Welcome Home Gabriel!

I decided to go home a day early. The hospital bed was killing my back and I was feeling really good. I took some pain meds right after the delivery, but after that I decided not to bother with them because I really didn't feel the pain was much at all! It still amazes me how good I feel. We got home around 4pm on Tuesday afternoon and the boys got here around 6:45pm. Dawson stayed asleep on the couch and Tyler was just relieved to see me. He had been pouting and saying "mommy!" and wanting to go home. Other than that, he did great at Grandma's house and loved it! So Tyler nursed a while and my mom held Gabriel. Dawson woke up just as Grandma was leaving and that didn't go over well at all! He cried and threw a big fit when he saw her walk out the door. Then he saw the baby, which made him scream even louder. He screamed and cried for a whole hour. He didn't want a drink or a snack. Didn't want to cuddle or be touched at all. He just wanted to be mad and throw his tantrum. I changed his diaper and talked to him a bit in his room. He finally settled down, gave me a big hug, accepted a snack and settled down watching his cartoons. He's been fine since and is very sweet toward Gabriel. I kept our schedule the same, Speech and OT came the next morning and Dawson went to school too. He really seemed to need that consistancy. His teacher said he did great at school and has been very talkative.

Gabriel was awake a little more on his 2nd day. He sleeps a lot, but each day he has a little more awake time.

 The hospital photography people came in to take pics. I got a bunch while she was taking pics too, she didn't mind at all.

 Baby yawn!

Looks like he's smiling! He was making all sorts of faces, he does that a lot.

He looks so tiny in his carseat!

 I was changing his sleeper that he spit up on and he snuggled up to me. He's so cute and little!

 Sleeping in his bouncy seat.

 3 days old. Sleeping on the couch in his boppy. He was making scrunchie faces in his sleep again.

Gabriel Bryan is here!

My induction was scheduled for Sunday, we got there at 4pm and got pitocin started through an IV. I walked the halls as much as they'd allow me to be off the monitor. Things still took a while to get going. Finally at 10pm I started to feel some slightly stronger contractions. The OB came in the break my water, but first looked over the cord blood kit. The papers weren't in there, so Dan had to run home (10mins) and get them. Thankfully he found them easily enough. She came back in at 11pm and broke my water. I told her then that I wanted an epidural. Last time the contractions were coming too strong and it was very difficult to hold the position to get the epidural, so this was a bit easier. The epidural got pretty high up, my chest was getting numb, so I asked the nurse to turn it down a bit. After that it was too low, so I told her to turn it up, but it never really seemed to go up much after that. So I ended up feeling a lot of contractions throughout the night. I was finally at 10cm around 6:40am, so the OB came in, we woke up Dan and got ready to push. I had asked for a drink of water and that was a mistake. It was uncomfortably sloshing around and making it uncomfortable to push. So I gave it a few really small half-hearted pushes and that got the head crowning. After 2-3 really good pushes, he was out! The pushing took maybe 5 minutes. One of the nurses told me that most women would hate me if they knew how easy I'd just made it look!
Gabriel Bryan was born at 6:48am on Monday, March 28th. He weighed 8lbs 10oz and 19 inches long. He checked out perfectly, he had great skin tone and cried right away. He loved the warming bed, he layed in there all sprawled out and fell asleep. He makes cute faces in his sleep.
For the first 24 hours he was spitting up amniotic fluid. Since he came out so fast, he didn't get all that squeezed out good enough. He'd wake up gagging and choking, it was a bit scary! He even gagged and threw up a bunch once. It went on for a full 24 hours and I haven't seen any since. The nurse even put a little tube down his throat and suctioned out his stomach. He had a ton of air in there as well. He's really a very calm and content baby now though. He'll spit up a little sometimes when he gets overfull. His brothers poke at him while he's sleeping and he just scrunches up his face a bit but doesn't wake up. He's so used to hearing the chaos that he seems to sleep better with things going on and lots of noise! He seems to have his days and nights a bit mixed up, it's hard to tell though. He sleeps a lot in general, still in that sleeping and eating phase. He's so adorable and cuddly! I'm really not feeling overwhelmed or overtired at all, which is great. I'm really enjoying having a newborn again. Things have really just fallen into place and I often wonder what it was I was worried about! Yes, I still have to keep a very close eye on the boys so they don't poke at him too hard, but they really are pretty good about things so far. They like rubbing the baby's head. Tyler likes checking out his fingers, which he's not always the most gentle about.
My recovery has been very easy, I'm still amazed that he's only 3 days old and I feel this good. With the other 2 it hurt to sit for at least a couple weeks! This time around I was sitting straight up with no pain the day after I had him. My biggest complaint is my back. Since the spine naturally curves a bit to help balance you while pregnant, it takes a little while for it to go back into place. I also had some back labor, so I was sore from that too. It still hurts quite a bit, but nothing like the first couple days. Thankfully I only needed 1 stitch, so recovery has been much easier just because of that too. My only other pain is engorgement from the increased demand for milk supply. He's nursing really well, caught on right away. Since I'm still nursing Tyler, my milk was already in and Gabriel didn't need to nurse as much as babies usually do just to get the supply to go up. The nurses were freaking out because he wasn't nursing much. They keep track of every time he nurses, poops or pees. He only lost 7oz in the hospital, which is pretty good.
Here's me on the 27th, before we headed in for the induction at 38 weeks, 5 days.

 Laying in the warming bed. He loved it and got comfy right away. He was yawning, ready to fall asleep.

 So peaceful! I'm sure that warmer felt really good!

 Me and my 2 babies! Tyler looks so big now that Gabriel is here!

 My 3 little boys! It's so cute seeing them all together and even just around the apartment. I may be a bit biased, but I think we have quite a cute family started. :)

 Dawson loved holding Gabriel. I was surprised that he allowed the baby on his lap at all! He held him, said "aww, baby!" and gave him a kiss. So cute!

 Tyler wasn't quite as open about things, he was quietly checking the baby out. He's really interested now though, he goes up to him a lot and says "baby!" and rubs his head.

 My 3 cute boys! I love this pic. They all look so little, yet the baby makes them each look so much bigger than they were before!

 One of my favorites, Dawson has been so sweet towards Gabriel! He's actually holding him all by himself here!

 Our newest accomplishment. I think we make them pretty cute. :)

 Can't believe we're now a family of 5! That sounds like a lot!

 Hair! He has the softest hair, I really hope he gets to keep it!

Preparing for 3 kids

Today I was woken up by someone from Craigslist wanting to come get the recliner I posted. He not only took that, but the video game chair too! Then someone called during that wanting our old broken tv for parts, so he came right away too. 3 big things gone, all before 8:30am! I was tired, but happy! Especially since I'd only posted the stuff before I went to bed! Dawson woke up then too, so it was no more sleep for me. Tyler usually wakes up first and wants to nurse. Feeling left out of his nursing session, he brought me back to bed to nurse for a while. Dawson watched some cartoons and had breakfast.

The boys decided to take things up a notch this morning. Maybe they just know they won't get to drive me up the wall for at least 2 whole days, so they were making up for it ahead of time? Who knows! I went in to wake Dan up and go to the bathroom and came back out to find they had emptied the diaper bag and were both excitedly running back and forth through the mess. My diaper bag is big and full of stuff. I have a folder in there with all of Tyler's medical information, lab sheets and many other misc papers. They were all out of the folder, getting walked on! Diapers, clothes and everything were scattered. I decided to take it as an opportunity to finally switch diaper bags. I'd been meaning to do that for a while. I found one at Once Upon A Child that has 3 zippered compartments instead of 1 big one for everything to get lost in. Hopefully it'll work out well. So I sorted out that folder and the rest of the diaper bag, something I'd been meaning to do also and put everything into the new one. It's going to take some getting used to, but hopefully I'll like the new bag. I left the new baby's stuff out of it for now since I'll be sending it with my mom when she takes the boys. So I'll have even more stuff to add to it later!

I got pics of the carseat arrangement today. We did some last minute errands and the boys were both very excited to sit on the back bench!

Here's the 2 rear facing seats, for Baby and then Tyler in the back. We had to take off the headrest on the captain's seat for Tyler's seat to fit back there, but it worked! It was definitely a very close fit though.

 All 3 seats in and ready to go! It's so weird seeing 3 carseats in the van!

Dawson was still excited, even after we got home he didn't want to leave the van. He had to go try out all 3 seats, just for good measure. I went to grab the camera when he was checking out the infant carrier, but he had moved when I got back out there. His feet were resting against the back of the seat way on the top, it was funny!

I got some things done today too. I finished finding homes for some of the misc baby stuff I had left in the bin, then I filled the bin with toys that were in the way and put that in the closet. Will make more room for the baby stuff we'll be taking out! I still have a lot to do tomorrow. Finish packing the kids and myself, plus setting up the swing and bouncy seat. Still excited, but definitely nervous now that the end is so near!

New Couch

Our couch we bought used when we got married, so who knows how old it was but we'd had it for 5 1/2 years. The kids kept jumping on it and in the last several months we'd noticed the springs were going bad. At least 1 or 2 were broken because it sagged a bit and squeaked when we sat there. So we've been looking on Craigslist for a different one. Didn't want to spend a ton on a new one since they're hard on couches! So after weeks of checking, we found this one for pretty cheap. Dan thought it'd be nice to have an L-shaped couch, since that's kinda how our old set-up used to be, but we tossed that 2nd couch. The boys had a blast, they thought it was so funny when Daddy threw the couch cushions out the patio door, then let the couch roll down the little hill to the parking lot. They were in fits of giggles. If that wasn't cool enough, Daddy brought in new couch cushions and I set them up so they could climb on them for a while. They had tons of fun with that. The end seat reclines too, it's a La-Z-Boy couch.

After the couch was done, since Dan had the seats out of the van, we rearranged the carseats and got them into their new spots. We took 1 of the captain's seats out of the 2nd row so I could get to the older boys in the back, then the baby is in the other captain's seat on the passenger side. Hopefully that will work well. I'm glad Dan got that seat belt replaced, because I didn't realize how small that back bench is! There's no way the boy's carseats would've fit next to eachother. We wouldn't even fit a skinny person between the seats where they are now, on each end of the bench!

I've actually been feeling pretty good today. I was very busy and worried about over-doing it, but I took breaks and drank plenty of fluids. I moved the toy set-up, since it was along the wall that the couch is now on. We are pretty much planning for the new place, so until then it's gonna be a bit messier. I think I'll put away some more toys tomorrow if I have time. I do have some bins that are now available since the baby stuff is out of them. We threw the old couch and are selling our recliner chair on craigslist. I also put the video game chair on there for free since we never use it. Just trying to clean things out and figure out what we actually want to take with us when we move. With an end in sight, I've been less focused on having this baby and more on getting some things done before I get busy with the new baby.

Tomorrow is our last day as a family of 4! I have some errands to run and more cleaning to do. Plus the laundry and other things we usually do on Sunday. I'll probably work on doing some more packing too. I'm saving setting up the rest of the baby things for Sunday though. So close!!

Rantings of a Hormonal Pregnant Woman

Today our ECFE teacher (a class once a week we go to, tonight was the 2nd night) told me she's surprised that Dawson was being considered for Autism since he makes eye contact. In a way, it's a bit annoying that someone who has spend about 5 minutes watching your child would make such a decision. He was being very social with us though. He does with adults he knows, in situations that he's comfortable with. Children are different though. He ignores them most of the time, not paying attention to boundries. Tonight he stepped right over a toy that someone was playing with, almost tripping over the child sitting on the floor. He just doesn't seem to notice them, which is on the list of symptoms. He didn't used to make eye contact during play. His original evaluation in Jan 2010 they noted that he didn't make eye contact during play. He never came up to me with a toy just to show it to me. He didn't show much interaction like that at all. Yet now he does. He's always showing me toys, pointing out things and my reaction is very important to him. He even gets very upset if I don't acknowledge him right away and confirm that yes, that toy truck is red, Target has a big circle on it, there's a dog in the car next to us, a tree on the tv, etc.

The PDD-NOS diagnosis specifies that the children have some, but not all of the classic Autism symptoms. A year ago, he probably would've qualified under classic Autism, but now I'm pretty sure he won't be, but I do want to talk to the Autism team and see what they say.

Dawson's teacher got a copy of the Psychologist's report and mentioned it to me. I was surprised that I never got one, so I called and asked them to send me one. They acted surprised and said they can't just send me one. I never signed a release giving myself permission to get information about him. What?! So I had to contact medical records and ask for a copy. They mailed me a form that I have to sign and mail back, which asks what records I want, why I want them, etc. Seriously, I'm his mother, the person who attended the appointment and gave them all the information in the first place! It's just rediculous, I think I'm gonna need my own Psychologist by the time this is over!!

I'm not sure if the children are getting worse or my patience is getting worse. Maybe it's a combo of both, but it's been a very trying week! I think one of the biggest issues is my lack of mobility these days. I can't just jump up and get them or sprint across the parking lot anymore! So I've been anxious to be done with this pregnancy, but on the other hand when I'm out and about with the boys it's often very difficult. I just keep wondering how much harder it's going to be with 3 kids! I only have 2 hands and 2 stroller seats. I still depend on the stroller for Dawson a lot of the time, so things will probably be challenging. I'm hoping Tyler will do better with walking soon too. My biggest worry right now is the boy's aggression. They've been very aggressive lately, throwing toys, hitting and pushing eachother. They both are very impatient when they want something too, so it'll be hard getting everyone what they want in what they consider a decent amount of time, aka immediately! I hope they don't end up being too aggressive with the baby, it'll take a lot of time and patience to work with them on being gentle. I've been trying to get them to be gentle with eachother for quite a while and it still only seems to be getting worse. I guess only time will tell how the boys will do with the baby. Hopefully it'll go well!

I got my carseat clip today! The one on the infant carseat had snapped and I ordered a new one, but it said 3-14 days to get here. So I borrowed someone's carseat incase Baby decided to come before the clip did. Thankfully I got it though, so the seat is all ready to go! I can't believe in just 3 days I'll have 3 kids! It really hasn't fully hit me yet. Never seems to until the baby is actually in my arms! I'm looking forward to seeing what he looks like. I've been seeing little babies everywhere it seems and it's making me so anxious to finally hold him!

Am I done yet?

Anxiously waiting for Baby here. This has been such a different experience. The boys never dropped before labor, so I've never had to go weeks with a dropped baby. My groin muscles are so sore that sometimes I can barely walk. Even feeling my best it still hurts to walk, my back always hurts and I'm just sore in general. I had so many contractions on Saturday, I thought for sure he was going to come! Yet I'm still pregnant and miserable. Doesn't help that I really can't keep up with the boys these days. Tyler runs so fast, if he gets away it really hurts to run after him! Thankfully Dawson has been doing much better about going where we need to go. Even though he tends to stay a ways ahead of us. I hate to complain, but I'm just miserable pretty much all day long. I have an OB appointment in the morning, so I'm hoping I've made some more progress since last week. I'm also hoping she'll give me an induction date to fall back on incase he decides to be stubborn.

I finally got a call back from the apartment we applied for. They just need to hear back from 1 more person and then we'll be approved. She hopes to know by tomorrow so we can sign the lease and have it official! I'm excited to get things settled. Just seems like we have so much going on and so many things to get done. I'm trying not to think about it all and stress over it. It'll be nice to have some things out of the way and since the weather has been nicer, Dan has been able to get some things done! He got my seatbelts replaced over the weekend, there was 2 that were ripped and we needed one of those for when Baby gets here. Still have a lot to do on the vehicles, so hopefully we'll have some more nice weather next weekend! It's currently snowing again! Seriously, this stuff needs to be gone for the year already!

Tyler had a bit of a bloody nose this evening. Hard to tell why, his platelets are fine and the weather isn't too bad. I'm wondering if he didn't just scratch it and then keep itching. He's never even had a bloody nose when his platelets were dangerously low, and they're usually common then. He's been back on chemo since Friday. Tonight he got the stronger stuff and keeps waking up for a drink. Thankfully he goes right back to sleep after getting a drink. It's 5am and he's been up 7 times now and seems to be pretty awake this time. Go figure. I do often change the time when I post, so it'll appear on the day I'm writing it for. I hope that's not too confusing!

Dawson has been better about bedtime lately. I just started leaving the door open with a gate in the door instead of closing the door and he stays in his bed. Who knew it'd be something so simple! Tyler does wander around a bit, he likes rocking in the glider rocker that's in there a bit and then he climbs into bed. He's also been a little better in stores. Today he did wander out of the aisle, but didn't throw a huge fit when I buckled him into the cart. When he knocked things off the shelf by walking too close, he picked it up and put it back when I asked him to. He's also been eating better again. Giving him the Miralax laxative really makes a big difference. If I back off with it, he really gets backed up again.

For some diagnosis news, we do have that appointment with the Psychiatrist on April 19th, but for now the Psychologist did give him a diagnosis to start with. PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified) is like the entry level Autism Spectrum diagnosis. Since the process can be long, she wanted to get something on his charts so he can start recieving more services. They give people the PDD-NOS diagnosis when there's definitely signs of being on the Spectrum, but they might not have all the symptoms, or they might be too complex to pin down where they are exactly. They are going to continue on to evaluate and test for the full Autism diagnosis. I really wouldn't be surprised if they just stick with the PDD diagnosis though. Going over the full Autism checklist, I really don't think it totally fits him.

Preparations and Pains

Dan finished the plexiglass cover for the "new" tv, brought the entertainment center to the living room from the bedroom and put both TVs on it. We still wanted the boys to watch the smaller one because the cartoon movies don't show in widescreen, they show as a square. They watch more TV than we do and that square seemed to be burning into the screen. When we watched widescreen movies, there was a little line that was barely noticeable but still there and once we noticed it bothered us and we saw it all the time! So here's the new setup. Hopefully it'll work out well. This is the bare minimum, I plan on putting some toys and things on there though, since they just get into everything at that level anyway. I figured it'd make a good spot for some toys. He also put their fish frame on one of the shelves, it fits really well there.

The boys love playing in the doors. They climb into both the glass part and the doors on the sides of it.

 Today I got a lot done. Gave the boys a bath, picked up the floor and vacuumed, went through some stuff in the boy's room, set up the playpen in the living room and some other small things. Tyler was so tired from following me around, playing and his bath that he fell asleep cuddling me. After a while Dawson needed something, so I put him in the spare carseat we just got. He must've found it pretty comfy because he slept there for a long time!

 Isn't he so cute?! He still looks like a baby to me. I can't believe I'm going to have another baby and I'm a bit sad just thinking of how big Tyler is going to look once the baby gets here! It took a lot of getting used to last time too.

 Dawson after his bath. He was excited about the playpen. I told him it's for Baby and he repeats "baby". He's tried to climb into it a couple times already but hopefully that won't continue. I think since it's so shallow with the bassinet piece on the top, he's not quite as interested. He did lay his toy Rex in there and said "aww baby". I'm really hoping he'll do much better with the baby than he did last time. I'm not worried about physical aggression much anymore, mostly just him being too loud and not really understanding much past "sleeping". I'll tell him that Tyler is sleeping and he'll rub his leg and say "sleeping", then go on and turn on loud toys, bounce on the couch next to him or try to cuddle him. All which result in waking him up! Should be interesting to see what he does.

I'm going to wait with the rest, the swing and stuff can be set up once Baby gets here. I just don't want the boys climbing in it. If I make it to induction, I'll probably set up the frame and leave the seat off the swing. I really like that it's an option! Feels like we still have so much to do. I don't have the carseat in the van yet, we need to move seats around. There's things around the place I wanted to go through and do still, but I've been too sore. Dan is busy with his own things right now. He found a replacement for my van handle and my van needs other things fixed too, so he just needs to find time to do all that.

We're getting very anxious for this baby to arrive! It's always hard to tell when it'll be. For the last week at least I've been having contractions when I walk very much and lately it seems like they've been coming on even easier, even when I'm just sitting down sometimes. I have a feeling it won't be too long. It makes me nervous since I've never gone into labor on my own before and I keep worrying that Dan will be too far away or I'll be out in public with the boys by myself or something. I'm to the point of being sore all the time. I have an almost constant backache and my stomach is sore. I'm really hoping it won't be too long. It can be frustrating to be so sore and have no idea if it'll be tomorrow or 2 weeks from now! I'm at the point of wanting it to be over so I can move on to the healing and cuddling the cute baby part. Though at the same time, I'm pretty nervous about having 3 to care for and take places! I mostly think about it when I'm having one of those difficult moments with the boys and I can't help but wonder how much harder it'll be adding a baby to the mix! I guess I'll find out pretty soon!

Psycho Mommy

It's been one of those days! I seem to have a lot of those days lately. I'm sure having a 2 and 3 year old doesn't help that any! Neither does being pregnant, hormonal and very sore. Tyler is quickly getting into his role as a 2 year old. It seems to be going quicker this time since he has his awesome big brother to learn things from!

I had my OB appointment this afternoon. It was the most relaxing part of my day. Who knew someday I'd look forward to Dr appts, even internal exams! The nurse popped her head in to apologize that the Dr is running a bit behind and I really didn't mind too much! She says I'm 1.5cm dilated and baby is really low and definitely dropped. She told me I should have my bags packed! It was surprising since the boys never dropped until labor! I did start packing the bags this evening. The boys were being troublesome, so I didn't get a lot done, but I do have a list of things to pack and will just put that on my bag so I don't forget something at the last minute. I've been putting it off, packing really isn't my favorite thing to do. I've done way too much of it over the last couple years and mostly not for fun or exciting reasons. Plus it doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore, I can have me and the kids completely packed up for a week in about 10 minutes if needed!

Tyler managed to get the fridge open for the first time today! I'm not so excited about that one. He also goes in the cupboard that the garbage is in and he likes to find apple cores to chew on and dig other garbage out of there. Ew! So much for avoiding bacteria! We have a baby lock on there, but they are worthless! They just have to give a little harder tug and the door comes open. He also feels the need to dump Dawson's bowl of cheerios all over the living room almost every morning. Dawson has always sat on the couch, watched cartoons and ate cheerios for breakfast. Now Tyler comes over and small handfuls at a time, throws his cereal around.

Dawson keeps obsessing over papers and stickers. Tape is considered a sticker, so he takes the labels off my baby clothes bins if he can get at them. He found his newborn hospital bracelet in the filing cabinet by his baby book and took the label off it. :(  He also keeps taking papers and things and adding them to his stash. He likes to slip papers through the crack of my computer desk drawer and cabinet. I usually give him junk mail and stuff for his stash, but I also keep having to look through it to make sure he's not hiding bills or other important things in there!

When a toy runs out of batteries, Dawson brings it to me. "Uh oh! Broken!"  Then he goes for the batteries and brings me those too. Well today I was going to pack bags and Dawson followed me into my closet and saw Tyler's ball popper in there. It had run out of batteries and I had none to replace so I put it in there. I did buy some, so I took it out and went to get the batteries. I saw that the package was open and only 1 left! Dawson opens them all the time. I asked him where the rest were, where he put them, etc. Of course he never answers me and it can be quite frustrating when he hides things and I have no way of finding it. I finally just gave up, frustrated. Dawson was frustrated too and crying because I told him I can't fix his toy anymore. About 5 minutes later I happened to glance at the shelf on my computer desk and there was the pack of batteries I'd bought! I felt so dumb, especially since I'd blamed Dawson for taking them and made him upset. So I showed him that I'd found the batteries, "silly mommy put them up there"! He grinned and said "silly", wiping away his tears and came and helped his crazy mommy put batteries in it. Of course then the toy didn't work with the new batteries! We'd really had enough frustration by this point. I was mad that they'd only used the thing for 3 days and it was broke already! So I put the old batteries back in and it was making faint noises, so I tried different new batteries and it worked! Very weird.

They had a good rest of the evening, enjoying the ball popper and they were getting a bit rough playing on the couch and trying to attack mommy on the couch. Well they both managed to collide and bonk eachother's foreheads. Tyler just said "ooh!" with a scrunched face and then was over it. Dawson had lots of tears and needed some kisses and cuddles before he was better.

Dawson is still getting out of bed everynight. I have to go in there and put him back on the top bunk 1-3 times before he goes to sleep. It's getting old. I don't even have the ladder on the bed since Tyler would crawl up it and he's not so great with getting down without falling. Dawson knows better too, I come in the room and he's looking up at his bed with that "oh crap!" look on his face, like he's just wishing himself back up there! Tyler doesn't even try to go back to bed, he stands there and looks cute at me until I get Dawson back in bed and then go put him in his bed too.

Thank goodness for TV shows and chocolate ice cream! ;)  It's so nice and peaceful once they do go to sleep. I've been watching episodes online, though at the moment I'm done with the ones I had been watching, so I'm trying to find something new to watch. It's nice to just sit and relax. Though most of the time I'm still working on things, making spreadsheet lists of things to do, people to call, stuff to pack, etc. It's hard to really just sit and clear the mind sometimes, especially with moving, new baby and all the boy's appts and stuff going on. After dealing with 2 busy toddlers all day though, even sitting and thinking about stuff seems relaxing!

Tomorrow should be a better day. We have speech, OT, preschool and support group. Plus as a bonus, I'm going to another appointment all by myself! I never bring Tyler to his WIC appointments because of germs, so I just have the Dr print out his last weight, height and labs so they can put it in their computer. Tyler gets labs on Friday, so I'm anxious to see how his counts look. I called 2 days in a row now about the apartment we applied for and left messages, but no answer yet! It's driving us nuts not knowing for sure. We just want to have it taken care of so we have less to worry about. Also, I think we have a name! It's not official, but it's nice to agree on a name. It's ironic because of all the baby name searching and websites I've looked at, it's actually one of the first names that was suggested for Dawson and has been bouncing around on our list ever since!

Getting things done

This weekend we've been getting things done and it feels good! I got all the baby clothes in the dresser and a few sleepers picked out to take him home in. I can't just bring 1, I have no idea what size he'll be or what the weather will be like! Also bought the baby book and a few little things we still needed. I just have to pack my hospital bag and the boy's bags so they can go to Grandma's house. We went grocery shopping and walked around the mall on Saturday. I was having some contractions while walking and by the time our shopping trip was done, I was very sore! Today wasn't as bad. I'm very curious for my appointment on Tuesday to see if I've dilated any more during the past week. Dan is working on the "new" tv. We haven't set it up yet. Since Dawson throws things a lot, we're putting plexiglass in front of it to protect it. Hopefully that will work well. The tv we're using now is a regular tube tv and the screen goes funny sometimes, so that's really annoying.

We really need some warmer weather! I still have to move the carseats around and put the infant carrier in the van. Dan has oil changes to do and other things that have to be done to both vehicles. Plus he needs to start cleaning out the garage so it'll be easier to manage when we move! My to-do list is getting shorter, but I still feel a lot of pressure to get things done whenever I can. Especially when Dan is home since a lot of it is stuff I can't do by myself or need opinions on.

A big deal for Dawson today, he tasted something new!! I made a hotdish and usually he won't even consider looking at it as food, let alone being interested in it. He came up to me and as usual I asked him if he wants some and offered him a noodle on my fork. He actually smelled it, then licked it, then put it in his mouth! I was shocked! He did spit it out after that, but I was so happy that he actually gave it a good try. He seems so stuck on the same small variety of foods, it's frustrating. This morning he gave me a scare. I had a candy bar in the fridge that has nuts in it and Dan found him with the candy bar this morning! There were bite marks in it, but it didn't look like he'd actually eaten any of it. I checked him for signs of allergic reaction and didn't see any problems. Whew! I rarely get things like that, but apparently I need to hide them better when I do! We used to have a fridge lock on there but he broke it and I didn't bother getting a new one since he's been better about the fridge lately anyway. Sometimes it's actually helpful because he'll go get his own sippy and I've even asked him to go get Tyler's sippy and he happily goes to the fridge and gets it for him. He really seems to like helping out with things like that. I think it will come in handy once Baby gets here. :)

Tyler didn't sleep much at all last night. He fell asleep a couple times but woke up shortly after and wanted to be up. He seemed to want to sleep, but he was stuffed up. He finally did fall asleep this morning, but was woken up by a text message on Dan's phone, which is really loud. Figures, the one time his phone gets left on! So we went without sleep, which made for a crabby mommy, but somehow Tyler didn't seem to be suffering any. Once he got into his usual routine he had energy and was happy. I wish I could say the same! Tyler felt a bit warm this morning so I was worried about him getting a higher fever, but thankfully it did stay down, despite his low immunity. Whew!

The boys enjoyed watching Dan make something to keep the plexiglass on the tv. Everytime he picked up his drill, Dawson would run over by the door and Tyler, who was on the bed with me where Dan was working, would make a head-first leap over me to duck down behind me until it was over. Then when he put his drill down, Tyler would step back over me and Dawson would come up and get back on the bed to watch. It was very amusing because they did that each time. I thought they'd get used to it eventually. This does come in handy for when little boys get too close or start messing with screws and things! One little vroom of the drill when necessary and they're back to their safe spots and out of the way.

Dawson's lip was bothering him a bit today. Last night the boys were both running in the hallway and collided. I'm assuming Tyler's head hit Dawson's chin or something, because Dawson has a little tooth mark on his upper lip. It bled a bit, but a popsicle quickly cured the pain and the bleeding and he was back to smiles. I'm just glad we haven't had any serious injuries. For being crazy, busy little boys, I'm thankful to have no broken bones on record so far! *knock on wood*

36 Week Appointment

Everything looks good, baby is still head down and is measuring 1 week ahead. I was surprised to find out that I'm already 1cm dilated! In the past I haven't started at all until the very last week, so I'm hoping I won't have to be induced this time. Many people can be 1cm for quite a while, so I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but it's nice to see some improvement a bit earlier this time around. Here's my 36 week belly.

Until this week I was fine with Baby staying in there, but now I've been in a lot of pain and more ready to get this baby out! My lower back is really sore, it hurts to walk, my belly is just huge and doesn't have too much stretch left in it, so when he changes position it's painful. It really doesn't help that I can't relax very much. Having a 2 and 3 year old keeps me on my feet quite a bit! Plus all this apartment searching and touring, climbing stairs to the 3rd floor to see some of them, then trying to get our place organized, sorted through and some of it boxed up so I have less to do once it comes time to move. Today I got the kitchen clean, dishes and laundry done, newborn baby clothes in the dresser, along with all the blankets, set up the bassinet and put stuff I'll need in our room so that's ready too. Earlier today we went to the clinic for Tyler's labs, dropped off forms at the Psychologist clinic, dropped off more forms at the SSI building, got tabs, went to the bank and auto parts store and then home. So I was already tired before I started the housework!

I also got the boys a really cool electronic aquarium today. They both love fish tanks! They had fish tanks on the Oncology floor, at the speech clinic and we look at the fish in Walmart sometimes too. Unfortunately we're not allowed to have fish in our home because of Tyler's restrictions. He can't be breathing in the bacteria much, plus having any standing water is a restriction. So when I saw this on Craigslist I just had to get it! The boys watched the fish for the longest time. We got squeals of excitement, huge grins, hugs and lots of "bye bye fish!" as the fish swam across the screen and out of sight. It can stand up on it's own or be hung on the wall. I don't think I'll hang it up until we move. It also has water sounds with volume control or we can just turn the sound off. The frame around it is also a mirror, so Dawson was also making faces in the mirror while watching the fish. I took 2 pics, it's hard to see the whole thing with the flash off, but with it on I couldn't see the fish!

My cute little monkeys are doing good. They had the week off school, so we visited my mom on monday, then my grandma on thursday. They still had Speech and OT, so the other days were still fairly busy. It was really nice to have 2 days with no appointments so we could go visiting! It's pretty rare to have a day with nothing going on. Tyler has been very talkative lately and picking up on new words. He now says "uh oh!", which is really cute. He's been signing "more" by himself for a few weeks now and he just started saying the word too! He babbles a lot, he'll even come up to me and babble like he's talking to me. It's great to see him so expressive! Tyler will be getting re-evaluated in June, so that will be exciting to see if he has met his goals and to see where he is. Iupdated the development charts for both boys and Tyler's main delay right now is communication. The rest really weren't very far behind at all. The other things he was delayed with were speech-related. It's hard to do things and follow directions if you can't understand what is being asked of you! So I think once the speech gets better, those areas will also. He does understand "put in" and "can I have it?" and will usually follow those directions, depending on his mood.

Dawson has been adding more words also. He'll now say "please" occasionally and we're working on using more descriptive words. I started by having him pick out his own shirt. So he can chose between "blue shirt" or "red shirt". Then it went further and became "red car shirt", "blue train shirt", etc. Now he does it for other things too, he'll name a color when identifying an object, like a yellow duck. Also, instead of just asking for juice, he'll say "apple juice". His sentences are a little more complete too. He'll actually say "I want more juice" sometimes, instead of just "more juice".

Here's some pics. Dawson really likes his orange monkey shirt. :)

Tyler actually stopped to pose for the camera! I thought that was so cute, he's never done that before.

Dawson wanted another pic, he was in a pretty good mood last night after seeing grandma and great grandma. :)

Tyler still posing

Tyler throwing things into the bathtub. As long as it's not the toilet, I really don't care! I love his face though! This is the cute look I get when he's in trouble. Dawson will drop what he's doing and run, but Tyler will freeze in position and give me cute faces. Really, how could a person get mad at that cute little face?!

Little Monkeys!

Happy Birthday Dan! He might've gained a year, but he lost several pounds this week when I gave him a much needed haircut! He got his driver's license renewed, which of course we'll have to go back and change in 2 months anyway! I told Dawson that it's Daddy's birthday today and his reply was "birthday cake!" with a huge grin. Looks like we might have to make a cake tomorrow for Daddy's birthday. :)

 The apartment search was looking pretty bleak, the place here was rented out and all that was left was 2 small apartments that we would hardly fit our bed into the master bedroom, with no room for dressers! It was crazy how tiny that place was. Luckily things are looking up today, I found 3 apartments that have more space and we're going to see 2 of them on Monday. Hopefully something will work out with one of those! I'm really tired of worrying and stressing over where we're going to live. I just want something in place so there's 1 less thing to think about!

Our little boys are officially little monkeys! They were bouncing off the walls today and just seemed cooped up. Their main goal today seemed to be climbing on things. So I took some pics before taking them down. Tyler decided my new toy bins are a great place to just sit and watch tv. Then Dawson decided to sit in there also!

 The worst part was, the bin was still on top of the toy shelves!!!

 Tyler always gives me a cute look when I come over to get him out of trouble. If he looks cute enough, I can't possibly get mad, right?

 He climbed back up there and was watching tv, Dawson was on his way up too but never made it in.

 Well since I wouldn't let him on the shelves, maybe watching tv from here would be more fun.

 Really mom, what's the big deal anyway? I fit in here perfectly!

 Not sure who came up with this idea first, but they both had to try it.

 See how cute I am??

 Such good balance too! Dawson gave him the great idea of standing on the armrest of the couch. If anyone wonders why mommy keeps getting gray hairs.....

 Dawson discovered he can get in next to the tv and even walk around behind it! Oh joy.

Dawson found a sticker today and had it on his lip. I had to chuckle because it said "clearance $6.48". Works for me! ;)  It's just been one of those days, I'm physically and mentally exhausted! Being huge, sore and pregnant doesn't really help matters. They're in bed now, I have a movie and some ice cream calling my name. Dan and I plan on going out tomorrow evening if our sitter is available, so it's always nice to have that to look forward to. They will like seeing their sitter too. :)