Saturday, October 22, 2011

Henry and Papa GQ magazine



We have had a lovely morning. We got up late, ate a nice breakfast (Crunchy Nut Cornflakes), walked the dogs to the Farmers Market where we socialised with the folks and Henry got a free cookie, for "being cute". Pen-ultimate Farmers Market of 2011, so sad. What will I do on Saturday mornings from now on?! We then walked to the park and met up with some mums and kids we know. We played until we had run out of diapers and we came home!

The GQ pose.

Then just some goofy ones...







Friday, October 21, 2011

Henry and Papa



How handsome are my boys!!!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

A fun afternoon


The dogs have been really getting on my nerves lately. They are so needy. After a nice long phone call with my mummy this afternoon, I tried to take a nap. After lying comfortably in bed with my eyes closed for a few minutes, Tux decided to come looking for me, but went straight to Henry's room, bashed his way through the door, which loudly hit the wall. This, of course, woke Henry up, just 1.5 hours after he had gone to bed. ugh. No nap for me then. But we had a lovely afternoon, so it made up for no nap, I guess!

We saddled up the circus and walked the dogs to the square. Henry played on the steps of the court house for about an hour. He loves to climb up the steps then run down the ramp. We ate our afternoon snacks, I chased him around, he screamed running around with his hands in the air. Good times! It must have been fun because after we had walked home, he wandered into the play room and played while I prepared dinner, an unheard of anomaly (I usually cook holding him). Annoyingly, I had already made dinner but it enabled me to clean up some dishes to make post-dinner clean up easier. He came back into the kitchen and played with pots and pants while I did other things. Who stole my baby and replaced him with a self-sufficient little man! Thank you! Just kidding, but it was nice to be able to do things without either someone tugging at your shirt or jeans crying, or holding said someone to prevent aforementioned activities. Henry's Uncle J-J came over for dinner with a friend and Henry was a little angel, eating lots of dinner, then some banana, then his cookie and some milk. After a long bath and a demonstration of his roly poly (somersault) capabilities, we retired to bed to read our three new Boynton books.


Henry at a recent gathering in Lana's neighbourhood...




Tuesday, October 18, 2011

An H update in pictures




Henry and I do lots of goofy things, that's just the kind of people we are. Tonight we 'eskimo kissed', or rubbed noses. He found it hilarious and we spent about 5 minutes rubbing noses and laughing before bed tonight, until he progressed to biting my nose and laughing!

These havent been 'touched up' as my pictures usually have, by my in house photographer, but I thought Id post them anyway.

Chasing H around the car Thursday night before dinner out with the folks...


Check out that running style!


Ive found the stash of photos now, so more (un-touched up) photos tomorrow...

Feeling better emotionally

Henry and I had a lovely weekend with our Papa. We cruised on up to the square on our bicycles and I ate a cake from the Bottletree infront of the Courthouse, where Henry just loves to run up and down the ramp. He did get his first nose bleed, though Im surprised we made it this far without one, to be honest. He tripped just the right distance before a step, so that the bridge of his nose caught the step. He was pretty upset for a good few minutes. And since he had a cold the blood was mixing with his snot. Pretty icky. We bought him some new shoes, and this time Danny didnt comment on the price. We played in the front yard of the neighbours house with their 4 little girls (at which time Danny commented to their parents about the price of the shoes!).

Unfortunately, I was not able to make it to the Memorial Ride for Kevser Sunday. Henry had been so sick we decided it wasnt a good idea to wake him up at 215pm for me to go. In the eventuality, it was probably a good thing I didnt wake him up because he didnt start chirping Mama until 4pm, so he obviously needed to sleep.

The Braxton Hicks contractions havent come back since the Memorial Service Thursday, so I must have just been sub-consciously worked up about it. Feeling super nauseas now though and have this icky vomit-like taste in my mouth most of the time. ugh, gross.

Went to the ladies luncheon at the Sed lab today with Tasha and it was lovely to see everyone. They were all asking us about our babies and the new house and what not so we had lots to talk about. It was a nice respite in an otherwise grim, grey day of showers and boring mundane tasks at work.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Surprise visit

Last night, lying in bed, I wondered what the date was as I knew that my sister's birthday was coming up. Having checked the phone, I reaslied her birthday was today, thank goodness I thought of it last night. Dont worry, I sent presents and a card weeks ago. But it occurred to me that I had a doctors visit on her birthday. Whooa, that came out of no where. Time is seriously flying at the moment. So this morning I didnt get to eat or drink anything and had to take the silly glucose test, which this time I passed, thankfully; didnt want to do the 3 hour one. But that threw our Friday for a loop. Henry gets very very upset when anyone does anything medical to me. When he saw the blood pressure cuff he started screaming and didnt stop until the nurse took it off my arm. He cried when she pricked my finger and sat on my lap sobbing when the doctor listened to the baby's heart beat. I didnt gain any weight this past 2 weeks, blood pressure was 124/70 and the babys heart beat around 140. Told him about my nightly cramps and he didnt seem too bothered, so all is well with the bump. Next visit is with the midwives Nov 9th.

Anyone have any strong views on the Rhogam shot? I had it at 28 weeks with Henry but had decided I wasnt going to have it this time until after the baby was born if in fact, the baby had rhesus positive blood. But I think Dr. Henderson talked me into getting it so I wondered if anyone had any strong feelings on it. The only (major) negative argument seems to be that the shot is comprised of pooled blood serum and there are things in blood serum which cannot yet be screened for such as BSE (mad cow) so I risk infecting myself with these un-screenable diseases. If you dont have the shot and your baby is, in my case, rhesus positive, and blood is transfered between you, future pregnancies will result in mis-carriage as you will have developed an immune system to the foetal cells. I would like another child I think. So anyways, I think I talked myself back into getting the 28 week shot as well as the post-birth shot, unless anyone has any strong views on the subject to sway me otherwise?

I didnt want to, but we went to the grocery store after that. I wasnt desperate for food but didnt want to go over the weekend and then have work Monday. Got an exciting menu for next week though, so thats good. Vegetable lasagne, baked potato, Jambalaya, stuffed peppers, broccoli cheese soup! Been off of food in general lately so its good to actually want to cook, because then I will eat!

To cheer myself up we went to The Barn, a new garden nursery in town. People didnt really seem to want to help me chose plants at first, but they became more helpful. Henry had a blast playing with the gravel and crawling through little gaps in the bushes to find me. Might go back this weekend and buy some stuff. Perennials were on sale and I do love tall phlox. Maybe some Jasmine for our beautiful new arbor.

Following lunch, H took a 3 hour nap, such a contrast to yesterday! So I pulled ivy for an hour and half then napped an hour and a half! After some brief acorn organisation, which we must spend at least some time on each day (though I may need to find Henry a new acorn collection bucket as the raisin tub seems almost full), we walked to Lila's birthday party. A little late for a 1 year olds birthday party in my opinion (6-8pm), but I guess they schedule themselves differently! Most of the kids were tired and every little bump or stolen cracker brought a few seconds of wailing, but it was fun to get out. We read books on Mummy and Daddy's bed after we walked home, as we do every night. Henry had a great time sticking his fingers in the little holes that the Very Hungry Caterpillar had chomped through, and we read Pooh's Bees one and a half times. Now that he is sleeping Im going to do some tidying up and take myself off to bed as soon as is physically possible. Pretty tired.

No cramps today, so I must have just been worked up yesterday. It always stresses me out no end when H doesnt nap, because I know how much he needs to.

I must have sounded pretty bad yesterday as you all sent me such lovely emails. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts. Im ok. I think honestly, Im a little lonely. And I think of Yavuz and wonder how on earth he can go on after this, how lonely he must feel. A huge portion of the people I love live so far away, be it Nashville, Florida, Maine, Arkansas or England and Danny is always so busy trying to look after us so well, that we dont see him as much as we would like. Im sure, more than anything, Im just pregnant and hormonal, and its been a hard week. I also need a reality check. For some reason it still doesnt seem to register with me that Im pregnant. I have a big fat belly that wiggles and flips all of the time, but still I think I can do whatever I want and am invincible. It occurred to me today that I will be in the third trimester in November. Thats really pregnant. I need to buck my ideas up I think, and learn how to take it easy. How do you learn something so unnatural to yourself!?

We should get to spend lots of time with our Papa tomorrow. Maybe we can take some fun pictures of H for me to post next week, I know you miss seeing him! He is so adorable too. Tonight he wore brown corduroys and a check blue shirt to the party and looked like a cute little man! Oh and the most adorable thing ever is that he is getting a swath of thick black hair on his legs, not a baby anymore! What the heck am I going to be like when he starts potty training or even worse, shaving?!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Started out well

Our Thursday started out well, as they usually do, but unlike usual, it went quickly down hill after lunch.

It was raining when I woke up this morning so instead of walking the dogs as planned, I laid in bed, which was nice and probably good for me. We had breakfast with our Papa and drove to baby gymnastics as the roads still seemed wet, but again, it was probably good because I have been pretty exhausted lately and am wondering if cycling is on its way out the door for me. Baby gymnastics was fun, as usual, and the Chai Tea that followed with Jill, Lana and their respective kids was incredibly fun and relaxing, as usual. I just feel like everything flows out of me. We dont talk about much, sometimes we just have to fuss over our children, but it takes me to a relaxing place that nothing else seems to. We then walked over to the Pumpkin Patch at St. Peters church with Jill and Collier and played in the pumpkins for a while.

After lunch, I tried to get Henry to nap a little earlier than usual because we had to be at the Chapel for 4pm. You guessed it, he wouldnt nap. I gave him some Tylenol as it seems that unlike all of his other teeth, which caused him no problems at all, the canines are proving problematic. He still didnt sleep. I left him talking to himself for 1.5 hours before giving up. I plopped him in the stroller and off we walked. Now consider that I have been having a pretty rough time with my tummy lately, I think its Braxton Hicks. So walking with Henry trying to get him to sleep was making the stomach cramps worse until I had worked myself up into a worried frenzy and still H was not asleep. So we stopped at Holli's for a scoop of butter pecan ice cream and some chocolate covered animal crackers and we walked on. Eventually at around 340 he fell asleep and my cramps continued. Jonathan was kind enough to walk him around asleep while I went to the Memorial Service for Kevser. Sitting down and drinking water made the cramps go away and the baby woke up and started kicking, so all is well with the bump again.

The Memorial Service was bearable, right until Yavuz thanked everyone for being there and said that she had taken a part of him away, but that it was ok, because she had left a part of herself with him. At this my tears flowed.

Im tired. H isnt feeling good and Im sure will wake up screaming in pain again like he did last night and we will have to hold him for an hour or so until he feels well enough to go back to sleep. And exhausted, I shall wake up tomorrow and do it all again.

Does anyone have any good news for me? Its not like me to feel like this, so Im not quite sure how to get these blues to go away, but they need to because being sad is tiring and its just not me.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Such a Dangerous Hobby



A dear dear friend of ours was killed Friday riding her bicycle back from the lake. Her husband is like a brother to us, particularly to Danny.

There is little information about the driver or the circumstances under which she was hit, which no one can seem to understand as it is a straight, open road on which you can see for miles. We presume the driver was negligent, however the police have yet to provide a report.

There is a Memorial Service at the Chapel on Campus for those that wish to pay their respects. Thursday, 4pm.

Via some influential people making some influential calls, they have been able to get the paperwork expedited and are able to leave to take her home to Turkey before the weekend.

If you cant make the Memorial Service and would still like to honor Kevser, there is a community ride Sunday from the Square to the location of the accident, leaving at 4pm. Henry and I will be participating so please join us. There is also a fund to help re-patriate her if you wish to help in some small way. Please contact me personally for details.

I have been asked if I am now scared to ride my bike and I am not. However I am scared to drive my car. I am frequently tired driving, especially after work (we arent talking late here - I leave work at 430pm) and worry about it every day now - what if I dont see someone on the road. All I can do is pay close attention I suppose and make sure I dont use my telephone or get distracted by Henry in the back or anything like that. The guy driving that truck had to have been looking away from the road for a good 2-3 miles to not see her cycling, and on a 55mph road - though I doubt that's all he was doing - that's a good length of time to not be looking at the road.

You will be very much missed, Kevser, for your vibrant and happy demeanor and the way that you would light up a room with your smile.

Kevser and Henry the day after he was born.


Kevser, Yavuz and Lara at the airshow