this & that

here's a few things that have been happening lately:

-i am now in my third trimester and feel rather large. some of my maternity clothes are getting to be too small (never saw that coming) the shirt, for example, that i'm wearing in the last picture will now retire to my closet following the lovely boob comment from leah. and dare i say it? yes, josh is happy.

-yesterday i had my first doctor's appointment all alone and my first birthing class all alone. josh had his own doctor's appointment (a follow up for his accident) and was not feeling too well in the evening. (we both know that the true reason he stayed home is because he didn't want to have to see the birthing video) the doctor's visit went well. this time tristan was facing the ultrasound and you can totally see his face...nose, lips, eyes...it almost looked 3D! i was so excited to come home and pop in the video for josh. the birthing class was fun because we got to have a tour of the birthing area of the hospital and also learned a lot about labor. for the relaxation exercises where you're supposed to lean against your partner, i had to lean against a wall. ah well.

-last week i had to do the blood sugar test where you drink a bottle of sweet stuff and they test your blood. apparently the results came back slightly high, so i have to go back in again for a 3 hour test next week. it's all a big pain because i have to be on this strict diet for 3 days beforehand and then can't eat 12 hours before the test. my doctor told me that it's not for my well being, it's for the baby's, which makes it seem more worthwhile. but i am so not looking forward to it.

-oh yes and i am measuring larger than normal (like i didn't know that) which made my doctor guess that the baby will probably deliver at around 8 lbs. (but really, how do they know?)

-we picked up our crib on sunday as well as the changing table, swing, pack n play, bedding and i don't know what all else. we bought the crib for $15 (!!!!) from friends and the rest was given to us by rob and jessica. i honestly don't know what will be left on my target.com registry anymore. it seems that daily i'm taking more and more stuff off of it! i'm itching to get this computer desk over into the guest room so that we can set up the nursery. i know it's early, but right now we're tripping over all it in the living room, so it's a great excuse to put it all together.

-still working dreadfully hard and staying away from eye doctors at all costs. now i must leave for work because i need to stop by the grocery store first to get some milk. i left an entire jug out on the counter over night. i'm getting rather bothered by this pregnancy brain thing. that and the fact that i am spilling food on myself CONSTANTLY! josh jokes that i need to add some bibs for myself onto our registry.

7 month belly shot

me, josh and tristan at 28 weeks!

tear duct plugs, anyone?

here is a self portrait, taken lately on one of my solo walks around the pond. it's been getting chillier and the other day it actually RAINED!!! i am so ready for winter. so, it's thursday afternoon and i'm supposed to be working my preggo butt off, but here i sit at home thanks to a lovely bout of diarrea i've been experiencing. i probably would have gone to work anyhow, but my husband (the smarter one of the two of us) pointed out that i wouldn't be much help if i had to keep running to the bathroom every 10 minutes. not to mention that the ladie's room at work is currently being worked on because of a leak, so THAT would not be a good thing. so i made about a million phone calls to smooth everything out, then went to the grocery store looking for kaopectate, which is apparently the only thing a pregnant woman can take for this sort of issue. they didn't carry that brand, so i came home with coconut instead to make those yummy unbaked cookies i remeber so well from pioneer girls. as for my issue, it's already getting better and i'd rather let it solve itself on it's own that take any kind of medication that could affect my baby.

speaking of medication affecting my baby, i had the eye doctor's visit from HELL the other day! about a month ago i decided that i should get my eyes checked one last time before losing my medical coverage from work. simple, right? just go in, get checked, order new contacts, and i'm done. well, i think that since that first appointment, i've been back a total of 5 times. this eye doctor, though a very nice man, is slightly peculiar. during my first visit, he had my head in that contraption where they peer at the inside of your eyes with your chin in a little slot and he stopped in the middle and said "just a moment", went to the next door down the hall, and i could totally hear him going to the bathroom and flushing the toilet, all while i was just sitting there with my head in the thing! the most disturbing part about this was that i did not hear him wash his hands. i had to go back in to get some sort of glaucoma test. then i had to go back to try on my trial lenses, then back for him to see how they fit, then finally i went back on tuesday because my new lenses were in. easy, peasy, pick up the contacts and go, right? so wrong. i go in to pick up my contacts and he asks if he can look at my eyes AGAIN. so i go into the little dark room that was becoming very familiar to me and he puts my head in that same contraption and looks at my eyes and declares that i have dry eye. and that i really should get plugs put into my tear ducts. while he's telling me this, he puts some sort of drops into my eyes that make them feel all cottony, then he leaves the room. so there i am, sitting in a sort of daze, blinking my cottony eyes and wondering how in the heck he is going to put plugs in my tear ducts. i didn't have to wonder too long because he came back with some tiny tweezers and who knows what else and decided to tell me at that point that what he had put in my eyes was anesthesia because "this procedure tends to hurt". i really should have thrown a fit at that point because he never asked nor told me that he was going to anesthetize my eyes and isn't that NOT GOOD for a pregnant lady? but he was the one holding the instruments of torture, so i decided so sit still and pray that it would be over soon. so, he takes his tweezers picks up something very small and tells me not to blink and proceeds to insert it into my tear duct. the worst part was not that it felt like he was poking a needle into my eye. the worst part was that his hand was shaking VERY badly. he said something about having just had a caffeinated drink that he shouldn't have had. and he wasn't joking. so basically, it took about 15 minutes to insert what felt like needles into 3 of my 4 tear ducts. the 4th one apparently wouldn't go in, so he made an appointment for me to come in tomorrow to get that one done. even while writing this out, i can't quite believe what all happened. once i had fled to the safety of my car, i called josh in tears (some tears because my eyes were watering so bad, but also real sad tears) and told him all that had occured. i really think that they could make my experience into a type of horror movie. thankfully, these plugs are only temporary and dissolve after about a week. and no, i am NOT going back in tomorrow to have him attempt to insert one into my last tear duct. i have my contacts and i am NOT going back any time soon.

we had our first birthing class on tuesday at the hospital where we'll be delivering. though the class was quite lengthy at 2 1/2 hours, we both found it very interesting. out of the 10 couples in the class, 8 of us are expecting boys, 1 is expecting a girl and 1 couple isn't going to find out. the instructor had some good tips for leg cramps and sciatica that i've found helpful. next week we get to tour the delivery area of the hospital.

on sunday i'll be 28 weeks along, which is officially the start of my third trimester! will post a proper belly shot for you then. i know i keep saying this, but time sure is flying...i can't believe my baby ticker is already down to double digits!

pickles and ice cream

these 5 adorable ladies on the bed are my mom (in the front) and her 4 sisters lil, marge, flo and dolores. they all took a cruise from vancouver to san diego for my aunt lil's 60th birthday and i got to meet them at the cruise ship terminal and spend the day with them in anaheim last week. the day flew by as we went swimming, shopped and ate delicious food. my aunties also brought all kinds of presents for tristan and i got to see pictures of my cousins and was entertained with stories from the cruise. we ended the evening at downtown disney (a shopping district outside of disneyland) where we had an italian dinner and then looked in all of the interesting shops. it saddened me just before i left that my mom hadn't felt the baby kick all day. no sooner had that thought entered my mind, than tristan decided to wake up and squirm around! so both my mom and my aunt marge were able to give him little love pats. it was so hard saying goodbye to my mom again, but it will only be 3 months until i see her again. so weird to think that the next time i'll hug her, tristan will have arrived!

as for my dear husband, thankfully he went back to work on wednesday, though with many restrictions placed on his activities. according to the x-rays, he is having back spasms from the accident, so needs to take it easy. the day of the accident i became highly aware of how much i depend on him and love him..i've allowed myself to go down the path of "what if" now and then and it gets really frightning thinking that way! i mean, he was planning on taking his small pickup to work, but at the last moment decided to drive his boss' larger one instead because it was parked behind his. who knows what would have happened had he been in his own truck. as it is, the truck he was driving was declared totalled and the unsuspecting tree that he ran into had to be removed! when i picked him up from the towing place and hugged him, i inspected him for a telltale feather, but the angels must have been quite careful in leaving such an obvious sign. 2 days ago was also the 10 year anniversary of the day he drove his car over a 400 foot cliff and walked away from it before it exploded. we are so overwhelmingly thankful to God for His protection. a cute little story about our 2 year old nephew, john: after he heard the news that uncle stew was in an accident, he asked his mommy if he could pray for him. so, using his limited vocabulary as best he could, he closed his eyes and earnestly said, "dear jesus. stew, stew, stew. amen."

my little football is now about 14 inches long, which is actually larger than a football and now even larger than his daddy's foot! he is very active, and sometimes painfully so when he bounces against my ribs. the only thing really bothering me right now is my siatica that flares up at random times. the other day i was at the grocery store and a lady from church leaned over to peer in my produce and whole-grain laden cart and said, "what? no pickles and ice cream?" i laughed, and then kind of wondered why that is such a common thing to associate with pregnant women. i've craved pickles and i've craved ice cream, but never the two together. well, i now know what all the fuss is about as last night i decided to indulge in some dill pickle potato chips from canada along with the last scoop of butterfinger ice cream. i was nearly halfway done before i realized that i was pretty much eating pickles and ice cream! my doctor's appointments are now 3 weeks apart instead of 4 and we go to our first child-birthing class at the hospital on tuesday. time is just flying on by.

work has been getting more and more difficult as i'm finding it harder to stand for long periods of time. it's also been a bit stressful due to the fact that we just received over 50 boxes of christmas giftware that needs to be put out as well as a returns package that needs to be gathered up and sent away. don't even get me started on the logic behind returns in october. add that to the problem of being short staffed, and me in charge of scheduling and...i'm surprised that i haven't had any cold sores pop up lately. i've been getting up at 5am to be at work by 7 so that i have 3 hours before the store opens to get a head start on things. i do indulge in listening to christmas music when no one else is there! it is beginning to feel like fall now that the temperature has dropped a bit. yesterday morning josh turned on the heater for the first time, although this morning it's not so chilly so we have the windows wide open. i've been dreaming about thanksgiving dinner lately. kind of wish i had celebrated the canadian one on monday just so that i wouldn't have to wait so long!

well, this blog has been a long mish mash of all kinds of things. sorry that it took me so long. i really hope that such a long absence won't happen again!

the reason why...

...i haven't blogged (or even been online) for so long is because things are a little crazy here right now. josh was in a car accident on thursday morning. it was really bad, but Praise the Lord he is okay besides some back pain. he is, however off work for the next little while and we'd appreciate your prayers that he will be deemed ready to get back very soon. i have pictures to share from my day in anaheim with my mom & aunts, but those will have to wait as i'm speeding off to work. i will TRY to post a longer blog SOON!