New pictures of Savannah...

I wanted to post some recent pictures of Savannah... sorry it has taken me so long, but things around here have gotten crazy in the last few weeks with the holidays looming and trying to finish up freelance projects.

Savannah has taken to putting her meals in her hair... so there will be a few of those pictures mixes in with some other of my favorites.

Enjoy!

Made it through the test...

A quick note to say I made it through the glucose test... after convincing the nurse that I didn't want all four pokes to come from the same hole in my arm. So now I just have two slightly sore arms instead of one severely sore arm.

Hopefully I'll get good results back later in the week... I'm going to call the doctor's office every day until they tell me my results because I thought I passed the first test only to find out I had failed a week and a half later.

While I was being poked and prodded, Pat and Savannah made a trip to the Toyota dealership nearby  and looked at a new van... all to see just how desperate they are to sell vehicles.

Apparently, they're not desperate enough as the trade-in deal they offered for my car wasn't very high and (most importantly) the monthly payment was much more than we could pay right now with a second baby on the way, one steady income and this crazy economy.

I've tried to convince Pat that when we really go to look at trading in my car we need to look at good used vehicles... because we cannot afford a new car that decreases greatly in value once you drive it off the lot.

I have lots of great Savannah pictures to download and post later tonight... after we take a little trip to shop with nieces Erin and Samantha. Then we return home to bake cookies for a cookie exchange tomorrow... that should also be fun.

More blood work needed...

I went to check in on Julius today and found out that my glucose test results from last week came back a little high. That means that on Monday, I'll have to have the three-hour glucose check.

All I can say is yuck, yuck, yuck.

This test will force me to have my blood taken four times in three hours... after fasting for at least seven hours. The nurse will take my blood when I arrive, make me drink a nasty orange drink and then take my blood every hour for the next three hours.

I would rather take a poke in the eye than have this test, but I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.

The good thing (if there is a good thing here) is that I had to take a second test when I was pregnant with Savannah and the results came back negative for gestational diabetes... so my doctor thinks there is a good chance that I don't have gestational diabetes, but it takes my body a little longer to process sugar than other people.

It also looks like Julius will be born during the week of February 23... unless they have to take him earlier for medical reasons. The hospital regulations for planned C-sections are a week before our due date... which is March 2.

Dr. Wills told me to plan on being in the hospital three to four days... twice as long as I was in the hospital with Savannah. This is also hospital policy and not because there is anything wrong or special.

On a positive note, Julius' heartbeat was good and strong... it's steady at 150 beats per minute/

Being a big girl...

We have finally managed (knock on my hard head) to get Savannah sleeping in her own bed again after more than a month of her refusing to go down in her crib.

I'm not sure if it was the toddler bed or just trying to be in control, but Savannah went through a recent phase where she wouldn't lay down in her crib... and I haven't had the strength or energy to fight her.

But for the last two out of three nights Savannah has went to sleep in her crib and slept the entire night... waking up late in the morning about the time her Daddy gets up.

I'm hoping that I get another good night of sleep... as these days four or five hours is about all I can count on each night.

Our laptop computer...

I think our laptop computer has finally bitten the dust.

When Pat and I married, we each brought a computer into the the mix... he had a trusty Mac laptop and I had a dreaded PC... it was the first computer I bought for myself and couldn't afford to make the $1,000 investment on a Mac.

Anyway, we downsized to just one computer and sent mine to Georgia for my sister, Lynn. Fast forward two years and an active toddler  later and Pat's trusty laptop has bitten the dust.

This Mac laptop model apparently wasn't built to withstand a toddler's knock overs... so after replacing the plug-in cord four times, Savannah knocked the computer over last week and broke the male part of the plug into the computer itself.

Although I finally scraped the plug out, the computer part has to be replaced... and when we took it to the "doctor" today he said it would be $350... not really worth it for a computer that is really out of date.

We have the newer iMac computer... which we bought after Savannah arrived last year so it's not like we're computer free. But the laptop was very handy and I could do my freelance work in the living room while watching Savannah instead of having to lug our big computer into the kitchen... where it now sits since we have little space in the house.

Pat is sending the laptop off to a California company in the hopes of getting it working for $200, but we won't know until it gets out there and they look at it... if it's much more we're not going to make that investment.

In the meantime, I'll be working on my freelance in the kitchen and around Savannah's sleeping schedule... she likes to climb up in my lap and play with all of the "big buttons".

A good deed...

I love "The Sound of Music" and one of the songs came to mind on Saturday while Savannah and I were out shopping. The song is "Something Good"... which Maria and Captain Von Trapp sing when they realize they've fallen in love.

Anyway, I digress.

Savannah and I were out shopping and were in the check-out line when I realized I didn't have my wallet. This wasn't a big deal since I had my wallet at the previous store and figured I must have left it in the car.

We  walked out to the car and looked inside, but there was no wallet... suddenly I panicked because I knew it was with me just 15 minutes earlier. Inside the wallet was about $50 in cash and all of my credit cards and identification... along with a few other things I wouldn't want to lose.

All of a sudden, a man pulled up in a car and asked me if I was missing anything... and in his hand was my brown wallet. Apparently he had seen it on the ground while waiting for his wife to come out of the store... and he had looked inside and saw my driver's license so he knew it belonged to me.

I offered the man some money, but he wouldn't take it... so after we went in and paid for our items I put a few dollars to the Salvation Army kettle collector and counted my blessings. I know that some people would have picked up my wallet and at least taken the money out of it.

Being a Mommy for me has meant not carrying a purse, but that will soon change when I'm not carrying the diaper bag in the store.

Bringing children into a fight...

Some of you may remember my decision a few weeks ago to cease contact with my older sister. This decision came after years of a silent (and not so silent) battle that made our relationship feel more like a war than a sisterhood.

Never did I imagine my decision would have four innocent victims.

My sister has three children and it never occurred  to me that any problems she and I have would ever include the three of them or Savannah. They have nothing to do my reasons behind wanting to shield myself from long ago resentment and hatred.

So as I've been doing my Christmas shopping I bought gifts for my nieces and nephew... things they've asked for on their department store wish lists. 

Imagine my surprise last week when Mama told me that Shannon has refused her children to accept these gifts... and said if I send them she'll return them to us. She asked that we give the three gifts ... two video games and an Etch-A-Sketch... to Toys for Tots or some other charity.

First of all, I don't think it's appropriate to give video games to a charity... those gifts go to children who are probably too needy to have personal video game systems. Second, Pat and I have already bought gifts for an Angel Tree child in honor of Julius and he's too young to play with any of these items.

Shannon's decision reminded me of a childhood memory that I've always wished I didn't have... we were visiting a relative for Christmas and they were talking about how lazy my Daddy was because he stayed at home while my Mama worked.

Hearing them talk about my Daddy in that hateful and hurtful way has always stuck with me and has been a sore spot for me when it came to this relative. I decided  then and there that whatever personal issues I had with someone wouldn't involve their children.

I've given a lot of thought as to what to do about this... and then only thing I could do was ask my Mama and other siblings to open  their gifts from us before Shannon and her family come over on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.

I would rather her children think we didn't send anyone anything than to realize there are no gifts under Grandma's Christmas tree from Aunt Sharon and Uncle Pat for them. 

It saddens me to think they would be impacted by my decision, but it strengthens my resolve that I've done the right thing by ending contact. 

It's another sign of the resentment and hatred I don't need or want in my life.