Fat, Frumpy and Fashionless

So I enter my third trimester of pregnancy this week which basically means I'm overdue for a little complaining. Don't get me wrong, I'm feeling relatively well. This has, by far, been my easiest pregnancy yet. So besides for normal third trimester achs, exhaustion, and hairy legs, I don't have too much to complain about physically. However, I have a lot to complain about...fashionably.

I entered this pregnancy thinner than I'd been in years, thanks to the removal of my gall bladder back in December. (The best kept diet secret in the world.) So when it came time to put on maternity clothes, I entered the world of fitted maternity fashion and bought lots of cute fitted shirts with short capped sleeves and with this tiny little bump of a stomach, I felt, for the first time in three pregnancies, fashionable while pregnant.

Now at the threshold of my third trimester, I remember that fashionable and pregnant do not mix. All those cuted fitted shirts now show every lump of my rapidly growing belly. And worse than my belly is the size of my arms squeezing through those tight capped sleeves, practically cutting off circulation to the rest of my arms. Why can't weight gain stay localized to where the baby is? Doesn't that make sense? But instead, my arms are massive, my face is swollen, my feet have gone up a whole shoe size (which makes it impossible to find shoes since I already wore a size 10), and my chest is just about keeping up with the size of my belly.

SO regardless of how a pregnancy begins, they all end up the same...fat, frumpy and fashionless. And somehow I feel complaining about this helps me justify it. Just so others know, I don't chose to look like this. I do know what's fashionable. I realize that I am not. I just can't do anything about it.

Now that that's out, on with my post...Spencer turned 30 on Saturday. I'm glad it was him and not me. 30 my be a little easier for me since my husband will be 34 when I turn 30. Age is a funny thing. Why is it hard to get older? And why don't you ever feel as old as you are? I think of Spencer and I as a young newlywed couple who happens to have a couple of kids. And I'm sure no one else thinks of us that way. We're just an established and growing family. And honestly, I get mistaken for much older than I am on a regular basis. I'm only 25. This should not be a concern of mine. But speaking of age. Mom turns 50 next week so we're heading out to Arizona to celebrate. I know she reads this and I'm sure she's happy I posted it. So a little early Happy Birthday to you Mom!

We took the family to the zoo on Saturday. Life doesn't get much better than taking a couple of little boys to the zoo. It's so magical for my boys. All the animals we read about in books come to life for them. They all of a sudden realize just how big an elephant really is. And they could watch the penguins for hours if we'd let them. And we got close enough to almost touch a lion. And we did get close enough to touch a goat, although goats really aren't all that awesome. They had a great time. I think Spencer loves it as much as the little ones. He chose to celebrate his 30th birthday at the zoo. See...he's not really ready to be 30. I have pictures, but my computer is having trouble and by the time I get back from Arizona, I'll have all new pictures to post I'm sure. We'll see if they ever get shared.

That was a lot to write, and I'm sure I'll do the same when I'm back in town.

Bandaid Solutions

Cookie Time

Afternoon Walks

Wagon Rides

I imagine most kids have their own stalling tactics at bedtime. Parker definately has his fair share. Parker is on this thing lately that he needs a bandaid at bedtime. Most kids ask for a drink of water, and mine wants a bandaid. He spends story time searching his body for the best place to put it, whether it be a scrape from that afternoon, a bruise, or a scab from two weeks ago. It's some kind of comfort thing for him and he goes down much easier with a bandaid on.

Reid is up and walking. He hasn't perfected it yet, but he can walk about 10 steps or so. He just can't get back to a standing position. He sure tries, but he has no ankle joint so unless he has something to pull himself up with, he is back down on all fours once he hits the ground. Steps aren't the only strides Reid's making these days. His vocabluary is really expanding. He can sing The Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Old MacDonald. He of course doesn't know all the words to any of the songs, but I'm impressed with how well he does. Besides songs, he can name pretty much any food on his plate, or food that he wants on his plate. He loves to demand cookies and McDonalds.

I spent the morning at the Library story time. For how much my kids enjoy songs and stories and especially the library, I'm surprised how uninterested they are in story time. The lady in charge is so darling and animated. Mine are the only kids who sat like lumps refusing to participate. Reid not only refused to participate, but threw an all out fit when I tried to encourage him. And Parker probably just needs to go to the older age group. He's not too old for toddler story time yet, but he may be a little more stimulated in the preschool group.

My Own Two Feet

Yesterday was a momentous day in the Smith house. No, I'm not referring to Parker stripping all his clothes off in the middle of the afternoon only to pee in the middle of the living room rug. I'm not even referring to Spencer finishing up his last of the 60+ pages worth of writing he had due this week, even more if you count however many pages he lost on his computer and had to retype. Although those were both important and noteable occasions, I am referring to my other Smith boy. Reid got his first prosthetic leg yesterday. I've been looking forward to this since his amputation almost three months ago. I've been so anxious, yet, now that he has it, it's a strange new world of which I know nothing about. I expected only to be excited and as I watch him try to manuever his plastic leg around, I am quite taken back. It's been a lot harder for me to watch him with a prosthetic than with a stump. I'm sure he'll be a prosthetic pro very quickly, as will I. I don't imagine it will take long before I stop noticing that his leg is plastic. It certainly didn't take long before I stopped noticing that he was missing a foot. And even though I didn't expect this to be tough, the excitement is still there. It is amazing how quickly children adapt. I suspect he'll be up and walking in no time.

Picture Perfect

I don't anticipate writing an entry everyday, but it seems you can't have a blog without a few pictures. Now I wish I could just get Parker and Reid to understand that. They certainly did not want to sit still for a few pictures this morning.

Piano Duets

Can't we play outside?

I guess you can take my picture.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I'm having one of those rare, but treasured moments when both of my toddlers are sweetly slumbering in their beds. So I sat down to the computer with a handful of the only sweets we currently have in our house of which we so elequently refer to as "Pee-Pee Candy." Or, in other words, a jar of Skittles we keep in the medicine cabinet as a reward for properly using the toilet. I use the word properly only because with two young boys in our house, there is a lot of improper toilet use that goes on. Toys, clothes, gigantic wads of toilet paper, Dad's glasses and occasionally brothers limbs all get shoved into and sometimes flushed down the toilet. To get back on track, I enjoyed the Skittles. What else is a girl to do?

It has recently come to my attention that as the world moves deeper into the age of the internet, it is quite commonplace to start your own blog. Since I'm never one to ignore a fad, I figured I better jump on the bandwagon. So I'm using this sweet moment of quiet to begin my blogging adventure.