Happy Birthday 2 Parker

We celebrated Parker's 2nd Birthday a few weeks ago. We had the grandparents over for some cake and ice cream, and they spoiled him greatly, with books, toys and most importantly attention.

I had Troy's family help me bow up some balloons. Parker was in heaven with around 30 balloons to play around with.

I wanted to get Parker a wooden train set. I figured it was a toy that could grow with Parker. He's mostly just interested in the train cars right now. The track is a little neglected, but I'm sure that will change as he gets older.

Our good friend gave him this ride on 4-wheeler to Parker. She said she had to, because she knew Troy and I wouldn't ever get him something like this. She right, but man he LOVES it.

Parker at 2:

• Doesn't say a lot of things I understand.
• He loves to sing . . . Once There Was A Snowman, and The Wheels on the Bus
• He loves to play with cars and balls
• He loves babies
• He has started climbing - a few days ago I caught him on top of a bookcase that is in his room.
• He sleeps really well (11 hrs at night, and a 2 hr nap)
• He loves to brush his teeth
• He loves Sesame Street

Parker has been a joy in our home over the last 2 years. I'm so glad we have him as part of our family.

34 weeks - My Half Way Mark (Almost)

I've been pretty lucky to have pretty easy pregnancies. I figure for me the last 10 weeks is really the hardest so I've declared 35 weeks my half way mark.


Just this weeks bending over has become rather impossible at times, and uncomfortable every time. For church, I'm torn between putting nylons on or shaving my legs but I think I've decided shaving is less painful then putting the nylons on and then wearing them throughout the day. And if I shave my legs then I can wear capri pants during the weeks. Now we just need consistently warm weather :).

This baby seems a lot more active than Parker did. I swear he has enrolled in a 9pm - 4am tumbling class. Luckily I'm a pretty solid sleeper so I can sleep through most of it.

However my sleep in being disrupted because I get too hot. I usually sleep well from 10pm-3am, and am up for a few hours. This makes me REALLY tired. I figure I'll be getting a lot less sleep then this once the baby comes so I'll enjoy 5 straight hours for now.

If the myths are correct I suspect this baby to have less hair than Parker. I remember with Parker taking antacids practically every night. With this pregnancy I only talk them occasionally.

Another thing I haven't experienced as much with this pregnancy is leg cramps. With Parker I would wake up often with my calf muscles bundled in tight knots. A few times I would have to jump out of bed to stretch them out. However I haven't had to do that once yet (knock on wood).

I just had my doctor's appointment, she said everything looked good. She said my size was good. She actually said I'm measuring a little small, but nothing to be concerned of. I told her I didn't feel like I was small. She said it is because the baby is all in the front, rather than being distributed to by sides.

We haven't picked out a name yet. . . we've started talking a lot more about this. Troy and I really like one name, but I told him we can't name him it, because Troy has too many cousins with that name, so I think we might use it as a middle name. I also think we have a front runner for the first name, but at this point that could change. However if we do end up naming him these names he will have the same initials as a grandpa whom he may end up sharing a birthday with.

I have hope . . .

Parker will be a GREAT big brother.

• If he takes a toy from another kids and the kid throws a fit he nicely gives the toy back, and says, "Here you go."

• He LOVES LOVES LOVES babies. At church he is constantly looking at and pointing out all the babies in the chapel.

• He loves to look at, hug and kiss my belly. The other night he even pointed at my belly and told me the baby was stuck :).

• He cuddles his baby doll so tenderly.

I'm still expecting a transition period when he realizes the little baby will always be around and will even have needs that I'll need to attend to, but I'm hopeful he will love having a baby around.

30 Weeks

Today I'm 30 weeks along ~ meaning our little boy should be making an appearance in about 10 weeks. I'm due on May 15th, and hoping the baby doesn't come before May 4th since I have my last final for the semester on that day. Some may say that is cutting it close, but since Parker came late, I'm expecting this one to come at the end of May. That way when this baby doesn't come on the due date I won't be too disappointed.

I love feeling the baby kick - I feel like I learn a little more about our little boy with each jab. I wouldn't give up this experience for anything, and am looking forward to meeting this baby face to face.

Parker loves to cuddle up with me. Sometimes the baby kicks him, I figure he's getting in all the jabs to big brother that he can. Parker loves to rub, and kiss my belly. I still don't think he knows what it all means, but I have hope he will be a great big brother.

For Christmas we got Parker a blue doll so he could learn to take care of a baby. He's really cute with it sometimes and other times he thinks its fun to throw the doll. It seems like lately he's been really lovey with his doll. Last night he even insisted upon taking the doll to bed with him. He loves babies and any time there is a baby around he wants to go see it.

Just Like His Mom. . .

Today I tried to put some brown corduroy pants on Parker. He was in already in a bad mood when I started dressing him so I had to use all 4 limbs and my growing belly to pin Parker down and get the pants on him. After dressing him I was attempting to get everything ready to leave the house and he continued to cry. Soon he brought in a pair of blue jeans and motioned he wanted me to put those pants on him. I refused, since I was busy getting other things together, and he already had on the essential one pair of pants. Soon I saw him attempting to put the pair of pants on himself, however he missed the memo of taking off the offending pair of pants so the task became rather impossible. I let him cry and struggle for awhile before making his day and changing the his pants for him. At first I thought this is just the start of this wonderful terrible 2 stage we are in then I remembered a time when I wasn't much older than Parker. My mom was trying to put some brown polyester pants on me that I HATED. I cried the whole time she was putting them on me and then when she was done I changed my own clothes so I wouldn't have to wear those ugly brown pants. After that my mom let me dress myself.

The brown pants
(before he decided he didn't like them)

Maybe Parker and I just have a similar taste in clothes.

Valentine's Day 2011

Trying to decide what to do for Troy on Valentine's Day is always a struggle for me. This year I had the "perfect" idea. Troy gets up WAY earlier than me so he can be ready to leave the house around 6am when his carpools comes to pick him up. He loves eating breakfast, but some morning he decides he'd rather sleep a little longer so he ends up not having time to eat anything before he leaves.

My idea was to get up and make a batch of banana muffins. This way he would be able to sleep in if he wished and be able to just grab a couple muffins as he ran out the door. I ended up not sleeping well, because I was so worried I wouldn't wake up early enough. I finally started making the muffins around 5am. I was working away when I heard Troy talking in the bedroom. At the same time I went to go see who he was talking to he come to investigate the noise in the kitchen. We met in the hallway where he said, "Yep, it is just my wife." He had a really freaked out look on his face. I knew EXACTLY who he was talking to. It kinda made me giggle a little. He had thought I was intruder and had called 9-1-1.

He ended up not being able to sleep after that so he ended up going to work really tired, making his day long.

I gave him a hard time about not taking the time to look to his side to see if I was in bed before calling 911, when he pointed out often I get up in the middle of the night and go down stairs to read or whatever so even if I wasn't there it wouldn't have ruled out the possibility of an intruder.

Troy said before calling the police he was going to come investigate with his Hurley stick, but decided if the person had a gun he wouldn't fair so well. He said, "maybe I should get a gun." I said, "Yeah, then you can shoot your wife instead of just beat her."

We ended the night by putting Parker to bed a little early and getting a to-go order from Bucca Di Peppo and a double cream blueberry pie from Marie Calendars. It was delicious and relaxing.

BOY, but at least he's SWEET about it

I love it when people ask me if it is normal for a kid to do ___________ (fill in the blank). I say it is for Parker. This is the joy of not having another kid to compare him to.

Boys are know for being rough - Here's Parker's way of being NORMAL!

The other day he was playing with some cars. Before this time he would just drive the cars around on the carpet or around object (including mom). On this particular day he started ramming the cars into each other. . .head on. I watched for a while, before saying be soft with your toys. He continued to ram the cars together. So I decided to show him a better way to play with them. We pushed the cars back and forth. We each had a car and on the count of 3 we would roll our car to the other person. He had fun for a while, but then he decided it would be more fun if the cars hit each other instead of innocently passing by each other. I thought O-great the age of destruction is here. That is when I noticed whenever the cars hit each other he would pick up the cars find the front and give them each a KISS.

I love Parker kisses, and I bet his cars and trucks do too.