Pregnancy doesn't suck: Reason #8

It's worth it!

I've wanted to be a mom ever since I can remember wanting anything, and for a time, I didn't think it would ever happen.  I dealt with infertility for a few years during my first marriage (while it turned out to be a very good thing we didn't have children together, it was still very painful for me at the time) and I miscarried John's and my first pregnancy in the third month.  When we had Alex, he was literally a dream come true for me.  He was everything I'd ever wanted.  Having a healthy son made me the happiest person in the world. 

I don't take for granted the fact that John and I have been able to conceive so easily.  I don't for a second take for granted that I have my perfect Alex and have so far had a great second pregnancy.  I know exactly how lucky I am. 

The throwing up, the heartburn, sciatica, exhaustion, the fact that my bladder is the size of a tic tac...none of this matters.  It's cliche, but when it's all over, and I'm holding my baby, I know I would do it all again, even go through much, much worse if it means I get to have the privilege of being this child's mother.  It's worth it.  It really, really is.

Swistle attempts to sort through John's naming rules

When Swistle started up her baby naming blog, I KNEW I had to write in.  I thought John's rules would prove to be challenging (and amusing).  I was right.

Click here for the full post.  Interestingly, Evan James seems to be the clear winner in the poll followed by a tie between Max James (our current favorite) and Henry James (which John doesn't like).  We do like Evan James (or Evan John), so I think we'll add that to the short list until John can find a reason to veto it.

I've always liked the name Evan and considered it for Alex along with Ethan.  Ethan is WAY too popular and I didn't really consider it for Baby 2.0.  My only problem with Evan is it seems too "soft".  I mean, Evan sounds like a guy who writes poetry and majors in art history.  What if he's a bad ass?  What if he wants to be a rock star?  What if he wants to be a Gladiator?  I mean, how intimidating can he be with a name like Evan?  Max just seems more flexible.  He could be Max, the sensitive guy who plays the acoustic guitar at the local coffee shop on Thursday nights or he could be MAXIMUS, HARBINGER OF PAIN!

Alexisms

Alex is obsessed with playing in his baby brother's room.  I have to wonder if he recognizes all his old stuff and just figures it's still his.  One of the things he likes playing with is the empty Diaper Genie, which still smells a little ripe, depsite it not having had diapers in it for well over a year.  Despite the fact that it's stinky, Alex insists on playing with it, all the while saying "Eeew! Smells like poo poo in der!"

:::

Alex thinks that my belly button is a porthole to where his baby brother lives.  Which, makes sense really.  He likes to stick his finger in there and declare "I touch baby budder!"  He'll talk into my belly button "Hi baby budder! Come out!"  and he'll try to stick toys into it "baby budder look at my car!"

:::

We've been working on recognizing colors lately.  His favorite color is green and can identify it 100% of the time, but isn't so good at the rest of the colors.  To help him catch on to the other colors, I ask him to identify colors in everyday objects as we go about our days.  Things like "what color cars to do you see?"  "What colors are on this box?"  "What color is on this page of that book?"  and so on.  He's gotten so used to it, he now will identify colors he sees without my asking. For instance, after he poops in the potty, he'll turn around and say "I see green poo poo, I see yellow poo poo, I see brown poo poo..."

Wasting my free time

It's 7:30.

Alex is asleep.

John is at a hockey game.

There are no chores to be done.

I have the whole evening to myself.

I can do anything I want.  The night is young and it's all mine baby!

Sadly, the only thing that sounds appealing is to curl up in bed with a book until I pass out.  That will probably happen at 8:30.

God, I've gotten so boring.

Anemic

I got my blood test results back from my test for gestational diabetes (which I don't have thankfully) and found that I am not surprisingly anemic.  I actually suspected as much as I've had a few warning signs recently:

• I'm crazy tired



• Shortness of breath



• disturbing fantasies involving consumption of a bloody steak



• Obsession with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (jury is still out on whether or not this is a symptom of anemia)

I still, at seven months pregnant, can't choke down my prenatal vitamins, so it's no wonder I'm not getting enough iron.  I was told to start taking Alex's gummy bear vitamins and eat a bowl of shredded wheat every day and it should make me feel better.

I'm glad to have an official diagnosis of anemia rather than my just being a lazy vampire-addicted carnivore.  At least I can do something about anemia.

What is that supposed to mean?

I got a haircut this weekend.  I'd been needing one for quite a while, my hair had really gotten WAY too long.  I don't like my hair to be much past my shoulders, but for the last few months it's been slowly creeping down my back to the point where I officially had long hair.

With our tight budget in mind, I thought, Hey!  I'll just cut it myself!  I know, it sounds crazy now, but at the time, I swear, it made perfect sense.  So I washed and combed my hair and put it up in a ponytail and whacked off about two inches of it.  Again, at the time, this seemed like the most brilliant of plans.  Turns out, it wasn't.  It wasn't the worst haircut I'd ever had, but it wasn't good.  Not good at all.  Luckily I'd only lopped off a couple of inches and had plenty to work with when I went to the salon to get it fixed. 

I ended up with my hair length a couple of inches below my ears with some layers.  Basically the haircut I always get.  I like it just fine.  John says it's cute.  But then, I saw my neighbor this morning and she said to me "Oh, you got your hair cut.  Now you look your age."  Now tell me, what is that supposed to mean?  Do I look older?  Younger?  Better?  Worse?  I mean geez, I'm only 30.  I think I'm at that age where I could probably get away with any haircut and still look 30.  30's not old or young really, so any 'do short of "flock of seagulls" works right?  But still, it bugs me.  What did I look like before if it wasn't 30?

Easter weekend recap

All three of us, at some point during this weekend ended up sick with a cold.  Alex's started on Thursday, I got it Friday, John finally got sick on Sunday.  Despite being sick, we managed to have a pretty productive weekend thanks to my nesting instinct kicking in on Saturday morning.

I know it's nesting due to the fact that I spent HOURS cleaning things having nothing to do with anything actually needing to be done.  Well, I did throw everything machine washable into the laundry, so that was helpful, but I didn't mop the floors, dust, vaccuum... no, my mission was to clean and organize the boys' rooms. 

I went through Alex's closet which has been my dumping ground for things he's outgrown for two years.  I went through everything and sorted into "throw away" and "save for baby brother" piles.  I even discovered some 3T sized clothing I'd stuffed in there waiting for Alex to grow into them.  SCORE!  I then moved around Alex's furniture, made John take the changing table out to the shed (we're not using it for Baby 2.0), mopped his wood floors and organized all of his six million stuffed animals.

Next I moved on to the guest/storage room that will become the new baby's nursery.  It was full of all kinds of crap that I went through and put away in more appropriate places.  I sorted out all of Alex's old 0-3 month clothes, folded and put them in the baby's dresser (which I had to wash because Alex had snuck in there with a spray bottle of aloe vera a few days ago turning the dresser from white to a slimy bright green), went through the house finding all of the infant toys and put them in the new nursery so I can disinfect them all, I took apart Alex's old carseat and hand washed all the straps and pad in the kitchen sink.  We decided to wait on painting the nursery because we'll just let him pick a color he likes when we move him into a big boy bed, so it will just be boring white for the time being, otherwise, I'm sure I'd have painted the room yesterday too.  We still need to bring in the baby's beds from storage (a cradle for our room and a crib for the nursery) and I need to buy new crib bedding (Alex trashed his).  I'm going to have Alex do some finger painting that I can frame and hang up in there and the nursery will be finished.  We're almost ready for the baby!  Three months early.

Sunday we were all sick, so unfortunately, most of our day was spent in front of the TV watching "the puppy show" (101 dalmations, Alex's new obsession).  We did make it outdoors for an egg hunt (John had spent Saturday afternoon raking all the leaves) and John and Alex spent some quality guy time putting fake tattoos on each other. 

Alex got spoiled rotten by both Grandma Babs (my mom) and Grandpa Mark who gave him an Easter basket full of cars and Grandma Diane (John's mom) gave him a big stuffed race car and a bunch of sports balls.  I let Alex eat an enormous amount of jelly beans and Skittles throughout the day, causing him to turn into a cranky little beast just before we left to meet John's family for Easter dinner.  Luckily, he shaped up by the time we got to the resturaunt and even ate a big bowl of spaghetti and a square of red jello (and staining his new pants). 

All in all, despite being sick, it was a nice weekend.  The weather was good, so it's a shame we spent it all indoors, but Alex and I are feeling better today, so hopefully we'll get to the park to make up for it.

A post just chock full of TMI

For some reason, none of the pregnancy books or websites address this problem, but I need to decide what to do with my bikini area.  I can't see anything down there anymore, so I'm not really sure of the state of things, but I'm certain it can't be good.  Having no desire to approach my nethers blindly with razor blade nor scissors, I'm considering having a professional take care of the situation.  I've never done that before, so naturally, I'm a bit hesitant about having someone else manage my personal affairs.  Not to mention pregnancy increases blood flow to these parts resulting in what I imagine could become some kind of horrific bloodbath psychologically scarring all involved. 

I suppose I could enlist the help of my husband, but a) I'm not sure about his styling abilities and b) the man can't even look at my breasts without wanting to bone me, I doubt he'll get very far with the trimmer without needing a quickie and then, naturally, he'll be too tired to finish the job and I'll be all lopsided until he feels like tackling the shubbery again.

I suppose I could just go for the "if I can't see it, it's not a problem" solution, but I feel that I owe my doctor and nurses to at least TRY to make the view presentable. 

It's a good thing

So the non-napping is actually going quite well.  I'm not wasting hours of our afternoon fighting with Alex to get him to go to sleep, I'm not stuck in the house moving about as quietly as possible for fear he'll wake up and he's going to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 at night giving John and me some time alone together.

Last night Alex fell asleep while we were watching Dancing with the Stars (YAY PENN!) at 7:30 and we had the whole rest of the evening to ourselves.  We were free to do whatever we wanted.  We could dance around naked, we could play strip poker, we could snuggle in front of the fire and talk about our feelings, we could do anything we wanted to do!  We ended up watching three episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.  Oh, we're exciting.  We live on the edge.

Another unexpected benefit has been that Alex and I are watching less TV.  I let him watch Curious George in the morning, then we turn it off and play or go out and do stuff, then in the late afternoon I let him pick a movie to watch so I can have some downtime.  John comes home around 6:30 or 7:00 and plays with Alex before he goes to sleep while I check my email and catch up my bloglines.  This way, our family time isn't spent in front of the TV, in fact, right now, I'm listening to John and Alex playing upstairs (via the baby monitor).  It's funny how giving up his afternoon nap has completely changed our family dynamic. 

Lucky

I was just laying in bed with my beautiful, perfect son Alex snuggled up sleeping on my left arm and my right arm draped over my belly feeling my new baby kicking and I realized I am the luckiest person in the world.  What did I ever do to deserve so much happiness?

I could have laid like that all morning long, but sadly, I had to pee.

I should be ashamed, but I'm just... not

I don't really watch my words in front of Alex.  We don't have a "swear jar" and I'd never ask anyone else to censor their language in front of him either.  I'm just not sensitive to words.  I never have been, though I thought I would be when I grew my "mom ears", but no.  Of course, we don't exactly swear like sailors in our household anyway. 

To me, words are words.  I'm not particularly sensitive to certain words, and I don't want my son to be either.  I think when you put an emphasis on "naughty" words, they stand out more.  To me, they just blend in, no more special than any other.  And I absolutely REFUSE to encourage my son to say the "baby word" substitute (or, as I like to say, "Utahize" his language) because I think that's just stupid.  What's the difference between saying "shoot" or "shit" when the feeling behind it is the same?

*I will draw the line at racist slurs, which he never hears at home anyway*

That said, as my son's language develops, I do intend to have conversations with him about appropriate language in public.  A lot of people are sensitive to language and I feel that in raising a respectful little boy, he should understand that some words, people just don't want to hear.  Anything goes at home though, my only requirement is that he doesn't do any name calling.  It's one thing to swear, it's another to do it with the intent to hurt someone.  That is not allowed.

That said, my son is already developing a colorful vocabulary.  Some of his most recent additions include:

• "Damn! Damn! Damn!"  when frustrated



• "Oh sheet!"



• "Ima sheetball sammich"  Obviously, I have to stop calling him a shitball sandwich when he does something naughty.  Mommy needs to watch the name calling.  I do it with love though :)



• "Oh mah gawd!"  spoken with a southern drawl

No, in fact, pregnancy does suck.

This is the last week of my second trimester.  On Friday, I will be 12 weeks away from the end of this pregnancy.  THANK YOU JEBUS!  As far as I'm concerned I couldn't get un-pregnant fast enough.  Naturally, I want to go full term for a healthy baby, blah, blah, blah... But damn if I'm not sick of it already.

This pregnancy continues to be different and full of more unpleasant side effects than my first pregnancy.  To name a few that have cropped up in the last week or two:

• I can't breathe.  I'm like a wheezing, asthmatic hippo.  This is common in later pregnancy, but did not happen to me with Alex.  I remember because I expected it to happen and it never did.  This time I feel like I'm drowning all the time.  I can't seem to fill my lungs up with enough air and I'm constantly gasping for breath. 



• Incontinence.  A word to the wise:  DO YOUR KEGALS!  I was the Queen of Kegaling during my first pregnancy.  I had pubococcygeus muscles of steel.  This time, I think I've done maybe a half dozen sets in the last seven months.  Apparently, those kegal exercises are pretty darn important because as I was horking up my breakfast this morning (never did get 100% over morning sickness), I peed my pants like a nervous preschooler.  I know, I have no one but myself to blame, but still.  SUCK!  Guess I'd better get some Depends.



• Braxton Hicks contractions.  Guess what?  Sometimes they do hurt!  They didn't hurt at all during my first pregnancy, this time, I'm actually doing Lamaze breathing during them.  This does not bode well for my real labor.



• Did I mention I still throw up a couple of times a month?  Yea, yea, not as bad as the beginning, but still.

Luckily I'm not experiencing anything that isn't completely normal, it's just, I don't know, exhausting.  I'm not the mom I want to be for Alex or the wife I want to be to John.  These days I'm more Jabba the Hutt than gestating earth mother.  I know having a newborn won't be any easier, but I admit, I am looking forward to being the only inhabitant of this body soon.

I babysat three boys (while pregnant) and lived to tell the tale

It went pretty well, with the exception of one of the boys peeing on the floor, then taking off all his clothes and running around naked because he couldn't find any clean underwear, then a fight broke out upstairs between all three of them as I was sopping up a puddle of pee resulting in one boy getting a bruise on his foot.  Eventually I got clothes (but still no underwear) on the naked child, comforted the child with the hurt foot, got juice for everyone and did my best to clean up the piddle mess before my friend came home.  At which point my own (un-napped) child, who'd been behaving quite well until that moment, morphed into the Tasmanian Devil and started tearing through the house flinging books and toys everywhere while screaming hysterically.

I got home, put on Go! Diego Go! for Alex and emailed John to tell him that on his way home from work today he should stop by the doctor's office and go ahead and get that vasectomy.

Starting up a blues band

He hasn't put down this harmonica since my mom gave it to him yesterday morning

It's the end of the world as we know it

It's time to say goodbye to the afternoon nap.  As much as it pains me to say it, it's just not worth the fight anymore.  It now takes me longer to get him settled down and asleep than the amount of time he's actually asleep.  Yesterday it took two hours to get him down.  Today, an hour, and I think I got a whopping 45 minutes of nap out of him. 

I'm going to give the no-nap thing a try tomorrow, we'll be at a friend's house all afternoon as I've agreed to watch her two boys while she's out (aged 2.5 and 4.5.  Add an un-napped Alex to the mix, and I think it might be a miracle if I make it out of there alive).  Wish me luck!

Pregnancy doesn't suck: Reason #7

A big belly

Now, big bellies aren't generally considered to be positive attributes, however a pregnant belly is damn cute if you ask me. 

Not to mention, having been on the chubby side since I was, oh, lets say FIVE, it is liberating to be able to hold my belly out for everyone to see rather than trying unsucessfully to hide it using questionable fashion techniques (lets just forget the waist scarf fiasco of 1993 ok?).  I am still prone to drape myself in layers of black, as I continue to believe the color has slimming properties.

25 week belly, originally uploaded by Jmelee.

See?  I look like I'm positively wasting away!  Bring me the Krispy Kreme's STAT!

The belly also allows me to have "abs of steel" rather than "abs of jello" for a change.  Ok, they may not be very steely, sure, but my midsection is decidedly firm and un-jiggly.  I spend an awful lot of time poking at my belly, not so much to bother the baby, but more in awe of how solid it feels.

The bigger the belly gets, the better it gets.

Late night rambling

It's after midnight and I can't sleep, which is unusual because when I'm pregnant, sleeping is what I do most and best.  I crash at night like I've been hit by a tranquilizer dart meant for a bull elephant.

I don't know if it's because of the time change or fear of dreaming about dead babies or just that Pepsi I had at 8:30, but I'm wide awake picking the bones of the roasted chicken my mom brought over for dinner (thanks Mom!).

It is kind of nice, the house is quiet and there are no chores to be done and I can just sit here on the sofa in peace.  The baby is kicking and I'm trying to play this little game with him that I did with Alex, where he'll push out a spot, and I'll poke it back in, and he's supposed to push it back out again. Alex would play this game for ages while in utero, but this baby seems to be anti-social.  If he feels any pressure at all on my tummy, he stops moving entirely.  John only just felt the baby move on Monday and I had to eat a dozen sour gummy worms to hype him up enough to wiggle around while John sat patiently with his hand on my belly.  And even then, the kicking was unimpressive.  And don't get me wrong, this guy is a kicker.  He's kicked me so hard that I've actually yelped in pain.  But John was only able to feel a little bit of a wiggle.  He was satisified, but I feel like now he doesn't believe me when I tell him I'm being abused by our youngest child.

My eyes are finally getting a little blurry, so I'm off to bed again, hoping to fall asleep and have happy dreams.  Good night!

Bad dreams

My dreams have gone from exciting action-adventure to downright awful.  Months ago I had a dream about leaving our new baby at the hospital for several months because I simply forgot I'd had a baby.  The last couple of nights I've had very similar dreams.  Some just forgetting the baby somewhere and rushing back to find him, but in other dreams, when I finally get back to the baby he's been neglected or dead.  These dreams cause me to wake up as soon as I see the body and I can't get back to sleep the rest of the night. Every time I close my eyes I see dead babies. 

Obviously, I'm having some anxiety about having a second child.  Maybe I'm afraid I can't handle two.  I don't know how to get over this, other than just hoping it will all work out.  Luckily John will be home with me for the first month after the new baby is born and between the two of us, no babies or toddlers will be forgotten.  I hope.

Budgeting

So, John and I are trying to get out of debt.  Again.  And, if I do say so myself, we're doing a pretty good job so far.  We started getting serious about our finances in January and we've already paid off one credit card and should have another one paid off before summer.  YAY!  Of course, we have a couple more cards plus our van, but if we stay on track, I'm betting we'll be debt free again (with the exception of our mortgage) in under two years.  It took us only 8 months to get out of debt the first time, though we had two incomes, a smaller house payment and no children at the time.  Suffice it to say, our situation is a bit different this time around.

A big part of our financial plan is learning to live on a tighter household budget.  This is my area.  Since I can't contribute financially, as I have no paying job, my duty is to ensure that we stay on track.  Following guru Dave Ramsey's advice, we've decided to give the "envelope system" a try.  Last Friday we took $200 out of our account and split it up into four envelopes:

1. Groceries



2. Gas money



3. John's lunch money (John goes out to lunch every weekday)



4. Alex activities / misc.

The $200 is supposed to last us for two weeks, until John's next payday, then we'll take out another $200 for the next two weeks.  Guess what?  $200?  That's not a lot of money.  Who knew!  I did pretty good though, as of this morning I had $90 left in those envelopes.  After I went grocery shopping, we have less than $30 cash in which to survive the week. 

Living on cash only is a strange prospect for me.  I'm a debit card girl.  In fact, until last week, I don't think I'd even seen the "new" twenty dollar bill.  The twenty dollar bill people have been using since what?  2004?  It's a good thing though, because in the last week I've already seen myself being much more cautious of what I'm spending our money on.  I was never a crazy spender before, but I admit I wasn't watching our pennies nearly as closely (if at all) before I actually had to count them out when paying for something.  I'm hoping this system will help keep us on track!

Pregnancy doesn't suck: Reason #6

This too shall pass

The best thing about pregnancy is that it ends.  No one is pregnant forever (well, except Michelle Duggar, she is one crazy chick).  Even better than the pregnancy ending after a mere nine months, you actually get something for all your troubles.  A baby.

You go time out!

Alex has been on his worst behavior this week.  It seems he's been trying as hard as he possibly can to do every single thing I've ever told him not to do.  He's finding himself in time out several times a day because of this.

He's hearing the words "you're in time out" so much that he's started using it himself.  Yesterday he put my mother in time out when she refused to give him a cookie and today he threatened me with time out when I wouldn't let him press the water button on the fridge.  My mom is nicer than me though, she actually went to time out and sat in the dining room until he told her she could get up.  I don't play that way though.  I just walked out of the kitchen with Alex screaming behind me "You go time out!  You go time out now Mommy!!"

Humu, the little fish who used the potty, by John Dillier

In an attempt to convince Alex to stop the boycott on using the potty, John changed Alex's bedtime story (Alex had chosen the book Humu, the little fish who wished away his colors) into a pro-potty propaganda piece. 

Rather than the story being about a shy colorful Hawaiian fish who wanted to be the color of sand so he could blend in better, it became a story of a fish who was being pressured by his friends to stop using the potty.  Humu, knowing that not using the potty was making his parents very, very sad, ran away.  He met a whale (in the real story, the whale is magic and changes Humu into a sand colored fish) who could only make unintelligible whale sounds, but Humu interpreted the sounds as confirmation that yes, he should always pee pee and poo poo in the potty. 

There were some unusual plot twists, such as when Humu "in an unusual display of gay pride" somehow made all of his colors come off of his body and become a rainbow in the water.  And there was some strange discussion of "pink underwater broccoli", "photographs of a friend's endoscope procedure" and "green anal tubes". 

The story ended with Humu taking his friends back to see the whale so they too could learn the importance of using the potty.  Sadly, the whale was no where to be found, but they did find a spiffy new gay pride rainbow shirt that Humu put on causing a rainbow road to appear in the water which the three friends swam along into the sunset. 

It's too early to tell yet whether the story has helped persuade Alex that using the potty is the thing to do from now on, but we did have some success this morning in that he asked to use the potty for his morning poop, something he hasn't done in a week.  YAY!

Note:  It could also be because I've increased the reward for a poop deposit to a Thin Mint cookie rather than a single jelly bean.  If nothing else, Alex will probably start gaining some weight.

Pregnancy doesn't suck: Reason #5

Pants with stretchy waistbands

This wasn't a pregnancy pro until last night, seeing as how maternity pants have a way of constantly rolling up under my belly and then sliding off my butt.  However, last night, after our big anniversary dinner where we enjoyed a four course meal of cheese fondue, salads, a main course fondue including many, many chunks of various dead animals followed by a white chocolate fondue, the stretchy pants, well, lets just say they came in handy.  While John's slacks and belt were cutting off circulation to his legs, I was happily waddling out the door in comfort, if not style.

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today...

This is what we were doing five years ago today:

"With love in my heart and for all the world to see, I offer you my hand to hold forever.  I promise to love you, honor you, cherish and adore you, encourage and stand by you, no matter what may come.  I will tenderly care for you, for all our life together and be your dearest friend forever.  From this day forward, you shall not walk alone.  My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home.  John (Jamie), will you be my husband (wife)?"

Our wedding was perfect.  If I had it all to do over again and had all the money in the world, I would do it exactly the same way.  We went to Hawaii and got married in a private ceremony on the beach.  It was so relaxed and fun.  We went snorkling in the morning, had lunch, then I went off to have flowers put in my hair and get dressed then we went back to the beach to meet Rev. Libby and our photographer and got ourselves hitched.  We then went back to our hotel, ordered room service, ate our wedding night dinner and drank a bottle of Dom Perignon in our hotel bath robes. 

In five years, everything has changed.  We have a mortgage, we have a child, we have ANOTHER child on the way, we got out of debt, I left my career to be a stay at home mom and housewife, we got back into debt, we drive a mini van, we've traveled a bit, we gained weight, we lost weight, we've watched the entire Star Trek Next Gen series on DVD twice and, we are even more in love.

I would marry him again in a heartbeat.

Not a bad reason to be woken up in the middle of the night

Alex slept in our bed with us Saturday night.  For no particular reason other than both John and I were too tired to move him to his own bed after he fell asleep.  I was facing the edge of the bed and in the middle of the night, I was awoken by Alex snuggling up to my back and whispering "Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy, I need a hug." 

Autorama

Last week Alex saw a commercial on TV for the upcoming Autorama where he could meet a lifesize Lightening McQueen.  He flipped out and made it very clear that he would like very much to go to the car show.  That same evening John came home from work excited that on his way home he'd heard a commercial on the radio about a car show where there'd be a lifesize Lightening McQueen.  It was pretty obvious what we'd be doing this weekend.

I ended up getting out of going with them, not being the slightest bit excited about a car show, and seeing an opportunity to save the $15 ticket price, I convinced John to invite his brother along instead of me and they'd have a lot more fun.  I packed a backpack for John filled with everything he could possibly ever need while out of the house with Alex (of which he used NOTHING) and entrusted him with my two most precious possessions:  My child and my camera.

They came back several hours later with a memory card full of pictures of cars and saying that Alex had a great time.  The full set is here, but these are my favorites:

Checking out Lightening McQueen, originally uploaded by Jmelee.

Posing with his favorite car, originally uploaded by Jmelee.

Riding a motorcycle, originally uploaded by Jmelee.