Grow big, baby
You're starting to stir
to fill my heart with longing and trepidation
equal parts
how can I bear it
you need to stay put
snuggle down
make yourself a nest where you can grow big
dream of us, dream of days in the sun
with laughing
I wait for you

Vickie Milazzo was a RN when she came to conclusion that despite her education she was not happy. She didn't feel like she had accomplished anything, or that she could as long as things stayed the same. That's when she came across the 5 promises to unleash the 10 forces within every woman. Inside Every Woman is the book that sprang from her vision. The promises include living a passionate life, being true to yourself, and getting off the fence (otherwise known as accept or reject it outright). I've spent a lot of time in my personal life dealing with those things. Part of my anxieties stem from the inability to make up my mind on a subject while putting the alternatives to bed. I don't want to tell you everything so you don't have a reason to check out the first chapter of her book, available at www.InsideEveryWoman.com.

And while you're there reading the chapter, pick up a free "Inside Every Woman" bookmark by emailing your request to Vickie@InsideEveryWoman.com.

PT this morning worked better than I had a right to expect, with the Toddler bubbly and bright-eyed and willing to make eye contact with everyone. Even with the brand new therapist that she's not laid eyes on before this day. And she used her words! So wonderful. I was super-proud. Proud enough that I let her splash in the mud puddles in the parking lot before we left.

Because there was thunder. There was lightning. There were spots of torrential rain and lots of mud and some traffic tie ups. The outside of my car is very, very clean. And the humidity is now resembling a day on the East Coast.

The Boy started participating in some weekend activities with the guys from his department, and the one that they all seem to like the best is paintball. He's consistantly come home from these things with bumps, scrapes, the occasional bruise and the trace of deeply ingrained paint on his head. On the other hand it's terrific fun. He's even started asking about getting paintball gear for himself so he "can save the rental fee" for his vest and supplies. So far this sounds like a perfect present for Christmas, or for the occasional one that I like to spring on him at odd moments.

I think I've found a great company to order his present from. Ultimate Paintball offers Tippman, Spyder, Smart Pants, Dye, Draxxus paintball gear, and lots of other high quality stuff on the website. As you all know I'm highly in favor of anything that can be ordered online, because it's avoiding a trip out of my fuzzy bunny slippers. Ultimate Paintball has the best prices I can find on these things, plus free shipping, and I know that I can trust a company that's been doing such a big business that they've expanded from the original specialty store to a site with a large warehouse- enabling them to buy in bulk from top brands and pass savings on to us?

Oddly enough (for me, who regularly loses my husband to computer strategy games) I'm looking forward to having the chance to give him this gift. Fresh air, exercise, male-bonding with the people he works with... Cool!

Day One of the rest of this pregnancy has gone fairly well. This morning's fasting sugar was good and I "treated" myself with a few bites of cantalope. When I say cantalope I do not mean that it was fresh from the produce section, although I did indeed buy it in that section. I mean rather that fun semi-dried and preserved fruit. Coated with sugar.

I know, I know, it's not good for me. But I only had a little bite, and I have been so hungry for something sweet ever since I got the results of the glucose monitoring. So very, very hungry. I'm also, this morning, very, very tired. I suspect this is partially due to having gotten up early to deal with the Toddler, and that the rest can be laid at the feet of the non-caffiene I've been consuming for the past two days. I need more Caffiene pills. Because, well, I can't drink coffee without gagging and I've come to really like the jolt from a small pill delivering the caffeine kick of 2 cups of coffee. That's like 4 cups of strong tea delivered instantly.

Have you ever wanted to try a new sport, or brush up on skills outside of a paid lesson, and found that instructional books are difficult to learn from (at best)? Now there's a new opportunity for you. PlaySportsTV is a website devoted to providing video clips of the techniques you need to improve your game. Designed for youth sports programs and coaches, as well as for parents wanting to have an upclose view of the technique properly demonstrated, this site is fabulous. The coaches who provide the instruction and appear on the clips are all certified in their fields -check out the coach listings which show their qualifications. Also offered are sport-specific blogs by coaches and professionals, featured photos of the week, and free email newsletters to help you stay current with the field. Don't rely on ink sketches in a book to tell you how to play a sport. See it done. While many skills can be learned from the book method, sports is one of the few that I would say can only be safely learned from a combination of hands on practice and visual demonstration.

Donuts? Donuts? Did someone just say the word "donut"??

I'm dreaming of pastry tonight. In a brave new world where I can no longer have the sugary pastries that I enjoy so much on occasion, this has been the saddest part of the day. I have been slapped with the gestational diabetes label. Oh joy.

At least I'm sorta prepared for it. The things I can't eat, the things I generally won't miss. But it still grates a little to realize that I can't have them now. Otherwise the doctor visit went really well. Except that I'm losing a little more weight. I'm now officially lower than I was when I got pregnant.

That part just makes me want to cry.

Three hours of naptime this morning, and the Toddler was happy the rest of the day. Yay us. She handled bedtime with barely a fuss; let's just hope that it lasts through the night.

Tomorrow is school. More doctors, more teachers, more moreness. It makes my head hurt sometimes. But tonight? Tonight is gold. Tonight I sleep in my bed, by the Boy, and even though he's still coughing horribly he's feeling better. Even though I'm getting all snuffly again, I'm feeling pretty good. Ready for the challenges and joys that will be two children.

Artificial landscaping sounds pretty nice from where I'm sitting. If I wanted to put a rock garden in my yard, for example, I'd have to find a supplier of boulders and pay through the nose to get them in the yard. Plus, I'd have no ability to rearrange any of it after the initial placement. Those suckers are heavy! Look to Artificial Rocks Factory for all your artificial rock needs.

One benefit of having a custom made artificial rock for your yard is that you can choose color, shape, and texture. The rocks are hollow, with walls about one inch thick to retain the rugged durability of a real rock. Plus, they are made from construction grade real cast stone, and not plastic.

Visitors to this site can see the rocks offered from all angles. It's hard to tell that the rocks are fake, and many customers enjoy fooling their friends with this. The appearance is so natural that only your pocket can tell the difference. Natural landscaping is a very big deal these days. Dry gardens and rock gardens are especially prevalent in this area of the country. Personally, I like me a low-water landscape. It doesn't have to be a concrete slab and a few areas of raked gravel. Have some fun, be creative.

I just heard that the school supply building for a neighboring town burned down early this morning. Thankfully no one was hurt -yet. Most of the initial school start-up supplies had gone out to the classrooms already, but not the Big Ticket Stuff and the yearly supply of paper that had been laid in. A year's worth of paper for a school, that's a lot of paper. They lost 60 laptops about to go out, 20k of musical equipment, and the new printing press that they had bought in the spring to serve the school. It had been intended for use over the next several years.

So I say no one has been hurt yet. This is not the way for anyone to be starting the year. All the forward planning, all the satisfaction in knowing that they had laid in the necessary things, that's gone in the same smoke that consumed all that paper. Sure, there's insurance, but that's going to take some time and it still won't make up for what's been lost. Like school records, old ones, that are gone.

Makes me stop and think, and then be very grateful for what I still have.

I am starting to think ahead to Christmas. Why, you may well ask? Well... last year we didn't do a whole lot for Christmas, and the year before we didn't, and now Tiff's old enough to finally get something out of it memory-wise. I don't want it to be about how many presents she can get. I want to instill some family togetherness into this. But still, it does involve some presents. Is it the media that tells me that I'm a bad mother if there aren't a bunch of presents under the tree? I know the Boy will also feel this way, if not more so- he never had a lot of toys at the holiday and feels the money crunch harder than I do when it comes to gift giving events. While I remind him that it's not all about the loot, it's about providing the roof over her head and the food on the table and the little things like having Tubbies on demand... it doesn't help.

When I was younger and on the East Coast I knew all about Black Friday. It was the highlight of my year. The Sales! The Crowds! The Stuff! (The Headaches, the Aching Feet!) And then I was feeling bored so I went and nosed around and found black friday which is a great way to plan your Black Friday shopping both in store and online way ahead of time. As in, far enough in advance to start putting the money away for it? Not having to put the holiday on plastic? Overstock Specials! ToysRUs sales for limited hours (like the ever-popular 9-11 time frames, designed to snarl traffic and tempers)

The site offers email alerts as well. I'm thrilled at the thought of seeing the Black Friday sales and specials before the date. I can plan my strategy. I can figure out which stores are going to let me do this from the comfort of my kitchen table, and then let me go back to sleep (shh, don't tell the Toddler!)
I can budget, plan ahead, make my lists and start daydreaming now about the look on her face when she sees a Tree. And Presents! Maybe this year she'll be able to open her own gifts.

Battle of the Nap, revisited.

For those of you following the eternal struggle of a Toddler not to nap, she struggled her way awake through the night and greeted us with a cheerful burbling around 0500 this morning. So what are two sleep deprived parents to do? We changed her, dressed her, gave her a blankie and a book and popped her in the car for the morning commute. She laughed a lot. After the commute, Mommy took her to Walmart for a brief cruise by the discount baked goods counter. We picked up a lovely bag of hamburger rolls with which to make pulled pork sandwiches with real pan-dripping gravy for dinner tonight. We came home, had breakfast and Tubbies, played a bit, and then the Gram woke up. Second breakfast was consumed. Shortly thereafter the Toddler crawled into my lap and suffered herself to be rocked and sung to, at which point her eyes finally closed.

Currently there is peaceful slumber from the nursery. It's 0910 and we're all tired.

Mommy 503, Toddler 0

Not that I'm keeping track or anything...

It rained. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear thunder clapping and see the flash of lightning, and all of a sudden I was a little kid again on Christmas morning. I ran from window to window for the whole fifteen minutes or so that it lasted, and lay in bed afterwards giddy with the excitement.

It rained. Actual rain. I saw it fall from the sky, there were puddles this morning. And the most important of all... I'm still pregnant and hormonal and intermittantly irrational. But I was happy to be proved wrong in that it would never rain again. It was amazing.

I'm constantly amazed at the choices out there for organized shopping. RapidSearch has combined all the media and related gadget offerings from Amazon and put them into a much easier search pattern. To test this out I looked for a few oddball choices that would appeal to my family. For the Toddler, her beloved Tubbies.
For the Boy, Civ. For me? Well, I've always been attracted to the odder, less well-known stuff (or at least the odd stuff that I can't find at Borders Express)

Price wise, this site is comparable. You're certainly not going to find the hard markups that some places like to charge. When you add items to the cart, it will quickly scoot you over the main Amazon.com site to confirm that you wish to purchase through them. All in all, I find that narrowing down that zillion-item list that amazon is so fond of producing you to sort through... those billion and one items that may (or more often may not) have anything to do with what you're actually looking for. If media is your goal, go to RapidSearch.org and find what you're looking for fast.

oh, and don't forget to add to the goldfish cracker fund, if you're so minded to do. Everybody have a good weekend!

Trip to the store for diapers, bread, and a helper mix for dinner. Then I wanted to have a fried chicken/salad/fruit/chip lunch. So we picked up the crab and shrimp salad, the potato chips, some fruit. And then I made a Momentous Decision. Even though money's tight this weekend, I sprung for a bucket of KFC to go with lunch. Because while the chicken at the deli is cheaper, it's not as good. I've had a real problem with supermarket chicken lately- it's either dry as a bone or over-cooked. Or greasy enough to give me problems.

KFC surprisingly does not seem greasy to me. That may just be me.

Tiff liked it a lot though, and sat on my lap happily to eat her share. Now she's in bed and I'm hoping like anything she'll settle down and take her nap soon. Mommy is just not in so much of a mood right now to be able to sit and rock her as long as it takes. Mommy is tired, and kinda sick, and looking forward to getting some serious downtime maybe with her knitting this afternoon.

Or, possibly, with the counted cross-stitch that I've started specifically for this sort of day/feeling sick enough not to move but well enough to sit upright supported by lots of pillows? I hope so. I have it sitting by the bed ready for me to jump back into it. Now I've just got to get down to working on it again.

This morning I was out of bed early to make the Toddler breakfast before I went back to bed, and got all shocky while standing at the counter. I had to go sit down several times, cold sweats, you name it... Scary. But I was so proud of myself for sitting down before I fell down, and that I had finished making breakfast. How's that for a twisted sense of priorities? Most women would have just stayed in bed and trusted their husbands to provide the child with breakfast.

I've seen a lot of event websites over the last couple of days. They have dealt with everything from fundraising walks to wedding planning- one of my favorite forums to read has lots of examples of what to do and what NOT to do when making an event website. Some of the things you want to avoid are lousy layouts and catastrophic color choices. If you're planning a wedding for attendees from all over the country, as so many people are these days, why not take advantage of RegOnline's services? It's nice to see a place that will provide the forms, templates, and even a Conference Registration Form so that your guests can rsvp, book their lodgings, and get every other little bit of needed information in a format that's both easy to navigate and a snap to use.

The same arguments could be made for professional conferences. Who will take your company seriously without a professional-looking website? In today's world we need to make it look just so- this is as vital as proofreading! You wouldn't send a formal letter to a customer without checking for spelling and grammar, right? So why not make your job easier by using whatever services you can access? This post has been brought to you today by RegOnline.com, a leader in online event registration and planning.

Like a lot of people, I obsess over my weight. Unlike a lot of people, I often obsess that I can't keep weight on to save my life. This, despite the doctor telling me that I'm overweight (um, yeah, but have you looked at the size of my boobs? Those extra twenty/thirty pounds you want me to lose- that's where it is. And how is making the rest of me skin and bones going to make it better?)

The last time I was pregnant I gained a total of three pounds- from first appt to the admitting weight the day before I gave birth. This time, the six pounds I gained in the first month was lost by the beginning of the third. I'm maintaining ever since, I think. I also think I should get a scale to help track this, but how will that keep the anxiety down?

In the meantime, Her Highness demands the full and undivided attention of the two adults in the house this morning. My 'Net work is going very slowly; usually I can get it all done by this point. But today? Noooo. I'm still not done all that I need to do- visit blogs to find new material, leave comments, increase the general Blog presence which will in turn fuel more traffic to this site which will mean more people clicking the Ads as well as more paid opps, more paid opps meaning more bills get paid and dry goods stockpiled for the new baby, more paid surveys to do the same, and etc so on so forth yadda yadda bing bong...

I guess this means I'm more of a self-employed WAHM than a SAHM. I'm taking what I can in a manner that lets me earn some money for the household while meeting my other responsibilities. This also puts me more into the Mommy Wars than I really want to be. Can we call off the war yet? More thoughts on that later...

One of the many ways to spruce up your home is to change your window treatments. Often they can set a whole new tone- bring out the background colors of your furniture, a few extra throw pillows... You don't have to change the carpet or paint the walls or hire a designer. Terry's Fabrics in the UK specializes in designer fabrics and window treatments (including curtain poles). They can afford to let you buy them at the deep discounts normally available only to professional decorators. Why not take advantage of ready made curtains, which save you both time and money while creating the room you want?

This has been a sponsored post.