27 all around

Sunday was my birthday.  My golden birthday even.  (For those who remember, Brian's golden birthday was this year too.)  So I turned 27 on the 27th.  Incidentally, I'm also 27 weeks pregnant.  What do you suppose are the odds of that happening?

Did you miss me?

Or did you not even notice I'd been gone??  Alright, fine, it's not the longest I've ever gone without blogging.  BUT there was a real reason this time.  That reason?  My computer bit the dust.  Like, I can't even get it to turn on.  And Brian was working out of town so I couldn't even make him use his magic technology touch to get it to turn on.  So not only have I not been blogging, I haven't been READING blogs either.  (That's why no comments from me.  SORRY.)  

Anyway, we'd been talking about getting me a new computer for awhile, so for my birthday Brian bought me a new laptop.  Not just any laptop though, a new Macbook Pro!  Now we just have to find out if Brian can get anything off my other hard drive (GAH! I hope so!!) and I'll be all set.  I'll let you know how that turns out.

Wake up call

This Sunday was the blessing of my niece Amelia so we had lots of visitors. (I'll be posting pictures later.) The Phelps family, the Jacobs family and my uncle Mark all stayed here at my parents' so we had quite the full house. This meant we had to have Kalena in our room in a pack and play instead of her own room. This was fine since I figured out the trick to getting Kalena to sleep in a pack and play is to give her a pillow. Seriously, that's all she wanted. Anyway, it did mean that we didn't get to ignore her so much in the mornings as we generally do. Usually she'll talk to herself in her crib for 20 min or half an hour in the morning, but if she realizes we're there she wants to be up RIGHT NOW.

On Saturday morning it didn't even get to that point though. Here's what happened. I woke up around 6:30 to Kalena talking to herself. I listened to her for a few minutes wondering how long it would take her to realize we were in the room. But then I hear her unmistakably fill up her diaper. And then, in the sweetest little quite voice I hear her say, "uh oh." And that's when I got out of bed.

You like hearing me complain right?

My sister Kirsta swears by thrift stores for kids clothes (well, and her clothes too I think.) But personally I'm an eBay fan. (I've posted about this before, remember?) For me, eBay combines the convenience of online shopping with the deals you can get in thrift stores. Anyway, I've been shopping recently for some clothes for Kalena because not only has she just about outgrown all her clothes, it's getting cold around here and her winter wardrobe currently consists of NOTHING. Okay, that's not entirely true, I already bought a few things on eBay last week and they got here Tuesday. But before they came! NOTHING!

So as I said, I've been shopping for some fall and winter clothes for Kalena. I know that shopping on eBay usually means looking at lots of stuff that isn't what I want or need, BUT... When a seller labels something "girls clothes fall/winter" I expect clothes for, you know, FALL or WINTER. Aka COLD weather. I'll forgive the occasional t-shirt or short skirt, but seriously sellers? Tank tops and shorts are not fall or winter clothing. Or, if you live somewhere with weather warm enough for that to be a fall/winter wardrobe, maybe you should rethink your labeling. Because my guess is, people who are looking for fall and winter clothes want WARM clothing. And throwing in a single long sleeved shirt and pair of pants doesn't make up for all those shorts. I'm just saying.

Sleepless

Last night, my mom and I went shopping with Kalena which meant she didn't get put to bed until a little after 8 and she was worn out. So I thought to myself, "Self, you have a lot to do tomorrow, and Kalena will probably sleep until 7. Why don't you get up at 6 and get some things done?" I wish this story ended with-- but then she got up at 6 anyway; isn't that funny? Sadly it does not. I set my alarm for 6 and went to bed around 10.

I woke up to Kalena crying around 1:30 am. I waited a few minutes to see if she would go back to sleep, but no luck. I don't like to leave her crying for very long, because her room is across from my parent's room and when she cries it wakes them up. Since they both have to be productive members of society during the day (unlike ME), I try not to let Kalena interrupt their sleep too much. Anyway, I went and got her and she needed...nothing. So I got her a fresh diaper and some milk and put her back to bed. I'm not sure if she went back to sleep or not, but I didn't. When she started crying again at 2:45 I was still awake. I was a little annoyed that she was awake AGAIN but I got up and changed her. I'll spare you the details, but her diaper indicated she must not be feeling well. I blame the tooth she has coming in. Anyway, I put her back to bed and I went back to bed. I continued not sleeping, and I'd finally decided I was too hungry to sleep when she started crying AGAIN. At this point it was 3:15 am. I thought she might need changed again but no, so I gave her some Tylenol for her teeth and snuggled on the couch for a minute before I put her back to bed.

Then I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because it was 3:30 am and I was hungry. By the time I finally fell asleep again (around 4 am) my expectations for today were gone. Pretty much if I make it through the rest of the afternoon without falling asleep standing up I'll consider today a success. But you know, someday I won't get a sweet head on my shoulder in the middle of the night. Someday she won't fit on my lap, and it will take more than Tylenol to keep her from hurting. So I'm okay with today being a "no expectations" day. And tomorrow we'll try again.

Bed head

I just wanted to post some photographic evidence that Kalena has the best bed-head in the world. Incidentally, she gets that from Brian, not me. My hair doesn't look great in the morning, but when Brian's hair isn't all shaved off it gets CRAZY. Seriously. Brian's hair was longer when I had Kalena and one morning in the hospital the PA came in to check on me and he started to say something to me but then he turned to Brian and said, "really I just come in here every morning to see what your hair looks like." I wish I had pictures of THAT. Anyway, here she is a couple weeks ago when we stayed at Kirsta's. This is what her hair looked like when she woke up.


Someday she'll totally be able to pull off one of those hair cuts like Meg Ryan had when she played in French Kiss.

For those of you who want to see how big I'm getting

Yes, I'm aware that I'm behind on posting these. Also, no, there is no 24 week picture. Why? Because I had bacterial conjunctivitis (better known as pink eye) which made me look really awesome and I didn't so much want that documented on film. OF COURSE it happened at the beginning of labor day weekend and I really didn't think I was going to get to see anyone until Tuesday; luckily we go to church with a very nice eye doctor who let me come in Sunday after church for an emergency visit and prescribed some drops for me. So, all better now and (cross your fingers) it looks like I didn't give it to anyone else. Anyway, pictures:

22 weeks:


23 weeks:

25 weeks:


I'd like to see how these compare to when I was pregnant with Kalena, but I'm too lazy to do it right now. My guess is I look smaller this time around because with Kalena I'd put on 25 lbs by 25 weeks and this time I've only put on 15, but who knows. Women usually look bigger the second time around right? Any of you Midland readers remember what I looked like with Kalena? One of these days I'll get out the pictures and look. So there you have it. I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures later this week because I just looked on my memory card and found a bunch that I'd forgotten about. Of Kalena obviously; she's pretty much the only person I take random pictures of.

Moving bedtime

For several months Kalena reliably went to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 pm and got up between 5:30 and 6:30 am. That was fine with me, I'm a morning person and I enjoyed having the evening hours to spend doing whatever. In the last month or so though, it became apparent that 7:00 pm was too early for her to go to bed. She would cry until we got her up, or worse, sleep for an hour or so and then want to be up until 10. So we pushed back bedtime until 8:00 pm (ish.) That has worked great, and now she typically sleeps until around 7:00 am. This seems like it SHOULD be the better deal because, hi, more sleep for me right? Here's the thing though. I liked having 3 hours between her bedtime and mine. 3 hours is enough time to work on projects, or clean, or you know, sit around watching Project Runway marathons on Bravo. But now I only get 2 hours to do that stuff. I know theoretically I could continue getting up at 6 and then have an hour to myself in the morning before she gets up but I just don't think that's going to happen. Especially since, (as my mom so sweetly pointed out) come December I'll have a newborn again and I'll be back to getting no sleep. EVER. I guess I should just appreciate the extra sleep while I can get it. What about you and your kids? Do you prefer the early to bed early to rise method or is staying up and sleeping in more your style?

Luckily I don't watch much TV

I know that most commercials are annoying, and I usually just try to ignore that. I've seen one particular commercial recently that I just really want to complain about though. It's for Children's Miracle Network and one line in the commercial says that the so-and-so twins "were born 24 weeks premature." So that's saying they were born 24 weeks early. Meaning they were born at 16 weeks. Now, I'm no doctor, but considering that 23 weeks is about the earliest age of viability I'm thinking these twins weren't born at 16 weeks. I KNOW that they probably mean they were born at 24 weeks, but then the wording should be "were born premature at 24 weeks" or something along those lines. Because the way it is now is WRONG. And it makes me want to call up somebody and tell them so. But I don't because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't do me any good and someone would probably accuse me of hating kids because I want to correct a Children's Miracle Network commercial. Anyway...any commercials that really annoy you these days?

I'm pretty sure it was whatever kind she used at lunch

Kari mentioned in the comments on one of my posts that she would hardly call life with my grandma "vacation." I've mentioned that we're staying with my parents until our house sells, and for those of you who don't know, my dad's mom lives with my parents. If you don't know my grandma it's hard to explain her. (She is the same grandma I talked about in this post.) Suffice it to say she gets a little temperamental and if you take everything she says personally, you're going to get your feelings hurt sooner or later. Luckily I don't take ANYTHING she says personally (or seriously most of the time) so she often provides a source of amusement during my days at home. I just can't try too hard to make sense of her because I would probably go crazy.

For instance, this happened the other day: Kalena was in my grandma's room playing (there is a touch sensitive lamp in there that she LOVES) so I was in there just hanging out. I noticed something gunky on my grandma's walker so I got a wet paper towel and started wiping it off. It was quickly apparent to me that the gunky stuff was jelly and had probably not been there long as easily as it came off. Anyway, my grandma asked me what I was doing so I told her there was some jelly on her walker and I was just cleaning it up. And at this point, what do you think she asked me? How it got there? What jelly was doing on her walker? How did I know it was jelly? No. None of those things. What she asked me was, "what flavor is it?" Apparently she just wanted to know the important stuff.

Back to work

When Brian and I met, he was working and I was looking for a job. After I got a job, dragged him off to Texas and we got married things changed. He still worked, but I was the breadwinner. And then he worked part time and went to school full time. And THEN he was a stay at home dad and full time student. We didn't plan on things being like that forever, but when I got laid off we got thrown into decision mode a little earlier than planned. Long story short we decided Brian should go back to work and the best place to do that would be back in Colorado.

We've now been here about a month and a half, and as of tomorrow Brian officially starts a new job! He's been working since like our third day back, but it was through a staffing agency, not a permanent job. The first couple weeks aren't going to be much fun because he has to be out of town. Luckily since we're staying with my parents until the house sells I don't have to go without help with Kalena. My parents are pretty much her favorite people right now anyway. She hardly notices if Brian and I leave, but the other day she cried REAL ACTUAL tears because we drove off with her in one car while my parents were getting into the other one. Anyway, Brian is back to being employed in a full time job with a good company. Maybe there's a light at the end of this tunnel after all?

ACK!

Kalena just figured out how doorknobs actually work. It's all downhill from here.

Too much

I'm in one of those weird places in life where there is SO MUCH going on that instead of writing about it I just don't say anything. (I used to get like that when I kept real actual journals too.) I am an engineer: I'm a left brained, logical thinker and I like having time to process things. These days things just keep happening and I have no time to process any of it. It feels like this all started a lifetime ago when I got laid off. In reality I got laid off BARELY 2 months ago. 2 months! I think I've had to make more decisions in the last 2 months than I did in the 2 years before that.

Things still feel a little surreal, and if Brian didn't get up and go to work every morning I might believe this is just a vacation. Anyway, my point is I have a lot to write about and I'm getting around to it. I promise.