Building Block Towers with Grandma and Grandpa

Last Saturday, my dad and stepmom came to visit. Nick had a fun time exhausting them. He especially loved building block towers with them. Running from room to room, showing off his toys, Nick was super excited to play with his Grandpa Mike and Grandma Patty.

Nick gets everyone to build with him. He also insists that everyone sit on the floor while building. "You sit. You sit on the floor. Build. Build blocks!" He especially likes to build houses for his little plastic animals.

It's funny--I can remember my dad sitting on the floor with my sister and me when we were little, playing with Legos. It's kind of neat to see him building with Nick, now. I do think Nick, with his floor-sitting demands, is far more demanding.

It's funny how you revert to a child as soon as you start building. At least I do, and I've seen others do it, too. I like to build for stability, alternating blocks rather than making each wall seperately. Nick likes to build straight up, without much regard for whether the blocks will fall down.

Oh, and you know what made Nick even more happy?

Grandma and Grandpa brought cake!

Wordless Wednesday: Captions, Please!

Bad Parenting Moment

I have a confession to make. Greg and I had a bad parenting moment yesterday. I'm sure we're not the only parents to have done this by accident. When we got Nick ready for his day around 10 a.m., we gave him a fresh diaper and outfit, then left to go shopping and out to lunch. It was a pretty busy day, because we had a ton of errands to run. By the time we got home and Greg was making dinner, Nick (who hadn't had a nap) was pretty beat. He came up to me and asked if we could "Watch doggies on puter." Nick and I love to watch videos on http://www.cuteoverload.com/ together. Anyway, I picked him up and sat him on my lap, and . . .

His diaper exploded. I mean that there was so much baby pee that the gel escaped and we were both soaked. That diaper must've weighed at least five pounds. I had no idea there was so much gel and goop inside of a diaper. I was actually impressed at its capacity. "Greg!" I shouted. "When was the last time you changed his diaper?"

"I thought you did it!" he replied. Yes, our poor little boy went more than 8 hours in the same diaper. I guess each of us thought the other had changed him, and thus Nick tested the capacity of his diapers. It was only a wet diaper, but it was really, really wet. So wet that both Nick and I had soaked shirts and pants. Nick's socks were even soaked after the explosion. For about five minutes, I felt like the world's worst parent. I had to put him in the bath, though, so he wasn't too upset about the whole diaper explosion thing.

One of Nick's many Christmas gifts was some fun bath foam, which he thinks is a ton of fun. He is also rather fond of his rubber duckie collection.

So, that was my bad parenting moment. Nick was just fine, but man, did I feel guilty. Please tell me we're not the only ones who have forgotten to change a kid's diaper all day. . . Please?

Pregnancy Update: 17 Weeks

So do I look pregnant yet?

I had my stepmom snap this picture last night. I'm 17 weeks along, and I'll go for my growth ultrasound on January 18th. Nick has been poking my belly a lot, but he doesn't seem to understand that it's not okay to climb on top of it. We'll keep working on that. I am prettty sure I can feel the baby moving around in there, but it's still at that stage where his movements are random and indistinct.

I thought I would start posting updates about my pregnancy, now that I've announced it. I don't have many pictures of my pregnancy with Nick, because I was uncomfortable with how big I became. Now I kind of regret not having pictures to document it. So for this pregnancy, I'm going to try to post updates here sometimes showing my progress. Hopefully it won't be too boring.

First of all, here are the stats:

Weeks Pregnant: 17w4 days
Weight: (From starting weight) -6 pounds
Exercise: Physical Therapy counts, right? That's 3x/week for at least an hour, plus 10 minutes of exercises day and night. No cardio yet. I have to work on that.
Cravings: Goat cheese, macaroni and cheese, Spaghetti O's, anything orange
Sleep: Getting tougher, due to getting up in the middle of the night. Also, my body pillow from my first pregnancy disappeared, and I'm too cheap to buy a new one. Yet.
Symptoms: I read somewhere that in the second trimester, exhaustion is supposed to leave. Not me. I could still sleep twelve hours a day.
Mood: Pretty even, though I'm probably a little more irritable. Oh, and random things still make me a bit weepy.


I did find this picture from my honeymoon in 2008, when I was about 15 or 16 weeks pregnant with Nick. I had just started showing, and this was one of the first days I had to wear maternity clothes. Yes, I was in France, at Monet's Garden, in June. Far nicer than being in Illinois, in January.  ;)

This time around I started showing around 10 or 12 weeks, but I was in maternity clothes from about 8 weeks. My pants stopped fitting, and I refused to buy a bigger size. Instead I just switched over early. My favorite pants are "Secret Fit Belly Pants." They are the most comfortable pants known to woman, and I missed them terribly after I had Nick.

My appetite has been really funny. I'm always hungry, but I can't eat as much in one sitting. I get nauseous about halfway through most meals, especially in the evenings. The nausea isn't as bad as it was in the beginning, but it's definitely still there. I have the exact same cravings that I had when I was pregnant with Nick: goat cheese and crackers, plus all kinds of orange foods that I usually won't touch, like Spaghetti  O's. I think they are nasty unless I'm pregnant. I only let myself indulge with the processed foods a few times a week, but I eat goat cheese every day.

I still haven't gained any weight, but I'm pretty happy about that. I lost six pounds in the first trimester, and the last few weeks I've been holding steady with the -6. (Yes, even with the holidays.) By this time in my pregnancy with Nick, I think I'd gained about ten pounds. Then again, I weighed twenty-five pounds less before getting pregnant with Nick, so I'm starting out at a higher weight. My doctor's goal is for me to gain only fifteen pounds with this pregnancy, so we'll see how that goes. My thyroid makes my metabolism all screwy.
My blood sugar has been rather crazy, and it goes below 50 at least one or two times each day. I've been trying to be careful about what I eat--if I have protein with a complex carbohydrate, it seems to hold my blood sugar more steady. It's always pretty low, though, and the only time I get a reading over 80 is immediately after I eat. Then it drops quickly into the seventies or lower, and stays there. I'm not diabetic, but I am insulin-resistant, and I have post-prandial hypoglycemia due to RNY bariatric surgery that I had back in 2003. When I'm not pregnant, I still get low blood sugar, but it seems to be far more severe when I'm expecting.

This pregnancy has been different because I'm always cold. Now, I'm usually pretty sensitive to the cold, but when I was expecting Nick, I believe I went six or seven months without ever being chilled, even at the end when it was pretty cold outside. With this one, I'm constantly freezing.


Any of you have more than one child already know that the second pregnancy is always much different from the first, because you have one to chase while the one inside of you is telling you to rest. But overall, I'm doing pretty well.

My Cookie Monster Loves Target

Earlier this week, Nick and I went on a little excursion to the Target. Check out his cookie monster sweatshirt. Nicholas is my cookie monster indeed, and he especially loves the vanilla scones at Starbucks. Note the crumbs all over his clothes.

Every time I go to Target, I treat myself to a caffeinated beverage, usually a nice skim latte.  Actually, I think I may have the most complicated Starbucks drink ever. I've made baristas jaws drop as I tell my order. I order this way: "It's going to be in a grande cup, but it's a tall. I would like a tall, skinny caramel latte with an extra pump of the sugar free syrup (five pumps total), five splendas, extra hot, whipped cream up to the top of the cup, with a little bit of that caramel stuff on top."  Then I always remind them that it's an extra pump, not an extra shot. Someone like me will never sleep if I have a double shot of espresso after 4 p.m.

Lately I've been getting a cup of water for Nick, or else he tries to steal my latte. Yes, my boy likes coffee, and tries to sneak some whenever he can. He snatched a sip one time, and I told him, "No, yucky!" He replied, "Want that! Drink Mommy's coffee!" The last thing this boy needs is anything with caffeine in it, so distraction is the name of the game. Thus the cup of water and the vanilla scones.

I find myself having to run into the store for random things that I forgot more often now. Should I blame it on pregnancy brain? I suppose I can use that excuse for the next few months, anyway. At least I'm lucky that Nick loves shopping. He always asks, "I go shopping?" and then grins widely when I tell him that, yes, we have to go to the store. Something about the colors and the people watching makes him happy. Often there are other little kids he can wave at and say hi to, so he's a happy camper. Plus, in Target, I usually let Nick pick out something from the $1 bins. This time he got a Snoopy coloring book.

Is it weird that I actually like going to the store with Nick? At least on days when I'm not exhausted. We talk the entire time, about what we see, usually. He also helps me look for things. Like, if I'm looking for milk, I tell him, "Let's look for the milk." (Of course, I know right where it is, but I let him point it out.) Then, I thank him for helping me. When he's older, maybe I'll let him use a calculator to track the totals. For now, he's just my cookie monster, hanging out in the cart and letting me know where to find the cheese.

Nick Goes to Physical Therapy (With His Mommy)

I've been going to physical therapy three times a week for the last couple of weeks. Some days, blissfully, Nick is with his Grandma Toni and I can go by myself. But at least one day each week, and the entire time Grandma Toni is on her cruise, I must bring Nick along. He is quite entertained with all of the "toys" that one can find at a physical therapy gym. There's just so much for him to do!

First of all, he can "decorate" my chart. My PT really appreciates the added decoration, especially when he tore a little hole in the page.

He can also measure things with the tape measure. Then, Nick can press the button to make the tape measure retract.  Oh, and the reflex hammer. What fun!

Nick likes to copy whatever the physical therapist is doing to me. For example, if she's working on my foot, Nick will grab the other one and try to do exactly what she does. He's even measured the range of motion in my ankle joint. 
I'm incapacitated for much of the time I'm at physical therapy, because I have to have heat, stretching, and lots of exercises. Nick gets into all kinds of trouble, despite my best efforts to keep him occupied. However, the staff (and the other patients) there are really understanding and they seem to enjoy his antics. At least he is being entertaining. Some of the time they give us a room with a door that closes, but other times we're in the open gym, and Nick runs around stealing exercise bands, balls, and foam pads from the different stations. He also copies my exercises as I do them.

Oh, and the physical therapy? It really, really hurts, but if it will decrease the chances of surgery, I'm going to keep going and doing my best at all of the exercises. I know that with physical therapy, it often feels worse before it gets better. Apparently, I've made some good progress and I can now bend my foot much farther than before (almost a ten degree improvement). From walking on my toes as a child, I have something called "acquired equinus deformity of the foot (x2)," plus a contracture of my achilles tendon. If physical therapy doesn't work, the podiatrist says I'll most likely need a procedure done called tendon lengthening. I've been working extremely hard at my exercises, and I'm often so sore at night that my whole lower body is in agony and I need either heat or ice. 

The good news is that this physical therapy is a really strong workout. Every single time I go to PT I leave with that "new workout" feeling. You know, when you haven't worked out in ages and you do a long session of weights? That's how I feel. At least I know it's working.  Plus, if Nick keeps getting all this training from the physical therapist, maybe he can learn how to give me foot massages.

Fun with Noodles! or Finally! Great Italian Food!

Since Greg and I moved here at the end of 2006, we've been bemoaning the lack of good restaurants in the Plainfield/Joliet area. Most of the time, when we want to go out to eat, we drive up to Naperville. That's because most of the restaurants out here are of the local diner or chain restaurant variety, and honestly aren't very good. It's kind of frustrating to have to drive 45 minutes for a nice meal. But we recently found one excellent restaurant just a few miles from home. We went there the day after Christmas, and were really impressed. It's called Barolo Ristorante. Here we are at our table.

The food was really creatively prepared, and my pasta dish was so cool-looking that I had to take a picture of it. There are spinach and regular pasta noodles with a cream sauce, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes. The seafood is scallops and shrimp. It was absolutely everything I wanted in an Italian meal.

Nick ate very well, too. He ate plenty of calamari (which was perfectly cooked and not chewy at all), some salad, tons of my noodles, and a bunch of Greg's duck. I guess Greg had never had duck before, and he really liked the way they prepared it. Oh, and the tiramisu was just perfect. You know how sometimes it's too cakey? This was just creamy enough, with lots of the coffee flavor. Nick loved it, too.

Nick was especially fond of the noodles, although he hasn't quite mastered the art of eating them with a fork. That's more of an advanced fork skill, though, so I guess he'll figure it out soon.