Indianapolis

We were in need of a good weekend around here. The weekend before last was abysmal, as my poor mom was in a decently-awful car accident, caused by an uninjured idiot of course. The weekend was filled with long mornings, afternoons, and evenings in the hospital, long waits in surgery waiting rooms, and watching our beloved mom suffer from breaks in her elbow and arm. By the start of the weekend, let alone the end of it, we were all emotional and tired. (Mom is doing okay now but has a long recovery road ahead of her! She is such a trooper!) This last weekend, we needed some good things to happen around here, and they sure did!

The weekend began for me on Wednesday afternoon, when I got off work quite early and joined Silas over at Grammy's house. The boys (BJ and his dad Terry) soon joined us and we ate pizza at BJ's favorite pizzeria. And that was just the start!  The next day, Thursday, was like Christmas to me because we had our all-important ultrasound to determine the health and sex of the baby. My friend Linzy calls this ultrasound the "big," but she is evidently hipper and more into the lingo than I am, since she schooled me on that term. Our "big" revealed an extremely healthy-looking boy, in case you have been living under a rock and haven't heard my world-wide proclamations of joy! This was particularly exciting news to me since I was very much hoping for another little boy. More on that later.

Thursday night we arrived late into Indianapolis (by plane, of course, because we are not the kind of masochistic crazies that would wish ourselves a cross-country car ride with a 16-month-old). BJ's parents accompanied us on this trip since it was to visit Terry's family in Indiana, and we always have a fun time meeting up with our kin-folk up that way. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins abounded, and we spent three great days catching up with all of them and enjoying some amazing outdoor time. Highs were in the low-80's, which was a good 25 degrees lower than what we have become used to, and we could hardly believe the crispness of the weather as we spent hours upon hours outside.  We could hardly bring Silas in because all he wanted to do was play in the yard with the dogs and Aunt Jeanete's toys! I even enjoyed a nice 15-minute jog without getting hot. It was simply fantastic.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, but as I drove to work this morning, sans Silas for the first time in nearly a week, I spent the drive reflecting moments from the great weekend and remembering that this coming weekend is also going to be a long one. For a family-girl like me, there will be nothing I will enjoy more than four whole days with my boys. All of them. =)  Below are some pictures from the first night only of our journey. I guess I didn't take any more pictures with my camera after that.  Oops.

Our hotel the first night we arrived, at 1AM. Silas had caught his second wind and didn't go down until 2:00. Ugh.

Silas enjoyed both of the plane rides and was particularly excited to sit with Pop.

Nutella

Apparently spreading Nutella on a waffle is a hit.

On The Road Again

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while know that I was really forcing myself to jog after Silas was born in order to lose the baby weight and stay in shape. I participated in the Edmond Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving Day and then in the Memorial Marathon Relay in May, in which I ran nearly all of a 10K leg. Nearly. Well, the pregnancy with Baby Oot began immediately after that 10K, and once I was five weeks pregnant I was no longer able to jog because of the nausea and excessive heat in the state of Oklahoma. (At least we kept taking long walks every evening to stay in semi-shape.) Now, fortunately, both of those are quite diminished! The nausea seemed to go away almost overnight with the arrival of the blessed Week 15 two weeks ago, and the heat has also died down a bit, with highs now just in the upper 90's instead of the upper-Hells. So Thursday night I hopped back on the jogging train and went only eight minutes before I made myself stop, so as not to overdo it. Then last night I ran ten minutes before I made myself stop. It's so encouraging that my body keeps feeling as though it can go, but I want to ease back into this.

Disclaimer: If any of you out there is paranoid and thinks I shouldn't be jogging since I didn't for several weeks, fear not. Jogging has been Dr. B approved, provided that I jog only at night until it cools off and that I take Tex with me for protection from evil-doers. If it sounds like Dr. B is a father of five children, it's because he is. End of Disclaimer.

Jogging with a pregnant belly is pretty weird, I will definitely say that. I have never jogged this big before, and it is a new experience. You know how your legs start burning when you jog? Well, when you are a large-bellied pregnant woman such as myself, you feel that exact same burning in the muscles of your very large stomach. I'm sure you wanted to know that, so you're welcome.

I'll keep you updated on my progress! And as of this time, the next formal jogging goal is, once again, the Memorial Marathon Relay in late April of next year, which is exactly what I need to get those baby pounds off once Oot is born in January. Fellow teammates so far are BJ, my mom, and Amber. That's right, Amber. You. Shazam.

"He Keeps on Growing, (Slipping Through My Fingers All the Time)"

Silas has been such an interesting little guy lately, taking the world in and learning new things every day. He is now stringing two words together at times (such as when I say to Tex, "Get back!" and Silas repeats "Get back!"), identifies loved ones in photos, points excitedly at "Tees!" (trees) and "Burbies!" (birdies) while on our nightly wagon rides, and points to his nose when asked. Today when we were watching the conclusion of the PGA championship, he clapped when everyone else on TV applauded Keegan Bradley as he accepted his trophy.


This afternoon, however, Silas was not to be amused. I thought maybe it was because he was short on sleep, having missed his morning nap and then snoozing for only an hour and a half this afternoon. But the wailing ensued all afternoon, despite sippy cups, snacks, cuddles, and playtime. Finally I said to BJ, "I think he's cutting another tooth." To which BJ replied, "He is not. He's just tired." I wrestled my boy down on the couch and pried open his mouth, which only made the wailing more deafening, but led to the surprise of Silas' second canine tooth poking through the gums. His 14th tooth making an appearance! The funny part about the whole sad affair that had us laughing and laughing was, as I stood Silas back up and gave him a hug, I gloated to BJ, "See? Mama always knows." And Silas, through his tears and misery, heard the word "knows" and pointed to his nose mid-wail. Now if that's not a little ham, I just don't know what is.

Our Very Own Library

No doubt my favorite two grown men in this world are my (awesome) husband and my (awesome) Dad, whom I still call Daddy even though I am 30. Those two have always both taken excellent care of me, and as the years pass I love them both even more all the time. So can you just imagine what these two guys can come up with when they put their heads together and get cracking? Well, I can give you a hint, and it ain't no small thang. When this mama said that we need to give up our office to make a bedroom for Silas since his nursery is about to become someone else's nursery, and when it became evident that the only place to move our office is into our bedroom, and when I said there is no way that our four bookshelves are all going into our bedroom because that is neither romantic nor relaxing, these two guys thought, "Let's build her a library with a built-in style!" And that is exactly what they did over the past week. All I had to do was sit, direct, and draw up some plans of what I wanted, and now I have this absolutely charming feature inside of our enormous bedroom.

When I save up the money, there will of course be a ladder to accompany this veritable monster of a bookcase! As I heard jokingly muttered in my direction numerous times as labor was ensuing last week, "Could you have designed a bookcase that is any bigger than this?" Clearly there is no need for other bookshelves at this time! Our nicest bookcase will now belong in Silas' room for his own books, of which he has many, and the others are being given away or sold. Gone will be the easy-chair in our room, replaced with a small, contemporary desk for the computer. And as for Silas' new room! Well, that will be the fun part. At the end of August we will find out if Oot is a boy or a girl, and then we will know how to decorate Silas' room. It's important for us to find out the sex of this baby because, if all goes as planned, Silas and Oot will be sharing that room someday while Oot3 is in the nursery. If Oot is a boy then we are free to go with any boy theme, such as sports and robots. However, if Oot is a girl, then we will do a gender-neutral theme such as a castle, where one side can be for a prince and the other for a princess.  Changes are taking place in this household, folks, and we couldn't be more pleased about it.

On a separate note, BJ and I were fortunate to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary over the weekend (a little early, as our anniversary is actually today), and we spent part of our evening seeing "Crazy Stupid Love" with Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, and Ryan Gosling. I am raving about this movie, people. To my taste, it was certainly one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in a long time, and it is perhaps my personal favorite. This is absolutely not your typical romantic comedy though, so buyer beware. The character development is careful and rich, creating characters that are much deeper than you typically see in romantic comedies, thus lending a substance to the plot that makes the journey that much more delightful. While I truly think that this movie will be enjoyed by a wide audience, I do believe that it is especially to be appreciated by people who have spent a long time plugging away in a committed relationship. And, while I know that eight years isn't long for a marriage in the grand scope of things, I thought this movie experience was appropriate timing for a couple who has remained true and steady throughout those eight years, and all the while bringing out the best in each other.

Can you tell I'm still in love? =)

112 Degrees

I don't think I've spent a whole lot of time griping about the heat we have had this summer in Oklahoma. I actually believe they are calling it a "heat dome," although I fail to grasp the technical meaning of this phrase. I've been sucking it up and dealing with the heat without much complaining for a few reasons:

• I don't want to look like a second-trimester-whiny pregnant lady when there are women about to give birth dealing with this same heat. The fact remains, however, that the heat is nauseating.
• I love living in Oklahoma and don't want to gripe about this great state. I lived so far away for four years and don't have the heart to gripe about my homeland because I have come to so appreciate it.
• What's the point? There's nothing I can do about it. Whining only makes other people whiny.

But today I feel kind of whiny. I think this heat is finally catching up to me. I always used to tell people when we lived in Minnesota, 'It's not the cold temperatures that get to me. It's the LONGEVITY of the cold that gets to me.' I remember specific days in Minnesota winters when the temperature was a blustery -25 degrees with a windchill at -50. On those days it was absolutely necessary for my wussy butt to take an extra scarf to breathe into or else my Southern lungs would have crystallized and shattered. But it wasn't those days that got me down and blue; no, it wasn't those days at all. It was the days in late February, and even late March, when I was speaking on the phone to loved ones in Oklahoma who were wearing shorts and grilling and enjoying the sun, and I still had months of winter to endure. THAT was the killing point for me, the times when the high temperature of the day was still below zero, and it was like that for 17 days in a row before (yay!) a high of 6 degrees was predicted in the forecast.

Now I face a similar exhaustion, only the temperature is in the other extreme. It's something like 40 days now this summer in OKC that temperatures have been over 100 degrees, and here is the forecast for the next seven days:

The great Nero Wolfe would say, "Confound it!" So confound it, I say! It's hot, and I'm ready for the fall! And from this moment forward I have decided to exchange all whiny thoughts to anticipatory dreams of the fall: orange leaves that fall and crunch, grilling out on the porch, sips of cider (I mean hard cider, so that's why they are merely stolen sips), pumpkin candles, baking, holidays, pomegranates and apples, light jackets, and FOOTBALL! It's coming! Hang in there, fellow Oklahomans! And Texans! This cannot last forever!

"Top of the Muffin To Ya"

In looking at the title of this post, I realize that I have way too many Seinfeld references going on in this blog. How convenient though, since this post concerns the second recipe that I attempted from Jessica Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious. I had 20 minutes' worth of extra time on my afternoon off, which was exactly how long it took Silas to decide that he didn't want to take a nap after I had laid him in his crib (this was a sad occasion, as I enjoy the afternoon Silas-nap). Because I had 20 minutes to my self and some extra butternut squash puree left over from the macaroni-and-cheese recipe, I whipped up a batch of Applesauce Muffins, which do indeed call for butternut squash puree in them. I made them look all pretty for you, dear readers, before I shoved them into a tupperware to face the reality of effective storage.

Since Silas shirked his afternoon nap, he was around to enjoy a muffin warm out of the oven. Placed in his high chair with an applesauce muffin and a sippy cup of milk, life was grand for him, and thereby also for me, for a good ten minutes. Rarely has Silas enjoyed something more, but examples such as the godforsaken Gray Van, oven timers, and horsey rides do come to mind.

Thanks Jessica Seinfeld, for teaching me to trick my child. He was never the wiser that he was eating vegetables.