Ramblings of a Sorta Single Mom

last night we were sitting on the couch watching a movie.  I had my feet tucked under me and my pants were kinda pulled tight.  Probably what helped with noticing the feeling!  Anyways,  out of no where I felt the babe move.  Like a serious move.  Not just a small flutter or bubbles.   It was an instant flashback to feeling J rub against me or roll over.  According to babycenter.com the baby is "4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado" so I don't think I was imagning things or that it was gas.  Well, I know with out a doubt that it wasn't gas!!

With J's father we had broken up before I found out I was pregnant.  Then of course when I refused to get married just for that reason he disappeared fairly quickly and married someone else.   I guess I didn't realize just how serious he was when he said "I won't be unmarried when my first child is born".  I guess to him it didn't really matter if it was to the mother or tos omeone else.  Anyways, needless to say I went through that entire pregnancy basically on my own.  I didn't get to experience having a partner who was excited or enthralled or confused or anything else that goes with it.  I made all the decisions myself and never had anothers point of view.  I can remember thinking how lucky the girls in a group I talked to were.  Talking about the things their hubbies did for them ro things that happened.  I never felt jealous though b/c I truely had no idea what it was all about.  Like that old saying...you can't miss something you never had??

Well, now thats changed and I have to say it's making me realize to it's fullest extent just how much I missed.   It really is the little things to.  Like when he gets here, kisses me and then kisses my belly.  Or like last night...we were laying in bed and he had his head resting on the upper part of my belly while resting his hand on the lower part where baby is.  I can't wait for when he can feel and see the movement too as it's something he hasn't experienced and it really is amazing.  There are other things to and they really are just small things that all add up. 

Do they teach school crossing guards how to do what they are supposed to???  Now this might seem really strange but after dealing with 2 on my way to work for the past few months I seriously have to wonder.   Hopefully this will make sense but here's why:

Crossing guard #1
She stands guard at a fairly busy intersection.  The road I drive down (Presidential) comes to a stop sign to cross over a fairly busy road (S. Plaza).  Now S plaza is a very very busy in the morning as everyone from that neighborhood is on their way to work and leaving the subdivision.  Trying to cross that road in the morning is kinda like playing frogger for those of you who remember the old Atari game.   Now the crossing guard will stop traffic driving down S plaza to allow kids to cross the road and often times will allow for those of us waiting to cross over the ability to do so while traffic is stopped.   Now here is my confusion.  I'm sitting on one side and there is another car on the other side.  The guard indicates to the car opposite of me to go ahead and they more often than not are making a turn crossing directly in front of me.  It would be a left turn for them but they are going to my right.  At the exact same time she turns to me and indicates for me to go forward!!  Now I knwo the laws of traffic and technically I have the right away.  But she just told the guy on the other side to go so he has aready started?  Am i to floor it and try to beat him across??  Umm no.  And when I patiently wait for the guy to turn she is waving frantically at me to move.  Um hello?????  I seriously do not need to have an accident at the moment and it's not like they will say it's her fault. 

Crossing guard #2
This guard also stands on Presidential just about 2 blocks after crossing S Plaza.  Directly to the left is the entrance to the middle and elementary school so she helps with kids crossing into the school from the subdivision across from it.  She apparently finds it necessary to direct traffic even though at this point, there is literally never more than 2 cars there at a time.  More often than not I am being stopped to allow another car to cross or turn in front of me.  Wait seriously, we are the only 2 cars on the road and it allows them a turn in a whole 2 seconds faster.  Was it really necessary to go through all that??  Is it really that difficult to allow the normal flow of traffic since it's not congested in any way or causing any delay.  I could understand if we were bumper to bumper and stopping to allow traffic to cross in but man, for one car? 

Ok, so I should stop ranting. I just deal with this every day and sometimes want to stop and just ask them "Why???". 

I think we have discovered our new movie spot.   This past week J's aunt had made a suggestion to take all teh girls to see Enchanted at the local cinema cafe.  I have known about the place.  There are several around town but I always just assuemd it would be fairly expensive and never bothered with it.  I mean they would charge you extra to be able to eat regular food and watch a movie right?  Not to mention woudln't it be distracting to have servers in and out through the movie?  Well I looked it up online and turns out our Sunday movie is only $1.50 per person.   Now ya can't be that!  So we saw the movie and I gotta say it was really good!  Much better than I was expecting. When they are combining animation with real life you just never know how it will go.   For this I think they did a darn good job. And the ending wasn't what I was expecting either.  J sat through the entire movie totally into it which is a good thing.  So if anyone hasn't seen it I definitely recommend it!

When I was preggo with J I never really had the opportunity to make maternity plans.  My boss offered me 6 weeks off.  Unpaid unless I had vacation/sick time to cover it.  I only had like 4 days of vacation l eft by the time she arrived so needless to say I only took a week off.  This time around it should be totally different.  I'll get 8 weeks off!!!  Yea!!!  I've got a whole plan in mind but of course it's depending on baby bean and what he/she decides to do.  Here's what I'm thinking so far.

I'm blocking out 1 week of vacation that won't be used before I go on vacation.  I still have 4 days I can use but since my boss doesn't count against me for my doc appointments they probably won't get used.  Well one will next month but thats planned.  The others will probably still be available for later on.  Anyways, I'm hoping ot make it until at least August 29th.  It's a Friday and also the last day of our pay period tha tmonth so on the 1st I would still be getting a full paycheck.  Since Monday is Labor day and  paid holiday I still get paid for that and then my official leave would start on Tuesday Sept 2nd.  Thats also J's first day of kindergarten which you know I won't want ot miss!!  Once I go on leave hopefully baby decides to arrive shortly after.  Doc mentioned not lettin gme go more than a day or so past my due date which is pretty soon after.  One I'm on leave my 8 weeks iwll take me all the way to October 29th for my 1st day back.  Since our payperiod goes till the 31st that month and it's also a Friday I may see if I can just come back the Monday after ot make it easier on all. 

Since the majority of this will be unpaid time I ahve to plan ahead to cover all my bills.  If things go the way I think they will that won't be a problem.  And our accountant at work is workign with me to make sure there is money available to pay for my health insurance and AFLAC coverage while I'm out so I wn't have to cut her a check during that time. 

I have to say it seems like I'm so much more prepared this time around.  With J I worked till the very day before she was born.  Course if this baby comes before the 29th it will be teh same case but I'm hoping he holds out till at least then.  We shall see though!!

So I officially started my bookkeeping side job last night.  I have a feeling in about 2 weeks I'll be trying to figure out what the heck I got myself into!  I met with the owner of the company on Wednesday and everything was great.  When I left a little over an hour later I had all of their 2007 financial info, a copy of Quickbooks for my home computer, and the promise to get it all organized and computerized as quickly as possible.  Hmmmm.....   Organized??  Yes, what I was handed was an entire years worth of customer receipts, supply receipts, bills, etc all just thrown together in a box.  Although you could see there was an attemp to keep some months together it was still just a jumble.  So needless to say it took me over an hour last night to go through it all, get it seperated out by months and in some sort of order I could work with.  Then I got Quickbooks loaded and played with it for about 20mins b/c this is the brand new version that has a lot more features than the one at work. Lastly I started getting the accounts set up for recording.  This si where the fun begins.  There is a book that lists everything but what customers paid.  It's interesting cause it's all in code!!  LOL   So it should be fun getting it decoded and transfered into the system.  And then I get to start on 2008!  At least we're only a couple months into this year so hpefully that won't be as unorganized.  We shall see though!

So in the last few weeks I've been trying to think of SOMETHING I can do outside of my regular work hours that would bring in some extra cash. With baby bean on the way and the fact that my time off afterwards is completely unpaid, we wanna make sure we are as prepared as possible.  One thing I'm good at that can really be side work is bookkeeping.  For those who don't understand it's really just using Quicken or Quickbooks software, entering in any deposits or checks written, balancing statements, etc.  Basically like balancing your checkbook but for a business.  I used to do it for my bosses dad before things went sour with them and they split.  It's super easy work, well when you given all the right info, and decent pay so I figured I'd put out some feelers.  See if I couldn't pick up a small company who was looking for someone to do this for them.  I lucked out pretty quickly!!  A lady emailed me saying they really wanted someone to take over this part for them so they can focus more on their business.  Ironically enough they are a lactation consulting business and she is a nurse by day at the local hospital.  I say ironic b/c i'm preggo and she is totally understanding of how things go!  I had emailed her back answering her initial questions then a couple days later, this past Saturday, she called me and left me a message.  I didn't get a chance to call her back till today and I know she was really interested cause she said she was worried she had lost me! LOL  So I sent her a copy of my resume as a formality for her files and will meet with her this week to set up how to do scheduling and such.  it will be really flexible (evenings and weekends) paid hourly so I'm only getting paid for the time I work and neither of us will feel like we're getting gipped.  She also wants me to work on putting their records from last year into the system as well (on an older version so the current years won't get skewed) sot hat they can have that saved as well.   A whole years worth of work is gonna take some serious hours to do.  I'm excited though b/c this will give us extra money to save up for bean and fits exactly what I'm looking for.   So needless to say I'm stoked!

Well, no matter how you look at it we are officially out of that 1st trimester.  Some people say it's 12 weeks, some say 13 weeks, and yet others even say 14weeks.  Those are hte magic points when you leave the days of morning sickness, being extremely tired, etc and actually feel somewhat normal.  Well, the nausea is gone, I'm still fairly tired but i do feel somewhat normal.  Unless you count feeling liek a large whale already but I won't complain to much.

Had the official doctors appointment yesterday.  Baby sounds great, heart rate was right at 150 and very easy to find.  Doc said it sounds like a keeper!  Don't go back again until April 3rd and then our BIG ultrasound is April 17th.  Come on April!!!!  So if you haven't gotten your guess in make sure you do. I'll have to get the link up again I'm sure.

Here's a little on where we are now:

How your baby's growing:

This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.

In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.

I just realized it's been nearly 3 weeks since I blogged last.  Man the time has flown by!!  So many things going on yet I feel like all I do anymore is eat, sleep, and make runs to teh bathroom.  Blah!   All is well though.  J is seriously doing so well at school.  She blew me away one day telling me how to spell her name BACKWARDS.  She knows all the days of the week, all the months of hte year, and she knows how the calender progression goes.  Ask her the date and she'll tell you.  She knows are phone # and is working on our address.  She recognizes all the letters and sounds and knows all her numbers.  Even can do some simple math!!!  At this rate she's going to know more than me before she hits middle school.   She's still my baby girl though.  She's gotten much more affectionate lately which I think is partly due to baby bean.  She knows it's coming and is sqeezing as much lovin out of me as she can now!

Baby bean is doing well as far as I know.  Next check up is friday and I just can't help be a tad nervous.  Until you can feel them moving distinctly there is such an uncertainty.  I'm sure all is well but it's just nagging at the back of my mind is all. 

I've gotten tons better with the morning sickness.  I'm not even nauseaus anymore but still dealing with constant gagging right now.  I think I've managed to develop a sinus infection and has transformed me into mucus city.  Needless to say it drains into my throat and lands right on that lovely gag reflex which is already sensitive.  I'm getting tired of the runnign to the bathroom just to cough up some nasty stuff but I suppose it could be worse.  Other than that I'm feeling fairly well.  Would love to have a nap mid day and get the occasional bout of heart burn.  Still have an aversion to red meat, anything too sugary, and soda.  As of my last appointment I had only gained 1lb which is awesome.  With J I think I had gained 10lbs by now.  I'm seriously hoping not to repeat that weight gain with this one.  I still look way bigger than I should though.  People are noticing and askign when I'm due!!  I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  I hated that in between phase when you jus tlook like your getting fat but not really pregnant.  I'd rather have people actually know it's not just be overeating.  LOl

I guess thats it for now.  plus it's getting late.  Time for a potty break and hopefully off to dream land.  Of course it sitll results in at least 2 late night trips as well but it comes with the territory.