Getting there!

"Getting there" on two fronts:

First, the baby.  I will be 32 weeks on Thursday, which means approximately 8 weeks to go!  We're very excited, and everything has been progressing so well to this point.  This baby seems to be a heck of a lot more active than Preston was, but maybe that's just because I'm more in tune to it.  Who knows!  I have been measuring right on track through all of my appointments, and I've been able to stay really active.  I've slowed down just a little at the gym, and am now sticking mostly to swimming, walking, weights and stretching.  Oh, and I've been trying to get to yoga at least once a week to keep loose.  We will be ready for this little kiddo whenever he/she decides to make his/her entrance!

Second, the house.  We are really on a role this week, and have gotten all the priming done - so now the walls are ready for paint.  Bryan and Tamara finished up the drywall a couple weeks ago, so we've been really buckling down to get things ready by the time the baby comes.  If we keep going at the rate we are, we'll be up there in a couple of weeks.  Skip really has been working very hard to get things done - and I've been trying my best!  Pictures to come...

We had an interesting week last week.  Wesley, the son of our great friends Munch and Alicia was having heart surgery again (his last was about 3 years ago).  There were some repairs that needed to be done on his valve, and they were hoping things would stay best-case scenario.  Well, after surgery on Tuesday and a great progress in recovery, Wesley was able to go home on Sunday.  We are all so glad that everything turned out okay, and we keep praying for him every day!

Because they were in and out of the hospital, our house served as a base for their showers and some overnight stays, as well as a "hotel" for their 12-week-old puppy Wayne.  Wayne has a little bit of Vizsla in him (plus he's really still a baby), so it was an adventure having him around!  He did well, though, and we got into a groove by the middle of the week remembering how to housetrain a puppy - it's been a while!  Wayne got along okay (at the end of the week) with Scotch, but we were careful with him and Preston together.  Wayne took down Preston pretty hard one evening, but Preston got him back by trying to ride him... It was sort of funny. 

Also last week, Elizabeth had tubes put in her ears and her adenoids taken out.  We found out that the regression she has been having since November was likely attributed to the immense fluid buildup in her ears - thus essentially causing her to be deaf.  The pediatric otolaryngologist said that the tubes would be able to allow the fluid to drain, since her eustachian tubes were not doing their job (likely due to lower muscle tone from Elizabeth's Down syndrome).  Her surgery went well, and she's had her good days since then.  She's also had some frustrating days, but we all know she is basically re-learning a bunch of behaviors that she had lost over the past 3 months... so it's going to take time.  There most likely will be some more and different doctor appointments in the next few months, but we're praying that she gets back to her old self and is able to speak and interact like she used to.  We love her so much! 

January zoo trip

Preston and I went to the zoo today - in January, and were able to eat outside!  We were bundled, but not so bundled that we couldn't still be completely comfortable.  The animals were all really active, which was great.  He had fun chasing the peacocks (which roam free, and freak ME out), looking at "all those fish!" and watching the elephants who were really active.  He was NOT a fan of the dark in the bat area, and almost wouldn't go in, but was okay if I carried him.  I think we were there for over 2 hours, which is a record for us!  We have a zoo pass from Mom and Dad, which is really nice, since if there's a meltdown or a day when the animals aren't doing much, we haven't wasted a whole day and a whole lot of money. 

He, unsurprisingly, fell asleep in the car on the way home, and slept for few hours at home.  I made some delicious home-made applesauce and Omaha Steaks hot dogs for dinner, which went over like a dream with the little guy (I haven't had a hot dog in a while - trying to stay away for the most part - so these ones were a nice treat!).  After dinner, Preston helped me "neen up!" (clean up) some of the Christmas stuff, along with organizing my maternity clothes, which I now am almost exclusively in.  :/

Now we're just hanging out, then off to bed!  Here's a video from dinner tonight.  This is a very typical dinner with this little crazy man! (I realized after watching this that at the beginning, he's saying he doesn't like "dinosaurs," not diaper.  We have a dinosaur pop-up book that makes dino noises - he's not really a fan yet...)

Dreams for the New Year

I've managed to avoid any particularly disturbing dreams this pregnancy, thankfully.  Of course my dreams are always weird and vivid, but this last one was really bothersome.  On the night of the 30th, first off, I had a really terrible dream about Preston, but I can't share it - just too weird.  Hopefully it never comes back...

In the second dream, I was driving somewhere in a city where there were a bunch of overpasses, like in downtown Chicago or Milwaukee.  I ended up getting stopped for speeding, almost directly under one of the overpasses.  As the cop is writing my ticket, I look up and notice a semi is sliding sideways towards the edge of the bridge, and comes falling off the side.  Everyone is yelling at everyone else to get out of the way, but of course it lands on some people.  The cop lets me go, so I go running over to help people.  As I'm doing that, I realize I'm telling others to "forget that one, that one, and this one," knowing full well they will never make it (it was pretty gruesome).  So I start running towards another person, ready to cover them up with a blanket I had found, when I realized the semi had crashed onto a cart full of mannequin pieces and faces.  So not only were there real bodies lying around, but also fake ones - and fake faces.  Really disturbing. I found one girl who was lying on a couch under the bridge, and asked her if she was okay.  She was alright, so I said I'm come back and check on her.  When I came back a few minutes later, I realize it's a girl I know from Milwaukee, and hadn't realized it the first time.  She was okay, and I hugged her telling her I was glad.  That was basically the end of it.

So last night, I had a weird one that I'm beginning to forget, but it had something to do with airplanes (as my dreams often do), and how I ended up falling out of one.  I asked the guy I was falling with if we were going to die, and he said no, just tuck and roll when you hit the ground.  So I did, and I was fine...

Then all of a sudden I'm climbing a narrow staircase in a house like ours (I've been climbing a lot of stairs in dreams lately), except the stairs kept going like 30 stories.  Each floor was a little apartment just like what our upstairs will hopefully soon look like... so I know where THAT dream was coming from!