Skeletor!!!

I found this picture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck on people.com and was just horrified. Isn't this just a picture portrait of anorexia? Granted, I'm not a tiny person, but looking at this who would want to be? I think it's just .... quite frankly .... gross! She's about 3mo pregnant now and looks like there's a basketball jetting out from her stomach because she's just a skeleton.

Anyone keeping tabs on her fight with Rosie O'Donnell on The View this past week? I commend Rosie for leaving. Who needs that ... what a hooch!

Our Entertainment:

Maysen learned how to fill his cup up in our fridge. The most fun thing for him is filling it up and sprinting to the sink to dump it. By the time we caught him, he had spilled some water on the floor and slipped. Then it became a game.



Now this video is of Maysen "reading" the last page of his book. It has about 8 things on each page, and Maysen was in warp speed on reciting his newly learned items. They include (you can follow along with Maysen): nummies (gumdrops), kitty, "whistle" (pacifier), worm, money (coins), doggy, pea, bee, school bus, rocket,*pause*, giraffe, mountains, skyscraper, and ... (eventually) horsie.



And one last video ... to show what a Master Wagon Driver looks like, Mr Papa. Nate wasn't as graceful. I'll spare him the embarrassment and not show him :-)

Reversed?

Has anyone ever experienced night-sickness? Of course Sunday I was feeling great! No symptoms of pregnancy at all. That is, until Monday. Starting at about 7pm I started feeling nauseated and just an overall feeling of crumminess. Tuesday, woke up feeling great until Tuesday night, then nausea. "Ok, whats going on?" I'm thinking. Tonight? Same story. At 8:30 I start getting nauseated and a full/bloated feeling that I just have to lay down. So what's with having it backwards?

I made my first OB appointment today. I'm sad to say the doctor who delivered Maysen will not be delivering this new baby. I liked Dr H a lot, but she stopped delivering at the 2nd of 2 local hospitals. She's the mother of 3 small kids and being called from one hospital to the other was taking up too much time. I like the 2nd hospital so much better as the rooms are just like hotel suites. Private bathroom with jetted tub, bed for husband/family, fridge/microwave, TV/VCR, rocker/glider. It is just so home-like and that was very important to me post-CSection. So, I made my first appointment with my new OB doctor, Dr F for July 6th.

Loud Message on a Shirt:

Nathan and I learned a secret a week ago; we are expecting our 2nd child in January. We are pretty sure this is our Disneyland baby - and we were wondering why everyone we saw in Disneyland was pregnant! Karma perhaps? I am roughly about 4 weeks along and so far feeling great! Maysen is saying he's going to be a big brother, but when you ask if he wants a brother or a sister, he says "No brover, no sisser" I'm afraid he has no choice in the matter.

Our second piece of news is that in light of Nathan's new job, combined with our recent exciting news, we have decided that I am going to hang up my nurse's hat for a bit and be a full-time mommy. I gave my notice on Wednesday that my last day of work will be June 15th. I do not want to take for granted the rare and wonderful opportunity I have been given, as I understand there are a lot of mommies out there that would love to stay home with their kids and are unable to. I feel privileged that I am able to do this. I will work "per diem" at my job, hopefully maybe once a month to keep my hours up for my RN license. It was with a heavy heart I made this decision as I have been the happiest at my current job than I have ever been working. I love my patients, my doctor, and my fellow employees, but I felt deep in my heart that I needed to take advantage of this opportunity and be with my kids, as they will only be little once. I have seen already with Maysen that they grow way too fast.

Side note: The above message was an actual fortune I received in my fortune cookie Thursday, the day after I gave my notice at work. It was, to say the least, too weird...

It's been a long week filled with a ton of emotion so I am sorry if I have seemed missing in action. I look forward to my new adventures of a full (and second) time mommy!

Happy Momma's Day!

Happy Mom's Day today to those who are mommies! This is my 3rd Mom's Day to celebrate and got the best "I love you, mom" gift I could ever get. Maysen and I had gone out to the backyard to play while Nate ran to town. We had played on the swings, gone down the slide, and Maysen was keeping occupied with me filling up a pitcher and letting him water my flowers. All of a sudden I'm standing on my deck and Maysen comes running at me warp speed with his arms outstretched saying "Ug, Ug da momma!" He ran up and gave me a death-grip hug. I savored the moment hugging him ever-so-tightly as I almost whispered "Oh, I love you my baby boy." Within seconds he whispered back "Uve you too momma". I had just read (tearfully, I might add) Running's post about her encounter and thought how special that was, when I got my own gift this afternoon.

There's nothing like being a momma ...

New Job

Nate accepted a new job this week as a ASP.Net web developer for RealPro Systems here in Eugene. The best part? It's full time/permanent! He has been working for Weyerhaeuser for the last year since graduating, but it's only been on a contract basis. The money is good, but they just cut you a dry check - you're responsible for benefits, taxes, etc. - not to mention the possibility of no job (and no unemployment) after your contract is up. Nathan's will be officially up June 16th, but it was extended until November. Nate stumbled across this job and when he got offered it, it was hard to justify passing up a permanent position with benefits to something that could be over and done with in November. The money isn't "as" good as when you're contracting, but that's to be expected with all the "pros" of having a permanent position in a company.

Today we took Maysen to the indoor SPLASH wave pool. He's a bit apprehensive of the water - which I think I appreciate more than half the other children that were jumping into any and all other parts of the pool, unattended. Scared this mom to death! (Although I was appalled to see I might have been one of the few! Geesh!)

Now I'm going to go throw on my new 550 thread count sheets (part 2 of mom's day gifts) and try and get the overwhelming smell of chlorine out of my nose ...

Happy Mom's Day tomorrow to all my mommy readers!!

Early Mom's Day

Yipee! I'm back to video taping my little man! On Saturday I got my Mother's Day gift early. Nate bought me (us) a JVC Camcorder, but instead of taping to a tape or DVD, the newest thing is the camera just has a hard drive in it. So you hook it up to your computer and download the video, or pictures. I can take still shots with this thing (which is tiny) and there is no lag or delay time. I love it. Sunday we went to the beach for the day. Here's Maysen talking about the doggies.

My first time

"Will I ever use this? I mean, I'd rather be reading a magazine in the sun, I hope this gets out soon."

It's amazing I've been an RN for 5 years now, and every couple of years I have to renew my CPR certification. This includes the Heimlich maneuver, which I think I've been taught ever since Health class in high school. Who would have thought that my very first serious time of using it would be on my 2 1/2yr old son at dinner time.

Tonight we're eating dinner in the living room watching a movie and eating dinner. Maysen was sitting in front of Nate and sort of kitty-corner from me. All of a sudden he got very still. I look over and he's sitting there with a glazed-over look with his mouth open. I had given him a quarter of a peanut butter sandwich, which he never has a problem with. Well, he must have crammed the whole thing in his mouth (which he's never done) without me noticing. Anyway ... he's sitting there so I jump up (Nate had no idea anything was wrong because he couldn't see him) and I whacked him a good few times on the back. You know how your adrenaline is raging so I knew they were pretty hard ones. If he was ok, he would have started crying, but *nothing* which was just plain eerie. So I looked in his mouth and his eyes were just panicked. I whacked him again hard about 3 times and then I looked back at his face and I felt like a deaf person because his face was red, tears streaming, eyes in cry-mode, face in cry-mode but he was *silent*. I knew then that his airway was blocked as he was turning colors. So I threw his tray off him, pulled him onto the ground and did the Heimlich. On the third thrust I was able to get it up and he started crying. I'm not sure who was more scared. Me or Maysen? Within 10min he was OK, asking for cereal and I was still shaking.

But ... he's OK. Thank goodness. I was thinking the whole time to myself "oh my God, what if I can't get this out?" It's amazing how "autopilot" you go into .. as I don't remember much about it, I just sorta went out of body and did what I had to do. Nathan said "I'm so glad you were here because I wouldn't have known what to do."

Phew .. I'm going to bed now....

Choo Choo Tongue!

This is the caricature picture we had done at Knott's Berry Farm in California. (And this is us stuck on Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland due to technical difficulties). The guy who was drawing took about 6min, and I was amazed at how well he did considering Maysen did NOT want to hold still!

Maysen has started using his tongue to help him with fine motor skills such as getting his train set just right on the track. I captured a few really cute ones tonight:

I'm getting a DVD camcorder for Mother's Day!! We didn't have a video camera during Maysen's birth - and regreted it, so got one. The video has to be transferred to VHS, blah blah blah but in January when I went to video him out in his first snow, the picture didn't work. We regretted not having on at Disneyland so that's my Mommy's Day gift!! We're going to get it tomorrow. Maybe then I'll be able to put snazzy clips on here like some of my friends have!!

Happy May Day!

Do you still do May Day Baskets? Today my doorbell rang at 4:00pm. "Hmmm...", I thought, "who could that be?" As I went to the door I saw our neighbor girls running away giggling. Above is what I saw on my door.

I remember doing May Day baskets when I was young - we would pick flowers (mainly lilacs) and we'd put them baskets, load them in a lid to a cardboard box lid, load it up in mom's van, and drive around town delivering them. We'd run up, ring the doorbell and run (to the van) like sly dogs. I don't know why, but I specifically remember May Day'ing to my grandma Leota and babysitter "Gwennie".

On a sad note, Nate's Grandma Dolly died yesterday. It is very sad, but she had previous complications and it was somewhat expected. Nate and I are working on a slideshow/movie of her life so we've been busy working on that. May God bless your soul, Dolly.

... and I'm sitting here 10 feet away from my present of lilacs and can smell them from here. Can't beat that ...