pass!

I went in yesterday for my 3-hour glucose test (yuck!) and guess what?  I passed!  My amazing doctor's office called yesterday afternoon at 5:15pm to let me know.  Of course, I assumed the worse since they were calling after hours, but my nurse said I had passed with flying colors - yippee!  So thank you for all of the thoughts as we dealt with that!  It was still gross going down the second time and I felt sick to my stomach about an hour after I drank it, but all's well that ends well.

Bebe's Room Update
I also finished putting together the coat rack thingy (really, I can't think of a better name to call it...) for Bebe's room.  Evan still has to saw off the backs of the screws (they are reeeaaalllly long) on the back with the dremel, but it is more or less ready to hang:

We've moved everything except for the dresser into the center of the room and I think I'll probably start to prep the walls and tape things off this Labor Day weekend for future priming and painting.  We ended up giving our wooden bed frame that was in the room to my parents as it was just too bulky to stay in there and Evan's parents have a basic metal bed frame that we're hopefully going to get this weekend to use in Bebe's room.  I figure keeping the bed in there will ensure a tired Mommy or Daddy has a place to catch some Zzzz's on some of those sleepless nights.  So with a three-day weekend ahead of us, I'm hoping to get just a bit more finished in Bebe's room so that we can soon get some color on the walls and get the furniture in place for Bebe's arrival in a short 15 weeks!

Nursery color picked?

Oma and Opa took Oakes to the cabin for the evening which gave Evan and I a nice chance to get some things done around the house (thank you, Dan & Sonja!).  We took a trip over to Lowe's where Evan helped me pick out my tiffany blue paint color I've been imagining in Bebe's room.  We ended up going with "Seaglass" from their Earth Elements line - I've put 2 coats of "test spots" up all around the room to test for lighting, etc. and I think we've found our color!  I've got to say I don't quite trust myself with picking out paint colors on my own.  I have a vision, but I always seem to need Evan's eyes to help make that vision come to life.  Anyway, here are photos of two of the test spots up next to the original dark blue that is currently in the room.  Obviously, we'll be priming first, but picking out a color is a HUGE step in this indecisive girl's world. 

 Other projects we've worked on today:

• This morning I went to a consignment sale and bought about 8 outfits for Bebe girl.
• I put on the first coat of urethane (not really urethane, but the same concept) on the blanket chest I recently painted white for Bebe's room.
• I added another coat of paint and drilled the holes for the coat rack thing I'm making for her room out of knobs we bought in New Orleans.
• Half of her clothes are washed and hung.
• I think we've decided that for the first few months of Bebe's life, we'll just end up using the portacrib in her room (the first few weeks she'll be in the bassinet in our room) since Oakes is still rocking his crib.  So this is a nice cost-saving decision and I like the design of the portacrib enough to be okay with the aesthetics of it as well. :)  A win-win situation!
• Evan has spent the day removing most of the summer harvest plants and then planting our fall/winter garden as well as a few flowers (yellow and red roses and a butterfly bush) that we found on sale.  I think we'll end up needing to buy a chest freezer at some point as we always plant way more than we can eat in a season!

f.a.i.l.

Yup... guess my gut was right: I failed the glucose test.  Boo.  Their benchmark is 140 and I was at 144, so now I get to go and do the fasting 3-hour test.  I went ahead and called the Mission Hospital Lab and my appointment is next Tuesday at 7am.  The plus side is that I'll be in my own little room supposedly with a recliner and TV (but who am I kidding, I'll probably be doing school work for those 3 hours instead of relaxing and watching TV).  I took a half-day that day so that I can then gorge myself on food as I imagine I'll be starving by 10am.  I'm just really not looking forward to drinking that nasty stuff again (and multiple times in that 3-hour period if the rumors I hear are true).

This morning I was thinking about what was different yesterday with the glucose test compared to Oakes' test.  Not sure if it's even a correlation, but I like to try to make connections and figure out the "why's" to things like this that probably don't have an answer. Anyway, the juice tasted disgusting to me this time and I was fine with it whenever I drank it with Oakes.  Also, I remember when I was leaving the doctor's office I felt a bit dizzy as I got to the stairwell -- maybe my sugars were coming back down from all of that?  I also know that I had a terrible headache after the appointment and in to last night.  I thought it was just because I was hungry and Evan was kind enough to have dinner ready for me whenever I got home, but it didn't go away until I fell asleep.  Anyway, just some food for thought.

Again, I'm really hoping that this next test turns out alright.  Dr. Cuellar agreed that my mom probably had gestational diabetes with me as I was so big (10lbs 3oz) so I'm hoping this isn't some sort of genetic thing.  Keep me and bebe in your thoughts next Tuesday!  In the meantime, I'll be eating a less carb-filled diet, I guess!

24 Weeks

Lots of stuff going on around here lately!
1) Converted Oakes' crib to a toddler bed for him in preparation for Bebe.
2) Converted Oakes' crib back to a crib as Mommy and Daddy weren't getting any sleep.
3) School started for Mommy and Daddy, which is always rather exciting.
4) Daddy found out he only has to take his capstone classes to graduate this May (yippee!).
5) Mommy has her Teacher-of-the-Year interview this week.
6) Oakes has had a much better time at "school" lately with no reports of biting or pushing and no more tears in the mornings!  Yay, Oakes!
7) Still haven't decided on a name for Bebe.

We're slowly but surely trying to work on Bebe's room.  We sent my bed frame home with my parents to use in their house when Tina moves out as it's entirely too big to use in a nursery.  So now we'll need to go buy a standard metal frame and we should be good to go with getting the nursery in shape.  I'm still thinking about painting the room and not sure what color.  I've also realized we'll have to buy a crib (see #2 above) so that means a trip to Ikea which also means that I can get a few other items I've had on my radar: duvet cover for double bed in Bebe's room, curtains for Bebe's room, etc.  Evan doesn't know this yet, so um, surprise!  I have been busy painting the blanket chest from the guest room white for Bebe's nursery.  I figure we'll use it for blankets for now and then when the kids get older, it can be a toy box for them. 

I went for my 24 week appointment today and all is good.  Took the glucose test: I didn't think it was all that bad with Oakes but I literally gagged drinking it this time.  That junk is n-a-s-t-y.  I really hope I passed (will find out later this week) so that I don't have to do it again.  For some reason though (and honestly, I don't know why), I'm feeling like I may not pass it.  Again, I have no real reasons to think this, but I just have a gut feeling that I'll be stuck doing the 3-hour glucose test.  And that just sounds like an awful way to spend a day.  Anyway, here are my other stats from the appointment:

Blood Pressure: 118/60 (still higher than normal, doctor didn't say anything though)
Weight: +2 (total weight gain = +2 pounds)
Heartrate: 156bpm

My plan by the next appointment (Monday, Sept. 19th) is to register with Mission Hospital as Dr. Cuellar reminded me today that I'm 60% through the pregnancy right now.  Yowsa!  That really puts this whole pregnancy time schedule into perspective.  I'll be 70% through by the next appointment... craziness.  Guess I'd better start getting my act together! 

On a side note, I'm planning on going to a consignment sale this Saturday and picking up a few items for Bebe girl and some more maternity clothes for myself. 

An Oakes Entry

Okay, so this has nothing to do with Bebe but I have to brag on Bebe's big brother.  Oakes started daycare (we are affectionately calling it "school" to which Oakes pronounces "cool" hee hee... I love that boy!) on Monday and Oakes has had a few rough mornings.  Three to be exact.  He's excited to go, but once we are there he doesn't want us to leave.  His teacher has been amazing and today she said he calmed down in no time (with the help of bubbles outside) and was awesome all day long: helping clean up (even vacuuming with her!), playing with a cute little boy who he's apparently tight with, eating ALL of his breakfast, lunch, and snack each day, and even giving her his paci after his nap (yes, he slept an hour and 45 minutes today on his cot).  Wowsers.  Momma is impressed with her adaptable kiddo!

Since he's using a cot at school -- and apparently that's going well -- Evan and I decided to convert his crib to a toddler bed on Monday night.  He went to bed the past 2 nights with no problems and each morning has gotten out of his crib and happily greeted us by opening his door.  How cute :)  Tonight, however, he took "cute" to the extreme.  Luckily, we have our trusty video monitor so we could watch our little turkey, but he must have climbed out of bed about 20 times and tried to come out.  Evan and I took turns (mostly Evan) manning the post outside his door and after about 20-25 minutes, Oakes finally conceded and went to sleep.  I checked on him about an hour later and you should see his curtains... he obviously had a fun time climbing on his couch and trying to look out the window - the video monitor doesn't show that side of the room.  Good times. 

I guess I'm just a bit proud and sentimental about our little boy growing up.  It seems he's grown LEAPS in the past few days: school, toddler bed, even more sentences and phrases, etc.  So while I'm so proud of his progress, I'm so sad to see my baby get big!  I'm not sure if this will make welcoming Bebe into our family easier or more difficult on me... I may just end up being an emotional basketcase either way.

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

Well, we all survived the 6 hours drive home from the beach.  Oakes was actually quite the pleasant passenger aside from a few outbursts.  We did see a car do some flips on the highway in front of us (actually, Evan saw it and then I called 911) but other than that, it was non-eventful.

We have one week of summer left so we went ahead and enrolled Oakes in daycare and his first day was today.  He had a great morning - was a bit clingy as we left him, but his teacher said he warmed right up and loved playing outside and with the blocks inside.  He also took a great nap so that pleased me.  Unfortunately, it was all downhill after that point. :(  I guess he woke up and was confused and not pleased with the fact that we weren't there.  However, Mommy and Daddy were able to use the time wisely today while he was being watched.  We went to my school where Evan helped me set up my desks and move the heavier things.  And once we got home, Evan worked on his graduate school work while I continued my efforts at making Bebe's room less of a guest room. 

So far I've taken all of the gift wrapping stuff from under the bed, in the dresser, and in the closet and moved that to an impressive location on our basement door (I kid you not, I think I had over 100 gift bags, most of which are headed to Goodwill).  I also cleaned out half of the dresser and all of the nightstand drawers last week.  I spent a while cutting out paper and laying out the room arrangement today and have the nursery somewhat planned out in my head.  I've also decided on a paint color for Bebe's room: I'm thinking of doing it in a robin's egg blue.  If I can find the right color, I may just paint it out this week while Oakes is at daycare.  We'll have to see.  I'm feeling quite accomplished though so if I can get a few of the other major things finished before the school year starts, that will do wonders for my nesting instincts.

Heat, Humidity, and Swollen Limbs

We are at the beach now on family vacation, back from our trip to Louisiana.  The wedding was beautiful and we had a good time exploring and hanging out with friends.  On Sunday, we went down into the French Quarter -- we arrived around 11:30am and walked around for about 2 hours in the 90 degree weather.  Needless to say, it didn't take long for me to realize that my feet and hands were beginning to swell a bit.  I never had swollen hands with Oakes, so this part of the swelling was new to me.  I think it was due to the fact that my hands were down by my sides the whole time; once I realized they were swelling, I raised them while I was walking and by the time we were finished with lunch (in a nicely air conditioned place), the swelling had disappeared.  I was really hoping that this pregnancy would not leave me with swollen limbs since Bebe is due in nice, cool, December but I fear that I'll be reliving the huge ankles and calves that I sported during Oakes' pregnancy.  Ugh. 

We are at the beach for the rest of the week and while the heat and humidity are still here, there is an amazing ocean breeze.  I got some sun today while Evan, Mimi, and I took Oakes to swim at the beach and it feels great.  I imagine tomorrow will be spent at the beach as well and so will the next day and the next until we leave.  It's a hard life, I tell you. ;)