What kind of Mother

Logan is obsessed with t.v. We used to limit his time to 30 minutes per day; however, this has crept up to one Disney length movie on non-school days. He usually watches it first thing in the morning and we play the rest of the day. This has been the routine since we moved into our house 7 months ago; however, he asks nearly everyday after his nap if he can watch another movie. This is today's conversation:
L: Can I watch a short movie?
M: No, you know that. What kind of mommy would I be if I let you watch movie after movie?
L: Miss Sharla

I couldn't resist posting this. Sharla is my "pseudo" sister, my dear friend and someone I and my family love and adore. Sharla also lets Logan get away with whatever he wants to do and sometimes I wonder if he truly wishes she were his mother...

Let the Dreams Begin

Okay, since Logan was born I've had this HUGE (some call it irrational) fear of my child/children drowning. I don't know what it is, but I do get deathly afraid of this at various points. I think that it all started when I was pregnant with Logan and I realized that there were multiple dangers that could easily cause this...my in-laws had a pool with 2 back doors, their backyard backed up to the Brazos River and they also owned a houseboat in Arkansas. Let me stop here and say that I LOVE these things. I think in another life, I could live in the water--if I believed in that sort of thing. I can find no better relaxation than on the lake, sitting by/in any body of water or just looking at the water--as long as my child isn't with me. My mother on the other hand is scared to death of it--this was always so absurd to me, but no longer.

For many other reasons, we have not taken Logan to the boat since he was 9 months old; however, we have decided that it is time to get him acquainted, so in another month and a half, we'll be taking our first trip to Arkansas as a family since he started walking. This scares me for a huge variety of reasons, but the biggest being that there is a large gap between the boat and the dock that any child could slip between, but is not large enough for an adult to fit.

So, now on to the dream...last night I dreamed that Logan was jumping between two platforms over water...I was trying not to panic aloud in my dream, but I awoke in sweaty sheets with my heartrate at a million beats a minute. I woke up just after 2 a.m. and didn't get calmed down until after 7 a.m. Today, I checked my email and found this:

"Why do I have such strange dreams?Your hormone levels are all over the map and you're about to undergo one of the biggest life events imaginable that's enough to give anyone the occasional nightmare. In fact, vivid, bizarre, or even terrifying dreams during pregnancy are probably the mind's natural way of dealing with the anxiety, excitement, and fear that accompany childbirth, says Dr. Raina Paris, author of The Mother to Be's Dream Book: Understanding the Dreams of Pregnancy. "

Yet another thing I forgot about pregnancy.

Waiting

Well, we went to the doctor yesterday and everything looked great again. Nothing of note to report, really. It was an interesting visit because of several things:
1. I forgot to ask about my Level 2 ultrasound--yes, I've already gotten chastized for this from my husband.
2. I went alone for the second time ever--which was fine, especially since I saw the doctor for maybe 2 minutes.
3. I forgot my pre-registration packet for the hospital.
4. I was told not to wash the dishes for 24 hours after getting my blood taken (wahoo!)
5. I went back after my packet and to ask about the sonogram and was told the nurse sets it up and calls me with the date--this was a little too weird for me, but whatever.
6. I seemed to be one of two married people in the packed waiting room.
7. I'm measuring further along than 17 1/2 weeks--with Logan, I only measured "big" once and it was at 38 weeks...uh oh!

I am feeling better--back to one pill a day. We decided that I must have had the stomach flu and it was prolonged due to taking all of the medicine. I found out that three of my kiddos had it right after school got out for Spring Break...hopefully I didn't make any of you sick.

Today the nurse called to tell me that she scheduled the ultrasound for April 18--we'll be at Sea World, so they rescheduled for April 21. If munchkin cooperates we'll know if we're going blue or pink then.

On a side note Logan informed me last night that my belly is "huge!" Great...what will he be saying come August? BTW: this is after he told me he wanted me to be "FFFFATMAN", aka: batman while we were playing. He's definitely keeping me laughing if nothing else.

Egg Hunting

We went to the Midlothian egg hunt on Saturday, where Logan was a bit overwhelmed and would have much rather played on the "playslide", but he was glad for the extra candy. We then had our church Easter egg hunt on Sunday afternoon. There he got the hang of it about the time the big kids were released and he realized there was some competition involved...so, we had to finally stop him when his basket was full. We had a wonderful spring break and Easter with visits from the Stringers, Annie, the Porters, Gammie Gumpy and Uncle Matthew, and Uncle Matt and Aunt Laurie (not all at the same time.) Easter was wonderful, although the Hemphills had to leave early, we did get to have some special friends over for lunch. I just realized as I was doing this post that I didn't take a single picture of us in our Easter "outfits". I guess that's what this pregnant brain is for--forgetting lots and lots of things!

Dyers Dye

Well, we spent an evening the week before Easter dying eggs. We got started a little rough, with the wind blowing the newspaper all over the backyard, blowing over the pink dye and Maddie trying to sabotage the rest of the colors, but we had a blast eventually. Logan was so upset about the pink dye that we didn't know if he'd recover, but he did and he loved it. Here are a few of the pictures.

NOT Two Peas in this Bod

Okay, after a hilarious email from my friend Colleen I realized the error of the last post's title...Just to clarify, there is only one pea in this body...not two. I was told what havoc it caused to see a post by a pregnant lady entitled "two peas in a pod."

As far as the "pea" (or rather "avocado" at 16 weeks) goes, the morning sickness has not subsided...its actually getting worse...now I'm up to taking two pills a day to help with the nausea instead of the one at night...too many of my friends have had to listen to my complaints over the past few days. I just can't understand how I felt so great with Logan after the first trimester, and how I can feel so absolutely awful still with this one. I know that pregnancy is just a time in your life when you are totally self-absorbed, but I thought that it would be better with this one after I could just get through the sick stage...I guess I'm going to have to fight a little harder to get out of this "selfish" mode. Please forgive my rantings.

On a lighter note, we go to the doctor next Wednesday and we will schedule "The Ultrasound." Yes, we will be finding out the gender of the baby and we will be shouting it from the mountaintops, but we haven't determined yet when we'll be shouting it. I'm also toying with the idea of letting Logan come to that appointment. He's SO interested and curious about seeing the baby and hearing its heartbeat (he sticks his ear to my tummy several times a day to see if he can hear its heart) that I think it would be really sweet for him to be there. Plus, I think that it would be sweet to have him there to be "surprised" with us on the gender. We've been talking the whole pregnancy about how this is just as much his baby as it is mine and Jarrod's so that he knows how special he is and how he fits into this family--he's finally started referring to it as "our baby" which I just love. I'll keep you posted which route we go.

Two Peas in a Pod

Well, we were excited to have a visit from Seth, Baby Blake and Kim this week. Kim and I go to get our hair done by a girl who moved close to my house (okay, well, 30 minutes from me.) So, Kim brought the boys and came up. Annie was SOOO gracious to come over and watch the boys for 5 hours while we went to get our hair done. Yes, I said 5 hours. We love this girl, but she's SUPER slow at this...I think she's even slower when there's two of us to talk to. But, she does a good job and she's cheap...and best of all she's allowing us to spend some time together now that the Stringer's left us for San Antonio.

Let me start by saying that Logan and Seth are very similar. They play similarly, they are both pretty tough, they have and require similar discipline styles and neither of them require a whole lot. Now, there are definite differences--Seth is definitely more adventurous than Logan, but he brings Logan right along with him and if Seth is doing it, Logan's not going to be scared about it. We view that as a huge plus. Seth's never met a stranger and Logan is as shy as they come, at least at first. However, again, as long as Seth's with him, what's there to be scared of??? Needless to say, they have a GREAT friendship and that allows us to have A LOT of fun when we're together. Over two days, they had two "squabbles" and neither one lasted longer than 30 seconds--that's pretty amazing for 3 year olds. They had some adorable conversations, including "we make a great team" while playing basketball together, and "Logan (pronounced Yo-gan) was touching my hand like this when I was asleep" (Logan had woken up and was trying to get Seth to wake up by holding his hand). Here are a few pictures of them after a day of play in their "Wooly Mammoth" t-shirts.