I'm not around HM much these days but there are a few people that might remember me...

Alexander was born on February 2nd!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/jenpettit/RandomtosendtoGrandma006.jpg[/IMG]

He's healthy and we are enjoying getting to know one another.

We're Jewish and haven't perpetrated the myth of Santa at all. My daughter (almost 5)has reasoned for herself that "Santa is just a man who dresses up in a suit" and kind of sees it as an extension of Halloween. She gets that Santa brings presents.
We haven't broached the topic of WHY people celebrate Christmas. But she knows that we celebrate Hannukah and she understands some of the basic tenets of the holiday. She is mostly looking forward to food and the presents she knows her parents give her.

"Day Out With Thomas™ offers an opportunity for children and their grownups to take a 25 minute ride with Thomas the Tank Engine™ and to have their picture taken with Sir Topham Hatt™, the Controller of the Railway. Every event includes Thomas & Friends™ storytelling, a viewing station for Thomas & Friends videos, temporary tattoos, and an Imagination Station. The activities on site at Day Out With Thomas™ are for you and your children to enjoy for several hours or more. Please plan your arrival times accordingly.

Tomorrow my little "assistant" will be working with me in the office:

Are things going any better for you with your little one at work?

The children's museum is free this Sunday. Anyone hip to going?

We're planning on going late morning before it gets too crowded.

I sometimes wonder if I am too overprotective of my daughter. We are older parents and she is our only child. She is 2 years and 5 months and talks a blue streak and is physically fearless! Our parenting philosophy is that she needs to explore her world and that we can't protect her from everything and that she has to experience some natural consequences.

Saturday while at a wedding shower for my brother's fiance, my daughter snarfed a whole grape off the table and then choked on it. We got it out with no incident.

Then on Sunday, we were in the neighbors backyard and they had two kiddie pools set up. My daughter wanted to go in the deeper pool. She'd never been in there. The water was up to her chest. She was dancing and twirling and pushing an inflatable toy around. She lost her footing and went under! I could see the panic in her face while I raced to the other side of the pool to haul her out. She was out in a few seconds and was sputtering but was fine!

1. Finally got some stuff framed and hung on the walls of my bedroom. I have lived there for almost 4 years!
2. Yummy plum from the tree in the backyard.
3. Coffee.
4. S, who replied "snuggle" when asked what she wanted to do yesterday.
5. My husband who cleaned the whole house for me on Friday so I could have a clean house over the weekend.
6. Gardening. Each year my side garden looks better.
7. Fresh produce - yum!
8. Cool nights and warm sunny days.

Seriously, my mind is stuck in a crappy place; I need to shake it:

1. Coffee.
2. Cold pizza for breakfast. Yum.
3. Having my sweet daughter at work with me today.
4. Not being sore after last evenings workout activity. I think I feel more out of shape than I actually am.
5. Potty training! Yay.
6. Traded phone calls with an old friend yesterday. I've known her since I was two. I'm gonna email her for a lunch/coffee date. It's been too long since I've seen her irl.
7. First period after m/c over!
8. I've got a plan for MIL visit on Saturday.
9. Picking up CSA box tonight.
10. Fresh basicl for the picking at a friend's garden. I'll make another batch of pesto for freezing and we will have yummy fresh goodness all winter long.

Okay. I'm a believer in signs. Like, things that occur in my everyday life that are like the universe saying "hello".

Now I already have a theory but I'm curous as to what ya'll think... Everyday for the past month or so I have been seeing feathers on the ground. More than I can ever remember seeing in years past.

Ideas? Opinions? Anyone?

Woo Hoo! We are going on 14 days of underwear...

We have been rewarding her with a one piece of candy after she goes - a jellybean or an m&m - and we've been filling a chart on the wall with stickers for each entire day she stays dry. She's been told when the chart is full that we will go to the toy store and she can pick out a toy.

So here is my question - when should I discontinue the candy rewards? My inital reaction was that when the chart was full we would but then I am afraid that will work against me.

Any ideas?

Lately I've been hearing an ad for a weekend show on the radio. I'm usually in the car when I hear it but today I was at my desk. This guy's name is familiar. I wonder if it is who I think it is? Bingo! The younger brother of a childhood friend of my husband's. He was the one who represented one of my best-friends ex-husbands in their divorce and custody hearing. He did a good job for his client but it was in the worst interest of the children. Snake.

Then, last week there was a BIG country music festival up here in Minnesota. I don't follow country but there is a local-boy made good who is touring with Rascall Flats. Why do I care? He's my birthson's uncle. (Okay - I know he has no real responsibility for his brother's actions but stilll...)

1. My very own cake. Baked by my mom and decorated by my daughter and her 9 yo cousin. Isn't it a beaut?
2. My mom - who took my daughter for the weekend!
3. My husband who made a nice weekend for me despite all the crap in our lives right now.
4. Remembering to brew my coffee last night so I could have iced coffee for breakfast.
5. Breakfast picnic this morning!
6. I think I am finally done bleeding from the m/c! Hooray!

Cuz' even though I feel like I am paddling upstream in my life, I am actually feeling pretty good today:

1. Avoided speeding ticket yesterday evening. (Tickets have gotten really expensive - like $129.00!)
2. Day 3 of undies!!!
3. Husband is getting out of the house and playing in a golf tournament. He won't be home until after dark! Yay. He needs to get out and I need some time away from him.
4. My friend, D, is coming over for a glass of wine and a light dinner with S and I after work.
5. Coffee.
6. Weather was perfect this morning. Ahhhhh... I think we'll plan a picnic breakfast for tomorrow.

It's been hot up here in our neck of the woods. Late yesterday afternoon some pretty big storms rolled in - hail and 60 mph winds in our neighborhood - and then quit about 7 p.m. when the sun starting peeking out.

So, I told S to put her shoes on that we were going to go out chasing rainbows and jumping in puddles.

She asked if Lucy (our dog) and daddy were coming. I said "Of course!" The dog was more than willing but my I had to twist my husbands arm! I just don't get how he would be unwilling to come outside with us for a half-hour to play. To just revel in the freshness after the storm. To see the joy on his daughters face as she skipped down the sidewalk and found every puddle on our block to jump in. Why would he want to just sit on his ass and watch the idiot box instead of spend time with S - on the days she goes to daycare we only spend 3 hours in the evening with her!

I am on week two of using pads and I am about to lose my frickin' mind. Actually, this rant is also going include the people who make the underwear that I am attaching said pads to.

First and foremost let me say that I haven't used pads on more than an occasional basis for 25 years and I am not any more impressed with them. Maybe I had to come from the era where they were attached to sting around my waist to think they've gotten any better?

Here is my problem:

I am a petite woman. I'm not quite 5 feet tall. I wear petite pants because my rise is shorter. So, I've got to believe that the exterior width of my vagina has to got to be petite, too. I have a hell of a time finding underwear that don't bunch in the middle (I have no clue what the technical term for that area is - but it is the area that usually has a cotton panel on it and spans the front to the back). I feel like the elastic is constantly pinching, rubbing and in-every-way-possible irritating the skin where the vagina and the leg meet.

We've been without a landline or internet service for a couple of days due to vanadlism of our neighborhood routing site. Maybe that is okay. I needed some time with my own thoughts...

I went in for a CVS test on Monday morning and it was discovered that I had miscarried. My doctor's office squeezed me in for a quick consult and then the doctor managed to get me in for a D&C at the hospital that afternoon.

In the span of about 6 hours my husband and I went from giddy excitement to heartbreak.

Some of you know my history and some don't. This was an unexpected pregnancy. We're "reproductively" challenged. I'd worked though a lot of that grief and really felt at peace with our little family when I found myself pregnant. It seems like a cruel cosmic joke.

I just called to check in with my husband. He told me that he'd just been fired and that they were standing over him while he cleared out his desk...

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

January 20th is my due date.

I'll deliver about a week prior as it will be a scheduled c. (I don't want this to be controversial. This will be my third c. I'm okay with that. I have studied VBAC and I am not a good candidate. If you really want details pm and I will share them with you).

The doctor visit went fine. I really liked the ob who delivered S but she has moved. I seem to have good rapport with my new doc.

We have decided to have some testing due to my age.

In some ways, this pregnancy seems really surreal to me. With my first pregnancy, 15 yo, I hid it until I was 6 months pregnant. There is still a lot of shame and unresolved feelings there. With my second pregnancy, two years ago, I told anyone and everyone WAY early and I didn't care who knew. This time, I am being more guarded. Maybe the testing? Maybe that I knew some people would not be supportive? Maybe that I am somewhat ambivalent?

S is here for a couple of hours in my office. She has spied her old jumper and insists on jumping in it. This was scored at a garage sale so I had no instructions. Any idea what a safe weight limit is?

How are things? Did you go to the doctor yesterday?

PM if ya want...

Today is my husband's birthday. 43.

I'm scrambling around trying to pull together some stuff to make him feel special. Somehow, I just have the feeling that S and I standing next to the bed and singing to him this morning fell a little short of his expectations.

Or maybe not... Still.

I gotta rush into the grocery store and pick up something to make for dinner. I can barely look at meat these days without puking but it is his favorite. A special treat.

Then home to cook. Well, I'll cook some of it but not the damn meat.

Presents are pretty dismal. I bought him a new watch band. My mom got him some expensive chocolates. I couldn't find anything else and I didn't feel like spending the money on nothing.

I had a vag. ultrasound on Friday and everything looks good. All the markers they look for were present (pregnancy sack, yolk sack and embryo) and they got a heartbeat - 116 bpm. I measured at exactly 6 weeks.

I am still spotting and am trying not to worry about that. I think the other thing that is reassuring is that other pregnancy symptoms are kicking in - tiredness and "morning" sickness.

So that's my news. We staying close to home over the long weekend and I am so happy about that!

Grrrrr... I was just walking to a partner in my business.

Earlier this year, she had expressed that she and the other partner wanted to start backing out of the business a bit with the intention of being totally out in 10 years.

Today, as we were discussing other things she mentions how I've "wrecked everyone's plans" by getting pregnant again. She then goes on to tell me that the other partner was thinking they would be out in 2-5 years and she was thinking more like 5-7 years.

WTF?

When I said something about 10 years she said, "well, yes, totally out in 10 years."

So, now I am feel guilty about all of this crap, too. Damn it! Just add it all to the stress factor.

I'm an optimist. Generally, I think no news is good news. Today, I am just finding it downright frustrating.

I went in for my vaginal ultrasound. There is a "pregnancy sac" and it is measuring about 5 weeks. There was nothing in the sac. The tech said that isn't too surprising - 5 weeks is really early to see anything.

They said my HCG levels are good and didn't think they needed to do another blood test today.

They rescheduled me for another ultrasound next Friday.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul rank somwhere around 16th in terms of total population. So, we're not a small town.
Lately, it seems as pieces of my adolescence are rapidly disappearing to development.

Dumb Dumb School (or the "alternative" school for pregnant teens)has been torn down and new 55+ condominiums are now up in their place.

The old house that some friends rented when I was in high school was condemned and recently torn down. I drove by today and a new sign was up advertising the row-house-style townhomes that will be built there in the summer of 2006.

The old cornfield where we used to park and makeout or have a bonfire while we chugged a 6-pack has been turned into a golf course.