Gub Gub's Due Date

It turns out I was right. Gub Gub's due date really and truly is the 27th of July. We had our first Doctor's appointment on Monday. We got ultrasounds and the tech said that baby had a very strong heartbeat. The ultrasounds are a bit more developed than Baby of Dreams were, so it was fun seeing what almost looks like a baby. I'll have to scan them into the computer so I can post them, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I am 11 weeks along now and still feeling pretty sick. I had truly forgotten about this part of pregnancy.

The Husband starts school again on Monday. For those of you that haven't had to listen to our lofty life plans yet, here they are. The Husband has been working for a large retail store for the past year and a half. He has been taking a break after two years of school. He realized that he would very much like to go into management in this store, but the easiest way to do that is to finish his associates degree, which he is 4 classes short of doing. So starting on Monday he will only be working on the weekends and will be going to school full time during the week. I meanwhile will be working around 28 hours a week to make up for his loss of a decent paycheck. We worked it out so I will go immediately to work when he gets home from school so one of us will always be able to stay with Baby of Dreams. That is extremely important to us. We probably won't get to see each other too much, but it only lasts until the very beginning of May. He will then graduate and we will go back to him working full time and me working about 15 hours. That will hopefully last only about 1-2 months and then he will hopefully be able to make it into the manager's program. Then I might work a bit before Gub Gub is born, but I won't really have to anymore, it will just help out. The plan is that I will not have to go back to work at all after Gub Gub is born. I look greatly forward to this blessed day. Well, that is the plan. I am planning on it not going as smoothly as I outlined it, but this is the hoped for version. It is good to finally have a plan again though.

Baby of Dreams Has An Announcement

As some of you, but not many of you, know. Baby of Dreams is going to be a big sister sometime around July 27th. I am not exactly sure of the due date yet, just because we haven't been to the Dr. yet for our first appointment. We will be going on Jan. 5th so hopefully we will know slightly more after that. I have been pretty sick for the past three weeks, so I am sure that this baby is extremely healthly. I am 10 weeks along now and would like to believe that the sickness will leave when I start my 2nd trimester, but am not putting any stock in that actually happening. I was sick with Baby of Dreams until month 5. We are all very excited about "Gub Gub". I was talking to Baby of Dreams one morning about the new baby and it sounded like she called it Gub Gub and the name just stuck. We waited to tell our parents on Christmas Eve and they were all pretty excited too.

I have more updates, but they will have to wait until later, because Baby of Dreams is really done with her nap and needs lunch. Come to think of it, Gub Gub really needs lunch too. I'll try to update sooner than later.

Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night

The Husband came home sick this morning and slept most of the day. He has some type of flu. Baby of Dreams and I spent the day playing, grocery shopping, napping and playing some more. The Husband woke up at 5:00pm and spent the rest of his evening confined to the couch. At least he hasn't thrown up again. We tried to not let Baby of Dreams climb on him or get too close. I put her down at 7:00pm and stayed up with the Husband for a while longer and then went to bed. I woke up around 1:00am because Baby of Dreams was sad and also making strange noises. I went in to her and realized that lunch was all over her crib, including her brand new tiger from Grandma. Now Baby of Dreams spit up a lot when she was smaller, but this was nothing like it. I grabbed her and ran her downstairs, where luckily the Husband is feeling a bit better. He stripped her down and gave her a bath while I tackled the crib. I took the sheet outside to dump off the particles and wasn't as careful as I should have been. I sprayed myself with the sick and almost lost my own dinner twice. Everything is now safely in the wash and washing in hot water. I now need to take a shower. I get in the shower and can't get anything more then slightly luke warm water. I had not taken into consideration that one baby bath + one load of hot laundry + our water heater do not = a hot shower for me. So I burst into tears, get out of the shower and am now sitting on the couch, smelling throwup, telling my woes to the world. (The Husband has kindly taken Baby of dreams and is sitting with her in the office.) Interesting that my first thought after destroying my water heater, was to write about it. I do feel a bit better though. And I am going to be checking the water for correct temperature very soon.

Health Update on Baby of Dreams

Well, it turns out that Baby of Dreams was not over her fever and continued it off and on all day Friday. She seemed okay to me in the morning and I left for work in the early afternoon. When I got home, she was good for about 10 minutes and then started screaming. She was due to got to sleep so I put her down. She woke up again about 2 hours later and I thought she was ready to get up and eat. I was wrong, she wanted to get up and scream, so I put her to bed for the night. She slept well enough that I moved her to my bed so I could make sure she was still breathing, every once in a while. She woke up late, for her, Saturday morning and again screamed a lot and flailed around on the ground and refused to let the Husband or I comfort her. I called the Dr.'s office, explained and they told me to bring her in. I am so grateful they are open a bit on Saturdays. We did have to wait almost two hours at the Dr. office, which was pretty excruciating, but I am so glad we went. Poor Baby of Dreams had two ear infections and was in the rash stage of Roseola. I hadn't even noticed a rash until we got to the Dr.'s office, but in my defense it probably only showed up sometime that morning. We then got Baby of Dreams her first anti-biotic and some really great ear drops that numb the inside of her ears. She has been sleeping a lot and practically living on juice. She definitely has not gotten dehydrated from this experience. She seems to be feeling a lot better now, but is still a bit cranky. I am now assuming that it is her ears that still hurt her a bit. The poor child has been through a lot the past 6 days. I remember my mom took such good care of me when I was sick, I hope I can do as well for my Baby of Dreams.

Statistics

I am on a roll tonight, with catching up on a bit of blogging, so I might as well get some good information down.
I took Baby of Dreams to the doctor yesterday to get her next set of immunizations. I was definitely worried, but we brought her tiger and her favorite blanket, (that coincidentally was given to her by the Husband's mom) and a full sippy of juice. She did scream, but really the nurses do an excellent job. Five shots in just a few seconds. I let her have the strawberry dum-dum that the doctor gave her and she got happier pretty quick. *A side note: This was her first, legal, candy. We are trying to keep her, as much as we can, off of processed sugar for at least her first two years. I took her home and she just sat with me on the couch for about 20 minutes, until I had to leave for work. If you know Baby of Dreams at all, you know that this is not normal. She is usually running around the house and most often climbing on things, every moment that she is awake. I put her down for a nap and the Husband sat with her when she woke up. When I got home from work she was definitely running a temperature. She sat with me for the next FOUR hours, barely moving. She was so hot! After a run to the store for more medicine, a call to the on-call doctor and a blessing from the Husband, Baby of Dreams was finally able to go to sleep for the night. She slept pretty well and seemed fine this morning. About the time I was about to get ready for work, she started running a temperature again. So I stayed home to tend to her. She seems much better now and was getting cranky around bedtime, a sure sign that she is back to normal, for the most part. Her temperature last night had been so high that the Husband and I were both extremely worried. She was so lethargic that it just was not normal and I knew she was feeling rotten. I was so sad and worried for her, but I am going to admit that I LOVED holding and cuddling my baby. She is so busy that she rarely has time to let me hold her, let alone cuddle and coo her. It was awesome being able to hold her like I used to.

On a more technical note, we got all her size statistics again. She was 15 months on the 10th.

Weight: 17.44 lbs. that is the 0.42 percentile

Height: 30 in. that is the 37th percentile

Head Circumference: 18.25 in. that is the 64th percentile

I could have sworn she was getting a lot heavier, but she has only gained about a pound and half since she turned one. The doctor is still not worried about her weight and he gave me the okay on turning her big girl car seat around. I know I was given advice a bit ago that I could probably do this, but I was chicken. You have to remember that this is my first child and I am entitled to a bit of over protectiveness.

I figured that I needed a picture in this entry, but did not really have one to go with it, so I might as well put this one in and tell a bit about it. Baby of Dreams loves playing the keyboard. She likes it much better when mom remembers to turn it on for her. We are working on not standing on the stool and pulling everything off of the keyboard. She usually does a pretty good job already on not pounding on the keys. She is seriously contemplating her next composition.

Things to Carry

I thought is was extremly cute that Baby of Dreams absolutely loved her pink pumpkin. I got it about a week before Halloween and it was her favorite toy that entire week. She loved carrying it around and filling it up and unfilling it and carrying it around some more. I apologize for being the mom to snap the practically naked baby pictures, but how cute is she with her pumpkin.

Halloween

I know this is way late, but I had to show off my little tiger. Baby of Dreams loved wearing her tiger costume. In fact, I put it on her, right after I got it, to see how it fit and she immediately went over to the door so she could go outside. The suit was so warm, I think, she thought, it was an outdoor snow type suit. And if many of you know me very well, here is my chance to defend the pink pumkin. (For those of you that do not know, I am not a fan of pink, but am getting a bit better.) The tiger suit isn't exactly a "girly" costume and poor Baby of Dreams is mistaken for a boy too often as it is, so I figured a pink pumpkin would help everyone know that she really is a girl. The results ..... she still got mistaken for a boy at least twice. The reason we went with a non-girly tiger to begin with is that her favorite lovey in the whole world is a stuffed tiger she got from my mom. She goes everywhere with her tiger and has a hard time getting to sleep without him. She likes to take his tail and double it over in her hand and then stick the thumb of that hand, in her mouth. It is so cute! I need to get an up-close picture of it. When we were looking for costumes for her, we saw a really expensive tiger suit and she got so excited over it. We couldn't get it, but later a found this much cheaper tiger suit and it worked out great.

I had wanted us to dress up in costumes that would somehow make sense with hers, but the only thing I could come up with was for us to be zookeepers and I could not figure out how to do that without spending any money. So the night before Halloween I decided that the Husband and I were going to be kids dressed in pajamas and Baby of Dreams would be OUR stuffed tiger. I already had some great pajamas and we were so very comfortable. We will see if I can get more creative next year.