a scarlett grace pictorial retrospective

the night before

5am, june 28th

about 20 minutes old

is the epidural still on?

proud papa

reagan was a little apprehensive at first...

...but then he warmed up to her.

sweet child(ren) o' mine

scarlett grace simpson is here! and no i don't have any pictures. seriously. we have taken photos aplenty, but i am experiencing some downloading difficulty. of course. why would this be easy?
a play by play
tuesday, we noticed some strange dripping noises coming from our air conditioner. we check it out and discover that our hall closet and the guest/storage/baby room 's carpet is soaked. i call the landlady and by that afternoon an AC crew and a carpet installation crew have been over and the AC is fixed and the carpet in the guest/storage/baby room is ripped out. down to the cement. should this surprise us? does anything ever go off without a hitch? so, after all my nesting and organizing and preparation, my house is still a wreck. love it. everything from the closet and room has to be moved to other parts of the house. i only cried for a few minutes.
wednesday, we picked my mom up at the airport and spent the day enjoying my last day of pregnancy and all the finer points of suburban montgomery.
thursday morning thomas and i headed to the hospital at 5am and by 7:30am i was all hooked up with the pitocin and the epidural and ready to go. i brought gone with the wind with me to watch while i labored and by the ending credits 4 hours later i was ready to push. very fast labor. didn't feel a thing. i recommend it to everyone. i pushed for about 10 minutes and at 11:57am scarlett grace came into the world. it was a very surreal moment for me. with reagan's delivery there were baby complications and i was very groggy and they shut the epidural off immediately so i was more conscious of the pain than the baby. this time i was completely aware that i had a baby and i was overcome with emotion. basically i was speechless, which is a rare occurance in these parts. i was able to hold her for a while after birth. pretty neat. she weighed 6 lbs 13 ounces and she has a good amount of dark, nearly black hair. her eyes are hazy, but i am pretty sure they are going to be green, like mine. bytheway, she is beautiful. pretty close to perfect. take my word for it. and a great eater and a great sleeper.
reagan and my mom came by later that day and at first reagan was a little iffy about this little blob that we kept calling sister. eventually he warmed up to her and hugged and kissed "BB". i have some great pictures of it. honestly. then he completely forgot about her and decided to jump all over the couch.
the carpet crew came back that day and recarpeted and put back all our furniture while we were gone. so everything worked out in the end.
that is about all of the saga. i hope to have the camera problems remedied by tomorrow.
one neat thing about the hospital: motorized wheel chairs. it was great! when i was being transported to my room they let me drive myself over in a scooter. i felt like a senior citizen at the mall! it was so fun!

the end is near!

this past wednesday was my most recent visit to el doctoro. he has finally relented on scheduling an induction date and i am exploding(giving birth) on june 28th! hurray! the end is near! panic and mass hysteria have set in as i realized that everything that i planned to do before scarlett arrived has not been done! the past few days have been a whirlwind of organizing and planning family activities to be done before scarlett "graces" us with her prescence. i am so punny.
first off was a trip to the fountain and books a million. reagan would bankrupt us if he could just by throwing all our "moneys" in the fountain. afterwards, we went and played with the thomas the tank engine track at BAM and consumed frosties on the way home.

we love the moneys!


have i fooled you? does this photo look candid? me at 37 weeks!

one of reagan's most favorite things to do is to go the "wah-tah". we try and go to the pool at the ymca as often as possible. it is pretty much the only time that i don't feel like a lumbering bear. (someone i chose to be with forever gave me that loving nickname.) our ymca also has a small water park. it is fantastic! we spent part of saturday enjoying the benefits of our membership!

"i have no fat anywhere on my body!!! mwwaahahaha!" seriously, the kid has a negative body fat percentage. it is like trying to dress a pencil. he can wear 3T shorts because of his height, but he can still wear some 18M t-shirts. he just *barely* graduated to size 4 diapers. and we can still make size 3 work if we need to.

one MAJOR drawback is that every hour they clear the pools for ten minutes of "adult swim". i hate it. the kids hate it. no adults come to the pool by themselves to swim. basically, it is a bunch of empty pools and cranky kids and irritated parents chasing their children so that they don't go jump back in the water. this is reagan being grumpy. he has the most pathetic moan, "waaahh-tahh".

i am not topless. it just looks that way. but it would be a good way to pay for the membership.

reagan jumping into the water. thomas got a good shoulder workout.
what a hottie. and reagan is cute. the end.

a post filled with bragging

a realization was made recently. my baby is not a toddler! he is a big little boy! it was a bittersweet revelation. i must say that i love this age the best! reagan is so independent and can accomplish so many tasks! he loves to help with laundry and put away silverware and make the bed. and he has his own cleaning bottle full of water so that he can spray things down and wipe them. makes for slippery tile, however. some tasks he still struggles with, like spoon to mouth or all the toys in the toy bin or listening when i tell him not to do something, but he amazes me everyday with the things he can do. just yesterday he greeted me with "bwess you, bubba!" not sure where that came from because i hadn't sneezed, but he has since repeated it after subsequent sneezes therefore making him a boy genius.
also, he loves loves loves to announce when he has gone pee pee or poo poo. potty training is on the way!

reagan and daddy reading after consuming a pudding cup!

watching the "bawl show" on tv. reagan is obsessed with anything with a ball. he has loved the NBA playoffs being on each night and each morning wants to watch espn. which, frankly, i am thrilled about because that means ABC singalong isn't constantly on. i can only stand hearing "b-i-n-g-o" so much. and i despise "kukaburra lives in the old gum tree"! plus, when we go and watch thomas play baseball with his office league, he sits as still as a statue on the bench and watches the whole game. i could probably stay home. he is mesmerized by the "bawl". funny funny thing he does is whenever someone jumps or slides or dives for a ball, so does reagan.

bytheway, if you didn't know, we are having a drought. this is from today playing in the dead grass and dirt.

bouncing on a ball.

this is how the whole yard looks up close. bits of grass with huge cracks. the one plus is that there is minimal humidty and few mosquitos so evenings are quite pleasant.
that blob at the bottom is my stomach. this is what i see whenever i look down.

speed of light/lump

this is so me right now. i am totally nesting. like beyond belief. i get up in the morning in light speed and i decide that everyone should have scrambled eggs and then i need to reorganize the kitchen counter organizer and then there is that area of the floor that never seems to look clean enough so it needs me to get on my hands and knees and scrub it and reagan needs a milk refill (mohhr chock guck pease!") and thomas needs his lunch packed and then i decide that i want to be the first person at the childwatch drop off at the gym so reagan and i have to be out the door by 7:55 to be there at 8am. and then we come home from the gym and shower and have snacks and organize the toy bin and stack the magazine piles and make sure the shoes in my closet are color coded and stacked by usage frequency. perhaps we should go to the wal-mercado and get supplies for the week and stop by the "club" on the way home for bulk cereal and milk, in case a nuclear war breaks out and i won't be able to go tomorrow. then lunch time and reading time and nap time and finding all 13 balls that reagan has to have in his bed at nap time and at that point i collapse because i finally am tired. and then the rest of the afternoon is for menial reagan-less tasks and email checking because i can sit down. the speed of lump. i shuffle myself through dinner preparations and then i clean up and recline in my chair to reduce the swelling in my feet and watch an episode of law and order:SVU on rerun after reagan goes to bed.

if only i could be this nesty when baby sister gets here. too bad it doesn't work that way.

girl stuff

just wanted to show off two of the fun things i have received from friends for scarlett grace's impending arrival.
my incredibly craft friend, hilary, made this tower of diapers for me and put all sorts of fun girl things on it. there are several different pairs of socks that she hand-applied beading to. where did she get the patience and desire to do that? who knows, she already has two kids of her own.

anywhoo, i was thrilled and pleased!

one of my other friends, jessica, made this pillowcase dress for scarlett grace,(she is starting her own dressmaking biz if anyone else is interested). amazing! i don't know about where y'all live, but these are all the rage down South. all the little girls have them and they have monogramming on the front. then when they get older, they can be converted into a swingy shirt! i wish i could wear it!

in other news, i went to el doctoro yesterday and somehow he agreed to induce me during my 39th week! hooray! so that means that scarlett grace will be here sometime around june 28, 29 or 30th! thank goodness for a doctor that understands how important it is to book your mother's plane ticket so that it is affordable!

finally, hopefully everyone noticed my use of scarlett grace's middle name, 4 times now! that is the name that thomas picked to accomodate the first name. i think it sounds great. i can't wait to yell it out the back door!

randomness abounds in this post

first- a pregnancy update:
i went to the doctor today for my 32 week check up. all is well. however, i have been struggling with restless legs, mostly at night. i asked my doctor what to do and he said that i should have thomas take a baseball bat to my head because it was probably keeping him up nights too. i decided to stick with the routine i had already been doing. it has been helping so far. at the gym, i do the leg press machine(you know, the one that makes you feel like you are pushing the baby out?) and calf raises and lunges with dumbells and some other stuff i can't recall the name of but they are extensions of some sort and then do 30 minutes on the elliptical. i can definitely tell a difference on the days i don't lift weights than they days i do. my legs are much calmer. hopefully it is not just in my mind. the other thing that helps is resting in my new birthday recliner.

reagan has claimed my new birthday recliner as his own...

...even before we put it together. (pants are so overrated!)
tada... in all it's glory! this recliner has made a world of difference with heartburn, restless legs, and relaxing. plus it rocks, so scarlett will know what it is like to be rocked to sleep. reagan just had to put up with me rocking him without a rocking chair.

pregnancy cravings- banana pops, corn on the cob, milk(soothes my heartburn), corn tortilla casserole smothered in red sauce(does not soothe my heartburn), root beer, handfulls of shredded cheese, julia kilgore's fantastaco soup(murder on my heartburn), baby carrots by the pound, green beans, new potatoes(any vegetable really) and surprise of all surprises ICE CREAM!




my birthday cake. i asked for extra frosting roses. and then i told thomas that we are not sharing this cake. it is just for us. it lasted about 4 days.

in other news:
reagan is now the master of the high five.

reagan has learned a new favorite word: "outside". now i just hang out in my recliner and look out the back door and watch reagan run around the yard. this motherhood stuff is a cinch!

also, he loves this really lame-o french dubbed in english dvd called ABC sing-a-long. it looks like some enterprising parents taped a bunch of neighbor kids in the back yard playing and then put music to it. but he loves it! and that is big news for the boy that only likes to watch regis and kelly. now whenever he wakes up he says, "show? show?"

he is also obsessed with water. his other new favorite thing to say is "hawt wahtter" (hot water).

finally, my doctor has another doctor in his practice by the name of Dr. F. Kim Whittington. very gender neutral. today i noticed that one of the magazine subscriptions is under the name Frankie K. Whittington. now tell me, is dr. whittington a man or a woman? any guesses?

ps-a hint or not a hint- when i was working at washington mutual, we had two clients named eddie king. mr. eddie king and a mrs. eddie may king. we also had a mrs. edgie king. but that is another story.

enough reagan already, what about pictures of mom and dad?

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
Theodore Hesburgh

click on this link for an important message
happy mother's day

the ER, 30 weeks and booger picking

2 year-olds. go figure. now that reagan's mode of travel is constant running, he is a human bruise. our tally in the past 12 months is now at 3 visits to the emergency room. last june was the broken arm, last month was the hot dog incident and last night was the gaping head wound that had to be sealed up with 6 stitches. yeah, that's about right. reagan tripped and hit his head on the corner of the dresser and cut a huge gash into his forehead. thankfully while we were waiting(for nearly 5 hours) to get stitched up, our little man found a vacuum to occupy his time. as far as hospital visits go, reagan was in remarkably good spirits and was easily entertained for the duration of the visit. the hardest part was holding my teeny child down on a bed while he was screaming my name at the top of his lungs as the doctor stitched his head up. MOOOOMMMMMYYY! heartwrenching. at least in this picture, the smile is larger than the head wound.


on a happier note, today is my 30 week mark. only 10 more weeks and then i will have 2 children to cart off to the emergency room.

reagan's latest habit he has picked up. pleased as punch with himself!