day at the pool!

I will start off by saying, I hate the sun, I take Boogs out to the park, but I can't stand the heat so we don't stay very long, and the sun is not my friend (I burn really easily). I made an exception today, because I love the water!
We met up with our friends at the pool and tried out Clarks new swim trunks/swim diapers and life jacket. We stripped Clark down, and lotioned him up, then we put on his swim trunks (which went almost to his ankles) and his swim shirt (which is long sleeved), he was so cute :D, his head and arms were probably the only things exposed, but you can never be too safe when you are trying to prevent baby sunburn!

So when we got to the pool, i made the mistake of taking Clark right into the adult pool, he was so upset. He cried at first and eventually Daddy stepped in and he calmed down a little bit, then Daddy took him to the kiddy pool, he liked that a bit better until he fell back, his face was in the water for .001 seconds, but that was it, he wanted out!

We ate some lunch and I eventually got him back in the pool, I was trying to teach him to float on his back, but he wasn't having it. I thought all was lost and he would never enjoy the water until he stood on my knees and we bounced a little bit.

So in the next few weeks we have a vacation coming up and I am looking forward to getting him back in the pool to get him used to the water, I myself am looking forward to splashing around in the water as well.

It's a...

Girl :D!!!
My sister and Andy were right, of course, now that we know, maybe this little girl will stop beating me up and let me enjoy my food !!
The ultrasound went well, they didn't make me drink a bajillion litres of water (which is weird), she behaved and they got all the pictures of her heart valves as well as her measurements.  It was quite different from Boogs, he took about 6 ultrasounds before they finally gave up with all the stuff they needed.
She was pretty chilled out the whole time, and when the technician asked if I wanted to know I said "Absolutely!".  She was so nice and nonchalant as she said "well your little girl...." and I said "A little girl? So you were right Andy".  She showed me the goods (or rather where her lady parts were) and it wasn't as clear as it was with Clark (because frankly a penis just kinda sticks out there for everyone in the room to see).  She didn't even try to hide, which I know friends of mine are having to deal with right now (a shy baby hiding their gender, tsk tsk, they are already playing games with their mommy and daddy!) so I am happy.  I would have been happy if it had been another boy (but then again I think I am going to let my sister have all the boys).  Now I get to talk to all my friends that have girls and ask them what I have in store for me. From what they've all said girls can sometimes be more 'delicate' than boys, but maybe she won't be, she has an older brother to toughen her up, plus I don't plan on raising a princess, I guess I will just have to wait and see!.

tomorrow is the day!

The day we find out if we are carrying a penis or a vagina.  Most people I know are guessing girl.  I'm sitting on the fence, a boy would mean that I could reuse all of Boogs' clothes, a girl means I have to pick through all of his clothes, find some neutral stuff, and put that on her first, but I also get to put her in dresses, bows in the hair, pigtails, all of it.  My sister and Andy are guessing it's a  girl mostly because this pregnancy has given me an ass kicking.  I am in week 17 (week 18 tomorrow) and somehow the morning sickness has stuck around.  Everything has made me want to puke, even some of my favourite foods will make me heave on any given day!  I am ready for that to end!  I have some meds to keep me from getting sick, but they didn't work yesterday :S. I find my appetite has gone down as well, I'm eating smaller portions (which isn't a bad thing), but it's frustrating because I wonder if it will stay down.

So, tomorrow will be the update on Beebo and if it's a he or she.

Home sweet (rental) home?

So, it looks like we've found our place, in fact we found it on the first day, we just didn't know it was "home" for a few days.
What happened was, the last house of the day came back up for rent, but my heart just wasn't in it, I didn't outright tell Andy that this wasn't "my dream apartment" but because he can read me like a book, he figured it out and told me to "just be honest".  So I said "Honestly, the house was nice, but it was toooooooo small".
We decided to keep looking at rental places, until 10 minutes later Andy said that we should sign a lease for the first rental house we had looked at that day.  It was in our price range, and it is admittedly huge!
The breakdown goes like this  - there is 3 bedrooms, plus a dining room (which will be Andys office), there are new appliances in the kitchen, a decent sized living room, and my favourite part, a converted garage.
I'm not sure if this is a dallas thing or not, but people in Dallas LOVE to convert their garage into a functional room.
There is still a parking space, but what makes me love this room the most is that it will be a great play room for Clark and Beeboo (baby #2). 
At this point, we have the lease, we just have to change some names that were spelled wrong (Andy = Jon NOT John).  Once we sign it I will breathe a sigh of relief, and then I will start getting rid of stuff we don't need (yay, nesting kicked in early/actually kicked in this time!) 
So, hopefully the next post will be about how we have secured the lease and we are packing up.

YAYYYYYY

I just threw up out of sympathy

NOTE: THIS IS A GROSS OUT POST. If you have a weak stomach (like me) don't read on.

So, today at dinner, I was feeding Mr.C and he was freaking out towards the end, I assumed it was because he was getting cranky about sitting in his high chair, so I finally got him to finish all of his food and told him to come join me in the living room for some sesame street. Before I even got it all loaded I heard Andy say "Oh crap" and I ran back in to see the poor little guy puking his dinner right back out. Of course I felt awful, because I realized that I must have over fed him, but then something funny happened. He walked over to me, put his hands up, and suddenly he was ok again (of course he was covered, so I stripped him first....ewwww). That might be the one thing Clark and I have in common, unless we are under the weather, once the vomit is out, we can get on with our day.
This is where it gets annoying. Having my 2nd pregnancy be so much more different from the first has really, really sucked. I never EVER got sick with Clark, but this baby, it's like I'm sick every other day.
After i finished my dinner, I was carrying Clark around, and then it happened; I coughed.
That set everything else off, and then I was sick. So, I eventually gave Clark a sympathy throw up, you know, to make things even for forcing him to finish all of his dinner!
Sorry for the gross out post, but at the time it wasn't funny to me. Now it is.

The hunt begins...

Or rather, continues? Andy and I have been apartment hunting for a few weeks now, and we've decided to try and get a "rent-house" if we can, so we looked at several places today, holy crap was that tiring!
The first house we saw, was by far my favourite, but here is the problem, it's up for rent, but it's also up for sale, so just because we put an application in, doesn't mean someone can't scoop it up from underneath us. We looked at about 3 more "shit-holes" before we found an apartment we liked. There was a guy who put an application in, but was sitting on his hands, and making demands that were unreasonable (it's a rent house, not For Sale, dumbass). By the time we got to the last place to look at, the guy who was sitting on his hands decided to go through with the rental (bummer), he must have heard we were interested and it lit a fire under his ass.
The last place was alright, but the kids bedrooms were downstairs and the master bedroom as well as the washer and dryer hookups were upstairs. I am not willing to leave my babies downstairs so close to the front door while I sleep upstairs, if it were the other way around it wouldn't be a problem, but to me, it just didn't make me feel safe.
So now the hunt continues, we still have a little under 2 months to find a place, I just hope it can be the "house of our dreams...for now".

One of my favourite paintings

Years ago, I had a set of friends, but this post isn't about them, it's about a painting that we all came across one day on our Sunday day out (it was after a long night of Saturday night drinking).
I had forgotten how much I love this painting and the saying that went with it.

It is a painting by Markus Pierson, I can no longer remember the name, but it was part of a series of coyotes, and I loved the quote that went above it.

that many had ventured farther and done so in finer style bothered me not. My journey was my own and I found it to be quite spectacular

I can't say that it was a "life changing" moment, but it stuck with me. I was having a tough time (with life and with the men in it) and dealing with the garbage that went along with it, and this quote made my day, it stuck with me and for weeks I would remind myself that I just needed to ride out whatever was keeping me down, because there would be much greater things on the horizon for me. It finally came to me the other day while I was driving around and I can't believe that I locked it far back in my memory. I am posting it here now in the hopes that I never forget the painting I saw that finally made everything click for me.

how do I fix the bite monster?

I cannot figure this out, I have tried several different ways of trying to get C to stop biting, but it is NOT WORKING! I took him to the mall today to play, and he was doing fine, until he saw Balloons.
He LOVES balloons, so he started going towards them, some Mary Kay rep was bugging me about a makeover, and I politely told her (several times) that I am kind of busy with a kid nowadays (I should have told her to PISS OFF). By the time I finally shook her, he was at the balloon, and he was playing with it. I wouldn't have had a problem with this, but it wasn't his balloon to play with, so I took him away from it to the other side of the play area, and he went straight back to it. So I took him away and he threw a shit fit!
I took him out of the play place to calm him down, and he bit my arm, HARD. There is now a mark with a small bruise from where he chomped down. Of course being in public I couldn't give him a spanking (because I don't want other parents calling the spank police). The "No biting" technique didn't work, and because we were at the mall I couldn't just set him down and walk away! I put him in his stroller, but he didn't cry, he just chilled out like "what did I do?".
So now I'm faced with the question of How do I tame the bite monster? Although sometimes It's not just the biting, sometimes he pinches and hits, WHAT DO I DO!!!! I've told him no hitting/pinching/biting, and he laughs. Spankings haven't worked, and if I do it back to him, he will think it's ok to do it.

Right now, I feel like I'm S.O.L