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Worse than Christmas?!
   I thought Gavi was going to make his appearance on Sunday. Honest to goodness, if that had been my first pregnancy ~ or if I hadn’t had contractions for the last two months ~ I would have been at the hospital. My back hurt like it never had before, I was cramping like crazy, and my contractions were far more intense than they have been. However, they just weren’t stable enough to worry about, so I just took it easy.
Cut to Thursday, and I’m feeling strong enough to maintain this pregnancy for three more weeks.
It’s SO frustrating to have things be uncertain this way! It’s worse than Christmas! I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and get so stinking excited that I can’t fall back asleep! But unlike Christmas Eve, this has been going on for WEEKS! I’ve been trying to get everything planned in hopes that it will ease any stress I might be dealing with. We have a bag packed for our hospital stay, a bag packed for Caleb’s stay with Grandma and Grandpa for the duration, diapers are bought, bedclothes prepared, and ANYTHING ELSE YOU COULD THINK OF. But I’m still not sleeping as much as I need to. Ridiculous!
I saw the same doctor Monday that freaked me out about Caleb’s size during my first pregnancy. He’s SUCH a nice man, but he brought up again the fact that he thinks Gavi is going to be ginormous. But this time I’m not going to worry, since he said that I was giving birth to the son of Kong last time, and Caleb was perfectly average. (Of course, they induced two weeks before my due date, so he could have been a pound larger, but whatever.)
Caleb’s vocabulary is really starting to expand by the day. And his manners continue to get sweeter. We’re working on “excuse me” right now ~ for toots, burps, and getting in people’s way. We were in the bathroom at a grocery store last week when I sneezed. Caleb said, “Bless you!” in his sweet little way. Then I hear a voice from the stall next to us ~ “That is SO cute!”
I hate when people talk to me in the bathroom.
We’ve been getting together with some littles across the complex lately ~ a two and a half year old girl and an almost four year old boy. They’re both just nuts about him, and he returns the sentiment. It’s kind of funny, though ~ he does tell the little girl to go away a lot. I guess some things are innate… Speaking of innate, at the top is a picture of Caleb throwing rocks in the river for the first time. He'd never seen anyone do it but it was his first inclination when he saw the river and the surrounding missiles. These are some pictures from our camping trip at the beginning of the month. I'm hoping Jonny will have a little time this long weekend to post more pictures. There are HUNDREDS of cute ones I'd like to get up before Gavi makes things tougher on Jonathan.
Random Rambles...
Gavi doesn’t seem to like contractions any more than I do. I’ve been noticing that he’s having increased activity after they happen for a while now, but it got crazy last night. After my rougher contractions, he would start kicking and moving around to the point that I was just watching my stomach boil like water. I had to quit watching the super-cool movie that was enthralling me – Fracture, a murder mystery that I loved as much as any movie I’ve seen this year – and just sit in wonder, contemplating the area above my navel. (Can’t actually see my bellybutton from a seated position anymore.) It made me giggle to think that he was feeling claustrophobic when the contraction hits. I feel claustrophobic all the time now. We have a bond beyond the umbilical. Caleb has started doing this thing where he pulls his eyelids up by the eyebrows. I can’t really describe it, but it’s like when the kids in elementary school used to do the scary zombie eyes where they pull their eyelids up and roll their eyes down so all you can see is the whites. The whole thing is as funny as all get out ~ until he decides to see what it looks like by lifting YOUR eyelids. And even then, it’s funny for a while. Until your eyes dry out and start tearing, and you still can’t close them because the puppet master has himself worked into a frenzy of hysterical laughter and can’t be bothered to listen to requests to let your eyelids down. I’m tired. Seriously. I’ve been feeling great but I’m starting to feel a little manic about getting everything cleaned up before Gavi gets here. I would call it nesting but I’ve been feeling that way for a month now. Jonathan went to work yesterday and Caleb and I did a pretty good job of taking it easy. However, when Jonny came home, we started taking care of some things around the house, and I went the teensiest bit overboard. BUT! Caleb’s closet is cleaned to the point that everything Gavi will need is arranged by order of when he’ll need it, and countless other tiny issues were resolved. I feel so much more prepared. But that doesn’t mean we’re done. Today we’re doing one last pass over our closet to get rid of some more clothes that I’ll take to Goodwill, and I want to get all my books that are sitting on shelves in the closet organized. The biggest thing is just that I want things in a state of readiness. Meaning that once I leave this house to have a baby, other than VERY basic needs, everything needs to be prepared to stay AS IS for a couple months. Because I’m not going to stress about doing pitiful little chores when I’m on a two kid learning curve. (Thanks for that terminology, Miss Angela!) Especially if Gavi Z ends up being anything like his big brother when it comes to sleep. I’m going to need all the prep done I can get!
Two fun things!
Last night, Gavi got the hiccups! It was the first time for either pregnancy that I felt them, and I can see why it would get annoying, but it was SO FUNNY! Of course, he was kind of pressed up against that nerve on my pelvic bone, so it got rather painful after a while. I was just sitting on the couch, hands on my belly, feeling my little boy hic and kick. Man, is God amazing! And this morning, Caleb and I had gone to the store, and there was a fire truck out front. When we walked in, we talked about the wheels, the lights and the steps ~ the big three in all of his truck, train and tractor books. We finished pretty quickly, so when we left, the truck was still there. We walked around it, again marveling over the size of the wheels, etc, when a fireman poked his head out the window, waved down and Caleb, and said, “HI!” Caleb was initially a little nervous, mainly because the guy was so far off the ground, I think, but he warmed and said hi back. The fireman hopped down out of the cab, asked Caleb if he wanted to sit in the truck. When the answer was a clear affirmative, he lifted him right up into the passenger seat! I was dying that I didn’t have a camera. (Ugh! That reminds me that I forgot to take a camera with us to Bounce again last weekend!) Then the fireman pointed out the fire trucks on Caleb’s shoes, and I told him that Caleb was IN LOVE with fire trucks. The fireman said he was in love with them too, but didn’t have the shoes to prove it. What a great guy! Anyway, he showed Caleb all the computer controls, buttons, etc, then asked if he wanted to see the back seat. It was really funny to see Caleb throw himself into this strangers’ arms and allow himself to be carried to another door of the fire truck. In the back, which looked like a cockpit to me, Caleb asked if he could push a button. “Button?!” That’s what we go through at home every day, too ~ about everything from the microwave to the cd player. Luckily, he listened to me this time when I said, “No button.” But when the fireman lifted him down, he asked Caleb if he wanted to see what the button did. Caleb nodded, and the guy pushed the button. It wasn’t the big siren, but it was some sort of tremendously loud noise. By that time, the rest of the firemen were returning to the truck, and all of them said hi. My little guy was in his element! We walked away from the truck – although it was more like I was dragging Caleb, who didn’t want to take his eyes off it. When they were leaving, they honked and every one of those guys leaned out the window and waved at Caleb. I tell you what, they couldn’t have done a better job making a fan out of Caleb (and his mom) if they had been working from a script!
True Confessions...
I admit that on Tuesday I was ready to ship Caleb Z off to the gypsies. Or at least the cryogenic scientists that could freeze him in his current state until either I wasn’t pregnant anymore or the stinking heat died down. Get this: Tuesday morning, we fought and fought and fought. Over absolutely everything from changing a diaper to the fact that I stopped him after four glasses of milk and juice. And while we fought, at the back of my mind was the fact that I not only had a doctor’s appointment later in the morning, but lunch scheduled with the entire staff of my previous office. I wanted to cry. But Caleb was a gem at the docs. He shook hands, smiled at babies and charmed the socks off the OB who had delivered him. It was precious beyond belief. It gave me a little hope for lunch, which I was no longer trying to figure out how to excuse myself from. And would you believe that he maintained that smooth attitude through lunch? He gave hugs, grins and lectures to a captive audience that was gracious enough to let us join them. (It was an awards luncheon for the top producers at my company. Not something you’d ordinarily invite a former employee and her one year old to!) He had one major meltdown, and it was because he had twisted his ankle getting out of the booster seat. The trick that I discovered that day is to kiss ouchies before trying to comfort the crying. I sat there and held and soothed him for about thirty seconds before I finally hiked his little foot up to my mouth to smooch it better, but that’s when the tears dried up and his disposition became positively sunny. When lunch was over, he made a point of giving all of them hugs and big waves, and was such a politician that he approached the table next to us and started a discussion with them. It was hilarious! Here are these two older businessmen that I had been terrified of when he was screaming, and they’re just eating out of his hand. Too funny! He actually shook hands with both of them, and when we left, they both told him good-bye. With these errands having been such a glowing success, I faced the rest of my day with optimism and hope that our discord was behind us. Wrong-o. The little one woke up from his very short nap, and proceeded to scream “no” and “don’t” for the next three hours. Even when I did something as inane as GO TO THE BATHROOM. He melted down EVERY time I made my way to the bathroom, wailing as if I were doing him grievous harm. It was no wonder then that I offended Jonathan later that night by being bitchy about how late he came home from work. Then Wednesday? Devil-boy was gone, angel-child reigned again. We had absolutely NO conflict yesterday whatsoever. There were a couple of rough diaper changes in the afternoon, but that’s because he’s getting some kind of a bug that gives him the runny poos. Today’s diaper changes have been overly frequent and insanely hellacious. Poor baby can’t go more than an hour without a diaper change, and his little bottom is raw. It breaks my heart. In other, non-fecal related news, my appointment on Tuesday was great. My blood pressure is still low, Gavi’s heartbeat is still perfect, but the doc put me on limited activity warning. My contractions have gotten more frequent and more severe toward the end of my pregnancy, and the doc doesn’t want Gavi to make an appearance for a minimum of three weeks. No more going to the zoo until after he’s born, no more carrying Caleb kicking and screaming around a mall, and no more going to the park in the middle of the day. No big sacrifice on any of those, but curtailing my activities has been a little tougher than I expected. Today was a little easier because he’s so pathetic when he’s sick that he just wants to cuddle and read, but yesterday was rough, because he’s such an energetic little bug! And thanks to any and all of you who have been praying about Jonathan’s job / our financial situation. It’s going to be a rough few more months, but we have the utmost faith that God is doing a good work through Jon’s company. My man is kicking tail and taking names with sales, and it looks like he’ll start to see the rewards of that by the end of the year. My biggest issue with his success is going to be that it means that he spends a bucket o’ time at work – right when I feel like I need him the most. But I know that God will give me the grace to deal with that as well. Why oh why can’t I do short posts?!
Friday Funnies...
This morning, we were on our way to the zoo to meet Miss Teri and her grandson Diego when two funny little bits happened. The first being that Prince’s song “Kiss” was on the radio. In itself, not generally such a hilarious occurrence, although I’ll always remember the first time I heard it ~ Amy Jo and I were in the car on the way home from the beach where she had refused to get in the water because she was scared of sharks. Weird. But I digress. So I wasn’t really paying attention to the music because I had just passed a thermometer that revealed that it was 89 degrees at 8:45 this morning. Not a great outlook for a woman who currently hates the heat. But all of a sudden, from behind me, I hear my little boy start making smacking noises. I look back, and he’s doing precisely what the music is talking about and smooching the air! And when I said, “What are you doing, cutie?” He replied, “KISS!” SOOOOOO PRECIOUS! Anyway, a scant ten minutes later, we had been waiting in the turn lane for three lights to get to the zoo entrance, because there’s a really short light. When we were only two cars back, I thought, “FINALLY! It’s our turn!” But the guy in front of us just sat there like a stinking LUMP! So I shouted “GO!” I realized it was childish the second I finished yelling, but felt guilty for the next fifteen minutes as my sweet little baby bug hollered “GOOOOO” twenty times a minute. Eesh. At least I didn’t say anything that I would have really regretted. Although the adjectives did indeed cross my mind...
Ah, the ethics questions...
This afternoon, Caleb and I went out to the mall just to escape the oppressive heat. Luckily, I had gift certificates to Bath and Body Works to pass the time. (Thank you, Discover Cash Back Bonus!) Then we were just wandering around with no real agenda. But when we passed Abercrombie and Fitch, they were blasting the music as loud as ever, and I lost my little boy to the beat. He stopped walking and started dancing, because that’s what you do when the music moves you! At one point, we had around fifteen people gathered around watching him do his “moves.” I just sat there laughing at him, and enjoying the smiles of the people watching him. Put your hands in the “I don’t know” position, then shake your shoulders up and down and spin in a circle, and that’s the precise dance that had the masses enthralled. Honest to goodness, if we’d had a hat set out in front of him, I think the kid could have collected some bucks for his college fund. But that would have been wrong. Right?! Also, Rest In Peace, little Fred and Sniffles. Caleb’s mice bit the big one today – or rather, the big one bit them. Royal had two fat mice for breakfast today. Hooray for delicious little meals ~ and for getting rid of the reason that I’ve had red eyes and sneezy heads for the last month. Again, is it wrong that I'm rejoicing that my son's brief pets are DEAD?!
Happy August!
Caleb Zakai Fashbaugh is SUCH A BOY! I can’t even believe how amazingly resilient and hilarious he is! First of all, it would be impossible to recount all the ouchies and boo-boos he got on our camping trip this past week. And no matter how many times he would fall, scrape himself, bang his head, or engage in countless other cringe-inducing activities, he just kept trucking. The first morning we were up there, we saw a baby moose. We had to go out to a marshy place to follow it, where we found some kind of a giant water beetle. Grandpa picked it up, and Caleb immediately snatched it out of his hand. He almost squished it when he let out a shriek and threw it back on the ground. That darn beetle had taken exception to his imminent demise and bitten Caleb. Then Grandpa picked it back up to demonstrate proper bug-handling etiquette, and Caleb tried to squish Grandpa’s hand around it! Jonathan actually got video of that. As soon as he turned off the camera, Caleb told the bug “bye-bye!” It was so cute that we really hated having missed getting it. A little later, Jonathan caught a couple of little froggy toady things. I don’t actually know the difference between them, but I didn’t want him touching them since they didn’t have the same defenses as the beetle. We found some more later, though, and he was very sweet with them. He took great delight in pointing out every single pile of “poopies” that we passed at the top of his lungs. And since we were so near so many horses, it was a frequent occurrence. Oh! And even though he wouldn’t go near Miss Kellie’s horse without freaking out, he actually called a couple of horses over to him and pet every one that he could. We walked past some stables near the petting zoo and he just crooned at them. It was lovely. The upside of this trip for this eight and a half months pregnant lady was that it stayed so cool because it rained so much. The downside for this mother of a hyperactive 21 month old was that there was SO MUCH MUD! When we were at the petting zoo, he insisted on being independent and walking through yet another muddy patch. I tried to be mellow about it – he’s a little boy, dirt washes, etc. But on this particular outing, his foot sucked down into the mud, and when he yanked his foot out, his shoe remained locked in the muck. So Momma trucked over, grabbed him, and carried him to sit down where we could steal his shoes and socks to wash in the river. Honestly, if we hadn’t been near a river, I’m not sure what we would have done. I didn’t drink enough on this trip due to the fact that no matter how little I drank during the day, I was up every two hours or so to go to the bathroom. That’s my biggest pregnancy gripe right now. However, at that altitude, it affected me a little bit more. On our walk back from the petting zoo the first day, I ended up having about a half dozen crippling contractions, which continued after I got back to the RV and started chugging water and resting. But after an hour, they subsided. Seriously, if I had gone into labor that far from our hospital I would have been SO ANGRY! Not because of the money, either. I want to spend another couple days at Rose Hospital! It’s like a hotel! Who knows what I might have ended up with in the mountains? Coulda been a veterinary clinic or something! No way, no how. I’m getting my hospital stay, darn it. Caleb’s other favorite thing on this trip was the pile of firewood. He would literally just sit there and sort stuff and bang sticks together. What a BOY! There were also two little girls at the site next to ours, and he turned on the charm for them. By our last night there, they were taking turns hugging him and carrying him around. They were four and six, and I again saw the difference between boys and girls – after the littler one dropped him for the fourth time, she asked, “Why doesn’t he cry?!” He’s a tough little nut! We had to have some discipline on the trip, though. The biggest issue is the fact that he’s really learning by copying other people’s behavior. So when both Grandpa and Daddy put big sticks on the fire, he assumed that was the thing for boys to do. I assumed he was using a big stick as some sort of walking stick, but he was aiming for the fire with it. Ugh, it’s awful to try to tell him that he can’t do something even though he just saw other people doing it. Grr. Oh! Has anyone read the Dangerous Book for Boys? I almost bought it at Sam’s a couple of months ago and decided to wait until it came out in paperback. But after seeing how very B-O-Y this kid is, I think I might need the hard-cover. It had all this fun stuff about knives and how to start fires and stuff. It’s still on the best-seller lists, so I think it might take a while for it to reach paperback. I want to know at least some of that stuff so that I know how to keep from freaking out when Caleb starts doing it. There were GENERATIONS AND GENERATIONS of kids doing stuff that we would never dream of letting our kids do, and somehow the majority of them survived childhood and were the stronger for it. I’m far more mellow than a lot of ladies with a boy this age, but I still find myself cringing and asking if spiders are poisonous when Caleb plays with them. Caleb’s grandpa was out playing with snakes and other creepies by the time he was Caleb’s age, and he’s the biggest badass I know! Oops, I was corrected by my own sweet Mommy this weekend about my language. Apparently even though I’m learning to cut “crap” out of my vocab, when I’m not actually talking to Caleb, I let things like “damn” slip in for emphasis. (“Damn straight” is one of my favorite phrases of all time. Poo on responsible parenting!) Okay, gotta get going on my day! Hope all is well for all my wonderful peeps out there! Happy Day!
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