Wierd week

For those of you who don't know, my Great-uncle Lee took his own life on Monday. He had been ill, and I suppose he just couldn't handle it anymore. I'm so glad Mom waited until I got home from work to tell me. I wouldn't have been able to drive myself home. I freaked for a few minutes then immediatly started on the kitchen. When I'm stressed I have to be busy. I can't hold still, or I'll get overwhelmed, or start to cry and neither one will help me get through the pain i'm going through. It's just better for me to keep my hands and mind on something else until the shock has worn off. Then I can handle it better, but that's just me. Needless to say there's now an assortment of organic homemade cleaning products stocking my pantry. That was only on Monday!
Tuesday was baking day and I felt better knowing that everything I was making would be served to the family after the funeral. I made 3 batches of biscuits, 2 batches of rolls, 4 different flavors of muffins, and 2 batches of mini-cheesecakes. Another plus to my keeping busy: I'm so tired by the end of the day that I have no trouble sleeping, even though my mind is very troubled.
At the funeral, I saw people I hadn't seen in almost a decade. It was wonderful to see them despite the circumstances. And it better not be another decade before I see them again (you know who you are). Catching up with them didn't take long. It was as though we had seen each other yesterday. But that's just the kind of family we have.
Thursday, (work gave me 3 days off) I made Cera do some heavy lifting for me so I can get the baby clothes sorted and see if I can get those stains out (again). Everyone was surprised to see me come in today though. I just ran out of things to do at home and needed something fresh to keep me busy. It worked. Now I'm exhausted and my feet are swollen.
I think enough of the shock has worn off for me to now process my feelings in a rational manner, like I prefer..... If not, there's always sewing!

lions & tigers & lorekeets?!?

Oh My! The Bowers/Asmus girls hit the zoo today. (Have I mentioned how much we love this place?) This time it was just us sisters and the Bug. Syd had a grand time, and hardly had to walk anywhere. She fed Chrissy, the giraffe, and the goats. She also just loves the statues around the place, since she got to crawl all over them. In the aquarium, she ran from tank to tank and pointed out every "shish" or said "wow!" when she didn't know what it was. She especially liked the owl at the bird show. Sydney liked the Lorekeets until one landed on her head. One of the Lorekeets that landed on me loved my camera and didn't care about the treat I had in my hand.

We got a suprise just as we were leaving. The wallaby exhibit wasn't going to open until this Saturday. Of course we didn't know that until we actually got there! Well as we were walking past the wallabies, a group of Zoo directors were being shown how the exhibit was supposed to work (it's a walk-through where you can go inside and walk around with the animals, so cool!). One of the Staff saw us and asked if we wanted to try it out. Of course we did!!! Sydney was beside herself and wanted to run right up to them. Unfortunately we had to stay on the little trail and couldn't let her go over to them. But we got some cool pictures of them.

(P.S. More pics on facebook!)

Go on....take a guess.......

YAY!! I finally have a much better idea about what's going on inside me. Dr. says it's most likely a girl, so that's what we're going with unless told otherwise @ the 30 week visit. I'm much less crazy than before. It's almost a relief and now the crazy nesting can continue. They don't know it yet, but Cera and Jesse will be pulling all of Syd's stuff down from the attic so I can go thru it and clean everything within an inch of it's life. (evil snicker) So baby is doing well. She has a good strong heart, and looks like she's going to be slightly chubbier than her big sister. Everything was there. I counted her fingers, but didn't get to see her toes. They even moved my due date up a little to the 17th instead of the 19th. Trust me, those two days will matter to me when I'm that close! I've been in such a good mood that I've even told Jesse he can pick out her name (I still have to approve). Baby was in rare form, too. She wouldn't hold still for most of the ultrasound. And she even reacted to the Dr.'s voice. When he laughed loudly, she jumped! It was so cool. It's been one of those days when you're glad you're a mom. I love it.

Going crazy

Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a patient person. And I'm almost OCD when it comes to planning. I plan everything right down to the minute. (At least the things I know I can control.) Ask Jesse about my lists. I make lists for everything, and charts, too. I'm downright quirky when it comes to being in control of organizing things. And it drives me nuts when I have to wait for deadlines before I can move to the next step. So naturally the wait (not weight, hehehe) of finding out the gender of this baby is killing me! I don't know if I should haul out Sydney's old things, or hunt down every clearance rack in Columbia for deals on blue stuff. And I haven't even let myself crack open my baby name book yet, just so I don't add to my own insanity. The worst part has been the past week, just because I get the chance to find out on Thursday. This Thursday. Like in 2 more days, ya'll. I'm gonna lose my mind! People have been asking me which gender I'd prefer and my response lately has been: "I don't care anymore! I just wanna know!!!!" (picture me pulling my hair out) I know it's just me being silly, but I really can't help it. I don't know how women did it before there were ultrasounds. I don't think I would have made it. I'd be giving birth in the crazy house......Did I mention that a flair for the dramatics runs rampant in my family? Once I do find out, rest assured the word will be spread. And I'll be able to get back to my crazy nesting that I also haven't been able to control. My only comfort is that I know I can't be the only pregnant women to lose her marbles over this gender thing, and I won't be the last. 2 days..........lets see if I can make it!