I'm back from my ultrasound… Sigh. So Miss Kate is definitely a Miss. She's also frank breech. Boo. It's still early in the game but I'd feel better if she was head down by now. She had her legs, hands AND cord in front of her face so we literally got ONE good picture of her face and it wasn't great. She had to cut away the cord in the pic but she couldn't get it all so you can still see some weird spots on her nose. Oh well. She's measuring 3 weeks ahead and I'm pretty sure Dash was 6 weeks at this point.

Her hand…

And her face…

We went to the zoo afterwards and had a good time. I'm pooped though.

1. I’m 30 weeks today! Woo hoo! 75% there.

2. I also have 70 days left. I’m not sure which sounds better. 70 days or 10 weeks. Hmmmm…

3. The scale and I aren’t speaking.

4. I have birthday pictures, I promise.

5. I’ve done very little in preparation for Dash’s party this weekend. The cake is ordered and the decorations are bought, the food is a different story…

6. Dash is learning parts of Old McDonald. He says “E-I-O” and “moo moo here” and I fill in the rest.

7. Dash thinks it’s cool to drink water and then let it dribble out of his mouth while giggling. Any ideas for breaking that habit?? Anyone??

8. I had to go to Nashville for work yesterday and I’m pooped.

9. If you haven’t gotten an invite in the mail and you live in the Huntsville/Decatur vacinity, leave me a comment! I addressed them as I got addresses and John sent them off before I had a chance to make a list and cross anyone off. If I missed you, it wasn’t intentional!!

10. The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL this week. I hope it’s like this on Saturday. Oh and there’s a crapload of stuff going on this weekend if you’re coming from out of town and want something else to do. Point Mallard opens and has their balloon festival this weekend, the Daikan festival is Saturday night, and I think that’s it.

Dash is 2 today! Happy Birthday, Little Man!!

John and my Dad (and me, a little bit) put together a swingset for him last night and 500 bolts later, we have a happy little kid. Dash swam in the kiddie pool while Mom watched him and would randomly jump out in all his nakedness and run through the swingset legs screaming with excitement. It was really cute. I have pics but I haven’t ripped them off my camera yet. I’ll take pics tonight of his little family birthday party and post them tomorrow.

So at 2…

Dash can count to 20, but it goes like this. 1,2,3,5,6,7,18,19,20! He just recently learned there were more numbers beyond 10 and now he intermingles them as he sees fit. I have no idea why he shows no love to 4.

Dash will come over to me and say “Big Hug, Mommy!” and throw his arms around me. Melts my heart every time. He however has figured that I will always wrap my arms back around him so if he wants me to pick him up, say out of the shopping cart, he’ll say “big hug, mommy!” and when I hug him he’ll immediately start climbing me trying to get out of the cart. Smartypants.

Dash will tell me he’s 2 by holding up both of his index fingers next to each other. Yesterday he was trying to figure out how to hold up his first two fingers but can’t quite get his thumb in the right place.

I am Mommy and John is Daddy. Mama and dada are gone forever.

We recently taught Dash his name and where he lives, so if anything ever happened and he was lost he could tell someone (not that his shyness would let him.) If you ask him his name he says “Dah DIXon!” And where he lives is “Deher, Labalama”.

Dash has zero interest in potty training. Except maybe sticking his foot in the toilet.

He loves bossing us around. Must be a trip for a 2 year old to think he has complete control over his parents. He’ll say “Mommy sit right THERE.” and point.

Dash still hasn’t learned how to scream, bless him. His ‘Nos’ are simply statements.

Dash is obsessed with trains. He says “all aboard!” and “more train coming” and loves tunnels and tracks and anything to do with trains. He has enough Thomas trains to circle his track. So we bought him more track for his birthday. (And a few more trains.)

If I say “Dash, your little sister is coming!” he says “little sis…Happy Easter!!” apparently little sister and Happy Easter sound very similar.

Happy Birthday, kiddo, you are one loved little boy…

So the bank lady finally called me. She said we could just renew the loan if we wanted to, thank God. We’ll get nearly the same rate (ours is at prime now, it’ll be at prime + 1% but you get 1/4% off if you sign up for an automatic bank withdrawal from RBC) and 15 years to pay it off. And she said if we had equity built up in our house we could do it for more than the original 16K. We’re thinking about it. It seems silly to borrow against ourselves if we don’t have to, but John’s last tuition check will be due when I’m out on maternity leave and taking out 17K instead of 16K would help us get through that. And if we didn’t need it we could just put it back in the loan. There’s no early payoff penalty (and no closing costs, from what I understand).

We have to fill out a crapload of paperwork and of course we’re working on a time crunch but I’ll take it over owing 16K next week..

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, I can’t tell you what a HUGE damper that put on Mother’s Day and the whole weekend…

Just in case I thought Friday might be the end of our bad week it wasn’t.

So we have a home equity credit line that we (I) opened to avoid the PMI with our mortgage. I thought it was a credit line that existed as long as the mortgage existed and that we would try to pay it off if we could but if not when we sold our house it would get paid off.

So Friday night right before I went to bed, I noticed a handwritten thank-you card looking envelope on my counter. I opened it and it said “Colleen, please contact us regarding your credit line that matures this month”. And I thought, surely, matures doesn’t mean what I think it means.

Oh yes it does.

So we owe 16K by May 20th. Woo-hoo! Anyone got 16K in their back pocket? Anyone? Yeah, neither do we. We dug up the old paperwork and sure enough, it has a maturity date on there which I feel sure we didn’t know about or I never would have signed up for it. It says “on the maturity date, we may or may not be able to refinance the loan” and goes on to talk about possible closing costs. So keep your fingers crossed for us being able to refinance the loan at a decent rate and not paying a crapload in closing costs.

Needless to day, I was up all night Friday night (literally, until 4AM) and Saturday was pretty much ruined, too. I refused to let it ruin Sunday and just didn’t let myself think about it. Afterall, we can’t do anything until we hear back from the bank (who still hasn’t called.) I figure her wanting to get in touch with us about it is a sign that there is some sort of financing available. Hope, hope, hope.

1. In my adult life, this has probably been one of the crappiest weeks ever. And the weeks after I broke up with a boyfriend don’t count. It hasn’t been THAT crappy, but it’s right up there.

2. I failed my 1 hour glucose test on Monday, found out on Tuesday, had to drive BACK up to Nashville on Wednesday to take the three hour. I passed that one though.

3. The three hour glucose test was completely comical. I mean, it sucked, but it had it’s funny moments. First there was a couple next to me in the waiting room (which didn’t have a TV) who reminded me of the couple on Friends who go into the labor room with Rachel when she’s laboring and giggle and laugh about their contractions. They were obviously first time parents and very, very cheesy. Beyond cheesy. “oh, honey, the baby only kicks when you touch her, giggle, giggle…” I wanted to strangle them while I was waiting for each successive needle prick. (forgive my rant, I’m sure it’s hormone related.)

4. I’m very much looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully it will be MUCH better. I feel like I haven’t quite been present for Dash in the evenings, between our whirlwind 2 hour drives to Nashville and other crap that’s been going on at work, I’ve had a lot of crappy stuff on my mind lately and haven’t really been able to enjoy just vegging out with the kiddo. I’m looking forward to a lot of vegging this weekend.

5. John has mandatory baseball practice on Mother’s Day. Seriously? On mother’s day? They had it on Easter too but it wasn’t mandatory. Grrrrr.

6. Dash has turned into a complete chatterbox lately. He narrates everything we’re doing. It’s wonderful. It’s so good to communicate with him and he’s so funny. I love seeing his little personality. He likes telling us where we’re supposed to be… “Mommy sit right THERE.” as he points.

7. Dash thinks my tattoo is a sticker. He tries to peel it off.

8. If you haven’t sung this song with your child, please do.

Tony Chestnut knows I love you…
Tony knows…
Tony knows…
Tony Chestnut knows I love you…
That’s what Tony knows…

You point to each body part as you sing. Toe, Knee, Chest, Nut (head), nose, Eye, (heart), you…

While I was singing that song, Dash threw his arms out and exclaimed “I love you!” It’s now my favorite kids’ song of all time.

9. Dash has also learned that I say I’m sorry when he gets hurt. So now if he hurts himself, he cries “Ow! Hurt! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” and it completely breaks my heart.

10. A very happy mother’s day to all of the mama’s out there and soon to be mama’s… I hope you all have a beautiful day and get exactly what you need for the day….