Monday, February 27, 2006

New Website

The season for the non-profit that I am involved in is in full swing! We have a new terrific website and have had all kinds of fun developments including some local media coverage and dress drives! I am so proud to be a part of Ever After Gowns! It was fun and strange to see my name in print in the news article! :) I have been working with the local Kappa Alpha Theta active chapter at the U of MN as an advisor and they have adopted EAG as a philanthropy project...it is terrific to see all the fun things that I am involved with intersecting and working together successfully!

Check us out at www.everaftergowns.org! If you know anyone that may want to donate dresses, shoes, accessories, etc. please feel free to pass on the website info!

Kate hamming it up in her LSU sweatshirt



Sunday, February 26, 2006

Pregnant Alien Creature

Well the waiting game continues! After such a tricky time at keeping Liam cooking for a decent period of time, now that I am off the medicine this little guy is hanging on and not quite in the mood to greet the world yet! It would not be so bad if I did not keep having regular contractions. They have gotten to 7 minutes apart for hours to the point where I debate whether ‘this is it!”……but they end up waning away. They are a daily occurrence that I will just have to live with. It is tough though….they wake me up at night, they strike at odd times and some are really quite unbearable. I continue to progress slowly as far as dilation and effacement goes, but labor never fully kicks in. Due to the stress on me, my body, and the baby, the docs have scheduled an induction this week! He will be at 38+ weeks and plenty cooked. In fact, he has officially been in the womb longer than Kate was! I pray that all goes well. But I cannot wait to meet him!

In the meantime, we are just trying to keep distracted. It is harder to do than one might think. I cannot do too much because then the contractions kick in, so long walks are out. And the movies are out because I cannot sit still for that long comfortably. This weekend Nick and I decided to go on a “real date” and we went for a lovely dinner at a restaurant we have wanted to try for ages. With Kate being watched by her Nana, we set out for our first date in ages! It was so lovely. GREAT food and atmosphere with a terrific wine list that Nick sampled. The only drawback – and I suspect this would have happened had I waddled into any eating establishment be it McD’s or L’Espalier – was that a large number of patrons spent the evening giving me somewhat nervous sidelong glances during dinner. Never mind the blatant open stares of shock as I floated my mass into the restaurant with Nick and checked in our reservation! Now, I KNOW I am big. I KNOW I look like I am about to “pop”. But I dressed nicely and looked half-human and was thrilled to be out and about…..I did not need the looks of shock as if they were afraid I would ask the waiter to clear off a table so I could climb upon it and proceed to birth a baby in between our Foie Gras and Pork Medallions. GOSH!!!!!

Most of these looks came from men. Where do these guys think THEY came from? Some human manufacturing plant OTHER than the womb? Were they beamed onto the planet? I feel like so many people think that I should just stay home and not bring this strange phenomenon of pregnancy out amongst the “normal” people. Is it so offensive? What century are we in? Granted, I am not the petite little adorable preggo with a perfect little round belly who has not gained an ounce anywhere except for the baby. I KNOW I am alarmingly pregnant – I scare myself sometimes! But please don’t stare at me like I am a zoo animal. I was “thisclose” to calling out to some of these fellow diners “hey, take a picture it will last longer”. Sheesh.

Oh well – I guess I don’t have to put up with it too much longer so I won’t complain!!! One positive of the evening was me enthusiastically diving into a divine dark chocolate dessert with whip cream and berries with no care whatsoever! That and the fact that for the first time in ages, Nick and I had an adult evening out with great conversation, a fine meal, and no toddler table manners to deal with! Just lovely.

In the meantime, we wait. The blessed event always could occur before the induction date later this week….but somehow I doubt it. Thank goodness for the unending patience of my husband, my mother, and my 2-year-old daughter who are putting up with an increasingly irritable and miserable me.

I should end this entry before I sound ungrateful and angry about the blessing that all this REALLY is! ☺ Soon to come – pics of our first little blessing! Kate continues to shine!

Friday, February 17, 2006

Kate and Mom Bundled Up!


Cold Enough for ya?

Ok - all I have to say is that right now the AIR TEMP outside is -8 degrees. Without wind chill.

With wind chill it feels like -29.

But hold on - tonight the air temps are supposed to reach -20! And with the windchill tonight it will feel like more than 40 below zero. There is hardly any snow on the ground - it is just frigid. Snow I can handle - I mean, when living out East we dealt with plenty of snow. Snow shmow. But this cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ack!

Anyone want to come to Minnesota for a visit this weekend?

As Nick said when he went outside to start his car this morning to allow it to warm up before driving to work...."It is so cold that my eyeballs hurt."

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Baby News and Big Girl Beds

I cannot believe how different this pregnancy is from having Kate! I just got back from my weekly OB appointment and at 35 weeks I am 2 ½ cm dilated and 75% effaced. Crazy! And that is with the anti-labor meds! So strange since I had no progress like this with Kate until I was actually in labor. Anyway, I go off the meds this week, so we shall see what happens!!!! Anyone who looks at me cannot believe that I technically have over a month left in the pregnancy as I am so large that there should probably be small moons orbiting my body. Planet Maggie!

In more fun and less “technical” news, Kate is the best girl ever! She is a big girl now, for all who care to hear her announce it! ☺ This weekend Kate made the transition to her BIG GIRL BED!!!! She is doing great! I am probably jinxing it by saying so, but she has slept through the night three nights in a row without getting out of bed or putting up a fight of any kind. We had one nap time that was an issue because she wanted to climb in and out, but only did it twice and then fell asleep. Nick’s and my new favorite sound is around 7am when we hear a small ‘thud’ as she plants her feet on the floor out of bed and then the ‘scamper pitter patter’ of her little feet as she runs out of her room on the floor above us. It is so sweet. She calls out for us and waits patiently at the top of the gated stairs for someone to get her. We usually have warning because when she wakes up, she first reads aloud to her “friends” for a few minutes and we can hear her tales over the baby monitor. Too sweet.

So now, thanks to the excellent help of Patrick and Tara, the kids’ rooms are all arranged. P & T came over this weekend and helped move and assemble furniture and bed rails and bedding etc. They helped put all the baby clothes for Liam away and both rooms are so precious I can hardly stand it. Kate loves what she is calling her big girl princess room and she also thinks that “Wiam’s woom is sooooooo cuuuuttte”. I will post pics soon!

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Could I brag more about Kate? Um....yes. Yes, indeed.

I realize that we have not posted in a while and wanted to just give another update. Right now Kate is up in her room for her “nap” which lately has consisted of about 45 minutes of her “reading to her friends” followed by an all-too-brief 45 minute snooze. Her “friends” are her entourage of stuffed animals and dolls that she surrounds herself with. She has taken to bringing at least 5 storybooks to bed with her and will arrange all her “friends” as she calls them for “storytime”. It is an absolute riot listening to her through the baby monitor. Some books she practically recites from memory, and some she makes up stories to aloud according to the pictures….but she chats away with all kinds of inflection and even different voices for different characters. Occasionally she will admonish one of her friends saying “don’t be naughty, bear” or “no puppy, sit here”. She is so funny. Right now I am listening to a sweet, lilting rendition of the ABC’s……..

In other news, I am just taking it easy. At my 34 week OB appointment this week, it was discovered that I was dilating at 1+ and am 50% effaced. So I am still on meds and trying to keep Liam cooking for a while longer. I am not going to lie – I am so uncomfortable. Kate has been terrific and thankfully is easily entertained by “quiet activities”. For instance, yesterday she colored for over an hour straight and this morning we read books together for almost an hour-and-a-half. That allows me time to keep relatively still and then when Nick gets home, they can rough house and run around while I watch in delight.

Luckily I can usually still get out of the house for one outing a day. Whether it is a quick trip to Target, to the library or storytime with Kate, or a meeting for my non-profit group or Advisory Board, it is nice to still be able to get out and about….as long as it is not too strenuous. Nick is doing well – his new responsibilities at work are definitely keeping him on his toes, but he is up to the challenge and enjoying it. Today the President of The United States came to the 3M campus for a tour and a speech! I have not heard yet from Nick how it went, but am anxious to know.

Not much else to report. We are just trying to spend some nice time with Kate before she has to “share” us with her brother. Last week, before my most recent doctor news, Nick and I took Kate to see “Sesame Street Live” in downtown Minneapolis. She really loved it and, while she watched very intensely for the first half, by the second Act she was literally up out of her seat and dancing along with Cookie Monster and the rest of the Sesame Street Gang. I think we have some pics – I will have to post them.

Ok – this is getting to be a novel and the storytime over the baby monitor has come to an end to be replaced with deep breathing. I now have less than 45 minutes of peace and quiet! I would appreciate prayers that Kate NOT abandon nap time entirely as I really hope to get at least one hour during the day when she and Liam are both asleep! ☺

Some cute Kate-isms of late:

“Ayuda me!!!” Which is Spanish for “Help Me”….she is really into saying this when she needs assistance of any kind

“Excuse me, please, Mommy”…..this is the never ending chorus whenever I am on the phone or when Nick and I are talking together. She knows she needs to be polite when interrupting, but has not learned to really wait her turn to talk so she just says this politely over and over and over until she gets your attention. Fun game, that one!

“I need a moment please”…..this is what she said to me yesterday when I finally acknowledged the “excuse me’ interruption. So funny.

“No, no, in Apanese”…..Gramps taught Kate how to count in Japanese (Apanese) and she will ask for “Apanese” instead of English or Spanish (which we practice counting in. She can go all the way up to 20 in both!).

“Kate will come on, too”….now using the third person, this is Kate’s way of announcing she is coming with you – whether it be to the laundry room, the kitchen, the bathroom or anywhere else. She is quite a tag-along these days.

“Famiwee”…..Kate has just shown that she grasps the concept of Family. She talks about it often and the other day we were all in her room reading stories and she announced dramatically “Oh, gosh, I have my whoooole famiwee here!” And then, pointing to each of us she said “mommy, daddy, wiam, and kate”. Of course “Wiam” was my enormously protruding stomach…….