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.

Halloween: rockin' the cow

This Halloween was a big success.  Brandon was gone on a field trip over the weekend so we headed out to stay with my family.  Violet went to two trunk-or-treats out there all dressed up as a  chicken.  She caught on to the idea quickly.  Her bag of candy started getting heavy, so I tried to hold it for her, but she would NOT let go of it.  I also witnessed her talking about candy in her sleep since she slept with me all weekend. 

 

 Besides trunk-or-treats, we had a blast with the cousins, went to Stephen F. Austin park, I finally got my hair cut, and we had a Halloween-themed dinner.  It was so nice to not have to stay by myself all weekend.

Her costume was awesome.  Onesie made by me, shiny pants made by Brandon.

 Sunday night, Brandon came home just in time for Halloween.  We went to our ward's trunk-or-treat tonight and Violet finally got to spend some time with Daddy.

 After that, we went to Chipotle to get boo-ritos.  They were doing a Halloween promotion where if you came in dressed up as a farm animal, they would give you one of their huge burritos for just $2.  Since I was a cow and Violet was a chicken, it worked out perfectly.  The cashier even asked to take a picture of Violet because she was just so cute.  And plenty of people got a kick out of my pregnant belly/udder.

Moo!

Best. Pumpkin. Ever.

Okay, so I'm a little excited about this baby.  Excited enough that I immortalized my uterus on our pumpkin.  But isn't it AWESOME?

The bright spot near the top is a rotten part, since pumpkins don't last more than 45 minutes in this humidity.  We can just pretend it's supposed to be the umbilical cord or something.

The problem with articles (more complaining)

I know, I'm whiny. And I'm about to dish on yet another pet peeve of mine. So feel free to not read this if you don't want to hear more of my complaining. But if you do read this, just know that I warned you.

Here it is: Some parents spend more time reading articles on raising a child than they actually spend with their child. And they like to send me the links to those articles, which I promptly delete. You may wonder why I feel this way about articles, considering that I spent most of my last post defending the AAP's recommendations on safety.

I probably wouldn't mind articles if people got them from medical journals or other reliable sources. But it turns out that not that many people subscribe to medical journals (you don't count, Mom). Most people like to get their advice from parenting magazines or websites that throw around phrases like "studies show" and "research suggests" without actually citing their sources. Maybe this comes from being married to someone who does research for a living, but I always wonder, "What studies? What were their methods? How many people did they test? Was there a control group? Were there any obvious lurking variables? Were the results repeatable?" And they never say. (Obviously, because if they did most people would fall asleep after reading the first paragraph. I never said that peer-reviewed journals aren't dry.)

What people also need to think about is, who writes these articles? Not the people who actually do the research. They are probably way too nerdy to make it sound cute and trendy enough to be put into a parenting magazine. It was probably written by a jornalist. Or, if you found it online, anyone who has an 8th grade education and an opinion.

Yeah, for now, I'm just going to delete them all.

"...and my kids all turned out fine."

I really hate it when people say that. People tell you that a lot as a parent, especially now that most new parents have access to all of the AAP recommendations on safety. I find that many times, parents who think they have "been around the block" like to tell you how useless your safety precautions are. I have always put Violet to sleep on her back, because it is supposed to reduce the risk of suffocation and death. And people will say, "Oh, my kids all slept on their tummies, and they turned out fine. My kids had bumpers in their cribs and they turned out fine. My babies ate honey and they turned out fine." And it makes me wonder if people really understand statistics. Yes, your kids probably turned out fine. But the fact is, when you're talking about something like SIDS, the chance of it actually happening are less than 1%, even if you do everything wrong. You could put your baby on its belly and surround it with pillows every night and chances are he will still be alive on his first birthday. But that doesn't mean that preventative measures don't decrease that risk even further. I would rather have a back-sleeping baby with a .5% risk of death than a tummy-sleeping baby with a 1% risk of death, even if the risk is low either way. (By the way, I just made up those statistics, but you get the point.) I understand, some babies sleep better on their bellies. If you decide that getting a few more hours of sleep is worth taking that small risk, then I'm not here to judge. After all, the AAP doesn't raise your child, you do. But please, don't pretend that the fact that your baby is still alive in the morning is proof that the AAP recommendations are all bogus. Observation of your own child does NOT constitute a scientific study.

A birthday and a dumb idea

It's official.  Violet is 2.  All that time and I still can't believe what a cute little girl she is.  The night before her birthday I stayed up late finishing a dress that I was making for her.  On her birthday, she loved being the center of attention.  All we did was have some cupcakes, but to her it was the greatest thing in the world.  She is growing so fast and has so much personality.

 And for those of you who don't see me much, I included a belly picture. 

Speaking of bellies, I did something really stupid on Sunday that I am now paying for. Brandon was trying to measure how high in the air Violet could jump. After she did it, she turned to me and said, "mommy jump." And despite the fact that I am 7 months pregnant and 30 lbs over my normal weight, I stood by the tape measure and repeatedly jumped as high as I could so that Brandon could measure my vertical.  I'll admit, I knew this wasn't the brightest idea, but I thought I may be a little sore the next day and then be over it.  No way!  My entire body has felt sore/bruised for the past 2 days.  It hurts to sit, bend over, and lay on my side (which is the only position in which I can lay anymore).  The muscles in my abs (or what's left of them), back, chest, arms, and legs have gone on strike.  Seriously people, don't do it.  My body hurts so much that it is tricking itself into thinking it's actually sick.

Camping!

This weekend we went camping for the first time in over a year.  I had wanted to go much more often but during the spring, Brandon was too busy and in the summer when he actually had time, it was WAY too hot. We had a lot of fun but because of the drought, we weren't allowed to build a fire, which meant no s'mores.  We also forgot to take a flash light (or any kind of light) and got to the park around dusk so there wasn't much to do with Violet before bedtime.  That didn't keep her from being very entertained, though. We put her to bed in the tent at about 8:45 but heard her jumping around and talking until about 10 pm.  It was quite a night in the tent.  Brandon, Violet, and pregnant Lindsey all shared a full-size air mattress.  Since I have so much extra weight now I normally sleep with 2 pillows but I forgot them all at home.  At 4 AM I took a trip to the bathroom, which woke Violet up.  When we tried to go back to sleep, she sang "Jesus wants me for a sun beam" in our tent for awhile.  The next morning was better, and we got to have some fun at the park.

Violet learned how to swing from a vine,

 

we went down to see the river,

and we went on a nice walk... before we all got hot, sore, and tired and called it quits for the day.

A conversation at our house this morning

(as Violet is sitting on the porch, going through Brandon's rocks)

Me: Brandon, Violet is sticking fossils up her nose!

Brandon: Violet, stop sticking fossils up your nose! Those snails have been dead for 70 million years!

I am definitely married to a geologist.

An interesting start

Since I didn't announce this pregnancy right away, I almost forgot about a few funny things that happened right at the beginning.  I went to a party with Violet and some friends at the beginning of April.  The entire time I was there, Violet kept sticking her butt in the air and looking at me through her legs.  One friend (who is Navajo, by the way) looked at Violet and said, "in my culture, when a baby looks through its legs, it means there is another baby on the way." I thought it was pretty interesting and just laughed.  Little did either of us know that a week later I would be holding a positive pregnancy test.  (I can't tell you how hard she laughed when I told her that she had predicted this baby.)

In May we went to visit Brandon's family.  We knew we would be telling them about the pregnancy since that was the only time we would be seeing them all year.  I don't normally announce these things in a cute or creative way-- it's just not my style.  But for some reason I thought about the Mexican Christmas tradition of the cake with a little plastic baby Jesus inside and I convinced Brandon that it would be funny to make one for his family.  So in Idaho we found some plastic babies at the dollar store and put them in a cake we baked (which, as you can see, was SUPER ugly) and watched with delight as his family found tiny little babies in their slices of cake. The look of confusion on their faces was priceless. 

 Hopefully our baby will be much cuter.

Mixed signals

I often find myself catching Violet doing something and saying, "Stop that!  But first, do it again so that I can get a picture of it."  Yes, I am one clear and consistent parent. 

In this picture she was supposed to be helping me make key lime pie for Brandon's birthday.  Instead, I caught her drinking a jar of sprinkles.

 I got Brandon a rock light for his birthday.  It turns out the rock it's made of is halite (aka salt).  So Brandon showed her to lick it.  And now she licks it ALL THE TIME. 

Picnic

This weekend we taught Violet what a picnic is.  She thought it was a great idea.  Our fancy dinner consisted of apples, bagels, and barbecue-flavored chicken which Violet would point to and say, "bok bok bok," just like a chicken.

 But being Violet, she only sat on the bench for about 5 minutes before it was time to go play.  That was fine with me.

 Hello, third trimester. Looking booty-licious.

Our classy girl

We bathe Violet almost every day. I buy tons of cute clothes for her to wear. But despite my best efforts, if you saw Violet you would probably think she's the youngest of 15 kids all living in a trailer. It's not because she loves to play in the dirt; after all, what kind of toddler doesn't like getting dirty? It's also not because of the smears all over her face that come from her obsession with dipping ANYTHING she eats in ketchup. No, it's because this child will only wear one thing and that thing is a hand-me-down BYU shirt. She doesn't even know what BYU is. She likes wearing it because it has a "kitty" on it. I try to hide it in the bottom of the laundry pile but she has figured that out, so every day she will fish through the dirty laundry and come out with her filthy "kitty shirt." And it gets better. Not only does she insist on taking off her clean shirt and putting on her kitty shirt, but for some reason she refuses to wear any pants with it. So, if you see a little girl with hair in her face, ketchup smears on her mouth, a dirty BYU tee and no pants or shoes on, then it's probably Violet.

Things that make me laugh

Violet is funny.  That's all.  Like when she does these things:
Putting things in her ear.  It's not like the normal toddler "I think I'll try to fit object X into oriface Y" thing.  It's a real obsession.  If you give her a stuffed animal, she will find its skinniest appendage and put it in her ear.  If you stroke her hair, she will grab your hand and stick your finger in her ear.  Her blanket, corners of pillows, they all go in.  And she will just sit there and hold it in her ear for who knows how long.
Pooping in the sink.  Don't even ask about that one.  Thankfully it was the bathroom sink.
The baby now craves fast food so frequently that when I pull up to a drive through, Violet will start ordering from the back seat. "French fries!  And tay tots!  And nuggets!  And ketchup!"
Violet wads up little balls of toilet paper and sticks them up her nose.  One was so deep that I didn't even notice it until we were in the car a couple of hours later and she sneezed it out and said, "Uh-oh, booger!"  And I swear it was about a centimeter long. 
Violet learns things that I don't teach her and I always wonder where it came from.  This morning I asked her what she wanted for breakfast (around here the choices are cereal or bagels-- I'm not nice enough to make anything) and she pulled out a pancake mix (I NEVER make pancakes and didn't think she even knew what they were) and said, "Pancakes!  Pancakes!" Then she proceeded to pull out a griddle for me.  So not only does she know what pancakes are, but apparently she knows how to make them.
On another note, after years of growing out my hair just so that I could have my natural color back, I am starting to miss being blonde. 

Ugh.  Tough, life-changing decisions.  Which one do you like?

Now that internet is here

Anyone want to see our new place? I guess since we've been living here for 3 weeks now it's not exactly new, but that's what happens when you don't have internet for that long.  I will never forgive AT&T for that. As you can see it's much nicer than our last place and we now have all the furniture I built in high school.  Yay.

 What have we been doing, you ask?  Here's an update.
Brandon:
-Back at school and is now a TA.  He grades a lot of papers, so most of his nights look like the above picture.
-He has been elected as secretary of the GeoUnion, or whatever it is called. He has also been named the unofficial photographer for the geology department.
-He had 3 interviews for internships and a few more to come.  I can't believe that he just finished his last internship and is already applying for one next summer.
-He did not take a job with the company he worked for over the summer.  They loved him but he wants to finish school as quickly as possible, which means not working yet.
-He is going to Australia next summer for a conference.  He may also go on a department field trip next year to Chile or Oman.
-He gets up with Violet every morning so that I can sleep in.  He also takes her away when I have meltdowns. He's awesome.

Violet:
-Calls herself Vyvet.
-Knows most letters in the alphabet and loves to point them out to me in books and signs.
-Knows her colors now.
-Has memorized the way to the zoo (and the park, and everything else) and when I pass the place where I should turn she points out the window and says, "Ammels!  Ammels!" (Animals, animals)
-Loves M&Ms.  Points to them and squeals at the grocery store.
-Is working on her pronunciation.  When you asked her to say orange she used to say orgy.  And when she wants a fork... well, just use your imagination.
-Thinks she is potty trained but just uses it as an excuse to get out of church meetings. "Uh-oh, poop. Stinky.  Potty."  And then I take her to the bathroom where she gets on the toilet and pretends to go, then says, "All done."

Me:
-Getting bigger every day.
-I bought ja cutest maternity dress at Target for $13.
-I have really low blood pressure which results in days where I can only stand for a few minutes at a time, but it's a great excuse to eat a bag of chips and a jar of pickles.  Too bad I never buy those things...
-Baby is due December 20 and the sex will be a surprise.  As will the name (not just for everyone else, but I'm pretty sure we will be coming up with a name as I am pushing this kid out.  And I'm hoping it's born with a name tag.)
-Hmm... turns out the only interesting thing about me right now is in my uterus.

We are in

We are officially out of our old dump, out of my parents' house, and into our new apartment.  Too bad AT&T sucks and won't have our internet running for another 2 weeks.  Don't even ask why we have to wait so long to do a self-installation.  For now I am briefly browsing from Brandon's lab.  That's all.

Potty train... or not.

My mom just bought Violet a toddler potty.  She seems so ready to start training on it. Sure, having only one child in diapers at a time would be great.  But sometimes I wonder if she is really ready for this-- or if I am really ready for it.

Here's an example: This morning she wanted to use her potty.  So I let her sit on it and after 10 minutes when she started playing around I told her she needed to put her diaper back on.  She would NOT let me put it on and kept saying, "No, more pee pee!" I'm beginning to think that she just likes the excuse to be naked.  Later she was playing around it and she took out the inner seat (the pee-catcher, if you will) and put it on her head and said, "Hat!  Hat!"  Luckily there was nothing in it.  Is it selfish to not want to start this ordeal yet? I heard that most babies revert back to diapers once a sibling is born anyways.  And I doubt they make panties small enough to fit her butt. Well, I'm sure she'll be ready soon, but I'll wait until she stops putting it on her head.

DC with the Poodster

Violet and I went to visit my sister in DC this week.  I don't have a ton of pictures because most of what we did was home improvement projects, but don't be fooled-- that's very fun for me. We did a ton of shopping and got three rooms in her new condo painted.  And I was at least as excited as she was about how everything looked when we were almost done.  (I say almost because on the last night when I was going to help her finish painting and unpacking, I fell asleep at 9.  That's what pregnancy does to you.) My favorite part may have been the food, and it never ceased to amuse Brittany that I could finish every meal and still have room for dessert.  On Friday we did get to do some tourist-y things, so here are a few pictures of that.

Violet and me at the zoo.  As you can see my belly is finally getting big, which actually makes me happy, since Ashley told me when she came that I didn't look pregnant; I just looked fat.

   

Here I captured the most disgusting moment on the trip.  I know it just looks like Violet and Poodle are looking at a gorilla, but the gorilla was vomiting and then eating it.  And repeating the process.

Running through the misters may have been Violet's favorite moment on the trip.  Brittany and I had just walked .8 miles to not see a lion, so we were tired and hungry and wanting to get back.  But Violet insisted on stopping at every one of these and screamed when we had to drag her away.  If it weren't for the 7-11 just outside the zoo on the way back and its delicious slurpees and one dollar pizza, I may not have made it.  (Poodle also made it easier by carrying Violet most of the way.  I'm not very athletic to begin with, and having 15 extra lbs on my belly makes it pretty hard to carry her .)

Riding the metro was also a thrill for Violet.  It got to the point where if a bus or train came and left without us, she would start crying because she thought we were supposed to get on it.  It was nice to have her so enthused by the little things on our trip.

The only bad part of our trip was travelling back home yesterday.  Our plane was delayed because it was sprinkling and they told me I would miss my connecting flight in Atlanta.  So they had me wait at the airport for hours to get on the first flight and had me booked for an 11 PM flight from Atlanta to Houston.  After three hours at the gate, Violet started running along a platform by the window.  I figured I would let her since at this point it was all I could do to keep her from having a total meltdown.  Then a lady came up to me and said, "That is REALLY annoying, could you please get her to stop?"  So I took her down and she totally lost it.  She had a full-blown toddler tantrum complete with kicking and screaming right there in the airport. Frustrated, I muttered to Violet, "Go scream by the lady who thought you were annoying.  I'm sure she thinks this is less annoying." A couple of people around me started laughing when they heard that, so at least I got some sympathy.  Violet slept through most of the plane ride, so that part was easy.  In Atlanta I found an earlier flight to Houston and asked if they could get me on it.  They told me that they could, but my checked luggage (car seat) wouldn't get there until midnight when the other flight landed. So I took the later flight, but when I got to Houston, the car seat didn't turn up anywhere.  When I asked about it, they told me, "Oh, your luggage came on the earlier flight."  And I said, "The earlier flight that I asked to get on that they told me my luggage wouldn't be on?"  Yep, that one.  Oh well.  At least I'm home now and the majority of the people I ran into were very understanding and helpful. Violet was a toal trooper, considering that she's a toddler who spent 12 hours in the airport.  I got lucky with that.

Last one for awhile

As I will be travelling later this week, this will be my last post for awhile.  This weekend we went to Natural Bridge Caverns.  I was a little concerned because last time we took Violet in a cave, she screamed the whole time.  Well, this time she loved it.  She kept pointing to things and saying, "Cave!" or "Wow, big rock!"  She walked almost the entire 1.5-mile trail by herself and was enthralled at every stop.  And when we were all done she got to take her picture by a dinosaur, which made her happy.  Brandon even said that the information they told you about the geology was "mostly correct."  Very impressive.

 Since the breakdown of the AC unit we have been staying at the Petersons', which has been heaven for Violet.  I'm pretty sure if Brandon and I left she would never notice.  She thinks she is just one of the sisters and with all that blonde hair, who could argue?  So she spends her days following around her cousins and fighting for a spot on Bethany's lap, because I guess she figures that if she treats the cousins like her sisters, then she may as well treat her aunt like her mom. She is going to be sad when we move out.