days of exercise to slow down my weight gain? Is she nuts?

End of summer fun

They've been replacing our sewer pipes and Gabriel's been in absolute heaven! These were taken after the guys went home a few nights ago.

He wanted me to take his picture with Molly after running around in the water yesterday.

He looks so big to me all of a sudden!

Late birthday pics

Sandra and boyfriend (and gourmet cook) Michael, who made a birthday lunch for me that was wonderful.

Our little prodigy, who never really just bangs the keys, but seems to have a plan every time he sits down at the piano. One day I'd love to find a used piano on Craig's List.

Luckily he at least waited until the candles were blown out before licking the icing off of them!

Gabriel and his Tito. I think he was begging for even more cake.

Love, love, love this boy!

Poignant moments

We don't have many channels that we regularly check on TV. We have a tendency to stick to Public TV, Turner Classic Movies, Independent Film Channel, ESPN (Javi, not me so much), Bravo, and TLC. That's pretty much all we surf if we're not watching something on the DVR or a Ranger game. Last night, I was checking these and happened on a concert on KERA, our Public TV station. It was Chris Botti, who is a trumpet player that is popular on "Smooth Jazz" stations, I believe. I'm not a fan of smooth jazz-it's one of the few genres I just can't get into. But I stayed with it because the female guest that came out was singing "I've Got You Under My Skin", and he had a great Big Band and Orchestra behind him, and I'm a sucker for those kinds of tunes. We found out afterwards she was Kathryn McPhee, who was a runner up on American Idol one year. The music was good, but the cheesy flirting between she and Botti drove me a little nuts and we decided to watch one of our 15 episodes that we are behind on The Office. I'm not sure why we stopped watching it last year, but we did, and now we're trying to get caught up before the new season starts.

When we finished our episode, the show was still on, with Yo Yo Ma playing a number with Botti. I love Yo Yo Ma, and think he is one of the greatest artists of our time, but the song was ending and Jav had to ruin what was left by asking, "Is that Yo Yo Ma Ma?" which is what he thought his name was for the longest time. And I think he thought he was a rapper instead of a cellist. Anyway, we were about to change the channel when the next special guest to walk out was Steven Tyler. Yep, that one. The androgynous, flamboyant lead singer for Aerosmith? And as of late has been in the news for falling off the stage during a concert? (It's tough being a aging rock star). Well, as he strutted to the front of the stage carrying his signature bandana wrapped microphone, we were intrigued, to say the least, to see what would happen. What happened was one of the most moving and surprising performances I've seen in a while, and one I won't ever forget. He sang the song "Smile", a beautiful song that Charlie Chaplin wrote the music for and used in the movie Modern Times. The lyrics are trying to get you to just smile even though your heart is breaking, so for me it ends up being a really sad song. Tyler put so much feeling into that song I can't even describe it, and his voice sounded so clear. They kept showing the front row of the mostly late middle-aged to elderly audience as he sang, and I thought, "I bet they were dreading this part of the show, but they all look as surprised as I am". When he finished he introduced his Dad, who had been one of those elderly gentlemen in that row, and I actually got teary-eyed. I have a newfound respect for the man.

Forty-two, fat and happy

I had a great birthday yesterday.  I was originally dreading this birthday, because a year ago I knew we would probably stop trying to have another kid and that made me sad.  Little did I know what life had in store for me!

I started out my day with a nice walk with Molly, something that always gives me energy and makes me happy.  We're not going as long as we used to, but I'm still managing to get out there with her three times a week, and plan to continue that unless someone tells me not to.  When I got home, I checked my computer and found lots of really sweet birthday wishes on Facebook, which made me feel really good.

Gabriel and I shared our bowl of yogurt, blueberries and granola while watching Elmo, something that has become a nice routine during the summer.  My Mom came over and we three went to the mall to get Gabriel's big-boy comforter ordered, and since sheets were on sale I took care of those too.  I also had to buy a few more t-shirts in larger sizes to get me through the next four (you've got to be kidding me) months.  

Mom took us out to lunch at Chili's, where Gabriel ate almost all of his quesadilla and most of his Mandarin oranges.  Mom and I chose burgers (there's no where else that does them better, I think) and fries.  Then we went back home and had big bowls of cookies and cream ice cream.  We were all three very full but very happy campers!  

Gabriel took a nap, which is touch and go these days.  Which meant I got one too.  Our therapy coordinator LaToya came after we woke up and was as excited as I've been about Gabriel's speech improving exponentially the past week.  It's looking more and more like we might not need more therapy after he ages-out of their program in September.  Gabriel even requested and sang his favorite current song while she was here:  Happy Together by the Turtles.  

Then Gabriel and I cuddled up on my bed and watched The Wizard of Oz.  I know I'm supposed to be rationing his viewings, but hey, it was my birthday.  He had his head on my shoulder and the baby started kicking, and I felt so amazingly happy I could have cried.  The only thing missing was my wonderful husband, who was on his way bringing dinner home.  And I continued to get birthday wishes from friends and family all day long, ending with Macy's phone call in her sweet little voice telling me happy birthday and that she was watching The Cat in the Hat.

After our Chic-Fil-A feast (I was good and had a wrap and carrot salad, ok and maybe a couple of Gabriel's waffle fries), it was time for cards and gifts.  But the best part was hearing Gabriel sing happy birthday to me for the first time.  I was also pretty excited about getting one of the things on my list - a croquet set!  I foresee hours of fun when the family comes over, it brings back so many memories of the fun we used to have at my grandparents' playing.  Plus it's one of the few games I can actually play right now!

After we got Gabriel to sleep, Jav and I watched the Ranger game, playing in probably the most important series of this season against the Angels.  But both pitchers were working slow as Christmas, and it turned into a very long game.  So I worked my crossword until I fell asleep, and I'm not sure if they won or not.  

But even if they didn't, I'd still say I had a perfect day yesterday.  Who knew forty-two could be this great?