and for some good news....

no, no baby yet....she is officially making it through the holiday weekend. which means i will be in labor before my hair appointment on thursday! i will keep my fingers crossed for a quick pedicure tomorrow....

friday marked a wonderful day for our family! i started the process several months ago of looking for a nanny to help with the girls and well, with everything else around here so i can be more productive during the daylight hours. and secretly, i am needing some time to push my body back into rocking bikini shape, ok, i doubt bikini shape is in the near future, but atleast back to a point where i feel good about myself. i am also extremely nervous about bringing home baby #3....as any nursing mom knows, it can be full time job in itself, so how would i be able to not neglect my two older girls without parking them in front of the tv all day long?

so, in my hunt for the perfect nanny, one who speaks a second language, teaches swimming, cpr trained, creative and patient.....you know that person i feel would make up for all my short comings, i received the news i so badly needed. my mnl, aka the girls' babci, is retiring 6 months early. she has chosen to leave her job in administration at cook children's hospital where she has been employed for the past 20 years to become the #1 caretaker of our family. as is she spends her weekends here raking, pulling weeds, walking with the girls, playing in the mud, and cleaning up after the girls. we are also still working on a much needed office at the shop and she will be in charge of controlling the guys (and they think i am tough). i am sure in the next three months the flower bed in front of our house will be completed along with much landscaping at the shop. i am sure izzy will finally be potty trained and new baby will not feel like she is the third child in 3 years. dinner will be made every night and to jeff's liking a few of those days by his mom. i am positive annie is not going to pack her bags and leave me.....AND fandango our neglected pup will again be walked daily! babci will take the girls swimming and to little gym and once she gets adjusted to taking them out i am sure many adventures are in the future. i imagine exploring trips to the nature center, river, etc will fill the girls summer. as you can tell i believe things are finally looking up here in my hectic world and i am not nearly as nervous about bringing baby #3 home! (husband, don't think this means i am giving up my cleaning ladies or the laundry girl, i will be glad to cut out some of my starbucks runs first....)

well, i must go enjoy the last day of the four day weekend, not that i won't answer the phone when it rings, but there is something about having jeff and cade around all day that just makes life more better for myself, izzy and annie!

no baby, a fire and more....

to start with as previously posted my girls love george....annie (18 months old) is sitting on the floor right now belly laughing at the episode playing now. george is carrying a sneezing hudley (doorman's wiener dog) around sniffing for a lost cat in the wall....and for some reason she thinks it is hilarious!

so, no baby yet...again, last tuesday at my weekly appointment my doctor proudly tells me "not much change". while i probably don't need the details of how much my cervix has dilated or how effaced i am....i do wish he would give me an induction date. easy, i would think, "if you have not gone into labor naturally, by ??? we will go in for the induction". however, like i said before, he will probably give me one days notice....oy! life at 38 1/2 weeks pregnant is GREAT! my feet and ankles swell up like an elephant's by 3pm and sleeping is not much of an option. by the time i can get comfortable, i usually have to use the bathroom, and/or roll over because my hip is throbbing. oh, and not to mention all the weight i did not put on in the first 33 weeks is now here. i am trying to claim it as water retention, but secretly i wonder if it is the "stress" snacking i have been doing. now i am at a dilemma, while i would like for baby to come TODAY it is the beginning of a four day weekend and as jeff pointed out this means the "b" team will be working at the hospital, so baby #3 please wait until tuesday or and if you are waiting that long, than maybe make it past next thursday, i have a much needed hair appointment.

annie, aka, bruiser, no we do not beat our child, she acquires the bruises, scraps and booboo's all by herself. my one of a kind child must finally realize that this watermelon growing from her mommy's belly is going to interfere with her life. as i said before, she loves her dada and she adores her babci.....she is one of them, so when she acts out towards me in front of them, they are surprised. i don't mean just throwing fits for me, she tries to bite me...anywhere, on the face, leg, arm; she hits me in the face and her new one was to head butt me. while at the park the other day (which is quite an undertaking in my condition) she wanted the dog leash while climbing on the playground. my not always so stable on her feet child was giving me a heart attack. it is one thing for her to fall off the second level steps with both hands free but how would i feel if she fell because i allowed her to drag around the dog leash, so being the responsible parent i removed it from the situation (her dad and babci would have just let her play with it i am sure and this has alot to do with her preference for them). annie stood below the spot where i hung the leash and cried, or rather screamed for 10 minutes. after 10 minutes, i decided she should sit on the park bench in time out....when i went to pick her up, she throw her head backwards and then forward landing square with my forehead. i casually set her on the ground and counted to like 300...all the while she is still screaming and izzy is just staring at us! so at this point i pick her up holding her arms against her body and we make our way back to the truck. needless to say we may not take another trip to the park before baby comes....

tuesday night after my doctor's appointment i returned home to the girls playing in the backyard with babci. first, i put on a pot of water to boil for pasta and then headed to the back of the house to change my clothes. walking back through the house, i by-passed the kitchen and went outside to say "hi" to everyone. not only are the girls and babci out back but so are cade and two of his buddies. (okay..i had to rewind this episode of george to see if annie would react the same way again...and YES, she thinks it is hilarious) so after talking to my mnl and the girls for a bit i hear a loud beeping sound. at first, no reaction from me, then it became louder and i turned to my mnl and asked her what it could be....her calm response, "sounds like a smoke detector". OH, SHIT!!!! i run up to the house and look inside, seeing THREE feet of black smoke bellowing out of the kitchen i am afraid to round the corner. all i can think is that whole wall must be on fire.......as i look around the corner i see a 2 to 3 foot fire on the stove. not just a few flames, but a full flaming fire! i grab some water...and roll it down the counter (hey, you always read, watch and hear what to really do but forget in the moment) mnl comes running into the kitchen at this point and shouts grab the baking soda and miraculously it instantly puts out the fire. REMEMBER ALWAYS PUT BAKING SODA ON A BURNING FIRE after HOURS of clean up. i mopped the floors 7 times in the next 24 hours....most of the soot is gone. i still see some here and there but the cleaning ladies will dust those spots. the whole wall did not catch on fire, i believe only because the previous homeowners did a really awful remodel on the kitchen and between the ugly Formica counters and backsplash to the really poor paint job on the cabinets they may have saved the wall i am going to take out once our remodel begins. however, the sides of the cabinets are scorched and the vent hood is partially melted. oh, well.....oh, and you ask what started the fire???? the plastic sandwich shaped container on the glasstop stove top that housed my $10 flower sandwich cutter from WS i use for the girls. needless to say at this moment i would rather spend the $10 to replace it vs. the ?$$$ to start the kitchen remodel. my mnl however did stay until the girls were walking down the hall for bed...i believe she thought i might harm them if left alone! (anyone have the statics on how many kitchen fires start from this type of stove top???)

really great news to come soon........

a good belly shot for you.....

i love george....

oh, boy, do i love george.....he is entertaining, funny and most of all adorably cute! sadly, i am speaking of curious george and not george clooney. my kiddos are addicted to the little fur ball. the best 30 minutes of my day is the 30 minutes they spend watching their daily episode. both girls can watch the same 30 minutes twenty times in a row if i let them (and believe me i have had days where we came close to a dozen times). i don't necessarily think this is a bad habit, at least george can be educational and he is always using his little monkey head to problem solve. what is crazy to me is there is not another show they watch that truly captures their attention....not mickey mouse, not cailou, not backyardigans (thank goodness, don't really understand why they have such "cultural" names), nor the wiggles, etc. because sid the science kid comes on after george, they have started watching this one too. i enjoy a lil' sid because i am re-learning all sorts of scientific things, like how we use simple machines everyday, for example, a pulley, a lever, and so on. izzy and annie actually experiment with a pulley on the back porch, so my point is not all tv is bad, especially for this over worked, and extremely tired mom.

annie totally acts like george and may even resemble him a bit...

i had my second of the fun doctor's appointments yesterday. i almost dread the whole last four weeks except i wonder every week how much closer we are to baby's arrival. well, not much change was the answer i received yesterday. i laughed out loud last week when feeling around on my belly my super awesome, and extremely brilliant doctor says, feels like she is around 6lbs, ok, dude you do remember before izzy was born you said it looks like an almost 8 pounder and she came out at 22 inches and 9lb 6 oz with a very difficult labor and we induced annie 10 days early to control her size (a much easier labor at 8lb 10oz and 20inches), not to mention at my last sonogram nearly 10 weeks ago baby #3 measured at just over 5lbs.....so, i am wondering where his thoughts were after making such a comment. maybe it was that jeff went with me and it threw our whole appointment off being that i already told dear doc that more than likely it would be just him, the nurse and me in labor seeing as jeff has been in new orleans. i think the site of jeff may have brought him much joy! point being, no baby yet and no induction date as of yet with 2 1/2 weeks to go.

so, for the bathroom that is still a total gutted disaster, jeff brought home a child size toilet. since it is the girls' bathroom why not install one just their size....and then came the brilliant idea to use a photo of the toilet in the new yellow book ad. here are a few shots from the photo shoot....for more information on how to have your very own child size toilet, send me a message and i will tell how how easy it is to have installed!

for my mother....

as most know, my mother and i have not always had the closest relationship. for the most part i believe now a days we have found a way to get along for the greater good....her relationship with my girls. i just have to remind myself often that my life is my choice and that she lived hers to her best and it works for me....

anyhoo, being that it is mother's day and my husband (who went to bed at almost 3am due to his addiction to the internet) got up with annie and left izzy and me to cuddle until 9am now has the girls out back with his mom entertaining them while i prepare an early dinner. you ask, "why are you cooking on mother's day and 37 wks pregnant?"...well, i truly love to be in the kitchen, especially without interruptions. nothing fancy coming out of here today, a simple prawn/clam boil with sun-dried tomato pasta and from scratch strawberry shortcake. and i wish i could find the time to cook like this every weekend! so, here i am playing on the computer and i finally pull up my mother's blog. yes, she has started a blog too...she may even update hers more than i do these days. and there for the world to see is an entry about me....i am sure she could fill it full of my "quirks" and "stubborn mind sets" but this one was nice, well, more than that, it was exactly what this mommy needed to read on mother's day. so, i will share it with you........thanks mom, for seeing ME, the ME i became from all the good and bad....just remember the downfalls were what made me the stronger, more determined person i am today!

I've always known my daughter was a grownup...
I've just spent the past hour rereading Oldest Daughter's earlier blogs and have been blown away yet again. You see, she's a grownup, an adult, a self sufficient wife and mother and aunt and sister and niece and business owner. If I sound surprised about that, I'm really not. It's just that I sometimes loose focus on it.I read about her sometime concerns about not being the best mother and shake my head because I think she's a damn good mother (Nearly Perfect Grandson says I shouldn't cuss because I sound dorkey doing it. Perhaps I just need to practice more...). I read the occasional comment about hanging off the cliff and have to stop short. I get reminded that just because she acts completely in control and unwavering, that she, too, has doubts and fears.We've not always had the best relationship (translate to: it's been buried six feet under several times, but always resurrected). Some of it's been my fault and some of it's been hers. I tend to think there have been other hands in there, too, but they've been minor roles. I think it's ironic that I don't have a relationship at all with my mother and I'm HER oldest. (But then have to remind myself that MY mother is completely nuts and my daughter's mother is only partially nuts).I just know she got her good parenting skills, her common sense approach to raising her children, somewhere else than from me. I did the best I could with what I had, but most days it was woefully inadequate. When you grow up being a victim, it takes a multitude of "overs" before you can climb out of that victim pit in which you tend to stay buried. (Maybe because it's safe? Well we're not going there because it doesn't matter what the psychobabble crap is...you eventually climb out because you want out).I've seen her smoothly pull off the most wonderful entertaining events, she's an excellent cook, has fantastic decorating style, a good, strong, stable and loving marriage, organized, hard-working. Now before I give the impression that she's a candidate for sainthood, I'll stop. The point I've been heading to is none of these things are what made me realize that she is an adult. It was something totally different for me.About two years ago, I was at her house hanging out with 6-month-old Izzy Doodle when Amy came in the room and sat down with us. As she reached for her daughter, I saw her hands. My stomach flip flopped and I had to just sit and breath for a moment. I was looking at adult hands! Not the smooth, character-free hands of a child, teen or young adult, but the hands of a woman. Hands that had their own tales to tell. I knew (head knowledge) that my daughter was a grown-up but when I saw her hands I knew (heart knowledge) that my daughter was a grown-up. And she had done it, for the most part, without me.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL THE MOMS.....EVEN ON YOUR BAD DAY YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR CHILD'S LIFE, THIS I KNOW FOR CERTAIN. WE ARE ALL INFLUENCED BY THE MOTHER WHO ENDURED BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS TO RAISE US!