Ants

I'm not a "keeper."  I don't treasure every little scrap of paper or stash away first shoes.  I don't have boxes of ticket stubs or notes from high school.  I'm terrible at baby books and I don't write down every thing my kids say.

I've just never found it necessary.  I do love photos, but I feel like my memories are enough.  I am afraid I'll forget, miss something.  But it's not easy to keep up with it all, and I don't have a storage room I can dedicate to childhood artwork.

However, since Ainsley started school I've had trouble throwing things away.  Every night we look through her backpack and she never wants to get rid of anything, but I have to.  I already have an entire file box full of her stuff just from this year...and it's not over yet.  So after she goes to bed, I go through it again and decide what to keep and what to toss.  And it's always hard. 

In the past 8 months I have watched her learn to read and write.  I have watched her learn to tell time and add and subtract.  I have watched her make best friends.  I have watched her little heart triple in size.  All of it I've seen on these scraps of paper.  Her morning work.  Her art projects.  Her math lessons.

Last night, her bag was mostly empty.  Just a few things in it that I had her tell me about.  She went to bed and all of it was going in the trash pile.

Then I flipped over  her morning work and found this...

She almost always has a picture on the back of her morning work.  Her pictures started as floating heads and have become this.  Trees, with full bodied people, with curly hair, under a sun...and ants.

The ants got me.  So I kept it.  Ants!

The kids are obsessed with ants these days.  I guess it started one morning while I was at work and Clif was getting them ready.  My normally bug-phobic children found an ant in the bathroom and loved it.  Decided it was their pet.  We got home that night, and running across our walkway were a gazillion little ants.

"Mommy!  The ant had babies!!!" Ainsley exclaimed
"Where?!?!" Freddie ran over and squatted next to his sister.  They spent the next 10 minutes watching them scurry back an forth along the cracked concrete.  Ainsley even got one on her finger and didn't freak out.

They check on the ants almost every day.

So I had to keep her picture with ants.  I can just picture myself one day going through the box with her...

"And this is your first report card, your first class picture, and your first picture of ants."

So silly...yet not.

Picture Overload

I'm having trouble writing lately.  I have a lot bouncing around in my head, none of which I want to write about, so coming up with something I do want to write about is a challenge.

So, today just some pictures and updates.  Hopefully, my brain can calm down soon and I can entertain you with my awesome writing skills ;)

We spent Easter weekend in Connecticut with Clif's family.  It was a beautiful weekend, we found an awesome park, and the Easter Bunny found us on Easter morning...

My friend Shanna came to visit at the beginning of April with her two boys.  We spent Saturday afternoon at the Air and Space Museum.  On Sunday we went to a playground before they headed home...

Grandma and Mr. Charles came for a visit and took us to a CAPS game.  The kids seemed to enjoy it, after Freddie got over all the sirens and flashing lights for a goal.  Ignore my GI-normous hand in the first pic.  It was a late night but lots of fun and we got a WIN...

Wednesday is Dance Class night.  That means Mommy and Freddie walk around the shopping center for almost an hour...

Trying on silly glasses at the Gap while Daddy tries on jeans.  Ainsley has a lurker back there...

My nesting phase has started.  And the "Holy crap I have so much to do" phase.  I put Freddie to work...

Ainsley is so very excited for the arrival of baby brother.  This is how she fell asleep this past weekend...

I've been dealing with Gestational Diabetes again.  This is what most of my meals look like.  This was delicious, by the way.  Scrambled eggs with feta and spinach and a low-carb, whole wheat English muffin on the side.  If you ever have GD, get very friendly and creative with eggs.

And as an update from my last post, things are going well.  The Endocrinologist is awesome and I'm managing...most of the time.

Diva in training...

We are having dinner time drama.  Freddie refuses to eat or sit still.  Unfortunately this is where he ends up most nights...

And me, at 34 weeks.  Really excited for baby no name to get here. 

Today

I have an issue with all the doctors I've seen in this area.  They are all so stand-offish and hands off.  I have seen so many doctors and nurses and lab techs during this pregnancy, that I can't even count them all.  And as far as I can tell, none of them talk to each other.  If I bring something up with one, I'm pushed off to another.

Now, my OB is not bad.  I think I like her.  But I had to meet with the other doctors in her practice, and I have to say, I'm not a big fan of any of them.  Still, anytime I need an ultrasound, blood work, whatever...I'm sent elsewhere to get it done.  They don't draw blood in the office, they don't do ultrasounds, nothing. 

The doctor I had for years before I got pregnant and through both my pregnancies in Richmond did everything in her office.  And when I had diabetes with Ainsley, they walked me through everything.  Set up appointments for me and she was my main contact.  She had answers for my questions, talked to my Endocrinologist, was in the same office as the high risk OB, etc.  She was involved.

Well, I have diabetes again and this time?  It's a nightmare.  It's been weeks since I found out and my sugar numbers are all over the board.  Yet no one seems that concerned.  I'm 33 weeks this Saturday and I'm  not being pushed to do anything about it.  I'm just told what I should do and written a few referrals.  Oh and, my doctor's office didn't even call me to tell me I failed the test...either time.  I had to ask.

Today, I'm going to see an Endocrinologist who has come highly recommended.  One that I chose.  I'm really hoping she can help me.  Because right now if I eat the diet that has been laid out for me, my sugar is high just about every time.  But if I don't eat that diet, the people at the Diabetes Center tell me I'm putting myself and the baby at risk.  They're making me test for keytones in my urine, which if present means you're burning fat instead of carbohydrates.  You lose weight...which I have, and not really what you want during pregnancy.  My keytone count is always large.  But from what I read, if you're not producing enough insulin to push the carbs into your cells...it doesn't matter.  And guess what?  Diabetics don't produce enough insulin to push carbs into cells...so keytone issues.

Anyway, they have me freaking out about this keytone thing, even though with Ainsley I never tested for them.  In fact, I didn't even know what they were talking about when they brought it up.

So I'm really hoping this doctor has a good answer for me.  A balance of what to eat and what not to eat that is clear.  Because right now it's just all confusing and stressful.  Right now I'm bouncing back and forth between visions of a giant 12 pound baby and a tiny, underfed baby.

Fingers crossed we can get it all worked out before little man makes his grand entrance.

It's A Girl Thing

I've been trying to get Freddie's hair cut for months.  Seriously.  I definitely started trying in February, and now it's April and still no hair cut.

Well, I finally found the right bribe.  He asked for a milk shake one day and it just so happened we had just finished talking, once again, about a hair cut.  So I offered a milk shake for a hair cut.  He agreed.

That was last week, and since then Ainsley has asked if she could get her hair cut too.  I told her that yes she could get a trim.

See, I've only had Ainsley's hair cut once.  When it finally started to grow and it was very uneven and started getting tangles in these long random strands, I had it cut all one length.  That was 2 years ago.

But you have to understand, this is where we came from...




Ainsley's First Birthday - pretty much bald.




Ainsley's Second Birthday - There are tiny, itty, bitty pig tails, but you can't tell.




Ainsley's Third Birthday - Hair finally starting to grow


So you can see why I've been hesitant to cut her hair and not just let it grow.  It took years to get here.

And she's always loved her long hair.  She likes to compare herself to Rapunzel, and you've gotta have long hair for that.

So yesterday, I was pretty shocked when she asked if she could get her hair cut short.  "What do you mean by short," I asked.  She pulled her hair back in a pony tail and said she wanted to cut it all off because it gets in her eyes.

I immediately said no, she was just getting a trim.  Then she whined.  And I thought some more.  It's her hair.  Why do I get to decide how she wears it.  I mean, there's a line.  I'm not going to let her walk around in booty shorts and bikini's because she doesn't know any better and it's not appropriate.  But her hair is part of her body and she should be able to make decisions about it.

I've done EVERYTHING to my hair.  And you  know what, it always grows back or out or whatever.  Sometimes a girl just needs a change.  It doesn't matter if that girl is 35 or 5.  Girls like to mix up their looks for whatever reason...to stand out, to fit in, to express themselves, to walk in new shoes for a bit.

So we talked some more, and I made sure that she understood what cutting hair meant.  That the hair was gone.  That eventually it would grow back but she couldn't all of the sudden decide tomorrow that she wanted long hair again.

She said she understood.  And then we discussed the length and I showed her pictures of little girls with shorter hair.  She picked one, not quite as short as she had originally talked about.

And voila...

I'm not going to lie.  It was hard to watch.  I love her long beautiful hair.  But I think she looks amazing.  Even if she is growing up way too fast. 

There's just something about a girl who just got her hair did!  She exudes all the confidence in the world.  And that is worth 4 or 5 inches of hair.

AND...Look who else got a hair cut...