Happy New Year!  Although this little one isn’t a registered member of bf2k7 I thought I would show him off anyway.  This is Ethan’s new little Cousin Owen Thomas.  He was born almost 6 hours before ‘08 and I hear is a great little eater! A family vacation is planned for July, but I really hope we can meet him before then! 

Not too much happening on the Sogn side.  Ethan is starting to get a good handle on the napping thing.  I really hope he is able to sleep well at daycare which he will start tomorrow!  I have been to work 3 times now and it has gone well so far.  Now that the holidays are over it’s going to be a lot more busy, but we have hired a few more nurses over the last couple of months, so it will hopefully feel less stressful!   

I have come to the conclusion that you can’t squeeze a size 2 butt into size 1 diapers.  I have been leaked on a few times in the last couple of days, but I am desperately trying to use the last 70 size 1 diapers that we have!  Drew’s cousin has run into the same problem and said she is just storing them for the next kid.  I guess that’s the best solution. 

I have also been experimenting with naps.  Ethan’s still too young to be on an actual schedule I think, but I try to put him down as soon as he shows signs of not wanting to have have anything with the conscious world.  I’m nervous about him switching his day and night so I wake him up if it’s been more than 3 hours, I think he would sleep all afternoon if I let him!  I can’t decide what to do with him in the evening.  I want him to “go to bed” around 7-8 (since we’ll have to get him up around 7 when I go back to work) but he likes to take a nap around 5:30.  He must be so confused when I force him up only to be put back down again an hour later.  Yesterday he gave me a look when I was giving him his bath, and I knew he was thinking, “You seriously got me up for this?!”  So far we have been blessed with a good nighttime sleeper, I hope it lasts!  He typically will go for a 5 hour stretch followed by two 3 hour stretches.  Last night, though, he went 7 hours then another 4.  I could live with that!

Ethan and I visited his daycare yesterday.  I hadn’t been there since I was preggers and I wanted to check it out again before he goes at the end of the month.  I am still conflicted about the situation, but I feel this is the best solution we could hope for since I can’t afford to stay home full time.  I just hope he doesn’t walk for the first time while he’s there.  Maybe I’ll just tell the staff not to tell me if it happens and think he’s walking for the first time at home. :)  The teachers are very sweet and you can tell they really care for the babies.  I know he will be well taken care of, I just have to let my control issues go!  There was a baby girl who was playing when I got there and she wouldn’t stop grinning at Ethan.  What a flirt!!  It will be cute to see these kids grow up together, maybe his future best friend will be one of his classmates! 

I have noticed several similarities between Ethan and my cat, Bagel.  In a way, I think all babies and cats share many qualities.

* They are soft and cute

* They will sleep anywhere, for a majority of their day

* They will sleep in cribs (one of Bagel’s favorite sleeping spots is in the blanket drawer underneath Ethan’s crib)

* All they do is eat, sleep, and poop with a few alert moments during the day when they like to play

* They’re moody, acting sweet one moment and then thrashing out the next

* We would never eat the food they do, but they seem to love it

* They are entertained by simple things

* We can’t resist holding them

Hello all!  I apologize for being a total loser and not keeping up with the blog.  Once I started letting it go it was hard to get inspired to write again.  But now I am attempting it again! 

So a lot has happened since my post in July.  For one, Ethan was born 9/26!  The day was perfect except for the fact that my induction was bumped for 7 hrs due to the high volume of babies coming out because of the Havest Moon (yes, the full moon urban legend is true for labor & delivery as well as the ER).  Ethan was also trying to make it on his own even though we scheduled his due date.  I got pretty sick that morning for the first time in my pregnancy and was contracting quite a bit.  I think he would have made an appearence in the next 48 hours regardless.  My goal was to deliver on day shift (before 7pm).  I was 5-6cm when I got a bed at 2pm, I started pushing at 6:10, and he was born at 6:57!  Don’t get me wrong, I love our night shift nurses, but a majority of my friends work on days. 

Drew, who is the more dedicated to blogger than I started sogncentral.com if you really want all Ethan all the time.  There are pics and videos as well as daddy’s thoughts and experiences.  We can also invite you to out Kodak albums if you really want to see 300 pics of the little guy!

So now our boy is going to be 7 weeks old tomorrow.  The first few weeks of life were great!  He ate, slept, and pooped.  Now, he still does all of those things, but has the added skill of screaming/crying during the majority of his waking moments.  It will be wonderful when he decides that life isn’t all that bad and comes out of this stage, but for now we just have to take it one day (somestimes one hour) at a time.   

So I guess I popped while on vacation because I am getting comments about how pregnant I look from everyone I talk to.  I don’t feel bigger, but I guess it’s more noticable to others.  I have also started panicing.  About what, I’m not too sure.  I don’t know if it’s about labor, or going home with an infant, not knowing how to get on a schedule, or the next 20 years….  I guess it’s all of that.  Oh well, there’s no going back now.  I just have to go one day at a time.      

I do my glucose test today which I’m very nervous about!  Since I do diabetic teaching at my other job, I know I won’t be able to practice what I preach!  The diet isn’t complicated, but it’s not fun either.  I like starches too much. :)   

Even though I’m on vacation, I had to continue reading our baby updates.  I’m in Deep Creek Lake with Drew, his parents, his sister and brother-in-law, our niece, Emma, and Emma’s up in coming sibling who is currently gestating @ 15 weeks.  We got a great house this year, which I think we’ll be coming back to for years to come.  It’s on an inlet off the main part of the lake and has a great back yard covered in goose poop. 

So far, activities havecomprised of board games, movies, Wii games, fishing off the dock,  swimming in the lake, feeding the ducks, and collecting tiny frogs in Tupperware containers and keeping them until they suffocate.  Good times.  The boys are going to play golf tomorrow or Thursday, rain pending. 

Thor is 27 weeks today and must have gone through some kind of growth spurt yesterday.  He squirmed around more yesterday than all of his days combined.  That I could feel that is.  TUMS is no longer cutting it anymore and I have had to move on to bigger and better drugs, but I have no complaints. 

Ewwww.  Emma just squashed a big hairy spider. 

Good luck Kerry & Travis!!

The lack of movement Thor has is driving me nuts!  Actually, it’s more lack of feeling.  If I look at him on a sonogram, he is flipping like crazy, but I feel none of it!  My placenta is sitting up front, so he’s just kicking a pillow instead of me for now.  A co-worker of mine had the same issue and she didn’t start feeling anything until 30 weeks!  This is bumming me out because the movement was something I was really looking foreward to.  I also wanted to see feet moving across my belly, but that probably won’t happen.  Oh well…

So I had to but a maternity bathing suit the other day.  One of my friends invited me to her pool, and I had nothing to wear.  I’ve been told to just wear a bikini because the pregnant belly forgives all, but I didn’t think that looked too good.  However, the frilly moo-moo looking top of a maternity suit isn’t that attractive either.  It’s going to be a pretty comical afternoon! 

So as of yesterday, Thor could survive outside the belly if he decided to come out.  This has put me into another level of panic.  Before yesterday the pregnancy wasn’t very real.  I guess it was a form of self-protection.  But now I feel as though I have to pay more attention to what’s going on.  This is difficult as I still don’t feel much movement except when I’m trying to go to sleep, which has also gotten more difficult.  The need to pee every hour also  makes for a pretty restless night.  But I guess I’ll have to get used to that! :)  

I’m anxious to get the nursery done.  I know it’s early, but it would be fun to work on.  We ordered furniture, but it won’t be in for another 8 weeks so there’s not much we can do before then. 

So it hit Drew last night that we’re having a baby this year.  My sister bought us a bouncy seat off the registry and I set it up last night before he got home.  When he saw it, he realized someone would be occupying it in a few months.  Good for him!  It has not hit me at all yet!! 

I’m starting to feel a little movement at night if I lay on my side.  Other than that, I feel nothing at all. 

My belly has grown to the appopriate size that strangers are comfortable enough to ask me when I’m due without fear of insulting me for just being plain fat.  That is an unforgivebale mistake that I made last week.  I had to get a patient from the waiting room who had brought a friend with her, and I had no idea which one was the pregnant one.  I picked the wrong one, of course.