Gimmie Chocolate

So one of Nate's favorite phrases is "mommy, gimmie chocolate." I was quite chagrined several months ago when Nate started saying "gimmie" and I figured we just were not so good at articulating ourselves, and he had picked it up from us. That was confirmed the other day when I heard Jesse say in the other room, "Nate, gimmie ....(such and such)." But yeah, Nate says it all day long dispite me saying that we don't say gimmie every time he says it.
So one of my favorite things about Christmas is that it is more acceptable to have Chocolate sitting on your table at all times. So I found the candy dish that we got for our wedding, and has been packed away, and I got it out and filled it with Hershey's Kisses. Well, it's not that hidden, and Nate saw it right away, and said, "gimmie chocolate." Within the last day though, he has been very good at sharing the chocolate. He always picks out one for himself, and one for mommy. (And man am I getting fat.) So it's very sweet that he shares with me each time he wants one. I do wish he'd get over this whole gimmie thing, but he's 2, so we'll have to deal with that for a while longer. Oh well. So there is my sweet story of the day. It's not much, but you get what you pay for.

ps. When I changed Nate's diaper today, he said "oh Nate." It was pretty funny.

Oh Nate

So just in the last few days I have found that whenever Nate spills something he then says, "oh Nate." Which is what I say when he has spilled something. The poor kid is so hard on himself.

Friday Night Worries

Ok, so here it is Friday night. Last Friday night, or maybe it was Saturday night, I don't really remember, our backyard neighbors had a party. Not so much a party, as it was a few people standing outside with a car playing loud music, and they polished off several bottles of various kinds of alcohol. So I know that I now sound like an old fart or something, but as I was going to bed at 10:00 (That is my bed time, and it's sad to say, even on Friday nights, what can I say, I'm pregnant.) I had many thoughts going through my head. My first thought was wondering how late they were going to do this. They stopped at 10:30, so I think that neighbors have maybe set a limit on it previous to this. I was also wondering that, whereas Nate is just fine sleeping through things like that, I don't know that the baby would be.
So we were warned about the neighbor's enjoyment of partying, our other neighbor, who is super nice was telling us about it. I really wonder if some of the other neighbors have complained a little bit, there are other families in the "cul-de-sac" (It's more like a dead-end street with 2 duplexes (duplexi?) at the end behind the one that we are in off of the street.) So maybe they have a limit of 10:30 or so. Or, maybe it was really cold, and they ran out of booze. Whatever the reason, they did stop before it got super annoying.
So the rest of the story comes the next morning when we were leaving our house, and Jesse was walking around the back yard, and he found an empty glass booze bottle. I then found an empty beer bottle. So now I'm thinking, ok, so you just toss your empty bottles in our back yard for our 2 year old to find? That's not cool.
So now I am conflicted. I really want to talk to the neighbors, and tell them that if we continue to find their empty bottles in the yard we will complain to the cops. I really think that is the best way to welcome ourselves into the neighborhood. Especially since we're the vast minority in this neighborhood. My next thought is to throw their bottles back into their yard, like onto the driveway. (What? glass breaks when you throw it onto a hard surface? I had no idea!)
So I know that I'm just going to sit back and take it, since I'm a little afraid of our neighbors, and I don't want any trouble from them, and well, I worry that they could be trouble. (These are the same guys who have a "science project" going in their shed.) But I feel like I'm being bullied. Like I feel like they are taunting us by throwing the bottles into our yard. You know, what are you going to do whities?
So here it is the weekend again. We'll see if they party again this weekend. It just seems to me that it's getting cold, and I wouldn't want to sit outside like that, but I'm a wimp. Oh well. So there is my conflict for the moment. I'm not trying to solve world peace, but you get what you pay for.

Stork Parking

ok, so one of my favorite things about being pregnant is that they have invented stork parking. Now, I firmly believe that they should also have new mother parking. There should be a few spots near the cart return reserved for moms who need to lug a car seat around. But that's another topic. So there are 3 grocery stores within 2 miles of my house. It's quite convenient. I have picked the one that is middle as far as price goes. The reason that I go here is 2 fold. First of all, they have one stork parking space. I have been lucky enough to get it the last several times I have been there. I am sad that my time of having my own personal spot is coming to an end. This grocery store also gives me money off when I get gas at their gas station, which is quite convenient. That is not the point though. The point is that I love stork parking.
At the outlets near where I used to live they had a few stork parking spots there. They were not placed that well. I would have put them close to the maternity clothes store, but I guess they are between the most popular maternity shop and the baby clothes stores. The thing about these outlets though is that the stork parking spots are like handicapped spots, with the empty spot next to them. When I first used these spots I was not that big, maybe 4 or 5 months pregnant, and I really wondered if they had ever seen a pregnant woman, and exactly how much room they thought we take up. Of course, now I'm big enough to take up several parking spaces, so it all makes sense. (I currently am every single "your mom is so fat..." joke rolled into one.)
So I firmly support the stork parking trend, and I think that there needs to be more specialized parking. The angry mom spot, the spot with a watch man so that I can leave my child in the car while I run in to get one item. The I'm seriously running late, and am in a bad mood spot. And on and on. So there you have it, there is my opinion, I don't know what it's worth, but you get what you pay for.

D-Day

Well, I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and well, I'm not having the baby today. We'll put it that way. I do have an induction scheduled on December 4th. It was actually quite an annoying appointment. It started with no parking spaces near the office. So I had to park all the way around the building, and walk like forever to get to the office. That started things off. I kept on thinking that they ought to have some parking spaces saved for those who were unfortunate enough to make it to their last week. Anyway, so I was annoyed about that. Then I got there, and it was busy, so I knew that I was going to have to wait forever to be seen. I sat in the waiting room for half an hour, a new record for me, and then I had to wait in the exam room for another 20 min or so. So the doctor came in, and she told me that I was not making any progress, so I expected that, but was still annoyed by it. Then I told her that I wanted to schedule to be induced, and she goes on and on about how she'll see what's available next week, and they only have a certain number of slots for inductions, and I'm thinking, you'd better get me the first slot that you have or I may have to break your face. So she said that she would have the nurse call me the next day to schedule a time to come in. So I walked out of the office quite annoyed because I was not progressing, and I didn't even have a time scheduled to come in. Then of course I had to walk all the way around the building to get to my car.
So I was then driving to Adrian's house, and I was still mad at everything. A car cut me off as we were making left turns. He thought that it would be ok to turn from the left turn lane into my right lane. So I was mad at that. Then at JoAnn's there were no close parking spots there either, and they don't have stork parking. I just wanted to shout "doesn't anyone care that I am 9 months pregnant?!" And of course, the answer would have been, no. So then I was stuck behind some annoying slow cars after that, and well, let's just say I was in a pretty crummy mood. Fortunately for me, my friends are wonderful, so as soon as I got there, my mood improved drastically.
So then it was time to go home, and I noticed that I had a voice mail, and it was the dr office, so I called back, and she said that she had scheduled me to be induced. So that was good news. She told me that I needed to call at 6am (Who is up at 6am?) and they would tell me if I needed to come in then or not. She also said that they may bump me to the next day if there were too many people there. Which come on, really, adding insult to injury? As if I'm not frustrated enough that I have not gone into labor, you would be saying, no you can't have your baby today because of all of these other people who actually have bodies that will initiate labor, and they come first. So I may call at like 5:30 just to be one of the first to call in case the last person who calls gets bumped.
So anyway, that is my story of the day. I'm still annoyed that I have not had this baby yet, and I'm off to go walk up and down the stairs a million times in hopes of getting this baby to come before Tuesday. So there is my story, it's not going to make the Times, but you get what you pay for.

A confession

Well, I have a confession to make. Whenever Nate hears the microwave ding, he always responds: "dinner's ready!" I guess this comes from the past year of him only eating chicken nuggets, so for him, when the microwave dings, it really is dinner ready for him. I know, I'm a bad mom, but the thing is, when you have a child who does not eat anything, well, you grab onto anything that seems like real food. Even if it is chicken nuggets. Today for lunch he had the marshmallows out of a bowl of lucky charms, and tortilla chips. Yeah, we're all about healthy over here. So there you have it, my little confession. It's nothing groundbreaking, but you get what you pay for.

A Random Tidbit

So I realized the other day that when I sleep, I only drool if I am lying on my right side. The things I realize when I am half asleep in bed. I know, it's enthralling, but hey, you get what you pay for.

A Little Fishy

OK, well, first off, I want to reassure you that I did not get robbed the other day. That is the good news. That being said, I'm a little worried that I will get robbed in the near future. And here is why...
So Nate and I are sitting down to lunch today and the big sliding glass door in our dining room has the shade up, so we can see into our back yard, and into the yard of the house behind us. So I'm just minding my own business looking out the window, and I see two of my neighbors out there. Now, I'm already just a little concerned about the fact that it appears that these people have no job nor do they go to school. But there is a little decorative scarecrow in the front lawn, so I figure they've got to be OK. Anyhow, so I'm sitting there and these two neighbors, maybe in late teens, early 20's unlock the shed and go into it and close the door. Now, right away I thought that was a little fishy. I couldn't see the whole layout of the yard, but it looked almost like the shed was attached to the house, so when they didn't come out, I thought that maybe they went into the house that way.
Now, before you begin laughing about how naive I am, I knew that was not really the case, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Well, I put Nate to bed and then I came down and sat down to have a piece of pie, and then I see these two people come out of the shed, the lock the door behind them, and then enter the house through the front door, they had been in there for like 45 min. Now, like seriously, is it just me, or is that a little fishy? I really think that they have a drug stash in that shed, and I'm just hoping that it doesn't become a problem. So there you have it. I've been a little concerned about our neighbors to the back ever since well, the first day, and now I'm just all that much more concerned about it.
Now, I don't know people who do drugs. None of my friends have ever offered me any, but maybe these days that is just normal behavior. You know, if I were to be like, I think my neighbors do drugs in their shed, everyone else would say, well, duh, every one's neighbors do drugs in their sheds. So who knows.
So there is my fishy story for the day. My back hurts, my belly hurts, I live in a pig sty, and need to take care of that, and well, I'm going to be pregnant for the rest of my life. So that's it. It's not the path to world peace, but you get what you pay for.

Grocery Shopping

ok, so let me start by saying that i'm pretty sure that there is someone upstairs robbing me of house and home right now. That being said, if I never post a blog again, come looking for me.
So I had a doctor appt today, and of course, nothing is happening. However, I do feel that my due date is in like 12 days or something, and at my next appt I am going to be asked to be induced on my due date. My friend Dessi will like that because it is her birthday, and Nate was born on her husband's birthday. So we'll see. I sure hope I don't go 12 more days, but with my luck, I will.
So while I was at the doctor, Colleen brought Phoebe over and watched Nate for me. When we got back, we decided that we both needed to go to the grocery store, and that it may be fun to go together. We could get one of those car carts and put Phoebe and Nate in the front together and they would have a grand time!
So we get to the store and we find a cart. It was a police car cart. We put P and N in the front, and buckled them in, and we head into the store. So we'd gotten like 15 feet and we hear P say, I wanna get out. So we're thinking, well, that certainly didn't last long. So take 5 min to try to convince P that she needed to stay in the cart. Do you want juice? do you want a pretzel? If you're good you can have chocolate milk when we're done.... etc. So on we go, off to produce, get the bananas, go over to the potatoes, oh, I needed apples, they are way back there, on and on. In the mean time, both children are trying to get out of the cart. Do you want fish? Do you want fruit snacks? I want Nate's kind of fruit snack.... etc. So we finally get out of the produce aisle, and now Colleen has to pick out a turkey. It's a tough decision. You know, it's the day before Thanksgiving, so it can't be frozen, and it needs to be kind of small... you get the point. So while I so kindly leave Colleen there with the cart, and kids that are trying to get out, I go gathering some of the things I need in the surrounding aisles. Each time I come back P is crying about N. So I come to see that Nate has decided he wants to get comfy, so he has his feet hanging out of the side of the car, and is reclining onto Phoebe. For some reason she did not find that appealing.
Finally we're on our way again, and N is still leaning on P, so I take him out of the cart, and I am now carrying him screaming and kicking down the aisle. It was grand fun. I finally give in, and he gets back in the car. I tell him to be good, and that lasts all of like 30 seconds.
Off to the bread aisle. Then we decide that Colleen needs apples as well. So back to produce. While in the produce aisle, P wiggles her way out of the seat belt and is so proud of herself when she gets out of the car. So now P is running all over the produce dept, and I'm totally 8 1/2 months pregnant, so not much help in running after her. Finally, we decide that the smartest thing would be to have me man the cart, and Colleen man P. (Notice the word Finally, yeah, it took us a while to catch on.) So now I'm pushing the cart, and Colleen is off trying to contain P. We finally meet up in the frozen vegetable aisle. At this point P is running all over the place, so I start a game, she has to stay in between her mom and me. So this works for a little while, until we are moving, and all of the sudden we go by a side aisle. Well, technically she was in the rules, but at that point we decided that we had ground enough raisins into the ground, and left a trail of goldfish so everyone knew it was us, and maybe it was time to check out. So we get checked out, and Phoebe now decides that she wants to get back into the car, and Nate wants to get out. So we have some screaming kids as we walk out of the grocery store. It was probably the most chaotic shopping trip I have ever been on. But we made it out alive, and the only casualty was the lemons that C bought that got put into my bag. And of course the whole time dear, sweet Pete sat there like a perfect little angel.
Now the cherry on the top is how I looked. I never did my hair today, so it is all over the place. I'm wearing these yoga pants, and have no make up on. And today I really needed make up. To top it all off, I have totally leaked a little milk, and have a tiny stain on my shirt. I was top form.
So there you have the saga of our "fun trip to the grocery store." Needless to say, we probably will not attempt this again. The best part though, is that I saw someone else doing the same thing we were doing. They were there with one cart, and about 7,000 kids, and it was total chaos for them too. It was reassuring to know we were not alone.
Well, I have neglected my child for long enough. Plus, we probably have nothing left upstairs from the robber. And I have to go start dinner. So it's not much, but you get what you pay for.

Moving day

Well, the best news of my life so far is that we finally have moved out of my in-law's basement. We finally were able to find a place that would work for us. It's not ideal, since Jesse still has an hour and half commute. So that stinks, but we can afford it, and I like the location. Moving went off without a hitch. I think that so far nothing I have found has broken. That is always a concern when you have friends move you, instead of professionals.
We have a little duplex, and so far we have the nicest neighbor in the world. Yesterday he cleaned out our gutters and raked the leaves in our front lawn. Well, he did have a leaf blower, so that helped. Anyway, we were going to make him brownies today. (You know, that's a fair trade.) However, I have not yet purchased cooking oil for the house, so that ended up not happening. I guess that is on my to do list for tomorrow. I probably ought to do it sooner rather than later. We don't want them to think that they have a bunch of spoiled white kids living next door.
We're a bit of a minority in this neighborhood. To the back of us we have some shady characters. The only reason I don't think they are totally shady is that several of them have cutesy seasonal decorations out front. In my book if you put cutesy decorations in your front yard, you probably are not a hardened criminal. The baffling thing is that they don't seem to have normal hours jobs. I see large groups of them congregating at all hours of the day in their front yards. So I just don't know about our back yard neighbors. And then there is the old lady to the side of us. Apparently she is a little bit crazy, and acts as a bit of a neighborhood watch. She is paranoid apparently. And I guess when she gets comfortable with you she'll just come up and look into your window to see what you're up to. So all in all, she's crazy, but harmless. Anyway, our next door neighbor, the one that is super nice, he said that the neighborhood is full of nice people, but to still be on alert. So I'll let you know if we get robbed or anything like that.
So we're about settled in. There are still tons of boxes that need to be gone through, and several things that I wish I knew where they were, but alas, don't.

In addition to that, I am due to have this baby at any time. I have braxton-hicks contractions all day long, and a few of them are getting painful. At my last doctor appointment she said that she thought that the baby could be 8 lbs already. So that's not so much fun. Tomorrow I have an appointment for an ultrasound, so we'll see how big they think this baby is getting. I'm kind of hoping that it is big, so that I can be induced this weekend. I am so tired of being pregnant. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't in pain all of the time. Oh well. The way that I figure it though, is that in the karmic universe, Nate was supposed to be a May baby, and he was a June baby, so this one is supposed to be a December baby, so he needs to be a November baby.
Anyway, this has been a bit of a random entry, and not interesting to anyone but me, but hey, you get what you pay for.