I always do this with my diaries/journals, so I'm not sure why I thought I'd be able to consistently keep up with a blog. I guess I wasn't really thinking about it at all. Catch-up entries aren't all that bad. It means I've had time to filter out most of the unimportant things that seemed important at the time. Where to begin....
Pregnancy
At this point, I'm now 37 weeks pregnant. By the end of this week, baby will be considered full-term, thank goodness. I'm definitely ready to have my body back. (Yes, I've breastfed before. I know it technically won't be mine again until he's weaned.) Mostly I can't wait to be able to do normal things: bend over, walk, lift anything, throw a ball for the dog, have energy... Pregnancy is VERY uncomfortable by this point. This kid is very active, which always becomes uncomfortable when space gets tight. Contractions can be very strong. In fact, last night, they were six minutes apart and lasting a long time, but I decided to go to sleep to see if they'd last and they were gone by the morning. :P
Baby has dropped, which means he bounces on arteries that cause the upper part of my legs to go numb at random times. I can literally be walking along and have my legs essentially fall asleep or feel like they're cramping up. Sometimes he also does something painful that feels like bouncing on my cervix. I don't know what it is exactly, but it makes it so that I have to stop where I am and just rest for a minute or two- something that doesn't always work well if I'm trying to run errands or do anything when my energetic toddler is involved. She has been very sweet about helping to pick things up off the floor and hold my hand and walk around very slowly with me. Our adolescent dog is not so patient. I feel bad- I WANT to play with her, but I waddle very slowly on our walks and I threw out my back slightly after one night of throwing her ball in the park.
I feel like I've pulled probably every muscle that has to do with my pelvis or lower back. Actually, it feels like my pelvis is trying to detach from everything else (which is a major pain in the lower back and hips) and do its own thing. I feel compelled by a strong nesting instinct (oh, it's real, people) to start/finish a thousand house projects, but I don't have the strength or energy to do any of them. It's so frustrating. I feel useless and handicapped and huge and I just want this baby out! (To hold and cuddle and snuggle, of course. I still have some maternal feeling.)
Diana
Our little girl grows up more every day! She can imitate just about every word we say, but sometimes she jumbles them up in adorable ways. If mommy needs a few minutes of time without Diana constantly scattering toys around or asking for "UP?!?" I put on the show "Kipper," or "Pikker" in Diana Speak. She often fingers the "pick" (clip) I have in my hair. She enjoys eating "Ogur" (yogurt). She will say "mess you!" when someone coughs or sneezes, she is very quick to point out when someone else makes an "uh oh! Mess!" She loves her dad and mom and "Nowa" (Nova). She does a happy stamping and twirling dance when she knows she's getting a snack or something she asked for.
For some reason, clutching cheeks indicates happiness. One of the most endearing things she does is putting her hands on someone's cheek and telling them "hap-PY!" or randomly chanting "happy day!" It's so sweet and disarming when I'm frustrated or gloomy and she smiles into my face and tells me "happy day! happy day!" She is also very friendly to everyone and everything. She will wave and say "hi! hi!" and then blow a kiss to anything you can think of: the moon in the sky, birds on the lawn, Nova, the train she hears in the distance, sheep in a field, characters in a book, etc.
Diana has also begun to name things. Her special blanket is "Minky Blankie." The round stuffed giraffe she has is "Onk." Her bunny is "Hop-Hop." Her stuffed owl is "Howl." She probably has a host of other names for things, but Minky is definitely the most important. There can be no happiness in the world without Minky blankie.
Diana has had eczema since she was four months old, and her skin is an ongoing battle, although as she grows older and grows out of some allergies, it has been slowly getting better. She has good weeks and bad weeks. The strangest things can set it off- like using anything with cocoa butter or introducing a new hand soap at home. Using dye- and fragrance-free laundry detergent helped, as did cutting out fabric softener. We experimented with dozens of soaps and lotions for her before finding that Aveeno's Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream and their Aveeno Baby Cleansing Therapy Moisturizing Wash were the only things that soothed her skin. The best thing we found was that by adding just a couple tablespoons of bleach to her bath, her skin (and occasional diaper rashes) could clear up overnight. I guess a lot of the redness was caused by bacteria on the skin naturally or that had been deposited there by her scratching. I discovered that I had to switch to a natural (Burt's Bees) body wash since she came in contact with my skin so often. I also had to stop using any lotion anyplace that wouldn't be covered by clothing (my arms, neck and face, usually). Consequently, I haven't used a facial moisturizer in like a year and I'd REALLY like to find one that works for both of us.
Physically, Diana is so much more capable that sometimes it brings a tear to my eye. (I blame it on the hormones.) She loves playgrounds and sandboxes. She climbs up on couches and chairs and carries things around that should be way too big for her. She's sweet and very smart and still very much like her dad. Since she's over a year old, we've started on a catch-up schedule for the vaccines we thought were necessary. Unfortunately, since she's over a year old, she has a pretty good memory, and the doctor's office has become a sad place. Poor girl.
Matt's Diet
Part of the reason this blog started in the first place! Again, Matt is the person most qualified to talk about this, but since he hasn't gotten around to writing a guest post, I guess I can write a bit of an update. After the initial Reboot diet, Matt went on and did his own exclusively juice diet for another month or two. He said he felt better than he had in a long time, and he was eating a great healthy diet (lacking only in protein and some fats and carbs), but Matt didn't actually lose weight on his juice diet. In fact, he gained it. At one point, Joseph's brother Kevin estimated that Matt was actually consuming 4,000-5,000 calories per day. No wonder he didn't lose weight! Since Matt really wanted to see results, especially if he was depriving himself of protein and caffeine, he was depressed and dismayed by his weight gain. So after talking it over with Joseph and Kevin, he decided to go on the Joseph Diet.
Joseph is a big and healthy man, but he has a stomach that may actually be smaller than mine, even when I'm not pregnant. He rarely goes back for seconds, or if he does, he usually regrets it later. Their thought was that if Matt could eat a healthy balanced diet that included protein, carbs, and limited amounts of caffeine but control his portion size by only eating exactly what Joseph ate, he might be able to lose weight and transition from a very sparse vegetarian diet to a more normal diet without swinging in the opposite direction toward giant portions of highly processed and greasy foods.
Surprisingly, the Joseph diet did not work. Since we have a limited grocery budget, and we (by which I mean I) were suddenly feeding two grown men, we used meat very sparingly. I guess we ate more carbs and less meat than Matt was hoping for. He enjoyed eating meals that weren't vegetarian, but it still probably wasn't great weight-loss food. Also, despite my best efforts, Joseph never manages to eat breakfast and makes up for it by eating more at night or snacking on carbs (mostly chips) during the day, which I realize (though it is hard to convince him of) is NOT HEALTHY. I told Joseph that for his next diet venture, Matt should spend a couple months cooking for us, since I spent so much time making food for him and Joseph. ;)
Matt's current eating plan is mostly just trying to eat a healthy, balanced diet on a budget, but he does love good and flavorful food. While he's not gaining weight, he's not really losing it either, and continues to flirt with the 300 lb mark despite working out very hard on a mostly regular basis. We'll see what works for him in the long run!
Everything Else
Family Trip to Mexico
We went on our first international family vacation with Diana to San Jose del Cabo in April. Joseph's friends really wanted to do a "guys' trip." Since we want to go on a big family vacation in the fall, and I suspected I'd need his help more in the last part of pregnancy, I suggested that the best time to go would be in early April. I've had lots of people tell me how generous and tolerant I was to let him go on a trip while I was 34 weeks pregnant and had a toddler. But I wasn't. I was just naive. If I'd had any idea how difficult that week would be, I would never have suggested he leave. It was a huge mistake. But he appreciated it, even though I felt each day like I was just fighting to survive with an energetic dog, an energetic toddler, and a baby using all my spare energy. :P He felt so guilty about leaving us that he arranged for Diana and I to fly down to meet him after his friends left so that we could spend a week together in Mexico as a family. One of my greatest fears with children has always been air travel, just because I know how loud, fussy, wiggly and bothersome kids can be. Did I mention Diana was going to be my "lap child" when I was 34 weeks pregnant and HAD NO LAP?? Luckily, the flying went much more smoothly than I anticipated. The novelty of travel was interesting enough to keep Diana entertained, and we flew down with my brother- and sister-in-law Kevin and Michelle and their baby, so we had help and company. Thanks to some fantastic company policies by Alaska Airlines, we actually had an open seat next to us on one leg and an entire row to ourselves on the longer leg, so Diana had room to play around.
It was so much more relaxing in Mexico than at home, partly because I had help from Joey, who made up for the week before by watching Diana, cooking, and insisting that I take naps and read under umbrellas by the beach. Diana's skin cleared up in the sun and dry air and she loved wading and eventually being carried around in the pool. Overall we had a great time!
The Big Family Trip
Joseph and I love traveling internationally and we didn't want to stop just because we were having kids. In 2010 we went on a "Babymoon" (really an anniversary celebration) to Belgium, France, Switzerland and Germany and loved it. We wanted to go back and see more of Europe this fall, but it was going to be challenging with a 21-month-old toddler and a 3 month old baby. One of Joseph's younger sisters is studying German, so we invited her and another sister to come along with us. That way they can get to experience international travel and maybe help us with the kiddos a bit. We're very excited to plan out our trip, but really don't know exactly where we're going. It looks like it's cheapest to fly into Paris, and we'd love to see France again, so we'll probably come into Paris and swing through Strasbourg, but we're not sure where we should go in Germany. If anyone has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them!
