Christmas & Miscellaneous Thoughts

Christmas was wonderful!!! Alyssa was into opening the gifts and wanting the presents out. I think she loved everything. Well, she isn't crazy about the sit n' spin yet, but I am sure once she gets it down she will love it! Once again, we are overloaded with toys!! We have so much stuff from all of our family plus what we got it is unbelievable. Yesterday Gary and I went through Alyssa's toybox and put away toys that she doesn't play with anymore or are more babish toys. We also put some toys in her bedroom. Can you believe in over a year and a half, we didn't have any toys in her bedroom. It is because we live in a colonial and we don't really play upstairs. But, we needed to make room, so I threw a couple things up there.

Alyssa got a bunch of "mommy & me" stuff. She got a baby cradle, bounce chair, high chair, push tricycle, and car seat. It is too cute, she will put the baby in the cradle and tell us to "ssshhh". But, she also has a hard time understanding that this is stuff for the baby dolls. She was trying to get into the baby doll's high chair and was really upset that she didn't fit. She tried to sit on the tricycle thing too. It is funny that she thinks it is for her, but we keep telling her over and over again that it is for the baby dolls.

I wanted to say thanks for everyone who responded with advice on temper tantrums. I will definitely be limiting my time out for a while. At least by myself. I realize that I need to be more persistent and consistent when disciplining Alyssa or she will end up walking all over me. I talked to my mom about it the next day and she started to giggle at me. I asked her why she was laughing as I was really upset about the whole situation. She said that Alyssa is acting the EXACT same way I was. She calls her my mini-me. I asked her when this stage passes and she laughed again and said that she needed to talk to Gary, but she thinks I still do it. Ha, ha, mom, so very funny...

I haven't gotten my paperwork in the mail to call for my 3 hour diabetes test yet. Today I decided that I would try to eat throughout the day similar to a diabetic diet. Let me tell you how friggin' hard that is. I did OK until about an hour and a half ago. I was starving and trying to think of something that would be OK to snack on and came up with nothing. So, I pulled out some chips and salsa. I am sure that wasn't the best choice. I was reading on the internet last night about some things I should really stay away from and cold cereal is one of them. Ugghhhh, you know how much I love to eat cold cereal?!? I need to have more examples of things I can eat instead of things I shouldn't eat. You know how it is when someone tells you not to eat something or do something, it makes you want it that much more.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!! We didn't get a ton of pictures because we captured it all on video, but I think we got a few, so once I upload them, I will post them!!

Temper Tantrums

I can't stand them anymore.

I want to know where my sweet, awesome, well behaved, never got into anything baby went! Oh, she turned into a freakin' toddler...

Alyssa has really been playing the temper tantrum card lately. If she doesn't get something she wants, she throws a tantrum. If something doesn't go her way, she throws a temper tantrum.

Today was a tantrum nightmare!! I decided to go to Target to look for a picture frame. I put Alyssa in the front of the cart buckled in. After only 5 minutes she started to fuss. I took her coat off because I thought she might be hot. She then started to whine and lean her body over the side of the cart. Then she brought her legs up and started to stand up as much as she could and try to lean over the side. So, I put her in the back of the cart, which is what she really wanted (thanks Gary). She got a hold of my purse and emptied everything into the cart. I decided to pick out the frame and get the heck out of there. So, we are standing in line and I thought I would start to put together my purse again. Um, that was a big NO, NO. She started to scream at me and take the things out of my hand and keep them in the cart. So, I grab my checkbook even though she screamed at me for about a minute and paid the cashier and we head to the door. Well, now I need to put together my purse and put a hat and coat on this toddler. So, I picked her up and she started to scream and flip herself back on me. My 13 year old sister was with me, so I asked her to grab all my purse things. Not one second after she got my purse together the fucking security guard grabbed our cart from us and put it away. So, here I am trying to put a coat on a toddler, who isn't cooperating and screaming her head off. I couldn't get the damn coat on her. I tried to stand her on the ground and she threw herself on the floor face first. So, I grab her, the tears are rolling down my face as I couldn't control my spastic 1 1/2 year old. We go and sit on a bench and I try to wait for Alyssa to calm down. I kept telling her to calm down and trying to hug her, but all she wanted to do was scream in my face and try to get off of my lap. She then starts hitting me in the face and pulling my hair. Then some old lady was trying to tell her that Santa was watching her. Yeah, lady, thanks for the help, but she has no fucking clue who Santa is right now. So, she is still not letting me get her friggin' coat on. I sat there for 15 more minutes with a screaming child who would NOT let me get the damn coat on her. I was staring at the wall and couldn't control the tears. I felt so stupid and helpless and the fact that I couldn't stop her from throwing this tantrum was so hard for me to handle. I finally got the damn coat on her arms. I didn't get the hat on and she didn't have the coat zipped, but we finally left the store. I cried the whole way home and am tearing up right now as I type. I just don't know what to do. Should I have left with no coat on the kid in this cold weather? Or did I do the right thing, by waiting at the store. I must have gotten a million dirty looks. I am glad that I was facing the wall, so I couldn't see them. It was a total nightmare today.

So, what am I supposed to do when she throws these tantrums? At home, I know I can try to ignore them, even though she will walk right in front of me and follow me around screaming her head off. But, what do you do when you are out?

In addition to the tantrums has come whining. She whines a lot lately. If I get on the computer for a minute, she will whine. If the phone rings and I answer it, she whines. She only does this to me. I feel so bad saying this, but I really can't take it anymore, it is driving me insane!!

Damn It

Well, even though I resisted all temptation at work on Monday, I still failed the 1 hour glucose test. So, I have to now go through the 3 hour test in which my blood will be drawn 4 times. Did I ever mention the fact that I HATE to have blood drawn??

The nurse was trying to be reassuring telling me that even if I do end up having gestational diabetes, that it can be controlled with diet. And I keep trying to think of the positive that if I had to control my diet better, then I probably won't gain as much weight in the end like I did last time.

After I get the paperwork in the mail, I will call to make an appointment. I am glad that it won't happen until after the holidays, so I don't have to worry so much during all the yummy holiday goodies. I will worry about it after I get the test results. I know that sounds horrible, but I will try not to be that bad...

How's the Pregnancy Going?

Well, tomorrow I will be 27 weeks. I can't even believe I am already in my 3rd trimester. I knew with the holidays, time would fly by. It did when I was pregnant with Alyssa at this same time 2 years ago.

My doctors appt was on Monday and I had to drink the very sugary orange drink. I have to admit the drink isn't terrible, but it isn't good either. On Monday morning several departments of my work decided to have a cook-off and bring in tons of goodies. I had to use every ounce of willpower in me not to eat any of it. I don't know if it is true or not, but I didn't want to throw off the glucose test with indulging in sweets all morning, so I restrained myself.

The doctor measured me and told me that I was measuring at 35 weeks. I so hope that is not true. I have some extra padding on top of my preggo belly, so I am hoping that has something to do with it. The doc said that I will probably go for a second ultrasound in a month or so, to see what the baby is measuring and we would induce at 38 weeks, if she is measuring big. This is EXACTLY what happened with Alyssa. Except, my water ended up starting to break the day before induction. That is Alyssa for you....you are not going to tell her when she is going to come....she will come when SHE wants to!!!

We still haven't started on Alyssa's room yet. We are hopefully going to start on it right after Christmas. Even if we have to store the crap in the shed until the garage is complete, we need to start working on it ASAP!! There are some cute things I want to order for Alyssa's new room. I am excited to do the room for Alyssa and hopefully get a few things changed around for the baby's room.

We have finally decided on a name for the baby. Her name is going to be Morgan Elizabeth. I keep trying to get Alyssa to say Morgan, but she still insists on calling my belly "baby". It is really cute. Although, she thinks there is a baby in her belly too. I just about died laughing when she pulled up her shirt to point to her belly and said "baby".

Other than worrying about the rooms being done and getting Alyssa settled into a new room, I have been feeling great. I feel Morgan moving around and I love it. That is absolutely my favorite part of being pregnant.

Year In Review

I got this off of Beth (from her meme blog). It is a look at the last year in review. The idea is to post the first sentence from the first post of each month and review how your last year went. So here I go...

January 2005 - Happy New Year! Gary and I didn't do much of anything this New Year's Eve.

February 2005 - On Tuesdays and Thursdays when I work, my mom and my MIL watch Alyssa.

March 2005 - I am thinking about starting a scrapbook.

April 2005 - Alyssa's birthday party was yesterday. We rented a hall and about 50 people showed up. It feels as if Toys R Us has exploded in our house.

May 2005 - Yesterday was my birthday! Officially on May 3, I turned the big 2-7!

June 2005 - I called off of work today. No, not just because I didn't feel like going. (Although I never feel like going anymore).

July 2005 - The bad news is that my step-grandmother passed away the other day.

August 2005 - Garage Sale - Part II. It's that time again. We pulled everything back out for Part II of our Garage sale.

September 2005 - Gary and I keep having the same argument when naming our "boy" (which we don't know if it is a boy or girl yet).

October 2005 - Bye Bye Binky. For the last couple months, I have been saying that when Alyssa turned 18 months old, we are going to get rid of the binky.

November 2005 - Yesterday (11/03) was Gary's and my 4 year wedding anniversary.

December 2005 - It seems like this garage is taking forever to build.

Well, that was fun. I have to admit, I didn't use the first post if it was pictures or another "tagged meme game". Also, I may have used more than one sentence, if I felt the first wasn't good enough.

What is your year in review?? Leave me a comment and let me know if you decided to take a walk down memory lane.

How's the Garage Going?

So, you really want to know how the garage is going? Remember how two weeks ago I said that I was too lazy to go and get a picture of what they did. Today I decided to take a picture of the garage from my family room window and it is exactly how the picture would have looked two weeks ago. So here ya go...



Yep, it looks like a garage. It looks like a garage we couldn't afford to finish. We are starting to think that they are never coming back. I told Gary to move the crap they put in the middle of the garage so we could at least park in there. Gary said it wasn't a good idea since there are nails and stuff on the floor and he doesn't want to chance us getting a flat tire.

We decided to use the extra driveway space. I guess that was money well spent...Can you tell I am frustrated with this whole thing?!? And ya know what else is pissing me off is that we usually don't get a whole bunch of snow until closer to Christmas, but this year mother nature decided Thanksgiving would be more of an appropriate time to dump a crap load of snow on us. Great timing...NOT!!

Santa Claus Has Come to Town

Here it is...our 2005 Santa picture. I felt so bad because she cried the entire time, but was too afraid to move.

I was bummed that my work cancelled our annual lunch with Santa due to lack of children signing up. We decided to go to the mall, because I still wanted to get her picture with Santa, even if we did have to pay $13.00 for it.

Taking Forever!!

It seems like this garage is taking forever to build. Maybe it is just that when we originally talked to the builder, he said one week for the concrete and one week to build the garage. Well, since they didn't start until the beginning of November, then we started to get hit with winter and snow and there have been days where they couldn't work on it. I just thought that definitely by December we would have been parking in a garage and we are not.

I still feel like they have a good 3 days full of work. They still have to do the shingles on the roof, put the siding up, put the windows and doors on and drywall the inside of it. There might even be more, but those are the most obvious things to me that still need to be done. Then, this company isn't doing the electric. Gary and my father-in-law are supposed to do it after the garage is done. But, Gary's dad just found out that he has to have surgery done and who knows if he will be able to do it anytime soon. I can picture me 9 months pregnant trying to lift the garage door by myself holding Alyssa in the middle of winter.

So, since the garage isn't done, we haven't moved anything out of the spare room, which is the room that we planned on making up for Alyssa. I really wanted to have her in the new room in January. I know that I have to be dreaming because with the garage not being done and Christmas around the corner, I know that we won't even be able to start on the room until January. I just hope the transition for Alyssa is a smooth one.

This is a picture of the garage on Tuesday. They came back on Thursday and did more, but I haven't gotten a picture of that yet. I was so lazy today and didn't want to go outside in the freezing cold.


And here is a picture of Alyssa with daddy's Browns hat on.