iron

my mom was anemic when she was pregnant so i knew it was a very good possibility that it would be the same for me. sure enough, in my first pregnancy, after my 28-week blood draw, i got a call. "your iron is low." and not just a little low, either. it was enough that they told me to go right to a pharmacy, get some iron tablets, and start taking a double dose that very day. i figured it would be similar this time around. what i didn't know, though, was how much it could impact me.
i had my first blood draw at about 16 weeks. already low (the level was 33.3 if that means anything to anyone). so, i ate a LOT of spinach (spinach salad, spinach pasta, spinach and egg salad, spinach with humus, etc), drank tea made out of rose hips (actually quite good), and ate a lot of dried fruit. so i was hopeful that at my 20 week appointment, the level would have at least held steady. no such luck (dropped to 30.something). it's apparently not a good thing that it dropped so much in such a short time. and that the diet did absolutely no good. so, i bought an herbal supplement and i'm getting an over-the-counter supplement, too. and while i'm not thrilled about having to take all of that, it's not a big deal... except...
here's the bad news. if my iron levels don't "iron" out (ha ha) i can't have an out-of-hospital birth. and i really like my midwives and the birth center and i don't want to have to switch. so here's praying these supplements do their thing!

what alia sounds like

i had a midwife appointment yesterday and caleb came with me (what i wouldn't give for family nearby to watch him or come with me to the appointment... sigh). he was actually really great and was understanding of when he couldn't come up onto the bed (blood draw) and when he could (listening to the heartbeat). he really liked hearing alia. in fact, he kept talking about it the whole trip home. and when we picked troy up from work, caleb was ready to tell daddy just what alia sounded like "hwoo hwoo hwoo".

listening to my son

yesterday, caleb woke up crying from his nap... which is fairly unusual for him. as i was holding and rocking him, he had a hard time settling down, so i asked him if something hurt. "yeah" was his response. next i asked him to tell me what hurt. "head", "ear" he said, while pulling on his right ear. so today i decided to honor his communication and take him to the pediatrician. sure enough, an ear infection (thankfully only his second ever) in his right ear. poor little man! i'm so thankful for his ability to understand and communicate and am glad i actually listened so he didn't have to suffer any longer. bring on the cherry antibiotics!

how can you say no to that??

recently, caleb has been obsessed with his children's bible. we've always read it to him right before bed, but lately that hasn't been enough. usually we're pretty set on only sleeping with doggy at night, but how do you say no to sleeping with his bible? especially when all he wants is for it to be in the crib with him. last night, i wasn't home so troy put caleb to bed. apparently, he went down just fine but then started crying a minute or so later. and he wasn't crying for mommy or daddy, no, he was crying for his bible. so, like any good christian dad, troy went in there, put the bible in the crib, and about 12 hours later, caleb woke up. what a way to sleep!

my how they grow!

caleb and i have really enjoyed our PEPS group. it's a great way for me to connect with other moms who have kids the same age as caleb. and now it's fun because many have started working on "round two" :) anyway, one of the kids caleb enjoys the most is Kian...he can even say his name (sort of). this was caleb's first friend and now look at them!

play dough

thanks to a great recipe from elizabeth, i made play dough this week for the first time. it's nice and soft and smells like cinnamon! at first, caleb wasn't too sure of what he thought. he wanted me to make a fish, a 'Y', an 'O', and a heart but beyond that, he was content to just stab it with a fork and make sure he didn't touch it. but i was finally able to coax him out of his comfort zone with a very fun play dough game. here's how it works...

first, you make (or have your mommy make) a ball of play dough... smaller usually works best when you're just learning the game.

next, you take your hand and smash it onto the ball. the nice thing about a small ball is that you don't even have to press very hard... which is important if you're a bit hesitant about touching said play dough.

finally, remove your hand and see the amazing results. it's FLAT! and sometimes, if you're really lucky (or have recently eaten something with jelly), the play dough might even stick to your hand!

pink lemonade please

the other day, i was totally craving some pink lemonade. and i had to go to the store anyway so i figured i'd pick some up. no such luck. i somehow chose a store that didn't have pink lemonade. instead, i ended up with 1 bottle of sweetened sparkling water flavored with pink grapefruit, 1 bottle of sparkling regular lemonade, and 1 bottle of regular grapefruit juice. which one do you think hit the spot? which one satisfied my craving? definitely NOT the first one. it was actually kind of gross. the second was good and i did drink the whole thing that night. but it was actually the regular grapefruit juice that filled my need. and the best part is that now i get to have it every morning for breakfast!