decorations

I really want to get out my fall decorations. I feel so guilty that I haven't put much out. I have a few fake mini pumpkins in a bowl on my table and that's about it. I don't have a ton of stuff anyway, just a few ceramic pumpkins and some fall foliage. But, I just can't get motivated to do it.  It almost seems pointless now since it's already the middle of October and in a month I'll have to start taking stuff down.  I'm already worried about how I'll get a Christmas tree up and decorated this year with 2 newborns...and all the lack of sleep that'll be going on around here. I for sure won't be decking the halls as I have in the past...probably just the tree and mantle will get decorated. Or, who knows. Maybe I'll feel so good and have so much energy that I'll put everything out...we'll play that one by ear.

One of our last fun filled weekends as a family of three

This weekend was busy. Our local zoo put on it's annual "Boo at the Zoo" and I wanted to take Lucy.  The kids get to dress in costume and then they have 10 treat stations set up as you walk through the zoo. You collect your treats and see the animals on the way. We were in luck that there were many animals still out. When I went with a friend 3 years ago there were hardly any animals out to see.  Lucy had a great time riding the carousel and the train. We were only there about an hour-it's a small zoo and doesn't take long to see it all. After we left there, we went to eat a later than usual dinner at Steak n Shake. 

Lucy dressed as Dora this year. This was the easiest costume. I could have purchased a store bought Dora costume, but really....why? All I needed for the costume was orange shorts (which I picked up at a yard sale for .25), a pink shirt (which we already had) and yellow socks. I did buy a plush backpack for her to wear, but that was the most expensive item I needed to buy.  I think her cosutme turned out great and people knew who she was supposed to be. I heard several little girls say, "hey look, she's dressed like Dora".  So, I say it was a success.

Waiting in line to get into Boo at the Zoo

                                    Riding the "meercat"...we had to tell her it was a Cheetah

Riding the train for the first time

Then today, Saturday, we headed over to The Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur. I love going here every year. They really do a fabulous job of using the pumpkins and gourds to create amazing sculptures and displays. They have a few animals to look at and lots of fun places to take pictures. It was such a beautiful fall day. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

Here are a few pictures from our fun day.

In the car on the way to the Pumpkin Patch!

Mommy and Lucy with one of the haybale guys.

Lucy and the turkey

Lucy and the pumpkin house

The straw maze for the little ones.

She's grown so much since last year!

One of the pumpkin displays

Family shot. Too bad there are so many shadows.

We ran into some good friends at the pumpkin patch and this is Lucy with her friend Meredith. They had a great time playing in the pumpkins while the grown ups chatted for a bit. You'd never guess that Lucy is a year younger than Meredith. They are the same size!

Trying to find just the right one to take home.

Finally decided on this one!

Stopping to smell the flowers.

Some of my favorite scenes. They do such a great job of making everything look so beautiful.

Such a great day. If you've never been to The Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, you really should make an effort to go. It's always worth it.

We have a date!

At my weekly doctor's appt. today they scheduled my c-section for November 4th! That's only 3 weeks from tomorrow!!  I am hoping I can hold out till then and that these girls don't decide to come any earlier.

Everything still looks good and the babies are very active. I can tell they are growing cause their movements are getting a lot more painful! I can't feel baby A as much because of her position and where the placenta is. I feel baby B all the time and she's an active little girl!

I am getting to the stage where I'm pretty much uncomfortable all the time. I have horrible back pain and I can't find any position that aleviates the pain.  Sleep is not happening as much as it was. I can't fall asleep cause I can't get comfortable and then when I do fall asleep I wake up to either go to the bathroom or to try and turn over to lay on my other side.  Talk about frustrating! 
( Don't take this as complaining, I use this blog as a diary of sorts and I like to be honest and keep it real so when I look back years from now I can remember exactly what I was feeling)

I've gained a total of 35 pounds so far and the nurse told me today that I could stand to gain a bit more. I took her at her word and tonight I had a caffeine free COKE float. Yum, it was so good!

I can't believe the end is in sight. This pregnancy has been full of surprises and at times seemed never-ending. Back in July I wasn't even sure we'd get this far and have 2 healthy girls to show for it.  We give all the glory to God for the miracle He's done in these girls.  The fact that we only had one amnio-reduction is amazing. I don't know how many times a nurse or sonographer has told me that they can't believe I didn't have to have repeat amnios.  Having the procedure work and continue working the first time is rare. Most women have to have it repeated several times.  God is awesome and His hands have been protecting our girls. We are so thankful to everyone who has been praying for our babies. 

smartypants

It's true that children of Lucy's age are like little sponges and they soak up learning and information at record speed. I'm constantly amazed at how and what Lucy already knows.

Last night we made a quick trip to Kroger (and it was wonderful to be able to pick out my own produce) and while I was looking, Dan was walking around with Lucy and talking about all kinds of different things. For some reason he started telling her about syllables and the number of sounds that words have. Lucy picked right up on it and did really well with telling us the number of syllables that a word had.

While drying her hair after bath tonight I was trying to get her to stand still so I started asking her about syllables again and would give her a word and ask her how many sounds she heard. She did really well and got just about all the ones I asked her. The words that had 4 syllables gave her a little more trouble, but I was still surprised that at 2 years old she could grasp this concept and have pretty good accuracy at doing it. 

She never fails to amaze me!!

clothes and shoes

It should not be this hard to clothe my almost 3 year old daughter...but it's a huge frustration.  Today we trecked over to Springfield to the children's shoe store, Luers. It's just about the only place I can find shoes to fit Lucy. She has a very wide foot - extra wide to be exact-  and  finding fall/winter shoes to fit her is so difficult. I'd love to be able to take her to Target and buy her the cute little shoes they have for girls, but I'm forced to go drop $60, yes, I said $60 for one pair of brown casual shoes that will have to go with everything. I also had to have the lady order a pair of black shoes as well. The black are a more casual shoe as well, but they'll have to do for church and holidays this year. The black ones are going to cost $50! The thing that irrates me the most is that there are only a few styles of shoes that even come in the extra wide. But, I hear from friends alot about how their kids also have really wide feet and they also have to buy expensive shoes. If it's fairly common for kids to have wide feet, then why is there so little selection?? And the lady at the store told me that some of the brands they carry are not offering the wide widths anymore?? WHAT??? 
Sometimes I am able to find shoes to fit her feet at Payless. Luckily they carry a Champion brand tennis shoe that comes in wide and so far, we've been able to get by with that. Last year I was able to find her a pair of brown mary-janes at Payless that fit her foot, but the frustrating thing about Payless is that no store carries the same thing. I find myself running all over central Illinois to the Payless stores trying to find the one shoe that might fit. So, today I decided that with being 32 weeks pregnant and not having the time or energy to do that, we'd just bite the bullet and buy 2 pairs of expensive shoes and be done with it. Although, I will have to take Lucy back in a week or so when the black shoes come in and make sure they fit.

Our next issue right now is clothes. Lucy's a bigger girl. It's not that she's overweight, she is just big for her age. She very height and weight proportionate but at almost 3 years old she's wearing sizes 4-6 in the little girls section. We've pretty much moved out of anything toddler size. But, trying to find pants that fit in the waist that are then not 2 inches too long is hard to do.  Lucy can't wear anything with a snap or zipper...they
just don't fit her body. Everything has to be stretchy. Leggings are our friend!!
I have been having a hard time finding long sleeve items to fit her too. I picked up 2 cotton dresses from Meijer last week that I thought would surely fit. I went to put one on her this morning and I could not get her arm in the sleeve, it was soooo tight! Lucy does not have chubby arms... I tried the other dress on her and it was better, but I'm not keeping if cause if it shrinks at all, the arms will not fit her.  I then tried a Jumping Beans brand shirt from Kohls that I got for her a few weeks back and the sleeves were tight on that as well. All the sizes were a 5 and they were all too tight. UGH!!!  It's so much easier to dress Lucy for summer. Shorts, tanks tops, sundresses.... I have a much easier time finding those to fit.

So after our shoe purchase, we headed over to Kolhs to look at clothes again. It's so sad that I have to go to the little girls section to buy my 2 year old clothes!  I found a few more things and I am hoping they will work. I seem to have the most luck with the Carter's Brand...they actually tend to run a little big. We're going to be having a little fashion show/try on when she wakes from her nap.

I try hard to be frugal when I buy clothing for Lucy, but I feel like with her I am forced to buy what will fit and that sometimes means spending more than I want to.  I really don't see anyway around it though...she can't go naked.  I hope my twin girls won't have the same issues...I am not looking forward to having to drop $100 to buy them shoes!!

Update

After all the tummy troubles of last weekend Lucy then got a fever on Monday and even with meds it never completely went away. I took her back to the doctor Tuesday morning just to rule out a throat or ear infection. The doc said she looked fine and most likely it was a viral thing. Finally after a final dose of Motrin at 10:30 Tuesday night, Lucy woke up Wednesday fever free. She's been much better and so far hasn't had a tummy episode since last Saturday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we're over that.


I had my OB appointment on Wednesday and since my mom was busy and Lucy was just getting over her illness, we had to take her with us. She did pretty good. Luckily there's a park not far from the hospital and so Dan drops me off and I go to my appointment while he takes Lucy to go play. This time it was the park playground. Last time she went with us he took her to the mall play area. At least it's a fun day for her.

I'm 31 weeks and my appt went really well. The babies look great. Fluid levels are still balanced, they're extremely active and my cervix is solid as a rock! The sonographer told me that I was made to carry twins cause my cervix was still a mile long!  (sorry if that's TMI for some of you!)  :)  So, we're just playing the waiting game. The longer I go, the more I think that maybe I really will make it to 38 weeks. I'm not sure I want to go that long though. I've had 35-36 weeks in my mind for so long now that I'm having to reshift my focus. I know it's better for babies if I hold out, but I'm getting so uncomfortable...7 weeks seems so far off.

tummy troubles

Not sure what's going on with Lucy, but she's been having lots of tummy trouble this past week.

Lucy's normally a "groovy pooper" and goes 1-3 times a day! But over the last week her tummy has not been feeling good.

Last Tuesday, she woke from her nap and complained her tummy hurt. She wasn't running a fever, she had a good appetite and she was running and playing. She complained 3 more times before bed, but I didn't know what to do for her. She didn't have any other symptoms.

At 11pm that night, she woke up screaming and crying and when Dan got her calmed down and asked what was wrong, she said her tummy hurt. Dan rocked with her for a bit and she seemed ok so he put her back in bed, but the moment she laid down flat she started screaming again. She also started shaking from head to toe-almost like she did one other time when she had a high fever- but she didn't have a temp at all.

Not knowing what to do and being a little scared for our daughter, we threw on some clothes and headed to the ER. By the time we got there, Lucy seemed to be doing better, but was still a little upset at first. Once we were in a triage room we changed Lucy into a gown and she happily laid on the bed and she was acting fine.

We were there for 2.5 hours and Lucy was really good the whole time. She thought it was great cause they gave her stickers and a popsicle. They had done a urinalysis and it did show some bacteria so they were going to treat her for a UTI.

By the time we got home it was 3am and we were all exhausted. Lucy went right back to bed and didn't complain anymore about her belly.

The ER wanted me to follow up with Lucy's regular doctor, so I called Wednesday and got her an appt. for Friday morning. I felt a little silly making an appt when she seemd fine and was not complaining anymore.

Well...Friday morning Lucy woke up crying that her belly hurt again. She cried off and on till we got to our 10:10 appt. I was glad the doctor could see how she was acting when her tummy would start to bother her. 

Because of some changes in her bowels over the last week, the doctor ( and I thought this too) thought it was constipation. She sent us for an x-ray to make sure there was no inflammation in the bowel and then we'd go from there.

Luckily, the x-ray looked normal, so we were told to give Lucy some Miralax to help get things moving. In the meantime we'd gotten home, eaten a little lunch and put Lucy down for a nap. Not long after laying Lucy down, she started crying about her tummy. I knew if it was bothering her she would not be able to sleep. So, I had her come downstairs and lay on the couch next to me and watch a movie. Her pains kept getting progressively worse and she was getting so worked up. Thank goodness Dan works from home and he could help me with her. She wanted to be held but she would thrash around so much from the pain that I couldn't hold onto her. He was able to hold her and walk around and get her calmed down. She got so worked up at one point, she threw up all over herself and Dan. 

Finally around 2:30 that afternoon, she had a bowel movement and from then on was a happy girl. She even had another one right before bed and I was hopeful that we were getting back on the right track. Not so...

Saturday brought the same thing. Lucy was fine till around 3pm when she woke from her nap. She told me her tummy hurt and again the crying episodes started off slow and over the course of 3 hours kept escalating till she was screamining every little bit- and then she eventally threw up again.

I called the doctor to see what else we could try and she suggested upping the amount of Miralax. So, I made some Koolaid (which I never do cause it's nothing but sugar) and mixed the "tummy medicine" in that. I was hoping the Koolaid would help her drink it down faster. She eventually drank it all but it took awhile. But, by about 6pm she was acting better and not complaining anymore. I got her to eat a little bit and I kept her up later than usual because I was hoping she'd have a poopy diaper before bed. 

I was a little worried about how she'd sleep but she did great and we didn't have a problem all night. When she got up this morning, we gave her some juice with more "tummy medicine" in it and she drank it all up.  I was a little nervous about taking her to church. I was afraid she might start complaining about her belly and I was a little concerned about the dirty diaper that she was going to produce after all that laxitive. I talked to her teachers though and explained what was going on. They were to page us if she went or complained at all.

I went to get her from her class and was told she'd just gone and so I was very thankful. We've since had 2 more major poopy diapers. The Miralax is working.

I'm not sure where we are to go from here. I need to call the doctor tomorrow. I don't want to have to keep giving her the Miralax, but I don't want her to be having stomach aches either. Not sure what the game plan will be. It's just very bizarre that she's gone from one extreme to the other. We've not changed our diets in any way, she has always eaten a ton fruit and is a big water drinker...so I can't help but worry about what's going on in her little belly.