We found each other — I thought that was going to be the hard part. Infertility was an unexpected journey. Now raising a sweet little boy and a busy little girl and waiting on number three . . .
Well, it is happening again. 
. Another niece is joining me on this pregnancy journey. This time it is my nephew Seth’s wife, Mallory. This will be their first, with an expected due date of October 1st — ten days after us.
With Nathaniel, it was my niece Edna having Joshua 11 days before I gave birth. With Ava, Edna had Journey two months before I gave birth.
Always makes things interesting! Frankly, it would almost be boring to be doing it “alone.”
Well, it is happening again. . Another niece is joining me on this pregnancy journey. This time it is my nephew Seth’s wife, Mallory. This will be their first, with an expected due date of October 1st — ten days after us.
With Nathaniel, it was my niece Edna having Joshua 11 days before I gave birth. With Ava, Edna had Journey two months before I gave birth.
Always makes things interesting! Frankly, it would almost be boring to be doing it “alone.”
Nathaniel now weighs 30 pounds.
Ava is right at 20 pounds. Yeah!
Nathaniel called Ava his “baby sister” yesterday.
On Monday, as I was giving his daily vitamin, he asked me about baby’s vitamin. I reminded him that Ava cannot have a vitamin until she is two. He proceeded to tell me that no, he was talking about the baby in my belly (he pointed to my belly). So sweet.
And today, he told me the new baby was a “sister.” We’ll see.
In high school, I was never part of the “in” crowd. Not that I was a complete outsider. I mingled with the “in” crowd but was more on the fringes.
When I started this blog back in 2006, I was in a very different place — we were in deep as far as infertility diagnosis and treatment. I had one goal — having a baby. I happened across other blogs of individuals going through similar circumstances and in the process, I felt like I was not alone. Other IFers shared their experiences and I shared my own. Thankfully, the hardest part of our IF journey was short. We did one round of IVF and nine months later, here was Nathaniel. According to the statistics, that only happens for about 50% of infertiles. And a lot of the blogs out there are for people with the worst case scenario — who have been through multiple rounds of IVF or other procedures and who have encountered all kinds of obstacles, or maybe even worse, had cycles go perfectly only to end up with nothing but debt and heartache.
I’ve seen others post about how a lot of people in the IF world judge you by how much you’ve been through to get your miracle. The more heartache = the more credibility and greater internet following = part of the “in” IF crowd.
I am very happy that I have not experienced the same heartache I’ve read about on other blogs. We’ve been very blessed.
But recently, one of the blogs I’ve read for years went partially password protected. The blogger asked that people interested in continuing to follow her journey email her. So, I emailed her, explained that I’ve been following her for a long time, and said I’d like to continue following. No response. I waited a while, knowing that she was busy and going through an IVF cycle. Still nothing. So, I thought maybe she’d missed my message. So, I wrote another short note. Still nothing.
I know I am a paranoid person, but the only explanation I can think of is that I just don’t cut it in the IF world. I haven’t suffered enough. Again, I find myself on the fringes. I guess it really doesn’t matter — but it bothers me that people who are publicly sharing their lives and experiences would shut out someone who has followed their story for a long time and poses no type of risk. Especially when they asked interested people to email and ask for the password.
Oh, well. I still wish her the best for this cycle.
I’m almost afraid to call this week’s storm “The ice storm of 2010.” There is a lot of 2010 left to go! But regardless, we’ve had some cold and wet weather since yesterday (Thursday). Dh was sent home from work at 10:30 a.m. and told not to return until Monday. Yeah! It all stared with the freezing rain around 8 a.m. on Thursday. That continued until about 3 p.m. when the rain began turning to sleet here. That tapered off around 8 p.m. and then the snow started Friday morning and lasted pretty much all day.
We lost power around 3:00 on Thursday, just as the freezing rain changed over to sleet. On the news they’re saying we’ve made it through about 10% of the precip and then wham, no power. The lights didn’t flicker or anything, they just went off. Nathaniel had not napped well and he did not like the power being off. He thought we were being mean not turning on lights or shows. He cried for a lot of the time our power was off. Thankfully, we had heat courtesy of the new gas logs that dear fil installed on Wednesday afternoon. It actually worked pretty well — the temperature in the house held steady for the 1.5 hours we were without power. Luckily, that was all the time we were without. I assumed we were out for the duration of the storm, but around 4:30, everything came back on. We were extremely thankful!
We’ve had a good time just hanging out but I think we’re all getting a bit of cabin fever. Nathaniel told us he wants to “go home” which is his code for wanting to go somewhere, anywhere. So, we’ll have to see what the roads are like tomorrow. Travel is still being discouraged as of right now. Too bad for us, because we had a babysitter lined up for tomorrow night. 
We made two trips outside on Friday. One trip with just Thanny and one with both kids. They had a good time. We tried to build a snowman but the snow was just too dry. We will try again tomorrow. Thanny and I did make snow angels and we all threw a lot of snow at each other.
Here are a few pics:
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Open houses are the bread and butter, so to speak, of Real Estate. They offer easy exposure to home lookers and offer Realtors a chance to pick up new clients.
I’ve done a lot of them since I started selling Real Estate. I have sold one propert at an open house and picked up one client who ended up not being able to buy. I’ve been swamped with visitors and I’ve sat for 3 hours and had no one show up. I have passed out flyers, put out balloons, posted on craigslist, had food. There is no way to predict how much traffic you will have. I have decided there is no need to go to a huge effort — just do a basic, no frills open house with plain signs and no food.
But I have also decided I will not be doing any more open houses for other people. It is just too stressful to hurry from church to lunch to home to the open house. Even if everything is ready to go, like today, I just end up being stressed out and mad. I will do it for my listings (we will skip lunch after church) but not for others. I just haven’t seen sufficient reward from them to justify the stress.
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We are fully into toddler mode — we eat, sleep, and play for toddlers.
This weekend, though, we were unexpectedly flung into teenager mode.
My sister went out of town at the last minute leaving us to cover for her. My nephew was tied up with a public speaking competition at OU and it fell upon me to pick him up and drop him off.
Friday night I was supposed to get him at 10. Never heard from him until 11 at which time I just headed that way. I get to campus and meet him only to discover that his teacher is insisting I come in to “check” him out from her. Grr. I am wearing pajamas and a sweatshirt and have on no makeup. Ed says I scared one of his friends. Anyway, I tried to call the teacher but she insisted. Luckily I was able to find parking. She did not want to let Ed leave until the competition was over nor did she want to let him leave with anyone other than his guardian. But it is okay for him to leave from the school after the school with another student? Crazy logic there. I realize there are school policies in place but at 11:45, school policy goes out the window in my book. It was time for those kids to be in bed! His fellow students did not get home until after 1 am and had to be back at school by 6:30 the next morning.
I think this is a bad setup. What is this competition really assessing — who can do the best with the least sleep? I thought the point was to have students perform at their best and that requires adequate rest!
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Anyway, with that in mind, we are really trying to savor our remaining opportunities to go out and have adult conversation and food that I didn’t have to cook.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to try S*ltgrass S*eakhouse in Norman. Our food was good, but the atmosphere was lacking in my opinion. The cheesecake was wonderful, btw!
Aunt Bloss kept the little guys for us. I think they had a good time. They got into everything and played every game in the house, including Tw*ster. Thanny now loves Tw*ster.
Thanks Bloss! We had a good time.
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So, I don’t have nearly the time to follow politics that I used to. However, I’m not completely out of the loop.
On Tuesday, the election in Massachusetts to select a replacement for the deceased Ted Kennedy had a profound effect on the future of legislation in both houses of Congress and ultimately on the future direction of this country.
I am disheartened by the outcome. In this instance, the people of Massachusetts certainly had the power and had the opportunity to make their feelings known. But their actions affect not just themselves, but people around the country. People like a friend from church who works full time but does not have health insurance, and now, probably will not have options that pending legislation would have given her (eventually).
I think the founders had it right — they wanted to limit the power of the people. That’s why until the 20th century, senators were elected by state legislators and not by “the people.”
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