Oh wait, scratch that, it is now 94, up two degrees in the last 15 minutes. Which is the hottest temp in Puget Sound right now and ties the ALL TIME hottest temperature in Bellingham. And its only 1pm.

It is 92 degrees in Bellingham and I am 38 1/2 weeks pregnant.

Father's Day

A bit late (can you see I'm playing catch-up here?) but I wanted to put in a plug for the Lake Whatcom Railway which we went on for Father's day. The train itself only goes about 10 mph so it might bore older kids, but it was pure heaven for a train obsessed 2 yr old.

We actually got lost on the way out there and came really really close to missing the train when we arrived 15 minutes late. (Silver lining - I called Miss Crafty Mama to see if she could look up a map for us and became one of the first to find out she was in labor and at the hospital) So give yourself lots of time and remember that there are no signs for anything out there.

After a 30 minute ride & 15 minutes of manuevering to get the train "turned" around, they stop at a park and you can explore the train, tracks, ride a hand car, etc. The staff is so nice & friendly and obviously love what they are doing. Then its 30 minutes back, for a nice 1 1/2 - 2 hour excursion.

Saben LOVED walking on the train tracks

Leaving was just a bit traumatic

Berries

My VERY favorite thing lately has been picking strawberries with Saben in our yard. He asks to go do it almost everyday.

We also went to pick some at a local farm last week and that was really fun because we went with a boy Saben's age. They were so cute running around and exploring. We had one little scare where they disappeared, but pregnant momma sprinted across the strawberry fields and found them playing on the toy train at the farm.

Saben is just reaching the age where he interacts and talks with other kids his age and I looooove watching him & listening to them talk. It is the cutest thing in the world.

Speaking of energy levels being cut in half, this week I can not even imagine how I managed to pick strawberries and make a batch of jam last week.

2 weeks left

Well we made it through the full moon, but I did have a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions Saturday night. I don't remember having this many with Saben, so it sort of freaked me out. I told Kyle the next morning I figured I had a 50/50 chance of going into labor Saturday night. Notice I told him "the next morning". Am I a sweet wife or what? No sense keeping him up all night with me.

I don't remember being this exhausted with Saben either. With him it just seemed that I was cruising along and all of a sudden the baby was here (a week early). This time it seems my energy level gets cut in half every week and the last 4 weeks are significantly different/harder than the rest of my pregnancy.

I've had a few nights of awful insomnia and that really wipes me out. Its not that I'm uncomfortable, I just can't sleep. Then every afternoon I'm ready to pass out from tiredness, but by 10:30 pm I'm sort of wide awake again. yuck.

The other day Saben was asking for a railroad crossing and I said something like "maybe when your sister comes you will get one". Somehow I thought it would appease him and he'd forget about it. Ha! Saben's new favorite sentence is:

"Baby come out of mommy's tummy and bring Saben a railroad crossing. AND LIGHTS!"

So the search is on, the store we went to yesterday didn't have any, but we will continue to look.

Latest

Well it seems little sister Young isn't so little after all. We had out ultrasound today and the measurements put her at 8lbs - today, with 3 weeks left till my scheduled c-section. That puts her around 8.75 - 9.5 pounds in 3 weeks. So an 85% percentile baby doesn't really get my hopes too high for a VBAC unless I go into labor in the next 5 days.

Plus the doctor is keeping a really close eye on the pre-eclampsia thing, my tests were clear last week, but he ordered more labs today just in case and a non-stress test at the hospital tomorrow to see how she is doing.

I am super appreciative that he's taking it so seriously. At this point, if any symptoms started pointing even slightly towards pre-eclampsia, it sounds like they would do a c-section almost immediately. He actually seemed doubtful today that I would make it to the 18th, so that was interesting. I think its because Saben was a week early.

Anyways, there's the update and now I'm running off to Seattle to take Saben to the aquarium and see some long lost friends.

Moons

Last night as I was looking at the moon, I remembered that Saben came on a full moon a week before he was due. True, I was induced, but I originally went to the hospital because I had leaked a bunch of fluid Friday morning, which was the full moon day.

I had always heard lots of babies are born on full moons, and my good friend who was due a week before me went into labor the exact same day. On the other hand, the maternity ward was nearly empty when we were there.

Stil.... watch out this weekend, June 30th is a full moon and who knows what will happen.

David & Goliath

Once upon a time there was a little boy named David who liked to watch sheep. One day there was a big bully who was mean to David and his brothers. Everyone was scared for him except David. He wasn't scared because he knew God would protect him. David volunteered to fight with the bully and the king was happy. David went to fight the mean bully, and God helped him throw a rock at his head and knock him down.
The End

Kari's paraphrase from Saben's book "Peek a Bible"

Baby Confusion

Saben sitting on the couch by himself saying "The baby is kicking in my tummy. Right there! There it is, kicking in my tummy....There's the foot!"

Saben points to his or my belly button "Baby is right there!"

Mommy just read a story about baby Jesus being born and asks "Saben, do you know who Jesus is?" Saben points to lower chest and says "He's right there"
Mommy gasps, so impressed that somehow her son knows Jesus lives in our hearts. She tells Daddy at dinner and Daddy gets Saben to do it again except this time he points more towards his tummy. Suddenly it dawns on her that they had been reading about BABY Jesus and he thinks he has baby jesus in his tummy.

Mommy to Daddy "How about Savannah for a name?"
Saben "No! How about Saben."
Repeat every time one of us suggests a name.

Mommy "Mommy is going to get lots of clothes and presents for your baby sister today Saben"
Saben "No, presents for my pee pee"

One year

I can't believe it, I missed my one year blogging anniversary two weeks ago. Happy anniversary to me....!

As proud as I am when Saben learns something new, I'm afraid I might have to stop writing about it on my blog because it seems to trigger him immediately forgetting his new skills.

Example 1
After talking about how well Saben was doing in his big boy bed, the VERY NEXT nap he took, he was sneaking out of bed playing with toys for over an hour.

Example 2
Saben has been so helpful and eager to please lately...until I wrote my post about him picking things up off the floor for me. Suddenly he has this new "game" where he pretends to have no idea how to do things. We go to do puzzles and he acts like he has no idea where the piece goes even though I've seen him do the entire puzzle in 1 minute flat. He can't seem to remember where we keep our measuring cups when he helps me unload the dishwasher even though he's put them away since he was just 18 months old. I haven't even had the baby yet, how can he be relapsing this early!!! And he's just been a pill all week long again, although I'm no saint either with only 5 weeks of pregnancy left.

The last 4 days I have been swelling a bit more, still nothing compared to last time, but its worrying. Mostly I just have no idea when I swelled last time, so I'm trying to note it here so I have a record of it.

Lastly, can I whine for a moment about how much I hate June? I think I've decided to declare it my least favorite month of the year. May always gets me all excited for summer and June is always such a let down. I think I've hated it since I was kid, I have such strong memories of it being cloudly & rainy the second we got out of school. Yuck.

My little angel just woke up and told me "I pooped" so I better run.

Irony

Sometimes I am not sure if anything on earth is more ironic than pregnancy.
For example:

1. You are exhausted constantly but have to avoid caffeine.
2. Your body aches and you can't use a hot tub or take a hot bath.
3. You get exceptionally clumsy at exactly the same point where your body is so heavy that picking up dropped/spilled items is agony.
4. You are emotional, exhausted, high strung, etc, and really could use a nice glass of wine to unwind a little in the evening, but you can't have any.

5. You need all the sleep you can get, but you're too uncomfortable to sleep very well.

I'm sure there's more, any moms out there want to help? (Just for the record so that when some of us start contemplating "just one more" we remember how crazy it can get. And if the on 2nd time around things like these got old a lot faster, I can only imagine how I'd be feeling by round 3)

Bossy

There is possibly nothing better than being 34 weeks pregnant and realizing your son has finally reached a point where

a. He rarely needs to be carried anywhere and will actually go where you tell him to go

and even better...

b. He understands and will enthusiastically obey when you ask him to grab things for you that you dropped, forgot in another rooms, are too lazy to get yourself, etc.

Eating

I love food when I am pregnant. I actually always love food, but during pregnancy it tastes amazing and is so much more satisfying. I could never remember what I craved with Saben, except for Chicken McNuggets. Thankfully that craving is gone this time and I decided what I really crave all the time is fruit. It started with the limeade every night, then progressed to eating pounds of strawberries dipped in sugar in the evenings. Now its blueberries & nectarines. Saben & I have eaten 2 pounds of blueberries in less than 2 weeks. Thank goodness they are on sale this week at Haggen!

This pregnancy I am also able to eat a lot more veggies and am less picky in general. Even salmon tastes delicious, which I avoided last time. The only bad habit that carried over into this pregnancy is that if I eat anything sweet in the evening, I immediately want some salty popcorn. Really, I think pregnancy just increases my natural food tendencies because I love salty & sweet together. But lately its been almost unbearable to not go make a bag of popcorn to go with my icecream.

Lastly, a little plug for my new love, these delicious Raspberry Sorbet & Vanilla Frozen Yogurt Haagen Dazs bars. mmmmmm......

Favorite photo ever

Playing in the meadow during our trip to Portland

Baby Sister

Family at Ski to Sea

Ladybugs in the garden

Visiting Daddy at the shop

Sleeping

Its been almost two weeks since Saben started sleeping in his new twin bed. At first he
HATED it - no wait, at first he LOVED jumping on it, but when we suggested sleeping it, he changed his mind. We moved his blankets & teddies (bears, not lingerie) to the bed and he immediately shouted "no! Back in crib!" and threw them back where they belonged. The few nights we put him the bed, he just cried pathetically and kept saying "crib, crib, crib....".

It was so sad, and we figured this was going to be a lot harder than we expected and decided to wait a couple weeks till we were really ready to tackle the problem. Finally, on a Sunday, it was time and I decided he would sleep in the bed even if it took us 2 hours to keep him there. But all it took was both of us laying & playing in the bed with him for a while, then bit by bit, getting farther away until finally we shut the door. (we'd done this one night before, but every time I disappeared, he woke up crying. After an hour, we gave up.) By the second night it only took about 30 minutes and by night three it was a piece of cake. Who knew? After a week, I started putting him there to nap too, no problem.

In the mornings he got out of bed and liked to yell "I wake up!". This week he woke up at 6:30am which is extremely early for him and so I put him in his crib with puzzles until we were ready to get up. Ever since then he has quit announcing "I wake up!" and just sort of sneaks out and starts playing with his toys. Usually I wake up to the sound of his box of trains being dumped out. He's still waking a little earlier - 7:45 instead of 8:30, but I can handle anything after 7:30.

Trains

Did I mention Saben is a fanatic about trains? He is completely obsessed. We read his three train books twice each day and every morning the first thing he does is drag out his wooden train set and start putting the tracks back together. And he talks about them constantly. We went and saw a bunch of airplanes yesterday (heritage flight museum), including ones that were taking off, starting up, making all sorts of exciting noises & flying by low overead and he was only mildly impressed. When we left, he suggested "Go downtown and look for trains".

Does anyone else STILL refer to "The Bon" instead of saying Macy's? Is there any hope that I will someday get the name right?

Saben - 25 1/2 months

Things Saben will eat:
Raw Garlic
Chili Pepper Flakes (the kind you put on pizza)
Black pepper (straight out of the shaker)
Mustard
Plain Yogurt w/ Granola
Soy Sauce w/ Wasabi (he dipped a spoon in the spicy stuff I'd mixed for my sushi and said "mmmm!". Then he did it several more times so its no fluke)

Things Saben will NOT even try:
Macaroni & cheese
Rice
Chicken that's not breaded
Eggs
Oatmeal
You get the idea I think.....

Saben Loves
Trains, train tracks, railroad crossings. He has this whole spiel "I hear a train! Train coming! Down the tracks, clickety clack." and he'll repeat it several times if he actually hears a train whistle but will also start saying it at very random times. Tonite he was saying it loudly and quickly as if trying to impress a couple girls we were visiting.


Balls, especially basket balls. We went to the park the other day and instead of playing on the swings & slides he spent the entire time on the basketball court. He would squat down with his little foam soccer ball and then spring up towards the hoops and use the (imaginary) momentum to get the ball about 2 feet up in the air above his head. It was so cute and he ran all over the court chasing the ball. Saben also just got a used basket ball hoop from our neighbors and he loves it.

Keys - he seemed to outgrow this last fall, but it is back and worse than ever because now he can say things like "Saben Drive". And he gets really freaky about having to have them whenever he wants them so its really a pain.

Playdough
Sleeping with balls in his bed
Making granola and cookies with mommy
Puzzles
Children's Museum
Grandparents, relatives & adult friends

Saben Doesn't Like:
Wearing shoes - he'd rather go barefoot, even out in the yard and at parks

His big boy bed - we put it in his room to see what he thought. He thought "no way" so now we are getting ready (i.e. procastinating) to do whatever it takes to get him sleeping in it before baby sister comes along.

Putting toys away - mostly just his favorite ones, like the train tracks, he FREAKS out when we put them away as if somehow they are going to be gone forever. He actually does fine putting some stuff away, but playdough, train tracks - watch out.

The last couple weeks Saben has definitely been pushing us as far as discipline goes. He's taken temper tantrums to new volumes and is constantly testing his boundaries. Sometimes it seems like I say no 10 times in just a few minutes and do time outs constantly. Miraculously this last Tuesday was one of our worst days ever, but slowly he's gotten a lot better every day since then. I'd like to think the discipline thing is finally working, but maybe he's just been in a better mood.

I think the hardest part for me is making the rules and deciding which ones you really want to try and enforce. Because sometimes you say no out of laziness and realize your mistake once he's sobbing and then other times you say yes and realize your mistake when he then expects to be able to use at least 6 spoons at every meal.

Finally, a fun story - the other day Saben was watching his friend Audrey getting her diaper changed and observed that she has a tunnel instead of a pee pee. Why teach your kids real anatomy when its so entertaining to see what they come up with themselves??

Pregnancy

Just 9 more weeks to go and I am definitely starting to feel the 3rd trimester tiredness. I was ridiculously energetic during the 2nd trimester and often over exerted myself doing things like spreading compost & planting shrubs in the yard. By evening I'd be a puddle of pudding. But I'm starting to wind down now and feel like napping rather than weeding most afternoons. Unfortunately I still have about 2 yards of compost to spread, I want to install a drip irrigation system AND Kyle broke his hand a couple weeks ago so he's no good to me anymore. : )

The good news with this pregnancy is that I have had hardly any signs of pre-eclampsia. I don't quite remember when they hit with Saben, but it seems to me that I started having some warning signs at least a few months in advance. I am finally getting hopeful that I won't have the problems I had last time but the doctor did still send a blood pressure cuff home with me so that I can keep an eye on things as the due date nears. (last time my blood pressure sky rocketed from normal to dangerous levels in about 4 days and complications kept us in the hospital for 5 days after Saben was born)

The scary part about all this for me is that now I actually have to make a real decision about whether or not to have another c-section or to try for a VBAC. Part of me almost hoped that I would have pre-eclampsia again because it would make the decision a lot easier - cesarian for sure. Now I just don't know, it is all so confusing and there are pros & cons either way. Even though a c-section sometimes sounds nice because its all planned out & predictable, I HATE getting cut open while concious. I actually asked the doctor if they could put me under when I found out I had to have one with Saben because mentally it was my worst nightmare. I can't even watch other people chop things with knives or shave with razor blades and I used to pass out when I had shots. But labor is no picnic either and Saben was big - 9lbs 4oz - and that was being born a week early. AND the doctor keeps telling me your 2nd child is usually bigger.

Right now I think I may just keep the c-section scheduled a few days before my due date but go ahead with a VBAC if I go into spontaneous labor before that.

I think I've been so obsessed with putting in the new garden in our backyard that the time has just flown by. And everytime I get a cute little girl outfit I still feel shocked that its really happening. My official prediction is that she's going to arrive with dark hair - like the women on Kyle's side of the family. I'm not sure why I think that, maybe just trying to not get my hopes up for a redhead. My redhaired uncle had 3 non-redheads and neither of my parents have red hair, so its a weird thing.

The other day I was carrying saben on my shoulders (at a plant nursery of course) and realized that between my pregnancy weight and him, my legs had an added 60 pounds to support. Crazy, but I guess women do that sort of thing all the time.

And lastly, for the record, we still have no idea what we are going to name her. Ok, well maybe a few ideas, but nothing's decided. Its been so much harder this time, for some reason we just knew & agreed on Saben before he was even conceived, but we never really had a girl name we both loved. We like a few of them, but none have just seemed to be perfect. Maybe that's just the way it goes in real life.