Interview with Katy, age 3 years, 11 months

I stole this from Giselle, and I just have to add some commentary. Some of these answers I just couldn't believe. And a few times I had to give a follow up question.

1. What is something your mom always says to you? Ummmmm...."no."

2. What makes mom happy? When I obey.

3. What makes mom sad? Pooping on the floor (wouldn't that make anyone sad?)

4. How does your mom make you laugh? [stretches cheeks and makes silly face] Making funny faces like I just did! (uhhh...really?)

5. What was your mom like as a child? She liked toys.

6. How old is your mom? Firty-two (this is her favorite topic of conversation right now - don't be offended if she asks you how old you are)

7. How tall is your mom? [puts her hand to my forehead] This tall!

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Eat. (wait. are you serious? I can see myself telling this story to Oprah in a few years and saying, "That's when I knew I had a problem.")

9. What does your mom do when you aren't around? Work. And sometimes phone calls.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? What does "famous" mean? It means that everyone knows who mommy is. If you told them your name!

11. What is your mom really good at? Noffing. Really? Mommy's not good at anything? Planting plants. (She's reaching here...I'm the Jack Kevorkian of horticulture.)

12. What is your mom not very good at? Noffing. You're really good at everything!!

13. What does your mom do for a job? Plant grass. (we've been watering a lot of grass seed lately) Well, what does Mommy do for work? Work at the computer.

14. What is your mom's favorite food? Spaghetti! Really? That's my favorite. What is Mommy's favorite? Whisper it in my ear so I can tell you. Well, I want to know what you think is my favorite food. Broccoli?

15. What makes you proud of your mom? Everything.

16. If your mom was a cartoon character, who would she be? [much back and forth trying to clarify the meaning of this question] A talker.

17. What do you and your mom do together? Cut coupons. Do you need any cut right now, Mommy?

18. How are you and your mom the same? We have the same color skin. (we've been talking about how God makes people with lots of different colors of skin.)

19. How are you and your mom different? We're wearing different necklaces.

20. How do you know your mom loves you? HUGS!

21. What does your mom like the most about your dad? HUGS!!

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? The rec center. (It's true that I love our community center. We're there at least once a week for one program or another.)

This cracked me up so much that I want to find another one to do. And maybe I should take a video next time. I just love how her little mind works and the things that come out of her mouth. Just classic.

New roof (not without drama)

After 5 days of labor (ha!), we have a new roof with all the fixin's! We're really happy about the way it looks (and keeps us dry).

Before:
(you won't be able to see much difference unless you double click to enlarge the pics. also, notice the foliage from last June vs. April! I can't wait for all that shade!)



During:
(those guys are standing in the attic - from the outside - crazy!)

After: Ta-daa!

One of the side effects of having large openings in your roof for periods of time is that animals make themselves comfortable in your attic. So while the workers were removing the old roof, they came across a birds' nest and a squirrels' nest. Brian came in from being outside during the process of removing the nests, and he advised me not to go out there. He said it was making him upset, and even a heavily tattooed worker was having some trouble.

By the end of the week, the large part of the roof was finished and sealed off. But Friday night and Saturday, as we tried to enjoy being home in a quiet house with the windows open, Momma Squirrel was not going to let us rest. She screeched and hollered and hung on our window screens begging for access to her nest, where we assumed there must still have been a living baby, because this animal was losing her mind.

Much to my surprise, my husband spent 3 hours of his Saturday attempting various solutions to reunite the Momma and Baby Squirrel. Part of his motivation, for sure, was the assurance from a wildlife professional that the squirrel would and could do damage to the new roof in an attempt to rescue her young. So just like an episode of Go, Brian, Go!, he climbed a ladder, unscrewed a piece of the new awning, used a shoebox to rescue the baby squirrel and left it for the Momma to come and retrieve. And we never heard another screech from that Momma. She probably ran as far away as she could from this awful place where we keep kicking the animals out.

Easter. Spring Break. New Roof. Strep.

First, a few thousand pictures from our trip to Kentucky over Easter. We had a really good time, beautiful weather, and lots of fun Easter activity.

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It's spring break, which hasn't affected my life in, say, 10 years, but strangely, I'm back on a school schedule. Katy has no preschool, no church activities, and most of the stuff that we do during the week is taking a break. So it feels like spring break. Weird.

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And we're getting a new roof. And not just new shingles. New wood (they took it down to the rafters), new gutters, new vents, and an extension of the overhang. It has been craziness around here, with 4-10 workers on our house from dawn till dusk for the better part of the past three days. Yesterday the entire house was vibrating, a light fixture fell from the ceiling and there's a large crack in the bathroom wall from the banging. But it looks awesome, and I suspect it will prevent water from entering the house in inconvenient places. I'll post pictures when it's totally done.

I had tried to get out of dodge while all of this work was being done, but two of the out-of-town places I would've crashed were gone for...like I said... Spring Break. So then I tried to plan day trips to the zoo and other adventurous locations just to get out of the house during the banging. But that didn't work either, because...

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Katy got strep throat for the third time in a month. The pattern is pretty obvious: she finishes her antibiotics (she's on the third kind now), and about 48 hours later she starts acting (more) whiny and lethargic, I discover a fever and ask if her throat hurts. This time she tried to deny it because she has figured out that the throat culture isn't comfortable. But once again, it was positive. The pediatrician wants to see her for a follow-up after she finishes this treatment and may refer us to an ENT depending on how she's doing. I had strep a TON when I was little, and I hope she hasn't inherited a tendency from me. It can be brutal. Hopefully this round will kick it. She's much better already. Maybe we'll squeeze in one fun day at the end of this Break.

Third Pregnancy

Around this same time in my pregnancy with David, I wrote this post about the first pregnancy vs. the second. I thought it would be fun to go back and add the third pregnancy experience.

First pregnancy: On any given day during the pregnancy, I could've told you exactly how far along I was. Ex: "I am 21 weeks, 3 days" or "I'll be 14 weeks on Thursday."

Second pregnancy: I keep losing track of my progress. When someone asks me how far along I am, I just tell them my due date. I know right now I'm somewhere between 28 and 30 weeks, which I think means I'm in my third trimester. Hm. How about that?

Third pregnancy: It definitely takes a moment of pause for me to remember how many weeks I am, but what blows my mind is how much farther I have to go. I feel huge and tired and uncomfortable already, and I still have 11 weeks left. Ugh.

First pregnancy: Brian came with my to almost every doctor's appointment. We always went with a written list of questions, most of which could be answered with "That's completely normal" or "Don't worry about that."

Second pregnancy: Brian comes for ultrasounds only. For the others, after the headache of finding someone to watch Katy during my appointment, I'll be driving to the office and wonder, "wait, do I have any questions?" Sometimes I think of one, but most of the time I don't. I'm curious to hear my weight gain and the heartbeat, and then I'm on my way.

Third pregnancy: Now that I have two kids to arrange care for, and Brian's work is no longer around the corner, I'm lucky to be able to go without kids, let alone with Brian. Sometimes I've been able to get early morning appointments so I can go and get back before Brian goes to work, but as often as I'm going now, I have to settle for bringing kid(s) with me sometimes. I'm really hoping to find a solution for this before those 36 week + appointments.

First pregnancy: I couldn't wait to start showing. I wanted everyone to know that I was pregnant as soon as possible. I wanted to be big. Soon.

Second pregnancy: I'm embarrassed when people ask when I'm due, especially when they look at Katy with wide eyes as they ask. Because I know they are thinking either, "woah, she's huge, how can she have 3 months to go?" or "wow, those kids will be close in age." Not that I care what people think, but I'm not anxious to get bigger sooner.

Third pregnancy: Back in February, someone asked me if I was due in 2 weeks. I'm due in June. If someone asks me how much longer I have, and I tell them, they always look shocked. I know, I'm huge. I'm getting to the point where I have to be strategic in my clothing to make sure I'm covered.

First pregnancy: I was so worried about every ache and pain. I was truly a nervous wreck. I was reading everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy, birth, and newborns. I took 3 different classes at the hospital before I delivered.

Second pregnancy: I'm much less anxious, assuming that most aches and pains are just par for the course. Brian says he hears about this pregnancy a lot less from me. I haven't read a thing, and the other day it occurred to me that we should probably take a hospital tour sometime, since our insurance is sending us to a different place.

Third pregnancy: Brian says he actually forgets I'm pregnant sometimes. Forget reading books, I even unsubscribed from those BabyCenter emails because they were clogging up my inbox and I never read them anymore.

First pregnancy: There was so much to physically get ready for the new arrival, and so many decisions to be made. What kind of car seat, stroller, crib, glider, nursing pillow, bottles, diapers, and pacifier will we use?

Second pregnancy: Those decisions are all made, and I hope New Baby is ok with it. We have some clean up and organization to do to get ready, but mostly we have what we need, it's just a matter of digging it out and dusting it off.

Third pregnancy: This poor kid. I haven't dug out or dusted off a single thing, and I doubt that I'll get around to it before the end of May. I've got so many other things going on right now that I figure it won't take long to pull it up from the basement. And we've probably put off the decision about where the baby will sleep until after he's born, so we don't even have to switch any rooms right now.

First pregnancy: I was so completely overwhelmed with worry about what life with a newborn would be like (and was truly blindsided by the reality of it when it came) that I didn't really enjoy the anticipation of meeting my firstborn child.

Second pregnancy: Having had the experience of falling head over heels in love with my daughter, I can't wait to meet my son. I can't wait to see what he looks like, what position he likes to be held in, what kind of eater he is, whether he likes to be swaddled, and what makes him smile the biggest. I know it will be hard again, the newborn stage. But I think with a little more perspective this time, I will enjoy that short time a little more.

Third pregnancy: This part gets better each time for me. The older my kids get, the more that I grow to love them and enjoy the people that they are. I also feel more able to appreciate them when they are little, because I know that it doesn't last forever and they are so precious. It's still hard, I'm not one of those gushy newborn moms for sure, but there's something incredible about getting to know your child for the first time.


First pregnancy: I think that if were truly honest with myself, I wanted to go into labor early. Not dangerously early, of course, but I really think that I was hoping for 3 or 4 weeks before my due date. I was completely ready, twiddling my thumbs for the last several weeks.

Second pregnancy: I hope I go until my due date, or at least within a few days of it. I want to enjoy the precious time I have with just one kid, and they will be close enough in age, it doesn't need to be any closer. Plus I want to have as much time as possible for nesting! I love nesting!

Third pregnancy: I have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, I definitely don't want to go before the end of May, because I've got weddings and showers and birthdays going on. But once I get beyond all of those events (May 22nd-ish), and have a few days to pull my stuff out of the basement, I think I'll be anxious to deliver. I'm just already uncomfortable, and I think by then I'll be hot and tired and just ready to get on with it. Of course, there's almost no chance of my going early, since both of my other ones were born the day after their due date. So I'll probably be hanging out through a good part of June.

First pregnancy: Speaking of wanting to go early, it seemed like that 9 months dragged on and on...


Second pregnancy: I can't believe it, I'm in my third trimester! This baby is due in March! That's the month after next!! Must go clean and organize!!

Third pregnancy: I can't believe it, I'm in my third trimester! This baby is due in June! That's the month after next!! And I haven't cleaned or organized!?!