Jeff passed his licensure tests!

Jeff got his scores for the Utah Licensure Praxis exams today. He passed both with flying colors. I always thought he would but I guess he has been stressing about it so it was a huge weight off of his shoulders to get the results. So yay for that. Especially since he found out that his Health minor that he completed this past year won't show up on his transcript, but since he passed the Health licensure exam, it can be added to his teaching license.

Now he just has the 2 tests for an Arizona teaching license next week and both states will be covered. And then finishing up his student teaching will be the last hoop he has to jump through.

At least to get licensed.

. . . or maybe I just wet myself.

On Friday, we went down to Vegas to hang out with Jeff's sister's family for the weekend since we hadn't been down to see them since Christmas.

On Saturday night, I woke up to go to the bathroom, in the dark, and when I pulled up my underwear it was pretty wet and I was really confused. But whatever, being pregnant, I've gotten used to random, slightly disturbing moments such as these.

But then all day Sunday it was kind of like more of the same, even though I was heading to the bathroom every half hour to an hour. Oh, and I'm a genius and didn't dry my feet off well enough and slipped like 6 inches on the tile in the bathroom that morning when I was getting out of the shower and pulled something down there. So that really didn't help matters any as I was constantly getting up and down all day.

Anyway, so then I started to wonder what the deal was and started to worry that I could be leaking amniotic fluid. (I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions off and on a few times a day for the past month or so).

So when I looked on-line everything I read said "call your doctor, call your doctor, call your doctor." So I finally told Jeff what I was going on and called my doctor.

When he returned the page and I described what had been going on he said that I needed to go to Labor & delivery at the hospital so that they could do a test on the fluid to see if it was amniotic fluid or not. So Jeff and I packed up our stuff and left pretty quick to get back to St. George. We got there around 9:30 pm and they did all the admittance stuff. Then they took the 2 samples, one was for a test that showed the results immediately, the other was for a test that they look at under a microscope in the lab. The nurses saw fluid up there, whatever that means. The first test wasn't positive or negative, but somewhere in between so we had to wait for the lab test to come back. And they had me pee in a cup. (I never knew that pregnancy came with about 50 requisite urine sample "givings"-- it all starts with the initial peeing on a stick to find out if you are pregnant, but that is just the beginning).

Anyway, Jeff and I just hung out while we waited for the test result. They had put a fetal monitor and another monitor to watch for contractions on my belly so I sat and watched the blue lines and red lines go up and down on the screen. Jeff sat and watched ESPN because I made the mistake of letting him choose the channel.

The nurse came in to tell us that then lab results were negative, thank goodness, and it wasn't amniotic fluid. I still don't know what it was. BUT, before I could celebrate too much she said that my doctor asked her to "check me" to make sure I wasn't dilating because on the monitor, I guess the braxton-hicks contractions looked like something worth investigating.

. . . So I have now officially had my cervix checked and I think I may just wait until the baby's head is on its way out before I head to the hospital and have that little adventure again.

That came back with a good result too, I'm not dilating. So yay.

So at this point I still don't know what the fluid was. But at least according to their tests it isn't amniotic fluid. It was one of those situations where I didn't want to overreact, but at the same time, the risk of infection, etc., was too scary to not make sure that it wasn't a leak. I knew that one of these days we would need to get a water-proof mattress pad, I just didn't think it would be due to the risk of me wetting the bed. Awesome.

One good thing about all of this is that Jeff & I realized that we have been putting off things like buying a car seat and a few of the other legitimate "essentials," and that maybe now is a good time to actually buy them, just in case. I am a procrastinator by nature and driving back to St. George, not knowing for sure if I would be leaving the hospital that night or in a few weeks with a preemie made me realize that I have a lot of stuff I would like to take care of before the baby comes. Seriously, it sounds melodramatic, but when I was single, every time I would leave my apartment, I would think about what my family would think if I died and they came to pack my stuff. Last night, I was having those same kind of thoughts, not that I was going to die or anything, but that our room wasn't set up or ready for a baby to come home too.

On a side note: I also managed to give myself 1 pregnancy week extra credit all day yesterday. For some reason I had myself convinced that I was 33, almost 34 weeks. Even this morning when my sister called and asked how far along I was, I told her 33, almost 34 weeks. It wasn't until I got on my blog and looked at the pregnancy calendar widget that I realized I am 32, almost 33 weeks along.

On another side note: Last night Jeff came face to face (not literally) with a speculum for the first time, he seemed slightly disturbed.

Dr. appt. & another ultrasound

I had a Dr. appt. this afternoon. Jeff and I went into it hoping that he would be willing to do an ultrasound to measure the baby to see if she is growing faster or slower than what is expected for the July 16th due date. Luckily, because Dr. Chalmers is so awesome, he did an ultrasound for us and measured her. She is measuring between 32-33 weeks on all of the measurements, so pretty close to right on. He said that she isn't gonna be a record breaker weight wise, but that she'll be a healthy weight, and I quote, "no 9 or 10 pounder."

THANK GOODNESS!!

Every single one of Jeff's Mom's babies were big-- the smallest of the 5 was 8 lbs and some odd ounces. According to the ultrasound measurements (which aren't exact by any means) she weighs 4 lbs 8 oz. or 4 lbs. 10 oz. (I don't remember exactly what he said). So even if she gains a half pound every week for the next 8 weeks that will still be less than 9 lbs! Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm hoping my genetics kick in and she is born in the 7 lbs range like my sister and I.

Her head is measuring large. Are we surprised? No. This family is notorious for big ol' heads.

Jeff was hoping that he would do a 4-d ultrasound because he is so curious about what she looks like. But I guess he didn't want to push his luck and ask for that too since this was already a non-routine ultrasound. I'm okay with not seeing what she looks like because that sort of feels like peaking or something.

The other good news is that she is head down now. The last ultrasound we had she was breech and so I have been sort of nervous about that, even though I have been pretty sure that the jabbing in my ribs was caused by her doing the running man on them. Dr. Chalmers said that at this point if a baby is head down they rarely flip back, and considering her head is so big, my guess is gravity will continue to do its job and keep her right where she is. And of course, for Jeff's sake, he did another crotch shot with the ultrasound and there is no doubt she's a girl. What a relief. :)

It would be great to be able to look in a glass ball and know exactly when she is going to be born. My parents are trying to figure out when to make flight reservations but they don't want to be waiting around for forever before she is born and then my dad have to leave too soon after she is born. Plus, Jeff and I are gonna be moving back to AZ about a week after she is born and my parents are helping us out with that so that is another little variable thrown in the mix. Just gonna have to cross my fingers that all the timing works out right. But really, when it comes down to it, just as long as she makes it safely and is healthy, I'll be a happy girl.

**We didn't get any print outs from the ultrasound so that's why there aren't any posted.**

Worried for nothing.

Jeff pitched yesterday. 1 inning. And he was sore afterwards but not hurt. THANK GOODNESS!

So yay for that.

Nervous.

Jeff is pitching in a baseball game today. Probably only 2 innings. I am anxious about this little adventure because he hasn't really pitched in 2 years. And his last season playing he spent more time with a sore shoulder than a healthy one.

I really shouldn't be that worried except for I have this ominous feeling that something bad is going to happen. In the 6 short weeks we were engaged he managed to bust his hand open and had to get stitches in his palm, he got bucked off of a horse and landed on his back on a rock and cracked a vertebrae or two, and there was something else too-- I just can't remember now. At the time, I joked that he was subconsciously trying to kill himself off or at least hurt himself bad enough that the wedding would have to be postponed.

Now about 8 weeks from the baby coming he is gonna try and chuck a ball over 80 mph. I'm just gonna pray he doesn't re-pinch a nerve or completely rip his shoulder out of the socket.

Wish us both luck.

I'm the lunch lady

Jeff's new work schedule makes it possible for him to leave everyday for an hour for lunch. Which is awesome and I have think I've celebrated about it more than once so far in my blog.

It makes my day go by incredibly fast because I have/get to shower and get ready and be to his work to pick him up at noon then we hang out for an hour and then I drive home. Big whoop, right? But here's the thing . . . it forces me to get up and shower and get dressed in regular clothes everyday by noon. There was a stretch there that I would go days without leaving the house. Which makes for a REALLY SLOW pregnancy. So it's been good the past 2 weeks to leave the house to hang out with Jeff one on one and we usually just end up sitting at the park eating sack lunches. Living with his parents, we don't end up talking one on one very much and I miss it.

He has decided to start Weight Watchers next week. He isn't gonna do the meetings, but I am trying to talk him into doing it on-line so that he has something to be accountable to. So needless to say, we are going to the new In-n-out in town today for lunch as a sort of last hoorah before sticking to just sack lunches while he is doing the weight watchers thing. For my sake, it's probably really good that he has decided to start doing it, because I got on the scale today and it ain't pretty. I sort of just stared at it with my mouth gaping open. Gaping open so long that I almost drooled on myself. If I was stuffing my face with crap food all day I would understand a little better-- but I've been waking up in the night starving so it's not like I'm eating TOO much. AND lately I've been craving crushed ice, shaved ice, any ice that I can get my hands on, and last time I checked, the caloric count of ice is just a little less than a milkshake which is what I was craving a couple of months ago. Who knows.

I think maybe I won't get on the scale again until 6 weeks after the baby is born, when I can start exercising again. Because obviously, walking or no walking, swimming or no swimming, yoga or no yoga, my body is doing whatever the hell it wants and really isn't bothering to ask my opinion in the matter.

. . . I really didn't plan on ranting about the pregnant weight gain thing but it sort of just happened. So . . . sorry, I guess.

*** I started to read over my post and realized that I wrote about our plan to go to in-n-out and within 2 sentences was complaining about my weight gain-- but in my defense, the last time I remember stuffing my face at a fast food restaurant was in March, this isn't an everyday or even every week thing!***

"Babywise" Review

The book(s) "On becoming Baby Wise 1 & 2" were recommended to me by a couple of people. So I read them.

At first, the first book seemed pretty "logical." Some of the advice/methods seemed a little harsh to me-- you aren't supposed to rock your baby to sleep if you are home. Ever. It talks a lot about feeding and a method they call PDF- parent-directed feeding. But this isn't based on a clock, and it isn't based on the baby crying either. . . so that left me thinking-- how in the world is the parent supposed to know when to feed their baby if not based on the baby's signals and not based on how long it's been since the baby last ate?? I'm already nervous as hell about taking care of a little baby, I am not going to even pretend to know when I should feed the baby without paying attention to her signals and/or the clock.

Obviously, I'm not a mom yet, but some of the information/ideas was useful. For example, the book suggested multiple times that every time you feed the baby, you feed he/she until they are full and you do what you can to keep them awake while eating until they are full-- so that they don't fall into a pattern of needing to eat to fall asleep and/or wake up sooner than necessary to eat again because they are just snacking. So that was good to think about it. So the first book was a little extreme for me, but I wasn't having a huge negative reaction to it.

Then I read book two. It is supposed to be for toddlers 5 to 15 months old. Pretty much it allows very little room for kids to be kids. Okay, actually, it leaves no room for kids to be kids. As I was reading it, I kept thinking that it stipulated parenting actions and reactions completely opposite to how my mom raised me. And I am pretty cool and turned out sane enough to function in the world. And her way seems like a lot more fun too. According to the book, kids should never be allowed to touch their food plate with their hands, blow bubbles in their milk, or any other such "nonsense" during meal time. And they should never be allowed to use their hands to eat anything other than specified "finger foods." This does not mesh well with a family whose baby albums are filled with pictures of bowls being worn as hats with mac & cheese as the accessory. Also, if they do touch their food when they aren't supposed too, and you tell them not too, the second time they touch their food you are supposed to remove them from the high chair and put them in their crib. Sorry, but at this point, I am not going to turn the slats of my child's crib into jail bars. (although, I am open to the idea that I may become more than ready to turn whatever I can into a jail cell if my toddler is out of control at some point).

A couple of tips that were good: it said to avoid getting in a power struggle with your toddler. I think the way it phrased it was "discipline graciously," such that you allow your child to back down gracefully. Also, it suggested not letting your child play with things at your house such as the TV remote because then when they go to someone else's house and are all of a sudden being told not play with the TV remote it just confuses them. This reminded me of the puppy training books that I've read that said never to give your dog human things to play with and chew if you don't want them to chew all of them. For example, you aren't supposed to let them play with an old shoe because when they have a chance they will chew on a new shoe, not knowing the difference between and old shoe and a new shoe. Makes sense. But again, easier said than done with a toddler.

All I know is that I am very grateful that my mom is coming to stay with us for the first month after the baby is born so that she can help me figure out what the crap I am doing. And I've decided I am not going to read any more books on baby-raising at this point. My mom raised us "real good" and my sister's kids are some of the most well-adjusted and hilarious kids I have ever met in my entire life so I'll just be calling them instead. And in the meantime I'll just be praying not to screw my kid(s) up too much.

She comes through, once again.

So once again, Gwen posted something that totally made my day and caused me to laugh out loud all by myself. Check out this website:

Demotivators

"Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk."

You can even make your own poster by uploading a picture and writing your own caption.

If only I'd seen this website before Mother's Day!!

playing catch up. again. . . and again.

I have not been doing too hot with blogging lately. (As is obvious by the consistent drop in the number of posts per week and/or months.) But let's be honest, no matter how happy I am with my life right now, it just ain't that exciting on a day to day basis. Except maybe to me, but that's mostly because I get a big thrill out of trying to figure out how the baby is positioned from one moment to the next and feel pretty cool if I can almost "catch" her foot as it juts out of my stomach.

However, I have decided to start writing about the mundane-- and if you decide to read it and are bored, well I guess that is just your own fault.

First of all, Jeff started student teaching last week. This is pretty awesome because he is getting paid to do his student teaching where he was already working. The place sucks, to be honest. He is stressing out right now because he is supposed to teach a unit on basketball and there are only 7 basketballs for units (classes) of 21+ kids. And he is at a "youth treatment facility" but really it is just a warehouse for teens who have gotten in trouble and their parents and/or the state can't deal with it anymore. The majority are from california, were adopted, have gotten in trouble, their adoptive parents are sick of it, so they or the state pays $6,ooo per kid per month for them to be warehoused there until they turn 18 or graduate from the program (aka, turn 18). It's challenging teaching P.E. when there are kids in the classes who aren't allowed shoes because they are a "flight risk." So they are wearing slippers or slide ons. Real safe. Also, there are a couple of basketball hoops, but Jeff has already gone out and bought nets for them because they didn't have any and so far every attempt on his and the previous teachers part to get more equipment or current equipment fixed has been denied.
The ridiculous thing is that his University student teaching supervisor said that he would try and find some old equipment from one of the high schools in the area for them to use. How much sense does that make?! His work is bringing in $150,000 per month per class and they can't afford to buy a couple of basketballs?! So ridiculous. And there isn't any grass. Anywhere. Or a legitimate gymnasium.
But, on the positive side, it is a place that is making it possible for Jeff to get his student teaching done this summer, and he is getting paid to do it. So I am very thankful for that. But Jeff is a perfectionist-- so just doing the bare minimum is not an option and he is not okay with lazy teaching so he's spending a lot of time and energy worrying about how he is going to pull it off the next 55 teaching days. I'm just praying that his University supervisor will grade him within the context of the "school" he is teaching at and not expect him to pull some crazy rabbit tricks in his classes.
The other good news is that since Jeff will be used to working with classes made up solely of troubled kids who don't even have the motivation to do enough not to fail because most don't even need the credit-- teaching at a regular high school with only a few troublemakers and students who need the credit to graduate will probably be much easier for him.
One of the points I was going to make before I started ranting about Jeff's work was that his new schedule is fantastic. He leaves at 7:45-ish in the morning, I meet him with lunch from noon-1 and he is home by 3:30- 4 pm everyday. So cool. It's been a good adjustment to make because I was used to him being gone by 7 everyday and most days not home until 11 and then we was also working every other weekend-- 14 hour shifts. So now he is just gone for about 8 hours, M-F. I also realized that besides coaching games, he will never have to work a weekend ever again. Knock on wood.

So what have I been doing? Besides a whole lot of nothing . . .

I have started making tutus for little girls to sell on-line. I finally got a shop on etsy.com set up. It's http://tutusbytina.etsy.com . For those of you who have never looked at etsy.com, you should. It's one of the coolest sites on-line, I think. It's kind of like ebay, but instead of auctions, it's just stuff for sale. So every seller has a little "shop." AND it's all homemade stuff or supplies to make homemade stuff. There are some pretty crazy random things on there- I love it. You can also put up an ad saying what you want made and how much money you are willing to pay for it and people will bid to be the one you hire to make whatever it is that you're wanting.
Once we are in our house and settled in a bit, I plan to use Etsy purchases to decorate my house. Maybe some random artist selling their artwork on Etsy will be famous someday and then my grandkid will get to go on Antique Roadshow and find out that a painting I bought for $25 bucks is worth $25,000 fifty years later.
My goal is to start making all sorts of little girly froo-froo things to sell . . . but for now I am sticking with just tutus, if for no other reason than I just don't have any space to keep and/or make anything else. I'll probably start sewing and selling shoulder bags, etc. too, but that is more time and cost intensive so it gets to wait until we are moved into our house and the baby is born and a little older too.

Seriously, I am sitting here trying to think about other stuff to write about. One of the weird things that has happened lately is I am unable to sleep in. I recognize that "sleeping in" is relative. To me, anything before 8 am is waking up early. And for the past couple of weeks, I have been unable to sleep in past 8. Hence the reason I am blogging at 7:30 am on a Sunday when church doesn't start until 1. To put this in perspective: before this little biological sleeping clock upheaval-- Church at 1 pm on Sunday meant sleeping in until 11 am. If I was feeling full of "get up and go" then I would be up by maybe 9:30 am.
To be honest, I am feeling sort of ripped off by this wide-awakeness-as-the-sun-comes-up because I recognize that my nights (and days) of sleeping when I want, however long I want, are coming to a sure and speedy end in less than 10 weeks!

Jeff has an interview the first weekend in June with Mesa School District. It's just a preliminary screening interview with a randomly assigned principal in the district so we aren't expecting a job offer after the interview or anything because he'll need to interview with the specific principal with the job opening after he gets through that interview. Mesa school district doesn't post specific openings for positions. So for all we know, there could be zero openings or 15 openinngs. If that makes sense. He also has the Arizona licensure tests that weekend so we're going to go down to get a crib while we're there. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll be able to find a good one on craigslist that weekend! (Jeff isn't a big fan of the craigslist idea, but I'm hoping to convince him and save ourselves some $$). I'll be 35 weeks pregnant by then so Jeff is sort of nervous about me flying-- but really, the drive down is pretty crappy and I'll probably swell up like a balloon after 8 hours in the car-- so I think flying is a better idea.

Anyway, my stomach is growling so I'm gonna go eat some cereal.

Jeff just woke up and told me "Happy Mother's Day", I am sort of in pre-mom mode but it is still getting me out of helping cook and/or clean up Sunday dinner today so that is pretty fantastic. This will be the first non-awkward Mother's Day at church since we've been married. Yay for that. So HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY if you're a mom.

Happy Bday Shanna!

My sister-in-law's birthday is today. I am a jerk and don't know exactly how old she is turning-- but my guess is she is probably okay with me not announcing that anyway.

But I do feel sort of bad that her birthday lands on Mother's Day because instead of getting "spoiled" 2 calendar days this year (birthday AND mother's day) she just gets this one day. So hopefully her husband takes note and let's her off the hook another day this week too.

Hope you have a good day Shanna!

No more school!!

Jeff's last day of school and commuting to Cedar was yesterday! Yay! AND he is doing his student teaching where he works and so they are treating it more as a paid internship so he gets to clock in and out everyday while he is student teaching instead of having to work the crappy every other weekend and night schedule. So this weekend will be the last weekend he has to work for hopefully the rest of our marriage! Yay! I was more excited about him being finished yesterday than I was last year when we graduated because last year we were still thinking that he would be in school for the next 2-7 years. Now he just has his student teaching (and one more semester of tuition) and that is it! There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Honestly, time has gone by really fast. We were talking today and it doesn't seem like that long ago that we were sitting in church not paying any attention to what was being said because we starting scheming about him moving to Utah to start school fall semester. He literally was in the car on his way up to his parent's house within 2 hours of that conversation. So crazy. I'm so glad he is done going to school full-time while working full-time! Yay!

Oh, Jeff talked with the principal on Monday and she asked him to send his letters of recommendation. He originally turned them in with his application so it is strange that they had part of his packet but not all of it. Either way, we faxed them on Monday so hopefully she will be calling him back soon. . . we'll see.