Showing Off

When I was little my family would go clothes shopping together. We would come home and my Mom and I would do a "fashion show". We would try on all of our new clothes for my Dad. He was such a good sport. He would always act super excited, and ooh and aah over everything we tried on.

In that tradition, Brynlee took it upon herself to do a fashion show for Jimmy the other day with some of her new clothes. I didn't even tell her to do it,she just did it. She's very into fashion these days. She has tried to wear her Dorothy costume pretty much everyday this week. I let her wear it on Monday,but vetoed it the other days. It's too cold here for a dress right now!

As she pulled on her new clothes and bounced happily to go show her Dad I couldn't help but remember when I was little and how happy it made me that my Dad would get so excited about my new clothes. Heck I'm sure he would still get really excited if I bought a new outfit and showed it to him. He's neat like that. I'm lucky to have such a fun Dad. So is Brynlee. 

In the Mood

As you all probably know, I'm a crier. I always have been, and I hate it. But that is how I express my frustration, anger, sadness even happiness sometimes. I just cry. Embarrassing!

Combine with that pregnancy hormones and watch out! Water works are imminent. Like yesterday. I was driving and in a really good mood. The weather has been amazing here. This is why people live here. Now I get it. Now if we could just do something about that pesky 5 month long summer...anyhow I was feeling extremely happy. I was listening to Christmas music and "I'll be home for Christmas" by Josh Groban came one. Within 10 seconds I was sobbing. Literally sobbing in my car. As I was sobbing I speculated on how quickly my mood changed.

Unfortunately this is not uncommon. I find myself getting really angry about silly stuff. I get really fired up! And I know it's dumb, and I know I'm overreacting. But I can't help the rage. Watch out! It's funny because usually with the exception of crying I try to keep my emotions in check. I guess when I'm pregnant all bets are out the door.

Pregnancy Stats at 24 weeks:

Stretch marks: none, yet! Please let there be none

Nausea: I haven't thrown up in 19 days.19! That's like a record for me! Maybe we've turned a corner here

Cravings: grape nuts. I cannot get enough. I know it's really strange, but I LOVE them.

Insomnia: Yes! Mainly I wake up to pee and cannot fall back asleep. But, I've seen some really interesting TV specials because of this.

Kindled and Swindled

I think I've mentioned before that I have a Kindle? I know I wrote a post about how I wasn't ready for an electronic reading device a while back, but my Kindle was a gift. It's nothing too fancy. I can't put pictures on it and go on the internet with it and all that stuff. But I can do what it was actually intended for. I can read books on it.

Turns out that Kindles are really convenient. Almost too convenient. I go onto Amazon, find a book I want to read and with one click of my mouse  ( literally, one click) the book pops up on my Kindle like magic. It's crazy! And, the books are all reviewed so I know if I'm buying crap or not as well as being less expensive than regular books. All and all, my Kindle is pretty awesome. There is just one thing that rubs me wrong...

Some authors will not let you share books! It makes me so mad! If I bought the book, I should be able to lend it to whomever I want. I bought it after all. But nooooo. It seems most authors don't let you lend it at all. ie Nicholas Sparks. Why Nicholas, why? It makes me not want to buy his books out of spite. Or to go buy the paper back and lend it to everyone I see. Pass it around everywhere!

 The few authors I've found that let you lend their books are relatively unknown. And they only let you lend their books for 2 weeks. But I'm fine with that, 2 weeks is plenty of time. Part of what I love about reading is reading a really good book, and then having someone else read it too. Now, unless I pass my Kindle all over the place I can't do that anymore.

Control Freak

Somehow I married a control freak. Just kidding, he's not that bad. But he does like to be in control of things. His whole family is like that...you can imagine how family get togethers go. Not really the go with the flow kind of people, LOL.

But seriously somehow I spawned a control freak. Or maybe it's a toddler thing? She wants to do everything, she wants to pick everything. She wants to do it "all by herself". If I had a dollar every time I heard that phrase, I'd have enough money to hire a nanny! Just kidding, I wouldn't hire a nanny. But I would have a ton of money.

She has started to give me grief about her clothes now. I get things out to get her dressed and nooooo she doesn't want to wear that. She wants to wear a ridiculous outfit that doesn't match in color or the weather. A battle ensues. I guess I could let her dress herself, but I don't want to. I don't want her to look crazy! So maybe I'm a bit of a control freak too.

One of our biggest battles is over nails.Yes, nail polish. I know, what a stupid thing to fight over right? Well, we DUKE it out every time we do nails. To the point where I stopped doing nails with her. First, she wants to do it. Surprise. If it was clear, maybe. But the idea of my 3 year old armed with bright pink nail polish is just scary. So, we came to an agreement that I would paint her nails and she could pick the color. And put dots on. Every time I paint her nails with her colors she picked she decides oh no. She wants different colors. I tell her too bad she picked the other colors. She takes this well.

In case you are wondering she has her own 3 year old appropriate nail polish. She is allowed to do her nails with that nail polish, at the appropriate time. However, after repeatedly painting on things that were not her nails with said nail polish ( ie my TV!!!!!) I had to take it away from her.

She went through a growth spurt and suddenly none of her clothes fit her. We went clothes shopping the other day and saw the cutest pair of shoes ever. She would not get them. I even had her try them on. Nope, not going to wear them. Such a stinker. She instead had her heart set on hot pink cowgirl boots. I, thinking that they were not the most versatile of shoe said no. We battled about that for a little while, and I gave in. I guess she knows what's up because she looks so freaking cute in them I could eat her up. Every time she puts them on I just want to squeeze her. Maybe I need to let her be in control more often. But not when it comes to hot pink nail polish!

The Miracle of Life

So, pregnancy. 22 weeks, here we are. I wish I could experience pregnancy in someone else's body for a day. Like maybe that pregnant lady I see jogging all the time. I wonder what pregnancy is like for her. Must be pretty good if she can go jogging and be so happy about it.

I on the other hand go up and down my stairs a few times and whew! I'm exhausted! Stairs really are something else. I try to go down them a little slower since my fall last week. But still. They wear me out! Is this normal? According to my Dr, for some people yes. Ok then. Hmm...

I've tried a change in diet. I've tried a change in vitamins. I've tried a change in wardrobe. Unfortunately none of those things make me want to jog.

For Jimmy's birthday last Friday we went out to dinner, just the two of us. We ate steak, and it was delicious. Jimmy ate shrimp...I'm not such a fan. And, we kept our bill to $25. For 2 people! That's pretty good if I say so myself. Unfortunately later on that night I threw up my portion of that dinner. *sigh* there goes $12.50...

As I prayed to the porcelain God for literally like the 500th time in this pregnancy I couldn't help but wonder two things. One, why didn't I keep track of how many times I've thrown up? I think I could break a record at this point! And two, am I ever going to stop? We are over half way through with this blissful nine months so I'm starting to think no.

Oh baby. What a miracle it is that I can feel you kicking away and moving all over. Having the time of your little life in there. And while it feels like you are slowly killing me, I love you. And am glad that you are having fun, even though I most certainly am not. Ah the miracle of life!

Feline Love

I was thinking the other night about cats. I'm not sure why...when I can't sleep at night my mind travels to weird things I guess. But I started thinking about how some people don't like cats. A lot of people it seems. I just don't get it.

I've always been a cat person. I've always been drawn to cats rather than dogs. Maybe because even at a young age I knew that I needed a low maintenance pet. I like dogs too, don't get me wrong. I like animals really. But I'm kind of a lazy pet owner, and I need a lazy pet right a long with me. So, what better than a cat?

I think I have the easiest cat on the planet. It's like at Petsmart when our eyes met that day in September back in 2009 it was destiny. As far as pets go, I don't think there is much not to like.

Of course like any pet there is some training involved. Mitzie gets squirted when she tries to scratch on anything she is not supposed to. She gets squirted when she gets on the table or counter. She has always been good about using her cat box. That's all you need to train a cat really, a squirt bottle. I tried to squirt a dog to train him once, didn't work too well. I think the dog actually liked it.

I love dogs too...well trained ones. I just don't want to be the one to have to do the training. They are worse than kids to train! Give me an old tired trained dog any day of the week and I'd be happy to take it. But the barking and the peeing and the chewing and the getting into everything. Oh boy. It makes me tired just typing it.

My cat does have a cattitude... she's a little sassy. I mean she is a Cuillard after all. Everyone in this house has some sort of sass, believe me.

Long story short when it comes to cats I feel like you get a pretty good amount out of them vs what you have to put into them. Feed them once in a while. Clean their cat box every couple of days (or everyday if you are me because I'm anal about it). Squirt them if you see them doing something naughty. In return I get a soft ball of love that follows me around, cuddles with me and makes me feel happier than an animal probably should. Not a bad deal in my mind.

So, to those people out there that don't like cats, besides being allergic I'm curious as to why. Have you ever actually owned a cat before? A bad cat experience? Do tell.

A Summary

It's been a while!

We had some visitors a few weeks ago, yay for Mom and Dad! It was great to have them here. We went to Tombstone and the pumpkin patch and had lots of fun. I'm ready for them to come back.

The Red Sox won the world series! Again!Woo Hoo! But now baseball is over and I always get kind of sad this time of year. I'm stuck with football. Football on all the time. 

Baby girl number 2 is doing well, despite a fall down the stairs I had. Yes, word to the wise: don't fall down the stairs when you are pregnant. Luckily I fell on my back. My back felt like someone beat me with a baseball bat, but I went to my Dr and everything looked fine with the baby. 

Halloween was really fun this year! Brynlee dressed up as Rapunzel, and she looked pretty cute if I do say so myself. On Halloween she went trick or treating for like 20 min and said her head hurt. She came home and helped pass out candy until she fell asleep at 7:30pm. Which for her is like 3 hours before she normally goes to bed. She woke up at 10pm and was up alllll night long. Crazy kid. We had so many trick or treaters we ran out of candy at like 7:45. That's even after I poured some of Brynlee's trick or treating candy in the bucket to give away ( like we need all that candy around here!). I loved seeing all the kids dressed up. My favorite was like a 1 and 1/2 year old dressed up as Nemo. She was so cute I wanted to die. 

I absolutely LOVE having my own home. In ways I never thought I could. It's scary and overwhelming and expensive but so so worth it. 

It's finally cool here. Like I get cold now. After the longest and most miserable summer of my life I never thought this day would come. It's beautiful. Now I get why people live here. I can go out walking and go to the park and it's wonderful. 

Thanksgiving is coming, yay! Poor Thanksgiving never gets any play. People just skip right from Halloween to Christmas and I don't get it. I'm putting up my Thanksgiving decorations today, not that anyone will probably see them because visitors are far and few between these days. But I like them. And I can already taste Thanksgiving dinner...mmmm!