Boy Meets Dog

One morning, Owen and I were sitting at the computer, when Zoey decided she wanted to join the party.  So she hopped up onto my lap and settled in right next to the little man (sometimes she is a little starved for attention).  Owen took notice and the following interaction ensued.

This may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Silly Boy

Owen makes me laugh every day.  He is already such a little goofball.  The other day, Zoey was doing something naughty, and I called her a douche bag dog.  After about half a second of silence, Owen just lets out this one syllable chuckle.  Sam and I were cracking up! It was like he knew that she was getting in trouble and wanted to rub it in! On a side note, I should probably stop saying "douche bag" because otherwise it might be Owen's first word.

He has started rolling over a lot.  He first rolled over tummy to back when he was 3 weeks old, but then it was like he didn't want to show off and he wouldn't do it anymore.  Well in the past couple days, he has started rolling a lot from back to tummy.  The other day I was changing his diaper and this happened:

And of course, my phone was in the other room, so I ran off to go get it and take a picture of his naked bum, because apparently I'm that kind of mom.  Also, look at his rolls! He's still on the small side for his age, but he has rolls! YAY!

Just this morning, I put him down under his toy so I could get myself some breakfast.  When I came back to check on him, this is where he was.

Notice that he has scooted, rolled and maneuvered himself so he is out from underneath it, turned the wrong way, and on his belly! I have a feeling he will be crawling all too soon.  Looks like it is time to baby-proof some stuff!

Mommyhood

I know what you're thinking, but no, "mommyhood" isn't a place in the ghetto where all the cool moms hang out.

How do I explain what it's been like for me so far? Now that Owen is 4 months old (!), I have finally settled into a little routine (which I am not sticking to this morning so I can write a blog post) and things are going pretty smoothly.  We wake up, Owen eats, then I eat, then I take a shower and he plays with his toy.

He's pretty dang awesome.  We went to the doctor the other day for his four month check up.  Note to mommy: don't schedule appointments during nap time - Owen will not be happy with you or the doc.  He cried every time I laid him down on the table, and the entire time the doc was checking him out.  He also had to get some vaccinations, which made him cry even more.  It was a rough visit.  He was fast asleep before the 10 minute car ride home was over.  He now weighs 13 lbs 6 oz.  He is on the growth curve! He is still so tiny compared to all the other four monthers out there, but he is getting bigger finally.

This is what Owen thought of the worst dr. appointment of his life.  Poor little man :(

I just love this little guy so much.  He makes me laugh every day.  I wish we wouldn't have waited so long to have him! 

I can't believe he is already 4 months old.  He's so flippin' adorable!

I'm just gonna shut up now and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Special Delivery

Note:  I started this post about 2 weeks ago... and I really didn't add too much to it, so I'm not really sure why I didn't publish it then. 

Guess who couldn't wait to join the Simons family party?  

Owen Blaine Simons

On Jan 9 at about 1:45 am I thought I was wetting the bed.  I got up and before I made it to the potty, my water was breaking all over the place.  I was FREAKING OUT.  I wasn't ready to have a baby.  The nursery wasn't (still isn't) done, we didn't have a car seat, I hadn't packed the perfect hospital bag, and I was only 36 weeks and 1 day pregnant! So I cleaned up the mess I had made and went downstairs to check the paper of labor signs and what to do that my doctor had just given me at my last appointment.  I read through the part about water breaking, and for some reason decided to go back upstairs and try to go back to sleep.  I went to get into bed, realized that it was kind of wet, and decided to wake up Sam.  Lucky for me he was off work and I wasn't at home alone.  I told him my water had broke and he jumped out of bed and started running around getting ready to leave, while I said, "I'm not ready to go, I don't want to go!"  I just want to clarify how much I was freaking out right then.  I was NOT ready to have a baby.  I was afraid that we would get to the hospital and they would tell me I wasn't really in labor and send me home. I didn't want to go.  Sam told me to call my parents - I didn't want to because they would probably tell me to go to the hospital and I didn't want to go.  I decided to call my mom's phone because I figured she was less likely to answer her phone at 2 am.  I was wrong.  She answered, and after telling her my water broke, I started to cry and told her I wasn't ready.  Then more fluid came out and I cried even more.  I think she might have laughed at me, but I can't say for sure because that whole night is kinda blurry.  Sam (who had been running around like a mad man looking for his keys and wallet) was ready to go and I was still in wet clothes.  So I put on some dry clothes, threw some stuff in the diaper bag, grabbed a towel to sit on, and we went to the hospital.  It's usually about a 40 minute drive and I think we got there in less than 20.  I told Sam we didn't have to go so fast (I was barely even feeling contractions), but he didn't slow down very much.  We got to the hospital, checked in, hung out in triage for about an hour got stuck in the arm 3 times for my IV (I still have one of the bruises), then got sent to a room to play the waiting game.  The first nurse we had was kind of a weirdo. She also had all the sensors on me so tight I'm surprised I could even breathe because for some reason they weren't recording my contractions.  But luckily, shift change rolled around and we got a really awesome nurse.  One of the nurses said I would probably have a baby before noon that day - which is apparently a quick labor (but it didn't seem very quick to me).  I got an epidural around 9 and then I was happy.  I think I pushed for less than an hour, then he was here at 11:22 am.  I was crying, Sam was crying, Owen was crying.  We were a family.  I couldn't believe that I grew that little guy!  The stretched tendons that made moving painful, not being able to sleep on my stomach, peeing all the time, having ankles the size of Texas - that stuff was no big deal.  Even all the stuff that happens to your body after you give birth and no one tells you about doesn't matter.  I had my baby, and he was perfect.  6 lbs 1 oz 18.5 in long.  I never thought I'd have a small baby - but I guess delivering 4 weeks early will give you a small baby even if you and your husband were both 9 lbs when you were born!  

Owen and I stayed in the hospital for 2 days because he was technically pre-term and still having some problems with eating.  I was nice and let Sam go home both nights since the couch-bed was horrible.  

I always said I'd never be one of those women who had pictures of herself looking like crap with her new baby, but every time I look at these pictures I remember how I felt when I held him for the first time and that makes me not care how I look.  I'm glad the awesome nurse took them for us.  

Daddy holding Owen for the first time.

Taking a nap with Papa.

Happy dreams.

Our first family picture... Okay, it was really like the third, but this is the best one we have.  I was just ready to go home after being in the hospital for more than 48 hours.

Ready to go home!

Zoey thinks she is picked on now because she isn't the center of attention anymore.  

He loves the binky.

We love our little man!

In a Nutshell

In case you haven't noticed, I've been really awesome at keeping everybody informed on this pregnancy... Okay, you caught me, that was a little exaggerated.  In actuality, I've sucked at it.  So I'm here today to give you the basic rundown of what it's been like for me.  It might be a pretty long post, so be warned.

1st Trimester:

Here is my first positive pregnancy test.  I think it's kind of weird to put a picture of something you peed on on the internet... but oh well I guess.  And yes, the picture is upside down.  But the plus sign looks the same either way.  I guess if it bothers you, you can just stand on your head or something. 

I think both of these ultrasounds are from the first trimester? The first is from my first visit to my actual doctor as a pregnant lady. (On a side note, it really bothers me a lot when people say "prego" or "preggers" or something like it instead of pregnant.  I don't know why.)  He was just a little blob, back then.  I was by myself because Sam was working the night shift (as has been the case for every single appointment I've had except for the anatomy ultrasound where we found out we are having a boy.)  I think I was about 8 weeks along.

This second ultrasound picture wasn't planned.  It was my very next appointment.  I was with the nurse practitioner for this appointment and she was having a hard time finding the heartbeat with the belly microphone thing, so she used that as an excuse for her to play with the ultrasound machine and for me to get a couple more pictures.  I was okay with that.  It is seriously crazy to me how much development there is in just 4 weeks.  We decided to tell the world I was pregnant.

The first trimester was weird for me.  I was always so tired around 2 pm.  This is when church started for us (until last week - yay for 9am church now!) so it was SUPER hard to stay awake in sacrament meeting.  

I also had no appetite, which would make me a little bit queasy if I didn't eat enough.  Which is a problem, because the only way to get rid of that feeling is to eat, and who wants to eat when you feel like that?! I never really got the typical morning sickness, but it wasn't pleasant.  Saltine crackers became their own food group for me.  Once, Sam said, "that kid is going to come out holding a box of crackers!"  He makes me laugh.  He also said, "when are you going to get over this sickly phase and into the eating all the time phase?"  Oh, husband...

2nd Trimester:

I'm not posting pictures of the initial anatomy ultrasound, but don't worry.  I had to have a follow up appointment after the anatomy ultrasound because they couldn't get a good view of baby's profile. The only pictures I got from the first one were of his parts (he wasn't too shy about showing them off) and a blurry one of his head.  The second round pictures are much better.  

Little man's head, torso, and arm.

I love this one.  All curled up in a little ball.

Little baby feets. 

The 2nd trimester was better than the first.  I wasn't as exhausted all the time, and I could actually eat some stuff without being grossed out.

My anti-craving for the first trimester was ground beef... well, mostly beef in general (besides a hamburger).  I just couldn't even look at it.  I discovered in this trimester it was the seasoning we used that was causing the sensory problems, so I started seasoning it differently and all was well with the world again.  

I got heartburn a lot this trimester.  The first time it happened was right at bedtime and I seriously wanted to cry.  I went to Joseph City to visit my family and had heartburn basically the whole time I was there.  Then Beau introduced me to the magic of Tums and my life was a little bit easier.  

I first felt the baby moving shortly after we found out the sex.  The movement was a lot stronger than I had expected.  I had heard/read that it is just a little flutter, so I guess I was expecting something like butterfly kisses.  Note to self: flutter does not automatically mean butterfly.

My growing uterus stretched out a ligament shortly after my visit to Joseph City.  That made moving painful.  Still does sometimes a lot of the time.

3rd Trimester so far:

I don't have any pictures from this trimester so far.  I will have another ultrasound in the next week or so, though, so there is still a possibility to see our little guy on the inside again.  

I am currently going to the doctor or nurse practitioner every 2 weeks.  The last couple of times I've gone to see the practitioner I've had to wait at least an hour every time for a 15 minute appointment.  Lame.  My next appointment is with her, so I made it for the earliest slot they had available.  Hopefully I won't have to wait as long!

Speaking of waiting, it's getting unbearable.  Especially since Kourtney just had her little girl yesterday and I am now super ready to have my baby too!  Why does he have to cook for so long?!

We are still debating over the middle name.  I want Blaine (after my brother, since my due date is the day after his birthday), Sam wants Brett (which we had decided on before I decided I wanted to name him after my brother). 

I have the best husband ever.  One day Sam texted me and told me to go treat myself to a manicure and pedicure.  I only got the pedicure (because I'm cheap), but it was wonderful.  As a friend from my ward said, pedicures are the way to a pregnant girl's heart.  Truer words were never spoken.  

Sometimes my feet get swollen and they won't even fit into my cowboy boots, which makes me really sad.  But since it is December and the temperatures are still in the 70s and 80s (lame), this hasn't been too much of a problem because I can usually just wear my flip flops.  This will probably not be the case when we go out of town for Christmas to a place where the seasons actually follow protocol.

I just want to be able to sleep on my stomach again. 

60 days of pregnancy left until the due date... but who's counting?

There is a land called Passive Aggresivia and I am their queen

I realize it has been over a month since I have posted here, and I realize that everyone wants an update on Baby Boy.  Sorry to say, this will not be a baby post.  This will be a ranting post.

I went and got fast food for dinner tonight and when I came home I noticed something wedged in my front door.  I pulled it out and found this:

Please click on it and read it.  I think the person who left this letter was just waiting for me to leave so they could put this in my door without any confrontation.  I am the last person to want any kind of conflict, but this just really rubbed me the wrong way.

To whoever sent me this letter:  I really don't know where to start here.  I'm just very annoyed.  Yes, we do have a doggy door.  You're not going to convince me it's a bad thing.  We lock Zoey inside at night.  If there is a night when we are up late, I leave it unlocked until we go to sleep, but if she goes out and starts barking, I make her stop and come inside.  If Sam is up early getting ready for work and she goes outside and starts barking, he makes her stop and come inside.  Once she comes inside, whether it is late at night or early in the morning, we make her calm down and that is usually the end of the barking.  As for her barking "all day long," yes, Zoey barks during the day.  Mostly when she hears other dogs bark.  So maybe your dog may be just as much to blame as my dog.  And this may come as a shock to you, but sometimes there is nothing we can do to monitor this because we go places occasionally and leave the dog at home (imagine that!).  As for not being able to sleep with the windows open at night, BULL CRAP.  We have been sleeping with the windows open for a few weeks now.  This is not a problem because as I said earlier, the dog is locked inside at night.  Also, I'm pretty sure "waken" isn't a word, and if it is, I don't think you used it correctly.  "Woken" would have been better.  Which brings up another point:  learn proper apostrophe usage.  In my opinion, your poor grammar weakens your argument. 

Don't mess with me people, I'm full of pregnancy hormones that make me extra irritable.

Days off

Sam just had 5 days in a row off.  Let me tell you the last time that happened.  November.  Maybe December.  Point is, even though he has a scheduled week off every month, he usually works overtime for at least 3 of the 7 days.  We had plans for what we were going to do.  We were going to take Zoey to the bark park, go bowling, maybe even catch a movie.  I even had this idea that maybe we'd go to Madera Canyon for a day.  We didn't do any of that.  Instead, we spent most of his days off watching season 8 of Grey's Anatomy.  I've already seen it, but Sam had only seen the first few episodes of the season, so I decided to re-watch it with him.  Did that stop me from crying at every single sad part? Nope.  Being pregnant makes everything 10 times more sad, and if you've watched Grey's Anatomy, you know that it can be pretty sad to begin with, so just imagine the state I was in!

In other, more EXCITING news, yesterday we found out we are going to be having a little boy! I kind of had a feeling it was going to be a boy, but Sam was sure that we were having a girl.  We had to wait almost an hour after my appointment time to actually have the ultrasound, but it was worth the wait.

I hadn't bought any baby stuff before yesterday.  I just wanted to be able to buy something specifically for this baby, not just something that could be for a boy or a girl.  So after lunch, I talked Sam into taking me to Target and getting a few clothes for baby boy.  Has anyone noticed that there is a much larger selection for girls than there is for boys? (that's what it seemed like at Target yesterday, anyway.)  We managed to find a couple things that we liked in the newborn section, and I am so excited! I have a feeling this little boy is going to be kind of spoiled.  I already can't wait to go shopping for him again!

Oh baby!

In case you haven't heard....

I'm pregnant! Also, I think that picture is hilarious.  I knew as soon as I saw it that I was going to use it to tell everyone I was pregnant. Even though the same day I posted it on facebook someone went and shared it to remind everyone she was pregnant too.  Hello?! You already told everyone... this was my idea.  Get your own!  I'm not angry or anything...

So this is the reason the blog department has been lacking lately.  I knew if I blogged I would spill the beans!    

Now, as you might remember, I am going back to school in August of next year, so we knew we only had a short window of time to get a baby here.  I didn't want to leave a newborn with a babysitter while I went to school.  So in March or April we decided that if I wasn't pregnant by the end of May, we were going to have to wait until I was done with school.  Here's the deal.  We've been trying to get pregnant since January.  I got my IUD out the end of November and then was SUPER irregular in the monthly visitor department.  As in more than 2 months passed between visits.  I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the hormones in my birth control.  We'll see if I use that method again.  Pre-IUD I was never late.  Never. There were a few times when I really thought I was pregnant due to this irregularity (and I was extremely sad when I found out I wasn't).  I even went to my doctor at the end of April to see what the deal was, and she suggested I get an ultrasound to check everything out.  Well I'm kind of a procrastinator and I kept putting it off.  I decided to make the appointment after we got back from our trip to San Diego.  We got back from our trip, and big surprise (not) I was about a week late.  So I decided to just take a test.  I had two random tests floating around without boxes, and I figured I might as well use them so they wouldn't go to complete waste.  When the results came, I had to Google the result to see if it meant I was pregnant or not since I didn't have the box to tell me which symbol meant what.  When I saw what the result meant, I went back to the room and told Sam "I think I'm pregnant."  It was about 5 in the morning on his day off, so I think he said something like "Okay" and went back to sleep.  He was really excited.  A few days later I took another test (just to be sure) and this one said I was pregnant too.  I thought we were going to wait a few days to tell anyone (including family) but Sam started calling his dad and brothers and grandpa right away.  So I guess he really was excited!  

So baby Simons will be here early February.  Sam always said he didn't want to find out the sex of the baby until he/she was born, but I'm pretty sure I have him convinced otherwise now.  We are super duper excited.  I had an ultrasound the other day and baby was jumping all around in there.  Sometimes I get really nervous about everything, but I think the excitement outweighs the anxiety.  Good thing I still have about 7 months to prepare!

San Diego

Number of times I've seen the movie Anchorman: 1
Number of times out of 10 I want to say, "Stay classy, San Diego.  I'm Ron Burgundy?" whenever I think of or say San Diego:  10.

Anyway, we went to San Diego for a few days this month with my parents, Zach, Kourtney, Brigette, Tera and Austin.  Here's the rundown of our trip:

Thursday night:  Sam gets home from work and we head to Mesa to meet everyone.  Zach and Kourtney were supposed to be on their way already, but their car got broken into.  Thankfully, only a pair of sunglasses was stolen.  So we stay the night in Mesa.  We watched some of Jimmy Fallon's Late Show and this little skit happened.  Many laughs were had.

Friday:  Dad, Mom and Austin leave, and the rest of us go to get the window in the suburban fixed.  We leave and take a weird (scary) detour through a field and closed road, almost run out of gas because Zach forgot to get gas in Yuma,  and eventually show up at the rental house.  We went to the Rock N Roll Marathon Expo and Dad and Kourtney got the stuff for their run.  Back to the house.  Let me just tell you about this house: It was like the people who lived in it wanted to make some money so they just packed up for the weekend and left.  All of their stuff was still there, it was dirty, there was no room for anything of ours, there were dirty clothes in hampers, and mouse poo.  Not what we were expecting, so we got a refund and a hotel.

Saturday:  Sam and I went to a Spanish Session at the San Diego Temple with Mom and Dad.  Sam was excited, and the rest of us got to wear headphones the whole time.  I really just wanted to stay in the temple all day.  I just love going to the temple, and the San Diego temple is the biggest and most beautiful one I've ever been in.  I'm ready to go back now.

Bad picture of me! Yay!

After the temple we went to Sea World! Sam and I had never been before, and I was pretty stoked.  We didn't see everything, and Sam took a lot of pictures of the different animals, but I mostly just have pictures of some of the shows from my phone right now, so they'll have to do.  We had fun, and got to cross Sea World off of our list.

After Sea World, we wanted to go to Olive Garden so Dad and Kourtney could carb-load for the race the next day, but there was about a 2 hour wait, so we found a local place and waited for about 15 minutes instead.  We let a random Marine eat with us.  We're nice sometimes.  

Sunday:  Dad and Kourtney woke up really early to go run 13.1 miles (does anyone else find this completely insane?!). When they got back, we went to Coronado beach.  Sam had never seen the ocean before, and the inlets in town just were not enough for him.  We didn't swim since it was only about 70 degrees outside, but I made Sam walk out into the water.  We decided that when we're millionaires,  we're going to buy a house there and live there sometimes.  

 After the beach we headed to Petco Park for a DBacks vs Padres game.  Another first for Sam.  We got matchy-matchy jerseys for the game.  I was ridiculously excited about that.  Sam had to make his experience authentic.  He had 2 huge hot dogs, and of course, peanuts and cracker jack.  The Diamondbacks won 6-0! I think there were 3 home runs.  It was a pretty good game (for us DBacks fans, anyways!) 

Navy Appreciation day at Petco Park

Super excited!

On Monday we headed home.  Zach, Kourtney, Austin and the girls went to Disneyland.  Even though Sam has never been and I wanted to go, we decided to wait until we have kids old enough to enjoy Disneyland with.  Sam said he would feel silly going, even though I've told him several times that you can never be too old for Disneyland.

Good times.