Bring on the season.

The Christmas season has gotten off to a great start.  Awhile ago, I mentioned to Brandon that I might get him a nice TV if I find a good black friday special.  It took him no time to find one he liked and the day before Thanksgiving, we got this ginormous TV delivered to us.  I had planned on wrapping it and waiting until Christmas to open it, but Brandon was too eager and had Christmas early. I guess he won't have much to open on Christmas morning.

 Thanksgiving was a blast for everyone.  All of my siblings were gone, so Mom and Dad tailored the meal around what the pregnant lady was craving (tons of jello cranberry salad, mexican sodas, and more banana cream pie than any non-pregnant person could handle).  Violet was pretty overwhelmed by all the food (see picture below) and afterwards we went on a drive to look for Christmas lights, which ended up being the most exciting part of the day for her.  She is starting to love this season.

 Tonight we decorated our little Christmas tree for family night.  Violet was squealing the whole time and handing me "orna-minutes" every 5 seconds. 

 After she went to bed, I took some close-ups of our tree.  The festivity and glowiness of the decorations make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

 Joy.

Finally, tomorrow I will be full term.  (WHAT? That means I will have a baby in 3 weeks or less!  Totally blows my mind.)  And although I'm having trouble sleeping, staying awake, bending over, walking, and putting my clothes on, I am really enjoying myself right now.  I'm pregnant enough to use it as an excuse to get out of doing anything I don't want to, but at the same time, I get to do whatever I want because I don't have a tiny baby to take care of.  But with the cold weather and decorations up, I feel like I could take this baby home any time now.  I'm ready.

Grateful

Turns out explosive diarrhea is better than non-stop vomiting.  I can handle this.

Rough day for Violet

Today I am thankful for 2 things: laminate floors and nice weather.  Because if Violet had thrown up on carpet and if it had been too hot/cold to open all the windows and air our my apartment, I don't think I would still be sane.  Those 2 simple things saved my day.

Before I get into the lovely details of Violet's sickness, let me tell you about how lately she has been obsessing over being clean. About a week ago, her diaper gave out in the middle of the night and she ended up leaking pee on her bed (which was covered by a waterproof mattress pad).  We cleaned it up but ever since then, when we put her to bed, she will stand on the bed and point to it and say, "No, it's yucky!  I peed the bed!"

And today she threw up all over the floor.  She was screaming and crying afterwards and after gasping for air, she pointed to the vomit and yelled, "MOMMY WIPE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Not exactly the reaction I expected.  I cleaned it up and it happened a few more times, getting on her favorite blanket once.  When it was time to go pick up Brandon, I tried to comfort her by saying that she could bring her blanket in the car (I had forgotten that she threw up on it).  Instead of getting excited like she normally does when I talk about her blanket, she yelled, "NOOOO!!!! Blankie yucky!"  Oh, right.

When we got home, she threw up a few more times.  The worst was when I saw her coughing and knew it was about to come, so I told her to go into the bathroom.  So she started running to the bathroom and threw up on the way there.  She then slipped in her own vomit, fell backwards, and hit her head on the floor. Our poor baby.

After Brandon cleaned her off, I came in and held her.  I commented that she smelled badly (her hair was covered in vomit) and Brandon said, "Oh, are you stinky?" to which she responded, "No, Mommy tooted."  That was followed by uncontrollable laughter from me.

Now she's in bed and I'm still going in every once in awhile when she throws up.  I'm just glad we've been able to get through it so far, and hopefully she will feel better tomorrow.

Naked

I feel naked.  I'm not wearing my wedding ring.  No, Brandon is not in the doghouse.  I just woke up this morning with fat sausage fingers and joint discomfort in my hands.  I barely got my ring off (it left quite the mark on my finger) and I'm afraid of putting it back on.

Renfest

My mom told us awhile ago that she had free tickets to the Renaissance festival, so we decided to go with her this weekend.  All I have to say is that she is a saint for going with us because it is really far away and the traffic was TERRIBLE getting there. We got there over an hour before she did, but it gave us plenty of time to check out all the ridiculous costumes that people wore there.  Apparently, a lot of clothing styles qualify as "Renaissance," including (but not limited to):

belly dancing costumes

a loin cloth (but only when paired with fur boots)

anything with wings

anything that pushes your breasts up to your chin

any outfit involving a tail

a trench coat with a see-through mini skirt underneath

and anything that resembles lingerie.

The highlight of the trip was the elephant ride (obviously).  It was an expensive, short ride, but it was worth it to see the excitement on Violet's face. 

  

 After the elephant ride, I held Violet up on the fence to get a better picture with the elephant (see pic below).  BAD IDEA.  A couple of seconds after this picture was taken, I felt something scratchy move across my arm and try to wrap around Violet.  It was the elephant's trunk.  I'm not sure how many of you have been touched by an elephant's trunk, but I can tell you that they are quite forceful.  So I FREAKED out and pulled Violet down as fast as I could and now I get to tell the story about how I almost had my toddler stolen by an elephant. 

 This elephant didn't try to steal her.

 Mom even bought Violet some butterfly wings, which she LOVED.  When we got home she walked around with them in my high heel shoes.  I would have put up a picture of that but she was butt naked.  That's just how she rolls.

A feel-good exercise

On Friday while I was looking at strollers, an older lady came up to me and asked, "Your baby is coming really soon, isn't it?" I told her that I still had a month and a half to go and she looked at me and said, "REALLY? Are you only having one? You just look so big!"

 

So on Saturday I got all dressed up and made Brandon take some maternity pictures of me.  Just so that I could have something to look at and think, "Okay, I can still look cute, even if people think I'm having multiples."  I also photoshopped out some hormone-induced skin flaws. I'll do anything in the name of self-esteem. 

 Of course, Violet never needs photoshopping. 

 Here's the belly.  I'm actually not too self-conscious about how big it is.  I like feeling all the kicks.  It's better just to focus on the excitement of a new baby, right?

And Mom, THANK YOU for funding my new hair cut and babysitting Violet while I went to the salon.  That has actually been my biggest insecurity for the past several months (I got a really bad hair cut awhile ago) and I'm finally friends with my hair again.