my "baby"...who won't be the baby much longer...

The past few weeks, Kaleb and Mama have been spending a lot of time together. We went to Aunt Ellie's birthday party at Katy park a couple of weekends ago. Kaleb had a blast playing on the playground and golfing. Here's uncle Tim helping him off the slide...

eatin' some cheetoes... thats all he ate for lunch!

lovin' on Ellie!

Last Sunday we went to the church's Spring Loaded festival. Kaleb had a blast on the pony ("forsey") ride...

and in the petting zoo!

He was really excited about the Easter egg hunt. They said "go!" and he took off. You see all those eggs around him? About 5 seconds after this picture was taken they were all gone! He did get 3 eggs though and was very excited about his surprises inside.

We've spent a couple of days shopping, at the park, playing at the mall, going to the doctor with Mommy...just trying to get out of the house while we can!

Some other things about Kaleb to add to the previous list:

- he loves sports, all sports!, likes to play and watch t-ball, soccer, golf, basketball, football, or anything else you can think of!

- loves cartoons now and will actually sit down for 20 minutes to watch some of his favorites... Go, Diego, Go!, Dora, Blues Clues, The Wonder Pets to name a few

- does not like coloring, he always wants crayons when we go out to eat somewhere, opens the package and throws them down.

- loves to read books, we read 3 stories before nap time and bed time every day, his favorites right now are: any Diego book, The Three Bears, 10 Fat Turkeys, Little People Farm ("EO Farm"), The Potty Book, I Love Trains!, Baby Dinosaurs, Hands Are Not For Hitting (Mama's choice sometimes), and the list goes on!

- he does this swatting hand thing right now when he's mad and telling you no, I can't stand it!, hence the book, "Hands Are Not For Hitting", it actually has helped us out a lot!

- has just learned how to spit on us when we are brushing his teeth! Oh what fun! For now what works is bribing him with puzzles. If he lets us brush his teeth nicely, then we can do one puzzle before bed.

- loves food!

Favorites: pancakes, grapes, strawberries, oranges, apples, applesauce, yogurt, goldfish, raisins, chicken, corn, cereal, ice cream, tortillas, candy, McDonalds ("Donald's"), Chick-fil-a ("Chicken-lay"), Lupe Tortillas ("Tia's" or "play sand")

Dislikes: chocolate, cake, cookies, most veggies

Chubbyfoot

We had some family/maternity (36 weeks)/Kaleb 2 year pictures taken on March 13th. Here are some of our favorites and a link to the Chubbyfoot blog where some others are posted.

http://chubbyfoot.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/22/party-of-3-temporarily.html

Pregnancy Update...37 weeks!

My hope for this pregnancy was that it would go perfectly and baby would come on her own on time without the doctors interventions. :) Yeah, in a perfect world! The c-section recovery was very hard and I was hoping to avoid that this time around since I would now have two kids to take care of instead of only one newborn. Luckily, we found out today, that may still be an option, but we'll just see what happens.

The story:

Due to some not so great test results from a couple of weeks ago, we had an ultrasound done on 2/23/10. Luckily, everything looked great! Baby was growing appropriately and was head down, fluid was good, and the placenta was found to be far away from my previous c-section scar (which was the concern). All good news, so we were relieved!

Three weeks later on 3/15/10, at my 36 week appointment, the nurse was having trouble finding the heart rate. We knew she was OK because she was moving all around making it even more difficult. After finally getting the heart rate, the doctor was trying to figure out how she was laying because I had asked what it was I felt on my upper right side. She had a hard time feeling her, so pulled in the ultrasound machine which confirmed that that was her head I was feeling. She had turned and was now transverse. We talked about options at that time which were trying to manually turn her (external cephalic version) or just schedule the c-section.

There were so many factors to consider for the ECV:
- risk of baby's heart rate varying
- risk of placenta abruption
- very uncomfortable/painful for me
- anterior placenta (on my left side on top) - this just means they would have a hard time getting ahold of her head or bottom under the placenta
- must be done in the hospital in the event an emergency c-section is needed
- an epidural/spinal would be placed before the procedure in the event an emergency c-section is needed
- baby's size (didn't know at the time)
- amount of amniotic fluid; too little, baby may not turn; too much, baby may turn easy, but then turn again after procedure (didn't know at the time)

To get us some more information, our doctor ordered an ultrasound for Friday 3/19/10. At that ultrasound, we saw once again that she is healthy and growing appropriately. She's in the 80th percentile at about 7lbs 5 oz. She had turned once again though and her head was now on my lower left side. She's gonna be a gymnast when she grows up with all those moves! After the ultrasound, and weighing all the pros and cons, we had pretty much decided against the ECV but had a few more questions for the doctor.

At my doctors appointment today 3/22/10, the nurse once again had a hard time finding the heart rate. Finally she found it on my mid left side which was where the head was on Friday. The doctor came in to check everything out and after feeling around once again, pulled in the ultrasound machine to confirm that baby has turned once again and is finally head down! That at least solved the problem of having to decide for or against the ECV. She's moved so much I wouldn't put it past her to turn the wrong way again, but for now, we're looking good.

All that being said, due to the previous c-section and her size, we have to put an end to this somewhere.
I am on the schedule at the hospital for April 7th, 2010.

I have a doctors appointment next week and then Monday, 4/5/10. At that appointment on the 5th we will make our decision whether it will be an induction or a c-section. This would not be the typical induction due to the prior c-section. In order to even consider the induction, I will have had to make a lot of progress, be somewhat dialated, my cervix thinnned, or my water break.

I feel better having an end in sight and I feel like we've made the right choice. I'd like to give her as much time as possible to come on her own, but the longer we wait after my due date, the bigger she gets and there's less of a chance of avoiding the c-section. More to come in the weeks ahead!

Rodeo Time!

Kaleb's been talking about it for weeks so finally, on Thursday morning, we took Kaleb to the Houston Livestock Show! He had a blast!
We stopped by the petting zoo for awhile. The child was not afraid of anything. (which is odd because he is scared of most toy animals...) This was him saying, "Dada, I goin' that way!"

Mimi and Papa had taken Kaleb to the Fort Worth Livestock Show not too long ago and had him all the way to the front of the line to ride the pony, and he got scared. Ever since then, he's been talking about wanting to ride a "forsey". (I love the way he says it!) As soon as he saw the ponies, he took off to get in line. He jumped on that "forsey" like a pro and never looked back! Daddy stood by just in case, but Kaleb didn't seem to need any help!

Kaleb loves to drive anything! He has to hold both his hands up and pretend to be holding a steering wheel anytime he talks about driving. I think he pushed every single button on that tractor before he would get off.

We finally got him off so other kids could get on and he found another one. The door was locked, but he was happy to sit on the steps.

Here we are looking at the big animals. Again, he wasn't scared at all! I actually had to hold him back behind the red line.

We took a little trip through the market. He had done this in Fort Worth not too long ago, so again, he was a pro.

"Want my egg?"

At the end of the market, he sold all his good to get $1 and got to buy himself some treats. Orange juice and raisins...yum!

Kaleb also got his first face painting! The lady asked him what he wanted on his face and he said, "Aggies!" That's our boy! She also painted his name on his arm. He did amazingly well!

We all had a great time, but were worn out by the time we left. My little cowboy finally got to see the "amals" at the rodeo and ride the "forsey"! I can't believe he's not going to be my baby much longer!

Update...back to blogging!

Here we go again! Now that I am finished teaching for the year and we will be having this baby girl very soon, I'm going to try to post more regularly. I can't promise much for stories, but I'll try to at least get more pictures up. I'm going to go back to where we left off at Christmas and start from there. Honestly there's not much since I haven't been too good with the camera so far this year, but here's what we've got...
Kaleb had a blast playing at the Bounce USA at his friend Sarah's birthday party. Sarah's mommy, Jo, and I work together and Kaleb and Sarah go to school together.
Kaleb's friend Christian (another Carver mommy) was there as well and they had a blast!

They're turning into such big boys! Kaleb has a toy gun he got for Christmas so he runs around the house yelling "Where's my shooter?" and "Pow Pow"! I don't even know where he learned that, but boys will be boys!

We took Kaleb to his first motocross show and he loved it. He's been totally into motorcycles since the show. A motorcycle can be anything from a motorcycle to a bicycle, to a tricycle!

WLike I said, we have not been very good with taking regular pictures, but here is a belly shot of Mommy and Kaleb at 30 weeks...

My friend Jo hosted a baby shower for us at her house in February. It was fabulous! The cake was beautiful as you can see. And we had a great time all evening!

Kaleb and Christian had fun tearing up all the tissue paper! We came home with a full wardrobe and many other baby girl essentials!

A couple of weeks ago, Kaleb had western day at school. (Actually we forgot about it until we got to school and saw everyone else dressed up, so he dressed up the next day instead! OOPS!) I think it actually helped him seeing everyone else dressed up first because he was ready!

The boy has been fighting us at nap time lately too! Daddy put him down one day, he screamed a while, threw his fit, talked to himself for awhile, then passed out. Daddy went to check on him a little while later and found him asleep on top of his clothes hamper!

Now we have a new battle to fight and that is him climbing out of his crib! I was hoping that wouldn't happen yet (or ever) but hopefully we'll get it under control before baby girl joins us! That's all we have documented in pictures...

Other things about Kaleb:

-still loves to eat! learned how to open the pantry and refrigerator doors!

-is very strong-willed

-is going through a very tough "NO" stage, his answer to anything you ask is "NO!" whether he wants it or not

-talks and talks all day long

-loves visiting his grandparents! because they spoil him rotton!

-can count to 13 in english and spanish!

-loves to be outside

-seems very excited when he talks about his baby sister

-so many more things...I'll add more as I think of them!