Damsel and Family

I thought I’d start with the kidney thing.  My doctor did put me on antibiotics, and I finally came around to taking them.  My pharmacist went over the specifics about what possible harm could come to the baby with me.  She’s fantastic, and I really trust her.  (If you’re interested, the insert with the antibiotic stated that, when given to lab mice, a dosage of 65 times the proportional human dosage caused developmental problems, but a dosage of 25 times the normal dose did not.  I’m a total science geek, so this made me feel a lot better, knowing I’d have to have a serious overdose to cause any harm to the baby.)  One of the things that my doctor said to me was along the lines of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.  Basically, this little prevention is much safer than actually getting a kidney infection, because they wouldn’t be able to give me the intensive, high-dose antibiotics that I would need without possibly causing harm to the baby.

Also, I can’t believe I only have two more weeks of summer left!  I officially have to be back to work for inservice on August 7th, but I’m going to start back on the 4th.  They have us in meetings for several days during inservice, and I just have too much work to do before school starts.  There’s no way I can wait until then!  Prepping for four science courses takes quite a bit of organization and .. well.. prep work.  I’m excited to go back - I’ve already started having dreams about the first day of school.  This time of year is when my nerdiness shines.  I even have to be careful in Wal-Mart, since they have aisles and aisles of school supplies. 

Well, I’m off to pack and do a million other things.  Jet and I, and my sister Tinkerbell, are leaving bright and early in the morning to go visit my other sister Badabady in Minnesota!  Yay!

Our conversation this morning:

J: Can I have a snack?

D: You need some breakfast first.

J: No…  You know why I don’t need waffles or a sausage biscuit?

D: *shakes head no*

J: *holds up right hand* ‘Cause this arm hurts.  That’s why I only need a snack.

~~~~

I have our niece Little Daisy (2 years old) with us for a few days while Knight’s sister moves their stuff to Houston (*sniff*).  For the most part, the two kids are less trouble when they’re together — they keep each other entertained!  As usual, they managed to get out every single toy in Jet’s room and spread them around/pile them up until there was literally no carpet viewable (which is completely fine - they had a blast).  Jet and I got in there last night before bed and cleaned the place up.

After we got it picked up, he said happily, “My room got a haircut!”

~~~

In other news, the pregnancy is going well.  I’m 11 weeks along and finally feeling MUCH better.  The nausea left a few weeks ago, to be replaced by near-daily heartburn.  I don’t mind the heartburn.  I can eat TUMS all day long - after all, they have calcium!  Right!?!?

I have my energy back, too, so the house has finally been getting cleaned.

I went back to the doctor yesterday, and he said everything is going well.  I heard the heartbeat for the first time, briefly.  The little goober was hiding, so the doctor had to work for several minutes to find the heartbeat.  He looked a little worried, which made me a little worried, but then we heard it… and it was fantastic. 

I know that the questions are how Jet learns.  The teacher in me gets that.  However, the mommy in me is driven up the wall by the questions.

It’s not the number of questions, per se… it’s the repetition.  It seems like he’s not satisfied until he’s asked the same question ten times in a row.

He’s been known to be upset if he doesn’t get the answer he expected, and he’ll ask the same question multiple times in a row, with a tone that makes it clear that maybe you didn’t hear me right, Mommy!

Sometimes, though, there’s a diamond in the rough…

J: How does God make people?

D: Well…  I don’t really know.  He just does!

J: I know!  Maybe He does it with all of the tools He has in heaven!!

~~~~

J: When will my next birthday be?

D: Well, next summer…

J: Will all of my birthdays be on June 21st?

D: Well, yes…

J: But I want to have another birthday before next June 21st!

~~~

J: How do people get hugs in them?

Knight: Umm… God puts them there!

J: Oh..

K: You know how I give you a hug, and then you give Mommy a hug, and then Mommy gives me a hug?

J: Yeah…

K: Well, we just all share hugs and pass them around!

Jet really doesn’t have that many “baby” words anymore. He’s straightened most of them out, and corrects us when we say “lasterday”. However, he consistently replaces the “re-” sound at the beginning of words with a “yer” sound.

He’s also very into spelling words.

This morning I received this query: “Mommy, how do you spell yercord? I don’t yermember.”

I suppose laughing at him really only continues to bolster his future need for therapy.

I would package and sell it, but someone else already has.

I’ve been experiencing quite a bit of nausea during the day with this baby, and have struggled to find things to eat that sound and taste good.  I seem to have developed a reaction to watermelon and cantaloupe, so those are out, which is very, very sad.

However, my local grocery store sells store brand packages of frozen fruit (shocking, I know).  The best thing EVER, I have found, is the frozen mango.  I spent a summer in Mexico studying for my Spanish degree, and I discovered fresh mango.  I thought it was nectar from heaven.  In fact, the mom of the family with whom I was living made sure to have it on the table at every single meal for me.

It is very difficult for me to express how ridiculously excited I am about these dumb frozen mango chunks, but they’re just cool and refreshing and feel SO GOOD in my tummy.  And pregnant women are ALL ABOUT things that feel good in the tummy. 

Additionally, I’ve sort of been trying to watch what I eat, and I love that the only ingredient listed on the package is “mango chunks”.  It makes me feel good to know that I can have fresh mango without all the work of peeling and cutting one up (which is a very messy proposition, indeed) and without preservatives.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good day (aside from the nausea).  

Jet started swim lessons on Monday…

Here’s Daddy helping him get used to the water:

Made some new friends:

Blowing bubbles:

Knight’s sister and family visited us over the weekend.  Knight and her husband went to the video store to look for an additional guitar to play Guitar Hero, and her husband bought us Rock Band instead.  Consequently, I’ve been listening to a lot of this:

…  but he really enjoys it, so I’m okay with it for about 10 minutes at a stretch. 

… your son “cooks” you a treat and even pretending to eat the plastic cookie makes you a little nauseated.

I know I really shouldn’t complain. Some women have had it far worse than I do. (Hi, Mom! Love you!) I mean, I haven’t even had any real “morning sickness” - just mild, unending nausea.

I did have a little scare this weekend - I was up for about two hours in the middle of the night on Saturday with really bad kidney pain. To put this in perspective, I had a horrible kidney infection right after Jet was born. My OB put me back in the hospital when Jet was 8 days old, and I was there for 11 (that’s eleven) days. They had me on four different antibiotics at one point, trying to beat the thing. Then they discovered a huge cyst on the kidney that miraculously went away on its own. (No, really - it was a miracle. I was getting prepped to have a procedure done to remove it when the radiologist discovered that it had practically disappeared. He couldn’t figure out what had happened, because apparently renal cysts don’t just go away.) It took several months to really get my strength back and feel like I was healed. I really think that the main issue was that I felt the back pain a couple of days after he was born, but just figured that - hello - I’d just birthed a baby, so of course my back was going to hurt. Anyway, I think it just went too far before I was diagnosed.

So, to say that kidney pain makes me nervous might be an understatement. I’ve had the kidney pain on and off in the last four years, but mostly it seems to be an early warning sign of dehydration. Every time, I’ve been able to guzzle a couple of bottles of water and it resolves the pain. I’ve never been up in the night with it like I was over the weekend, though, and I know I was well-hydrated on Saturday. Plus, I’m nervous because my OB has threatened to put me on antibiotics for the duration of the pregnancy if I get so much as a single bacteria out of place. (To be honest, I don’t really know how I feel about that. I know fever would be really bad for the baby, but an eight-month course of antibiotics doesn’t make much sense to me either, for the baby or for me.)

At any rate, I called my doctor yesterday, and he had me go in today to give a urine sample. (Nothing says “FUN!” like peein’ in a cup. Whee.) I’m praying that the culture comes back negative! Although, if it does, I’m not sure what can be done about the kidney pain. My urologist from four years ago wasn’t AT ALL helpful, and that’s the only group around. Yay.

Jet has been really sweet this evening, though. We’re not making a huge deal about him being a big brother. We’re not hiding it from him, but we’ve not sat him down and had a big talk with him, either. Anyway, I’ve just told him that my tummy hurts and I sort of feel like I’m going to throw up. He immediately offered to get me some water and sing me a song. He did both, and has been playing quietly ever since.

Am I really ready to throw another kid into this mix? It’s so good right now! (Oh, I kid. Truthfully, I know another baby will make it better…)

The house is clean!  Well, most of it, anyway.  The parts that people see.  (And we ALL know that those are the only parts that really count, don’t we?)  Considering that I’ve been actively sitting on my duff all week, this is a bit of a major accomplishment.  Sometimes I just need a motivating factor, and having the house clean doesn’t always cut it, in and of itself.  Which is why I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to my sister-in-law for coming over later today!

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It’s still a bit surreal that we’re going to be having another baby.  I mean, just looking back at that sentence right there makes me all Keanu-in-the-early-years  (”Like, whoa.”)

So far, I’m feeling great, if very, very tired.  Yesterday was a great example of the tired-ness that is consuming me.  We left the doctor’s office at around 10:30, and I was hungry (oh, yeah, that’s the OTHER symptom - already HUNGRY.).  We decided to get drinks at Sonic and then go to a local Mexican-food hole-in-the-wall that sells breakfast tacos that are OUT of this world.  So we got home around 11:15, I bolted down two tacos (one potato, egg and cheese, and one bean, egg and cheese - DE-lish).  Then I sat in my recliner. 

And I stayed there until 4:30, through multiple DVR’ed episodes of How It’s Made and What Not to Wear, then onto previously un-DVR’ed (but now scheduled to record) Bringing Home Baby and A Baby Story.  I dozed off for awhile, maybe an hour or so, and then woke up.  Hungry again.

On another note, I think I’ve developed some sort of horrifyingly sad reaction to watermelon.  The last two times I’ve eaten it, my lips have itched like crazy and swollen up a little.  (TMI, perhaps, I know.  Sorry.  Sort of.)  To put this in perspective for you, Jet’s birthday is in June, which mean that the last several weeks of my pregnancy and first weeks post-pregnancy were prime watermelon season.  I’m quite surprised that the youngster didn’t pop out with a green rind on him.  I should have invested in watermelon stock, if such a thing exists.  So to say that my possible watermelon allergy is horrifyingly sad is the understatement of the century.  *sigh*

Randomly, again, I’ve been trying to put some sort of baby ticker countdown thing on the ol’ blog, but wordpress.com doesn’t supprt java (and I’m too cheap to actually pay to blog).  If any of you has a fantastically fabulous idea of another type of ticker, could you let me know?

Now, I’m off to nap.  I prefer to think of it as taking full advantage of Jet’s last few days of school, thankyouverymuch.  I’m sure the laundry, dirty dishes, and other various housecleaning tasks will still be here when I wake up.  Unless, of course, you’d like to come over and do them while I work on growing a baby. 

There are some things that you just can’t work into a conversation easily.  You just have to come out with it.  Just SAY it.  You can’t really wait for the “right” moment, because what you’re going to say is just a conversation stopper.  It’ll just change the whole flow of the discussion.  Could be bad news.  Could be good news.

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