full term

How far along are you? 37 weeks, which means Brady is officially full term! My hospital bag will be packed tomorrow just in case he decides to arrive before April 4.

How big is the baby? To quote babycenter.com, "Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard)." Very helpful. Everyone can easily visualize Swiss chard.

Maternity clothes? yes.

Weight - Loss or Gain? I'm at 32 lbs as of my dr. visit last week - still on track to stay within the recommended weight gain of 35 lbs. With Tate, I lost 25+ lbs by my 2-week postpartum checkup, so I think it will be fairly easy to shed the baby weight and return to my pre-pregnancy self. The hard part is going to be those additional 15 lbs that need to go as well. Baby steps.

Stretch marks? ugh. I broke down and ordered the $50 (!) stretch mark cream that Dr. Soufi has been shamelessly promoting for commission telling me about. I'm skeptical, but hopeful.

Sleep? Still doing ok in the sleep department. Acid reflux hasn't been bothering me at night anymore, but I do have to get up a few (2-3) times a night to use the bathroom. But, I'm not complaining and I'm trying to savor my last two weeks of real sleep. I know what's in store for me in the first month with a newborn.

Any movement? Yes. Lots of hiccups, rolling movements, pokes and jabs, and the occasional, painful foot in the ribcage.

Food Cravings? Milk, milk, milk.

Food Aversions? Nope.

Belly Button in or out? MIA and not a good look.

What do you miss? Being able to run and play with Tate. Since he was only 16 months old when we found out we were expecting Brady, he probably only ever remembers me as "pregnant mommy." I'm sure it will be quite a shock to learn that I'm not normally this slow or have such a huge belly.

What are you looking forward to? Meeting Brady in 14 days!

What was the BEST part of this week? The great weather in Atlanta....date night with Keith to see "The King's Speech"...successfully completing 2 stressful projects at work....and just being amused in general by Tate. One example:

While sitting at a red light near Piedmont Park, Tate was craning his neck to check out the Grady High School track/football field and was having a hard time getting a good view because of the parked cars along the side of the street. So, logically, my 23 month old tells me, "mommy, move those cars so I can see better." (sure, sweety!) And then, after moving up 5 car lengths during the brief light change and having to sit through the red light again..."thanks, now I see better." Good thing he doesn't think the world revolves around him. :)

What was the WORST part of this week? After a string of daily weird/annoying incidents, Friday morning's catastrophe wins hands down as the worst part of the week. Tate was already bathed and dressed and we were both in my bedroom/bathroom as I was getting dressed so that I could drop him off at school. I left the room for 2 minutes to grab a shirt from the laundry room and returned to a horror scene of Tate's mouth and hands COVERED in blood. He had Keith's bathroom drawer opened and I knew instantly that he must have found Keith's razor. Tate wasn't crying or reacting yet in any way, so I did my best to remain calm and grabbed a towel to begin trying to locate the source of the blood. I discovered a half-inch slice on his bottom lip and tried to clean him up while applying pressure to stop the bleeding. Good grief do lips bleed a lot! It took well over an hour before the bleeding finally stopped and I felt assured that he didn't need stitches. By the time I dropped him off at school at 11am, we were both drained and in need of a nap. (Tate actually got to take one...I got to do a load of bloody laundry and try to catch up on my morning missed at work)

Anyway, I learned 3 things from this event:

1. I am braver than I think I am, and I'm proud to have earned another notch in my "mommy-didn't-faint-in-an-emergency" belt.
2. We need to do a more thorough child-safety inspection of our house...especially with another one on the way. We have safety locks on our bathroom and kitchen cabinets, but I didn't consider the contents of this particular bathroom drawer and it clearly wasn't secured.
3. I read that petroleum jelly can help stop bleeding quicker. Will try that next time.

Weekly Wisdom? See #2 above. Also a good reminder that anything can happen when you take your eyes off your child...even in just 2 minutes.

Milestones: Brady's full-term-ness

little heckler

Tate and I went to the Kell baseball game today and sat outside of the player's dugout. Occasionally during the game, a player would come out of the gate right by where Tate was standing and head into the field house. The first time it happened, he turned to me and said, "where is that baseball player going?"....to which I replied, "the potty."

For the rest of the game, I couldn't help but laugh at what might be my new favorite Tate-ism...

"Hey, Big Boy...you going potty?!?!" (yelled at the top of his lungs)

car seat

Testing out Brady's car seat for me...

what's the opposite of a break-in?

A lock-in??

As if this week couldn't get any weirder, today's highlight was getting locked out of the house and getting to crawl through our sun room window to get back inside. But, the actual story of how this happened is more bizarre than the finale...

Around 2pm I left the house for a quick run to the grocery store and left the front door unlocked. 40 minutes later, I returned home with two heavy armfuls of groceries only to discover that I couldn't get in the front door. After trying it several times, I was sure that the door was not just stuck... the deadbolt was definitely fully engaged and the door was locked. Now, as a 9-month pregnant woman, alone in the middle of the day, this scared me.

My first reaction was to call Keith to see if maybe he came by the house after work and before his baseball game. He hadn't been here, so I was a little more alarmed and we stayed on the phone as I checked things out. Sampras and Bentley (my cats) were both sitting in the entryway and seemed to be acting normal, which was a good sign. I walked around to the side of the house and could see through the window that the tv and computer were still there and nothing seemed to be out of order. So, basically everything seemed normal except for the mysteriously locked door.

Feeling like the house was safe, the next issue became how to get back inside. Both the back door and the garage door were locked, so my only choice was to climb through the sun room window that I knew was open. I was at least able to get a chair from the garage to help with this event and I made it in unharmed, but the entrance was anything but graceful.

As I was walking through the kitchen to check out the problem with the door, I noticed a business card on the countertop:

City of Roswell
Police Department
S.A. Bryant
Police Officer II

And scribbled on the back "I found your front door unlocked. Nothing appears to be missing."

?!?!?!?!?!?!

Questions that come to mind:

1. Is it legal for a police officer to enter an unlocked home?


2. Why would he check to see if my front door was unlocked to begin with?


3. Was there suspicious activity around the house to cause concern?


4. What if I had been in the home when he entered? (just bc there is no car in the driveway doesn't mean I couldn't have been there)


5. Would the City of Roswell have reimbursed me if I would have had to call a locksmith or break a window to get in?

I'm assuming that the officer's intentions were good and I'm happy to live in a neighborhood that takes safety seriously....but this seems a little invasive and Big Brother-ish to me. Wouldn't you agree??

P.S. I tried to call Officer Bryant to get the story (and tell him mine), but it was after his work hours. I will try him again tomorrow.

P.P.S. I will be locking my doors and carrying a key with me from now on. If for no other reason than to keep the police out!!

P.P.P.S. Here is a cute picture of Tate for those of you who have had to endure three non-child-related posts in a row.

robot bathroom

We had idyllic weather in Atlanta this weekend...70's, sunny, slight breeze....so, what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than at Piedmont Park?

We brought a picnic lunch, played baseball/soccer/football/bubbles with Tate, ran around with Lindsey and Dan's dogs and enjoyed the afternoon sun. Perfect.

Except for the rough start in the first 10 minutes, thanks to this:

ROBOT BATHROOM

Seeming like a very modern, clean, port-a-potty-of-the-future, I had no hesitation about making a quick pit stop as we entered the park. I was even a little impressed with the park at first for embracing this space-aged technology.

The instructions were clearly marked. You push a button on the outside to open the door and then push a similar button on the inside to close it. The door slowly closes, a red light confirms that the door is locked, and your robot host (voice from above) welcomes you and tells you that you now have 10 minutes to complete your business. How pleasant!

Too bad that the robot LIES!!!! No more than 1 minute into this adventure - and in the most compromising and vulnerable position possible - I notice the metal door slowly beginning to OPEN! In this situation, I would imagine that one has 2 choices:

• Choice A: Remain calm. Quickly pull up your pants, ignore the few pedestrians (and passing traffic on 10th Street) and casually depart the bathroom as if pushing the button at this stage of the process was the desired intention all along. Result: Very little attention drawn to yourself.

• Choice B: Wildly dash to the corner of the metal box with pants around your ankles and begin shrieking at the top of your lungs - throwing in a few obscenities for added effect. Depart the bathroom flustered and red-faced with a bevy of onlookers from a ~100 yard radius. Result: Entire park now snickering about the 9-month pregnant woman who just got tricked by the robot bathroom and peed in public.

One can only guess which choice I made.

But, hey, this is just one person's experience. You can check out this site on yelp for 16 other reviews...some of while hail this bathroom as a "must do" in Atlanta.

If that's the case, I've gladly checked this one off as "complete".

big fish

I love our neighborhood.

Around 5:30pm yesterday, I was standing in the entryway of our house gathering up my keys and purse so that I could pick Tate up from school when there was suddenly A LOT of noise outside. I could hear a man screaming in the front yard (a fight? break-in?) and curiously peered out the window to see our neighbor Trent yelling and running frantically toward our house with his 3-yr-old son Cal right behind him. (a fire? is someone injured?)

Thankfully, it was just this...

...a GIANT bass caught in the lake behind our house. Trent didn't have a camera and needed someone to take a picture before he threw it back in. :)

(And, yes, the fish survived....)

choo choo

We had hoped to take Tate to the zoo yesterday, but it was a little too cold and very windy, so we settled for a train ride at Northpoint Mall instead. Tate probably would have stayed on it all day if we had let him....