And I was right!

My suspicions grew stronger and stronger last night. This morning, I got up, peed on a stick, and (SURPRISE!), found out I was pregnant. I haven't breathed a word yet. In fact, I am just saving this as a draft until I do. I just had to document when I found out. I'll take a test again in a couple of days...just for reassurance.



Adam and I were already planning a date night for Friday. I'm trying to come up with ideas for how to tell him the good news. (I blurted the news when I was pregnant with Patrick and I'd like to be able to do something special for Adam this time around.)



I'm going to have another baby and I couldn't be more excited.

I Think I Have News...

I have horrible metallic taste in my mouth, as if I have been sucking on a penny for days. The kind of taste that only a very sour apple will cure... I know exactly what that means, and I'm giddy.

My First Boo-Boo

Patrick had his first bad-looking boo-boo last week. As one can expect, it sent me into more of a frenzy than it did Patrick. Here's how it went down:


Just about a half-hour earlier than his normal wake-up time after his morning nap last Friday, Patrick started to scream. It wasn't the normal I-WANT-UP scream, but more like he had hurt himself. I made it upstairs to see him and he was fine; crying, but fine. As soon as I pulled him out of his bed, he stopped. No biggie, I thought. He's just getting smart about when I will respond quickly, right?

Nope. About a half hour after that, I noticed his eye was bloodshot. My first reaction? Spider disease, naturally. He was covered in spider bites, the thought of which I couldn't shake. He was ill from spiders. I made a mental note to keep an eye on it (as if I would ever have another option.) Just a few minutes later, Patrick looked up and pointed at something. Holy $#@&! His eye was black, at least the underside of it was. I started thinking his eyeball was detached, he wasn't getting any bloodflow to his eye, etc. I'm very rational and don't jump to conclusions, as you can see. This all makes sense. Bear with me.

I googled "black eyeball"...I got nothing. I googled "detached retina." Again, nothing. "Black eye"? Nothing but what you would expect. I called my dad. He told me to take a picture of it and send it to him. I got flustered and said I would take him to Medcheck. Is that a good thing to say to your physician father? In a word, no. His response was this (imagine a low, drawn out, talking-through-one's-teeth tone): "You are NOT taking him to Medcheck." It was the dad-voice I haven't heard since I moved out.


Five minutes later, I was in the car and headed to Butler University to see him. When we left our office, Patrick's eye was only black and cloudy where the bottom lid covered it. By the time we got to Butler, a ten minute drive from Broad Ripple, the discoloration had moved around one side of his eyeball. I'm thinking to myself that Beethoven was deaf and he overcame it. Patrick could lose his eyeball and still be an engineer...


My dad took one look at his eye and said Patrick was fine. I started to get weepy. Was he sure? Of course he was sure. Anyone who has met my dad knows he's always sure. Patrick hit his eye. What I thought to be black was actually purple, my dad insisted. He had a little hemhorrage under the cornea (?). It was to get worse before it got better. Whew. My baby is fine. My baby looks like a little demon-child with his creepy purple-turned-red-turned-yellow-and-red eyeball, but he's fine. He doesn't even know what happened.


I don't even know what happened. My theory is this: Patrick has been trying to escape the confines of his bed. My guess is that, in such an effort, he slipped back in and slammed his eye on the corner. In the end, it's ok, so no need to worry. He'll be in his big-boy bed in no time. I'm happy that we got pictures. See below.

1.) Right after the nap






2.) About 2 hours post-incident

3.) About 3 hours post-incident

3.) A day or so later

(There was a point that it covered the whole visible eyeball, but we don't have any pictures, sadly.)

Weight-Loss Progress

Ok, so I haven't posted any progress on purpose. I've made some...barely. I think I have lost what could only have been water weight. I'm back to my comfortable 126, but I just don't feel right about it. I'm trying to stay on track, but it's not easy. Every night, I find myself saying that tomorrow is a brand new day...and that's getting me nowhere. If I can just reach that elusive 120... I guess I'll just have to try harder.

Making Progress

It's go, go, go, go again here at the Walden's. Patrick's room has made some serious progress, as the floors are now complete (minus the baseboards) and the bed is assembled! The floors were a project, as our AC mysteriously "went out" a few days before we started the project (as it turns out, "someone" flipped the breaker.) We tore up the carpet, which, in some places was carpet on top of carpet, which seems ultra cozy but very impractical. Beneath the two layers and the foam padding was this very cool-looking thin tile; very seventies. If we hadn't already started to demolish the tile, I probably would have lobbied to keep it. As it turns out, it's a good thing we didn't. While it's harmless when kept intact, the "tile" pieces appear to be of the asbestos variety popular in the 70s-80s. They were removed (carefully) and all is well once again. The floors went in perfectly. It was the easiest time we've had yet, minus the AC debacle. Four and a half hours from start to finish, including the tile removal. Viola! Patrick has new floors.

The bed was another story. Holy mother, that is one enormous piece of furniture. About three weeks ago, Adam and I trekked to Wauconda, Illinois to visit my cousin, Kerry, and to pick up the mother-of-all-bunk-beds that she so kindly gifted us. If only I could have had this bed when I was a kid... Putting it together, however, was a little rough. With all of the pieces laid out, we had no idea where to start. It's a good thing for us, however, that I am a self-proclaimed Google master. If there is something out there to be found, I can find it. I'm certain. I did a master search and success! I found the directions from the manufacturer. Not even two hours later, the bed was complete. Patrick awoke from his nap in the middle and absolutely had to help. He. Is. Obsessed. We gave him a little hammer and he helped, helped, helped to his heart's content...until it was time for lunch. I did all but force-feed him, but he was not interested (mind you, he's been a LITTLE better about eating lately). I tried to bargain; it was either he eat or he go back down for a nap. His response? "I want to woooooorrrrkk!!!" He is his father.

After the bed was up, it was off to run errands and find bedding. I found nothing but some hangers, wipes, sheets for us and sheets for the beds, and a hat for Adam. Way productive. After some internet searching tonight, it appears as though the sheets I bought for Patrick are going back in exchange for an internet purchase (I think) and all should be well.

As I write this, Adam has just completed hanging the new closet doors and has just walked out the door to mow the yard. I have just completed laundering and laying our new bedding (complete with a very hefty mattress flip, made more hefty by an 18-month old trying his hardest to hang on to the top...and I do mean hang on; he was dangling.) I'm serious about the go, go, go today. It has just occurred to me that we have had nothing but coffee and peanut butter today. Perhaps I should get to making dinner.

Tomorrow morning, we're heading to Chicago to visit the Riggs family! Kelly, Max, Patrick, and I are heading to the aquarium and Adam and Jay are off to a Pearl Jam concert. Hooray for the weekends!

(Sidenote: It's a very pleasant 69 degrees today. The air smells like fall. Heaven.)

My dishes went unwashed today, I didn't make the bed;
I took his tiny hand and followed where his footsteps led.

Oh yes, we went adventuring, my little son and I,
exploring all the great outdoors beneath the summer sky.

We waded in a slippery stream, we wandered through a wood;
my kitchen wasn't swept today but life was sweet and good.

We found a cool, sun-dappled glade and now my small son knows
how Mother Bunny hides her nest, where jack-in-the-pulpit grows.

We watched a robin feed her young,
we climbed a sunlit hill,
saw cloud-sheep scamper through the sky.
We plucked a daffodil.

That my house was neglected, that I didn't sweep the stairs,
In twenty years, no one on earth will know, nor would they even care.

But that I've helped my little boy to noble manhood grow,
In twenty years, the whole wide world may look...and see...and know.

I have an 18-month-old who refuses to eat. Generally, Patrick will have 2-3 days every week or two that he actually eats at least one meal. Otherwise, he does not eat more that a couple of tablespoons of food a day. I'm reaching my wits end. I resorted to physically opening his mouth and trying to force it this afternoon. I realize it's not a good idea, but he's also been unually grumpy the last few days and I wonder if that's due in part to the fact that he's hungry. Ugh. I'm frustrated. I feel like this is a never-ending battle.

Be Good, Do Good, See Good, Feel Good

Considering recent unfortunate events (if you're reading this, you probably know to what I refer), I have been on a hunt for what it means to "be a good person." I Googled it. Apparently, I am not the only person who wanted to know what being a good person actually entails (much like I was not the only person who searched for tapeworms for sale, but that's a different story entirely.) Here is what I found:

Be yourself and don't give in to peer pressure or the "style of the moment."

Look for the good in others instead of the negative.

Try to be helpful when a situation calls for it.

Don't complain about your problems too much to others, because they have their own problems.

Listen more than you talk. It's easier to learn by listening than by talking.

Don't give in to the urge to always say yes to what others want/need. You have to think of your own needs, too.

Try to keep learning your entire life, whether it's by reading books, opening your mind to new ways of thinking, going to different places you may not have thought of seeing, not closing your mind to experiences, meeting new people. Just when you think you "know a lot," you'll find out how little you really do know!!

Appreciate the little things in life: a pretty cloud, lovely-smelling flower, a cute child, a soft animal, a cool breeze, the sound of the ocean.

Be grateful for the good things/people in your life. Don't be greedy and always want more, bigger, and better. Try to be satisfied with what you have. Material possessions don't bring satisfaction.

Cloth Diaper Initial Review

This weekend marked our first trial with cloth diapers. My initial review is this:

All-in-all, not to bad! True, I have to wash them every couple of days and urine really (REALLY) does smell like ammonia after it sits for that long, but it's not as bad as the general population, myself included, would think. The first poo diaper was a challenge, but it really wasn't hard: dump the solids, rinse out the diaper in the toilet, put it in the wet bag. Done.

My problem is this: what do I do with the wipes? If there is no disposable diaper with which I would wrap up the wipes and toss, where do I put my disposable wipes? My solution is this: I apparently need to buy cloth wipes. I've done a fair bit of research this morning and have come up with:
1.) a very cute and inexpensive supply of cloth wipes (thank you, etsy)
2.) several different "recipes" for spray-bottle solution to use along with the dry wipes.

There are also means of pre-wetting the wipes in a solution and carrying them around in a tupperware container or the like, but I like the spray-bottle solution better at this point. I may change my mind after we try that out.

I, like most other moms I know, use baby wipes for everything. They are a great clean-up solution to almost any mess and a fabulous stain remover (even wine on my wedding dress, after having sat for a year, came out with the assistance of baby wipes...or maybe that was Shout wipes. Now that I think about it, I can't remember.) For that reason, I don't think it a bad idea to have some regular wipes on hand. After all, I have a boy...and a very messy boy, at that. Any extra clean-up supplies are helpful.

(Sidenote: End-of-Summer diet going well. A few water weight pounds are gone. I cheated a little yesterday and finished Patrick delicious tamale from dinner. I'm back on track today, though, which will be hard, considering it's HT's birthday celebration. I can do it, though. Stay focused, stay focused.)