Thrilled to the gills!

I got some wonderful news last week! My friend L. is due just one week after me. It was a total shock to hear- I didn't know they were trying- and it is such a great joy. And also for personal reasons- I feel less like a teenage pregnancy than I did before! I know what you're thinking- Stephanie, a teenage pregnancy? Don't flatter yourself.
BUT- for the DC friends I am pretty well the first and having L. right alongside me totally normalizes everything. AND I'm so excited to hear her take on things and what she's doing and not doing. AND this is another child for baby Lynch to play with during "Mommy's Margarita Time." She has a great blog- you should check it out- it's full of great pictures and really neat stuff.
Congratualtions L. and T.!!!!

Deadbeat Aunt Sissy throws a shower.

So I threw a shower for my sister 18 days ago and have not even posted once single itty bitty thing. I am the worst. However I believe this delay does not diminish the fact that I threw Sissy a great, natch, fantastic shower.
First let's set the scene:

You should know that if Kris had let me our wedding might have been this pink.

Thursday- I flew out that night and arrived in Chicago very late due to some sleeting weather. Grr. I was already terrified to be driving in snow, etc when I haven't in so long and to know I was landing right into sleet was very not cool. But I made it to my sister's where she and my Mom were waiting to have our "Girl Party" (sleepover). We opened our Christmas presents- if you need to know why I had to lug them with me see the post on 12.21, and I showed Sissy all the clothes I got her from the Junior League Thrift Sale- which really should be termed "Very Spoiled Children's Former Clothing Sale" which was tremendous fun. And we went to bed. I jealously coveted my sister's snoogle during this time.

Friday- I had been nursing a mental list of all the things I needed to buy and do and finally wrote it down the Monday before my trip. Relieved to get that space in my brain back I left it where it lay and fully intended to pack it up Thursday morning. Well Thursday morning the list is no where to be found-- Kris has magically absconded with it somewhere. So I re-created the list on the plane and when Kris called Friday morning to read it to me, I had forgotten nothing. One long afternoon of shopping (only 3 stops- WalMart, Hobby Lobby and Sam's Club) and I had everything I needed. Seriously- let me get spiritual here- every single time a store didn't have something I planned to use, a better alternative was immediately available. Examples:

I wanted to use green and pink glass marbles in the center pieces- no dice.
BUT they had these great clear big ice cube looking ones that were way cooler.

I wanted all white flowers but Sam's only had 8 dozen instead of the 12 I needed.

BUT they had pink and hot pink roses that I was able to mix in- MUCH cuter!

I wanted this pink and green plaid ribbon that I knew Walmart carries- no dice

BUT I found these great sheer pink and green ribbons at Hobby Lobby that were 50% off!

I credit all of these great revisions to God, knowing that he has better taste than me.

Finished product:

Divinely inspired centerpieces

Anyway not to bore you too much further, the rest of the shower came together beautifully. And it was a wonderful, memorable day. My only regret is that I didn't take any pictures of the gift table once all the presents were on it- it was a sight to behold!

More photos:

Sissy and her cake

Gif Table pre-presents

Sissy opening gifts.

Sunday- we spent the whole day cooking and freezing foods in preparation for the baby- who could be here any day now!

16 weeks

Just a quick placeholder- I'm 16 weeks today, the ticker at the top of the page gets more intense each week!
I'm starting my glucophage again today- I need some serious prayers! We went real* grocery shopping this weekend and so hopefully I'll have plenty of fresh food to stave off the hideous side effects. *We had not been to buy any food except ginger ale, speghettios and english muffins since October.
I'm beginning to have much more trouble sleeping now that I'm not supposed to be on my back of stomach. I'm going to order a snoogle today. Or maybe tomorrow.
Brody is apparently intent on giving us training for the baby- he keeps waking up at 2:30 a.m. and crying to be let out. "It's your turn." "I'll do the next two if you do it this time" And he really has to go- who knew we'd ever go from Brady who slep 23.5 hours a day to Brody who can't even make it through the night!

15 weeks- I am Jimmy Leflar

So now that I'm fifteen weeks, I've realized a whole new sort of credibility with the pregnancy. 15 weeks is no joke. You're pregnant, you're in your second trimester, who's going to say you're not, hmmm? I kind of felt a bit like a fraud before- not really a fraud- but certainly not pregnant enough to really have the right to throw up on people. "What? You're eight weeks and you think it's ok to do this? In public? Please."
Luckily in this phase, I feel great, we did a ton of stuff around the house, got lots of things clean, did lots deep cleaning and organizing. Umm, yay!
Unintended consequences at this stage: "While you are pregnant, the respiratory tract lining receives more blood. This is a result of certain hormones that stimulate the blood flow in the body. As a result, the respiratory tract is often much more congested, which may also lead to nosebleeds. A second side effect that this increased flow of blood may have is sensitive or bleeding gums."
What does this mean? It means that my nose bleeds every day, mainly in the morning. And that most days I'll look into the mirror while brushing my teeth and be bleeding profusely from both my nose and mouth. It's like 28 Days Later in here.
So who the hell is Jimmy Leflar and what does he have to do with me? Well Jimmy Leflar was pretty much the grossest kid I knew in elementary school*. Nose picker extraordinaire. So much so that his nose bled a lot, like daily. And well that's me. No, I'm not picking my nose and wiping it on my pants or the inside cover of my notebook and incessantly writing James V. Leflar, III over and over. But my nose bleeds at the rate of Leflar.

*This is false- Jimmy Leflar is in fact tied for that honor with Jeremy Round who was so overly medicated for his ADHD that he drooled onto his desk all day long. Those drugs must have been no joke back in the 80's.

14 weeks- Is it gas?

I've decided that this stage of pregnancy can be best described by the question, "Is it gas?"
I might throw up, but wait, it might be gas.
I might have diarrhea, oh um, that might be gas.
Oh! Did I just feel the baby move?! That's probably gas.

Otherwise things have been getting exponentially better every day. Nothing really exciting to report. I ate eggs for the first time since Thanksgiving- that was a big deal, it didn't really look like eggs though it was more like a fritatta. But, woot! nonetheless.

Olivia's 5 Stages of Grief

1. Denial - When we first brought Brody home, the cat pretended like he wasn't there. This was partially possible because the dog was recovering from near death due to disease and exposure. However, even in the midst of the occasional confrontation, she remained in her territory, perched on the back of the couch, or scampering into the kitchen to engorge herself on her nightly feeding.
2. Anger - She then began to 'yack' at us at every turn... seeming to say: "I thought you got rid of the dog already, and now you have this little runt running around, chasing after me? The punk doesn't even realize what he's doing.. HE THINKS HE'S PLAYING!! Boy needs to know his role. I don't play like that. In fact, I don't play at all. Son of a Bitch is right, let me tell you."
3. Bargaining - She's not yacking anymore, but she started to cope. She would come around when the dog was outside, and look at us from the kitchen, seeming to say "OK.. finally, I can hang out in here without that thing hassling me. This is nice. The cat has also taken full ownership of the upstairs, and knows when Brody is in his cage... so she can go eat and drink in peace.
4. Depression - She is currently fully enveloped in this phase. The last 2 days, she hasn't even come downstairs to greet me. I hear her cat cries coming from upstairs. She doesn't hang around on her perch anymore at all. She is in exile. She has started to sleep on the bed again, because she needs love from being neglected all day. If I go in the office upstairs, she immediately comes in, asking for love. She is so desperate, I could probably stuff her in one of my dresser drawers and bang on it for 10 minutes, and she would come out begging for love still (p.s. I wouldn't do that to her... in fact it has been a long time since I've put the cat in a dresser drawer)
5. Acceptance - I'm not sure about this one.. I don't know if this will ever occur. Amidst her depression, I hear a rolling thunder upstairs.. it is the cat running around in the hallway and the bedroom. I'm wondering if she is getting out her frustration, or training for a fight... maybe both. I will post again if she reaches this stage.

SOB

So I was fighting our new little friend trying to get some random piece of mystery plastic out of his mouth. Out of my frustration, I called him a Son of a Bitch.... which turned out to be very funny....... As Homer Simpson would say - It's funny because it's true.

28 years!

Yesterday was my birthday! And it was one of the best ones in a long time. Once in college, everyone forgot my birthday. Even my mom and sister- it's easy to do bc it's over the holidays and that year everyone was travelling back to school, but it was a trauma I've never really publicly admitted too. (Kris did not forget) Sixteen Candles is one of my all time favorite movies and Samantha Baker and I are closerthanthis now.

Not exactly like my sixteenth birthday

ANYWAY- the Cougars sent me flowers, family and friends called, Kris got me a Tempurpedic mattress topper, a new I pod and a hook up that will let me connect the laptop to the tv so I can watch my shows on the TV!
It was a great day. In addition my last few birthdays have been anxiety filled because each was a weird harbinger of aging and I wasn't quite where i needed to be career wise, life-goal wise, weight wise, but when I thought "hey I'm 28," I realized I was pregnant and felt ok about where I am, this is just where I thought I'd be right now. I don't feel too old and I don't feel too young. It's just Goldilocks right.

13 weeks

I finally got to meet with my own Dr. on Friday! And we heard the heartbeat!!! And a kick! It was a great appointment. Frankly I had been dreading since I got pregnant since I knew how strongly he wanted me to have the weightloss surgery before getting pregnant. So much so he wanted me on the pill while I was on glucophage. I think he actually forgot about this because he thanked me for trusting him regarding the glucophage and it's ability to get me pregnant. He was so excited. He did say that he doesn't want me to gain any weight in the pregnancy and I'm actually ok with that, I just don't know how I could spread 15 pounds out over the next 27 weeks. But I can maintain weight and not gain, so that's what we'll do. The office is still setting me up with a nutritionist so we'll see how that goes- I'm excited.
I felt well enough to go to church- but forgot to eat breakfast so I was wrecked by 1 pm. Learn Stephanie! Use your survival insticts!
P.S. Dr. Smith also wants me to go back on the glucophage while I'm pregnant and that terrifies me. G-phage made me so sick it became a verb in our house. "Vommmmmittttttt, ugh I'm phaging, vommmmmittttt" I didn't even consider I might be pregnant becasue I was so sick from the medicine and now that I'm beginning to feel better I can't imagine self inducing nausea. Be brave.

Brady's little brother....Brody

Deep breath. So on Sunday on our way to Marietta we saw 7 dogs on the side of the road trying to cross. 2 big dogs and 5 puppies, well of course I got hysterical and made Kris call the highway patrol. They said they would send someone out. We talked about how weird it was that the last time we were near that same spot in Macon we saw a basset hound running down the road and had to call the state patrol again. We didn't think of it again until we were on our way home and we wondered what might have happened to that little pack of dogs. We scanned the other side of the highway and luckily didn't see anything that would make me cry. Well then I turned my head and there on our side of the highway were three puppies. Needless to say I got pretty hysterical, made all kinds of wild promises about getting them and bringing them to the Humane Society, and I made such a good case of how I would capture them I even convinced Kris to go along with my plan. We pulled off the next exit, went to a gas station and bought hot dogs and beef jerky and headed back on a puppy rescue mission. We pulled over and approached the dogs, all three were very fearful but as soon as they smelled the hot dogs they came closer. They little black puppy ran right up and started snatching the hot dogs right out of my hand, I grabbed him and gave to Kris who ran him right to the car. The other two dogs were bigger, older and way more scared. No amount of coaxing (and then chasing) could get us within 3 feet of them. Finally out of food we had to give up, I also realized that even if we could grab them the Humane Society would put them down because they just weren't adoptable.
We headed home with the puppy in the way back. About halfway home we pulled over bc he was making noises like he wanted to come to the front. I laid him on my pillow and he PASSED OUT. Laying on his side he slept like he hadn't slept in days.

We stopped at the Pig and bought food, flea and tick shampoo and some chew bones. He freaked out when we put the leash on him, but we brought him in, he ate, and agreed to a bath- plain shampoo bc the flea bath said to not use on dogs 6 weeks or younger and we though bc he's so small he would be too young. He submitted sweetly and loved being wrapped in a towel. And that was fine. Until a tick crawled out on my arm. We couldn't get him in the sink fast enough. Too young or not he was getting that flea and tick bath. This dog was so cold he just loved being in the towel and fell asleep like a baby. He went to bed thumping his tail.
The next morning we came downstairs and he thumped his tail, Kris picked him up and Brody nuzzled his neck and we took him out to pee. He freaked a little on the lead but came in happily. We put him back in the cage and it went south. I approached the cage three minutes later and he growled at me, I shushed him and went to pet him , he kept growling but allowed me to pet him, I went to pick him up and he snarled and snapped at me. Kris and I could not figure out this Britney-like swing of personality.
He growled at Kris all day long and spent it in his cage. We had no idea what we might do now. Well Kris went up to shower and when he came down the puppy had peed, pooped and threw up. And now all he wanted was love, lots of love.
When I came home I couldn't believe he was curled up next to Kris on the couch after hearing him growl into the phone all day.

Well he did some major diarrhea, and threw up some worms- that explained things- we realized that he only growled when his tummy hurt. We also learned if we threw a towel over him while he was growling and we picked him up he ceased all growling immediately.
By Thursday he stopped eating, we could get him to lick ice cubes to stay hydrated but that was about it. Both Thursday and Friday morning he woke up perkier than the day before. He still wasn't eating though by Friday night- not even bacon.
We called Doc Lester and in his perfect Savannahian accent said, "Nohw that sounds lahke a puppy we NEED to see."
So we brought him in Sat. had him treated for worms and found out -devastatingly- that he tested positive for Parvo. Parvo normally kills dogs in 48-72 hours if they don't have aggressive re-hydration treatment. Well since he didn't have a fever and he looked fairly alert, he was drinking and eating, ( he had eaten some rice and hamburger meat that morning- which he threw up all over me) he thought we might be able to get him through - or he was getting over it on his own.
It's now Sunday and he's awesome, he woke up playful, devoured his food, played, peed outside. And was a ball of puppy love all day. As the day wore on we began to be concerned that while he was peeing outside he hadn't pooped since Thursday. BREAKING NEWS- he just pooped. Big, solid, healthy poop!
We're not keeping him. I kept saying that if I didn't give him up Kris would never let me rescue another dog- well it turns out that he won't let me ever rescue another dog- period. Hmmmmm. We'll see how this turns out- he'll make a great dog for somebody.

Marietta on our minds....

On Sunday 12.30 we went up to Marietta to have dinner at Mitch and Jaillene's, with David and Raquel who were in town for Christmas. First we had cocktails with Mitch's parents who are the absolute sweetest people you could ever know. Then Jaillene prepared a spectacular dinner, tomato bisque, London Broil, Spinach Artichoke Casserole and a corn pudding. Truly spectacular and beautifully presented as always.
Really, that's one of the best things I learned in knowing Jaillene and Raquel, they really know how to make things beautiful.
Dinner was fantastic, we laughed until we cried and just had a really great time. I'm so grateful that we were all in D.C. at the same time and now we all have Georgia ties that can still bring us together.
Monday we hung out while Jaillene worked in the morning, went to the Varsity for lunch- YUM, chili dogs!- and Jaillene and I went to her sister in law Garrett's house to return some bowls. Garrett has prepared the most gorgeous nursery I have ever seen in real life. I took away lots of great ideas and will take credit for them because most of you will have never seen her nursery!
For dinner we went to Chops, a great Atlanta steakhouse. Mitch and Jaillene's friends were adorable and very sweet to two outsiders like Kris and I. I had the crabcakes and they were awesome- 99.95% crab not cake and Kris had 3 3 0z. filet mignons, one with blue cheese topping, one with aa horseradish and we forget the other. But it was great and we had a big time. We went home early had some red velvet cake, watched a movie and then cringed through the last 10 minutes of Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve.
Tuesday we woke up to Jaillene's tremendous, blueberry french toast casserole! YUM! We watched football until it was time to leave.
So sad to go, I really love being with them, it's like we're family but we are SO luck to be 4 hours away.

Alamo Bowling and the Little Man Chase

On Dec. 29 we went to Joan and Greg's for the Alamo Bowl and to finally meet the most famous baby in Savannah- the Little Man Chase!
First, he is gorgeous and charming. Second his parents are so capable I am terrified of how we'll ever learn enough to keep an infant alive, let alone happy. I secretly marveled at the fact that C. had a bag of toys for Chase to keep him entertained and I would have never thought that a 3 month old needed toys! I will fail! Fail publicly! No it's ok. I will follow their blueprint. Also we were treated to Andrew's real life demo of the 5 S's. No dvd can do justice to watching a baby you actually know be soothed- VERY reassuring.
Greg's chili was great. And it was so much fun to be at the Malleys for the game. Here's hoping the littlemanchase's will consider our glorious weather and be tempted to move to Savannah. I have it planned out, we'll carpool to PSU football games and we can take turns transporting our kids to college.
And finally, the Anthony Morelli era, is fortunately over. Good riddance. Now let's go slash Jay Paterno's tires and I'll feel better. For real.

Bum

Virginia Christmas- no ham, no peanuts

These updates are very late for reasons that will be explained shortly. But here we go! We left Georgia for Virginia on Dec. 22, and I can't tell you how romantic it sounded, when I told people our plans. "We're spending Christmas in Virginia" "Ohhhhh that will be wonderful!" they would coo, and we would all gaze upward as Currier and Ives Christmas card images floated past our heads. While I love Virginia, this couldn't have been further from the truth- we spend Christmas at the beach and the weather is usually lovely and temperate. No tobaggon riding or ice skating parties. Still tremendous nonetheless.
It's always fun to beat the Nav system, when we got in the car it tried to tell us we would need 9.5 hours to get there, but we made it 7.5. And actually Kris won the biggest bet we've ever had, I said there was no way we could make it by 3:30 and KPL had us landed safely in the driveway at exactly 3:30- congratulations honey.
We always eat well, and even in my first trimester madness I was looking forward to it.
The night we arrived we had the most fantastic, dynamic chili I have ever had. The next night we had our traditional lobster dinner with sherry butter and fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. mmmmmmmm. Christmas Eve brought Aunt Martha's glorious Oyster Stew, accompanied by, for the first time, meatballs from this fantastic Italian market. And finally as the coup de grace, we had Bar Harbor Souffle Christmas morning followed by Beef Tenderloin, mashed potatoes and Martha's famous gravy, Oyster Rockefeller casserole, asparagus and tomatoes, and acorn squash. OH MY. It was so good. And I really felt great for most of the trip- I honestly think it was because Martha's house is just so clean. It was just an amazing feeling to be in a practically sterile environment.
Aunt Martha owns the biggest bed in the world placed lovingly in her guest bedroom. It's a super California King and literally Kris and I can both lay on it with our arms outstretched and not even touch.
Grandma remains as awesome as ever, super sassy and super liberal.
We signed up for ancestry.com and learned tons of really great stuff about Kris' family.
Aunt Martha gave me Bare Minerals in the fairly light shade, her eagle eye knowing that in the winter I should probably not be wearing medium. But you know me, I don't really have a big problem appearing slightly orange. God love her.
The trip home was slightly horrendous due to the snowbirds, but it included a stop at Maurices- exit 98 on 95 in South Carolina for the best barbegue.