I saw my new (non-crazy) doctor again today.  I heart her.  I heart everything about her office - there are staff! and other pregnant ladies! and no one makes me cry!  She laughed when I said it was my first experience with the fetal heartbeat monitor.  Seriously, Doc Crazy gave me an ultrasound at every single appointment (she could charge my insurance significantly more for that).  My new (non-crazy) doctor took me off yet another prescription today.  I’ve gone from 7 pills a day (1 pre-natal, 2 antibiotics, 3 progesterone, and 1 iron) with Doc Crazy to 2 (1 pre-natal and 1 antibiotic) with new (non-crazy) doctor.  I hate taking medication so that makes me quite happy.

Everything still looks good with Tessa.  She was originally going to start my weekly appointments at 30 weeks to do non-stress tests but decided that everything is going well enough that she would wait until 32 weeks to start that.

And my saga with Doc Crazy isn’t quite over yet.  She randomly sent me a bill this week for $3500.  No indication what the bill is for other than “Outstanding balance”.  I sent her a little note suggesting she itemize the bill and submit it to my insurance before billing me directly for whatever crazy things she thinks I might owe her for.  My insurance covered all of the services that she billed them minus a few dollars here and there that I paid along the way.  I’m curious to see how this plays out…is there an entity that can mediate billing disputes with private doctors?  Because I’m not paying Doc Crazy a cent unless she can prove to me it is legitimate.

But seriously Sabrina is the cutest child ever. Steve and I say it to each other several times a week. I worry that poor Tessa has an awful lot of cute to live up to.

Sabrina found a paper towel and proceeded to “clean” the whole house with it. Here she is wiping the floor (maybe I should have put some cleaner down so she could actually get it clean).  I wonder where she learned this because it wasn’t from me:

She is trying to be sneaky. She is signing that she is all done but has hidden the rest of her bananas in the drink holder thinking momma might not notice. Yes, I’m mean - I made her eat them after I took a photo.

And finally - just enjoying some outside time. Unfortunately the cement on our little porch slab is pretty rough so we’ve had to pull out the bandaids for some skinned knees for the first time.

I won a video camera! How fun is that? Stephanie at Metropolitan Mama is always doing neat parenting topics and giving away neat products. For Mother’s Day she gave away one of these:

The Flip Ultra!  And I won! I am so excited!

Camcorders are one of the few gadgets we don’t use in our house. We own one…we have just never known where the camera and the charging cord and the USB port cord (or whatever you plug into the computer to upload your videos) are at the same time. We had one brief summer that we used it on 1 vacation. I’ve never seen that video but I hear it still exists somewhere. If I want to take a quick video of Sabrina, I just use our digital camera. But now we will have the ability with this slick, tiny little camera to always be able to whip it out and record her so we can show it off to her prom date in 16 years.

Once I receive it, I’ll let you all know what we think of it.

I’m still contemplating the double stroller but I do hope to spend the first few months with the baby in a sling and Sabrina in her single stroller. Sabrina loved her sling during our first couple of visits - until she was about 6 months old. After that she loved the Baby Bjorn (which killed my back) and her stroller.

I had a pouch sling for her. By the time I moved to Antigua to foster, I had lost enough weight that the sling was too big for me and it didn’t fit snugly enough to put her in it on my hip and she wasn’t happy if she wasn’t sitting up and looking around. I was always eyeballing everyone else’s carriers to see what appealed to me. For the older kids, there were several I liked the looks of better than the Bjorn (mine was an older version…it looks like they’ve improved the weight distribution with an additional strap or two now). But for babies, I always thought many looked too complicated. The Mei Tai wraps are lovely but I don’t think I have enough hands to put it on by myself. And the ones that you wrap around yourself in a special way start with 5 yards of fabric and I can’t imagine how hot that would be in the summer and how difficult it would be to keep that fabric out of the dirt while you are trying to wrap yourself up. So the pouch slings and ring slings always looked like they made the most sense to me. My only issue with the ring slings (I like that they are adjustable - when I lose baby weight I can make it smaller and Steve could make it larger for him) is that long tail of fabric that trails down you - does it bug you?  Does it feel bulky?

So tell me about your favorite and most hated baby carriers. Did you love the pouch or the ring or another version? Did the fabric tail of the ring sling get in the way?  Was it hard to adjust to the right size?  Did it loosen itself?

In case you aren’t sure what I am talking about -

The Pouch

The Ring Sling:

The way to this pregnant woman’s heart. It makes my hubby pretty happy too. A couple of people have mentioned they miss my recipe postings (I haven’t been cooking much that is inspired lately but I’ve got a few things I’ll share in the next few weeks), so here is my loose recipe for guacamole. Warning - if you are one of my fellow Guatemamas, this is NOT the guacamole you ate in Guatemala. Their guacamole is bland - just avocados, lime juice and salt. I like mine a little more flavorful. A couple of my “secret” ingredients are courtesy of my mama who paid attention at a restaurant at the Riverwalk in San Antonio that made it table-side. And those who read regularly know I’m more of a cook by feel kind of girl so my recipes are more of a guideline than an exact science.

Guacamole

4 avocados (if you don’t know how to cut and seed one visit here)

2 plum tomatoes or 1 regular garden variety tomato

1/2 onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

lemon juice

lime juice

orange juice

cilantro

salt

2-3 strips of bacon

Peel and pit the avocados. Smash with either back of a fork or potato ricer. You want it slightly chunky rather than completely smooth. Finely chop the tomato, onion, and garlic or throw it in the food processor and pulse a few times. Add to the avocados. Squeeze a couple tablespoons of lemon juice and lime juice into your mixture. Squeeze a tablespoon of orange juice in (less than the lemon and lime…you shouldn’t taste the orange juice - it should just add a little something in the background). Add salt - a little more than you think you should. Crumble the bacon into your mixture. Trust me - adds a nice smokiness. Mix it all up. Taste it - if it seems to be missing something add a little more salt, lemon and/or lime juice. Eat. Yes, avocados have lots of fat in the them but it is the good kind plus lots of vitamins and minerals.

For the juices and cilantro, fresh is always best but I’ve been known to use dried cilantro when I don’t have fresh and those plastic lemons and limes for juice. I truly believe the garlic has to be fresh to get the back ground bite that it provides but do what you will.

And just because I am so excited I have to share that Baby Girl #2 finally has a name!  We should probably tell family before I blab here…but you all know I can’t keep a secret for long.

Happy Mom’s Day to me, to all of my readers out there, and to my mom(s).

I have a Happy Non-Mom Day post in my drafts to bitch and moan about what morons NBC execs are but decided I don’t feel like working myself into a lather over it today. So if missed the hub-bub over declaring adoptive moms “non-moms” or you just want to read more about it, check out this post. (Thanks for the link Leigh.) Moving on…

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there. Last year, I spent Mother’s Day in Guatemala as a mom for the first time. This year, I spend it at home with my sweet hubby and beautiful daughter while expecting daughter #2 later this year. I never would have imagined this 2 years ago.

I don’t anticipate we will do anything particularly special today.  Steve has mentioned some homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast and something on the grill for dinner.  The gift he ordered didn’t arrive on time so I’ll get to spread the celebration out an extra day.  My momma sent me a cute tea pot and some teas (thanks momma). I might run down to the nursery and pick up some herbs to plant.  But honestly, being at home with my family is a great way to spend the day.

I just feel blessed this year to own the title “Mom”.

Sabrina playing mom to her dog…trying to strap him into her booster seat:

And she has one other new word - Ball (which can mean ball or balloon - she loves both):

I’ve reached the point where it is pretty obvious to the world that I am pregnant not just fat. Sunday marks 28 weeks. I’m even outgrowing some of my maternity clothes. I’ve gained way more than baby weight but for the most part am waiting until after the baby comes to freak out about it. Why freak out before I can do much about it (other than put down the ice cream and trust me when I tell you that wouldn’t end happily for anyone in this house)? But I’m feeling huge and lazy now. I am thinking about selling advertising space across my stomach. I was wearing red yesterday and was thinking of painting a white bullseye and asking Target to sponsor me.

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Speaking of ice cream, I heart Blue Bell. They make a 1/2 gallon that is half vanilla and half chocolate with no added sugar and less fat that is pretty darn tasty. At least I’m not eating Ben & Jerry’s.

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I had a small world moment today. At a play date, I met a woman who graduated from the same college as I did and is from a little town in Ohio that I’ve been and she has been to my little town.

Last week, the receptionist at the eye doctor’s saw my OU sweatshirt and asked if I was from Ohio. She said she was too but that it was a tiny town no one had ever heard of. Turns out I worked in that tiny town’s domestic violence shelter for a year.

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I’m obsessed with Pad Thai right now. I’ve pulled together a few recipes and made something that meets the need. My other obsession is fresh guacamole. Avocados were on sale last week and Steve begged me to stock up and make a bigger batch this time. No complaints here. I miss the cheap avocados in Antigua! I could make guacamole for just over $1 there…here I can get 1 avocado for that but only if they are on sale.

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Steve decided not to buy a lawn mower but to hire someone to mow our lawn instead this year. So I called a guy who left a flyer on our door. The lawn hadn’t been mowed yet this year when we moved it so it was getting rather long. The guy said they mowed several lawns in our subdivision already and quoted me the price which I thought was outrageous for our little patch of grass but I figured I could shop around later. I warned him the grass was long. He said he would make sure they got to it quickly. I received the bill this week. The bill was for $70 for 1 mowing - no where near what he told me he charges. Steve called him and told him there was a mistake on our bill. The guy said there was no mistake. His guy told him the grass was knee high and he had to mow our lawn 4 times to complete it so he thought he was being rather generous to only charge us $70. Funny, both Steve and I were home when he mowed. He had to go a little slow in spots because it was long (a little past ankle - not even knee high on Sabrina) but he didn’t make more than 1 pass in any part of the lawn. If the guy had called to say he needed to tack on a few extra dollars for the extra gas and 10 or 15 minutes of time of his employee we would have been fine but to send us such an outrageous bill for our little yard is ridiculous. And bad business because he lost a customer and we are refusing to pay the full bill.

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Sabrina’s newest words are “hi” (said 375 times a day in a cute little voice) and “cheese” (said only when the mood strikes her). She is deathly afraid of the garage - especially if the door is down. And is so sweet hugging and kissing her stuff animals it just melts my heart.

The girlie tendencies amaze me though. Her toys are pretty evenly spread along the spectrum of gender. She has 2 baby dolls but also a lot of animals. She has a toy purse but also 2 barnyard sets. Her clothing is largely pink and girlie but that is mostly due to hand me downs and sales. We don’t treat her in a particularly girlie manner other than often telling her she is beautiful. But she is such a little girl. She loves her purse and turns other items into purses. She will pick up the mulch on the playground and pour it over my hands and arms just so that she can clean me up again. She will brush me off until I am clean and start over again. And she will pat and rub my back when she hugs me and she will kiss and hug her stuff animals as though taking care of them. I don’t know if she is just imitating me because she spends most of her time with me or if the whole girl thing is rather innate.

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One bad thing about this time of year: the windows are open so the neighbors can hear me yelling at my child.  Good first impression!

You can leave your mother of the year kudos in the comments.

We stopped at Applebee’s to grab some dinner the other night.  The restaurant wasn’t busy - there were many open tables in different sections.  They seated us next to a long table of a dozen kids and 6 adults having a birthday party.  The kids weren’t being bad but a dozen kids hopped up on sugar can produce a lot of noise.  A lot.  We couldn’t even have a conversation without coming close to yelling at one another.  Steve was really unhappy.  (I wasn’t thrilled either.)  I reminded him that we are now seen as those people - people with kids.   When we walk in with a toddler, they want to put us somewhere that our child will cause the least disruption to other diners.  That means we will always get the crappy seats.  And I don’t think explaining to them that our child is different will change things.  Sabrina doesn’t cry or screech or squeal - and if she starts, we remove her from the table and walk outside with her.  We’ve only had to remove her a couple of times even though we eat out with some regularity.  She is just a good child.  But it doesn’t matter - whether in a restaurant or on a plane or another public place that noise can be disrupting, we will be seen as people with kids and strike fear in the hearts of those around us.  And I’m afraid baby girl #2 will be a demon child to pay us back for being so spoiled by Miss Sabrina so our days of eating out may come to an end.