A day at Disney

We’re down in Anaheim spending probably the most non-traditional Thanksgiving of my life. We flew in last night around 7:30 p.m. and were up and at Disneyland by 10:00 a.m. this morning. It was such a fun day and Tate meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time is something I know I won’t forget. We should have videotaped it, but instead we had a bunch of cameras going, which is definitely my first instinct.

Right now tate and I are sitting in the house watching the movie Cars while the rest of the family is at a Gopher basketball game. Photos and updates will come soon, but here’s wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!

Numbers game

19: The number of days that Tate has been potty training for real. It’s kind of amazing. Very few accidents and lately, several mornings where he’s had a dry pull-up in the morning. I have hope we may be done by the time new baby arrives. Never underestimate the motivational power of dried fruit as rewards.

31: The number of days they have been working on our house and I have been staring at the plaster falling off the walls. Approximately two thirds of that time was wasted due to our contractor finding the only two construction workers in the United States who were unwilling to work. I wish we could have motivated them with dried fruit. Though you would think that MONEY would have also been a powerful influence.

2: The number of times our heat has gone out because of construction.

270: The dollar amount we had to pay to get the heat back on after-hours. At least they offer overtime services as an option.

5: The number of days before we leave for Disneyland for Thanksgiving. When my in-laws asked Tate what he was going to say when he saw Mickey Mouse he said, “If Mickey Mouse asks me to go to the potty, I’m going to say, ‘No thank you.’” I think we’re pretty safe on that one. And what good manners!

45 & 6: The number of days and weeks until this huge kid gets out of me. I am so ready. Even though the house is crumbling and we have no name or place for him to sleep, I am ready. I am ridiculously giant and no longer even fit into large t-shirts. We had an ultrasound recently to check on the baby’s size and found out that he’s in the 69th percentile for size, but his head is measuring three weeks larger in growth. That’s so encouraging, because if there’s anything you want to make sure is giant when you contemplate giving birth, it’s the head. Definitely the head.

The weekends go too fast

The weeks are flying by as we near the end of the year and the beginning of the next phase of life with new baby. I’m trying to savor every minute we have right now because even though I know it’s going to be wonderful, it’s also going to be total madness for awhile. I feel like it’s already crazy enough with the house updates that are dragging on, but coupled with the impending holidays and another kid, well, let’s just say that if gestating didn’t make me ridiculously calm, I would probably be losing my mind.

This was a great weekend though because we had nice enough weather to get out of the house. It was my mom’s birthday on Friday, so she and Maree (who was sweet enough to come down from Seattle) came over on Saturday so we could have a girl’s day of shopping and lunching. It was really nice to get to catch up and then they came over to the house for dinner, since there’s no way that they could come that far and not see Tate. Within five minutes of their arrival, Tate was sitting on my mom’s lap asking, “Nana, can we go to your house now?” I kid you not, that dude knows where the real fun times are. He and Maree had fun reading stories:

And not cooperating when I tried to take photos:

We had a great family dinner together. I think we may have hit on a new family tradition:

There were almost tears when Nana left without taking Tate with her. But she promised him he could come down after he got back from Disneyland. He was also mollified by the dried grapes she’d left him.

This morning the boys were nice enough to let me sleep in, but when I got up, Tate came and hung out with me so Ryan could watch the football game. He’s so funny because he can literally spend 45 minutes just looking through magazines with me. So that’s what we did. I pulled out old issues of Real Simple to cut articles out of and he sat there looking at the pictures and talking with me. My heart melts every time I see his happy baby photos, but I have to say, this guy who can talk to me, makes me laugh all the time and climbs up onto my lap just to give me a hug mid-magazine and say I love you; this guy is even more amazing than I’d ever dreamed.

Accomplished and Under 40

I’ve been on the board of the YWCA Clark County for almost three years now. Three years next month in fact. I don’t talk about it a lot, but it’s been one of the most rewarding and professionally awesome things I’ve been involved with. I sit on several committees, help out here and there, but in the long run I’ve always felt that the organization has given more to me than I have to it. Well, chalk another one up for them, since today myself and 16 other people were honored at a luncheon for those selected as the Vancouver Business Journal’s 2009 Accomplished and Under 40 – an honor that the YWCA nominated me for.

I have to admit being really nervous about this. Not only do I feel pretty undeserving, but being uber pregnant makes me feel self-conscious. It is what it is, but I don’t feel like myself when I’m pregnant. I feel like a giant, gestating mammal. With a giant belly button. Which, is not so much the mind-frame you want when standing up to receive an award before a room full of people. Also, I am constantly worried about bumping people with my belly. I’m serious. It’s that big and the chairs at these things are always really close together.

Thankfully my dad, his wife, my mom and Ryan were all nice enough to come and lend moral support. The format was kind of wonky since each of us was called up one by one to have a brief bio read and then to answer one question. It was like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Or a job interview. There were four questions to choose from, but there were two that I was hoping very hard not to get. That would be: book or movie that has been influential in your life, or a goal that will keep you moving forward on the path to success. I drew  a total blank on the first one since honestly the last movie I remember seeing was Ever After with Drew Barrymore. Or that gangster movie with Denzel Washington. As for goals, I started sweating as soon as other honorees began answering that one since almost all of them, probably every one of them, has a five or ten-year plan. Me? I have a 45-day plan. Get siding on the house. Avoid the Swine Flu. Have this baby. And that pretty much covers it.

So of course I get the goals question. Because it could not be something I actually have an answer for. But you know what’s really sympathetic? A giant pregnant lady standing on stage in a dress that’s made for normal sized people. I think that alone was distracting enough that no one heard anything I said. Success! And I didn’t fall off the stage and roll down the stairs. Also fantastic.

I was feeling pretty much in the clear with the whole awkward pregnant thing since even the individual photo was taken from the chest up. We were almost ready to go when they announced all honorees up on stage for the obligatory group photo. So up we tromped. First row was seated and then there was a back row of everyone else standing. I was in the back, happily, with a bunch of other people – apologizing for bumping them with my belly – when the photographer pulled me and another woman out from the back to stand on either sides of the seated row. Really? Was there no one  else that could have stood on the end? Plus, can I just mention the other lady was GORGEOUS. Seriously, amazing. Like a JCrew model. And my age and not pregnant. And then there was me, and I guarantee you this was not a shot from the chest up.

But apparently we were not going for a proportionate look, so there I am, front row,  in my full pregnancy glory. And you know, maybe I should thank the photographer, because I suppose from here on out, if  I ever think of 2009 and ask myself what I accomplished that year (since I am so prone to that type of self-reflection), all I have to do is pull out that photo and I’ll see a huge accomplishment. That’s right, one of my greatest accomplishments, right there in that photo, appearing to be sitting on some poor, stranger’s shoulder with my belly button poking him in the ear.

Solidarity

The preschool teachers took this photo of Tate recently:

They said he came running out of the playroom with a ball under his shirt yelling, “I have a baby in my tummy just like Mama Meeka!” Apparently, by the end of the day, at least two or three other boys had joined him.

I love how our kid is already playing the baby simulation game. Good times. On that note, I can’t believe we’re a scant eight weeks away from our due date. My head is sort of exploding right now. It’s not helping that a significant portion of our house is still torn up and I have no idea when it’s going to be completed. Don’t these guys know that it’s not possible for me to give birth until they fix the gaping holes in our walls!?!?! I’m about ready to pull the pregnancy card, and I won’t be faking the hysteria.

I’m really ready to meet this guy. We’re getting another ultrasound in the next week or so to ensure that the baby isn’t growing too quickly. The doctor is concerned by how big Tate was and though she knows I don’t want to induce, she also knows that giving birth to a baby too large for my body is no good either. Personally, I feel like the simple fact that babies come out larger than apples is a little much for my body. But whatever, I’ll have to take that one up with God. As for right now, I’ll just have to keep relying on the sympathetic and amusing attentions of Tate.

Fireman Tate

It’s been a couple full days of Halloween fun around here. Tate had his preschool Halloween party on Friday, where he and all his cohorts got to come to school in full costumed regalia for a day of treats and fun. The thing they don’t tell you about preschool parties, is that the treats and fun end there, you as parents are left to deal with tired, overly stimulated, extremely over-sugared kids. This is a lot for any kid, but for our kid, who doesn’t even drink juice – well, I’m surprised his face didn’t explode.

Tate in full costume with the pumpkin he painted at preschool. (Acquired during the pumpkin patch trip from hell).  He is so proud of it though that it pretty much made the whole thing worthwhile:

Today was a little more moderate. We’re now proud members of the Zoo, so they were having a big zoo scavenger hunt and we headed up there around 11:00 a.m. The weather was perfect, no rain, with moderate temperatures, so we ended up going through the entire zoo. Tate walked pretty much the whole time. Its’s pretty hilarious to watch him tromping along in full fireman regalia. The nice thing is, that with the raincoat and boots, he’ll be able to wear it the rest of the winter. Hurrah for clothes that multi-task.

Someone wasn’t quite tall enough:

After we got home and took some naps, Ryan decided to carve our pumpkins. We had two big ones, kindly given to me by my mom, without whom I would never have any holiday decorations. Tate helped Ryan scrape them out:

More accurately, he helped for like two minutes before he wanted to go back inside and eat goldfish, so I helped Ryan out with the rest. Ry got super ambitious and printed out this whole Thomas the Tank Engine stencil from the Internet because Tate loves trains so much. He’s a good dad. I took mine and drew three triangles on it (eyes and nose) and a jagged mouth with teeth on only the top because I couldn’t figure out how to match up the bottom teeth with the top and cut it out. I think Ryan was as worried I was going to cut off my hand with my free-wheeling pumpkin carving as he was that Tate was going to get too near the knife. Ryan’s turned out really well:

Tate loved it and told Ry, “It looks just like Thomas!” Which is a sign of success. Mine was good too. Tate spent a lot of time laughing at it.

Overall Halloween went well, though as you can see from the photos, we’re having a lot of work done on the house and for the second time in the three years we’ve lived in this house, we had no porch light. Regardless of our success rate, I still buy 300 pieces of individually wrapped chocolate every year from Costco. I think I gave out about 75 pieces this year. Maybe. We’re keeping the dream alive though. If for nothing else than because this guy gets such a kick out of it all:

Happy Halloween!