Question of the Day

It's about time to introduce Parker to the big bed. I don't expect him to start sleeping in it yet, but he needs to get used to having it in his room.

There used to be bunk beds in my parents house. Several months ago these were moved to our basement since we weren't quite sure what to do about future sleeping arrangements. I'd prefer to use my first bed, but that's stored away in my parent's attic, we don't know quite where.

At the moment we plan to use just one of the bunk beds, leaving the other where it is until needed. My question is, what do I need to do to the old mattress before moving it back into the house? Unfortunately now is not the right time for us to invest in a new one.

Update

Yay! I passed my test no problem. I do not have gestational diabetes and I am quite hungry. Parker had fun playing with Granna at the park while I had my finger pricked four times in just over three hours.

What a Week

This has been quite the busy weekend.

Wednesday we were graced by the presence of various guests. My Uncle Billy and Aunt Barbara drove in from Georgia for an all too brief visit. They came bearing gifts for Parker from a yard sale given by my cousins. We visited on the front porch of my house, as the weather was so nice. Parker enjoyed seeing them.

Thursday, of course, I failed my one-hour blood glucose test.

Friday morning Parker and I left the house early to pick Granna up so we could all attend the Little Lambs Consignment Sale at First United Methodist downtown. We were there a full two hours.

I am claustrophobic, which means it is nearly impossible for me to enter an aisle that is already jammed with people. This becomes a distinct disadvantage when it comes to huge consignment sales. Thankfully my mom was with me. We found winter clothes for Parker, the random toy or two, as well as a crib mobile for the coming baby, and some maternity clothes for me. By the time were were finished I was numb. The ability to make decisions soon evaporated.

Friday evening I had one of those lovely emotional breakdowns that come about as the natural product of pregnancy. The fact that I haven't yet started taking my iron supplements doesn't help. The catalyst for this was a disastrous last-minute trip to Winn-Dixie which resulted in the purchase of eight containers of Yoplait Yogurt for 75c each. I'll rail against Winn-Dixie and other grocery stores that require the use of a plastic card to obtain sales prices, and cashiers who ignore their customers very existence, on some other occasion.

Saturday we celebrated Parker's birthday with my family, along with a brief visit from Heather and Ceilidh. This only after having portraits made for our church's new photo directory, photos we chose not even to see since we knew it wasn't a good time for us to buy. I don't think the photographer was well pleased by our lack of interest. I spent the entire day getting ready for both events and washing all of the clothing purchased on consignment the day before. Parker failed to nap at all on Saturday.

Today I learned how to use a baby sling, and I attended the memorial service for an acquaintance whose passing has made me very sad. Tomorrow I go in for the three hour blood-glucose test. I can have nothing but water after midnight tonight. Tomorrow morning they'll give me twice as much of the sugar soda to drink, and I will have my finger pricked every hour for three hours thereafter. I have to pass two out of three finger-pricks. If I fail I will go on a diabetic diet for the remainder of my pregnancy, but the doctor doesn't expect me to fail and neither do I. I wish I didn't have to go in for another test however. It would have been so much more convenient to get it over with the first time.

I had hoped to post some pictures, but the device doesn't seem to be working this evening.

Parker's amazing strength

I failed my one hour blood glucose test this morning, but only by three points. This means I get to go back to the office one day next week for the three hour test. No surprise. The exact same thing happened when I was pregnant with Parker. Dr. Edward's thinks I'll probably pass the second test, which requires that I pass two out of three blood sugar measurements.

Tuesday morning Parker and I were working in the church library. At one point Parker got away from me (I was trying to reshelve books, after all), and guess where I found him. Inside the darkened ladies bathroom. With the door closed. The surprise was that he was heavy enough to open it on his own in the first place. Later I learned that Parker is able to open the front door to the church all on his own, because he made it out the door and halfway across the parking lot before I caught him. That was scary, but now I know.

Parker has become extremely affectionate recently. There have been a couple of times when I have been standing in the kitchen and I've dropped something or hit my head on the freezer door and yelled out, "Aaah." I then heard little feet running in my direction and Parker has come to me saying, "Hug, hug," and given me a sweet one. It certainly has made me feel better. However there was an incident several weeks ago when I was sitting in his room weeping over something (something silly--most of the upset was that I was upset over something so minor), and Parker came into the room and just laughed at me. That was fun, I can tell you.

Parker hugs his stuffed animals. Sometimes when I read to him a book Michael's grandmother sent--Lamb Chop's Fables: The Boat Contest, featuring Aesop's The Lion and the Mouse--Parker wants to hug Lamb Chop, who is treated poorly by Charley Horse in the story. He puts his cheek up against the picture of Lamb Chop in the book.

The other day Parker was watching The Muppet's Take Manhattan. There is a muppet babies sequence in the middle of that movie in which baby Rolf plays the piano. Parker saw Rolf, pointed to him--"Dog!"--and he said, "Hug, hug." He ran up to the television and tried to hug the tv. When baby piggie sings

"And I'm going to climb the Matterhorn, but only after all my children are born, because I want to be a good mommie too, and I'm going to always love you."

Parker hears mommie and yells out "Mommie" and runs to me to give me a hug.

Won't he be embarrased when he reads this when he's sixteen years old?

Michael and I just celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. We went out last night and when we got home my mom snapped a picture.

I only have to be up as early as any other morning tomorrow, but here are some pictures of Parker.

Right now I'm simply trying to figure out how some of Google's new features work. This is the face we call smiling at the sun, which recently has become the expression he gives whenever I ask him to smile at all.

Occurrences

I could start by sharing with you several of the occurrences that have caused me temporary stress recently, but instead I'll simply update you on positive changes that have taken place.

1. We recently became a two car family!

Let's see if I can figure out how long it has been since we had two cars. Our Oldsmobile Achieva S died while I was working at the University in International Graduate Admissions. Even though the car was less than ten years old, the damage to the engine proved to not be worth repairing. There was something funny about the engine so that salvage replacement was highly unlikely.

That must have happened about four years ago since my driver's license expired just after I started working there, and my renewal comes up at the end of this year (which means my new driver's license photo will be taken when I am very pregnant!) At the time I was very interested in paying for insurance on only one vehicle so we chose not to replace the car I had been driving.

Looking back on it this may have been what I wanted and not what God wanted.

2. A couple of weeks ago I had my second ultrasound. It's a boy!

Just like last time it was pretty obvious from the images that our baby is male. He was so curled up, however, that the technician was unable to get a shot of his profile. I have no notion yet of what his name will be.

Parker has become very interested in his little brothers heartbeat. Occasionally he'll start saying, "Heartbeat! Heartbeat!" which means he wants to see that part of the DVD. We put our machine on repeat, and each time it ends he says, "Again, Again."

Explanations

When I do go online these days, it's usually to meet the needs of the moment. I check email to see if there's anything there I need to know. I check Facebook because, hey, it's addictive--but mostly just so I can update my Visual Bookshelf. If Parker is asleep or Michael's home I may play a quick game of Hidato or see if there's any new television online that falls under the category of "wannasee." I don't read much online, and I write very little of anything. Blogging has fallen off the priority list these last several months, as has Parker photography.

Will this change? I don't know yet. But it might.