Fuzzy Love

Facials

Allison and I took a class last night at the Denver Botanic Gardens. It was on making your own facial products out of natural items like oatmeal, rose petals, olive oil, and stuff like that, although we used a lot of stuff that wouldn't be found in a normal house (green clay, anyone?). That aside, my face felt really soft this morning. Must be all that olive oil. Honestly, the best stuff we used was a skin cleanser made of nothing but 1 oz of olive oil, 2 drops each of rosemary and lavender essential oils, and one drop of orange essential oil. Obviously, it is meant for those of us with dry skin, but it smelled soooo good and really worked. Now, you're all going to run out and make some, aren't you?

If You Don't Have Kids, Just Keep On Surfing

Honestly, this post pushes the limits of this blog. Only brave souls should read on.

Liam and I had the following conversation yesterday for the first time:

Liam: Mama?
Me: Yes, Liam?
Liam: Poo-poo in potty?
Me: You want to go poo-poo in the potty?
Liam: Peese.

If you don't have kids, you just can't understand the joy this brings to the parent of a two-year-old (nor, I suspect, do you wish to). I wasn't even bothering with the whole toilet-training thing yet, figuring that Liam would send us some sort of miraculous sign when he was ready. But then we found a DVD at the library - Bear in the Big Blue House Potty Time with Bear - and decided to see what happened. I must admit, it was a bit disturbing watching these Muppets using the washroom, but for Liam suddenly the light bulb turned on. I know, this is a long trip, and he'll probably revert when Baby Bee comes, but here we go!

Aren't you glad I don't have any pictures?

My Belly and Me

I was talking to my friend Kelly the other day and she somewhat innocently asked, "So, are you in maternity clothes yet?" I say somewhat because she is also pregnant, only five weeks behind me, and should know better (even though she is normally a size two or something). Of course I am in maternity clothes. I'm huge, and it is difficult for me to imagine that I will get much much bigger. In fact, I'm worried my maternity t-shirts won't fit through the summer. But, just like Kelly, many of you live far, far away (a la Princess Fiona), and haven't seen me and don't know. So I had Mark take a belly shot.

You can't see my head, because I hadn't had a shower yet.

But pregnancy is fun now. I'm feeling well, and not sick at all, and I haven't yet reached that super-awkward grunting stage that is coming up all too fast (only two weeks left until my third trimester). Although I do have difficulty getting out of the sofa already. I know, that sounds a bit early, but our sofa is very soft and my friend Allison reassures me that even non-pregnant she has trouble getting up from it.

Tents

We've been building forts around here lately. Well, tents, if you ask Liam. And Mark definately wins the prize for tent-building. First, I present my tent, executed with this lovely 70's-style mustard-colored afghan. If it looks like it was just thrown over a few pieces of furniture, well, it was.

Liam had to crawl to get into it, so you can imagine how comfy it was for me in there, and I've spent a lot of time in there. But Liam loved it. And he loved it so much that he wouldn't allow anyone to take it down. For days. Well, until Mark built him this:

It was like we were in DIA. And since it came with a tent pole, Liam loved it. He wouldn't let us take Mark's tent down either, but when he went to bed we had to since we couldn't open the front door. We also had to hide the cream blanket. The mustard tent has been back up ever since.

So our heat wave is over (and I have my ice cream - thank you Mark) and Liam has given up hauling around all those bears. But I think maybe he's still feeling a bit insecure, as he seems to be holding auditions for some sort of security something. Case in point: yesterday I finished knitting a little pink sweater for Baby Bee. Here, you can see it, as I'm all excited about it. It's the first little pink thing I've ever made.

It's going to have a little ribbon tying it closed at the top, but you get the idea: Baby Bee has a little kimono. Or she might have one, since Liam has now adopted it as a 'hat.' Perhaps because I was working on it for a few days, he thought it must be important? I don't know, but he carried it around all last night, slept with it under his head, and wouldn't be parted from it this morning either. When he's not carrying it around, or holding it up to his cheek, he's wearing it like this:

(Get the hat part now?) I suppose at least he's not carrying around six bears and a dog, but still. And the horrible thing is, I really wouldn't mind at all if the damn sweater wasn't pink! I know, that's awful, and I hate even typing it out loud (bad woman). The boy has about seven dolls, after all. But I'm thinking that, if he keeps this up, I'll make him a small blanket out of the same yarn, just in blue or green or something.

My Kingdom for Some Haagen-Dazs

It continues to be record-setting hot in Denver. Thankfully, the high today is only 103 degrees, which is a step in the right direction. I see, however, that my pitiful situation has only brought more complaints from the cold rainy people - complaints that I very specifically requested not to hear. Bunch of whiners, really. Yes, we do have air conditioning, but in order not to pay a fortune to the electric company, it is only keeping our house slightly un-hot. The upstairs is horrible right now, and poor Liam is trying to nap in it. He wakes up each day all sweaty. (Although I really shouldn't complain about our air conditioning. The city of Denver has been giving free swamp coolers to the elderly since some houses are getting up to 112 and higher).

Part of the reason Liam is so hot is his own fault, however. The boy has always had three blankets he cuddles with while sleeping (plus an actual bed blanket). Each day before nap we read in his chair for about 15-20 minutes, with all three blankets slung over my shoulder and snuggled next to him. Well, Liam also has six stuffed bears and one stuffed dog that sit at the end of his bed. I put them there because: I didn't really have anywhere else to put them, they looked cute, and it wouldn't be the worst thing if he got attached to one of them. But suddenly he's developed an attachment to all seven. All week he's insisted that they all read stories with us in the chair, with all three blankets, and his bed pillow to boot. Now picture this: one smallish yellow wing chair with a very large two-year-old and a pregnant woman, six bears, one dog, three blankets, and a pillow. Not only don't we fit (and Liam gets upset if a bear/blanket somehow goes missing), but we are very, very hot!

All this leads me to the Haagen-Dazs. I developed a very large craving for some chocolate Haagen-Dazs ice cream sitting squashed up in that chair today, and of course we don't have any. We have Dreyer's vanilla, which you will agree isn't the same thing at all. But now Liam is napping and I'm stuck in the house. I wonder if I concentrate hard enough, if Mark, sitting at work, will feel that something is wrong and head for King Soopers immediately.

I'm having ice cream for dinner tonight.

104

That would be the current temperature in Denver today. Although it actually hit 109 degrees downtown, I guess for the purposes of new records temperatures are only recorded at DIA. We have a new record, and 104 is only one degree off the highest temperature ever recorded here, ever. I am thanking god that I am not standing on a downtown corner right now, in full dress clothes, waiting for a train.

The heat is getting to us. Mark refuses have the oven or BBQ on, so he's bringing home deli sandwiches for dinner, and I'm working up a sweat sitting on the sofa knitting. Even the animals are acting strangely; a bunny has been sitting on our front porch for about an hour each morning - the concrete must be cool - which causes a great kafuffle in our household. Fuzz caterwalls at the window and Liam shouts, "Duzz, ook! Bunny!" over and over. It gets quiet for a minute, then repeats. If you look carefully, you can see a fuzzy bunny in this picture just above Liam's head.

We went to the pool this morning. I was reluctant to leave the house, but I can't very well keep Liam cooped up all day, so the pool seemed the best thing to do. It was good. I didn't even notice the intensity of the heat until I dipped my feet into the pool and noticed that the normally luke-warm water felt quite cold. Oh yeah, it's really hot. So all you people in foggy rainy places just better keep your complaints to yourselves for a few days.

Rain Rain...

So as I sit here, rain is coming down in what can only be described as a Nova Scotia-type fashion.

There, it would just be another day. Here in Colorado it has caused flash floods, hail, and requests for drivers to stay off the roads. Of course, there is also a tornado warning. At any rate, it's remarkable enough that I thought to take out the camera. Lord knows we need the rain, as I don't think we've had any for a couple of weeks (I think), and it has been very hot. As usual the potted plants in my backyard are looking very sorry.

All that rain reminds me: 'hello!' to the people of TD Evergreen in Halifax with extra hugs from Liam. We hope you're still out there after this site's long hiatus.

Not much going on today, except that Liam and I made cookies. I measured everything, he put everything in the bowl. We both ate the results. Note the dinosaur apron.

Nesting Has Begun!

And it's about time. Other friends who aren't as pregnant as I am have already been cleaning for weeks, and another has painted every door in her house. Anyway, today that nesting instinct hit me full force and I started cleaning like a madwoman. I cleaned out every closet in the house. No, really. That includes the linen closet and part of the pantry. I hauled bags of garbage to the garage and I have a huge pile of things for a garage sale (thankfully, Allison has one planned in a few weeks). So now I have water boiling for tea and I shall drink said tea and eat some triumphant fudge!

Next stop: our basement (not for beginners).

Hmmmm

Kari's comment (see July 10th) made my heart beat a bit faster. Not that I wouldn't want another boy, of course, but I'll have a house full of pink things and no boy name (because boys' names are hard). So her son just wore all those pink things - newly washed and nonreturnable - for his first few months. He's fine!

Anyway, I spent last night sewing up fourteen rice bags. They are intended to add to the relaxation factor, but it sure as hell wasn't relaxing making them. Since Liam now owns everything in the house ("Mine, mine!"), he appropriated the sewing machine ("machine!") immediately and was quite put out when I tried to use it. He kept a close eye on things the entire time. There are a lot of pointy things associated with sewing, all of which are fascinating to a two-year-old, so the whole endeavor ended up taking much longer than planned, and I have more to do today. (Of course Mark got paged as soon as I started, and couldn't really help for a while). On the menu tonight: little rice bag pillow cases, since I thought it would be a bit icky to ask lots of people to use the same bags without being able to wash them.

We are having a family portrait done on Sunday. It is by a friend of a friend who is starting a new business, so she is waiving the sitting fee so we can help her build up a portfolio. No problem, except the last time I want my picture taken is when I'm pregnant (face fat - uck). Of course I will take a few pregnant pictures for prosperity, but I certainly won't blow them up and put them on the wall. It's free though, and she'll take some just of Liam, so off we'll go.

Pink Things

That's right, we're having a girl!! Mark and I went down to the twenty-week ultrasound last week and got the great news that this baby is perfect, healthy, and a girl. I am pleased, both that we found out and that it is a girl, because I always thought it would be nice to have one child of each gender. (Except for a moment a few months ago watching The Amazing Race when two brothers competed that were best friends and I cried for a while, hoping that Liam would have a brother/best friend too. Then people pointed out to me that there are lots of brothers that aren't best friends. Sigh.) Anyway, usually the ultrasound tech can tell something to the effect that, "well, it isn't a boy, so it's a girl." Not this time. She got the money shot; the textbook image that shows, yup, that's a girl and there's no doubt about it. Don't expect to be seeing that picture up on this site ever; we need to preserve our daughter's dignity. The point is, we can now buy pink things without fear.

Good thing too, since I've already started knitting one pink sweater and bought more yarn for one pink poncho (to fit a two-year-old, but hey, she'll grow). Plus we can start sorting through the boxes and boxes of Liam's clothes that are down in the basement. I've never given or thrown away one single item of his clothing (all my friends have either girls or older boys), so there's quite a bit of it down there. The challenge will be to not keep them all as keepsakes.

In the meantime, Liam is doing great. He knows there is a baby in my tummy, although I'm sure he has no idea how it got there. He's talking all the time, and more and more often what he says makes sense. Today we actually had a conversation (about Fuzz hiding under the bed and not coming downstairs for kitty treats, if you must know). His latest fascination is with bugs, and he points them out to me whenever he finds one. Trying to pick them up usually ends in disaster (poor bugs), but today he managed to get one to sit on his finger long enough to shove said finger into my face. I'm trying to be supportive, but sometimes it can be tough.