Fashion Sense

With a little moral support from Ben, Jack selected his outfit and put it on all by himself.  Ok, the motivation was a new Transformer if he could do it.  But still, success! 

Behold:

• Clashing reds (even the undies and socks have red, he claims it's his favorite color)
• Long sleeves and shorts
• Shorts put on backwards

A perfect outfit for a three year old, don't you think?

Counting down, getting bigger

August feels like I'm stalled.  It's warmed up a little, touching into the 90s some days.  Blech.  The colds Jack and I had lingered for about 10 days.  I had a few days of feeling better, but the last couple days I've had a worsening stuffy nose and sore throat with cough.  Ugh.  It would be totally unfair if this turned into another full blown illness.

My hospital bag is packed, my birth plan (brief as it is) is printed out, and my friends on stand-by for taking Jack.  Sure, with his birth I still had almost 4 weeks at this point.  But it could come anytime now so I'm preparing just in case.

No sign of the dreaded SI joint pain I had last time.  The ongoing right groin pain is still there and as bad as ever.  I'm pretty sure it's round ligament pain, according to the descriptions I read.  The little guy has also taken to kneeing me in the ribs on my right side.

Jack and I have been talking a lot about babies and what will happen when he is born.  He seems to have a pretty good grasp on the change.  We look at pictures of himself as a baby to reinforce how small and boring they start out.  He saw this picture yesterday:

So we took this picture when Ben came home:

My goals each day are fairly short: do some house cleaning, entertain Jack with errands or playgrounds, work online while he naps, knit.  Here's some playground action:

This is the "Bear Bridge" park at Majestic View in Arvada





And this is the Peter Pan Park in Westminster.  Ben suggested it and I'm so glad he did!  It's adorable and well designed.  Shaded picnic tables for mom, restrooms and drinking fountains, and a theme that's perfect for Jack.  They have various structures to be Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Darling House (with Shadow Peter Pan in a window), Captain Hook's ship (with crocodile), and Neverland (with rock tower slide, tree hide-out, and hollow log).







I read online that this wading area is supposed to represent the Thames.  :-) 





Pro tip: dress your kid in neon clothes so you can easily pick him out in the crowd.

Weekends are super fun, even though I'm sick and whale-like.  It's so nice to have Ben around for company, conversation, and his share of pee clean-ups and lunch refills.  Jack is obsessed with his dad and pesters him like a moth to a light when he is home. 

Amanda and I went to see Peter and the Starcatcher last weekend and I LOVED it.  So glad she could get me tickets.  If it's not too late I highly recommend you see it in Denver before it moves on in the tour (Amanda has a discount code if you email her).  We had a delicious meal at the French place Le Grand Bistro.  It was only a one block walk back to the Ellie Opera House for the show, about as far as I can walk these days.  

The next day Jack filmed his piece for Brian's latest movie.  He did great playing with Mavi while Brian and Jeff scrambled around to arrange all the shots they needed.  We had pizza dinner together afterwards and dessert at my place, while watching Hot Fuzz on our projection screen.  Man, I love our basement.  









Last night we tried out a local ice cream place, Scrumptious.  I prefer Sweet Action's recipe better, but this place was fun and waaaay closer to our house.  Ben also grabbed some Mannekin Frites and I wished I hadn't bothered to cook and eat dinner so I could have some too.  Delicious. 

I have tickets to see The World's End at the Alamo Drafthouse tomorrow night.  I've been looking forward to that for months, so this cold had better pass by.  I might have to rest tonight by re-watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix and knitting baby socks instead of going out. 

Mondays

I woke up to Jack having a coughing fit.  I tried to let him get back to sleep for 10 minutes, but I could see that the coughing wouldn't stop.  I got him out of bed, 45 minutes early. 

We went to the potty.  He sprayed the wall.  While correcting aim, he sprayed my eyes. 

My. eyes.

Urine in my eyes, folks. 

The day can only get better from here, right?

You can't call in sick from home

Jack and I are sick.  It's a long, lingering head cold we started Tuesday night.  Jack was mostly congestion, I had mostly sore throat.  But I think we are trading symptoms here in the last couple days.  His coughing last night kept me up, along with what I guess would be an anxiety attack about coordinating the house to get to the hospital in case I go into labor on my own.  I couldn't sleep for hours.  Maybe the cold or the benedryl contributed.  Or just the fact that I'm a month from my due date. Either way, not sleeping last night made today the worst of the week for me.  I couldn't go to church and didn't get out of bed until noon.  I finally started to feel better late afternoon, just well enough to converse with my boys.

Anyway, lots of sick and laying low this week.  Mostly we wear sweatpants and stay at home.  At times we felt better, and could get out to do things.  Friday Ben and I went on a date to the Alamo, a much needed break for adult time.  Last night we went to the Denver County Fair.  I probably should have stayed home to rest, but it sounded really fun and I felt bad dragging Ben down for the weekend.  He took a lot of photos, if those get up I'll share them with you. 

I also babysat Wolfie, bought a new dishwasher, unpacked and decorated the nursery, packed my hospital bags, finished Jack's sweater, and did the sundry other chores I must do to keep the house humming. 

Oh, the owl, I forgot that I wanted to tell you about that.  We ordered this alarm clock for Jack and it's FANTASTIC.  I had been working on him getting out of bed himself, so when the baby comes he doesn't need me to retrieve him from his room.  He did great after a few days, but wasn't really understanding when it was ok to come out.  Sometimes he would come downstairs 20 minutes after I put him down, expected praise for waking up on his own.  This owl from Amazon is an alarm clock that works brilliantly.  Jack loves it and follows it faithfully.  It glows orange, says "Go back to sleep now" and plays lullabies if you press its belly and it's not time to wake up yet.  It turns green at the appointed time, and says "It's time to wake up" if you press the belly after wake time.  You can set night and nap modes, it's super easy to program, and again-Jack adores him.  We've had 100% sleep and wake behavior since we started using it last week. 

11 Year Anniversary in Manitou Springs

For our anniversary this year we took a family vacation in Colorado.  Manitou Springs has been on our list of local places to visit for a while.  We planned a short weekend trip for Ben, me, Jack, and my big belly.  The photos are a mix from my phone and from Ben's good camera.  You can see our entire sets on our flickr accounts here and here. 



We drove into town midday Friday and started downtown.  There's a very cute, if very touristy, downtown scene.  Weird little souvenir shops and almost every other place sells ice cream.  Best of all for Ben and Jack, there is an arcade.  Rich with modern and vintage devices, we spent a good deal of quarters and dimes here.  Jack was ecstatic about the rows and rows of ride machines. 






























After walking around a bit we checked into our little hotel and put our feet up, hoping Jack would take a little nap.  He didn't, but Ben did, and I think he needed it more than Jack anyway.  That guy works really hard.



We had a nice pizza dinner before going back downtown.  Jack and I split off to wander, so Ben could spend some real time playing games at his speed.  Then we met up for more games and ticket cashing in.  It was a simple day, but we were super tired by the end of it.












Saturday we checked out of the hotel and went the short drive to our main attraction: the Cog Railway up Pike's Peak.  This is a very old cog rail track that goes all the way to the summit of Pike's.  That's right: I "climbed" a fourteener when I was 34 1/2 weeks pregnant!  Honestly, I was pretty worried about handling the altitude, the tiny old fashioned seats, and being trapped without a bathroom for the 1.5 hour trip each way.  But it ended up being very tolerable and quite enjoyable.  We had pleasant seat-mates visiting from Minnesota who took a real shine to Jack and helped keep him entertained. 

The views were amazing.  The pace was slow enough to see the flowers as you passed by, so there wasn't any motion-sickness problem.  I saw a pika, a mule deer, six marmots, and four big horn sheep! Ben took Jack out around the summit while I mostly staying put.  It was a little alarming how fast my heart was pumping and breathless I felt, just from walking around the top.  But we were only up there for 30 minutes before they boarded us back on the train.  Not long enough for anyone to get really ill.  Even so, I was glad to know the gift shop at the summit sold oxygen if I needed it. 





















While I stayed up here




They went down there





















(None of us were as enthusiastic about the downhill trip.  It was well past nap time and lunch time)




The train got back at the station in the afternoon and we were pretty tuckered.  A quick stop to one of those springs for Ben to fill bottles, then we got lunch and went on the road home.  What a wonderful little trip!