Even Bigger Still


This week is 36 weeks. (Full term!) Still no itching to speak of, unless you count “itching” to have this baby! The pregnancy is still going well, although we’ve discovered our baby is quite the dramatic (that story to follow). We have a feeling the baby is going to keep us guessing as to when he/she decides to grace us with his/her presence. It’s sure to be a grand entrance!

Oh, and amazingly enough, still no swollen ankles, and still able to wear my wedding ring!

Our Little Drama Queen/King

First of all, Happy Birthday to Aunt Laurie, whose 50th birthday we enjoyed celebrating in Kemah this weekend… where it all began. A delicious dinner at Babins on the Boardwalk, followed by a fun boat ride on the bay, which Kaeta had been looking forward to all day (she kept blurting out “Go BOAT RIDE!” at random times).

The boat ride started out fun. Kaeta had a blast dancing around and eating up all the adoring attention everyone lavished upon her…. But then the drama began. Let me just say that I have been having harmless Braxton-Hicks contractions for the last several months, so when the contractions began I didn’t think anything of it. Until I noticed that they were coming fairly close together, fairly regularly. So I started keeping track, mostly just to prove to myself that it was nothing. After all, I’m only 8 months pregnant. Not time yet. But after about an hour with the contractions five minutes apart or less, Derek convinced me to call the doctor. The doctor said we better head to the hospital. The nearest hospital.

Here is Derek’s rendition of what happened next (he tells it so much better):

I went to someone who worked on the boat — he looked to be about 20 years old — and told him, “My wife’s having contractions. We called the doctor, and he said we need to get to a hospital.” His eyes got wide and his face paled. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went to the captain. All he said was “his wife’s having contractions,” and then the boat lurched forward as the captain pushed the throttle. I’m sure he was thinking, “No way we’re having a baby on this boat!” We were at the dock in 2 minutes.

So after adding quite a bit of drama to the boat ride, we proceed to the hospital in Houston. At this point it’s about 10:30 pm. We’re both still in disbelief that I might actually be in labor, but the contractions are suggesting otherwise. This is where the story gets a little anti-climactic. We were admitted to the labor and delivery ward, where after about two hours of monitoring, it was determined that I was not in labor, and that the contractions were likely caused by not getting enough water that day. The nurse had me drink plenty of water, and the contractions slowed down, but never went away entirely. So at 1:00 am they let us go.

We decided it would be best to go on home so that if something more happened, we would be near our hospital. Yep, we drove three hours in the middle of the night, as though we hadn’t had enough excitement for one night. Kaeta was great the whole time. She fell asleep on the way to the hospital, and slept through the whole thing… until, of course, we left the hospital, and she spent probably half the trip sleeping and the other half still going on about “the boat ride!” and how much fun that was. Thankfully, she went back to sleep when we got home, and we all got to sleep in the next morning.

So from all this, we have learned something very important. This baby, while still in utero, has already figured out that the best way to compete with Big Sister Kaeta’s charm and beauty, is to make as big a scene as possible. Because apparently being melodramatic is the only way this kid is going to get any attention around here.

So in light of our baby’s character trait (which we were fortunate enough to be warned about early), we are trying to think of names which might be more fitting. Like maybe Kemah for a girl, or Hamlet for a boy….. Anyone have any other suggestions?

33 Weeks…


…and all’s well! No cholestasis yet. The baby is having a grand old time literally bouncing off the walls of my uterus. I have a feeling we are going to have to watch this child closely.

I haven’t seen my feet in who knows how long (except in pictures of course), but I am thrilled by the fact that I can still wear my wedding ring! 🙂

Sneaky sneaky.

Okay, here’s another mealtime story. First, you should know that whenever we tell Kaeta to “eat 3 more bites” of something, we count as she eats the bites. So she’s gotten used to that.

Well, today at lunch, Kaeta needed to take two more bites of her grilled cheese sandwich before she could have a pickle. (This kind of restriction is all that keeps her from eating nothing but pickles, 24/7.) We told her, “eat two more bites,” so she picked up her sandwich, took one bite, looked at us slyly, and said, “Two!”

We’re gonna have to watch her! I fear we underestimate her sneakiness.

Little Miss Loophole

For dinner tonight we had chicken, broccoli, and macaroni & cheese. All through dinner, Kaeta kept saying “Macky-roony! Macky-roony!” So the mac & cheese was a hit, but she wasn’t touching her chicken or broccoli. After awhile, Karianne told her, “Eat two more bites of chicken, then you can have more macky-roony.”

Kaeta ignored this offer and batted absent-mindedly at the food on her tray, then asked for more macky-roony. Finally, Karianne got her to eat one bite of chicken. I saw her looking at a piece of broccoli, so I told her, “Eat one more thing and you can have some macaroni.” I meant that she could eat one bite of either the chicken or the broccoli.

She surveyed the situation, looking closely at her tray. Then she looked up and saw her milk sitting on the table.

“Eat milk!” she said, grabbing the cup and guzzling from it. She had found a loophole! Perhaps she’ll make a good lawyer some day.

A phrase she latched onto recently and keeps repeating is “Drink milk, good idea!” She says that at dinner all the time. Tonight, though, she rephrased it as “Eat milk, good idea!” Nice try, kid.

(A minute later she ate some more chicken and finally got her macky-roony.)

You’d rather be what?

Tuesday evening we went to Target to pick up the Season 3 DVDs of The Office. (That’s right, we bought it on the day it was released. We’re those people.) Anyway, as we were leaving, we noticed a bumper sticker on the car parked next to us that cracked us up. It said:

I’d rather be homebirthing.

Seriously? You’d rather be at home enjoying the unmedicated agonies of labor than spending a leisurely Tuesday afternoon shopping at Target? These are the kind of people who are keeping Austin weird.

Still Growing….

29 weeks and counting! Our second sonogram showed that the baby is growing strong and healthy. Although we were once again tempted, we did not find out the sex of the baby. We waited to find out with our first pregnancy and the surprise in the delivery room was well worth it. The baby continues to kick so much that we have started to call him/her Kicky McKicks-a-lot. We are all excited to meet this little member of our family, especially Kaeta, who loves to give the baby lots of hugs and kisses and insists on snuggling with the baby at every opportunity. It has gotten to the point where she will say hello to the baby first, and Mommy second (if I’m lucky). Probably partly due to the fact that from where she is, she can’t even see Mommy over the enormous belly that just walked into the room!

Here’s a picture of Kaeta giving the baby kisses:


(By the way, that is the new carpet on the stairs!)

Farewell, Ye Olde Crapet


No, that’s not a typo. Monday we had new carpet installed, and so far, we love it. It is soft and luxurious, and is a significant upgrade from the builder’s grade crapet we had been living with for far too long. It is indescribable and fairly embarrassing how excited we are about this new carpet. But trust us: Seeing is Believing.