4 weeks later

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Here's the updated picture of me.



Hair is cut (but wet, because my hair dryer is broken). I'm finally back in my contact lenses, after loosing one down the drain a few months ago. The challenging thing about self portraits is getting the focus right. I obviously don't have it down, so close enough. Elizabeth gets tired of me tinkering to get the right distance.

I can tell that in the past 4 weeks or so, I have definitely grown! Just look at the last picture.

pregnancy weight

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I'm mentally struggling with my weight gain this pregnancy. I didn't gain any weight my first trimester, but in the past 6-7 weeks I've gained about 9 pounds. Really, that's not a whole horrible much. But seeing the scale jump 2 pounds at a time for several week in a row is an unpleasant experience for me. I'm still on track for being within a what is typically considered a healthy range of weight gain for my height and previous weight, but I'll admit that I've really been hoping to be on the lower side of healthy weight gain, rather than the upper side. I know that more weight just means more work after the baby is born.

Now, lest you think I'm going to do something dumb or unhealthy for myself or baby, be reassured. I'm not limiting my food intake. I eat when I'm hungry. I try to eat good things most of the time. I know I'm eating for two, but the second person only needs about 300 extra calories a day, above my needs.

I will admit that there has been a week in the past several where I had some form of ice cream (and not a small amount) 5 days in a row, and I ate junky fast food 2 times that same week. So, considering that kind of behavior, I should not be surprised when I have greater weight gain. Junk in = junk on. Those eating habits, however, are far from typical.

So, instead I resolve each day to eat a healthy, balanced diet and to exercise. I succeed most days.

I guess it's just hard for me to see weight come back on, knowing all the work I had to do just to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. And, that this is weight I need to gain for a healthy me and baby.

potty learning

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We're working with Elizabeth on potty learning.

We have a little potty that is her size, and we have a book about using the potty that we read a few times a week.

Our only efforts at getting her to use the potty consist of asking her if she has to pee when we change her diaper before bed, and if I remember it, to ask her at wake up, and before and after naps. Once she told me "Pee!" and she proceeded to pee on the potty.

She's pretty consistent about being able to use the potty before bedtime. It's funny to see her concentrate to go pee, and when she does pee, she gets a big smile on her face. We don't need candy to get her to pee. Apparently, she is enthused about getting toilet paper when she uses the potty. So, she'll pee, and then say "Paper?"

Hopefully, it will be pretty smooth sailing from here out! (I could only wish...)

3 car family - still worth it with lower gas prices?

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For now, we are indeed a 3 car family.

This past week, we purchased a lovely 2006 Chevy Impala with 35,000 miles, in great condition. It was a fantastic deal. Something you don't often find. So we went with it.

I wrote about the potential benefit to being a 3 car family a few months ago, but those numbers were based on an assumption that gasoline would stay around $4.00 a gallon. Gasoline at my local gas station has been dropping several cents every few days, and now rests at $2.05. So it has me wondering, will there be any benefit to maintaining my 1996 Saturn as a third car?

We were pleasantly surprised to find that having 2 cars covered by the same insurance company would give us a discount (Jude's truck is covered by a business policy through another company). Turns out that having both the Impala and the Saturn with a multi-car discount essentially eliminates the cost of insuring the Saturn. Impala only = $436/6 mo; Impala and Saturn = $437/6 mo. So, In terms of insurance, we not really paying anything greater to keep a third car.

So, the cost to keep the Saturn per year, based on my previous post's estimates, should be about $210.00

Readjusting our fuel cost estimates based on $2.05/gallon, we get the following:

If Jude drove the Impala instead of the truck for 1000 miles, and the Impala gets about 25 mpg versus the truck's 13 mpg, then there would be a 12 mpg advantage, or saving 83 gallons of gas. That's $170.00.

If I drove the Saturn every week instead of the Impala (40 miles/week, for 46 weeks per year (vacation, you know?)) that's 1,840 miles in a year. The Saturn gets about 36 mpg . That would be an 11 mpg difference - 167 gallons saved, or $342.

A total fuel savings of $512.

Total cost savings - $302!

Interestingly, even if there were no unexpected insurance savings, we would still save a little money having 3 cars, based on the above scenario. It would only be about $60 at current prices, but even then, would probably have been worth it!

language skills

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I continue to be amazed at seeing language development first hand.

Monday, Elizabeth would say "Buh" for book. Tuesday, she says "Book."
There have been other words in recent days, but she is adding final consonant sounds to her words.

She has been working at two word phases, although at this point, she is repeating phrases. We read a book wherein a character says "I'm waiting" a whole lot. Elizabeth say "I a-ying" when those words come up in the story. We say "I'm Mama," or "I'm Daddy," and she repeats it back to us.

And, I believe just yesterday, she has created her own phrase. She asked for something, (one word) and said please! I only heard it once, so I'm waiting to see if this is indeed what she did. She's not said please before, so I'm guessing that is the word she said.

Who knew that I would find this to be one of the exciting parts of this age?

babies ain't dumb, or my kid wants to vote

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Jude and I were discussing today's election this past weekend. We had mentioned the names of the two major party presidential candidates several times. Jude was looking at something in the news paper and said "Obama" in the midst of a sentence. Elizabeth pipes up and says "Ahma!" We said, "can you say McCain?" "Cain!" and so it went. When ever we mentioned the name Obama, she would pipe up, eventually perfecting her pronunciation to "Bama!" and saying "Cain!" at the appropriate times.

I was watching the local evening news with Elizabeth tonight, and the news anchors were talking about tonight's election coverage. I don't believe they mentioned either candidate by name, nor did they show pictures of the candidates. They just used the word 'election' repeatedly. Elizabeth says "Bama! Cain!"

Clearly she is quite aware of the conversations going on around her. She knows 'election,' 'Obama,' and 'McCain' are all words that go together!