A is for Beautiful

A week or so ago we went to the Dixie Classic Fair for a couple of hours. We’ve had a really busy month so it was one of the fastest trips I’ve ever taken to fair before, but I’m still thankful I got to go. Hopeully next year we’ll get to stay longer and enjoy it more. This was Julianna’s first year of riding the rides. She had a blast and has asked to go back many times since.

We all got to ride together on the Ferris Wheel. It had been many years since I had been on it and it was nice to experience the awesome views from the top again.

We bought a book of tickets and let Julianna decide what she wanted to ride in the Kiddieland area. Of course, the first ride she picked was the motorcycle one. I’m not so sure she enjoyed it though because she kept a stoic look on her face the entire time and she was too afraid to take her hands off the handlebars to wave.

She also rode some airplanes and drove a truck full of other people’s kids. She wanted to go down the big slide but she wasn’t tall enough.

This ride was supposed to be a fire truck that went up in the air and around in circles vertically. Jules called it a red bus ride and Daddy got to go on it with her. If you look closely you can see her hand sticking out too wave out of the back of the truck.

We had a great time. I’ll just make sure that next year I have enough time to see the big pumpkin and at least get a funnel cake.

Things I love about fall:

• pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks
• my mom’s pumpkin crisp
• Must See TV
• festivals and craft fairs
• roasting hot dogs and marshmallows
• sweaters
• school pep rallies
• beginning Christmas shopping (roughly translated to mean: start making lists and preparing for Black Friday)
• Daylight Savings Time
• planting tulips and anticipating how beautiful they’ll look in the Spring
• hot chocolate with little marshmallows on top
• ghost stories and hay rides
• The Dixie Classic Fair
• pajamma pants

Recouperating:
I got back from the beach Monday afternoon after a long bachelorette weekend with my sister and some of her friends. It was a lot of fun, but made me realize how old I am getting to be. We had dinner at an oyster bar, an awesome scavenger hunt in costume, manicures and pedicures, a fun lingerie shower, dinner at the Melting Pot, a night out dancing at a piano bar, pizza and girly movies, and lots more fun. I can’t believe my little sister is getting married! The craziest thing that happened was while we were out at the bar we started talking to a group of guys, one of which turned out to be the son of the preacher that is marrying my sister. Pure craziness.

Working:
Since I wasn’t able to find a teaching job for this school year, I’ve been getting ready to start substitute teaching in our public school system. I had to go to a half-day orientation class, get a physical and TB test, get drug-testing done, etc. I’ve also started babysitting/nannying two boys after school each afternoon from 1pm-5pm. It will be great to have the much-needed extra bill money, but it’s going to take me a while to get adjusted to working again and feeling exhausted all the time. Plus, my house will suffer from me being gone all the time…

Loving:
I am just in love with the Fall 2008 line of Chez Ami clothing I just started selling. The Halloween outifts are SO CUTE and one-of-a-kind and the best part is that hosts and consultants can get them for almost half off. I’m really excited about that. I can’t wait to actually get my hands on my trunk of clothes to see how well they’re made. I’ve heard that they last longer and have a much higher resell value than almost all other children’s clothing and besides they’re made in the USA. You can’t say that about the clothes you’ll find at the mall or Target these days. I am also excited about getting Jules some fall school clothes that have her monogram on them (and maybe a Christmas outfit or two). So adorable!

Reading:
I’m really into the Twilight series now. I’m currently almost finished with the second book, “New Moon.” I need to get started on our next book club book as well (”Mrs. Perfect“). For now, I keep imagining Edward’s cool lips on my neck. ;o)

Worrying:
I’ve been worrying about Julianna being a flower girl in seven short weeks. She’s got the concept down pat and whenever we drive by the church she recites voluntarily all that she’s going to do at Seth and Whitney’s wedding. I’m just worried about her seeing all of those people in there and freezing. We actually went by the church today and had the first “practie run” with her. She goofed off and danced around happily, but it will be much different come October I’m certain. Anyway, we’ll keep practicing.

Planning:
I’m pretty sure I’m going to try to walk the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon in February. I’ve got a friend or two who may committ to doing it with me, I just need to come up with the $60 registration fee and the conviction to do it. I’m hoping that if I walk one first then I may have the motivation to try to run one shortly after that. We’ll see. Anyone else want to join me? Come on. It’ll be fun!

To the vast majority of you who voted in yesterday’s poll, you were absolutely correct. I’ve seen Batman, The Mummy, and Wall-E all within the last month and in my opinion Wall-E was by far the best of the three.

The Mummy was absolutely terrible. Seriously, awful bad. Batman was so-so. Dark? Definitely. Action packed? For sure. Left open for the sequel? Of course. But in my opinion, Heath’s excellent acting wasn’t enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and make me ignore the roll-your-eyes ending.

Wall-E on the other hand, I was expecting very little out of. As Sarahsouth would say, it was AB FAB. It was predictable and cute, which normally would not make for a good movie in my mind. But the fact remains that Wall-E kept me pondering for days and that’s my family’s criteria for a good movie. We still walk around my house saying, “Waaaalllll-EEEEE” and “Eeeeee-vaaaa” in funny robot voices and we saw that movie a month ago. Plus, we got to take Julianna with us and that was fun.

Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about some other stuff.

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Well, I went to the doctor yesterday and while I didn’t see my OB I did see a brand-spankin’ new doctor at that practice (as in Monday was his first day). It was my first check-up since the D&C and my first check-up at home. Everything checked out fine and the routine pregnancy test I took was negative so that was good. So what’s the problem? The problem was that at first he told me that I would have to wait 6 months before trying for another baby.

When I heard six months my jaw probably hit the floor. I was expecting him to say something like 2 to 3 cycles since I have known MANY people that were able to start trying again after 2 or 3 cycles. He explained that if I were 40 then he would say go ahead and try after 3 months because of the affect of age on fertility, but since I’m only 30 years old the standard textbook directions say wait 6 months and that’s what he advised.

Then! Then, he started talking to me about contraceptives and needing a prescription for the next six months and I was all, Whoa-slow-down-there-buddy-and-wait-just-a-minute. He said something about was this pregnancy planned…? So, yeah, after talking to him about this pregnancy and how long we tried and how regular my normal cycle is, etc he agreed that we could start “trying” again after three months. Phew!

He did say that if I were to get pregnant earlier than what was recommened then we would obviously just take it as it came, but that in order to lower the risk of having a miscarriage again he would still wait at least 3 months.

You all know I’m a little impatient, right? Can you imagine my family having to deal with me over the next six months if he had stuck with the textbook?!

Anyway, the bottom line is that it was a good visit. Everything is fine and we’re going to start trying again in about 3 months. Yay!

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Today, I have accomplished a ton. Well, I’m sure when I make the list it won’t seem like it, but at least it feels like I did a lot.

• I finished unpacking.
• I finished the laundry.
• Loaded and unloaded the dishwaser and then loaded it again.
• Hung up all of Julianna’s clothes, including the ones that were just sitting in her closet before we left.
• Wrapped a present.
• Cleaned Julianna’s bedroom.
• Caught up on all of the message board posts from when I was gone and cleared out my google reader. (*Not important I know, but NOT an easy task.)

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Ugh! I’ve started a diet again. I figure if I have 3 months in which I can’t get pregnant then I might as well lose all I can before then. I’m down four pounds since Monday. I still have about 30 to go. :( Wish me luck you guys!

Chapter 1:

My parents left the beach a week before we did and then eventually some of Jonathan’s family came down. After spending the entire month with Julianna, Nanna and Pap were having a little granddaughter withdrawal as they were back home alone. We tried to talk to them on the phone at least every other day and one time Jules was having so much fun with whatever it was she was playing with that she didn’t want to call either of them. So to encourage her a little I said, “Doodlebug, Pap’s dying to talk to you. Let’s call him, please.” Then began my daughter’s first lesson in idioms. She said, “Pap’s dying?”

So that was interesting. Trying to explain to a 2 year old all the intricacies of the English language can get tough!

Chapter 2:

She’s become quite the smart @$s. Jules has this book that came from the Chick-fil-a kids meals that she absolutely adores. It’s called The Cooking Book. She also has The Rainy Day Book and The Sunny Day Book but she hasn’t managed to collect all 4 books in the series and this fact disturbs her greatly.

She asked us on Sunday if she could go to Chick-fil-a to ask them for The Party Book. (Actually, she said, “I need to go to Chick-fil-a. I need to get The Party Book.”) We tried to explain that CFA is closed on Sundays and she replied, “I need to open it!”

Chapter 3:

Every time lately that I say Julianna’s name in conversation (but not talking directly to her) she says, “You talking about me, Mom?” Like I said, she’s becoming a smart butt.

Anyway, when we were on the way home from the beach the other day she started asking for a snack just as soon as we got in the car. When I explained to her that we would be stopping shortly in Laurinburg to eat lunch she adamantly exclaimed, “I not want a LAURINBURGER! I want CHICKEN NUGGETS!” I thought it was so adorable that later at Wendy’s I was telling everyone what she said and Julianna just looked up at me and said, “You talking about me again, Mama?”

I guess I should stop telling her stories in her presence and instead just put them on the blog, huh?

Chapter 4:

My sister kept Jules the other night and later that night I got this email from my sister:

Jules sat down at the computer last night and said “I’m going to send you an email mail, Whitty”

I know what family she comes from :)

Chapter 5:

We were reading this book the other night and Julianna kept asking me to say some of the more difficult animal names for her. Of course, I was more interested in the mom’s group message boards and I was half-reading with her. Bad mommy, I know. Well, if we got to one that she couldn’t really pmounce I would say, “Can you say kookaburra?” and wait for her to respond.

So after a while she got really irritated with the way I was “reading” with her. I am semi-paying attention when I hear her say, “Can you say owl, Mama?”