Hello 3rd trimester

Every website I check has a different date in which my 3rd trimester officially starts. Today I am 27 weeks, 5 days pregnant and I declaring myself in the 3rd trimester. Archie was born 3 weeks early and chances are likely Baby F will be too so here I am! To celebrate I made oatmeal pancakes with fresh strawberries on top for breakfast. Dave said they may have been the best pancakes I have ever made. I just followed the Oatmeal Pancake recipe and made a few minor adjustments. I ground up 2/3s of the dry mixture in my food processor and let the batter sit for about 5 minutes before cooking. Next time I will replace the white flour with whole wheat. Otherwise, a super delicious recipe.

In other news, I had my 3 hour glucose test on Tuesday morning. When I left the house Dave and Archie were still sleeping. It was super cold and snowy and I really just wanted to crawl back into bed. Anyway, I got there and they drew my blood then gave me 5 minutes to drink 10 oz. of fruit punch glucose drink. They drew my blood again at 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 hours. For the first 2 hours I worked on my scarf and then I started rereading Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich. It wasn't the most pleasant experience of my life, but it went by pretty quickly. I got a call yesterday saying that I passed the test and do not have gestational diabetes! I really hope that I do not have to do that again during my next pregnancy.

Yesterday Archie was playing near our bed. He likes to drop things in between the mattress and bed frame. Well he somehow slipped and smacked his eye against the frame. He only cried for a few minutes so I knew it must not be too serious, but he is sporting quite the bruise. Once we have 2 boys running around I am going to have daily panic attacks and a Costco supply of band-aids.

(tough guy with his black eye)

In the developmental front, he has been practicing walking a lot more over the last 2 days. He walked almost 5 feet when Dave was watching him and he's walked about 3-5 feet every time he has attempted it since then. To him it is like no big deal, but Dave and I are ecstatic. He also has been showing a increased interest in books. Before he would just pull them off the shelves and open and close them. Now there are about 3-4 books that he consistently brings over to me or Dave and wants us to read and reread them a dozen times. He will point to the page numbers or pictures and wait for us to tell him what it is. He also points to letters and numbers all over the place. This is such a fun age!

(in between eating crayons he will color a little)

Lab Corp Fail (Rant)

Last week I received a call from my OB's office telling me that I had abnormal results on my 1 hour glucose test. This meant that I would have to take the 3 hour glucose test. My office does not do them so they would send my orders for the test a Lab Corp facility in the Springs. I asked if any of the offices offer weekend hours so Dave would have to take off of work. She said that one office does and she would fax the orders there.

Lab Corp does not accept appointments over the phone. It is all done on-line. You choose your office, fill in what test you are taking (glucose testing is the exact wording on the website) and then you pick an appointment time and fill in your pertinent information. I did all of this selecting a Saturday appointment at 8:30 a.m. I got a confirmation e-mail and number.

For the the 3 hour glucose test you should fast for 12-14 hours before the test which I did. I set my alarm this morning, took a shower, got my knitting and reading materials ready and drove 25 minutes to south Colorado Springs. I get there, wait in line, and when I approach the desk I tell them that I am there for my 3 hour glucose test. The guy looks at me and says we don't do glucose testing on Saturdays. I let him know that I was able to schedule an appointment for glucose testing on a Saturday through their website. I even showed him my confirmation. He says that the system shouldn't have let me and then he goes to talk with him manager. His manager says no to the testing as well.

I am starting to tear up a bit here b/c I am tired, hungry, 6 months pregnant and I want to frickin' know if I have gestational diabetes or not. Nobody apologizes for the mix up, nobody offers to reschedule my appointment and I was very upset. I left the office and immediately called Lab Corp customer service to file a complaint.

I have rescheduled my appointment at a different Lab Corp office for a weekday. Dave is taking the day off of work. I wish I could've taken care of this last week and I would have been able to if the online Lab Corp appointment scheduling actually worked. I am just angry at the way their employees treated me, I am angry at their crappy appointment scheduling website and I am angry that I have no real recourse.

What has happened to customer service? I worked in customer service for many, many years and it really isn't that difficult. Yes, some people can be trying but good customer service boils down to basic common decency and courtesy. It makes me sad that people cannot even deliver on that score. Shame on them.

Too much belly...26 weeks

If you will excuse my just woken up look you will see one of the few times that I will ever expose my midriff for the public.

That is 26 weeks and 6 days of gestation in all its glory. If Baby F follows his brothers footsteps then he could be here in 10 short weeks. That is not a lot of time to get everything done that we want to get done. We may have a few weekends where we take Archie to the babysitters so we can do around the house stuff. Maybe this time around I will actually kick into nesting mode.....

Strawberry Bread

I had some strawberries that were on their way out so I needed to to something with them. I still have some of my tangerine and banana jams in the fridge so I didn't want to make another jam. I went in search of a whole wheat strawberry bread recipe and stumbled across one on an amazing blog.

The amazing blog is eat! craft! live! and the amazing recipe can be found HERE.

It is an easy recipe to follow and if you don't drop your entire cup of freshly cut strawberries on a floor laden with dog and cat hair, then it should take you no longer than 10 minutes to get this bad boy in the oven.

Here is my picture of the finished product sans two slices of bread.

Archer at 15/16 months old

When all else fails, give the boy a straw!

Archie discovers dirt. I see a life long friendship forming.

At the playground near our house. Again, he is more interested in the sand than the toys.

He loves playing with balls and he loves climbing the stairs. It gives me a good work out too!

Sleep little one...Please!

Sometimes I wish we could swaddle Archie until he leaves for college. Somehow I don't think that is feasible though. The past few months have been long ones come 2 a.m. Our dear son has no problems falling asleep. He is usually down for the count in less than 5 minutes. However, come those wee hours in the morning, he always wakes up between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. We usually change his diaper first thing and then rock him back to sleep. After about 15 minutes of rocking he is totally out, but the second we lay him back down he wakes up again. I have stood there rubbing his back for 30 minutes and he just lays there awake. If we walk away then he starts to cry and fuss. Repeat cycle. Same outcome. We bring him into to bed with us and he is asleep in 5 minutes and sleeps until 7:00 a.m.

We tried cry it out at two different ages. Each time he cries until he throws up. Clearly this is not a viable solution. I have tried sitting next to his crib, but he cries and cries because he wants to be picked up. We have white noise going, a humidifier, a fan, we've tried music, we've tried singing. I know that sleep problems are nothing new for parents, but we are seriously getting concerned b/c we are going to be adding a newborn to the mix in about 3 months. I won't be able to always rock Archie back to sleep in middle of his nap plus we are going to be functioning on very limited sleep b/c of Baby F.

The only time Dave and I fight is at 3:00 a.m. b/c we are frustrated and don't know what to do. It is amazing that something as awesome and precious as sleep would be so hard to teach a kid to do. Is there a sleep fairy that I can send my wished to?

Bipedal child

It took 15 1/2 months but that day has come...sort of. Last week was huge for Archie. He stood up by himself for the first time, he took 2 wobbly steps and then he took 4 very confident steps all within in 5 days. He loves to stand on his own because Dave and I start throwing our hands in the air, clapping and cheering him on. What kid wouldn't love Mom & Dad acting riotously happy over something he thinks is fun anyway? Since Friday though he hasn't really shown any interest in walking. The same thing happened with crawling. He tried it, but he vastly preferred the butt scoot. Perhaps he vastly prefers crawling now to walking. He will soon learn what doors walking can open though, both literally and figuratively.

In other news, I am seriously trying to get Dave serious about some home improvement projects. We are holding out for another month or two until we hone in on the deck, fence and kitchen. In the interim I want to start on the study/guest room and Archie's new room. Dave moved the queen bed from one room to the other yesterday. We also got rid of three large items from the basement and moved the dresser and futon over to our future basement tv area. It's a pretty good start.

I am on week 2 of knitting and am getting a little more confident in my ability to manipulate my mistakes. Last week I just lost all confidence and would get really frustrated. This week I am trying my calm approach and it works surprisingly well go figure. I have learned how to both knit and purl and have worked in the Garter stitch, the Stockinette and the Reverse Stockinette stitch. Next week we are learning the Cable stitch, which I think will be really cool but has the potential to be very frustrating. After I finish the scarf I really want to learn how to make cute little hats for my 2 boys, but that requires using one of those fishing line looking circular needles. Those scare me!

My sisters are thinking about coming to visit in April which would be totally awesome if it pans out. They would be coming out right around when I hit my 37th week, which was when Archie was born. My Mom would be coming out shortly after they left so hopefully someone will be be here when I go into labor so Dave & I don't need to stress about who will watch Archer. Besides who better to take my mind off of the last few weeks of the 3rd trimester than my sisters?