the hanging garden of my patio

Not nearly as impressive as I imagine the hanging gardens of Babylon were, I now have a tiny hanging garden on my patio, made of one tomato plant and one cucumber plant. They are hanging upside-down. I succumbed to the sales pitch of this infomercial and hopefully will have some fruits later this summer. The hubby and I hung them up tonight, by wrapping a chain around the support beam of the balcony above ours and then hanging the planters from the chain. They did come with hooks that they could hang from, but after having a hanging kitchen basket full of onions and potatoes fall down out of the ceiling, I'm a little wary of hooks.

I had tried to start my plants from seeds, and all the seeds sprouted, but due to my brown thumb, they all are now lifeless. They grew just enough to use up the energy stored within the seed, but never grew large enough to start producing their own energy. So I bought some slightly larger plants the other day, good-looking ones, that will hopefully remain alive. They have fresh air and sunshine but are sheltered from the rain, so I just need to remember to water them every now and then.

If the plants do well, I will take some pictures later on. If they don't, well then, we shall never speak of this travesty again.

first prenatal appointment

Well, technically it wasn't my "first" prenatal appointment since I did have several of those with Lydia, but it was the first one for this pregnancy. :) We heard the heartbeat and I got weighed (up 5 lbs so far) and filled out some paperwork. The heartbeat was hard to find since I'm still a little early, but she finally found it hiding behind one of MY pulses. My lab work was on a different day and I'm going to have a little bruise from that, but the good news is that I did NOT get lightheaded w/ the needle this time. Usually I do, so I'm glad I got to avoid that feeling.

In Lydia news, she's started saying "Okay" a lot. The tone she uses when she says it is absolutely adorable. She'll say it after Tim or I ask her to do something, but not all the time, otherwise I'd try to get it on video. You'll just have to take my word as to how cute it is. ;)

a moment of realization

Wow. I'm pregnant!

It just sort of hit me yesterday. This feeling is new to me, because with Lydia, the pregnancy was never "real" to me, not even when I was in labor. But maybe because I've gone through it before and know what's to come, it sort of all sunk in yesterday. In about 7 months, I will be a mother of TWO! My "inner child" will become an outer child and I'll get to see if he/she will look like me or be another clone of Tim and Lydia. My belly will get big(ger) and movements will be able to be seen and felt from the inside and out. An amazing journey waits for me and I hope I can cherish every day (instead of dwelling on the unpleasant side effects thus far).

her sense of humor in action

Well, it's a sock instead of a diaper, but putting it in the wrong place got the same reaction as the diaper on the foot would have gotten.

a sense of humor develops

Lydia is starting to have a sense of humor. If she does something funny and the adults around her start laughing, she starts laughing too and says "That's funny!" She also understands when Mommy is being silly, like when I'm changing her diaper. Sometimes I will take the new diaper and put it on her head or tummy or wrap it around an arm or a foot. She'll giggle and then say in a somewhat deep voice, "Noooo... it goes on the bottom." I tried to get a video of it earlier today but of course once the camera came out, she just stared at it and wouldn't say her funny line. I'll have to get a video at some point though.

The pregnancy is moving right along. I'll be nine weeks on Monday. My all-day sickness comes and goes. I still haven't figure out if any particular thing triggers it, or helps it to go away, so I can only hope that it doesn't last too much longer. I'm also exhausted all the time, probably from trying to do too much, but possibly because I need iron. I'll probably pick some up and add it to my litany of other vitamins that I've been taking, and see if that helps.

getting back into a schedule

Tim got a call from the union earlier this week, and is now at a new local construction site! It's been hard for him to get back into a schedule after being off for just over a month, but he's making it work. He's very excited and loves this new site so far.

The pregnancy is moving right along. I felt mildly OK today and yesterday, and did not throw up (but was still naseous). Hopefully it'll be all gone by 14 weeks. Only 1.5 months to go until that milestone. I'm also looking forward to not being exhausted all the time. I forgot how tired early pregnancy makes you. Even more so w/ the second one since there's a firstborn to chase around.

sick in more ways than one, potty "not" training, and the continuing wait

Hubby still does not have a job. Unemployment is coming in, but it's of course not enough. He thought about taking a job that is 7 hours away and decided it wouldn't be the best thing. The brand new people that are walking into the union off the street right now are being told to call back in 3 months. Meanwhile, hubby is being asked to just check in once/week. There was a job about an hour away, but they only took 2 apprentices and he wasn't high enough up on the list to be one of those two slots. He is still working delivering pizza in the meantime, so that is helping. And he finally stood up and requested some more hours, especially since he doesn't have a day job right now, and they gave him some more. I've been busy the last couple of weeks doing transcription, since it's that time of the quarter. One more slightly busy week and then I'll be done with it until late April. We did our taxes and are pleased with the result.

I've had sort of a cough the last few days, just irritation from a runny nose, nothing that's really contagious. But it's making me a lot more tired than I'd normally be in this condition, and is also aggravating my nausea. Just two more months until I'm 14 weeks along and hopefully the nausea and exhaustion will be behind me. (Oh, btw, I'm pregnant. Lydia's going to be a big sister in October.)

Speaking of Lydia, I can't remember if I'd mentioned it on this blog or not, but last year I did try to potty train her off and on. I did so very lightly when she was about 18 months old, and failed, and tried again in a couple of months, and failed again. She just wasn't ready and still isn't ready. She doesn't care if she's wet or dirty. She's fearful of the toilet and screams if I try to have her sit on it. Right after a shower, if she happens to have an accident before I get a new diaper on her, she doesn't even notice or care at all. I really don't know where to go from here, but may do a "potty boot camp" later this summer where we just hang out in the bathroom with books and juice, but for now, I've just given up everything. I barely even talk about it with her anymore, except in obvious cases to point out the benefits (like when she's complaining about being wiped after a #2, I let her know that if she had put it in the potty then she wouldn't need to be wiped as much). But other than instances like that, I don't mention it to her anymore. She'll either randomly "get it" and train herself sometime between now and the summer, or the "potty boot camp" will produce some results, or she'll continue in diapers. I go through phases with this milestone where I worry that she seriously will NEVER EVER potty train, then go through a few months of peaceful waiting b/c I realize that she's developmentally normal and a normal child is very likely to be out of diapers by age 5, but then the cycle resumes and I start to fret again.

So that's my update for today. Hopefully I'll have some other positive news to report before the end of the month.

so, what's next?

Last time Tim spoke w/ the union was on Monday, when he dropped off his application. He spoke to the person there, and there are still no openings, but the saddest thing from that encounter was that Tim found out that there is not a single other apprentice that is out of work right now. He is a "pre apprentice" right now since he hasn't started classes (if he'd gone to the union just a few weeks earlier last fall, he would be in his first year now instead of in his first year next year). The person told Tim to call again on Monday if he hadn't heard anything by then.

I just don't know what to feel anymore. Monday is approaching again, and the next day will be three weeks of Tim being out of work. We have not yet heard about our unemployment application. I almost got excited a few minutes ago when Tim's phone rang, but it was a random person letting him know of a job fair on Wednesday that Tim is a "perfect match" for. Tim said that on Monday if (when?) there's still no work available, that he is going to make plans to try to do something else. Please pray for there to be a job available for him Monday. After that, the level of stress and uncertainty does nothing but increase, and I'm already so stressed that I'm losing my appetite, which is not good since I'm already small. The next step is baldness from pulling out my hair.

singing a song from bible class

Here's Lydia singing "Jesus Loves Me."

my little "slave"

Even just at 2 years old, Lydia is already such a big helper. After she's done eating, she takes her plate to the kitchen and puts it on the cabinet (stretching to reach b/c she's still so short, lol). She also likes to help me fold diapers:



After they're all folded, she helps me put them away in their proper compartments (we have big diapers which I put away, and then she puts away the little diapers, the wipes, the microfiber towels and the fleece liners). It's really so cute to watch her b/c she's so happy doing it (check out her "I'm so proud of myself" grin at about 48 seconds into the video, lol).

As for Tim's job, we are still waiting on a call from the union. Tuesday will have been two weeks of waiting. We did apply for unemployment the day he got laid off, so hopefully we'll be approved for that, but it takes at least 4 weeks to process that application. Then even if we are approved, it'll be tight and skinny while we're on it since what we would get on that isn't what his full salary would be if he were working.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about the Bible class I'm teaching next quarter. It's the 4&5 year old class, and it's going to be a FULL class. I know that it'll end up being OK but it's still so nerve-wracking doing all the preparations and trying to make sure there's enough going on to fill up the time. I really love that age, though, and think it'll be a fun class.