Archives for August 2004

The end of another long weekend. Scott worked and the weekend always drags by when he isn’t running around everywhere. His mom and dad came over Saturday. Emma cried big crocodile tears when they left. So she was quite happy to find them back at the house for dinner. We went to Wal-Mart where MIL got her the ATM. It really works. You have to put in a card and a PIN to get the bank to open. She has played with nothing else since bringing it home. I really wouldn’t mind it so bad if she could learn her numbers, learn how to use them in a sequence and then learn how to turn the dial to open the bank all by herself. Today we went to church and then to Scott’s grandmother’s for chicken and dumplings for his cousin’s birthday. Yum. Emma thought so too. She was a wild maniac. Big time show off in front of everyone. She was dancing and jumping and screaming and running and everything. She has taken to calling me Amy all the sudden. It’s about half and half with Mommy now. She has gotten very clear at saying Mommy instead of Mammie but the past week or so she has learned mine and Scott’s names and tends to call me Amy, especially when she is telling me to do something (which is about the only time she wants to talk to me). She has learned a few more words. She says round and happy when she plays with her Little People school bus. I think she knows the colors blue, green and maybe yellow and red. And tonight I asked her how many baby dolls she was playing with and she correctly answered two. Another hit toy is her bath crayons. Last evening she cried when Scott took her out of the bath and tonight she has been playing with them for awhile. I just heard Scott ask if she was ready to get out and she firmly said uh-huh. It seems in the past week or two she seems bigger. I don’t know if she’s actually have a growth spurt or just because she is understanding and communicating more or what, but she is almost seeming like a two year old now. There was a little girl at Arby’s on Saturday. Emma and her were checking each other out. I thought the girl was at least two and maybe three. I asked her grandmother who was with her and she said she’d be two in December, which is a month younger than Emma. I was thinking geez, does that little girl look older or do I just see Emma as a baby still and not as old as others see her. Who knows. But I can tell she is doing a lot of learning lately. She is the bossiest little thing. She definitely has the leader not follower gene in her. Mom said she has decided to hand her business down to Emma because she could tell she had that go-get-him attitude. All I could say was, oh, so we need to find Emma a rich husband.

We’ve decided with the girls’ rooms to basically redo Emma’s room and let Lexi use Emma’s crib and bedding. I think Lexi’s nursery will look quite different though because the walls will be purple which is quite different than the yellow and green we had Emma’s. And Emma’s new room will be pink. I haven’t found the bedding I want but Pottery Barn had it and sold out. It was a pink floral patch quilt look. Scott is going to make Emma’s toddler bed. As soon as we have some extra money, he is going to make it. I am so hesitant to put her in a toddler bed. We have gotten really good at bed time with her crib. She goes down easily when we take her in there and falls asleep by herself with her baby. Nap time of course is altogether different. I rock her to sleep either watching some tv or I take her in her room and rock her on her glider. I then have to put her in our bed because she won’t nap very long in her own crib. Anyway, bed time is more what I’m worried about and she is doing so good with that.

I have been starting to think about what to do with my job after Lexi comes. I know I can not work with two kids at home and continue at the same rate I am now. I am thinking that it would be good for Emma to go to some type of day care but keep Lexi with me. I hope my manager goes for that. If nothing else, I would still like to work from home even if I have to keep them in day care. I just don’t think I can handle getting them to day care and getting to work 5 days a week. I know a gazillion people do it but I just don’t think it’s for me. I really, really, really enjoy being home with Emma and don’t want it any other way but I know I can’t stay home with 2 and get the same level of work completed. And I know it would be good for Emma to be around some other kids and she enjoys getting out. I just don’t want it to be a 40 hour a week thing with her.

Yesterday Scott spent the majority of the day at his uncle’s trying to get his truck fixed. His aunt’s car has no insurance or tag so he is trying to get the truck working so they don’t get hit with a bunch of tickets. His uncle is not doing too well right now. He went in the hospital 2 weeks ago for detox. He was on alcohol, prescription drugs and even some cocaine. His aunt’s insurance wouldn’t cover anything more in the hosptial so he had leave after 11 days and he’s not doing too well at home. They can’t find him anywhere to go. There is one place he can go and live but that is after he is through with detox. No one in the family has been through this before so no one really knows what to expect or do. His uncle seems ready to go wherever so I hope they find him some place while he’s willing. No one had any clue it had gotten so bad.

Mom, Dad and Heather are headed up to Maryland to work on their house. I want to go but I need to work and me and Scott’s and Emma’s rooms are not set up yet. We are headed up next month and I can’t wait. I have a new cousin and I want everyone to see Emma. They haven’t seen her since Christmas. She is so much bigger now!

We are supposed to go out on a boat ride with an older couple from our church this evening. I really need to be home but I’m not sure I can convince Scott of not going. He has a lot of respect for this gentleman (so do I) and I don’t know if he could call him and back out. To be honest, I’m also a little nervous about taking Emma on a boat. I have no clue if she’ll like it or not. I would hate for her to be scared and have to turn right around.

I think Emma knows two, maybe three colors now. Blue she knows the best, then red, then green. I think she knows them so well because of her legos. I try to point out the colors as I’m handing them to her.

Went to the dr this morning. Sugar was fine but my iron was another point lower. He put me on these gigantic iron pills to take every day until 3 months after the baby is born. Yuck. I hate taking pills. I never learned to swallow pills until I was like 13 or 14 and only because my great-grandmother couldn’t believe I couldn’t do it and made me try it. I have hated it ever since anyway. I have been known to gag on several occassions trying to swallow a pill. So, I’m not looking forward to these horse pills. With Emma, I had these tiny little red pills. He said these were liquid gel caps and would absorb better. In other news, the dr. said the baby was breach at the moment. However, she is still at a point where she will move a lot. Another thing the dr is making me do is count kicks EVERY DAY for 3 weeks! I have to write a start time down, count 10 kicks and then write the stop time down. My last dr never made me do that and although it won’t take long if she’s really awake, it’s going to be a pain to keep up with. The dr also wanted to request the copy of my surgery from when I was 1. I had a freak accident when I was 1. I somehow got a straight pin stuck in my uterus wall and they had to operate to get it out. No one can explain how it got there. Every time a dr sees the scar (it’s pretty big, about 3 or 4 inches long vertically on my lower abdomen) they want the story and then they give you this really weird look like I’m lying about it or something. So the dr. today said he was going to try to get a copy of the record from the hospital in a small hick town 24 years ago. He said if they did cut in my uterus wall muscle, I could have problems during labor although seeing I’ve already been through labor successfully, it seems it would show I’ll be fine. He is just one of those overly cautious ones I guess.

And speaking of Lexi, I keep meaning to mention she started with the hiccups about a week ago. She gets them usually once every day. I remember Emma getting them at least that often.

OK, Scott and Emma left to go to my dad’s to drop something off and I actually have the house to myself and I need to get some work done. I’m actually sitting on a table in our garage. I set it up out here because Emma was playing out here while Scott worked and she wanted me out here too. It feels nice since I’m in the shade. I think I’ll enjoy my time alone and get some work done!

Yesterday I felt like I lived someone else’s life. I don’t mean that in the most dramatic of ways, but Emma just had a terrible day. Probably one of the worst in the past 6 months. EVERYTHING upset her. And I mean crocodile tears, squat on the ground kind of cry. I couldn’t get any work done at all. Nothing I did was right. It was awful. She finally went down for a nap (which I think was the problem) at about 1:15. Scott came home at 2 and somewhere in there woke her up. So, the nap she desperately needed was cut short. Thank goodness I did have Scott home yesterday afternoon or would have really gotten nothing done. But she was a pill the rest of the day. We had bath early at 8 even though she didn’t go to sleep until 9. I thought we were going to have a repeat today when she woke up for the day at about 6:45. Ugh, way to early. But she’s been really good. Heather took her to work at 10:30 and they kept her until about 12:30. When she came home, she was very content to play by herself. She went easily down for a nap after some milk and Wiggles at about 2:30 and has been asleep since. I’m actually getting extra stuff done at work at this point. We have been SO busy at work these past few weeks. I have hardly had my normal hours this summer. Lots of overtime is good I guess. I prefer to stay busy anyway.

Emma has started this thing where she puts on her dress up heels (Mary Kate & Ashley sandals) and gets her keys and tells everyone bye. She formed her first phrase last week, which was Bye bye, Mat (what she calls our dog Mattie). Now, when she pretends to leave, it’s bye-bye, Mat, bye-bye, Mommy, bye-bye, Da (Daddy). We’re still working on getting that one on tape. She is always increasing her vocabulary these days. She is always trying to copy what you say. She now calls my sister Heather Hea. It’s funny, it’s like she can’t get the second syllable out. She is still working on Grandma. The best she does sort of sounds like her Emma, an-maw. I can not really tell the difference but Mom says she knows she is trying to say it.

Emma I think sort of understands I am pregnant. She will answer yes if someone asks her if she is going to have a baby sister. I tell her there is a baby in my tummy and to hug and kiss it and she will. She doesn’t point and say baby like I’ve heard of some toddlers doing. She does love babies though. She about tackles Skyler trying to give her a hug. And she sleeps with her baby doll every night after giving her a bath. Really that’s just our way of getting her in the bath every night with no uh-uh’s attached, but she doesn’t know that (yet).

Lexi is getting bigger. And making me bigger. I’ve gained about 14 1/2 lbs so far. Not so bad I guess. I’m 27 weeks. Tomorrow I go for my sugar test. I have to be done eating breakfast by 6:45 am. And then I drink the stuff here by 7:45 and be at the office at 9. I guess it’s an early morning for me tomorrow.

Ooops, up from her nap, gotta go.

I have been quite busy with work this past week. We had a big implementation on Friday and Saturday and I’ve been dealing with the after-effects since.

Scott had to go help with Hurricane Charley on Friday night. He had to leave at 12am and sat at an intersection at Myrtle Beach for several hours until the storm got too bad and they were sent to their hotel. He came home on Saturday evening.

I had Emma stay with ILs on Friday night because of my work stuff I had to do on Saturday. I got SO much done on Saturday. While I was waiting on things to run, I cleaned the house and boy was it clean! Once Scott and Emma got home though it only lasted minutes.

Emma has been talking up a storm recently. A new one I remember is books. She also called Scott by his name a few times after she heard me calling for him by Scott when she was around.

I got REALLY lucky yesterday when I found the maternity bridesmaid dress I needed on ebay for only $35! It would have cost me over $130 for it brand new. David’s Bridal has 2 maternity dresses and I really wanted the other style but this one will do since it is the perfect color she is using. All the bridesmaids are choosing their own dress and there are 3 of them. One is wearing a satin material where the other is crepe like. I wanted the maternity one that was crepe like but the satin will do for $35!

I forgot to mention Sunday was our 6th anniversary. We didn’t do much except go to Pizza Hut to dinner. I have had a major craving for Pizza Hut pizza the past few weeks and have been at least 3 or 4 times. It’s ridiculous. It is so bad I literally begin to salivate if I think of eating their pepperoni dipped in sauce. Hmmm..

So Scott and I decided that we would not get each other a card or present for our anniversary. I’m definitely not a flower person and neither of us are card people. It is nice, but usually just sits on the counter for a few days and then gets stuffed in a drawer or just thrown out. Maybe I’ll regret that one day, but it irritates me to keep old cards around. MIL keeps like every card that she gets and I think even started an album of them. Scott and I then decided we would make each other a card but we were so busy, we never got around to it. But, in the end, Scott couldn’t stand it and bought me a card. I have to admit it was nice. I felt like a real loser for not getting one for him though.

At the beach we discovered Scrabble. We had all wondered how it went and found it in the cabinet at the house. We read the rules and actually played two games. I won the first and Scott the second. We liked it so much Scott and I came home and bought the game for ourselves. We roped Heather into playing on Saturday and she loved it too. I feel kind of silly for just now figuring out how to play but I’m glad we did!

I went into work yesterday and today. Scott kept Emma yesterday and then [great-]MawMaw is keeping her today. Yesterday Scott said she cried for me and then wouldn’t nap without lying in the recliner with him. Last night she had a little harder time going to sleep and woke up a few times through the night. Hopefully today will go better and if not, hopefully the rest of the week will because I’m not planning on coming in anymore this week. After my drive home last, I’m surprised I came into today. My drive without any traffic is 25-30 minutes. With traffic in the morning 35-45. Last night there was a multicar accident and it took 1hr 25 minutes to get home. We literally went 5 miles an hour for about 5 miles, hence the extra hour!

We’re back from the beach! The week quickly but pretty well. Emma forgot about me during the week and took up MIL “MawMaw” as her mother. It was good in some ways, bad in others. We left the beach yesterday and ILs didn’t come back until today so she has been a Mommy’s girl since then. I thought I would be hearing MawMaw every 2 seconds but she has only asked after her 3 or 4 times. She was excellent in the car on the way back. It is a 3 1/2 hr drive and she slept for the first 1 1/2 hr of it and then played pleasantly the rest of the way. I was more than thrilled. I had been dreading that drive the whole way. We didn’t do anything extremely exciting there. Just the normal shopping places..Broadway, Barefoot Landing, the new mall, flea markets. We went to the beach twice and didn’t stay too long or go more often because Emma doesn’t like the beach too much. She was ok with the water. She let me stand with her in the shallow part and let waves come up on her but she wasn’t running around splashing in it. The sand was a definite no-go. She wouldn’t even play with water in a hole because as soon as she felt the sand, she was itching to get it off. And that is impossible! The extended entry has a picture which pretty much sums up her beach trip. Kind of a yucky face, trying to get sand off her hands. But, she did have a ton of fun with all the family there. Her and Scott’s younger cousin H had a blast together. They played Barbie’s, legos, babies, balls, bubbles, coloring, stickers.

SIL did end up having one of her “moments” last night with her son after we left yesterday. He wanted to go to the teen club there and insisted until SIL finally gave in, dropped him off at the club and told him to find out how to get himself home. She then came home, tried to pack her bags to go home and said she was going to call DSS and tell them to get him because she was tired of trying with him. I still can’t believe she did that even as I’m typing this. Mind you, she also has a 9 month old that was there that I’m assuming MIL was taking care of and planning to take care of had she left. They of course had Scott talk to her and talk her into following ILs back. MIL called today and said she did stay but didn’t say one word on the 3 1/2 hr drive back. I truly believe she needs either heavy counseling or even medication. At least anger management skills at minimum would help. But she claims it won’t work. My nephew has gotten in a lot of trouble lately. But he is a good kid and if he had the right direction, he would be just fine. He just doesn’t have the right discipline and help. My BIL (not nephew’s father) is no help either. She’s ready to leave him too. He IS very lazy, has a bad attitude, has some weird opinions and generally is immature. Which doesn’t help. At all. They all just need help. They are all good people and have good hearts, but they just need someone to help them get it all together.

Mele, to answer your post the other day, we are naming the baby just Lexi. I want to call her Lexi so I’m skipping the full name and just naming her Lexi. I think Alexis is a beautiful name though. I’ve considered going ahead with that one several times.

Emma did her first somersault last Sunday by herself. It was a little crooked, but it counted. And she finally got some air on one of her jumps this week. She is really trying to talk. This week I think she said a whole sentence to her cousin but I couldn’t tell you what she said.

Picture of Emma…(I added one of the 3 of us too)
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