Whew

Everything appears to be fine with the one (Sorry, Swistle) baby. Thank you so much for talking me down yesterday.

I love love love the technician at my OB's office because she explains what she's doing/looking for during the ultrasound. She said that everything looks good from her point of view, although the information will be correlated with blood work, etc.

Then she asked me if I was going to find out the gender.
Me: "Yes."
Tech:"Well, it's a little early right now."
Me: "Right. I figured."
Tech: "I'm just going to play around for a few minutes."
*She proceeds to look at the baby from all different angles, stopping when she gets a good between the legs shot.*
Tech: "It's early, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say it's a boy. See? Right there?"
Me: "Wow! Are you going to give me odds?"
Tech, laughing: "No. We'll know for sure in a few weeks."

!!!

So we'll see, but I can't help planning bedroom rearrangements and getting excited. I know Eli will be happy, too. "If the baby is a girl, it will belong to Katherine and Helen, but if it's a boy, it will belong to me."

Things

Lost things that I ordered replacements for from Amazon so I don't stay awake stupidly worrying about them:
goggles for Katherine's swim lessons

Eli's favorite gloves

cup valves for Helen's favorite Dora cups


Things that were later found, so now we have a spare:
goggles

Things that give me Nervous Tummy (TM Tess):
The little girl on the bus who WILL NOT keep her hands to herself, causing K. to come home with her face covered in hives one day (I assume the girl had dairy on her hands) and carrying the contents of her disassembled backpack another day.
A barely-known classmate calling--by herself--
to invite my second grader over at 7 on a Friday night.
My ultrasound this afternoon because it's a special Advanced Maternal Age one to check the baby for all kinds of scary things.

Things I can control:
Ordering replacement items to turn my brain off.
Having Katherine change seats on the bus.
Telling the classmate that it isn't appropriate for K. to come over.

Things I can't control, but oh how I would like to:
Every single social event in my children's lives.
Ultrasound results

Catvice

I have some questions for all of you cat lovers out there. But first, some facts.

1. I like cats, but Katherine and I are horribly allergic to them.
2. Our neighbor puts out tons of birdseed and corn and peanuts every season but winter.
3. This food attracts birds and squirrels and rabbits and voles and various other critters, who all poo in our yard/on our swingset.
   
4. There are several feral cats in our neighborhood.
5. Some of them are quite scary.
6. One beautiful, sweet, collarless tabby cat really likes our house.
   
7. He/she hangs out on our back deck and front porch a LOT.

So, can we adopt this cat as an outside cat? Is that OK? I really, really want to encourage it to stay around because I like it, and because I'm hoping it will feast on/scare away all of the rodents and birds our neighbor provides.

What do I do? Put out cat food and water? Will all of the scary, nasty cats come, too?
What about... litterbox issues? What if it belongs to someone else? (I think the chances are slim, but still.)


Next time, we can talk about keeping a hawk as an outdoor pet. That's right, so many critters came to my neighbor's yard last summer that we had a HAWK as a regular fixture on our swingset.

Well!

Pardon my little hissy fit. I took the kids to playgroup, visited with the other moms, and ate many, many French muffins. Am feeling much better now.

Thank you all so much for your morning sickness advice. I have an appointment next week where I'll ask about switching medications. And I cannot agree enough with Not Your Aunt Bea: protein helps me with nausea WAY MORE than carbs. I don't understand why this isn't common advice.

The candy trains were a big hit at E's school. If you ever do this craft, especially with preschoolers, use glue dots. They will save your sanity.

The 2010 Go Dairy Free Non-Dairy Product Lists are now available. Very handy for shopping.

Now I'm going to go enjoy Swistle's twin posts.

I wake up scared, I wake up strange

I finally got up the courage to ask my OB for anti-nausea meds. For 24 whole hours, I wasn't queasy! But I was so tired I wanted to die, and I got really irritated with the children for, you know, being awake. Anti-nausea meds FAIL. I'm back to being queasy and [barely] functional.

Somebody (No, not me, but good guess!) blew the whistle on the Nintendo DSes in the classroom, so that conflict is over for now. Woot.

I made the executive decision to bake the cookies for the school Valentine's party myself, even though I wasn't on the original sign-up list. I figured, hey, I'm ticking people off anyway, why not have a safe snack? 'Cause that's how Hormonal Pregnant Mom rolls.

Tomorrow is the boy's preschool Valentine's party, and I'm in charge of the craft. Candy trains it is.

I can't wait to try Catherine Newman's dairy-free Walnut-Orange Cake.

First Robert B. Parker died the other week and now Dick Francis, one of my all-time favorite authors, died yesterday. As Beck tweeted, "Stop dying, favorite mystery authors!"

Katherine and Eli played in the children's chimes choir at our newish church for the first time on Sunday. Eli had just one note, the very last one, but he played it with enthusiasm.

We've been having lots of fun watching the Olympics, although the kids told my mom that they don't 'get' curling. Mom: "No one does."

Radio Silence

Dudes, I don't even know where to begin. I think life overwhelmed me at the same time a bout of Blog Sickness kicked in. Throw in sick kids (Two-year old on steroids = Shoot me.) and birthdays and school parties and meetings, and, oh yeah, HORMONES. Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

So! I met with the assistant superintendent and one of the elementary principals about the official allergy policy that they are finally going to put into place next year. Woot. I'm sure they just wanted to meet with the allergy parents to pacify us, but I don't care. I'm nosy, and I want to know what's going on. I'm pretty pleased with the policy so far.

Also, they are going to let us know who our children's teachers are in June instead of August! No more scrambling to meet with K's new teacher the week before school starts!

K's teacher asked me to be in charge of calling the parents who volunteered for the Valentine's party because she was frustrated with the amounts and dairy content of the Christmas party food. On the one hand, I'm happy to help. On the other hand, telling other mothers to step off? Not really my job. And, boy, did I inadvertently anger some people. Awesome.

Kids have been bringing in their Nintendo DSes to play during recess, even though the school handbook specifically says they're not allowed. K. keeps bugging me to let her bring hers. Uh, no. Our house rule is that the fragile, expensive toy stays home. Actually, ALL toys stay home. I think you can find something to play for 15 minutes in a room full of 20 other kids.

Huh. Maybe I'm not over Blog Sickness after all. Whiny much?

My blog turned three on Jan. 31, but much more importantly than that, my favorite boy in the whole world turned four last week. Four! I love him so much it makes my heart ache. Our sweet, serious little boy who takes such good care of his sisters, loves tractors, trucks, and Star Wars, and asked for tomato soup for his (John Deere) birthday dinner. Happy Birthday, Eli.