Easter

We spent Easter this year with Grandma and Grandpa Benesh in Waco.

The kids got to have an Easter egg hunt in their front yard, which, of course, they very much enjoyed.

 

Perhaps this is the first egg hunt Jane will remember.  If so, she'll remember how delighted she was!

Happy girl.  She picked out her Easter dress for the day, by the way.

 

I think Noah is pleased with what's in his basket. ;)

Here's hoping you all had a happy and blessed Easter season this year!

21 Weeks

As of today, I'm 21 weeks along in my pregnancy.  Wow!  The first half has gone by so quickly!  However, I think that this second half will be quite a bit harder--it's already getting more difficult, for several reasons.

1. Probably about two thirds of the people who ask me when I'm due say, "Oh, you're going to have to go through the Texas summer!"  Insert dread here.  There have already been some days when the heat and humidity have had this odd sapping effect on me as soon as I walk outside. And as soon as I walk back inside, I'm fine.

2. I'm due September 13, but I'll have a C-section sometime during the week before (I was close to having a baby on my birthday, which is September 14!).  So, technically, I have about 18 weeks to go.  However, I am already huge.  And I'm not just saying that because I have some skewed perception of myself because I'm looking with biased eyes.  I truly do have a large pregnant belly.  I remember that when I was at about 20 weeks with Noah, an older lady told me, with popping eyes, that I looked like I was about to deliver.  I was fairly horrified, but that was my first pregnancy, when I was disturbed by all the crazy things happening to my body.  At this point, I am over all of that, and, of course, since this is my third pregnancy, I'm bigger than I was in my first.  Yesterday, I spoke with a woman who clearly thought I was about to have this baby, and I was not offended at all; on the contrary, I find it a bit amusing to tell people that, no, I'm actually only halfway there.  (And then they cover their shock by saying, as you might predict, "Oh no, you'll have to go through the Houston summer!")

3. The thing about having a large baby belly is not so much the spectacle of it but the discomfort of it.  Last weekend, I was very hungry and wanted to eat all the time.  As soon as I realized it, I knew what was happening: I was about to pop some more.  This baby and all those support systems my body has built were growing.  And, sure enough, a couple of days later, I was noticeably larger.  (And, as it turns out, since I unexpectedly had two ultrasounds two weeks apart, I found out that the baby did go from 8 oz. to 12 oz. in that period.  I mean, they do grow fast, but still!  There was definitely a growth spurt in there!)  And as soon as I got that little bit bigger, I suddenly started feeling uncomfortable.  I had trouble putting socks on.  In fact, bending over for any reason got harder.  I still have the same level of energy, thank goodness, but I can tell that I'm going to get pretty huge this round, and I can't say I am looking forward to how I'll be feeling and getting around those last couple of months.  It's one reason to be thankful I'll be having this baby a week early instead of a week late, like the last two!

4. A few weeks ago, I was very sick for about a week.  In the end, it looked like I caught a virus from Noah and Jane, but whereas it only took them down for about 24 hours, it took me down for close to a week.  It was also accompanied by a monster headache, which is what precipitated the early ultrasound--the headache was so severe (even Vicodin + Tylenol didn't eradicate it) that we wanted to make sure the baby was okay.  This doesn't really affect how I'll be feeling for the remainder of my pregnancy, but I actually did feel a bit of shock that I felt so very bad.  This pregnancy had been fairly easy so far--definitely the smoothest of the three--and since no one knew what was wrong with me for several days, and since my symptoms pointed to something that was possibly ongoing and not just my body fighting off a virus and making me feel crummy, it made me feel as if it was the demarcation point from smooth sailing to rougher seas.  Thankfully, there's nothing really wrong with me or the baby, healthwise.  Hopefully, nothing more than a giant belly and a hot summer!

Two Yellow Pears!

We picked our first tomatoes of the season today!

There were two yellow pear tomatoes--one for Noah and one for Jane.  They loved them!  Jane let me have a little bite of hers, and it was awfully tasty.  Here's to a prolific summer!

(Also, I just noticed that those tomato plants are already taller than Noah.  Sheesh!  And we have months to go!)

Expectations

Does anyone else ever go to their blog site and somehow expect to see a new post, even though they haven't written one?  I think this must be the Facebook effect: the conditioned expectation of constant updates.  After all, my life is updating and refreshing all the time; it's as if I expect my blog to reflect that.

I swear, strange things happen to my brain during pregnancy.

Lately

Noah and Jane in a sandbox at my parents' house.
They sure do love a good sandbox!

Noah's friend, Saber, had a field day birthday party. Here's the sack race. Look who's in the lead!

The winner!

Jane and Noah took good swings at the pinata, which ended up being completely indestructible. In the end, the parents had to stab it and rip it open to get the candy out.

Happy girl.

Noah and me!

Grandpa, swinging Noah T.

On the carousel at the mall. He was mad that we were going to leave after only one ride.

But I told him to be grateful and smile. It was less that I cajoled him into it and more that I threatened him into it. Ha! My parenting skills could probably use some work here.

Jane is a climber and is constantly getting up onto the counter and swiping fruit for herself.
She doesn't usually get three or four at a time, though.

Nathan, after cutting down some extra brush in our backyard, including a tree. (We have all KINDS of stuff growing back there--ugh.) If you can believe it, there is still an incredible amount of stuff to pull up or cut down.

The kids with my mom at her desk at school.

We went strawberry picking a couple of weeks ago! Here's Jane with her friend, Elizabeth.

Noah, Jane, and their friend, Moriah.

And my cuties.

One of the Coolest (and Creepiest) Apps

There have always been two things that other people care about in terms of status symbols that Lauren could care less about. Those things are cars and phones. I never cared that I didn't have a cool car (still don't care that I drive a minivan instead of an SUV, although I know a lot of moms who cringed when they made the switch). And I never cared that I didn't have a cool phone. I would always buy the cheapest phone--you know, the one that costs $25 after the rebate. I was the last person to have a camera phone, the last person to text, and, until Christmas, I could never receive pictures or get online with my phone. And I didn't care.

But for Christmas, Nathan gave me an iPhone. And, aside from the fact that I know he did know I would like it and get a lot of use out of it, I suspect there was an ulterior motive. And that motive was the number of times he got calls from me at work asking him to look something up online because I was out and about and couldn't do it, myself. Most often, it had to do with finding a particular place: "Babe, are you at your computer? Could you see if there's an Old Navy near me? I forgot that I need to get Noah some jeans, and I could swear there's one around here, but I can't find it." And, truly, one of the apps that gets the most use on my phone is Google Maps. It is so darn handy.

But the other source of unnecessary calls that he gets from me had to do with checking on when he'd be coming home. I like to know, because it helps me know when to have supper ready, and, besides, it's just a happy time of day when Daddy gets home. So I'd often end up calling him to find out when he'd be home or why he was running late. Now, one thing you have to know about Nathan is that he is very against talking on the cell phone while you are driving (he works for a major oil company that is extremely strong on safety, and he has seen enough scary videos and heard enough horrifying stories having to do with irresponsible drivers on cell phones that he has banned himself and me from talking on them in the car). In the end, to put my mind at ease and to keep from having to answer his phone while driving, he found this app:

It's called Find My Friends. And what it does is link to someone else's phone and tell you their exact location. So, in my case, it's handy because I can estimate when Nathan will be home in the evenings, or perhaps when his plane has landed, or if he's headed the right direction to meet me in a certain location, etc. I probably use this app once or twice a week. I can also see how I would REALLY like to have this on my teenager's phone, for obvious reasons!

However, let's be honest. You don't want to be just anyone's Find My Friends friend. It has its handy features, but it could also turn a bit creepy. Thankfully, Nathan and I don't care if we know where each other is all the time, so for us it's no big deal. But it does remind me of the old Sting song, "Every Breath You Take," which includes the following lyrics: "every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, I'll be watching you." My friend, Sarah, and I performed a couple of places in college and always referred to as "the stalker song." I can't help but say that as handy as I find it, I do also think of this app as "the stalker app."

Handy but potentially creepy. How's that for a review?

Quirky Little People, And Other Things

Various and sundry thoughts today:

1. Sometimes, there is just nothing better than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

2. Here's a piece of information you never knew you never wanted to know: If your child eats an entire pack of gum, you can be sure that anything and everything that comes out the other end will smell like peppermint for at least 24 hours. That, my friends, is not such a bad side effect.

3. I love that Noah and Jane are a little quirky. That means that they were definitely not switched at birth and that I am, indeed, their equally quirky mother.
Some examples:

• Noah eats his pizza backwards, crust first, every single time.
• Jane loves cheese toast, but she picks the cheese off and eats it only. If you offer her cheese alone for breakfast, she will not want it. Only if it is melted on toast.

4. This entire post was about food. I must be pregnant or something.