You Know You're Pregnant When...

You know your pregnant when you walk out of work at the end of the day, look at your reflection in the car window & notice LUNCH crumbs sprinkled on your neck and chest.

Did my sweet coworkers not see the lunch remains - or did they just assume I was saving something for my drive home? :)

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"I Go Downstairs, ok Mama?"

This morning, I heard a tiny little whisper... "I go downstairs, ok Mama?"

"Ok baby, have fun."

Crap! I opened my eyes and saw total darkness.

Looking to the clock, I realized it was 5:40 a.m.

"Christopher, come back. Christopher!"

"What mama?"

"It's the middle of the night, go to bed..."

"OK mama."

I felt a little tiny body climb the side of our bed. Then I felt bouncing and heard giggling!

"Hi Mama, it's WAKE UP TIME!"

I miss his crib...

The Things You Do for a Smile

As a two year old, Christopher doesn't always have an easy time with being dropped off at school in the mornings. Sure, he loves his teachers and friends - but he tends have his sweet, chubby, little arms pointed up in the air at me as he sobs "Ma-ma..." A sad little lower lip comes out and everything. When I pick him up he is laughing and playing and running, I have to all but drag him out of there.

Basically, it is Mama Torture.

Well, I recently discovered that if I give him a big hug, say "I'll be right back" and blow kisses to him the entire way out the door as I leave, he is fine - he smiles, waves. The only problem is that the walk out the door is about 30 steps, and I have to do it backwards. While waving. And blowing kisses. And yelling "Love you!" and "I'll be right back!" While dodging a sea of running children and other parents dropping off children. And while seven months pregnant.

But really, leaving without seeing the extended arms, rolling tears and protruding lower lip makes all the backward walking, toddler tripping, "Excuse Mes" worth it...

I am a sucker for a Christopher smile.

Today's Perk of Being a Mama - You Get Coffee Mama?

Through the first 27ish weeks of this pregnancy, I had really bad morning sickness (granted, it DID get a little better each week). Through the first two trimesters, the only thing that seemed to settle my tummy was this delicious tea from Starbucks.

Well, I was sick several times a week for a long time - so on the way to taking Christopher to school, I would frequently find myself in the Starbucks drive-thru ($4 a visit? Who cares - I needed to settle my tummy, right?!). Christopher would always ask what we were doing, I explained we were getting coffee (he doesn't get what TEA is yet, coffee is just easier to explain).

As everyone knows, Starbucks puts some random addictive chemical in all of their products. Now that I am no longer sick, I should stop going - but does that stop my car from driving up to the order window at the same (or maybe even increased) frequency as the days of morning sickness? UM, no.

Sadly, because of my addiction, whenever we drive by a Starbucks and don't stop, Christopher says: "You get coffee mama? You get coffee?!" He recognizes the darn logo!

Today's Perk of Being a Mama - A Bouquet of... Leaves?

We spent some time today running in the backyard (well, Christopher ran - I watched and cheered him along). He ran up slides, through the sprinkler, in the grass. I noticed him playing under the tree for a minute and then he walked up to me with a bundle of leaves in his hand.

He smiled at me and said: "Pretty flowers for MAMA!"

Aw, my sweet little boyfriend...

Baby Girl Room

The theme of the room is pink walls, pretty flowers, butterflies, girly, girly, girly!

The rocking chair has been in the family for forever. It belonged to my amazing Great Grandma - we just recovered the fabric, shined up the wood a little. My favorite touch? The photo next to the lamp is of my Mom as a 3-4 year old rocking her baby sister (My Aunt Betsy) in the same chair.

The entire room, basically done.

Parenting Lesson I Learned...

No matter what the activity, if you are ever with your child and you think to yourself: "Wow, this is going a lot better and easier than I expected" - immediately slap yourself and banish that thought. You are wrong, the moment may SEEM easier, but that is simply the calm before the two-year-old storm.

Sweet Talker

Christopher's version of snuggling on the couch...

Well, I am tired most of the time, but especially tired on Monday mornings. At the same time, a car ride to drop C off at school is especially entertaining - he never fails to say something that makes me laugh.

This morning, he was also really tired. We brought him to our room to get dressed for the day, he hopped off of our bed and went back to his room to lay in bed.

Well, on the way to school he said, in a nice, sweet, normal voice:

"Mama, no school today. We go home and snuggle."

He is such a sweet talker - it took every ounce of will power I had to not turn the car around and curl up on the couch with my baby. Then I realized he was full of lies - he would have snuggled me for 15 seconds - and then he'd be ready to play....

I Do Not

Christopher has learned a cute new sentence that he is more than happy to use ALL THE TIME.

"Christopher, do you want to eat dinner?"

"No, I do not."

"Christopher, let's get ready for bed."

"No, I do not."

"Christopher, it is time to brush those teeth!"

"No, I do not."

"Christopher, do you want a cupcake?"

"Um, yeah..."

Baby Heart

To ease my worried early pregnancy mind, I borrowed a pocket doppler from a friend. This would let me listen to the heartbeat whenever I wanted to - which, before I started getting consistent punches to ribs, was a LOT.

A few times, I asked Christopher: "Chris, do you want to listen to the Baby's heart?"

Because of that question, Christopher started calling the baby "Baby Heart." The name has just stuck, and that is what we call her too (if we don't hurry up and decide on a name in the next few weeks, I guess she'll just be Baby Heart for forever).

The other day, Christopher was running around the backyard. I was sitting, watching him run back and forth. He stopped, ran up to me, looked at my tummy, put his mouth to my belly button and said:

"Hi Baby Heart. What are you doing? You swimming in Baby Heart's room? I Christopher!" And then he zipped away.

The Walk of Shame

The Fit you see in the image above is different from the Fit told below...

To begin, I want the world to know that I have a really sweet boy - however, he is two years old and occasionally is not the most reasonable person.

Yesterday, we went to dinner. At the end of the meal (and as a special treat for his good behavior) I got him a little scoop of ice cream. Since he is two, he wanted to eat the ice cream with his fingers. Johnny attempted to show him how to use the spoon to eat the ice cream, but that is when Christopher lost it.

As he pushed his hands into the scoop of cold ice cream, he shouted: "I DO MY-SELF!!!!" He then tried to throw the ice cream across the table.

I took the ice cream away from the crazed toddler, and so he immediately threw his entire body onto the booth and started kicking and crying and screaming. Unsure of what to do, we paid the bill and ran out with Chris over Johnny's shoulders; ALL eyes were on us as he was still kicking, still screaming - creating a whole new definition for the term "walk of shame."

Best part of the situation? When we were buckling C into his seat (refer to this entry to see how well buckling him in went last night), my mom, who witnessed the whole thing, was begging me to let her get his ice cream. I made her VOW to never get him ice cream or any other treat if he ever throws a fit like that when I am not around. She vowed, but I think she may have had her fingers crossed behind her back...

Today's Perk of Being A Mama - Cute Photos

This is just an extremely cute picture of Christopher & his friend, Max.

Special Talents

Johnny is amazing with numbers. You can give him any random math question and he'll quickly figure out the answer in his head.

That is fantastic and all - but really, when do you need MATH? My special talent? My ability to recall all kinds of random pop culture facts. I may not be able to tell you the square root of whatever, but I can tell you unnecessary details about famous people, tv shows, movies and music (however, my biggest pop culture weakness is 80's music. I know the songs, I just can't remember what band sang what before they broke up and went to this or that band - I do have a friend, Stephanie, who specializes in this particular topic).

I am not a total loser, this trait is genetic. My dad, who has no tv, will glance quickly at a People Magazine and remember every single detail about Paris Hilton or Jersey Shore ("Can you believe that Sammie & Ronnie are back together?").

Really, this trait may seem pointless - but when was the last time you needed the answer to a random math problem? And when was the last time you said, or thought, "Who IS that guy? What movie was he in???"

OK, time to sign off - the Bachelor Pad starts in a few minutes and Christopher still needs to get ready for bed...

Today's Perk of Being a Mama - Confidence

It was still not quite light outside when we left for daycare yesterday morning. Christopher was still sleepy and was pretty quiet. As the sun was starting to slowly rise, I saw him checking himself out in the monkey mirror that hangs on the headrest of the seat in front of him.

We were stopped at a light when he said: "Mama?"

I looked into the rearview mirror at him and said: "Yes?"

"I SOOO handsome."

"Oh yes, baby bear - you are the MOST handsome boy I know."

Chris, nodding in agreement: "Yeah...."

I couldn't capture a picture of that moment in time with my sweet little confident boy, so here is another photo to show off just HOW handsome he is:

Today's Perk of Being a Mama - Cupcakes for No Reason!

One of my favorite things about being a mama is that I get to enjoy watching Christopher marvel over the simplest things. I mean, yes - I love eating cupcakes, but I haven't squealed with sheer glee over them in a long time (excluding this pregnancy).

This past Saturday, I had a cupcake craving. To satisfy my sweet tooth, the three of us jumped in the car to visit the ONLY place in the area to get a cupcake - Holy Cow Cupcakes in Carmel.

Christopher's cupcake, yum!

I mean, we HAD to add a LITTLE ice cream...

CHEERS!

He seems unsure going into his first bite

Uh, oh Mama - I am messy!

YAY! I get to be messy AND eat cake!

Speaking of good foodie finds: as I have mentioned before, Johnny is a superb cook. On top of cooking great meals, he likes talking about food, thinking about food, buying food, eating food, sharing photos of food. What better place to do all this than in his own food blog? He just started it yesterday - check it out: ReadyToDine.Wordpress.com.

Today's Perk of Being a Mama - Compliments

My hair is up, but at least I have a dress on, right?

In the past few weeks, my sweet little guy has taken to complimenting me.

"Hair down mama." I, being his humble servant, immediately take my hair out of the ponytail. He took a good look at me and said: "Ooh, pretty mama."

Since it is a billion degrees outside and I am hot and pregnant - I have taken to wearing dresses and skirts every single day of the week. Without fail, every day that I have a dress or a skirt on, he tugs at the bottom of the skirt and says: "Pretty dress mama, pretty dress."