Baby C

(From November 20, 2011)

Today was a great day.  After only one month of trying for our third child, I took a pregnancy test this morning and discovered that I am pregnant.  Considering all the difficulties we had conceiving our first babies, I never thought this would happen so quickly.

When we were trying to conceive Miles and Vivienne, it was 8 months of trying plus lots of tests and tears.  Ultimately, the doctors discovered that I was not ovulating.  I took Clomid and conceived the twins during the first month of medication.  We were very thankful that our solution was so quick, because we have many friends who have gone down a much longer road than we did.

I remember asking my OB if he had any idea why I wasn't ovulating, and he said that the number one reason is stress.  At that point, I had a fairly stressful job - lots of traveling to the West Coast, long hours, hard work, a lot of responsibility (much of it self-imposed).  Needless to say, I would consider that life to have been "high stress".  My life now isn't easy breezy (how can life with two toddlers be easy?), but I don't have a constant, underlying level of anxiety that I had while I was working.  I end my days exhausted, but my life is definitely more fulfilling and less stressful than it used to be.  I strongly believe that is why we were able to conceive this baby so quickly.

Today was also race day.  We ran a 5k race on a newly-constructed nearby freeway.  You don't often get the opportunity to run on a huge road like that, so we signed up for this a month or so ago.  Well, after I got my positive test result this morning, I had to decide whether I was really going to go all out on this race or just run it casually.  After a little Googling, it looked like I probably shouldn't push it, but I have a hard time just trotting along when I had really planned on trying to set a 5k PR for myself.  I guess I settled for an "easy race" pace.  I wasn't exactly sauntering, but I wasn't running as hard as I could have, either.  Jason ran alongside me with Miles and Vivienne in the double stroller.  Our time was 25:30 (not great, but not too shabby).  We were the first stroller to come in, and I was 100th (out of 434) and 7th in my age group.  I think it's also fitting that we celebrated our third child by running a race with our first two.

DIY Beadboard on Our Kitchen Island

Another project that I worked on recently was adding beadboard to our kitchen island.  Our kitchen is about 10 years old - very white, very plain.  But it works, and I'm not willing to drop a bunch of money to update it right now.  A quick, cheap way (only about $20) to make it look much nicer was to add beadboard to the kitchen island.

Here is a picture of what the island looked like before.  Sorry for the bad photo quality.

I first removed the quarter-round from the bottom of the island and removed the outlet.  Next, I got a piece of beadboard (for only $20), cut it to fit, and adhered it right to the sides of the island with construction adhesive.  I had a very advanced method of clamping the beadboard to the island while it dried.

My mom and I sat there on the floor, leaning against the beadboard, playing Scrabble on my cell phone while we waited for it to dry.  Seriously, it probably took an hour to do all three sides.  Thanks for the help, Mom!

After the adhesive dried, I glued dowels in the corners of the island.  The dowels matched up to the bead of the surface perfectly, and made it look seamless where the pieces met at the corners.  Then I installed the outlet on top of the beadboard, caulked and painted it a subtle gray color.

And thanks to my talented friend, Dina, for helping me figure out what color to paint it.  And please excuse how messy my kitchen is in these photos.  See... we actually live in our house.  Crazy, I know.  It sure makes for lots of messes...

DIY Ruler Growth Chart

I finished this project a long time ago, but I forgot to blog about it.  I had been wanting to make a growth chart since the babies started standing on their own, but it took me a while to get around to it.  I decided that I wanted to make one that looked like a ruler. 

I bought a 6' piece of pine at the hardware store and used a straight edge and a paint pen to create the lines, numbers and letters.  I printed the numbers and letters using Microsoft Word.  I printed them backwards, put the paper onto the wood, scratched the back with something hard (maybe I used a quarter?) and then drew over the transferred ink with my paint pen.  The end result is really cute.

We were married in 2006.  =)

How to Make a Toddler Angry

Want to make one of my kids freak out?  Either wipe one of their faces after a meal (oh, the travesty!) or simply change their diaper (surely this is child abuse!).  You would think that we're trying to kill them.  It's even worse if you try to wipe their runny noses.  But I just can't let my kids run around with blueberries and oatmeal all over their faces, nasal mucus gone awry or poopy diapers.  Oh, the trials of motherhood.

Miles has such an aversion to the diaper change now that he will roll over and try to crawl off of the table.  It makes changing poopy cloth diapers LOADS of fun.  I feel like it takes me 10 minutes just to chase down all the poop that he has somehow gotten onto his hands/the changing pad/the table/his pants/his body.

Fun at the Playground

We are lucky to live in a town with lots of great parks and playgrounds for the kids to explore.  We go to many of them regularly, and there is enough variety that they don't get bored (though I doubt that they would really get bored at this age?). 

My mom was here helping me last week while Jason was in Seattle on business.  We spent a lot of time at one particular local park that the kids really enjoy.  We soaked in the amazing Fall weather that we have had recently.  The kids climbed, crawled, walked, jumped, slid and explored like crazy.  The leaves were at their peak, and the camellias were in bloom. 

I love spending time each day with the kids outside so that they can learn to appreciate the beauty that God created.  I also like to give them these opportunities outside to practice their motor skills in new environments.

Sitting in the Fallen Leaves of a Ginkgo Tree

They loved it when we would bounce with them on this wobbly bridge.

Miles Takes His First Steps

Miles took his first steps today.  He had never taken any steps on his own before today, and he took at least 5 steps in a row tonight.  Jason and I were sitting on the floor.  He held Miles up and said "walk to Mommy" and Miles took 5 unsteady steps on his own.  I could tell by the look on his face that he was incredibly proud of himself.  He sort of fell onto my hand, which made me scratch his face a little, so he immediately started crying... not a perfect ending to his first steps, but he recovered quickly.

To top it off, my mom is here visiting, so Grandma got to see his very first steps!  Jason is leaving tomorrow to spend a few days in Seattle for work.  I am so glad that Miles took his steps before Jason left.  We really didn't want Daddy to miss the big event.  Congratulations, Miles!

Baby Snakes

I have seen TONS of baby snakes on the trails during our runs.  Last week, I pretty much ran right over a baby copperhead with the double stroller while I was running with Elise.  It kind of recoiled a bit.  Elise took a picture and then we continued on.

Yesterday, I saw 5 baby copperheads in 6 miles.  That's almost one snake per mile!  I'm surprised by this, because I figured that you would see juvenile snakes in the springtime.  I'll be glad when it gets cold enough that I don't feel like I need to watch my feet for the entire run.