Beating the Odds

So to show just how much I love my baby girl and want her to have a healthy development, I downed a glucose tolerance drink for the 4th time this pregnancy. I failed my 1-hour test at my 28-week appointment and had to undergo a three hour test, my second one this pregnancy. For those who have not tried this drink, think flat, super-sweet, nasty, want-to-throw-up orange drink that you have to swallow quickly without actually throwing it up. As I drank it this time, I seriously had tears streaming down my face as I gagged it down, trying not to throw it up.

Well, I've been craving a chocolate shake, and Jeremiah said he would get me one if I passed my three-hour test, which he promised me I wouldn't actually pass, but if I did, I'd get a chocolate shake. Jeremiah totally owes me, because I totally passed! I didn't even think I would, I figured I was diabetic when I was pregnant with Roman, and I failed my one-hour test, but luckily I passed so I don't have to worry about following a low-sugar, low-carb diet until after I deliver (1o weeks to post-pregnancy diet...say it with me, woohoo!). I still plan on watching what I eat since I know I am at risk for developing gestational diabetes, but at least I can have my chocolate shake without feeling like I'm going against doctor's orders. Did you hear that Jage? I can have a shake, go get it for me!!!

Tidbits

I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but I will update everyone on our lives because A) I'm at Carissa's and all alone (she and Olivia are at the play, Adam and Jeremiah are at a movie, and the rest of the kids are asleep) so why not blog when I'm bored right? And B) I won't be able to blog until at least next Thursday when we get home from our vacation. Oh, and Celeste, I don't mean to rub it in your face that we're here, of course we wish you were here!

Jeremiah finished his last final yesterday, which means (woohoo!) he is finally officially done with his first year at law school. He survived! I survived! And he doesn't start school again until August 25, which means we actually get to pretend to be a normal family for awhile and the kids actually have some quality time with their Daddy. It is nice to see him enjoying life again.

Hayden is loving his swim class. If his actions there are any indication of his school days, I anticipate he will work hard to master the concepts, cheer when he does something right (as in, "Yes, I did it! Mom, did you see me swim? I did it! Yes! Awesome!"), but when the teacher's back is turned, he is coaxing his fellow classmates into doing things they're not supposed to (such as splashing each other instead of practicing kicking). He is more confident in the water, but when the teachers has them practice swimming on their own, instead of the controlled kicks and big arms he needs to to the front stroke, he is doing the doggy paddle as if he's drowning.

Roman is progressing in his gymnastics class, but I think overall he doesn't love it. He gets excited for somersaults, but he sort of just goes through the motions for the rest of the class. I'm not sure which class I'll put him in next session. He is talking a lot more now. He does 2- and 3-word sentences and it is a lot easier to understand why he's crying or what he's begging for because he can usually use his words to let me know, even if he does sort of speak in Romanese, and most people have no idea what he's actually saying (aka "oi" translates into "orange" which means he wants juice) and all animals are called by the sounds they make (aka cows are "moos" and cats are "meow meows"). At our WIC appointment today, we found out his iron was low so now I get to try to figure out how to up his intake. And I thought he was eating so healthy!

As for me, I am doing okay. I took my glucose test yesterday, I find out the results on Monday. Hopefully everything looks good, but if not I suppose we will just deal with it. I am still usually quite tired, going to bed even at 9pm doesn't do it for me because I wake up so much and have difficulty falling back asleep. I might have to start taking my Unisom again. Other than lack of sleep, I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm excited to see my parents, they fly in tonight! I haven't seen them since Christmas!

Budding Picasso

So Hayden has been obsessed with coloring lately. He's gone from anti-crayons to crayon happy, even coloring (sort of) in the lines and trying to color things their appropriate color. Now, he's on to bigger and better things. Coloring books are so yesterday! He only wants plain paper (which no matter how much I buy, he goes through in a matter of days) and an assortment of crayons and markers, and he's off to drawing, mostly pictures of our family - another huge step, seeing that a few weeks ago his "drawings" were scribbles all over the page and the scribbles were supposed to somehow translate into Transformers or other "bad guys". Oh, and ignore the shadows, I took a picture of his drawing since I'm too dumb to understand how to use our scanner.

Here's our family portrait Hayden-style. He drew this at church on Sunday and it was my first time seeing him draw people. I seriously asked the teacher twice if it was really his drawing. From left to right is Jeremiah (can you tell by the hair?), Hayden, Roman, and me. The circle above me is "oh, nothing" according to Hayden.

Here is today's drawing of our family. It's drawn on the back of a Color Wonder picture, which is why the paper looks weird. Roman is on top in orange. The circles that looks like blush are really ears, and I asked Hayden where the arms were so he drew some, with fingers too, what a proud mom I am! I am the green figure, you can tell by my beautiful hair. Hayden is the robotic figure on the bottom.

One last figure, you have your basic Hayden drawing with head, ears, eyes, hair, arms, legs, and feet. Who wants to be the first to purchase such masterpieces? =)

Haircuts

Roman's hair in October 2007. I had to start with this because I love his big, huge hair that overtakes his whole head and adds inches to his height:




Farrah Fawcett...I mean Roman's hair on July 5. Where's the cute afro curls?! I love his crazy hair but he was so hot under that thick mop and, well, he really did have the Farrah Fawcett flip going on that caused people to ask me how old my little girl was.







Post-haircut on July 5. Clean-cut, it makes him look older (but don't be fooled, he certainly hasn't aged much, as told by the tantrum is he currently throwing). I can't wait for the weather to cooperate and get a little cooler so we have a good excuse to grow his hair out again. And maybe help him grow a mustache so people don't confuse his gender =)

Hayden, on the other hand, used to have the cutest, craziest hair. My mom used to always ask when we were going to cut it. He looked like a mad scientist:

Then Hayden got struck with the Lafranca curse, as in once you cut it, you lose it. We buzzed it in October 2007 (okay, not buzz like army cut, but it was short!) and now it grows out really weird. Some parts grow faster than others, some parts flip out like they are eager to curl, others stay straight. So, we are forced to keep it short. Maybe one day I'll patiently wait through the ugly stage of his hair and see if I can get the hair long enough to get curly again. I totally regret cutting his hair, there are days that I want to kick myself! Here's Hayden after his latest cut:

Our July 4th

The day started off with the kids sleeping in until 8:30am. I know, aren't they the coolest? Jeremiah studied until 2pm, and then (...brace yourself...) took the rest of the day off!!! It was odd hanging out with him before dinner, since we usually don't see him until dinner is on the table and we are ready to eat.



We drove into Michigan and purchased some fireworks from a stand offering "buy one get two free" deals. Looking back, I wonder if all of our fireworks were legal, but in all fairness they were nothing like the big fireworks our neighbor had, so I doubt we had anything that would get us locked up. We then went to KFC for dinner because we thought fried chicken was appropriate for celebrating our nation...anyone with me on that? We brought the KFC to the park and ate while the kids played.

Roman prefered to drink all the Sierra Mist as opposed to actually eating anything for dinner.

Jeremiah decided to relax for a bit, Hayden decided to join him. I love this photo.

Around 7:30pm we started our fireworks. It wasn't super dark, but the kids don't do well staying up really late. We started off with the kid-friendly fireworks but I got bored really quick. Who really wants to see a million snakes grow out of the flames?! Roman loved the snakes and the smaller fireworks, he wasn't a fan of the noisy ones- he would retract as far as he could and shake his head, asking to go inside. Finally I brought out cookies and that was enough to keep him sitting down to finish watching fireworks. And Roman refused sparklers, Hayden finally agreed to try one, but we decided to save the rest for our Cleveland vacation. The bigger fireworks were pretty cool. One of them shot into the garage across the street, lighting it up, but luckily nothing caught fire. After that we were a little more careful about the placement of our fireworks. Our neighbors had a few that shot off early, and one that flew into the screen door across the street from them, but again they were lucky nothing caught fire. We had some pretty cool ones, they looked like miniature versions of the big ones you'd see in fireworks shows. They went just high enough to clear the trees, and we saved a few to watch later when it was really dark. Our neighbors must have taken out a second mortgage, they had huge fireworks going off until about 11pm, lighting up the sky (and my bedroom, so much for going to bed early!), but never woke up the kids which surprised me.

The kids and I watching Jeremiah light fireworks. Hayden has this new habit of posing in odd ways for the camera.

Hayden got brave and decided to try a sparkler.

So we found one cool thing about Toledo (I know, what am I doing thinking Toledo is cool? Bear in mind I said one cool thing...). You can actually buy cool fireworks! We're not in dry-as-a-bone Utah, so fireworks that are illegal in Utah are totally acceptable here. It was fun to put on our own little fireworks show and be happy with the end result.

Double Digits

*Gasp!* My baby counter has moved from triple to double digits! Something about that makes me feel like I could give birth any day, even though I'm still 3 months away. Regardless, I'm no where near ready for my third baby...nothing is ready. I have a lot to do.

I gave up on yoga. I couldn't do half the positions and I felt like I was wasting time. So, I gave in and tried water aerobics. Let me tell you, that class kicked my butt! They give you these "weights" that are meant to float but you have to keep them underwater in the deep end so not only are you working your arms but also your legs so you can stay afloat. And although I was the youngest in the class, it wasn't by much. That made me feel better. I came home and craved chocolate chip cookie dough and could probably have downed a whole gallon of milk. Don't know why exercise makes me crave sweets, sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

Other than that, I had another check-up today with my midwife. According to her, I haven't gained as much weight as I thought I had, and I'm totally for being told I haven't gained that much weight yet. I go for my glucose test in two weeks, I'm hoping for a clean bill of health. I'm only measuring a week behind, which is great because last month I was measuring 3 weeks behind. My headaches are pretty much gone. Instead of daily headaches, I get them about once a week which is much more manageable. The baby kicks and moves a lot more, and, even though I would describe myself as a light sleeper, I can sleep through her movements. Hayden loves to feel for her moving, he thinks it's so cool. Roman could care less.

Nausea is gone. Woohoo! As long as I eat a decent breakfast I feel pretty good throughout the day. I'm usually in bed between 9:30 and 10pm, though, because I can't get past how tired I always feel. Cravings include diet sodas, scrambled eggs with ketchup, pasta, McDonalds, chocolate milk, and mashed potatoes. Count down with me, 99 days to go!

Keeping Busy

The only way to really beat the heat around here is to keep busy...oh, and did I mention the YMCA has great air conditioning?

We signed Roman up for a gymnastics class on Monday evenings. It is more of a tumbling class, he's not like doing flips off the uneven bars, as cool as that would be. His first class consisted of walking across the balance beam forwards, backwards, and sideways, doing somersaults on the balance beam (with the help of two adults), and jumping on and off of big blocks. Roman was really shy at first, but got really into it about halfway through and loved the balance beam. He even blew kisses to his teacher when he left.

Hayden has swim classes on Wednesday evenings. He is my water bug, always begging to take a bath and refusing to get out, even if the water is all drained. However, he's not quite the natural swimmer I expected him to be. The class was supposed to hold onto the wall and stretch out, kicking with their feet (any of those who have taken swim classes or have children who have, you know what I mean). Instead, Hayden did not trust having his entire body in the water, and instead had his stomach up on the floor, putting only his bottom half into the water to kick. It took quite a bit of effort on the teacher's part to convince him to do it correctly. He did pretty good with the teacher guiding him down the pool, but again wasn't super confident. However, being a water bug, he was more than happy to jump into the pool at the end of class. Most of his classmates waited for the teacher to catch them. Hayden insisted on doing it by himself, even when it wasn't his turn. He looks forward to his class now, and asks daily if we are going.

We also signed Hayden up for t-ball. Practices are on Fridays from 7:30-8:30pm, meaning we are just starting practice around the time Hayden normally goes to bed. We usually have a picnic at the park prior to practice, and then either Jeremiah or I takes Roman home while the other stays with Hayden. Hayden does pretty good, he just gets a little distracted, but he enjoys it. He loves to hit the ball, but it was obvious he'd never done so before because during his first time at bat, he held the bat at the wrong end. He usually hits it pretty far, but, like most kids in his group, watches to see where the ball goes and forgets to run to first base. Jeremiah is teaching Hayden to throw better, and he is slowly improving. Today was Hayden's first game. It's actually kind of fun. There are no outs, no one keeps score, and fair play and taking turns is really stressed. Each kid gets a turn up at bat, they get to run to first, and advance one base at a time. It's really just teaching the kids how to play, and everyone has fun. It's really funny watching these kids play. No matter where the ball is hit, they all run to try to grab it, meaning the field is left without basemen because they are all chasing the ball. Hayden tried so hard to catch the ball, but with so many kids there fighting for it, it was hard. He caught it once, and was so excited to have actually caught it that he held onto it. His coach had to tell him several times to throw the ball to first base. It was sad to see how discouraged he got when he would run for the ball only to have another child get it first. He got more and more upset, and luckily he has some great coaches who stood by him and helped him try to get the ball, giving him high-fives just for trying. We are trying to make him understand teamwork and that giving it his best shot is what counts, but he really struggled with that today. We'll see how the rest of the season turns out.

Watching for the ball. He was so focused during the game, determined to get a ball. We're really lucky that they had jerseys in his size =)

Roman hanging out at the game...um, maybe waiting for a pop fly?

Darth Vader, I mean Hayden, waiting for his turn at bat.

As for me, I am still doing yoga on Tuesday nights. The poses are getting more difficult with my growing belly, but I still feel like I'm getting a work out. I pulled out my exercise ball and have been doing some exercise while the kids nap. Mostly I just keep busy with the kids, running them to their classes, to preschool, and doing the general errands we need to run. It just keeps my mind off the fact that I hate this heat.