What To Do

So I've discovered that my prenatal pills are partly responsible for my morning sessions of toilet diving.  I absolutely despise throwing up so I'm one of those who will fight it off until the bitter end.  The last few days have literally been so horrifying because all I've done is fight it off, fight it off, fight it off.  I actually started eating more because at least while I'm eating I feel a tad bit better and it puts something in my stomach that can come up later.

Well, yesterday morning I just couldn't take it anymore and I walked into the bathroom and just let it all go.  I had the absolute worst taste in my mouth in the midst of all this and realized I had just thrown up my prenatal pills.  Call it a coincidence, but I felt better yesterday than I have thus far.  My mom advised taking the pills after I had eaten a square meal and see if that helped at all.

This morning I made myself an english muffin with peanut butter and ate a few pieces of Evan's watermelon.  I washed it all down with a big glass of milk.    Finally I reached for my pills, popped them in my mouth, swallowed and waited.  It only took about 20 -30 minutes before I had to make a dash for the bathroom.  It was a lot more pleasant having something substantial come up rather than bile and medication.  That was probably too much information, but it's true.  I'm still really nauseous 4 hours later, but I'm not sure if the pills made it out this time.  I'm still pretty certain these particular pills are not agreeing with me.

What to do?  Keep buying different brands until I find one not so bothersome?  That seems like a lot of trial and error, not to mention wasted money - but I will literally do anything at this point to be able to keep my breakfast.

Preggo Takeover

I'm gonna do my best not to let my pregnancy take over this blog because naturally that's what pregnancy rants would do - but I'm gonna focus on keeping a good balance.  For documenting purposes, I definitely want to keep track of how my body responds to this particular pregnancy because I think it's going to be completely different than the first time around.  With that being said...

I am SOOOO nauseous!  In the morning I either make a dash towards the toilet or I'm lingering around the bathroom ready to make the move.  The remainder of the day is spent fighting off that urge.  I feel better when I eat, but as soon as I'm done the nausea is back.  This is, by far, one of the worst feelings in the world.  I think I'd rather have the flu for a few days than nausea for 3 months!  I was lucky with Evan and never experienced this torture.  I may have had a week or two where I felt queasy at times, but nothing compared to my current situation.  I was at a meeting this morning and I was so nauseous that I began sweating and my mouth was watering - I was two seconds away from bolting out of my chair to the bathroom.  Luckily, I overcame it, but my boss was looking at me as though I was diseased.  Might as well be, I guess.

And to not leave Evan out of today's happenings - he found some dried up dog poop on the bottom of a sneaker this afternoon and found out it didn't taste so good.  While I freaked out, Robert laughed.  It was a very small piece, but like I needed anything else to induce vomiting.  It was his breath that finally did it.

Soon to be Four

Evan will be a proud big brother in about 33 weeks.  With summer being our goal for baby number two, this came as somewhat of a surprise, but we were thrilled nonetheless! 

We had our first doctor's appointment today to confirm everything and to get our prenatal agenda set.  We are scheduled for our first ultrasound in exacly 4 weeks.  I was hoping it would be sooner - but I guess we got lucky with our OB in Fort Myers.  She did an ultrasound with Evan at 6 weeks so we were able to hear his heartbeat a lot earlier than normal.

We're really excited to see Evan step up to the big brother role.  I think he'll be extremely involved and attached immediately.  He was kissing a kid in the Sprint store today for crying out loud - he's ready!

And this is t-shirt #2 I referred to in my last post.  Robert has requested a couple more that I might put together this week.  I'm on a roll right now so if you have a birthday coming up you know what you're getting.

Toddler Tees

After perusing Etsy's large inventory of homemade t-shirts for toddlers, I realized that it would be silly for me to not at least attempt to make one of my own for Evan - I mean how hard can it be?

Obviously screen printing and anything too advanced in the sewing department is completely out my league, so I was gravitating towards the simple less involved shirts.  I came across several with appliques, using various animals and objects, but the dinosaur was my favorite.  And Evan loves his dinosaurs.

So to recreate what I saw, I bought a cheap t-shirt from Wal-Mart, heat bonding paper (thank you, Dixie, for my gift card to Hobby Lobby), felt and some matching thread.

I drew the dinosaur on the felt, cut it out, applied the bonding paper to the back and ironed it on to the t-shirt.  For reinforcement, I stitched around the edges of the dinosaur.  I will not allow a close-up because my stitching  is borderline horrendous - but it's barely noticable.  One day I'll invest in a sewing machine.  T-shirt #2 will be revealed tomorrow.  And you won't want to miss that one!

Noted Developments

I have to keep reminding myself to make a point to record Evan's developments because I will, without a doubt, be that parent who won't be able to recall the age when their child first said please or thank you or announced he had a "stinky." (by the way - my dad thinks it's ridiculous that we ask Evan if he has a stinky.  He thinks we should express it in a more masculine manner by asking if he - get this- took a dump.  What!? Crass, I know.  No wonder I was such a tomboy growing up.)

So it's important to note that Evan's language has really developed over the last month (18 mo - 19 mo).  He likes to mimic everything I say now which is very entertaining.  His pronunciations are a bit off, but that makes it even funnier.  For example, he loves calling for our dog, Peppers.  Except when he calls for him it sounds more like this:  *scream* Peppooo! *scream* Peppooo!  He screams every time he gets excited and he'll do it over and over again.  It happens every morning when the garbage truck comes down our road too.  He screams and runs to the window and almost tears the blinds off.  He screams over and over again, "It's a guck!  It's a guck!"  It's even more entertaining when the truck comes really early and Evan is still in his crib - through the monitor we hear, *scream* "It's a guck!" *scream* "It's a guck!" 

While my family was here last week it took Evan all of a few minutes to learn who was Mimi and who was Todd.  He loves to announce when someone is walking into the room.  If my mom would walk in he would point and say, "It's Mimi."  Or when Todd would come in he'd say, "It's To (pronounced with a short o).  He attempted to say grandpa a few times, but it just wasn't flowing correctly.  So he settled for dada which was a little creepy.

In addition to an increased vocabulary, he knows all of the animals and their sounds, he knows his body parts and where they are and he knows shapes and colors - among other things.  He loves to sit in my lap with a book and I'll ask him to point to all the different things on the page.  He is always so proud of himself when we make it to the last page because his favorite part is saying "the end."

And the one, not so pleasant, development is his constant use of the word "no."  He says it ALL the time.  He'll say it even when there's no need to say it.  My mom made a good point when she said he probably likes hearing himself say that particular word.  It is one of the few words he says correctly, so that could definitely be the case.  It's not so cute however when we're strolling through the grocery store and he's repeatedly saying "no, no, no.  Other shoppers are looking at me like don't you discipline your child?  It doesn't help that he looks like he's 3 years old either.

He's growing up fast.

Crayons Are Boring

Man, how I love washable paints.  I don't have to worry about Evan wrestling off a smock or deciding half way through to fingerpaint.  I can give him the freedom to paint and know that all the colors will wipe up and wash out later.  So much for my love of coloring - crayons I guess are too boring for Evan.  Go figure.

Daytona 500

And the verdict is...

A pretty awesome experience.  I still think the sport of car racing is pointless, but the Nascar experience is one of a kind.

What I enjoyed most was people watching.  As you can imagine, there were some rather interesting characters roaming around.  The hair dos were hideous, the outfits frightening and the behavior just plain outrageous - but all very entertaining.

The race was delayed too many times to even count so we didn't stay for the entire time.  But during the delays we met quite a few fans who were, without question, having a good 'ole time.  We cheered them on as they bonged their budweisers and they shared many stories that had us laughing for the duration of the delays.

This experience was certainly a memorable one for me.  But I"m not so sure it will be memorable for everyone.  I guess the Speedway can be blamed for that seeing how they allow fans to bring in their own coolers of beer.  What other sporting event allows that?  Only Nascar, of course.

Cheers to Todd and Katie for a good time.

Gearing Up

My mom didn't want Evan to feel left out while Todd and I are at the race tomorrow - so she bought him a new jacket so he would fit right in to Daytona's racing scene.

Revvin' It Up On Valentine's Day

Sometimes I consider myself lucky on Valentine's Day because while the rest of you suckers are racking your brains on what to do for your better half, I get to treat the day as if it doesn't even exist.   Most of you are aware that because of the industry Robert is in, Valentine's Day happens to be his busiest day of the year - with the exception of Mother's Day.  So while he caters to hundreds of couples this year professing their love over a very expensive dinner, I will be...

AT THE DAYTONA 500!  Yes, friends, in exchange for a romantic dinner out, I'm gladly trading in for a hootin' hollerin' time at Nascar's International Speedway.  And my date for this first-time experience is my brother, Todd.  With Robert's connections to the Speedway, he was able to not only score us great tickets, but we also have pre-race pit passes.  Now as long as I can keep Todd away from Earnhardt Jr. I'll be in good shape.  He has, what I like to call, a man crush on Dale Jr.  But it seems all of Daytona does so maybe we won't stand out too bad.

I'm excited for the experience simply because I've never been to a race and you really can't get much bigger than the Daytona 500.  Even if the experience proves to be miserable, at least I can say I've been there.  But I know Todd will love it, so it will be worth it no matter what my opinion is...

Check back for pictures.

Oh, and babe, I will be sure to have a piping hot dinner ready for you when you get home Sunday night - and yes, you are reading that correctly.  It's Valentine's Day after all.

Thoughts Opinions Suggestions

I had the tedious task this week of building the website for Buzz's Roost (our business in SC).  I haven't built a website since my first job out of college - I was definitely a little rusty.  I had to reteach myself so many different skills which took almost three days in itself.

I have the site built.  There are a few pages without content because I am waiting for our General Manager to send over the information.  It will be up as soon I receive it.  Until then I'd like for you to visit the site and give me your thoughts, opinions or suggestions.  Buzz's Roost

A Visit to the Lowcountry

We spent as much time in the car this weekend as we did at our actual destination.  That's the price you pay when you own a business out-of-state, I guess.  We drove 14 hours to Georgetown, SC on Saturday only to have 21 hours to spend there.  The time spent, however, was well worth the trip.

This was my first appearance at our restaurant/bar since we acquired the business.  It's been difficult for me to get up there having Evan to worry about, but we worked out all the kinks to make it happen this weekend.  The weather had a dismal impact on our Saturday's lunch business, but it certainly had no effect on the night life.  We witnessed one of our better weekends as far as sales go.  And there's definitely something sweet about drinking a beer in your own bar.  It was a mighty good feeling.

With a new surge of energy and motivation, Robert and I have been throwing around ideas left and right on how we can improve the business.  The potential seems pretty much endless which is very exciting!  As season approaches we are nothing less than optimistic about what to expect from the restaurant. I'm just crossing my fingers that we're well prepared.

With our website in the works, I will share a little Buzz's Roost love with a few pictures - but check us out on Facebook too!