3RD TRIMESTER ALREADY?

Whoa, this pregnancy is seriously flying by... This morning I had my 28-week check-up already, putting me squarely into the 3rd trimester. I started my morning bright and early with the dreaded gestational diabetes test. It wasn't so bad though. The orange drink actually didn't taste as bad as I remembered, and I passed the test with a score of 122. My iron level was so good (13.8) that my doc asked if I was taking iron supplements. My weight and blood pressure were both good. And Cora's heartrate was at a mobile 147bpm.

Here is my 28-week belly photo, taken this morning (27w5d gestation):

In other Cora news, I've been seeing visible kicks from her since just before the 26-week mark. I had forgotten how fun that is, and sometimes see my belly bounce even before I feel the kick! I hate to admit it, but I haven't been enjoying these things like I did last time... With James, I recall spending hours, literally, just sitting or rocking with my hands on my belly, trying to savor every kick. Don't get me wrong, I notice all Cora's kicks, but I have a LOT less time for sitting and rocking this time around! And when I AM sitting or rocking, I usually have James in my lap. In fact, Cora's most active time of day is James' bedtime. As soon as I settle into the glider with him, she starts her big show. I know James is starting to take notice of it too because every now and then as he's drifting off to sleep she'll give him a strong kick to his belly (as it's pressed up against mine, of course) and his eyes will shoot open and he'll look at me like "What was THAT Mama?" It's funny, but it IS also making our bedtime routine a little longer these days... Cora's 2nd favorite time of day to practice her kicks and punches is MY bedtime (which sometimes occurs immediately after James', I admit, but is usually at least 1-2 hours later), as I'm trying to fall asleep, or whenever I get back in bed after a middle-of-the-night bathroom visit. She has good timing, this girl. I can't blame her though. I know the drill. Babies are lulled to sleep by their mommy's movements, and when I stop moving (even for as little as 2 minutes), she wakes up. I'm trying to convince myself to enjoy that 10-20 minutes of activity no matter what time of night though. It's not like I'm sleeping well anymore anyway. Oh the joys of the big belly... At least Jay is willing and able to be my tow-rope (during the daylight hours)!

And speaking of the speed of this pregnancy, it was just 2 weeks ago that we really started to "prepare" for Cora's arrival. At James' birthday party (when I was at 23-weeks), a friend asked what we were going to do as far as a nursery for Cora. If you recall with James, we had his nursery nearly COMPLETED by the time I hit 26-weeks (the week my mom and grandma came to visit for Thanksgiving). And I had to admit that this time around, we had nothing set up for our baby girl. We had done a lot of thinking, just not a lot of acting yet... Though she does have quite the wardrobe already, thanks to her grandmas and Auntie Robyn:

Seems she won't be needing to wear as many of her brother's hand-me-downs as I originally thought... I was surprised, but as I was going through James' old things about a month and a half ago, and asking for Jay's approval along the way, he said way more often than I expected "That's too boyish"! I suppose he wants his baby girl to look the part even more than HE expected. Just wait until I post of photo of all the hairbows we've purchased...

Anyway, for those who haven't heard, the plan is to move James into the guest room downstairs, and move the guest room into the computer room. James will be moving to a regular bed (just a mattress on the floor to start, but a GREAT mattress - TempurPedic!) and using all of his Daddy's furniture from when he was growing up (the bunk beds won't be moved in for a while though, obviously). The computers will stay in the computer/new guest room. And Cora will move into James' current room: the nursery. No, we are not repainting it (we picked light green the first time around for practical reasons!) or buying any new furniture or major baby items (we also chose gender-neutral nursery furniture, carseat, bouncer, etc.). But we WILL be making the nursery girly, don't you worry. We purchased a gorgeous pink and white bedding set, we'll be changing out the wall decorations (Cora's Auntie Taryn will be putting her creative and artistic bilities to work again), and Jay will build Cora her very own special bookcase. It may take us a while to put it all together, but we realize this 2nd time around that we really do have plenty of time to get it done. The biggest benefit of doing this again so soon (and by THIS I mean having a baby) is that not only are we experienced and thus more relaxed, we REMEMBER everything (and if my mommy brain combined with my pregnancy brain prevents me from remembering, I have the trusty blog to jog my memory)!

The other benefit of doing this again so soon? All my maternity clothes still fit and are still in style. Booya.

ALOHA!

My best friends are moving to paradise today! Much anticipated, and MUCH deserved.

Best of luck in the islands guys! We'll be visiting just as soon as we have vacation time stored up again... Love ya!

HAPPY EASTER FROM THE LINDSAYS

James celebrated his 2nd Easter holiday today, and we put a lot more effort forth than a pile of bunnies this year! We started out with church, where James attended Nursery for the first time. He did great, plowing head-first into the pile of blocks, then climbing the corner of soft stairs and slides as we headed to the service: After the service, I captured a 4-generation photo:

Next was lunch, where James slept sprawled across our legs:

And after an errand and another LONG nap at home (for everyone except Jay), we commenced play time! Here is James being dragged around the living room by his Daddy:

Opening his Easter Basket (which he picked out for himself at the store): Wondering what the green stuff was hiding in the Easter Eggs his Grand Aunt Margie sent him:
Enjoying his new Jelly Belly scented bubbles:Helping Mommy open Cora's Easter gifts (clothes!) from Jean and Grandmother, and modeling (proudly) the bonnet she received (Hey, it's only fair, right? Cora will be modeling MANY of James' old clothes in the near future):

And ending the day with a photoshoot and BBQ. It's REALLY hard to get a good family photo with a 13-month-old, even when there are TWO grandmas on the other side of the camera dancing and singing. This is the best one we managed:

We had better luck when we posed James with his GG:

Squealing at Maxine (the sunroom/outside kitty):

Our boy loves flowers:

He stood all on his own for 10 whole seconds while Jay took this next photo:

I love this one Jay captured of me with my babies (only 3 months to go, Miss Cora!):

By the end of the photo shoot James was ready for more snuggle time with Mommy. Lately he's added leg/clothes/blanket/stuffed animal snuggling to his thumb-sucking routine. Adorable, I tell ya. And check out those eyes... they looked so brown in the outside lighting next to my dress:

BIG BOY!

13-months-old today and still growing by the day. He's getting more and more daring while standing (letting go for a few seconds here and there, and often holding on lightly with just one hand):

Wearing big boy sandals (and looking mighty cool in his Adidas 'Hat Trick' outfit):

Sliding down a real slide,with constant assistance of course (awesome static):

And swinging in a big boy swing:

"Official" stats at 13-months: 22.8 lbs. Still putting it on. And still going straight to his belly...

BIRTHDAY REVISITED

Now that his Grandma and GGmama are here, James got to celebrate his birthday AGAIN, lucky kid!

He got a cool fridge magnet set that teaches the sounds of letters and plays the alphabet song:

Some new books and clothes:

A neat snack container and some new snacks:

And his very first potty:

And no, we will not be potty training James anytime soon. I had just read that it's a good idea to have a potty around and let him get used to it's presence, well before we even START showing him what it's for or how to use it. Honestly, he can't even walk yet (though he did let go of me and stand on his own for about 5 seconds this afternoon, then dance around while barely holding onto me), so of course we're not potty training. Between his separation anxiety and insatiable curiosity these days, he does spend a lot of time following Jay and I into the bathroom though, and we figure if we're not going to have any privacy anymore, we might as well explain to him what we're doing. So he is getting a LITTLE training, I suppose. Today, he just thought it was fun to take the center portion of the potty out and use it as a bucket to store his toys in...

AIN'T NO FOOLIN'...

...James is happy to have his Grandmama and GGmama here to visit:

JAMES CAN CLIMB

Nope, the boy can't walk yet, but he can sure climb. Tonight we let him climb the stairs (supervised and spotted for safety) for the third time:

Don't mind his heavy breathing, he'd been chasing Jay and I around the house for 30 minutes after dinner, expending as much energy as possible before bed... His energy AND ours!

RANDOM ACTS OF CUTENESS

Zerberts and then some...

We haven't yet managed video of James giving us zerberts, so this one with the couch will have to do. And though he's been doing the other thing for weeks now, it wasn't until we picked him up from daycare on Friday that we learned who he got it from - his best buddy Gabriel. When we got there to pick him up that afternoon the two of them were sitting on the floor facing eachother and looking quite pleased with themselves, putting on a show. Of course, we DID teach him the concept originally. And we DO still do that to him any time he's crying for absolutely no reason, just to distract him.

Kids are sure adorable:

GETTING DUE RECOGNITION

James has been progressing with another milestone over the past few weeks, and there's no doubting now that he knows the names of his toys. Some of them, anyway. We started out by placing 2 of his favorite push-and-go toys in front of him and asking him to "show us the alligator" (as opposed to the caterpillar). That worked a few times. Then we decided to increase our "labeling" efforts and started repeating ourselves over and over and over. We label EVERYTHING now. And it's working. Now I can ask James to "go get your xylophone" and he will. If I say "play Mommy some music", he does. He can successfully point to the monkey on his crawl-to-cruise jungle, roll a ball to us when asked, and "go get Daddy" (James LOVES to chase his Daddy, in addition to the cats these days).

And speaking of pointing, James has been pointing at EVERYTHING since last weekend (you likely saw the photo of him pointing up at the ceiling in the BEFORE AND AFTER post). As of Friday, he's added a "question" to his pointing... he'll point at an object and say "eh?", and wait for us to name it. Fun stuff.

Yesterday James received a surprise gift in the mail from his Uncle Davey and Auntie T'in. It's called "Scout" and it's a stuffed puppy that you personalize wtih your child's favorite foods and colors and music, etc. James was impressed even before we got him out of the box. Not to mention when we hooked him up to the computer and his little dog tag started lighting up - James was beside himself and couldn't wait to get his hands on him! Here he is pointing at Scout once we set him down in front of him:

Getting a good hold on his ears:

And smiling at his new friend, who, among other things, says "I love you James":

Of course, to us it sounds more like a question... "I love you, James?" Too cute though. Thanks guys, it was awfully nice of you to send James a present on his COUSIN'S 1st Birthday! Happy Birthday Eli, we love you and miss you and hope you had a great party today!!

P.S. Don't mind the excessive drool on James' pajamas today. Poor kid is still teething hard, and we've been wiping slobber and boogers off him all day. And there's only so much you can do...

BABY'S GOT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES

They're new, and they're even a size larger! James' toes were FINALLY starting to creep towards the ends of his size 3 shoes, so we ordered him some new shoes for summer, with plenty of room to grow (there is a HUGE difference between size 3 and size 4):

These cool sandals are Umi's, a brand I bought once before from Babysteals.com (if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend them - one item per day, anywhere from 40-70% off). The blue/gray shoes that I got CHEAP from Babysteals are also size 4's, so we knew they'd "fit" (as opposed to the other sandals I had previously purchased in size 4 from a different brand, which might fit James when he's actually 4...). We love the Umi's because they're soft-soled, yet have grippers to help early walkers from slipping and falling, and they're super easy for us to get off-and-on. Not to mention these sandals fully protect his toes, which is good since he's still crawling. Two thumbs up!

P.S. Although James has moved up a shoe size, he's mostly still wearing his size 12-month clothes. Some of the pants are starting to get too short, but the 18-month pants are ridiculously long on him... I guess we'll resort to tight-rolls soon (just kidding)! He can wear the 18-month shirts and onesies though, they just hang loose... So for those of you who bought James size 18-month clothes for his birthday, don't worry, you'll start seeing pictures of him in those soon!

BEFORE AND AFTER

That's right folks, James is feeling a lot better today. How do I know? Well, for starters, his appetite is back. Whereas yesterday I had to plead, trick, and coerce James into eating half of the two meals I bothered to attempt to feed him, today he couldn't get enough. Since he did so well at breakfast and lunch, I decided to make him a fun dinner, including some of his favorite finger foods (cheese, bananas, grapes, and crackers), and give him his first real opportunity to feed himself with a spoon (refried beans): Sure, we've let him HELP us feed him with a spoon before (his hand under ours). And we've let him play with his spoons on multiple occasions (without anything he could scoop up and toss about the kitchen). But we've never just given him free-reign to do as he pleased with actual food that fits into the utensil. At first he just went for the cheese and grapes, but as he watched us eat our soup with our spoons, he started to imitate us. We're not sure exactly how MUCH of the beans made it into his belly, but he sure made a valiant effort:
And yes, he ate all that fruit, even though it was covered in beans. Gross.

The other reason I know he's feeling better is that yesterday he took 4 naps totaling 5 hours of sleep. Today he took 2 "naps" totaling 50 minutes of sleep. It's been a busy day around here...

He's still a bit fussy and extra clingy (I swear I must have gotten 5 dozen hugs today, not that I'm complaining - I love my little snuggler!), but who can blame him? At least one of the molars pushed through last night (we know because the pre-eruption cyst was completely gone this morning), so hopefully the rest will follow suit soon - his gums sure look sore...

Just for fun, I let James have some "air time" this afternoon after his shower (steaming out the boogies). Since we no longer trust James to be completely nude during these episodes (for reasons I will not be recording for posterity), I bought him his first pair of underwear. DINOSAUR underwear! How cool is he?And how gorgeous is that face?He was loving the shadows the blinds were making this afternoon, and he was having fun chasing his own shadow around too. That is, until he ventured out of the sun spots... then he was confused about where his shadow went. He kept pushing up on his hands and knees and looking back between his legs as if his shadow would be there hiding from him:

Silly baby. I hate to go back to work tomorrow and miss all this fun, but staying up until midnight to finish the hours that I didn't get in during the day is not so much fun... I do appreciate being able to work from home now and then though - it's always wonderful to get "extra" time with James. Love you buddy, and so glad you're feeling better!

IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S FOUR...

Long story, quick version. Well, my version of "quick".

James was diagnosed with a mild case of thrush back on March 5th at his 12-month well baby exam, if you recall. After 12 days, it hadn't gone away. We noticed that he had bad breath (which he never does), checked his mouth, and discovered that the thrush had actually spread. Called the doc and got a new Rx. A few days later (Saturday), we noticed the bad breath was worse, but the thrush was better. Hmmm. That night (after the parade) he started coughing a bit (a mild cough, so we thought "cold"). He'd already had a runny nose for a couple days (and we'd already thought "cold" or "teething"). And there's nothing you can do for a cold. Not really. The only things that seemed "off" were that he had gotten a report of "whiney" at daycare on Friday (and he NEVER gets anything but a "happy" mark), hadn't been eating as much since Thursday (but we thought, it's just that he's 1-year-old and is asserting his opinions more and being picky), and was quite fussy on Sunday (though he was perfectly happy all day Saturday). Never had a fever. When we woke him up this morning, his cough was worse (reminding us a bit of the "croupy cough" he had back when he got croup in December). We decided to pull out the flashlight and get a good look into his mouth, whether he liked it or not (he didn't, obviously). What we found scared us - a dark purple spot on his upper gums. We worried that he had perhaps bitten into something he shouldn't have and cut himself, with an infection being the cause of his bad breath. So we called the doc and brought him in. And we learned a few things:

1. James is getting all FOUR molars at once, hence his fussiness. His gums are beyond swollen, and that dark purple spot is actually a "pre-eruption cyst" that is not at all uncommon. That upper right molar will likely be the first to push through. And all we can do is give him Tylenol and/or Motrin to help with the pain. No wonder he's been waking at night lately (though not consistently).

2. You can't always trust the pharmacy. The first Rx we had for James' thrush was suppose to be a 4 times/day med, yet they had instructed us to give it only once/day. No wonder his thrush worsened and spread. And no wonder the 2nd Rx (the stronger Rx for thrush that IS meant to be given only once/day) worked so fast!

3. We are getting pretty good at diagnosing croup. We caught it very early this time (hence the lack of fever, which we will hopefully be able to maintain so James can go back to daycare tomorrow). It's just settling in, it's what is causing the nose drainage (along with the teething, of course), and we're going to knock it out fast with the antibiotic shot he received this morning and Amoxicillin.

4. We have impeccable timing in this house - Jay is T-minus 5 days from his GRE and we'll likely have a rough week of sleep as these molars make their way to the surface...

But what can you do? Be vigilant, trust your instincts (if you think your kid is off his game, there's probably a reason, or four), and just let the baby sleep it off as much as possible. Little man is enjoying some snuggle time with his Daddy right now, in fact, his 4th nap of the day:

A NEW UNDERSTANDING

For the past few months, ever since James learned to crawl, we have been slowly trying to teach him how to get down off our bed safely. He's so fast now that we're worried we won't be able to catch him to make sure he doesn't launch himself headfirst into the ground, so we've stepped up our efforts over the last couple of weeks. We decided to let him crawl to the edge, then tell him to stop and turn around, and then guide him down. For the first time yesterday he showed us that not only does he understand what we're asking him to do, he understands how to do it, and he will listen to us and actually do it. Success! We nearly cried realizing that this is just the first of many useful things we'll be able to teach him (OK, I did cry, a little). Getting him to imitate our actions (like waving, clapping, and giving-five, all of which he can do when he WANTS to) is fun, but this is by far more satisfying:

Not to mention, it's awfully cute to watch him pause at the end of the bed and slowly tap a leg forward over the edge like he's testing the water before he trusts himself to swing around and slide down. Hooray for James, and hooray for safety!

IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

That was the theme for this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Jackson, MS. Although we've lived here just over 3 years now (a record in itself, as we had been used to moving every 2-2.5 years since we moved out of our parents' homes before college), this is the first time we were able to attend. All other years I was TDY (that's acronym-speak for being on a work trip) or home with a brand-new baby! The parade was not exactly what we expected. It started off with a giant Kermit the Frog balloon and a few marching bands, then quickly turned into a Mardi Gras-style parade complete with scantily clad women, bead tossing, and more...

We started off the parade with a bottle, since James had slept through his noon feeding on the drive to the parade:

But he quickly enjoyed some sun in Sandy's arms:

For a while, James had more beads than his Daddy, but he decided to trade them out for snacks:

The after party crawfish boil was held at the Welty Commons. Here is James showing us where Eudora's nose is:

It was a really fun day for us, made all the better because James was so well behaved. Thanks buddy, we sure appreciate it!