One more birthday present for Dolphin

As if I didn't fail enough on birthday duty this year, this morning I disrupted Dolphin's sleep with some false labor. At 1:30am, I had debated even telling him that I was having contractions because I really wasn't sure if it was the real thing. After telling him, I told him to go back to sleep, and fortunately, he did.

In bed, they felt more like real contractions. As soon as I got out of bed, they felt different, more like super-strong practice contractions. Still, I timed them, packed up a few things, and did a little last minute work. After 2 hours of 8 min interval contractions, they started to fizzle out. So, I went back to bed.

All day long, I've had strong practice contractions about every 20-30min. This little girl is getting some major massage action if nothing else.

I hope the real-deal starts soon. I'm so tired that I have little tolerance for the stresses of work these days. I'm actually looking forward to labor pains in comparison to this week of work. Come ON already!

Better than Hannibal Lector

Lately, Xander has been quite vocal on emotions. He tells us if he is sad, frustrated, scared, silly, or happy. He likes to point the emotions expressed by characters in books or on TV. When it is a character, sometimes he asks why the character is showing a certain emotion and sometimes he already knows the reason.

He's slowly becoming quite a sensitive boy. If he gets in trouble and upsets one of us, he seems actually upset about us being unhappy with his behavior. Before, I think he was just 100% upset about not getting his way. Now, he is showing some motivation to make us happy, too. I can't really explain how to tell the difference, but its there.

I'm just so impressed and proud of my little boy. He's growing up, thus far, to be someone who cares about what others feel. Hopefully, this is a sign that he is not on track to be a serial killer. Oh yeah, I've set the bar higher than that, but its nice to have some evidence of progress.

Strange sleeping preference

One night, for some random reason, Xander decided to find a new place to sleep. Maybe it was his idea for camping. Who knows! In any case, he slept in this spot the whole night. He hasn't repeated the experience, perhaps, from learning the valuable lesson that the floor really is not all that comfortable compared to a bed.

Random things off Dolphin's phone

Dolphin is really good about capturing cute Xander moments. However, somehow, we never manage to get them posted onto the blog. Here are some from the last few months.

On this particular day, Xander insisted upon picking up and putting away all the shopping baskets at Target. He staked them all nice and neatly.


Sometime around Christmas, Xander is giving Snoopy a big hug at Sears at the local mall.

A boy and his dog...

Our dog Peanut could be marketed as an awesome pre-schooler sleep aid. This picture was taken during one nap time. However, we've found that keeping Peanut Xander's room at night, reduces the amount of "I'm scared" wake-ups. So, Peanut protects Xander from the bears (the most common fear), bad guys, and monsters.

The first night of Peanut sleeping in Xander's room, we think Peanut slept on the floor. However, on subsequent nights, I peeked in to find him up curled on the bed with Xander. There's more than enough room in the twin bed for them both.

At this point, we still have to bribe Peanut with treats to get him to go into Xander's room in the first place. He seems to like sleeping there, but is just used to following me around the house all night.

On other dog fronts, our Copper girl was diagnosed with a skin infection. She has been driving us CRAZY with excessive licking. I feel bad for not cluing in sooner that was a problem. So, we have some complicated treatments for her, but they seem to be working. No lick at all since we started. I just hope she heals completely.

Happy Birthday, Dolphin!

Happy Birthday, Dolphin! Xander helped Dolphin to blow how his candles. His birthday is really tomorrow. However, any day now is just another day with risk of this baby popping. So, we celebrated early.

I feel pretty bad about this birthday. I didn't wrap any of his presents. He still had the surprise factor of opening Amazon.com boxes, I guess. With recent stomach flu and joys of 3rd trimester lack of sleep, I just didn't find the time or energy. Next time, I'll just order them pre-wrapped.

I did manage to make this butter pecan birthday cake with Xander's help.. I'm not a total slacker, right? It's not very pretty but it tasted better than Xander's "pretty" fondant covered birthday cake. Next go around, I need to figure out how to make something that both looks and tastes good.

Smart doggy

Smart dog or dull dog, I'm not really sure. I was really surprised to see Peanut participate in some of Xander's pretend play today. It cracked me up.

We had been talking about working when Xander announced that he was going to work. I asked him if he was going to "bring home the bacon." Of course, Xander took this pretty literally and ran off to get some bacon. He came back with some imaginary bacon and handed me a "piece" into my cupped hand. As usual, I pretended to eat it. Upon seeing this, Peanut jumped off the bed to the floor, where I was sitting. He started sniffing and licking my hand like there was REAL bacon in there, I kid you not!

Yay, our dogs are so abused they even get excited about imaginary food.

Slowing getting back to the world of normal

Today, I ate normal food without getting sick. Yay! On Tuesday this week, I was getting very tired by Wednesday I was just feeling awful. From somewhere, I picked up some stomach flu. Even though I would get hungry (got a baby growing after all), anything solid that I ate would just come back up. Fortunately, I could keep water down.

Dolphin was very good and took good care of me and Xander. Xander was fine, but he's a lot of work for just one person. Yesterday, when I was still feeling bad, Dolphin took Xander to see his first RC race car track, and they both had a great time. I'm sure in a few years, they will be tinkering together with one of their own. Meanwhile, my only accomplishment was catching up on months worth of episodes of "Fringe".

So, I'm really glad to be on the mend. I have so much to do before my little girl arrives. I really don't have time to be sick.

Getting closer

Today, based on normal check, my OB pretty firmly said that I am not going to make it to my due date. He said it was a bit of a gamble if I made it to March. By the end of this week, my little girl will be full term. I'm very much trying to avoid induction so this is good news.

The other piece of of information from my OB was that I should definitely not try to do any laboring at home this time. For my last birth, I labored from 5am-2:30pm at home, arrived at the hospital at 3pm, and delivered at 6pm. This time, things are expected to go faster so laboring at home is not a good idea.

Remember when...to prepare for soon

Xander was THIS little. In 2.5 years, he has grown 16 inches! Speaking of height, BabyCenter.com as a height predictor form. According to this tool, Xander has a 50% chance of being 6 foot 2 inches tall at 18 years of age. He has a 90% chance of being between 6 foot and 6 foot 4 inches. I place my bets on him surpassing my height somewhere around 14-15.

I pulled this picture of Xander's birth out because I have been trying to remember life with a newborn. All of this thinking about it has given me some pretty strange dreams the past week or so. Most of dreams are about labor or nursing.

During the day, life with a newborn is on my mind. I keep remembering little things that I need to do to prepare. I need to buy rubbing alcohol for the umbilical chord or get another laundry basket. It seems like there is always one more thing that I need to do. I'm find myself being extremely busy as I try to tackle of these last minute preparations (getting ahead at work, doing taxes early, get the dogs' vet visit out of the way). At some point, I'll run out of things to do, right?

Imaginary Toy

So, it's not exactly an imaginary friend but kind of close. Xander as an imaginary robot that he has been carrying around with him. When we got home in the car the other day, he insisted that I get the robot out of the car and put it in his hand. I played along once I figured out what the heck he was talking about.

He doesn't really interact with the robot, like talk to it. That's why I call it a toy (or maybe pet?) instead of a friend. It's more just something he's carrying around. You can tell he's "carrying" it because he makes a fist to show he has it. What a great lovey, eh? It's ALWAYS there when you need it.

If you ask questions about his robot, he usually has answers. What's the robot doing? He's sleeping. He also seems kind of nurturing about the robot, too, as he makes sure to keep it warm.

Every time we ask for the robot's name, we get something different and usually unintelligible. So, as soon as we know what call it, we'll let you know.

Xander Bug's bug

My little bug has a bug. Because he's had a fever since Tuesday, I took him in to see the doctor. She tested him for flu and strep, both which has already had this winter, and the results were negative. So, he's just got some other viral respiratory thing on the verge of an ear infection.

Despite feeling sick, Xander was such a good boy at the doctors office. On the drive over, I explained all the stuff the doctor was going to do so he'd be prepared. He followed all of her instructions: weighed (31.2lbs)/measured (36"), deep breaths, mouth examination, and swabbing.

While we were waiting for the results of the swab test, I thanked him for doing such a good job at following the directions. Then, I asked him if he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. As he thought about it, I also threw in "teacher" and "software engineer" into the mix. In the end, he decided that doctor would be best. Sounds good to me, he can be my health care plan when I retire. What does the world need with one more software engineer (like mommy and daddy) anyway!

Xander Bug's bug

My little bug has a bug. Because he's had a fever since Tuesday, I took him in to see the doctor. She tested him for flu and strep, both which has already had this winter, and the results were negative. So, he's just got some other viral respiratory thing on the verge of an ear infection.

Despite feeling sick, Xander was such a good boy at the doctors office. On the drive over, I explained all the stuff the doctor was going to do so he'd be prepared. He followed all of her instructions: weighed (31.2lbs/measured 36"), deep breaths, mouth examination, and swabbing.

While we were waiting for the results of the swab test, I thanked him for doing such a good job at following the directions. Then, I asked him if he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. As he thought about it, I also threw in "teacher" and "software engineer" into the mix. In the end, he decided that doctor would be best. Sounds good to me, he can be my health care plan when I retire. What does the world need with one more software engineer (like mommy and daddy) anyway!

My little escort

Today was a bit of a collision. I had my regular, now weekly, visit to the OB for a pregnancy check-up. Mid-day, Xander's school called me to tell me that he had a bit of a fever. So, Xander got to come with me to my doctor's appointment. He was very well behaved despite feeling slightly under the weather.

When the doctor came in for the checkup, Xander held my hand and told me to "sit still" which the doctor thought was hilarious. Then, it was time for the heartbeat check. I asked Xander "what is the baby going to sound like?" He balled his fists to his eyes and said "waa, waa, waa". Of course, the baby doesn't sound like that at all. Xander got to hear the heartbeat and started dancing to the beat.

It's a bit early to say how sick Xander is. He does have a bit of a cough. However, by the time I got him home, he didn't have much of a fever. He ate a good amount at dinner, and has been in a pretty good mood. So, hopefully this illness is a bit less dramatic than the flu that he just suffered through.

Back to normal

The winter storm of the week has left little sign of its presence. No frozen pipes thankfully! We did have a piece of gutter downspout fall of from the high winds though.

With the weather back up to 70 again this weekend, we headed out to the sand park. The park has faux dinosaur bones buried. Xander told us that we could not go home until we dug it all out. Fortunately, he didn't really hold us to this.

After we got quite a nice hole going, a couple of boys came over to help Xander dig. Dolphin and I both had a "what the hell do we do moment" when one of the boys complained about having an ant on his neck. We both saw that it was really a bee. Not knowing the kid, we didn't know how to get it off of him without freaking him out and having him somehow get stung. Of course, he had no idea where his parents were. Fortunately, the bee left on his own accord.


After playing in the sand, and get REALLY sandy, we ventured over to the faux dinosaur climbing area. Daddy helped him climb up on all of the dinos while I sat on a bench (yeah, not so much energy these days). He ended up brushing the teeth of this dinosaur with a stick while we sang the Brush Teeth Song (to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat).

Super Bowl 2011

We had all intentions of trying to watch some of the Super Bowl this year. After I found out who was playing, I asked Xander if he wanted to cheer for the Steelers or the Packers. His response was that he was cheering for Jill (his teacher at day care). Who knew that the NFL had women playing and the players have enough time for a full-time day care teaching job!

As we turned on the TV to start watching the game, we caught the TV on the Disney channel and ended up watching "Tinker Bell". It's surprisingly not that bad of a movie. After that, we eventually did switch over the Tivo to the game. In the first quarter, Xander found his favorite commercial "Kung Fu Panda 2". We had to rewind and replay the commercial 5 times before I couldn't take it anymore. Did I mention Xander LOVES the original "Kung Fu Panda"? So, yeah, we'll be going to see that one in May.

After about a quarter of the game, we settled down for some routine, dinner, bath, stories, and bedtime. Bed time was just plain terrible though. It took me a full hour to get him to sleep. As soon as he would get close to sleep, one of our neighbor's friends (they were outside watching the game) would cheer/yell so loud it would frighten Xander. Sigh, I was kind of wishing it was 12 degrees again so they would do their yelling inside.

Important parenting advice

To be honest, I'm not really a Starwars fan. I mean...Harrison Ford was hot and all back then, but the rest of it I could do without. In my industry, I seem to have a plethora of friends that are very into the subject though. So, when Dolphin sent this video to me, I really had a laugh.

Potty Training Update

We've had some pretty good days of potty usage this week. At school, Xander has some championship days where he went on the potty each time he was asked, and he was dry in between. He also has told us a few times that he wants to go at home and even elected to use the big potty once.

One problem at school is that he will ONLY use the potty for his primary teacher. She was out one day and he wouldn't do it at all that day. Not sure what we can do about that one. I guess it really is true that kids will act differently for different people.

So, we're making good progress just in time to be set-back by the arrival of his sister. Oh well, we'll keep plugging along.

We have snow

You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to enjoy snow in this part of TX. It melts way to fast. Xander was so excited to tell me all the things that the snow as on top of: the trees, the bushes...there's snow at the neighbor's, too!





It's entirely possible we spent more time convincing him to get his winter coat on than playing in the snow. He was down with the mittens but had a huge hatred of the coat. I think we're going to get maybe a week's worth of wearing out of this thing.

The mashup

If any of you readers are fans of the TV show "Glee", you are probably already familiar with the term mashup. For those not familiar, a mashap song is a song made by splicing together other songs. Xander seems to be particularly fond of the genre. Some examples of his work:

1. Old McDonald had a farm, and Bingo was it's name-o (then he goes on to name animals that McDonald had on his farm, all with the name Bingo)
   
2. FEE, FI, FO, FUM, I will blow your house down!
   

Oh, what a wonderful, creative age!