Conferences

I am in the middle of my least favorite part of teaching-conferences. I don't dislike the concept of conferences-I LOVE getting the chance to talk one on one with my student's families. Having a relationship with the parents completely enhances the school/home relationship. What I HATE about conferences is talking for 13 hours straight. I started at 7:30 this morning, and I won't be done until 8:30 tonight. I feel bad for the parents who are scheduled at the end of the night, because by then, I am completely tongue tied, and I have no idea who I've said what to. This year, it has also been a struggle to sit still on a 12 inch high chair when the baby is sitting on my nerve, and my tailbone is aching like the dickens, and to not go to the bathroom for 3 hours straight. TORTURE!! On the bright side, I have the best class ever this year, and I have the pleasure of sharing a lot of good news with their parents. The next time you attend your child's conferences, make the teacher deliriously happy and bring them a Diet Coke. They will love you forever, and treat your little one like a prince or princess. Not that we can bribed or anything...

Perfect Sunday Afternoon

On Sunday, I had the BEST afternoon! Jeff went in to the office for about 5 hours, and Evan went over to my mom and dad's to play with my brother and spend some time with his grandparents. Sooo....I was ALONE IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!! This never happens to me. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been alone since I moved back from Lincoln almost 8 years ago. So what did I do? I took a bath, a nap, and I curled up with this great book I'm reading. I also snuggled with the dog. What more can you ask for in life? Once when I was pregnant with Evan, I read a book about a pregnant lady who liked to take time for herself to just sit and "grow the baby". That's what I felt like I was doing for the afternoon. Relaxing and growing the baby. What heaven!!

Bird Flu and Other Medical Woes

I took Evan in today for his 7 year check up. In most areas, everything was great, but the doctor was concerned about a jump that Evan has had in his growth this year. For all of Evan's life, his height and weight have hovered around the 50-54 percentile. In fact, when he was a baby, he had a terrible time gaining weight. His pediatrician said that for the most part, children should remain through their elementary years in about the same range. Today, we found that Evan had jumped above the 95 percentile in both his height and weight. (Which I already knew from the huge jump in clothes sizes we made over the summer. He called this an abnormal growth pattern. Next week, we are going to go in to have all kinds of tests done, like pituitary, hormone, bloods levels, insulin levels, x-rays, etc. The doctor said that this jump in growth could be indicative of several different things, like a pituitary disorder, a genetic condition, growth disorder, childhood diabetes, or early onset puberty (ugh!). He said not to worry too much, (yeah right) until we get the test results. Please keep him in your prayers!

Evan also got his flu shot for the season, which made me think about something else I have been worrying about lately. Is anyone else worried about this Bird Flu thing? I guess maybe part of it is being pregnant (I remember worrying about nuclear war when I pregnant with Evan-I guess we want the world to be perfect when we bring a new person into the world). I keep hearing about this pandemic on the news, and I know that if it comes here, it would probably affect myself and my babies in a bad way. Evan and I both have asthma, and are particularly susceptible to the flu. I am praying Charlie doesn't inherit the asthma, but that doesn't seem to happen very often in our family. I know worrying doesn't help, or change the situation at all, but it just seems to be in the back of my mind lately.

Sitting On My Head

When we went in for our ultrasound, we discovered that Charlie is breach. He is sitting with his head under my ribs and his feet closest to my pelvis. This is bad. If he stays like this and refuses to move, I will have to get a C-section, which I have NO desire to do. The doctor thinks it might have something to do with the fact that the placenta has attached at the top of the uterus, perhaps making it uncomfortable, or even impossible for him to turn the other direction. In the meantime, I am supposed to sit in this ridiculous position for 20 minutes each night. I call it sitting on my head. I have to lay on the floor, with my feet against a wall, with 4 bedpillows under my hips. Now, this is not comfortable at any time, much less when you are pregnant. All of this is supposed to encourage Charlie to turn a somersalt and get head down. Charlie hates it as much as I do. He pummels me the whole time as if to say, "What are you DOING to me lady?!!!" I also am supposed to play music to him at the pelvis level to encourage him to turn that way. So far, I have tried John Denver and the Mamas and the Papas, which Jeff says is just encouraging him to stay where he is. After the 20 minutes are up, all the blood has rushed to my head, I am nauseous, and my hips feel out of joint. Charlie has turned twice after doing this, but he always reverts back to his old position. I am really worried he won't stay put. So, if all of you could offer some prayers, or good brain waves in our direction, I would really appreciate it. I keep trying to tell myself only 14 more weeks of standing on your head while carrying a bowling ball in my stomach, but somehow this just doesn't make me feel better.

Oh my GOSH!

I was just checking my email this morning when I received my newsletter from Pregnancy Weekly who so kindly reminded me that as of today, I only have about 14 weeks left to get ready!!! Eek! Do we have the painting done in the nursery? NO! Do we have any furniture ordered or picked out? NO! Have I cleaned out the closet in the baby's room? NO! Have I gotten all the baby clothes up out of the basement? NO! Have I prepared ANYTHING? NO!!! Can you tell that I am panicking?


The only thing I feel better about is that we have finally officially decided on a name for the baby...Charles Michael Kleffman (Charlie for short). He may not have a place to sleep, any clothes, or a spot to get his diaper changed when we bring him home, but at least he has a name.

Croup

I was peacefully asleep the night before last, dreaming about eating pickles while shopping for prego underwear at Old Navy (yes, pickles are my current INTENSE craving. Not just any pickles, mind you, but Vlassic crunchy dill pickles. I may have eaten an entire jar recently myself, but that is beside the point) when the door to our bedroom opened and in walked a barking seal (aka Evan with a bad case of the croup).

I hate the croup! Poor Evan gets it at least once a year, and it is always a doozy since he has asthma. So, at 4:30 in the morning, we were up and getting in a good nebulizer treatment, and getting him full of Ibuprofen. The interesting thing for me about this bout of the croup, is that I didn't get up in the middle of the night by myself. Jeff got up with me too! And then...he stayed home with Evan, so I could be with my class who were in charge of our school Mass. He even took Evan to the doctor, got his prescription filled, and then bought him a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. What a guy! This is a new concept for me, having someone else to share the yuckies with.

So today it is my turn, and I am home with the barking Evan. He is a little buggy, since he is on a presription for steroids to help his lungs. He always has a hard time sitting still and he wants to eat EVERYTHING! But, whatever we need to do to get him better is fine with me.

Babies are a LOT of work!

Okay...most of you are probably thinking "DUH!" But, when you haven't had one around for awhile, you forget! I babysat for my nephew Colin yesterday while Sarah and Luke went to the game. I love spending time with him. He is the sweetest little thing in the world. It is also good for me to have him around, because I have completely forgotten what it is like to not even be able to go to the bathroom by yourself, because you have a baby underfoot. They are so worth it, but my goodness. You have no time for yourself!
I also took him out to lunch with me. We went with my Aunt Connie, who was in from St. Louis. He was an angel the entire time. The experience reminded me though that leaving the house involves planning for a World War III invasion while packing the diaper bag (where you have to imagine every possible event and bring a piece of baby equipment along to deal with it), and that once you get there you look like a pack horse as you carry in the baby, the diaper bag, your purse, etc.
It is amazing to me how many people feel comfortable commenting to me on my sex life when I travel with Colin. Last weekend, I took him to the grocery store with me. People inevitably look from me (and my stomach) to Colin, roll their eyes, and jump to conclusions. The checker said to me, "Well, you and your husband are certainly productive aren't you!" Sheesh. Yesterday as I was waiting at Ruby Tuesdays for the rest of my family to get there, a guy who looked to be in college actually LAUGHED at us! He said, "I guess you've never heard of birth control!" People can be so rude. Evan inevtiably will tell them "It's not our baby!" I'm really not sure if that helps the situation, because that could also be taken in a million wrong ways.

Pictures

Our new computer is FINALLY up and running, so I get to post my pictures today! Here is a picture of our Mom Mobile, which I am getting used to driving. It still has some bells and whistles I haven't figured out yet, but we can get from point A to point B without any major mishaps.


The other picture of course, is my whale of a stomach. This is me at 24 weeks. As we approach this weekend, we amazingly (and scarily) only have about 15 weeks left! We are getting ready to start decorating the nursery. I think I am going with a monkeys/jungle animal theme with this little one.