A Weekend Ending in Massive Amounts of Vomit

It was a busy weekend. First and foremost, it was the weekend of the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival. This is our fourth time, Norah's third (actually, technically it was her fourth too, but we didn't know she was around the first time). Anyway, I am not sure why we like it so much because it pretty much encompasses everything I hate-traffic, crowds, and corn dogs. But, for $15 you can get your family's picture with a giant, award winning pumpkin. Basically, that's enough for me.

Last year, what should have been a 20 minute drive took over 2 hours. This year we wised up and as soon as we woke up, we headed out. The festival didn't technically start until 9:00 am, but there was a 7:00 pancake breakfast, which we figured Norah would love. We got there around 8:00 am, and I am very proud to say that it took us all of 20 minutes to get there. Plus it was really cold, so by 8:00 am we were already two for two.

Norah found this rubber duck in a bathroom drawer the other day and it hasn't left her side since. I found it in her bed this morning.

My sweet pumpkin.




The line for the pancake breakfast was insane, so we ate pumpkin muffins and drank pumpkin milkshakes instead and walked around listening to the music. There was an awesome band on the main stage who did a lot of Jerry Garcia, CCR, etc. and Norah went nuts. She isn't a huge dancer and doesn't typically like to get down in public, but she got moved by the music, I guess.

We randomly ran into the B-S family. We always seem to run into someone we know at the festival, which is funny because, 1) there are thousands of people there, and 2) we don't know that many people. Norah and Simon were thrilled to see each other and spent the next hour running around, eating hay, and carrying around pumpkins that were clearly part of elaborate displays.



We had to go to soccer practice straight from the festival, which annoyed me because it cut into my HBO time, but it was fun to see what she's been learning. She is terrible at kicking goals-I don't think she likes it because there are too many kids in her way-but she is really into all of the drills. This week the coach used cones which she thought was fabulous.






After all of that excitement she took an awesome 3 hour nap.

Saturday night we had dinner with Grandpa Gene and Ms. Mary where there was both good and bad news. The good news was that the Giants won the first game of the series against the Phillies, and the bad news was that I didn't take a single picture the entire evening.

On Sunday the H and W families came over to watch football and it was a great time. Again, so great that I couldn't be bothered to take a single picture. The H's have two girls-2 and 4, and the W's have a 10 month old boy. It was awesome to watch how sweet and gentle Norah was with Baby Wyatt-she kept hugging and kissing him and asking whose brother he was. Then she got bored and had a much better time playing with the H girls.

Now, Norah typically has 3 meals a day that are very well balanced and healthy. It occupies a lot of my time, effort, and money, but totally worth it. On days like today, however, I relax a bit and let things go with the flow. Over the course of the afternoon Norah had: 3 pieces of a mini Boboli cheese pizza I made; a bowlful of avocado, black bean, corn, and tomato salsa; 4,000 tortilla chips; a bunch of fruit; some jambalaya; and 2 frosted sugar cookies (the H's brought a great sugar cookie kit and the girls got to frost and decorate Halloween cookies).

It was a hectic afternoon so we chillaxed at dinner time and she got to watch an episode of Handy Manny while she ate her scrambled egg, spinach, yogurt, and toast. She wasn't really feeling it, but she needed protein and a vegetable, so she glazed over watching tv and let me shovel dinner into her mouth. We were close to the end and out of nowhere she let out a big, disgusting belch. We laughed, she said excuse me, and then I told her to finish her milk. Imagine my surprise then when she said, 'oh no, mom' and then proceeded to puke a kind of puke I have never, ever, ever seen before in my entire life. It was all pink (the yogurt was strawberry), and no joke, was the entire contents of her stomach from the past 3 days. I had this terrible moment of panic-pink puke was all over her and all over the couch, so I yelled for BVZ and the second he walked in the room she coughed and did it again. I cannot adequately describe how much vomit came out of that little girl's mouth.

Taking a picture of it would have made me a bad mom, so BVZ grabbed her arms and I grabbed her legs and we hosed her off in the tub. This is what the couch looked like after 2 rolls of paper towels and 3 wet bath towels.

We had no idea if the couch covers were washable, but it was either wash them or throw them away so we took our chances (they look fine). I was totally traumatized but Norah was totally fine (which reassures me that she isn't sick-she just had 2 frosted sugar cookies and her system just couldn't handle it). She got a very long bath and then drank some water and had a little bit of applesauce.

I am not going to lie-I was pretty freaked out. I mean, it was a LOT of vomit. I got her pillow and bear and set her up in our bed so I could watch her all night, but to my surprise she insisted that she sleep in her own bed, by herself. I let her do it, but have already checked on her 3 times and probably will force her to sleep with me when she's too sleepy to protest.

Reaction

We told Norah that she is not in fact getting a sister, but rather a brother. She said, "okay." We've been talking a lot about how she will get to move into a big girl room and the baby will take her 'baby' room. Every time she tells me that she wants to baby to sleep in her bed. With her. About an hour after we told her about her brother she said, "my brother sleeps in my bed, please. With me." She was sitting on the potty tonight and there was a full roll of toilet paper right next to a half roll. She said about the big roll, "this is for me" and about the little roll, "this is for my brother." I think she's into it. BVZ and I were talking baby names tonight (don't ask, we got nowhere) and every time I made a suggestion Norah would announce, "I don't like it." We asked her what she wanted to name him and she said. "Grover. No, Caillou." She doesn't get a vote anymore.

The only person more excited about the prospect of another girl was Megan. Stephanie texted me this afternoon that she broke the boy news and Megan said, and I quote, "Are you serious? Shouldn't the doctor have known before now? I mean, how hard is it to see a penis*, I mean it just hangs out there. It's hard to miss." It is so awesome being 9. Trevor apparently listened to her tirade and said, "yeah, that is true. But, yay! Boys are now winning, 3 to 2!" Yes, indeed they are Trevor. Yes, indeed.

The following pictures are unrelated but cute....

Norah has never been a big juice drinker and we've never pushed it. Recently we got some Odwalla Superfood juice which is kind of thick and green and full of good stuff. She loves it. A half gallon of the stuff also costs more than a gallon of organic milk, so we dole it out sparingly (like about a shot glass amount a day). We were out of it this evening so I placated her with orange (ie, "yellow" juice). She told me, "green is much better than yellow."

I told her when I got home from work that her hair looked really pretty. After I took a picture of her with her juice she said, "Mom, my hair looks really pretty. Take a picture of it."

Introducing Mini-Me.

*For the record, this is the first appearance of the word penis on this blog. I fear it definitely won't be the last.

Garage Baby

Garage is Norah's favorite thing to play these days. Most of the time we do dramatic re-enactments of the little people falling off the elevator tower and being rushed to Dr. Rambo's hospital with a broken arm.

In this picture you can see (from left to right): Uncle Kiki, Bad Pirate, Mommy (who happens to be the African-American lady pirate), and Garage Baby.

Have I mentioned how much I love this kid?

BREAKING NEWS

So, I guess you can't always trust technology.

This morning we found out, with no question left in anyone's mind, that Funkhouser is a BOY. I've got the pictures to prove it. Holy schmoly. My jaw is still on the floor and BVZ is just as shocked. We survived girl, we know what to do with a girl, we got baby girl down. What the &%!>! are we going to do with a boy???

I would be lying if I said an itty bitty part of me wasn't a little sad. We had our heads wrapped around the idea of another girl and I was really, really, really excited that Norah was going to get a same sex sibling. Don't get me wrong, I am REALLY excited to have a boy and beyond thrilled that he is perfectly healthy (which honestly, is the only thing we care about). But, it's going to take some getting used to.

YAY, BOYS!!!!

Sunday Funday

We had a jam packed day today. Things kicked off with brunch at our house with the K-F family. It was so enjoyable that I didn't take a single picture. The K-F's have almost 11 year old twin boys as well as a 2 year old girl. The twins entertained the toddlers in Norah's room after we ate and the grown ups got to talk uninterrupted for a whole hour. At one point I went to check on the kids and Norah told me, 'I love you mom, please go away' and then asked me to close the door. I hope the boys are available for babysitting gigs.

Ruby got to go to a pumpkin patch yesterday and Norah has been obsessed with pumpkins since seeing the pictures. We got her to take a nap today by promising we'd go to a patch this afternoon. It was after 3:00 pm by the time we were ready to go so instead of going to a legit pumpkin patch (you know, the ones with animals, hay, and shade), we tried to cut some corners and took her to a parking lot pumpkin patch on El Camino.

At first we were stoked because it looked really cool-with bouncy houses galore so we didn't even balk at the $9 per kid entrance fee.

It was a really neat place-for the over 6 crowd. The houses were very cool, but way too advanced for Norah. Most had huge slides and required the kid be able to navigate inflatable ladders. Parents weren't allowed in the houses, so we couldn't even get in there to help her out.

So, we concentrated on the pumpkins on the burning hot asphalt. I always forget how hot it is here in October. I really can't complain about the weather here too much, but October needs to be about sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes. Instead, it's just hot.



Norah did venture into the ark bouncy house and after about 10 minutes figured out how to get up the ladder (see it in the background? It's hard to get up!)

This is what it looked like from the outside. See that lady? She kept yelling at her kids, 'hurry up! I need a snow cone!' Me too, lady.

Thinking about going down the slide.

Cowabunga! See BVZ back there? He snuck in once Norah was at the top yelling, 'I'm stuck, I'm stuck!' Thankfully he did not slide down.

We had a moment when Norah realized she wasn't going to get to go into the giant shark bouncy house, but crisis was averted when we told her she could pick out two pumpkins of her choice.

She touched, patted, hugged (and may have licked) them all.





We ended up with two that she originally named Norah and Ruby, but then later changed to Beauty and The Beast, and then later Belle and Daddy. [As a quick aside, she is currently obsessed with the main song from Beauty and the Beast. She has never seen the movie and I don't think knows anything about the story, but she and Ruby watch the YouTube video of the song with Pam and it is her current favorite. She can sing the last refrain, 'tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beeeeeeaaassssst.' She sings loud and frequently. I keep trying to get it on video-it will happen soon, I promise.]

Gigi was also here today because she flew into SFO from Moscow last night. Gigi and Aunt Vanessa had been on vacation in Russia and they brought Norah the coolest present of all time-Russian nesting dolls.

To say she loves them would be a gross understatement. After just a few tries she became quite adept at organizing them, opening them, and making me talk to her pretending to be them. It was a GREAT present.

This is what she did every time I asked her if I could take a picture of her with her dolls.



Fun Sunday. Clearly going to be a manic Monday.

Baby Shower Wrap-Up

I stole all of these pictures from Stephanie's blog. I would have just linked her blog and saved myself a whole lot of effort, but she's a jerk and keeps it private. Which means that 90% of our family members never read it because they can't figure out how to log in.

Anyway, Megan came over the day of the shower to keep Norah entertained, and man was she good. I felt like I owed her money at the end of the day because she was such a good babysitter. Norah still asks every day when Megan will be there. They played, watched a movie (The Little Mermaid-oh the horror!), played some more, and ate 3 lunches. Megan needs to move here. Whatever she tells Norah to do, Norah does it. I think Norah ate more that morning and early afternoon than she has in 3 months.

The shower was at Bubby's house and she was in charge of the decorations. I don't have any great pictures (ahem), but there were lovely flowers, and cute die-cut decorations hanging from the chandeliers.

The guest(s) of honor in all their glory.

Kristin and I were in charge of the food and drinks. There was a lovely non-alcoholic punch (that would have been even more delicious with vodka) and white wine spritzers. The spritzers were actually Bubby's idea and we figured just a way for her to be cheap (it's just wine diluted with carbonated water). But we added a raspberry at the bottom of the glass for color and they were the hit of the party.

There were several cheese platters (not pictured, the cheddar with fancy crackers).

Chicken salad and mint cucumber tea sandwiches.

Spinach and tortellini pasta salad (thanks Aileen for the recipe-it was the biggest hit!)

Tomato and basil bruschetta.

Not pictured was spinach and artichoke dip with crudites and a giant, fancy fruit salad.

Stephanie was in charge of the desserts. I got diabetes just looking at them. She has always been a good baker, but holy schmoly she outdid herself. The bottom plate was jam filled macaroons, the second plate was mint frosted brownies (these were my favorite and I had probably 17-it was a rich chocolate brownie, with a mint frosting, and then a top layer of melted chocolate), the third plate was vanilla cupcakes, and the top plate was a cake especially for Amy.

Everything made from scratch and TO DIE FOR. I just got diabetes again thinking about it!

See those ducks? Yeah, those would be white chocolate molded ducks that Steph made. I was so full after dessert that I couldn't eat another bite, so I stole a duck and set it aside for later. The next thing I knew, Norah was eating my duck! I couldn't believe it. Good thing she's cute, because I REALLY wanted one of those ducks.

In case you are wondering, Toolie is not going to be the baby's actual name, it is just his in utero nickname. I would explain the origin of that nickname, but it is beyond inappropriate and this is a family blog people (Mare-I will tell you later, I promise).

Steph also made the favors, which were chocolates in a cute little package.

The gang.

Toolie is already a linebacker.

Norah's outfit looks a little inappropriate here, but it was really just a cute sundress.

We didn't play any stupid games, but just let everyone chat and mingle and then watch Amy open her gifts. Her friends (and in-laws) are beyond awesome and she got quite the stash of amazing and thoughtful gifts. Megan and Norah made her a special card.

In the weeks leading up to the shower I had Amy's friends send me a picture of themselves with her, as well as a letter to the baby about who his mom is. I compiled all of the photos and messages and had it printed in a bound book (Blurb.com rules my world, by the way). It turned out even better than expected and, as I knew she would, Amy loved it.

The guests also filled out cards with words of advice for the soon-to-be mom and Steph and Bubby made her this book to hold the cards as well as the 9 billion pictures that were taken of the party. My favorite words of advice included: "Pump and dump is your friend." Truer words have never been spoken.

The whole thing reminded me a lot of Norah's second birthday party-it was just a big pile of love. It doesn't get much better than that.

Funkhouser Update: Week 18

I have gotten multiple complaints that I don't share enough about what's going on with Funkhouser or that I don't seem to be very excited about our impending arrival. I think anyone who has had a subsequent pregnancy can relate-it's just very different. Don't get me wrong, it is still awesome, but I am relatively obsessed with Norah and I am already feeling some anxiety about all the time that I am not going to get to spend with her (and talking about her) once Funkhouser gets here. Plus, I am just now getting over feeling like crap every single minute of every single day. Don't worry, I am sure in due time I will be just as obsessed with Funkhouser as I am with Norah.

Here's the Cliff Notes version of what's going on (just for you, Sarah Ellen):

1. Funkhouser's heart looks great so far, and

2. Funkhouser is definitely a girl

With Norah, pregnancy was very normal and run of the mill until 33 weeks when the sh*t hit the fan. This time it has been anything but normal. I am with a high risk medical practice, so I have two OB's, an OB specialist at Stanford, a Cardiologist, a Rheumatologist, and a Dermatologist, all who know exactly what's going on. It's very comforting, but also makes for a lot of doctor's visits. On the weeks I don't have ultrasounds there are regular appointments, consultations, or visits to the lab for blood work.

At 16 weeks I started having fetal echo cardiograms and will have one every two weeks for the next 14 weeks or so, and then every week as the Cardiologist sees fit. It is basically just a detailed ultrasound that lasts about an hour. It's pretty intense and makes me think that science is the coolest thing ever. They are looking for two things, 1) the formation of the heart (chambers, vessels, valves, etc.), and 2) the electrical current that the heart creates. The way they do the latter is to see how the blood flows not only in the heart itself, but in the brain (if there is a problem with impulse there can be too much or too little blood in the brain). On the echo, the blood shows up as either red or blue so it's definitely a multi-colored experience. They take very precise measurements of the heart and the bones tend to cast weird shadows, so with the exception of the skull, the bones show up as being very bright white. You can very clearly see her spine, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Basically, Funkhouser looks like a teradactyl. A cute one, but a teradactyl nonetheless.

I had my second echo today and not only does the anatomy of the heart look great, but the electrical impulse appears to be perfect. The Cardiologist likes me and my inappropriate dinosaur jokes, so at both echos she took a peek and confirmed Funkhouser's lady parts. Our actual anatomy ultrasound (where you are supposed to find out the gender) is next week, so we'll see how good she really is.

The echos are done at the heart center at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (ie, Stanford). Which means the waiting room is not full of pregnant ladies, but rather sick kids. Sometimes really sick kids. I feel so helpless sitting there-I want to take them to Disneyland and buy their parents unlimited cocktails. It's a hearty dose of perspective and makes me so grateful for the two (yikes, did I just say two??) healthy kids that I have.

Parenthood, even under the best of circumstances, isn't always easy, but I will "TELL ME A STORY 'BOUT NEMO AND DIVER' 900,000 times a day. And I will do it with a great big smile on my face.

Whirlwind

Norah and I took a whirlwind trip to Texas last weekend for something fabulous-Aunt Amy's baby shower. We left late Thursday afternoon and got to the airport in plenty of time to find out that our plane was delayed an hour and a half. Thank goodness for Nemo.

It was a great weekend, full of love and celebration, but somehow I didn't manage to take a single picture of the festivities (someone else did and hopefully will send me copies-hint, hint). Bubby and the sisters hosted the shower and we had a ton of fun doing the planning, decorating, and food prep. Norah hung out with her favorite person in the entire world-Megan. These two are thick as thieves. Norah loves, loves, loves Trevor too, but Megan is her idol.

Norah can't wait to meet her new cousin and I can't wait to get my hands on him as well. We love you Aunt Amy and can't imagine a better reason to celebrate.

New Favorite Picture

This is my new all time favorite picture of Norah, courtesy of Pam. Girl loves her some spaghetti.

Halloween PJ's

Norah got new Halloween PJ's from Bubby. Here she is modeling them and making her 'scary' face.

G'Bye Norah's Mom!

Norah has been killing me lately with what comes out of her mouth. I could listen to her talk all day, and lately that's all she's been doing. She talks to me non-stop about what her toys are doing and wants to know who everyone's mom is. This morning she wore a Cookie Monster t-shirt I picked up recently at my local mom's club clothing sale and when I gave her a hug and kiss goodbye I said, 'Bye, bye, Cookie Monster.' She picked up with two fingers the part of her shirt that has Cookie's mouth and said in a funny, high pitched voice, 'G'Bye Norah's Mom!' Hilarious.

When I got to work I had this from BVZ:

Shoes were coming off, no doubt about it, until, that is, I told her she only got to hear a story about piggy and piggy's mom going to the park if the shoes stayed on. Worked like a charm. Buzz Lightyear rode in the seat next to her, in his seatbelt, even though he screamed and wanted to ride with Norah. Norah put her foot down and said no, Buzz, you have to sit in your own seat.

She rules.