37 Weeks - Let the Countdown Begin!

I had my 37 week OB visit this morning, which was entirely uneventful. My chief complaint at this point is my right ankle, which has always been rather weak and the added stress on it of pregnancy/swollen feet has made my ankle swollen and sore so that even if I stay off it as much as possible (meaning not very much considering the obligations of taking care of the kids & dog, laundry, dishes, cooking dinner, etc) it still ends up swollen and painful by the end of each day. Otherwise I am experiencing less back pain, less hand/wrist issues, and less sleep problems (knock on wood) than in either of my previous pregnancies. Hopefully it will also help that this pregnancy will be almost a week shorter than with Rebecca, and 2 weeks shorter than with Ben. Having a scheduled C-section at exactly 39 weeks does have its advantages in that respect.

Countdown to Dec. 15 and the arrival of Ben and Becca's little brother or sister begins... NOW! ;)

Puppy Training

We had a marathon four hour session yesterday morning with a dog trainer who came here to the house to work with us and Clara. Although we thought we only needed help with a few things (chasing/nipping the kids, barking etc) apparently we needed to take the entire puppy training experience back to the drawing board.

The dog trainer, Christy, told us we are not using her crate nearly enough (only using it at night and when we go out) and that when she's not in her crate a puppy her age needs to be restricted either to a leash or confined in a small area like the kitchen. We baby gated off the kitchen while she was here, and received much instruction on dog/human body language, tools for correcting bad behavior, a whole new schedule of eating/pottying that now involves us taking her out to potty on a leash and giving her 5 minutes in one spot to do her business before coming back inside. Also she only has 10 minutes (timed on the microwave timer) to eat her food now.

Apparently in addition to just letting her roam around way too freely and roam the back yard to go to the bathroom (or not as the case may be) without supervision, we have been teaching her to bark whenever she wants something, and have no idea if she's gone to the bathroom recently or not so can't tell if her whining/barking is potty related or just attention-seeking.

The good news is that she seems to be inherently a very submissive dog, and her bad behavior is easy to correct. We just need to be consistent and stick with the new routine and the new rules, which include new rules for the kids as well - no sitting on the floor with the dog, no unsupervised play with the dog, only Joel and I are allowed to let her in/out of the crate and take her outside to potty, etc.

We have a couple more sessions with Christy, finishing off with leash training in early January, and after that we have a lifetime guarantee so that if we ever have a behavior problem with Clara, Christy will come back for free to help us correct it.

A Few (Very Few) Pics from Thanksgiving 2011

We had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends, though I neglected to take many pictures and completely forgot to take a picture of the turkey before it was carved. Oops. A special thanks to Kathleen for coordinating most of the cooking!! I definitely could not have done it in my current state ;) Happy to report that I still have plenty of leftovers :) Though I did finish off the pies this morning.

Birthday Celebration

Our Thanksgiving week visit from Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen included a birthday celebration for Uncle Mike at Cow Fish restaurant. Happy birthday Mike!

My Adorable Indian & Her Thanksgiving Turkey

Official Potato Taster

Stirring the Turkey Brine

Nacho Cheese

Ben and Joel had an outing with J Tribes to a minor league hockey game yesterday afternoon, where Ben thoroughly enjoyed himself and completely ruined his appetite for dinner.

Date Night

Joel and I went out last night for what very well might be our last "date night" before the impending arrival of baby #3... we had dinner at Blue Taj followed by a movie (Tower Heist). A big thanks to Julie and John for babysitting not only our two legged kids, but our four legged one as well ;)

Need Coffee

I'd like to thank whoever's idea it was to have the chess club meet at 7am on Friday mornings (and my son for insisting on going), necessitating an even earlier start to my already early day :P And now I'm going to go get some coffee.

Smart puppy!

Loophole Baby

It seems as though baby #3 is our "loophole baby" - benefits-wise, that is. Since the birth of a baby is a qualifying event to be able to add funds to a medical flexible spending account, but it can't be done before the baby is born, and the baby is being born (presumably) after Joel gets his last 2011 pay check on December 1 but before 2012, and the funds are not allowed to be taken out of 2012 pay, we get a free baby. What? Yes that's confusing. But apparently, the $2,000 or so that we were expecting to pay out of pocket for the C section/ hospital stay is going to be fully covered because of this odd loophole wherein Joel is entitled to elect the extra funds for the flexible spending account but his employer has no legal way to be able to accomodate. So.... FREE BABY!

35 Weeks, and Rebecca's Parent-Teacher Conference

This morning I had my 35 week OB appointment, everything sailing along quite smoothly so far... I start going once a week starting next week, and I am officially beginning the countdown to the arrival of Kaplan #3 ... 4 weeks from tomorrow!

After the OB appointment I had Rebecca's parent-teacher conference at her school, the highlights of which are that she's "at the top of her class", loves to be the leader/ be in front of the class, gets along well with the other kids who all seem to look up to her, does great in gym class where she's often called on to demonstrate skills in front of the group, is learning to recognize and to write her letters/numbers/ starting to learn what letters make what sounds, is notably left handed, and generally is thriving. We discussed her "forceful personality" (little bit of a euphemism there I think) but really her teacher did not have any concerns, and thinks she will excel in pre-K next year. Apparently Rebecca does a much better job listening/behaving at school than she does at home :P Way to go Becca!

Ben School Picture, Fall 2011

I have learned by now not to order prints without seeing the proofs first. Though, this one is pretty cute. Relatively speaking.

Another Monday of Random Updates

I guess I have been a little remiss in the blogging department lately, so here are a few updates:

It's been a busy weekend, Ben had off Friday for Veteran's Day and he spent the afternoon/night at his friend Jared's birthday party/sleepover. They played laser tag at Sports Connection, went out to dinner, played video games and (apparently) stayed up until midnight and were up by 7am the next morning. He seemed to have had a good time though and did not seem particularly worse for wear.

Saturday afternoon was my baby shower, which my friend Joanna organized for me, with lunch at a Chinese restaurant, cake and presents. It was a lot of fun - a big thank you to Joanna and to everyone who was able to make it!! You guys are great!

Yesterday was another hectic day, with Joel working, Ben having Hebrew school, a lunch date with one of Becca's friends, another play date for Ben with Jared at our house this time (so his parents could go car shopping in relative peace), Eagles football with Papa, and a late dinner of Chinese takeout after Joel finally managed to get the grocery shopping finished and bring Chinese food home @ almost 7. Also in there somewhere I did laundry, dishes, and made cinnamon rolls. I was POOPED by the end of the day. I think I was asleep by 9.

Clara went for her second round of shots this morning, and I am sorry to admit that since I have not bought her a seatbelt harness or otherwise figured out how to transport a dog to the vet by myself, I ended up doing some major improvising and shoving her into Ulysses' cat carrier. Which she did NOT appreciate at all (and I am sure that's the last time she'll remotely fit into there). I am going to go today at lunch time and get a seatbelt harness for her or something! She is up to 14 pounds now - she was 9 or 10 pounds at her first vet appointment 3 weeks ago, and the vet said she'll probably be up to 20 pounds by her next appointment 3 weeks from now! Holy crap, puppies grow fast! She slept through the night last night, and is down to the rate of about 1 accident in the house a week at this point... which hopefully is an ever decreasing frequency!

Gearing up for Thanksgiving next week! Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen are flying in Monday night and happily, Monday is the only day I am working next week. YEAH! Besides Joel's parents and Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen, we are also hosting our friends Melanie and Jeff and their daughter (Becca's BFF Amelia) for the second year in a row. I'll be 36 weeks pregnant as of Thanksgiving day, so hopefully all the fun and excitement won't send me into early labor :)

Which of these do you like best?

These are a few of Rebecca's fall portrait proofs. As usual, I think the photographer they use does a terrific job. I am leaning towards the bottom one as my favorite. Help me decide! Email me if you want the link to view the rest of the proofs.

Daylight Savings

I did not bother to turn the clocks back an hour until after we woke up yesterday morning - less psychologically painful that way, when the dog starts whining to be let out of her crate at 6:30 (5:30).

So yesterday morning Ben ambles downstairs in his pajamas at what he thinks is a few minutes after 8 and announces, "Looks like I overslept... I guess I am going to have to skip Hebrew school!" The confused/sheepish look on his face was priceless when I patted him on the cheek and told him it was actually only 7 o'clock, and he had plenty of time to make it to Hebrew school on time.

This morning he was confused again, wondering why it was light out already at 7 am as we were walking to the bus stop. So again I explained the time change to him, to which he stopped dead in his tracks and said, "Wait - it's really 8 o'clock? Did I miss the bus?"

Ironically, he seemed to have a much better understanding of the plot of Back to the Future, which we watched together the other night, than he does of the simple time change :)

CureSearch walk at Freedom Park

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Random Updates

Clara - Barked at the back door this morning when she needed to go out to poop. Seems to be responding to "NO!" as in when she picked up my flip flop and I told her NO, she dropped it and picked up one of her toys instead. Pretty consistent with listening to NO from me and Joel. Smart girl!

Ben - Lost his second baby tooth last night. Unfortunately, the adult tooth is already almost all the way in, having come in behind the baby tooth before the baby tooth was ready to come out. Braces in our future? Also, he bombed the assessment test that is one of the methods used for placing students in the Talent Development program, but scored well on another screening process, the Gifted Rating Scale, so his case goes to portfolio review which means the talent development coordinator chooses samples of his best classroom work to present to a panel to determine if he gets the official gifted label. For the record, I do not have high hopes for my son's portfolio! His handwriting is just too bad!

Rebecca - Clara seems to be listening to "no" better than Rebecca does at this point. Especially when it comes to the dog - she tries to pick her up constantly and doesn't listen when told to leave her alone. On the one hand, at least Clara will be too big for her to haul around like a baby soon. On the other hand, there will be an ACTUAL BABY soon for her to try to haul around instead. Uh oh.

Premature

My positive assessment of Clara's potty training progress. Since I bragged about her two accident-free days, she has had two pee accidents and a poop accident, yesterday. Sigh.

Halloween Pictures

Okay I lied. There are no Halloween pictures. Joel took the kids out trick-or-treating last night, and I was in such a rush to get them fed/costumed/out the door that I totally forgot to take any pictures or give Joel the camera. I stayed behind to pass out candy, and after what I can only assume was well over 100 kids, I ran out of candy. Fortunately Joel and the kids turned up just as I was running out, and Ben elected to pass out some of his own candy, but eventually I made him cease and desist and we shut the porch light off. Maybe some day I will figure out what's the appropriate amount of candy to buy. I believe I had about 300 pieces of candy, which I was giving out 2 per kid for the most part, until the rationing began ;) Joel says if he had bought the candy we would not have run out, but I seem to recall we've run out in previous years when he was in charge of the candy, too :P