Daddy Doing Laundry

Yes, Aaron was putting a load of his own clothes in the machine last night. He is very unaccustomed with doing chores in general, let alone with a toddler underfoot. Just like another munchkin she is constantly grabbing the clothes, messing with the soap, trying to fill the Downy ball, etc. Our laundry room is little so it can be annoying. Since I am such a tender and loving Mother I just tell Noelle to scram and leave me alone while I take care of business. Last night she was, of course, being her helpful self. This is what Aaron says....

First of all be squats down and gets her to make eye contact with her grabs hold of both her shoulders and the speech begins, "Noelle you are growing up too fast and trying to do too much! You are still a baby and too little to be touching soap and softener. Only Mommy and Daddy can touch these things. You have to be a little bit bigger to do that, OK? You will grow and get bigger and be able to help later but right now you are too little. Do you understand Daddy?"

She looked him right in the eyes and said, "Yes, Daddy I understand and I will no longer touch the soap and softener. Thank you for teaching me. " Ha. Ha.

As much as I would like there to be....there is really no potty training going on in our house to speak of. She just wants control so I am biding my time. She wants to sit on it sometimes...at least she is picking up some good habits along the way like reading!

Doctor's Appointments

I have been to many of them in the last 4 days....

• Dr Tabsh (MFM) for level 2 ultrasound....baby looks great!!!! Back in 4 weeks.
• Dr Mach (Endo) for blood work and exam. My T3 levels still high, T4 within the high normal range (yea!), TSH still low but can take up to 6 months to regulate. Because of T3 I still need to stay on high dose of PTU but weaned off of labetalol. Goiter is noticeably softer (really great!) Talked about post delivery options....which aren't many because I will breastfeed. Focus on getting control now so that I can take as little PTU as possible to not interfere with said breastfeeding. Labs showed my bones are still turning over at a high rate, should work itself out. Answers why I am still have so many muscle cramps even though I am taking extra calcium...take more. Follow up blood work in 4 weeks, see doctor in 6 weeks.
• Dr Cooper (OB) all is great. I will go back on my own for the glucose test because Noelle was bouncing off the walls and there was no way I was going to hang out for another hour. I am going back by myself with a book! Agreed to see me in 3 weeks rather than 2 because I am being doctored to death!

Memory

This Baby Girl...

Two days went by and little baby was very quiet, not moving very much. The third day I had not felt her move at all. This is a huge contrast to her constant movement. I called Copper's office just to ease my mind. The nurse told me to drink some sugar water and do kick counts. 60 minutes later, zero movement. I should have felt 6-10 movements. I called back and the nurse sounded really worried and told me to go to the nearest hospital. Seriously??!! I really KNEW everything was just fine but it still was worrisome. She must be like her Daddy...a marathon napper.

I go to Simi Valley hospital, which was amazing, by the way. I knew their terrible reputation but the intake nurse pretty much jumped (leaving some guy with a hurt foot) to wheel me upstairs. The new building is just gorgeous and the nurses were fantastic. All is well, as soon as the monitor was strapped on my belly she started having a dance party. Such a stinker.

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This brings me to the name dilemma we are facing. From the moment I knew I was pregnant I knew baby's name would be Madeleine but I could not come up with a middle name. It's not an easy name to match something with. I decided on M'Liss which is my sweet Mama's name. It's the only thing that sounded right. (Notice I am saying I and not we, Aaron has not had a lot of input thus far.) But my darling light of my life niece Evynn's middle name is M'Liss and I did not want to stir anything up family wise or take something away from her.

Our little friend Amanda REALLY wants us to name the baby Joy so that both girls have holiday names, which I would have liked. Joy was a no go but Aunt Lorrie pointed out that Madeleine Joy is really pretty. I do like it! Importantly, so does her Daddy, he was not hip on M'Liss for whatever reason but did not have any input so I told him too bad. Now I am conflicted even more. I also wanted our kids to have family middle names....no one in our family remotely has a name sounding like Joy. It's not a name I ever particularly liked but neither is Noelle.

So......Madeleine Joy Jones???

Tagged

3 Joys
Noelle's laugh when she cracks up at something.
Christmas Morning.
My Family.

3 Fears
Getting into a car accident with my kids in the car.
Getting eaten/attacked my rats or bugs.
Someone breaking into our house and hurting us (I watch too much Dateline.)

3 Collections/Obsessions
I love kitchen utensils.
When we travel I try to get a magnet & Christmas ornament.
Spode Christmas Dishes and Lladro figurines (I only have 2 so far.)

3 Surprising Facts
Since childhood my favorite food has been broccoli (right up there with pizza and dessert!)
I really LOVE being pregnant, I was sad when it was over and probably will be again.
I don't like bunny rabbits, especially fake statues, they're going to come nibble on me in the night. EEEEEK!

I TAG: Amy and Melissa (5 is too many!)

Some Things We've Been Up To...

We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy this last week doing some really fun stuff!

We go every year with our good friends, The Lindsays, to Mormon night at Dodger Stadium. We always have such a good time! This was the first year Noelle went and she really is a big fan. She LOVED it. Clapping and screaming with everyone else on que. She also loved getting to eat all kinds of junk food, of course.
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Last weekend we went to Santa Clarita to Concert in the Park. It's a huge production during the summer and a lot of fun. Everyone comes with a picnic and listens to the music. This evening was a U2 cover band and they were actually good!

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We went to Santa Clarita and spent the afternoon watching my cousins little girl, Natalie, while her Mommy went to the doctor and to an ultrasound for the baby they are expecting, too. Natalie was born exactly 366 days after Noelle and this baby GIRL is due about 4 weeks after Madeleine. YEA for little girls!

They had fun playing in the fountain, it's kind of like their little own pool.

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Aaron had the idea that Noelle was ready to go and see a movie at the theatre. I had my reservations but thought we could give it a go. The only kids movie playing was WALL-E and I had not heard good things about it. We thought that maybe she could sit trough Mama Mia! because she loves the music. Yep.....it only lasted about 10 minutes. I left and Aaron stayed and walked home when it was over. ~~

Lastly, we have had Amanda Lindsay staying with us for a few days. She is such a sweet little girl and wants to help out so much with Noelle. They had lots of fun reading books, running through the sprinklers, swimming in the pool, going to breakfast....we did lots!

Before her she left on Tuesday we spent the day at the beach. It was the PERFECT day. The weather was really warm, the water was so blue, there was a slight breeze, magnificent! Noelle of course had the best time. She is such a water baby, we could live on the beach.

Baby Update

All is well with our baby girl. I saw Cooper today, which of course, was a delightful experience. He is in a tizzy because the air conditioner went out on his car. I need to post a picture of his license plate.....is that OK? Please no one steal the idea and use it for any malicious activity. It's really funny.

Anyway, I closed my eyes when I got on the scale but to my delight I lost 2 pounds, I exclaimed, "God Bless America!" Is that using the Lord's name in vain? I have started out this pregnancy meatier than I would like and REALLY don't want to gain much weight. My blood pressure was just OK but I'm still getting good readings at home and my heart rate is still over 100......so no exercising but he did say I could 'stroll around the block' if I really wanted to.

Noelle loves hearing the baby's heartbeat. Afterwards we went across the street and saw Aunt Lorrie, she had some herbs for me from her garden. We peeked at the baby with her ultrasound machine that is meant for the heart but she is still small enough that she could get a decent picture. She was kicking back with her feet crossed.

We also saw Dr. Tabsh my Maternal Fetal Medicine guy last week and that went really well, also. Except for the fire alarm that kept going off. He did the 20 week 'anomaly scan' and she looked great. She did not have a goiter (which can be caused by the medication.) I will continue to see him every 4 weeks for a consult and ultrasound. I am finally starting to feel her move around in there. Dr. Tabsh confirmed that my placenta was anterior (on the front of my uterus) so it was blocking most of her movements. So, now I feel her several times a day and am so glad!

Thanks For Missing Me...

I feel like such a bad blogger..... I really do feel guilty, it's actually kept me away even longer because I feel bad AND I have so much to blog about that I am totally overwhelmed. So, I wrote a couple of quick posts last night. Hope ya'll are happy. You guys did not even act like you missed me! Geeesh!

I spent most of yesterday morning downloading all of my favorite Yosemite pictures into flickr (note: soooooooo glad that I did not delete my memory stick after I downloaded them onto the computer the first time because after the whole deleting fiasco I did not get ONE of those back.....but they were still in my camera so I downloaded them again. WHEW!) Anyway, I have never used flickr before but I thought I would for this, now I find out they don't do slide shows! WHAT? And I seriously cannot figure out how to get them back out when I want to use them. Doesn't it work like photobucket or any of the other programs where you get the code? I feel seriously challenged. Anyone with input would be appreciated.

Off to shower and put on our Sunday best.

How Long Does It Take To Get To San Diego?

A stinkin' long time! The Meldrums were spending the week there so Melanie, Norah, and us decided to ride down for the day. We left our house around 8:30 and drove to Valencia and jumped in Melanie's car. I'll save you the details but we did not get to San Diego until after 4:00. Yep. Long ride.

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Noelle got into the sunblock.....naughty.....naughty.

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Noelle loves baby Georgia! She constantly says "Noelle hold the baby!" I hope this is a sign of good things to come.

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Here's A little taste of a two year old in action.

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Silly me, these are the only pictures I took!

We did have Noelle's first 'injury' in San Diego. She is so wild and crazy, it's amazing that we have been able to avoid the ER, blood, stitches, all of it! But, Noelle and Jake were body slamming each other and Noelle's nose got smashed and there was blood. No pictures of the carnage but after some hugs and kisses she was fine. If you ask where her 'owie' is she will point to her nose and say, "My nose is owie!"

Who Taught Her to Do That??!!

NOT ME!!!!!!!