It's Fundraising Time....

Hayden has a fundraiser for his preschool (a very worthy cause if you ask me) and we're looking for people to order some goodies. I'm especially trying to get lots of help because if we sell enough, I don't have to participate in the Spring fundraiser. We're on a short deadline (all orders by Sept 11th) so here's what to do:

1) Go to www.kathrynbeich.com before 9/11/2007
2) Shop from their great selection of personalized items, chocolates, and more!
3) Enter 87346 under Option 1 after selecting an item.

By entering number 87346, you'll credit Hayden and Poe Co School with a large percentage of your purchase price.

If you live locally, and don't want to spend the money on postage, you can pick out your items on-line, e-mail your list to me, and send me a check for your total purchase made out to Poe-Co Nursery School.

Happy shopping!

Conversations in the car...

Since I missed the first day of school yesterday, due to a business trip to Virginia, I decided to drop Hayden off today. I asked him who he wanted to take him to school today, me or Erika? He said, without enthusiasm, "I guess you could take me if you really want to Mommy." Good to know he wasn't scarred for life by my absence yesterday. So we're driving in the car and out of nowhere he says:

Hayden: Mommy, when I get 42, I'm going to work at the plant, for Chevron Phillips. When I get bigger, when I'm a daddy, that's what I'm going to do.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from his first day, Sean was so sweet to capture the moment for me.

Oh, and the sellers accepted our offer on the house. The inspection was yesterday. It looks like we'll be moving at the end of September. Yikes! Time to start clearing out a massive amount of crap.

20 weeks...that's halfway by everyone's standards...

I had quite the humbling experience today. We had the introductory family picnic at Hayden's school. There are 4 other pregnant moms and only me and one other mom are wearing maternity clothes. And we're all on our 3rd pregnancies at about the same gestation. So why isn't everyone popping out like me? I couldn't dream of wearing regular clothes anymore. Oh well, I guess it just means I get more usage out of my ridiculously-priced but poorly-made maternity wardrobe. Which by the way, includes something other than a black tank top and black pants in case you are misled by the photos.

We wrote a contract on a house this weekend. Now we're just hoping for a little compromise from the seller. They've only been willing to come down 0.9% from their asking price so far and we're asking them to bend a little more (twice that much, to be precise). So I'm not sure what we should all be hoping for, but we may soon be the proud owners of three kids and two mortgages. Won't that be fun? Especially given my plan for an 8-month, mostly unpaid, maternity leave. I'm sure we won't have any trouble selling a dime-a-dozen townhouse in Midtown, right? Ssshhhh, don't let reality spoil my little fantasy of 2,700 sqaure feet with a backyard in a good school district.

Anything for a Jelly Bean...

You'd think by the title that I'm talking about myself, right. Nooo, there's a bigger jelly bean fiend in my house than me. It's Trevor. He's always been a terror when we try to cut his nails. When he was young, I would just cut them while he was nursing, since he'd be all distracted and relaxed. But after that stopped, it took one of us to hold him down and the other to try to hold his hands steady and cut while he's screaming bloody murder the whole time. It's like trying to put sunscreen on a Salvaggio. A few weeks ago, I decided to give him a bag of jelly beans to work on while I cut his nails. Lo and behold, I have an angel on my hands. Speaking of angels, how do you think I got him to pose with those wings for Valentine's day? Jelly beans, of course. So last weekend he actually brought me the nail clippers and said "Cut my nails Mommy? Jelly beans, please?" He looks forward to having his nails cut!

I know, I know, it's wrong to bribe your kids. But you can live in parenting fantasy-land if you want. I found something that works and I'm running with it. Is 10 jelly beans a week going to kill the kid? Ten pounds of jelly beans a week hasn't killed me yet. Oh shut up, I've cut back on account of the gestational diabetes and everything. I even turned down a cupcake last week so I should win some pregnant woman medal or something.

Would you hire this woman?
Not that I'm looking for a job, I've got a perfectly good job, but I'm wondering about how wise this is to post these graphic photos of myself on the internet. I heard this article on NPR the other day quoting the percentage of employers who screen candidates by looking up their names on the internet. So if you put my name on a search engine and saw these pictures, would you hire me? Or would you write me off as a nutcase? It's certainly not the mental image I would want a prospective employer to have in their mind when they were interviewing me. But you know what they say, once you've posted something on the internet, it's out there forever, no matter if you delete it or not. So for better or worse, I'm out there, in all my glory, for the world to see.

A visit from the teachers...
I could write a long list about the things I love about Hayden's preschool, but one of my favorites is that the teachers come to visit the students at home before school starts. That way, the students already feel like they have a personal relationship with the teacher when school starts, and the anxiety is eased a bit. And they take pictures of your kid at home and have them displayed in various spots in the classroom so they feel like they already belong on day 1.

Here's Hayden looking out the window waiting for his teachers:
Trevor was pretty excited about their impending arrival too, even though he has another year before he'll start school.

"They're here Mommy! I see Miss Linda and Miss Beth!"

Here's my soon-to-be Apple (his class is the Apple class, last year was Acorns) mugging for a photo with Miss Beth and Miss Linda:

I think our Apple year will be just great. Hayden can't wait for school to start.

18 weeks = Halfway there????

OK, I know I'm only 18 weeks, and a normal pregnancy is supposed to be 40 weeks. But since Hayden and Trevor both decided to enter the world at 36 weeks, I'm not holding out much hope this little one will last till January. So by my math, I'm halfway through.

We went into an old-timey local grocery store today and they had a big old-fashioned scale. Hayden weighed himself and it came within 2 lbs of what I think he weighs (based on his last doctor's visit a month or so ago). I weighed myself and came in 15 lbs less than my last visit from a few weeks ago. But these pictures sure don't look like I've lost 15 lbs so I'm thinking it was just a very kind scale.

Messy Day, Fun Day...

I was home with the boys on Friday and actually let Trevor finger-paint. Very out of the ordinary for me. I usually defer the messy undertakings to Mon-Thurs when the nanny is watching them. But I was in a sporting mood and was pleasantly rewarded with a very messy two-year old who painted himself more than the paper. But there isn't anything a little soap can't cure.

Then, I put the boys down for early naps so they could get ready for our night at the ballpark. My workgroup had planned for us to all go with our families to watch an Astros game. A behind-the-scenes tour of the ballpark was arranged ahead of time, which meant that we had to be there at 3:45 pm. It was loads of fun, but the game went into extra innings before the Astros finally lost. I was proud of my little troopers for staying till the bitter end and even watching Friday-nite fireworks afterwards. Of course, staying up till almost midnight meant they slept till 10:30 on Saturday, but that's what weekends are for, right?

Negative...and that's positive...The doctor's office called me today with the results of my triple screen test and said that everything was negative. Which is good news. My OB had me convinced that due to my "advanced maternal age" I should expect a positive result indicating the potential for some type of chromosonal abnormality or neural tube defect. So he wanted me to go ahead and schedule an amniocentesis so we could follow-up. There are varying claims on the %age of amniocentesis tests that cause miscarriage. Some stats say 1%, others say 0.5%. My doctor claims 1 in 400. Still, I wasn't totally bought in on taking the risk. And the stupid perinatologist's office where I was supposed to schedule the test couldn't fit me in for 3 weeks anyway, and you're supposed to have the thing during your 17th week. So anyways, crisis averted. No doom and gloom. No 8 inch needle into my abdomen. Only one downside: the amnio would have given 100% confirmation on the baby's gender. But I don't need the amnio to tell me. I believe the ultrasound. Oh, didn't I tell you yet? You'll just have to wait in suspense a little longer. :-)

It's a.....
big ol' belly, isn't it. No really, it's about the same size as last week I think. Although more strangers on the street are starting to notice that I'm pregnant. You know...staring at the belly...wondering uncomfortably...asking round about questions like "Where did you get that top?" I must admit that I have a friend I saw recently who appeared to be visibly pregnant, yet didn't say anything. I tried to sneak around the topic, with no success..."So, isn't your friend due to have her second soon? Two can be really overwhelming at first, but it's really worth it." But she didn't bite at my attempts to engage the conversation. But we did get confirmation recently in a note announcing she's due with a little boy in a few months. So I know how hard it is to be curious, but not quite willing to go out on the limb and say "You're sure looking fat around the middle. Is there a baby in there or what?" Because you never want to be dangling on that limb and fall off the tree.

Any better ideas?

We're taking the kids to New York in September. This is Sean's big pilgrammage to Yankee Stadium so the boys can see it before it gets torn down. So I figured we'd make a week of it, go a little further north and see some foliage, hike a little (as much as my lazy toddler and fat belly will allow), relax.

Now I knew the weekend in the city would be expensive. There's no avoiding expensive hotels in NYC, but I'm trying to see if I can use some Marriott points to buy a few nights. But I figured the rest of the week wouldn't be too bad. I went to check this lodge/country inn where Sean and I stayed about 7-8 yrs ago in Vermont. It's a little rustic, but family friendly (adult + bunk beds, goats and stuff to play with), and if I recall, ran us about $80 a night last time we stayed. Now: $175 + taxes a night for the same room! And it doesn't look like they've undergone any renovation to go from a rustic converted barn to a luxury B&B. So what gives? So I'm on the prowl for something suitable and affordable for the last wk of Sept somewhere within driving distance (5 hours?) of NYC. Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut...any place would be fine where we could get a little country outdoors time and not spend a fortune. I guess $175 a night isn't a fortune, but we paid $80/night taxes included for a 3 bedroom townhouse in Orlando so I think I've gotten a warped sense of cost.