I'm Jealous...

I try to always be happy with what I've got or where I'm at, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

You know what I mean, right???

However, I had a moment of pure "jealousy" yesterday, and I just couldn't help myself. My department at work is "small" (when I say small, I mean there is 6 people that does all the work in my area). One of my co-workers and I are due exactly 1 month apart (she is due June 15th & I'm due July 13th). Due to her 2nd baby being delivered by repeat c-section, they took hers a few days early (yesterday). Thus my moment of jealousy!!!

Don't get me wrong, I was/am very happy for her & her family. However, I couldn't help but wish at the same time that it was me & my family, and that it was our chance/time to finally meet our little guy. I know, that is just so wrong of me!!! I should be happy that he isn't here yet, and therefore has a little longer and should be better suited for this new world when he does finally make his appearance, but at the same time I still wished it was me.

So, now I've confessed my jealousy.

Does that make me a bad person??? Oh, maybe not, just human!!!

Things Are Never Easy, But They Seem To Work Out...

Every time I get the dumb idea to go and think that things are settling down and going right for a change, BAM, something has to go and mess it up. Alright, I know that may sound extreme, but that's just how it feels sometimes.

I thought things were finally smoothing out, and we would have a good ending to this complicated pregnancy, but yesterdays doctor's appointment threw a wrench into that plan. Some of you know that I was having some issues with the "female" doctor that I was seeing. Enough issues, in fact, that I was considering switching doctors. Well, as of the first week in May, that decision was taken out of my hands. I received a letter in the mail from the hospital stating that my doctor was leaving to return to a career in the Army, and that all of her patients could switch to one of two doctors: a "male" OB/GYN or a "female" Family Practitioner. My first instinct was to go with the "female", but due to all the problems we've had, they consider me high-risk, and she doesn't take high risk. Therefore, I had no choice but to switch to the "male" OB/GYN. It wasn't that I had a problem with him being a "male", I was just really uncomfortable in that situation with a "male". I continued to see my "female" doctor until May 19th (she wanted to see me for another 2 weeks), but I called in and said that I would prefer to go ahead and switch to him. That put me seeing him for the first time at 32 weeks instead of the original 35-36 that it would have been had I stayed with her until she left. So, long story short, after meeting him, I really like him. He just has this way about him, that even though you're not comfortable with the situation, he just really puts you at ease and you're able to relax.

That being said, yesterday didn't go so well. We are 34-1/2 weeks, and when they checked my blood pressure it was 148/100. He decided that was really too high, and wrote me a script for high blood pressure medicine (lebetalol) {100mg - 2x a day}. He said he will give it a week to kick-in and work, and then he will see me next Thursday. He is hoping that it will do its job and lower it down, but if not he is talking about putting me off work and on bed-rest.

That had me worried at first, because I had requested/arranged to take 8 weeks off after having the baby, and I was afraid that if he put me off early that it would cut into the time that I had previously requested. However, I just got off the phone with the head of our human resource department, and I feel much better after talking with her. I told her that I "could possibly" be put off work early, and wanted to know what my options were should that have to happen. As it turns out, she said if that happens we are fine & covered no matter what (and it won't cut into my requested time, they will just extend it out). She said that if it stays under 12 weeks time total, I'm covered under FMLA & short-term disability and that if it should go over 12 weeks that my long-term disability would kick in and cover the rest. (I've always carried both short & long term disability, but have never used either of them, so I wasn't sure how they worked).

Now I feel much better, so much in fact, that I'm fine with whatever happens. If I have to be off, then that's what we'll do. The pay won't be as good as what I generally bring home, but something is better than nothing!!!

Just had to get that out, thanks for reading!

Count Your Blessings...

Well, like my friends & family in my original Northeast Missouri area, we too got hit by bad storms and tornadoes last night. We apparently had one on the ground about 1 mile from our house. We didn't know that though. Being in a rural area, there are no storm sirens around us. We knew there was really heavy wind/rain/hail, but didn't know the true extent of the damage until later.

Of course, in our area, it hit about 7:30-7:45 pm, and that is the time that my husband is usually leaving the house to head into work. I tried to get him to wait around and see if it would die down some, but he wouldn't wait. So, he left our house about 7:45 pm.

About 7:50 I get a call on my cell phone from him, you can tell he is obviously shook up, and that is just not like him, and he said, "it's bad out here, I really messed up". I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "I just wrecked dad's truck." I said, "where are you?" He said, "I'm by Andy Johnson place" (which put him approximately 1 mile from the house - if that). I said, "are you hurt?" He said, "no, just a few scratches, but I'm OK." I said, "do you want me to come down there?" He said, "no, I don't want you to leave the house, just call for help." He said that there were power lines running thru the truck, and I told him no matter what, don't get out of the truck, I'll call for help.

I had to hang up with him and call and report his accident to 911, as I couldn't use the home phones since the power was already out by this time. So, I called at 7:53 and reported his accident.

I really didn't have a clear picture in my mind of what had taken place. Whether he had hit a pole and knocked some lines down or what. Later I found out, that the path the tornado had taken was straight down that road, and it had taken down a string of approximately 12 poles. Two electrical companies overlap thru that particular area: Heartland (lines run North & South) and Westar (lines run East & West). Heartland's lines had went down, and in the process and the weight of the poles coming down had brought down Westar's as well. As it turns out, the lines were already down across the road, and he was just unlucky enough to be the 1st one thru that area and therefore, he hit the downed line(s) before he ever saw them since it was still very heavily raining/hailing.

Approximately 10pm, they finally had him out of the truck. The on-scene fire personnel, said they didn't have the authority to tell him to jump out of the truck, but one of the electrical workers standing nearby asked him if he thought he could get out of the back sliding glass window. James said I can if you tell me to. The worker told him, then if you can get out, and then jump clear of the truck without touching any of the downed lines, then go ahead, so that is what he did.

It took a while due to the downed lines to get the truck loose and all the reports filled out. Even though this was about 1 mile from the house, it still took quite some time. James & his parents finally pulled in along with the tow-truck (the truck is setting behind our house until the insurance company comes for it) at almost 2am. So, it was a very long night. I didn't expect the power back on anytime soon, but to my surprise, it kicked back on around 5:30am.

Obviously, the truck is a total loss, but by the grace of God and a pure miracle, James is fine. Like I said, he has a few scratches, but other than that, he had no injuries. I'm definitely counting our blessings today!!!

We're Making Progress...

Well, I was really beginning to think we were never going to have the nursery done before we managed to get Dakota here, but we've finally made progress.

My father-in-law (Glenn) and my husband (James) put two coats of primer on the walls. They were a slick surface, so the paint itself wouldn't stick very well to the original walls.

Then they went over the primer with the pale green last weekend. We allowed that to dry for a week before we went any further with it.

Then first thing Saturday morning, I got up and used the painters tape to tape off the stripes. Naturally, we didn't have enough tape, so I had to make a quick run into Wal-Mart. So, I got my tape, and finished taping off the room.

Luckily, it didn't take too long to paint all the stripes around the room. I had it done by 10:30-11:00 am. I allowed to dry for about 90 minutes, then removed the painters tape. So, I allowed the stripes to dry for a while. Then around 6:00 pm, I went back in and began putting up the pre-pasted Winnie-the-Pooh wall border. This was my first time ever putting up a border, but it wasn't too bad, and it stuck on the first try. Whoo-hoo!!!


After putting up the border, I put up the self-stick Winnie-the-Pooh mural on the East wall. With the addition of that, the nursery itself is done (with time to spare)!!! Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

P.S. We actually got some of the furniture put together and in the room yesterday. I went to take some flowers & balloons over to my maternal grandmother's house when we got back from my in-laws place yesterday. I was at her house for about an hour, and when I got back home, (without any prodding from me) my husband had the 3-drawer changing table put together. Then he had time to put the 4-drawer dresser together before he had to leave for work last night. We'll put the crib together this afternoon/evening, then all the furniture is put together!!!

My Little Guy...

Well, yesterday my husband and I drove to Overland Park, Kansas for our elective 3D/4D ultrasound.


Dakota wasn't fully cooperative, as he really likes to keep his hands up by his face, but overall, I thought we ended up with some pretty good shots.

The ultrasound technician was really working to get him to move his hands away from his face, but he really didn't want to. He must be camera shy, guess he gets that from me.

She tried to poke around and shake him up some, but he wasn't falling for any of those tricks. He seems to be pretty stubborn and set in his ways. I'm not sure if he gets that from his dad or me, we can both be pretty stubborn.

Overall, we were pleased with the outcome. We got some good shots, we have a DVD of our little guy. The paternal grandparents got to go along with us to view the ultrasound, so all in all, it was a pretty good trip and definitely a memorable experience.

Shopaholic

I'm developing a bad habit. I think I'm on the verge of becoming a shopaholic. Don't misunderstand me; it isn't stuff for me that I'm shopping for, but stuff for the coming baby, Dakota. In fact, typically, I hate shopping. It is one of my least favorite tasks. I don't browse thru a store, if I've gone into the store, I've gone in for something specific, I buy it, and get back out. However, lately I find that I come home with at least a couple more baby items on each shopping trip. To me, that is really the only shopping that is any fun. The baby stuff they have out anymore is just so cute!!! It doesn't seem to bother me at all to go shopping for baby things, but send me for something else, and I'd just as much prefer that you would shoot me.

Since the nursery isn't ready yet, we're storing all the baby stuff in one of the extra bedrooms, and let me tell you, it is beginning to fill up. I'm having a blast buying stuff for our little guy, but my husband thinks I'm taking it to extremes, but he doesn't realize exactly how much stuff one kid needs. However, even though he originally thought I was getting carried away, I think I've almost got him converted, the last couple of times we've gone shopping together, he has went thru the baby department and found some outfits and accessories that he thought we needed. I guess it doesn't look as bad if I get him involved too.

My only thing, I don't know if it is an every store thing, or just our area, but there seems to be much more selection for little girls than for little boys. It seems in our area, that to get much selection in the boys department, they have to be wearing 18 months and up. What is up with that? Boys need things too. So, for that reason, I've actually done a lot of my clothes shopping online. It would be nice to get it locally in the stores, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well, I guess until they come around to my way of thinking, I'll continue to give both my debit card and the UPS man a workout.

P.S. Do any of you that have little boys have any suggestions on where to buy cute baby boy clothing?

Do All Men Think Women Are Maids???

Yes, this is an honest question. Do all men live with the belief that women are maids? Fair warning, this is my chance to rant/rave or just blow off some steam, so if you don't want to hear it, I suggest you leave now.

Well, you had your chance, so here goes.

I don't know if most men live with this belief, or if it is just my husband. Don't get me wrong, I love him to death, but sometimes I could just strangle him for his indifferent attitude. I usually get no help whatsoever around the house, and that just irks me to no end. One, I hate cleaning house, and yes, I know there are many women out there that love that particular task/chore, but I am not one of them, never have been, probably never will be; two, I hate the fact that he seems to live under the assumption that the house cleaning is automatically my responsibility. I didn't make the mess myself, why should I be expected to clean it up? Not to mention, when I do decide to clean (which isn't very often), I no sooner get a room cleaned up, then he comes in and drops something down like it is his god-given right. I tell him to pick it up, that it doesn't belong there, and I get that standard line "I'll get it later", but later never makes an appearance in our case. I know it probably isn't right, but mainly for that reason, I have no interest in cleaning, because I know it isn't going to do any good, and that it isn't appreciated anyway. For that reason, our house looks like a tornado went thru it.

I know we can't continue on with the situation the way it is, we obviously need a house that is clean and in order prior to the baby getting here this summer, and I can't/won't continue to carry it all by myself. I know that the nesting instinct is supposed to eventually kick in, and I should want to clean everything in sight, but so far there hasn't been any sign of that particular instinct making an appearance anytime soon. Do you have any words of wisdom that you're willing to pass along? I'm open to any suggestions on getting my husband to do his part.

Sorry to dump on all of you, but I'm desperate for a change, so thank you all for taking the time to read my rantings, I promise this won't become a regular occurance.