Myrt Myrt, You'll Appreciate This

I was talking up our upcoming trip out west with Clara this morning. I ran through the names of everyone we were going to see and she got very excited. A couple of hours later in the car, out of nowhere she says " I'm going to see Myrt Myrt!. She's the bestest girl to me."

Awww. Myrt Myrt is the bestest. Sorry to everyone else. She didn't mention you again.

Eighteen Weeks

Baby is about 5- 1/2 inches long now and I'm around 110 pounds. My appetite has increased significantly these last couple of weeks and I'm going to go out on a limb and say my morning sickness has finally eased off. I've had a few moments of naseau here and there, but I haven't taken my medicine in about a week.

I'm still very tired, but that's no surprise. With Clara, I never got that "boost" everyone talks about in the second trimester. Having energy while pregnant is a foreign concept to me.

Edited to add: I can't believe I forgot the best part of week 18. On the way down to the beach house on Friday, I was telling Danielle I hadn't felt the baby kick yet (for sure at least). I've felt gas-like stuff, but nothing I could say for sure was the baby. Not long after we arrived at the house, I was walking through the kitchen when I felt a kick. I lifted my shirt and I could faintly see and feel it from the outside, too. Same thing happened with Clara except I was 20 weeks. Chris could see and feel her first kicks right along with me.

Also, I think maybe the skin on my back has become more sensitive. I didn't get into the water too much at the beach, but I did get hit by a wave from behind not long before we left to go back to the house. I started itching and on the way back, I had redness and welts all over my back, but nowhere else. We thought it was sunburn at first and then maybe heat rash, but I think it was just a reaction to the salt water.

It happened the next day too. Chris flung some muddy sand on my back so that I'd have to go in the ocean to wash it off. I only washed off that side of my back and it too got the same itchy rash that went away once I showered. I didn't get a rash anywhere else even though I waded into the water and sat in it for awhile. Also, my back has been itchy after I shower for some time now.

More Days at the Beach

My week started out like this:

A do-it-yourself haircut by a four year old (who shall remain nameless) and who, as luck would have it, is having family pictures made next week.....


To walking in to a colossal mess made the night before by the same nameless four year old who decided it would be fun to dissect the styrofoam filled carnival prize tiger her dad won for her last week. The stuff was everywhere. I took this picture after the majority of it was cleaned up.

So needless to say, by Friday I was really ready for this:

We rented a beach house at Surfside Beach from one of Chris' co-workers and went with the DeCarlos. The house was really nice and was really close to the beach. The beach was pretty clean and didn't smell, something I didn't think was possible at a Texas beach.

Friday night, not ten minutes after we put the kids to bed, there was a big thud and Clara started crying. Chris ran into the room and she was face first on the hard floor, completely wrapped up in her bedding unable to move. She got a bloody nose and it was swollen a bit. She got a little tlc and ice and some tylenol and was good as new by morning, though it's still sore to the touch. She wasn't happy during the sunscreen applications.

We all went down to the beach and played Saturday morning. Travis and Clara had a great time and Justin loved sitting in the water getting splashed by waves. We came back to the house for lunch and Clara had been acting just fine, not sick at all. She ate a strawberry at the end of her lunch and a couple of minutes later, she threw up her entire lunch.

So, I'm officially moving strawberries from her list of suspected allergies to her list of confirmed allergies. She's been going back and forth for a couple of months now on whether or not she'll eat them and I guessed she probably was having some sensitivity to them. Sometimes she asks for them and other times she says she doesn't like them, so I guess they're out now.

The older two got to go back to the beach for a little while while the hamburgers were grilling. Randy and Danielle had to leave Saturday after dinner, but we stayed until this afternoon. Clara brought Daddy breakfast in bed this morning for Father's Day, along with the card she made him and we hit the beach one more time before cleaning up and heading home.

It was a fun and relaxing weekend and hopefully we'll be back soon. I've never really just loved the beach all that much, but I now know that's because it's always been a day trip for us. Having a house to walk back to and clean up at makes all the difference in the world. Being able to come back home after an hour or so and have lunch and a nap was wonderful! And showering right after getting off the beach was wonderful! As was getting into a car without tracking in sand and stinking it up like ocean.

IT'S A.........

....... HEALTHY BABY!!

I had my ultrasound today and I was good. We didn't find out the sex and I wasn't even anxious about it. I will admit it was an odd feeling to know that we could have a name picked out and bedding ordered and on it's way, but it's fun not knowing.

The first picture is the first view we got of the baby. If you look, you'll notice that's a foot up by the head. It looked real comfortable in there. The second picture is the profile if you couldn't tell. Everything looked good and I measured right on target for my due date.

A Day at the Beach

We took a quick trip to the coast yesterday to spend the afternoon with my family. My mom and dad and all of my dad's siblings were staying at a beach house a couple of hours from us. We had intended to stay the weekend, but Chris has had a really busy week at work after returning from Rio and he had to work some this weekend, so we cut it short.

We've always gone camping every summer with my dad's side of the family, so having air conditioning and nice comfy couches was a nice change of pace. Clara was a little ball of energy and was the only little one there, so she provided plenty of entertainment.

I was surprised that she was so friendly and personable with all of my aunts and uncles. I thought she might be a little overwhelmed, because she's only met them a couple of times and been around them for short periods of time. She was giving Uncle Roger kisses, hitting Uncle Mark in the head with the beach ball (I don't know how she knew that out of all of them, Mark was the perfect one to hit in the head with a beach ball; must be some kind of sixth sense), feeding Uncle Howard cookies while he was sleeping (and trying not to get her hand bit off in the process), and sticking her hands in Aunt Jacki's cup fishing out ice, among other things. She just made her little self at home.

We waited for the sun to go down some before spending a little time at the beach. I had just finished putting sunscreen all over Clara when she started yelling "owie, owie, owie!" I looked and she had welts showing up on her shoulder, and then her armpit, and her back, and her face, etc., etc., etc.

So this would be her first allergic reaction to something topical we've put on her skin. I usually buy natural products for her and had been looking for some sunscreen that wasn't four times the price as the regular stuff and hadn't found anything yet. I'm feeling pretty bad that I didn't follow my instincts and buy what I know is better for her despite the cost, but live and learn I guess. I washed her off in the shower, gave her some Benadryl and she was fine soon after.

We only spent about half an hour at the beach since she wasn't wearing sunscreen and we were about to have a nice steak dinner. We are definitely going back to the beach because she had a ball. She loved it all. Standing in the waves, digging in the sand, picking up shells. She was in paradise. Until she rubbed her eyes with her sandy hands and then the screaming ensued.

Look at that pristine Gulf Coast water.









We got back to the house, got her changed and the Benadryl had her knocked out in no time. After dinner we sat out on the deck that looked out over the Intercoastal Waterway and watched the porpoises and barges going by as the sun set. It was a very enjoyable day. Poor Clara was still out when we left. She had a good night's sleep last night, for sure.


You'll notice I was very prompt with this post. I was harassed by aunts all day asking when I was going to update my blog, so here you all go. I hope this is satisfactory :)

A Merger

I've obviously had some issues with keeping this thing updated lately. I have a blog for my pregnancy related posts and I've been doing a better job with it, so I've decided a merger is in order. Perhaps the burden of two blogs is just too much for my little brain to handle.

I wanted to keep them separate so that I could print the other one into a book easily if I wanted, so I'll just label the posts instead so I can find them quickly when the time comes. Be forewarned; I post weekly bare belly pics, so sorry if pregnant bellies gross you out.

And now for a semi-update from the last month.

- Let me begin by saying summer has begun and thank goodness it's Friday!! I'm watching all four of Jessica's kids this summer. This past week and next are the only hard weeks, because after that and a nice vacation, the older three will be attending YMCA camps every week and I'll just have to take them and pick them up every day.

This week Jessica was on a business trip for a few days so I had the kids until late one night and then overnight last night. Feeding five kids is hard! As is finding entertainment for a 3, 4, 6, 11, and 13 year old that everyone will enjoy. By 9:30 a.m. it's too hot to play outside and I'm just not up for going to the pool with five kids, three of whom can't swim. I still have no energy, especially in this sweltering heat. Plus, my idea of going to the pool is cooling off for an hour and then heading home. Can you even imagine the whining that would ensue? I shutter just thinking about it.

- Chris went to Rio de Janeiro for 10 days and got back last Saturday. It was a bit disconcerting to read about the plane that crashed after taking off from Brazil while he was gone, so I was very happy to have him home. He had a nice trip and went to see the Jesus statue this time. Sorry, can't remember what it's called. I'll try to post a picture later. We got to chat with him on the web cam several times and Clara really enjoyed that. He stayed in a staff house and someone came to clean and do his laundry every day. It was nice to open a suitcase with one dirty pair of clothes after a week and a half trip.

- We had an unsuccessful camping trip with Jessica's family over Memorial Day weekend. We had planned to go to Dave's property up in Huntsville Saturday through Monday. The weather was very uncooperative. It looked like rain and there were several thunder rumbles right before we were to leave. I was feeling pretty lousy and just wasn't up for a camping trip in the rain with 3 dogs and a 3 year old, so Chris relented and we decided not to go.

Of course, it never did rain here that night, so we decided to try to go on Sunday. We got there around noon, got set up and then it rained hard for several hours while the 8 of us sat on the porch. Our tent got a little wet inside and then right before it got dark, we looked at the weather and saw another couple of strong storm cells headed straight for us, so we made the quick decision to pack up and head home.

The storm looked about 30 minutes out, so we loaded very quickly in the dark and got home around 10:00. It never rained here, but I'm not sure what the weather did in Huntsville. Anyway, it was quite the bust. It wasn't all bad though. Chris was leaving for Rio on Tuesday, so he had a day to rest before his big trip.

- On my last post I mentioned Clara's allergic reaction to penicillin. Well, they prescribed another antibiotic, and 24 hours after her first dose, she did the same thing. I never did call the doctor back. She's felt fine and I'm convinced she never had an infection in the first place, so I just decided to give her body some time to calm down. I think it was in attack mode and I didn't want to risk running through every option we have available when there's not even an infection present.

Last night another allergy surfaced. We had watermelon after dinner and the three little ones were pretty sticky, so I threw them in the bath. I started scrubbing Clara's face and chest, but it wasn't coming off. Then I noticed the other two didn't have any juice stains on them and realized Clara's wasn't juice, but was red and a little bumpy from a reaction. She also said it itched. GRRRRR. Ok, I really should get her in to that allergist.

I have another couple of posts started, so stay tuned.