Stuff

I will eventually (I promise) post pictures, but I am so tired, and my house is a disgusting mess. So I'm posting a quick update and then going to try to pick up/clean up some around here. Then I will drift blissfully off into a hopefully long interrupted night of sleep.

I had my first pre-natal visit this afternoon. My obgyn practice has started this new thing of newly expecting mommas meeting with a nurse (in an office, across a desk!) early in their pregnancy. It was nice. She asked questions; I asked questions. I got my packet o' new baby stuff and some sample vitamins (yea free prenatals!). We scheduled my first appointment with the doctor.

*An aside: I cannot tell you how many times I've had to backspace and correct misspelled words -- it's embarrasing! I'm glad you can only see the finished product, and not all the mistakes -- yikes! My brain is mush tonight.

Anyway, so we'll have our first appt on May 29th, which is 8 weeks. We'll get to see the 2nd tiny peanut Pence with the ever-so-lovely vaginal ultrasound. My due date according to math is January 8th. I figure this baby could easily be born this year. Crazy.

Poor Joanna

This is just not Joanna's week. I'm pretty sure she's itchy, although it is a little hard to tell on a tiny 14 month old. She's so pitiful. She didn't eat much dinner, and I can tell she just isn't feeling good. Just for kicks (and a painful bite in the finger), I checked inside the mouth and the child is trying to grow 2 or 3 teeth right now! (The following right/left directions are as if you are looking AT Joanna's face.) I can see her right top canine tooth pressing against the gums, but it still seems kind of high and I can't feel it yet. Both front top molars are coming through; the right one has ruptured, the left is very close. She still only has two lonely teeth on the bottom, but she's about to have 6 or 7 up top! Oh my goodness!

I called the nurse's line at the doctor this afternoon because I forgot to ask the doctor if her little rash was contagious. I didn't think so, but I didn't want to bring her to the nursery thinking she MIGHT get somebody sick. Turns out she's not contagious; it's a virus and nobody will catch it. However, Joanna's immune system not strong right now, so the nurse advised me to take precautions so she doesn't catch anything. So she won't be going to the nursery tomorrow morning for Bible Study. As long as she doesn't get anything else, though, she should be good to go to school on Thursday.

I have my first prenatal appointment tomorrow. With Joanna, my first appt was at 9 weeks with my doctor. This appt is much earlier, but it's with a nurse. I guess they want to make sure I'm really pregnant? Works for me. I actually like doctor visits for the most part. Now the dentist on Thursday... I'm not so much looking forward to that. I think I'll go brush my teeth now.

Probably not Strawberries

We took Joanna to the doctor and discovered she has a roseola rash. He said he was pretty sure it was not a reaction to strawberries, although I'll have to try them again later to be sure. Joanna had a fever Thurs-Sun, and he said this rash was an immune response to that. Basically the immune system was working really hard with the fever and when it went away it was still working hard and made a rash. He wasn't concerned, and said we just have to wait for it to go away. She can have a little Benedryl if she's uncomfortable. Joanna's up to 19 1/2 lbs. What a chunk! I can't see it, but everybody who sees her and hasn't for a while says she's really plumping up. I guess that's good. Now I'm going to go turn the carseat around because 19 1/2 lbs is really close to 20lbs, and the child is almost 15 months old!

Little Spotted Joanna

I'm pretty sure Joanna has a strawberry allergy. I'd had my suspicions before, but now I'm quite certain. Around Joanna's 1st birthday, I introduced strawberries as a new fruit. She didn't care for them much, and after she ate them I noticed what looked like a little rash around her mouth. I have pics of some of this so I'll post later. I'm typing fast while Joanna's in the high chair. She had a few pretty new allergy-prone foods (peanut butter, eggs) on her plate at the same time (go figure, right) so I wasn't positive it was the strawberries, nor was I positive it was even an allergic reaction. So, I pulled the strawberries from the menu for a while. Not to long ago, I introduced them again, and while she still really didn't like them much, I didn't see a reaction. So I decided to not worry about it, even though she still didn't have them much. Over the past couple of days, though, she's had a bunch: strawberry yogurt and mixed fruit with strawberries in it. Last night when we stripped her for bath, we saw that her torso was pretty much covered in little red bumps. It's not a real aggressive, scary looking rash (as if rashes have personalities), which is encouraging. It's interesting that her "angel's kisses" and other red birthmarks on her face and neck actually look more spotty, too. I called her doctor's office last night after hours expecting to talk with a nurse, but I actually got a call back from one of the doctors. He basically said that of course he couldn't diagnose a rash over the phone and that if it went away, great. If she still had it this morning, he wanted me to bring her in. So, she's still got it, and we're just waiting for the office to open. I will post more when I know more!

Poor Plinko

Matt and I have no luck with A/Cs, I guess. Plinko (our new white car) lost it's A/C yesterday, and is at the car doctor today getting it fixed. Fortunately it's a little cheaper to fix than Little Green (it's domestic), but it's still an arm and a leg! We still have Little Green (we haven't figured out what to do with it, yet) so Matt was able to drive it to work today, sans A/C, of course. Other than the A/C, little Plinko looks good, so hopefully it will last us a while after this!

Big News!

We're expecting a new baby in January-ish. Yea!! We just found out last week, so I'm only a few weeks along. So far, I feel great -- hardly pregnant at all, except for a few brain/coordination things. Like today: I bought a bunch of groceries and came home with exactly one -- ONE -- thing in a glass jar. Well, that ONE little jar is the only thing I dropped on the kitchen floor... while barefoot. Luckily Joanna was in her high chair at the time, so I just cleaned up the goopy part, got us out of there, and gated up the kitchen until my wonderful husband came home to rescue me from the glass. I can feel the brain fog creeping in; beware everyone!

We're very excited. It looks like the kiddos will be about 22-23 months apart, and I know Joanna will make a great (okay maybe a little mean) big sister! I have my first appt. with a nurse at the ObGyn next week, I think for a fancy pregnancy test. Speaking of, here are mine:

Number one -- yea a plus sign!

And for a second opinion -- another plus!

Hopefully this wasn't too graphic for you. :)

And here is my first pregnant shot: 4 weeks. Obviously I don't look pregnant yet, but I wanted to get a baseline for comparision. I was really bad at taking pictures when I was pregnant with Joanna; I just didn't get around to it, I guess.

Nothing much to blog around here, just wanted to share some cute recent pics.

Last week our friend Aidan (who will be 2! in July) came over to play for a while. They played SO well together! I love the height difference in this picture. I think they are far enough apart in age that Aidan didn't see Joanna as a "threat" to his stuff or his space or whatever -- she's so tiny! Speaking of tiny, I took this picture I guess the same day and it made me think of another picture I had taken of Joanna on the same quilt, oh a year or so ago.
Joanna, almost 1 month old!
Joanna is so cute! Looking out the window in our bedroom, with her little feet on the sill, just chillin'. I finally got around to getting a quilt rack for Joanna's quilt. I'd been meaning to forever. We still need to stain it, but I went ahead and hung it until we get around to it. I love it!
This one rose plant has just taken off this year. I guess we know what a little watering can do -- wow!
Joanna playing IN the toy basket. I think this must have been after bath, before PJs one night. She does have a diaper on.
My mom found this little hat laying around and put it on Joanna -- it's actually pretty small, so it kind of fits. Here are her new looks:
Gangster
Newsie
and um, really cute baby?