Pregnancy Cravings

I've officially reached the point where I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore. Mostly because I cannot sleep at night. I toss and turn all night long, although that actually makes it sound like it is a fast process. I'm more like a steamroller. I eventually turn over, but it's a slow, exhausting act to try to flip over to the other side. Luckily, I have the most hideous, fantastic pajama bottoms in the world. They are nice and slippery to make it easier to turn over in bed, but nice and stretchy to accommodate my still-growing belly. Fortunately, they are just pajamas, because they are absolutely the most hideous things I have ever seen in my life, but I love them and I hope they last throughout the rest of my pregnancies.
Through all these steamrolling sessions, I have found that recently I have had the most off-the-wall cravings. Luckily for my weight gain, I would never have that combination in my house on a normal day and my husband is on night shift so I can't go run to the store real quick because no matter how bad these cravings are, they are not worth waking up my 20-month-old, teething son. For example, last night, I woke up at 1:34 a.m. wanting to eat beef jerky with cheese whiz. Can't explain it, I have no idea why that sounded good to me, even now it kinda makes my stomach writhe, but in my sleepy stupor, that was the most amazing sounding snack I could have ever thought of.
With my son, I can't say that I really had any strong cravings. There were certainly times that a particular dinner sounded really good, but it was a normal thing, like steak and fries, and I really could have done without it if I had to, it just sounded really good.
But this pregnancy is entirely different.
I have had a new craving almost on a monthly basis. Most of them were fairly normal things, I just had to have them all the time. The first trimester I ate a lot of quesadillas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and loaded hot dogs. That is mostly because those are the only things that didn't make me want to vomit at the thought of it. Then it moved on to spaghetti or macaroni and tomatoes. After that was apples sliced up and dipped in peanut butter. Then it was Twizzlers. Most of the time when my husband and I go grocery shopping, we would get Twizzlers for our son because it's a fairly un-messy snack, and I would always end up eating 3/4 of the package. I've even come to the point where I pass the 4 pound bucket of twizzlers down the candy aisle and ultimately decide not to get it because I don't need to eat that many pounds of Twizzlers in one sitting. I can almost guarantee that is what would happen. Right now I am in a Buffalo Wing state of craving. In the last week, we have had wings at least 4 times.
I wonder if anything else will pop up in the next 16 days.

As a kind of related side note, I am officially done being pregnant because my belly button has popped out. It's like the thing you put in Turkey's, when it pops, it's done.

The Day Shift/Night Shift Debate

My husband and I continually butt heads over his work schedule. There's nothing we can do about it, it changes on a monthly basis most of the time, but I am a big fan of day shift and he is very much a fan of night shift.
I wish I could be fair and balanced in this, but since Thomas doesn't blog, and I do, I have a feeling this will be a little one sided.
I can understand that night shift as a cop is much more interesting because that's when you get to deal with the underbelly of society instead of monotonous traffic tickets and accidents which equates to lots of paperwork and traffic court. I understand that, especially for a night person, 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. goes a lot slower than the flip side of that. I understand that during Florida summers, driving around in a patrol car, wearing a polyester uniform with a bullet proof vest while sitting on pretty much plastic seats is extremely hot and quickly drains any energy you have.
Despite all that, I prefer day shift and love that it has to come around once in a while. I love the days he has off and the mornings we spend together. Actually wondering what I will make for breakfast because when it's just my 20 month old son who eats disgusting stuff on a regular basis, and myself, why make anything fancier than a bowl of cereal? If I do feel fancy that day, I'll cut up a banana and throw it in the cereal, but when Thomas has a day off, I can dream of breakfast of French Toast or Waffles or even a delicious breakfast burrito because it's worth the effort to do that for my husband. I love that when he is on day shift I can lay in bed when I hear Aiden wake up and be able to say, "It's your turn to get him", so I can lie in bed a little bit longer without the guilt of leaving my adorable son in his crib while I am trying to find motivation to lug my giant, pregnant belly out of bed and immediately to the bathroom because I have a bad case of pregnant-lady-stand-up-pee's. I love that I have an entire day with him on his days off, as opposed to just the afternoon hours because he is sleeping all morning long. I love that, even on the days he works, I can look forward to having lunch and dinner with him instead of making him lunch when he wakes up, two hours after I have eaten my lunch, and making him dinner while trying to get Aiden ready for bed, two hours after I have eaten dinner. I frequently have PB&J or a ham sandwich for dinner when he is on night shift because I get tired of making so many individual meals throughout the day which adds up to a lot of dishes to do everyday.
Most of all, I love day shift because he has normal sleeping hours, which means I don't have to fight my son all morning long from waking up Daddy. I don't have to try to explain to my toddler that Daddy needs his sleep and you can't play with him right now, no matter how pathetic his cries. I love that Daddy is his best friend and he so desperately yearns to be with him and play with him, but it breaks my heart when I have to pull him away from our bedroom door every 30, 15, 2 minutes to try to explain to him that Daddy can't wrestle or make him fly or throw him onto the bed, but he will after nap time.

How in the world do you accomplish that? Maybe someday I will have the motivation to actually get out of the house and play at the park or go for a walk to kill some of the long morning hours, but as of right now, Florida is just too humid and too hot and I am too pregnant to even entertain the idea of going someplace outside to kill some time. I guess I am just a glutton for punishment.

I Saw My Baby Doctor Again Today

Ya know, my baby doctor, as opposed to my baby daddy.

Anyways.

I am measuring right at 36 weeks, which I will be tomorrow. Heartbeat was the same: in the 140's. I gained another three pounds in the past three weeks which puts me to a total pregnancy gain of 23 lbs. I'm hoping to keep it at 25, so I can only gain two pounds in the next three weeks, I think I can do it because I had a salty dinner last night so I was retaining water today.

My C-section is set to be scheduled on October 16, 2009 at 0730, which means I will need to be there at like 5.00 am to get signed in and get my blood work done and all the other stuff you do when you go to the hospital to be cut open. They will let me know what I need to do as far as having a pre-op appointment and whatnot at my next appointment which next Wednesday, Sept 30.

Things are going along smoothly and I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore.

Rosetta Stone

Thomas and I finally got a bonafide copy of Rosetta Stone Latin America Spanish in the mail today. We set a goal probably about six months ago to get one and then we finally saved up enough money to buy one, only to find out that it was a bootleg copy, so the next go around we were more careful. We bought it and it finally came in the mail today!
Yay!
So hopefully soon Thomas and I, but more Thomas because he wants to be able to use it for work, will be speaking Spanish kinda fluently.
Or maybe at least choppily.

Pictures from Utah

Aiden's adorable blanket that my mom and Tracy have been working on. I kinda helped when I went out in May and a little bit this time, but mostly it was just them two. I can't really take any of the credit other than helping pick out the fabric and making some of the nine-piece squares.



And Cecilia's blanket.



Sunday evening it had rained pretty hard at Tracy's house, and the wind blew a bunch of the rainwater onto the carpeted part of the porch. Aiden found the puddles and splashed in them, and then found that if he put his forehead in the puddle, when he stood up, it would drip down his face.


Tracy's kids found that the gutter at the adjoining street was continually flooded because there was a drain from a retention pond at the top of the hill. The kids had fun walking through it, sending boats and Barbie's down it and creating "super tsunami's" by holding the water back by sitting in it and then letting it all flow down to create a huge rush. Aiden had tons of fun walking through it and throwing rocks in the flow to see them go down the little river.

OB Again.

I had another appointment with my OB yesterday and can you believe I was in and out in 40 minutes?! Incredible. That even included time figuring out a bill I had received.
From the ultrasound they still couldn't rule out Placenta Accreta (Placenta implanting itself in the uterine wall), but if I do have it, it is just a mild case. I will be having a C-section and the tentative date is October 16. Only 6 weeks away! It's not set in stone yet because as the date gets closer, we have to look at the doctor's surgery schedule, but it seems that'll be the date.
The heartbeat was in the low 140's, the fundus height was 34 cm, and I have only gained 18 lbs this pregnancy and was commended for how well I was doing. Huge pat on the back for me.
My next appointment is in three weeks and then after that I will start my weekly visits until the baby is born. I absolutely cannot wait!