Preschool Field Trip

We took a field trip to a botanical garden for preschool last week. Caleb and Dallin enjoyed all the beautiful flowers and butterflies that we saw. We talked about colors, smells, and staying on the path. They had a lot of fun.

Caleb looking for fish in the pond

Our one attempt at a picture together. Caleb wasn't being very cooperative.

Halfway Point

I was positively convinced I knew I was having a girl this time, just like I felt like Caleb was a boy. I already had a name picked out and everything (Matt doesn't start doing the name brainstorming until about 2 weeks before I'm due--lame). Therefore I was really shocked at the ultrasound yesterday when the nurse announced it was a boy. (Apparently the baby wanted it to be very obvious as he kept showing "the goods" whenever the nurse was trying to get other measurements done.) So much for my "women's intuition". It will be fun to have two boys together so they can be good friends. Now the nerves are starting though that I might not have a girl... :o)

20 weeks

Lucky Day

The other week Matt called in on a radio show and won some football tickets. It was his first time to win anything off the radio! Last Thursday, he was driving into work at 6:30 in the morning and came across some other opportunities to win on the radio. The first was a country station that was giving away a Carrie Underwood CD as well as having your name entered into a drawing to win a trip to see Carrie Underwood live--all expenses paid for. He thought, why not give it a try? So he calls and wins this CD. (I've really enjoyed listening to it!)

He flips over to another station, classic country, and they are giving away 4 tickets to a nutcracker festival to the 10th caller. Thinking he has the calling strategy figured out, he calls again, and is caller number 10.

The last win on an oldies station was the best win...a $50 gift card! He claims that he's figured out the perfect strategy of when to call after the radio announces to start calling. It could also be that not as many people are driving to work/listening to the radio at 6:30 am, but either way, I'd say he had a pretty lucky morning :o). 3 for 3 in one hour!

Preschool Fun

Starting in October, we started a new curriculum for the boys. (My sister and I teach preschool together for our boys who are 6 months apart.) We are using the book, The Toddler Calendar, and we are liking it a lot better than the curriculum we were using off the internet. Some of the activities are a little advanced still for our boys, but it gives us great ideas for projects/skills we can work on. We meet twice a week for an hour and 30 minutes that includes stories, songs, as well as a craft or activity from the following areas: math, science, social studies, taste, listening, and smell. (The stories cover our language area.) It's been difficult to persevere some days when one or both are in grumpy moods and don't want to do the activities we have planned, but we've seen great improvement in them both.

Some of Caleb's projects that he has done.

For most of the activities, Ariane and I do the prep work of the project, and the kids just do the gluing and/or coloring.

One of our science activities today involved experimenting with what happens to the texture of flour when you add water. They had a fun time.

Trick or Treat

This Halloween was a lot more fun for Caleb because he understood things a little better than last year. We had practiced saying words like "ghost", "pumpkin", and most importantly "trick or treat", so he was all prepped. The costume I bought for him, Caleb refused to wear, so we settled for clothes we already had as a baseball player (it was the cheaper route anyway). Unfortunately our ward didn't do a Trunk or Treat, which I was really bummed about, but Caleb went out that night with his cousins (I went with Caleb and Matt stayed home passing out candy). Caleb can be very timid and shy in new situations, so having his older cousin, Drew, there helped a lot. It doesn't take long to catch on that this is the coolest holiday of the year...going to stranger's doors, saying 3 little words, and getting free candy! He said "trick or treat" and "thank you" at pretty much every door, and his "trick or treat" is adorable if I do say so myself :o). We didn't record it on video camera, but I'll do a post soon of new words Caleb can say so I have a record of how he used to say them.

Caleb and Drew/Optimus Prime

Dallin the Pirate, Drew, & Caleb

Staph Infection

Somehow Caleb ended up with another bug bite on his upper left thigh. He had one there about 2 inches from this new spot about 3 months ago. This was the bite that I assumed was an ant bite that we treated ourselves instead of taking him into a doctor. That's why when he got his last ant bites we were sure to take him in and have a doctor's diagnosis rather than treating it (and by that I mean popping it) ourselves. This time around, I was so confused how he could have ended up with a bug bite all the way up his thigh when he had been wearing long pants for 4 days previous to when the bite showed up (and we get our house sprayed on a regular basis for bugs). It didn't make sense, but being a pro with how to work with his ant bites now, I started the Benadryl to help with the swelling and started the ointment with band-aid. After three days of the bite not getting better, but a red ring growing progressively larger, I finally called a nurse to see if I could get a refill of the oral medicine we gave with his ant bites. I described the "bite" to the nurse, and instead of helping me get a refill for the prescription, she said I better come in and see the doctor. My immediate thoughts were, "Typical answer. They always say that...they're just trying to make money off of me." Well make money off of me they did, but I'm glad the nurse told me to come in.

As I failed to take a picture of Caleb's leg, here's the closest picture I could find on the internet of what it looked like (I actually only looked at a few pages of google images before I thought I would throw-up):

It worked out that my mom came with me to the doctor's appointment because she was going to watch Caleb that afternoon so that I could go get some blood work done for my pregnancy (check for down syndrome, diabetes, and whatever else they check). I'm so glad she was there! While the doctor was washing his hands preparing to look at Caleb's leg (and by the way, Caleb is screaming his head off--nothing good ever happens at the doctor's office and he freaks out every time starting with the moment we walk in to get his weight checked), I start rambling to the doctor about this bite on his leg, except I don't know how he could have gotten a bite due to the long pants, and hopefully the doctor could help diagnosis the bite. He took one look at it and said it wasn't a bite at all, but a staph infection.

Whoa! My immediate thoughts were, "What have I done wrong as a mother? I bathe my child every night and sometimes twice a day because he loves to jump in the shower whenever Matt or I do." So I asked the doctor how he got the infection and how to prevent them in the future. I wasn't prepared for his answer that there was nothing I could do, although I felt slightly relieved that I wasn't doing anything wrong! Everyone has staph all over their skin, and some people are just prone to infection more than others. Looks like Caleb is one of the lucky ones.

I explained to the doctor how Caleb had had one of these before on the same leg and instead of taking him into the doctor, I confessed that Matt and I treated it ourselves by popping it as that seemed to help the situation to relieve the pressure. Although Caleb screamed bloody murder when we popped it (and by we, I mean Matt), you could tell he felt better afterwards. Again I wasn't expecting the doctor's answer that that is exactly what you're supposed to do with staph infections, squeeze the infection out...preferably by a doctor, however. (I had horrible feelings of guilt whenever Matt popped the infection remembering all past doctors' counsel of not to pop blisters, bug bites, zits, etc.) He explained that I should take Caleb to the doctor anytime it happens again (duly noted) because if it ever gets to the point where Caleb can't walk or use the limb where the infection is and he has a fever, then we have an emergency room situation where it could get serious real fast. I think at this point I started a cold sweat remembering how with the other staph infection on his leg, there was one day where he would not walk on his leg at all, and I had to carry him around like an invalid all day.

After all the talking, questions, and answers, the nurse gave him some Tylenol Codeine to help drug Caleb up, and then twenty minutes later it was "surgery" time. Caleb knew something bad was about to happen and was acting completely terrified. I had to pry him from my arms to lay him down on the table, all the while singing songs as he clutched his trains in absolute terror. The nurse held his legs down, while I held Caleb's arms. Even through the process of cleaning the wound where there was no pain yet, Caleb bawled and kept saying "all done". Then the doctor got ready to lance the wound and squeeze out the infection. I positioned myself so I couldn't watch because I knew I would break down. The doctor told me that he wasn't going to be as "nice" about it as my husband probably was and that Caleb was not going to like him after he finished. My mom watched the process though. The doctor got a sample of the infection to test for the type of staph, and then squeezed out quite a bit of goop.

Afterwards, Caleb wouldn't go to me ("How could you let him do this to me?"), but would only go to my mom. Needless to say, the whole process was heart wrenching and traumatic. It's not fun being a parent sometimes. To continue to take care of his leg, we have had to give Caleb yucky, yucky medicine 3 times a day (1 1/2 t each time, which is quite a bit) plus give him bleach baths along with regular baths twice daily. During each bath we are supposed to squeeze the wound to see if we can get anything else out of the infection. We're on day 4 of 8 days of doing this, so we're halfway there of being done! His leg looks a lot better already...healing much faster than the last time he had staph.

Overall, not fun. I hope that the infections are infrequent from here on out, but of course none of us would complain if we didn't ever have to do this again! I'm afraid that might be wishful thinking.

Pregnancy Update

I didn't post pictures of my pregnancy first go-around, and I probably won't post pictures up to the end this time, simply because I don't like to be reminded of how I look 8 and 9 months pregnant. I know very few people who can pull off looking good with a watermelon belly and an extra 30 lbs.

I do want to post some of the fun and not-so-fun of this pregnancy. In general, I don't mind being pregnant. I fall into the lucky 45% or so that don't get sick in their pregnancy. I have felt a lot more nauseous this pregnancy than the previous one, but I have quickly discovered that I need to avoid taking my pre-natal vitamin on an empty stomach and that small snacks fend off the nausea. I enjoy going to the doctor visits to get a check-up and hear the baby's heart beat. I love that the doctor's visits are so frequent so that I can always ask questions and just feel reassured that the pregnancy is going well. I think I have already felt the baby move, and Matt confirms that he think he has felt it move as well, but I'm not entirely positive. Overall, pregnancy suits me, and I recognize how lucky I am not only to get pregnant, but to have healthy ones (thus far...knock on wood).

That being said, the thing I like least about being pregnant is purely selfish. I hate how it limits my physical activity. I love to be really active, and it's hard to have to slow down. I am still running every day with my sister, but our general pace has slowed down, as well as my times in the mile. Whereas 4 months ago, I could average 7-minute miles (when timing myself in 1 mile), I am now averaging between 8 and 8:30-minute miles. As long as my body will let me, I am still attempting to do long runs on the weekends. Up until 2 weeks ago, I was running 7 miles every Saturday at my usual long-distance pace of a 9-minute mile. These last two Saturdays have been very difficult, however. I have only run 5.5 miles, and have turned the timer off these last two weeks because my times were starting out horrendously after the first few miles. I don't have the ability to push myself faster, and this past Saturday I even had to take a short walking break every 2 miles. It's really hard for me to give up this new passion for running I've developed over the last 2 years, albeit temporarily. It takes a long time to build up to running long distances, so it's difficult to let that slip away knowing it will be a lot of work to train up to again.

Besides running, I'm playing tennis twice a week with Matt as well as some friends on Saturdays, and I hold my own (as the pregnancy progresses, then I'm sure Matt will be able to beat me ;o). We are also playing Ultimate Frisbee still, because it is one of our favorite things to do together. I'm afraid that with 2 kids, it will be a lot more difficult to ever play again though.

Along with the limited activity, I really struggle with the increased cravings and hunger. For me, it's difficult to find a balance between meeting those hunger pains, but not putting on an excessive amount of weight, which is just a pain in the butt to have to work off afterwards. Just like with my first pregnancy, I'm really going to try to keep it around a 25 lb. weight gain. (The first one I gained 30 lbs.) I read in a pregnancy book that you should gain 3 lbs in the first trimester, and then 1 pound per week after that. If I did my math right, it works out to gaining about 28 lbs. Right now, I'm on track with that.

Anyway, so that's an update. Less than 4 weeks till we find out the sex of the baby!