Bryan's Song...

Isn't that a movie?

Anyway, one of Bryan's favorite 80s songs is "Warrior" by Scandal. It's on right now and every time I hear it I can see him playing it on Guitar Hero (I think it's on the 80s version?). It makes me smile :)

Tonight at midnight we'll celebrate our 2 year anniversary! We may actually stay up until midnight tonight, we're going over to my parents tonight for cards and games so we'll see how long we both last. Penelope did not have a great night last night so I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stay awake.

Bryan just told me the Mariners play the Giants at AT&T park on April 4th... I say we should go :) I'll be as big as a house and less than 2 weeks from my due date.

Oh, so we have molar #4 - Penny has 12 teeth! It's just started to poke through, but I'm sure that's why last night was so very horrible. Between "&" kicking me from the inside and Pen kicking me on the outside I got very little sleep. Plus some idiot decided to call me twice from a private number in the middle of the night. I always freak out when my phone rings late at night, it's never good news. But apparently it was just some idiot with a wrong number (I didn't actually get to the phone in time, but he left a message for a Suzie).

Oh, and I have an interview today. It's for a part-time job and wouldn't make up my salary from my last job, but it's a job. They don't know I'm pregnant yet, I didn't think it was appropriate to mention that in my cover letter. Should be interesting.

So far that's the only interview I've been able to schedule since I got laid off. I've applied for more than a dozen jobs, but the market it pretty competitive. I have some more avenues that I need to check out, so hopefully something will happen soon.

Ok, in happier news, I'm 25 weeks pregnant today! I was a little surprised when I saw that on the calendar, for some reason I thought I was closer to 30 weeks. Wishful thinking :) According to the e-mail I got from babycenter, the baby is approx 13 inches long and weighs a little over 1.5 lbs. "&" has been moving around a lot lately, especially when Penelope crawls all over me - it seems he/she doesn't appreciate being squooshed by his/her older sister. Something poor "&" will have to get used to, older siblings are supposed to squoosh their younger siblings :)

I've been really bad about taking belly pictures lately... I'll try to get one taken today.

Ok, time to do some chores and then get ready for my interview. Hope everyone has a safe, fun, and happy New Years Eve and a wonderful New Year!!

Excuse my poor cinematography...

I was laughing during most of this video, hence the shaky cinematography. But I think it's hilarious and I hope you do too :) The first part is Penelope and Bryan playing "I'm gonna getcha", the second part is Penelope dancing to a car commercial, the third is her pointing to my belly when I ask "where's the baby?", and the last part is titled "The Long Walk" and is Penelope's longest walk yet! She does tumble a bit at the end but does not harm herself in the fall (it was a close call).

Anyway, it's been an eventful night. Here's the video:


(and for those on Facebook, I'll post it there as well)

Where's the Baby?

A quick post:

When I ask Penelope "Where's the baby?" she'll point to my belly, it's cute :)

She also signs the word "please" although still has to be reminded when to use it, but I'm super happy that she knows the sign (well, her own version of it) and uses it to ask for things.

She's walking more and more, but still not all the time. It'll happen, and I'm glad she's at least walking part of the time. It makes things a little easier on Mommy.

Yesterday she fed herself her entire lunch! Half a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and string cheese. I still haven't given her an opportunity to practice using a spoon since I dread the mess it would create - but that will come eventually.

When she holds crayons, drumsticks, or the mallet thing for her xylophone, she has to hold them delicately at the VERY end of the stick. Which makes it difficult to properly color, drum, or play a song but no matter how much I model or mold her hand she moves it back down to the very end.

Favorite foods as of 12 months: broccoli, bananas, strawberries, anything pasta (especially mac & cheese, but what kid doesn't like that?).

Ok, have to go - I have a TON of stuff to do today and less time to do it in.

Introducing & and many other things

So a few days ago we decided that no matter what the gender, we'd name New Baby "&" so we could still be PB&J.

The symbol.

It was, of course, a joke. But the nickname has stuck and New Baby has been re-christened "&". So he/she shall henceforth be referred to as such... and the poor thing will likely be stuck with the nickname well after birth.

Little & is doing quite well, he/she is moving around a lot especially when I'm holing Penelope. The extra pressure on his/her ever shrinking home (well, it's not shrinking, he/she is just getting larger) can't be very comfortable. I try not to hold Pen too much, especially since holding onto her for more than 5 minutes becomes an exercise in arm muscle endurance.

So I'm currently uploading a ton of video... some is of Penelope watching various Muppet Show clips on my laptop - there's some she find absolutely hilarious, there's also some of Christmas, and of Penny WALKING!

The last few days Bryan has been working with her on walking and she's getting really really good. That's probably the only video that I'll edit and upload. The rest will be dumped onto the external hard drive and Penelope can look at it when she's older. The Muppet stuff may end up here, but the Christmas stuff isn't too terribly interesting. She enjoyed herself at Christmas, but wasn't super excited - 12 months is a little early to understand the whole present concept. It's mostly just Penny & I opening her presents, not exactly thrilling :)

Christmas Eve & Christmas went well - Penelope certainly had a good time. X-Mas eve was at my grandmother's house, x-mas morning was at my parents, and then we drove up to Reno to spend x-mas day with Bryan's family. The drive was quite pleasant in the new Rav4 and Penelope slept the whole way there (and the whole way back - yea Pen!). She got a lot of clothes and toys that she loves, although I think her favorite is a book called The 12 Dogs of Christmas - it's pictures of a bunch of dogs. Surprise, surprise, she LOVES it. She'll turn the pages, say "dawg" and then laugh - it's pretty cute (well, nearly everything she does is pretty cute).

Oh, and her top right molar is peeking through, just a few of the points right now but I'm going to count it. If I can feel actual tooth then it's an official tooth :) She now has 11 teeth and there are two more making their way in. At this rate she'll have a full set in a few months! All this teething means she ends up in bed with us nearly every night - usually right around 1am. But it's ok, teething won't last forever and one day Bryan and I will get our uninterrupted sleep back (the day after which I will probably go into labor and then we'll be screwed on the sleep-front for another year plus).

Alright, so here's video of Penny walking... I'll also upload to Facebook since for whatever reason when this blog is automatically uploaded to my Facebook page the video doesn't transfer. Enjoy!

And then....

And then last night I was up all night with a toothache. I even used some of Penelope's teething gel to take enough of the edge off so I could sleep.

Trying to make an emergency dentist appointment this morning.

2 Days before Christmas

Or is it 2 days before Christmas Eve? I guess it really doesn't matter since the festivities begin on Thursday and last through the weekend. It's almost Nimrod's birthday, can't you feel the excitement in the air?

I'd post the link about the pagan origins of x-mas but I'm too lazy to look for it again and I already posted it on Facebook. Although for those who don't know, Nimrod is an ancient god whose birthday is Dec 25th and it is from him that we get things like the Christmas tree, so my above statement wasn't meant as some sort of dig on Jesus. Jesus wasn't born on Dec 25th. Heck, even the Pope has acknowledged that the date is inaccurate. Most believers I know also acknowledge this, although I do know some who still cling to the mistaken belief that December 25th is the actual birth date of their god (none of whom read this blog). But whatever, people can believe whatever they want or chose to celebrate their deity's birthday on any day they choose. I choose not to believe at all.

That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the cookies though. Christmas cookies are the best.

And that's what we did today (among other things) - Mom & I made two giant batches of cookies and decorated them all. I should have taken pictures of some of my more creative creations... the Santas turned out pretty well, the Liberty Bell was pretty funny, the toy horse was awesome, and the red eyed Teddy Bear was a little creepy. I'm usually the one who makes the "fancier" cookies while my mom & brother slap on some frosting and sprinkles. If it weren't for their production line, however, decorating would take DAYS. So it works out pretty perfectly, I made about a dozen "masterpieces" (I use the term very, very loosely) and mom & Nic turn out 3 dozen or so standard cookies. They all taste the same! (Which, by the way, is delicious).

Penny wasn't quite old enough to help, although she did eat some sprinkles after she saw my brother pick them up and eat them - so thanks Nic. She got bored with the cookie making and spent most of the evening forcing either Bryan or my Dad to either read to her or walk her around the house. She's gotten quite demanding lately, I wonder where she gets that from?

We were going to take her to see Santa, but my sinus infection has only gotten worse and I felt pretty horrible until the new medicine I'm taking started to kick in around 2pm. I'm taking natural remedies and I hope they work b/c my options are pretty limited when it comes to antibiotics. I'm hesitant to take much of anything when I'm pregnant other than an occasional Tylenol, I'm probably being overly cautious... although if I don't feel better by tomorrow afternoon I may go into the clinic and see what they say. Might as well use our health insurance while we still have it!

Which brings me to some good news, Penelope qualifies for Healthy Families! I have to send them some paperwork, but she should be on a new health insurance program in a few weeks so at least this lay-off won't affect her health care coverage. That's a huge relief for both Bryan and I... now we just need to find something we can afford for me. Not as easy, especially since I'm pregnant. But I can't really go without at this point. So we'll see.

I also got an e-mail today that my application for a 30 Day Emergency Teaching Credential has been approved. Hooray! I need to start applying at local districts, but hopefully I'll be able to start substitute teaching once schools are back in session. That's still a week or two away so we'll still have a gap to worry about - but at least sub teaching will be in my field. Jobs are pretty competitive right now so we'll see what I can find, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. I also applied to Kaplan, which is one of those tutoring places, so if I can sub a couple days a week at tutor the other days then that would be wonderful. We'll see what happens, but I'm hopeful.

Oh! Penelope's sleep! It's still suck-tastic but I'm 99% sure it's because I can feel 3 teeth coming in - her two top molars and a top canine tooth. Poor baby :( The top teeth always seem to be worse than the bottom ones. I hope they come in quickly. While her gums aren't swollen (like they were for the bottom teeth) I can feel the bumps and see little white areas on her gums where the teeth are starting to make an appearance. I find the difference between the entrance of her top & bottom molars to be interesting (and frustrating when she's kicking me in the face at 2am). Teething just sucks and I'm not looking forward to doing this all over again this time next year with New Baby.

Speaking of New Baby, I'll be 24 weeks pregnant on Christmas, which is (if I remember correctly) one of the earliest possible ages for viability. This means that if something were to go wrong and I had to deliver, New Baby would have a pretty good chance of survival. Not exactly something I want to dwell on since it would be pretty awful if I did have to deliver this early, but at least I know that should the worst happen then our possible outcomes improve daily. I have no desire to deliver early, however. I'm content to wait for the magic time of "full term" which is between 37 & 40 weeks. And if New Baby is anything like his/her sister, then he/she will come *exactly* on their due date.

Ok, time for bed.

Chatty Cathy

Penny has a baby friend named Maddox whose almost a month older than she is, and boy can he talk! After seeing him on Wednesday for Mom's Group, Pen decided that it would be super neat to imitate Maddox. So she's been talking up a storm lately! "Whadawhatcha badabada blah blah blah" All. Day. Long.

This is, of course, when she's not fussing. I'm hoping that whatever it is that's bothering her will be done with soon - teething, a cold, desire to drive us crazy... whatever it is I hope it's over soon. She's been sleeping with us for the past two nights and I'm tired of being kicked in the ribs or head butted from 1am until morning. The restless sleeping can't be good for her either, so I'm really hoping she has a good night tonight.

We cleaned out her toy box today as well and packed up a good number of toys that she's either outgrown or that I can no longer stand. Her activity table was one of them - she doesn't really play with it anymore and it was starting to get on my nerves.

**45 minutes after she went down, she woke up... went back down in her own crib so lets hope it was a fluke.

Anyway, we'll break the toys out again once New Baby is old enough for them and by that time I will hopefully have forgotten all of the songs the darn activity table plays. Toys that stayed out were all her musical instruments (like the xylophone and drum), the balls, a few stuffed animals, her stacking cups and blocks, and a bunch of books. Her favorite thing to do now is read, so we didn't really need all the other toys - they'd just lie there on the carpet collecting dog hair (ew!).

I do have some new video, but haven't gotten a chance to upload and edit yet - I don't know when I'll get around to it since there are so many things I need to do this weekend and next week.

I'll touch briefly on my employment issues, but I don't want to dwell on them too much. I'm still trying to stay positive about the situation and I don't want to turn this blog into my own pity-party - it is, after all, primarily a blog about the babies since I haven't done much in the way of a traditional baby book. But I will keep everyone updated on the job situation so we can all celebrate when I'm gainfully employed again :)

I filed for unemployment, toggled with my resume, and applied for about half a dozen jobs (mostly administration since teaching jobs are impossible without my credential). I'll hopefully know in the next few weeks if I've qualified for an emergency teaching credential, which would allow me to take substitute teaching jobs. Those are super hard to come by with all the teacher layoffs, but it won't hurt to at least try. I've also printed out the paperwork for Medical, Healthy Families, and WIC. I doubt we qualify for Medical, but we should qualify for Healthy Families and WIC which would mean Penelope and I would have health insurance - hooray! Bryan may have to wait until I find a new job until we can afford to get him health insurance, so hopefully he stays healthy until then!

Luckily we don't need any formula or diapers (hooray for cloth!). We do use disposables when we travel, but a package of those lasts us awhile and we can't really afford to travel now anyway :)

So while things aren't great, I'm still super stressed, and the next few months will be very difficult, I'm trying to stay optimistic about the whole situation. We've canceled some non-necessities (poor Bryan has given up his iPhone) and we're going to making more cuts next week. It's a good thing we like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!