Watermelon

Another craving of mine has been watermelon. While talking at work, Jessica mentioned watermelon and suddenly that was all I could think about. I texted it to Andrew so I wouldn't forget. Well that night when he came home he brought me a watermelon :) How lucky am I?!? I told my Mom this story and she said "well of course he did. He doesn't want rats in his house." What?? Apparently this is an old wives tale and everyone is supposed to give a pregnant person whatever they want else they will get rats in their house. Who knew? I am almost positive Andrew brings me things out of pure love and not because of the threat of rats. Maybe 99.9% sure. Quick side note, while I was at work yesterday, Jessica brought in doughnuts. I was in the middle of getting report and having forgot my breakfast that AM was very hungry. And here comes Jessica with a big white box. My attention is immediately on that box and what might be in it. I interrupt report and ask hungrily "what is in the box?!?" She replies "Donuts." I say "you are my favorite!" Then after I pass my morning meds I hunker down and eat a wonderful chocolate glazed donut. I actually had drool coming out of the mouth while eating that donut. It was so flipping good. My drooling did not go unnoticed though. Oh well :) it was so worth it.

Sopapillas

I think it was in 2010 (the year before I moved to STL) that Andrew and I went down to Texas to visit Peter. We made it a road trip which is our favorite way to travel. We stayed with Peter for a couple of days then ventured over to New Mexico to explore. While we were there we stopped at a little diner on route 66 called Joseph's. Doesn't really scream New Mexican cuisine to me but oh my was it fabulous. Enchiladas christmas style is the thing to get down there and they were some of the best Mexican food I have ever had. At the end of the meal, the server brought us some sopapillas and some honey. Never had these before but WOW! They were the most amazing dessert I have ever had. That was about 5 years ago and I still remember how good they were. I have had a couple of cravings with this pregnancy (Mexican food being the top) and sopapillas being a close second. But despite all the Mexican resturants I have dragged Andrew to these last 5 months we have yet to find the coveted sopapillas. Finally a couple of months ago we went to this little dinner in STL called the Southwest Diner and they had them!!! So exciting!  That day I had the cornmeal pancakes (good but Andrew's are so much better) and the home fries which are basically chunk of potatoes cooked. Both of these were so good that I didn't leave any room to try the sopapillas. I was disappointed but at least I knew they were close by. So today we ventured back to the Southwest Diner and I ordered the sopapillas first. So. Worth. The. Wait. I am not sure how many times during breakfast I said "wow, I am so happy right now!" I am pretty sure it was more than 5. They were amazing. A big drizzle of honey. Nice and warm. I can still taste them.

Bonnie Tyler

So, 4/9/15 was a pretty big day. This was the day that Anderw finally got to feel you move. I have been feeling you move since about week 17 or 18 (I think). At first I wasn't quite sure if it was you moving or if it was gas lol. I am pretty sure it was you but then again I have been eating a lot of Mexican food. Anyway, on that night we were first sitting out in the backyard together when Andrew got home from work. This is one of our favorite things to do together. We usually do this after we eat dinner, grab a drink and hang out talking while watching the chickens get ready for bed. Watching the chickens get ready for bed is really something fun to watch. Well we think it is fun. One by one they head into the coop and the noise that we hear coming out of there while they are getting settled is hysterical. They are all vying for their spot in the coop for night time and it sounds like they are beating each other up. This evening it was beginning to rain so we decided to go and sit out front and watch the storm come in. While we were sitting up there, Andrew played me a song and had me try and guess who the artist was. I am not good at this game (like ever) but sometimes I can guess right. So he plays Total Eclipse of the Heart. I am trying to think of the name when you just go nuts and start kicking the heck out of me. I grabbed Andrew's hand and placed it on my belly and finally (after weeks of trying!) he was able to feel you move. The look on his face was priceless! I am so happy I was finally able to share this with him. So cool. BTW, Bonnie Tyler is who sings that song. Never in a million years would have gotten that one. I doubt I would have gotten that if it was multiple choice.

Baby lobster - the name

The name. So why do we call you baby lobster? Well it all goes back to your 12 week appointment. We absolutely love our doctor but she is always running behind. We deal with it because we love her. So there we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting in the exam room. This was a teeny tiny room in the doctors brand new office and there was barely enough room for the exam table and one chair. This chair was so close to the door that if anyone sat in it would block anyone from entering the room. So your dad was just standing there. Just there. Standing. I am sitting on the table and he is awkwardly standing there, hovering. And since the doctor was running behind it was an eternity waiting in this room. And he is just standing there. He actually does this a lot. Just stands there. I can't remember what we said but eventually he sat in the chair to make me happy. One of the many reasons he rocks. So there we were waiting for the doctor, both seated. Finally the doctor comes in and the appointment began. The doctor has me lay down and is using the Doppler to find your heartbeat. After about 30 seconds she still can't find anything. I don't know about Andrew but I swear my heart stopped beating and I wasn't breathing. Where was your heartbeat? The doctor, probably sensing my breakdown coming reassured us. "Don't worry. Hear that sound? That is your baby being a twerp."  And sure enough we heard this swooshing sound over and over again. You moving so much she can't get the heartbeat.  So the doctor brought us into the ultrasound room where we got to see you again. Wow. Last time we say you you looked like Olaf from Frozen. Now, you were an honest to goodness baby. Flipping around in there like my uterus is your personal playground. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. We saw you doing backflips and rolls over and over. The doctor had a hard time getting a photo of you and one that she did get makes you look like a lobster right as you threw your head back ready to flip over. Hands high over your head. So flipping cute. Puntastic ;) So there are a couple of your nicknames: Olaf, baby lobster, and twerp

Baby Lobster

Dear Baby Lobster,  

Wow. I really don't even know where to start. I really should have started this ages ago like maybe when we first found out we were expecting you. But alas. I didn't. Now I am 25 weeks pregnant with you and couldn't be more excited. So far you have been really nice to mommy and I didn't have any morning sickness or really any symptoms until now. I found out I was expecting you on Nov. 9th. Wow. That memory is still pretty fresh. For some reason I thought we would have a problem having a baby. I don't know why. I just thought it would be hard. Maybe cause I was 33 by the time we thought we wanted to start having kids. Luckily, it wasn't an issue. I tracked my periods on an  app on my phone and it wasn't until the app told me to take a pregnancy test that I did. I know. An app told me I might be pregnant. Anyway. I had these super cheap testing strips from Amazon.com (yes, Mommy is cheap. I learned from my mom and if you are a girl you will probably learn that from me). So on 11/9 I opened the app thinking my period was due to start soon and a popup opened telling me to take a test. How 2014 is that? So I pee on one of those little sticks and a second line popped up. What?! A second line?! I was floored. I swear I took about 5 more of those tests and sure enough the same second line. I went through all of my adult life trying NOT to become pregnant that it seemed crazy I might actually be pregnant and wanted it more than anything in this world. Pregnant.

 

 I am just over 5 months now and it still seems unreal. So back to the test. Positive. I still didn't believe it. Your Dad was upstairs watching football so I snuck out of the house to Schnucks down the road to buy one of those tests that said pregnant or not pregnant. I figured I was just imagining those lines. So I pony up the $12 and get one of those. Sneak back in the house and take the test. Pregnant. OMG. So then I spend the next 30 minutes not quite sure what to do with myself. I seriously just wandered from room to room, upstairs to downstairs just in a fog. I had all these cute ideas of how I wanted to tell Andrew we were expecting. Yah. All of those went out of my head. I finally settled on taking our celebratory scotch (Dufftown), one glass, and the pregnancy test in a bag upstairs to show Andrew. The look on his face is something I will never forget. He was just as excited as I was. That same bottle of scotch, btw, was also drank the night we got engaged and on anniversaries. Very special. So now we were expecting.  Scheduled a doctor appointment for the Wednesday before thanksgiving and now we just had to wait.  We decided not to tell anyone until after that appointment. I don't know why. Fear we might lose you? Fear it may not be true? That gave us a lot of time to figure out how to tell our parents. We came up with a lot of neat ideas but settled on coffee mugs. We had some coffee mugs in a box in the basement and wrote one them Grandma est. June 2015. We told my Dad first. He came down the weekend before Thanksgiving for my birthday dinner. Yes, my birthday dinner 11 months after my birthday lol. So that night Andrew poured some scotch into a nice glass for himself and the coffee mug for my dad. He told him we ran out of scotch glasses. Dad didn't see anything weird about this and just settled back into his chair with his hand tightly around his mug ready to drink. Didn't even look at the mug. Grrrrr. So Andrew says something about his mug being special and My dad just glanced at it and said oh, nice and that was it.  So I say hey dad,what does that mug say? He looks at it (of course not wearing his glasses) and mumbles grandpa 2012. I say 2012? He looks again, slowly reads the mug again (holding it about 3 feet from his face) and got it. He was so excited! Gave us huge hugs and was beaming ear to ear. A Grandpa. So cool! Next we told my Mom. This was a little trickier as she just moved to FL. I was a little bummed that I wouldn't be able to tell her in person but alas. She is in Florida. So operation mail the mug was in place. I called Dave and asked him to help. That was a funny/frustrating conversation lol. I told him I was mailing him a box that had a mug in it and that he was to keep it hidden from her until the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Sounds easy, right? Nope, lol. He was like so I should just give her the box?  No, you need to serve her coffee that am in it. We went round and round until I think he just gave in and was going to wait until the box got here. So mom worked the night shift the night before we told her and. I will never. Forget Dave calling me while Mom was still sleeping and was so excited to be a Grandpa. It all came clear! Oh, and I forgot the part of the story where Andrew sent the box with the mug to Dave and was supposed to change the return address to a coworker to fool my mom. Well the FedEx lady asked for the billing address so Andrew gave it to her and that was that. It now said from Andrew. I guess mom didn't suspect something and Dave did a great job covering it up. So the day arrived. I already talked to Dave and now we were just waiting for mom to wake up. Waiting. And waiting. Omg, is she ever going to wake up?!? Finally, she called and sounded so freaking excited! I think the best part about this story is this was their first night I. Their new house and mom had her stat box all ready to go. Stat box? Oh that is my coffee obsessed mother's way of guaranteeing she will have coffee when she moves. In this box is the coffee maker, coffee, sugar, cream, and favorite coffee mugs. I can only imagine her face when Dave brought her this coffee mug that she hasn't see before. The stat box exists for a reason lol. I was so happy to be able to FINALLY talk to my mom about being pregnant. I had so many questions and feelings it was great to talk to her. She let me know that she didn't have any symptoms either And that was so reassuring. Telling Andrew's parents was also very special. We told them on Thanksgiving. That morning we hashed out our plan. We arrived to their house and were in  Andrews new white truck (which they haven't seen). While they went out to see it, I stayed in the kitchen and hid the mug in with the other coffee mugs. Then the waiting game began. Luckily, Sara asked us if we wanted anything to drink right away and we both said coffee. So she starts making coffee as we gab about the car, work, life etc.  Really, Andrew and I are just anxious as all get out waiting for them to figure it it. Then Roger leaves to go into the basement.  Noooooo! Come back! Lol! So naturally the second he leaves and Sara goes to the coffee mug cabinet. She opens it, shrieks, then shuts it again. Then as if it might be different if she opens it again she peeks inside and shrieks again. What a special moment! She was ecstatic! But, Roger still didn't know! We all quickly decide to let Roger find the mug just like Sara did. O.M.G. This probably took 5 minutes but seemed like forever! Sara tried asking him to get the coffee mugs ready for the coffee and we were all holding our breath as he went over to where the mugs are kept. Roger takes one look at the coffee maker and sees that there is still a TON of time left until it is done, shrugs and walks away from the area. What?! Go back to the coffee area is what we are all saying on the inside.  But he didn't. Finally Sara asks him again to get the mugs out for coffee and he goes over to the coffee area. I am pretty sure none of us were breathing at this moment. Finally! He opens the cabinet and sees our surprise. Such an exciting moment! Everyone is so excited to meet you! You are super lucky to have 5 grandparents who love you so much already! And being the first grandkid on both sides you are going to be spoil you rotten!