The new man in my life

All three of my guys.

He looks so tiny to me in this picture.

Proud Papa.

Tita is very happy...

...and so is Mamaw.
Already trying to lift his head.

Joel Terrell Villarreal entered this world on Tuesday, December 1st at 1:23 pm. (Gabriel was born at 1:05 pm. This must be my time of the day to have babies.) There are so many things about the experience I want to remember.

The first thing I'll always remember is how stupid we were to think that my doctor might not change his mind and want to admit us on Monday night instead of early Tuesday morning. I had to drive to Aledo for my last appointment at 2:15, and he informed me that he wanted me admitted by 5:30. I got on my cell to call Jav, who already knew he had to work late that night to be off the rest of the week, my Dad to see if he could take me to the hospital, and the vet's office to see if we could board Molly that night. I tried to make a running list in my head as I drove back home of the prioritized things I had to get done and threw out the things I wanted to get done. I finished packing for me and Gabriel. I took a quick shower, realizing I hadn't had one yet that day. I took Molly to the vet and dropped off Gabriel's bag at Jav's Mom's. I think the hardest part of that whole afternoon was saying goodbye to Gabriel. I bawled when I got back to the car. Then I went back home to wait for my Dad. I put the sheets back on the bed, emptied the dishwasher and took care of feeding the cats before he got there.

My Dad was the best Dad ever, again, and stayed with me in the hospital until 9 when I finally kicked him out. He didn't want me to be up there by myself, but I assured him that Jav was on his way and I would just work a crossword puzzle until he got there. Jav, however, was having a nightmare of a time at work, thinking he could leave at one point and they called him back in to fix a spreadsheet that wasn't working. Luckily, I couldn't eat any dinner until after 10 anyway so it all worked out (although I was having fairly strong and repetitive Braxton Hicks contractions when my Dad was there and was just a little worried that the baby would come when no one was there with me.) I was really glad to see Jav (and glad to see my dinner).

They induced me at 5:30 in the morning and the contractions started getting pretty bad by 9:30 or so. I got the epidural and all was quickly better. My parents got there around noon and finally convinced Jav to go get some lunch while they were in the room with me, and because there had been little change in the progression of the baby for over an hour. As soon as he left the nurse checked me and said, " Are you ready to have this baby?" So we called him and he was eating in the room when my doctor got there. By then the baby was crowning. I went through two rounds of pushing and breathing and he was out. Dr. Tatum, who is usually very conservative about guessing weights and such, said "He's huge" when he pulled him out. I think it was a real point of pride to him that he got Joel out without any broken bones. But I was still pretty shocked when they yelled out the weight: 10 pounds, 13 ounces of baby boy. Apparently I was born to birth big babies.

Some other things I want to remember about our hospital stay is Gabriel's first meeting of Joel face to face. I wish I had been videotaping to get Gabriel's face. He was just shocked to see a real live baby. He kept pointing to my tummy and saying, "Baby Joel?" and we kept telling him, "No, Baby Joel came out and here he is!" I think he finally got it, and even asked to hold him before Jav's parents took him back home. Another wonderful thing about my stay was the nurses. Every one of them were just so helpful and wonderful. I never had to wait for anything, they were bringing me pain meds, food and drinks, and plenty of advice about breastfeeding my whole stay. (Their advice was much better than the lactation consultant we finally saw the day after he was born). I spent my entire hospital stay eating graham crackers and drinking cranberry juice, in between regular meals, of course.

And the best memory I will have is early the morning after Joel was born, just after Jav left to run home and feed the cats. He had left the blinds open for me to see that it was starting to snow, and at first it was just a few flakes. But then as I held Joel and felt just so thankful that he was here and healthy, it started snowing really hard and was so beautiful to see. We'd joked through the whole pregnancy that he was our Rain Baby because we had such a wet summer, and very much on schedule it rained the day he was born. But I wasn't counting on snow. It just seemed so easy to believe in miracles that morning.

Waiting for your destiny

Jav and I have decided it's a very strange feeling when you are in the last weeks before a baby comes. I'm sure with the first baby the strange feeling was stronger since we had NO idea what we were getting into! You would think the feeling wouldn't be as anxious the second time around, and it's not. But there are still some unknowns - like what it will be like to have two (one of whom will demand constant attention), will this one sleep well, will Gabriel adjust well to him.... on and on.

So when the doctor set the "Date to Induce" to be next Tuesday, the clock on all that has become normal and routine in our lives started to tick down. It's just a strange mix of joy, excitement and curiosity to meet the new guy, and a little dread at knowing how little sleep we will be getting and that nothing will be routine. Being a self-admitted control freak, I thrive on routine. And Gabriel now thrives on routine, so his little world is about to get a shock also. We have our lives down to a nice rhythm now and there's not too many unexpected things that occur during our day. A new baby is going to be a big, sweet bundle full of unexpected for awhile.

And I cannot wait to hold that bundle. To see his face and smell him... to feel that softer than soft baby skin, and slowly get to see his personality develop. I got a glimpse of his profile at the ultrasound Tuesday and I don't think his cheeks will be as big as Gabriel's were, and I'm now wondering what else will be different about him. It's also a wonderful feeling to know Gabriel will now have a brother. He got a little upset when I told him that the baby will be sleeping in our room for awhile. He wants him to be in his room, which is all fine and good as long as he's the quiet lump moving around in Mommy's tummy. He may be glad of the arrangement once he realizes that the lump is going to cry, eat and poop - and not much else.

And so we all wait for Tuesday, when everything gets turned upside down in our little world. And a big bouncing baby boy fills that little world with more love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Miserable

That's me. I have only gotten three or so hours of sleep for the last three nights. Every time I think I'm close to drifting off, I start coughing, We came really close to driving to the emergency room last night, but I kept telling myself I could make it another hour before we resorted to that. I've pulled ligaments all under this gigantic belly and can barely walk. I called the doctor back yesterday to beg for stronger medication, but they took so long to get back to me that my Z-pack wasn't ready until today.

It's a fine line to walk between being willing to take anything to get better, and worrying that I could be harming the baby somehow with all these meds. But I went to the OB/GYN today and they said I HAD to get better and hopefully wouldn't go into labor while I was this sick. So I'm trying to put the worry out of my head and concentrate on getting better. My sweet mother-in-law offered to keep Gabriel most of the day, with my sweet sister-in-law picking him up late this afternoon to hang out with him until bath time. The coughing seems a little better, but no sleep still. I've watched Top Chef reruns all day and have made progress on the book I'm reading. But I really just want to go to sleep. And can't.

Looking forward, I have a sonogram scheduled for next Tuesday. My doctor wants to see how big the baby is. If he's over 10 pounds, he'll want to schedule a C-section once I hit 41 weeks and still show no signs of labor. He told me as he walked out of the exam room today that if would just go ahead an have him next Monday or Tuesday he wouldn't have to worry about any of that. I told him I'd work on that this weekend. It's a good thing I've learned to appreciate his dry sense of humor.

Waking up in the middle of the night

Not so peaceful. I have a hacking cough that attacks mostly at night and is getting progressively worse. I went to the doctor Friday but he saw no infection and therefore gave me crappy medicine. Nothing is helping the cough and I'm starting to get a bad pain in one side where the ligaments are stretching. It's probably my imagination, but it feel like the baby is lower, too, over the past few days. I cannot get comfortable and have tried various places in the house to try to sleep besides my bed (I feel worse knowing that I'm keeping Jav up). I wish we had an old, comfy recliner...but we don't. I'm currently sipping a big mug of hot water and lemon which is helping my throat but not the tightness in my chest.

I REALLY need my sleep right now and am going to call and beg for something stronger tomorrow. I can't believe I made it through the whole pregnancy until now without getting sick.

Waking up

I've always hated to hear the alarm going off in the morning. But now that I've been a stay-at-home-Mom for awhile I hate it even more. I set it, because I still have to get up early (earlier than my work-going husband). But I have an internal clock that usually wakes me up between three to five minutes before the thing actually goes off. One day when I have to go back to work I will invest in one that has a really cool sound so that it won't put me in a bad mood first thing in the morning. I also give Jav grief all the time because he obsessively looks at the clock every time he wakes up during the night. I think this is crazy, and go out of my way to NOT look at it, so I can enjoy the rest of my sleeping time without worrying about how much time I have left to go.

Saturdays are my one day to sleep in. Instead of 6:15, I sleep until 7:15. I realize this doesn't really constitute "sleeping in" to most people, but it's nice to have one day in the week that is a slight break from routine. It helps my psyche. I've been having trouble sleeping all week with a bad cough that only shows up at night when I'm horizontal, but I slept a little better last night. I alternate between sleeping on my right side with my head slightly propped up and a sitting up position. For some reason I start coughing immediately if I try the left side. This morning I was dozing in the sitting up position and could hear things here and there.

First I heard Molly licking some part of herself, which has a tendency to drive me nuts. I whispered for her to stop, and she did. So then she started snoring. But it settled into a really low snore that actually put me back to sleep for awhile. Then I heard the cardinals, the first risers of the bird world, with their little "chirp......chirps". They were probably happy that I remembered to put birdseed out for them last night. I drifted off again, but then woke up when I heard Gabriel whispering something on the monitor. He must have been talking in his sleep, because then all I heard a slight wheezy breathing from him. I remember thinking that Jav must really be sleeping good because he usually makes some slight snoring noises, but he was completely silent and still beside me. Back to sleep again until the baby started rolling, then violently kicked all of a sudden, waking me completely up. At the same time heard a coven (is that right?) of crows way off in the distance fussing at some predator. I must have drifted back off until I heard Zoe meowing her complaint, as she always does on Saturdays, that I'm not up when I'm supposed to be.

So I finally opened my eyes, stretched all over, and finally looked at the clock. It was 7:13. Perfect! I hefted myself up for the day. Some people might think all of these sounds were an annoying way to wake up in the morning, but I found them all very peaceful and woke up feeling great for the first time this week.

Sleepytime songs

This post is pure indulgence for me. I want to remember as much as I can about my kids being young, and this blog will help to jar my memory, hopefully. So to all three people who read this blog, this is probably going to be a bit boring.

I started singing songs to Gabriel as soon as he was born, some lullaby-type songs, and some slower and melodic pop songs. Slowly things have evolved over the past three years into a nice pattern before naps and bedtime, where he now expects certain songs from me. About a year ago, I (being the way-too-organized person that I am), devised somewhat of a system to help me remember what songs to sing on which nights. I like to add new ones in sometimes, but it's hard to find the right songs. I love it on nights when he decides to sing along, which he does alot since he's actually learned most of these songs. I think the repetition is comforting and the familiarity of the songs helps to relax him. So here is our current "playlist". I have tried to cover several different genres.

Sunday is supposed to be the 70's, but it's turned into the Carpenters day. I either sing "Sing" (which is a Sesame Street song, but I like the Carpenters version better), or "Top of the World" before his nap. Then a favorite before bedtime: "Close to You". He loves the end when I do the "Waaaaaaaaah" in the style of Rick Moranis on Parenthood.

Monday is 30's and 40's day. The nap songs goes back to when he was born, because this is a song my grandfather used to sing to me. It's "On the Good Ship Lollipop", which I'm not sure how much longer will last because it's kind of a girly song. My niece Macy now requests it every time she spends the night over here, which I love. Bedtime songs rotate between "Singin' in the Rain" and "Fly Me To The Moon", of which there is a wonderful version on one of his Laurie Berkner CD's. Every once in awhile I throw in "Blue Skies", (Ella Fitgerald version without the scatting).

Tuesday used to be Beatles day, but has sort of become 60's day. I would sing "I'm Only Sleeping" before nap, which turns out to be a wonderful lull-into-sleep song. I added a slow version of "Can't Buy Me Love", and "Eight Days a Week". But since this is a Mother's Day Out day during the school year, I don't get to those very often. Nighttime songs now rotate between two songs: The Beatles version of "Till There Was You", which is an old 40's song that they covered and another one my grandfather used to sing alot, and "Happy Together" by the Turtles, which is one of his favorite songs of all time. Usually he requests it three or four times a week, but I stick to Tuesdays. I actually added some funny background vocals to the Beatles song, and he sings them every time now.

Wednesdays started out being Willie Wednesdays (as in Nelson), but I never could remember words to more than one Willie Song that was appropriate for sleepytime. So now it's Old School Country. I sing either "Walking After Midnight" or "You Belong To Me" by Patsy Cline at naptime. If you are familiar with "Walking After Midnight", you will know that her backup singers do alot of "wa wa wa wa wa" singing, and Gabriel has learned their parts perfectly. Nighttime song never rotates here, it's always "I'd Have to Be Crazy" by Willie. Jav was amazed (while listening in on the monitor) when Gabriel would try to sing along even a year ago.

Thursdays are Mary Poppins day. Nap time was always "Jolly Holiday", but since this is another Mother's Day Out day now, I rotate that with "Chim Chiminy" and "Stay Awake" for nighttime. Sometimes I go crazy and do a medley.

Fridays were James Taylor day, but we've had to do some adjusting. Nap time is always "You've Got a Friend". Bedtime used to be "Sweet Baby James", but now Friday is the one night a week Jav reads to him and gets him to sleep. And in a strange twist, every Friday night Gabriel now wants to sing one of our Mass songs with Jav, something he's never asked me to sing. It's an Alleluia that we sing every week, and we noticed Gabriel was singing along sometime this summer.

I tried to sing Saturday songs on Saturday, with "Saturday in the Park" before nap. But it's a really hard song to sing and I always mess it up, so I stopped. Now I sing Sweet Baby James instead. Saturday night's song is always "Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night", a Tom Waits song that Shawn Colvin covers on my CD. This is another really good luller-to-sleep. I didn't think Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" was a good bedtime choice.

And every night after I sing the featured song, I sing two more quick ones. One is a Laurie Berkner lullaby that she wrote for her new baby, Nona, that is just so sweet. I just change the name, and here are the words:

Gabriel, Gabriel here's your song.

Gabriel, Gabriel all night long.

Gabriel, Gabriel rocking chair.

Hold you close and take you there.

Gabriel, Gabriel time for bed.

Gabriel, Gabriel sleepyhead.

Gabriel, Gabriel know it's true..

Now and always I love you.

I love you.

So simple, but so very wonderful.

And I top off our night with a song my Mom sang to me, "All Through The Night", an old Irish lullaby: (I only sing this first verse, even though there are two more)

Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night.

Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night.

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and vale in slumber sleeping

I my loved ones' watch am keeping, all through the night.

And that about does it for this post. Good night!

Who's to blame?

Up until this week, I had been getting more and more concerned about the H1N1 vaccine, and my inability to get any. All I hear on everybody's list of at-risk groups is pregnant women, pregnant women and more pregnant women. But I just have kept chugging along, thinking that if we've made it this far, maybe we can make it until the baby comes without incident.

But then Gabriel got sick Wednesday night. To be more specific, he started projectile vomiting in the bathtub. He had been absolutely fine up until that moment. And since he's only vomited once before in his short life, it totally freaked him out. Jav got him cleaned up and calmed down about the time he started again. And on top of my fear for him and wanting to comfort him and make him feel better, I started to feel another emotion that I couldn't quite pinpoint until later when everything had quieted down. It was anger.

What is up with the way the State of Texas is handling this crisis? Or is it their fault at all? We were last on the list of states on the ratio of population to vaccines made available, but now have moved up the list 4 or 5 states. Big woo hoo. Tarrant County has had one clinic, last Friday, for pregnant women and at-risk children where they had 3000 vaccines available. That is laughable and I refused to fight the crazies and stand in line for one (my OB/GYN totally agreed with my reasoning). Although I did hear that they actually had some left after turning people away all day long. I just don't have the energy to stand in line who knows how long with a bunch of people who might be sick already. What is causing all these delays?

Gabriel, it turns out, has a stomach virus. A doozy of one that's making the rounds, according to our pediatrician. He stopped throwing up that first night around midnight, but we were worried about dehydration and woke him up every couple of hours to take his temperature and make him drink gatorade. His fever has never gone over 102 and was down to 99.1 this morning. The nurse had said to keep an eye on him for signs of congestion or coughing, because that would probably mean he has the flu. He didn't ever show either of those, but kept sneezing and sounded stopped up all day. But then last night he seemed back to almost his normal self, and we stopped worrying so much. He slept through the night like a rock. Our fear returned this morning due to his listlessness and the fact that he kept wanting me to hold him. At one point I walked into the living room and he was laying on the floor facing AWAY from the TV just staring into space with his little hollowed out eyes. I immediately called and said we wanted to come in today, and Jav's boss let him come home to take him so I wouldn't have to risk the waiting room full of sick kids.

Having to decide about whether or not to take Gabriel to the doctor was a no-brainer. Having to make the call between what could be worse - Jav losing good favor with his new boss, or me risk getting the flu was a horrible decision to have to make, and one we shouldn't have to be making at this stage. Gabriel, who is slowly making his way down the road to recovery, (it's supposed to take 3 or 4 days to move through your system before it goes away), got a nasal dose of the H1N1 vaccine today But he has to go back in a month to have another one. I'm very glad he's started the process, at least, but I'm still afraid for both of us. I feel like our well being is relying on a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a government office somewhere, and that's a very frustrating feeling.

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!!!