Nosedive

Right when I thought I had things all figured out....

...I landed myself in the ER with an I-V for dehydration and anti-barf drugs! Now that you know what this story is going to be about, I bet you're glad this is the only picture on this post.

STORY TIME:

Tuesday of last week, Jay and I drove up to visit my family. Based on the last time I was pregnant, I thought I still had a good 10 days till the real nausea/vomiting started up. So I had a doctor appointment all lined up for July 1st. Last time the "morning" sickness came on gradually, but last Friday, I suddenly found myself in 100% misery: puking or heaving 10+ times a day. Jeff kindly came to my parents' house to help me. Thank goodness for my husband! The plan was to call the doctor and get my appointment moved up to Monday.

Well, by Sunday I hadn't eaten or drunk anything since Thursday, and I was fading fast. Blech. The memory is disgusting. I had a priesthood blessing and then it was off to the ER. They stuck an I-V in my arm and gave me 2 bags of fluids plus some medicine. It all took about 3 hours. Now I have the magic anti-barf medicine and I'm slowly sort of recovering a little. My next dilemma: What should I eat now?

Blueberry

Guess what, people?? I have a little blueberry-sized baby in my tummy right now! I’m 7 weeks along, and the due date is February 6th, 2011! I wasn’t going to say anything for a few more weeks because then it would be  a pain to say bad news if anything went wrong. But yesterday, morning sickness kicked in, and I was desperate for some sympathy so I wrote on my Facebook status “I’m trying not to puke but just want to get it over with at the same time.” Can you believe that 4 people have already asked me if I’m prego yet just because of that? and I thought a generic nausea comment would go unnoticed. Oh well!  I’m one of those people that can’t really hide it very long anyways because I do get all barfy and pathetic forEVER. It’s a relief to just SAY it: I’m pregnant!

 
This is what my stomach already looks like, at only 7 weeks! AHH I’m going to get huge! Good ole babycenter.com claims that right now the little embryo is the size of a blueberry. I’d say it looks more like I’m harboring an apple or something!

If you’re interested in details, here’s THE STORY:
A few days before we moved, I randomly decided to take a pregnancy test. My reason is silly but valid: If I was pregnant, I wanted to find out BEFORE we moved in with my in-laws. At first I thought the test was negative, but then the faintest little second pink line seemed to appear:
Can you see it? I couldn’t trust my eyes, so I woke up Jeff and he said he saw it too!!  It still didn’t seem real, especially because the line was so faint. So, I went in to get an “official” proof of pregnancy (for insurance, etc.) the next day. The lady came out and said that the test was negative! I was kind of bummed and confused, (why would my cheap-o dollar store test show something and not the “official” test?) so I stopped and got myself a super-sensitive test on the way home.

When I walked in the door at home, Jeff was BEAMING. I thought, “oh great, now I have to tell him…” but he informed me jubilantly that the lady from the office called and said that after I left, she saw the test in better light, and it was positive after all! Whew!  That was an unnecessary emotional rollercoaster. So yes I’m pregnant. Jay will be about 21 months older than his sibling. How exciting!!!

 
We got Jay a booster seat last week. He seems so grown-up when he sits at the table without his high chair. I think he looks old enough to be a big brother!

Week

1. Happy Father’s Day!! I made Jeff a breakfasty dinner (fluffy biscuits and a thing called “Eggs Days Ahead”—just like last year). We’re both still full.
2. Jay loves having stairs to play on: he finally learned how to go down stairs yesterday, but he still has issues remembering to slither down backwards, but we’re getting there.
3. Jay loves climbing and whapping, and plucking the 2 dogs here, Zeke and Toby. Zeke hides from Jay, but Toby soaks up the love and attention. The only thing I don’t like about it is when I pick up Jay, he gets dog hair on me!
4. I miss Walla Walla/College Place! It’s only 90 minutes from here, but it feels farther!
5. Jeff should have his teaching certificate in the next week or so!! He has already applied to every school district within 20 miles of here. Bring on the jobs!
6. Jay got diaper rash and now my hands smell like Desitin.
7. Jeff’s parents have a small collection of Berenstein Bears books, and he loves reading them to Jay. He uses the goofiest voices for each character, and it cracks me up—I think I enjoy it more than Jay!
8. Speaking of reading, in the last week I have plowed straight through the first 3 Twilight books. There’s nothing like reading all about an insane head-case teenage girl’s heartaches to put things into perspective!

9. Jeff pooled his birthday and graduation gift $$ to buy his dream camera. It’s called a Pentax K-X and I think it’s #3 on his list of favorites…Jay and I are just barely above the camera on that list, probably because he needs subjects for his pictures…

 
10. It is really quite hard to baby-proof someone else’s house. Jeff’s parents are being good sports for all of the inconveniences posed by having Jay here.

And that’s more or less what’s been going around here at the White house this week!

We Moved!

It happened. Jeff finished his M.A.T. at Walla Walla University. Since he is no longer a student, we had to leave our student housing apartment. Needless to say, it has been quite the busy, exhausting week! I’m going to miss good ole Walla Walla.

We were planning to move on Saturday, but our borrowed pick-up truck plans fell through. So we decided to just get going. Over the past 2 weeks, I had been collecting a mountain of boxes from the produce section at Super 1 Foods so we were prepared (I’m good friends with the produce guys there now). Fresh Express Salad boxes are the best!

We took apart bookshelves, chairs, tables, stools, and any other non-square items and put everything in boxes so Jeff could load the tiny storage unit to maximum capacity (I still don’t know how he squeezed it all in there—it is only a 5’x7’ unit with a 10 foot ceiling). Helping Jeff with our couch just about killed me! I am NOT made for heavy lifting! Luckily Jeff did most of it, because as much as I like to gloat over my mom-muscles, they aren’t very useful for anything above 20 lbs!

To keep Jay out of the way while we were packing, I put him on the couch. He loves playing on the couch for some reason, so he was happy for nearly a whole hour up there! [see picture above]

We rented a small U-Haul truck so we could bring our bed, Jay’s crib, our sweet purple desk, and a few other things with us.  Now we’re in Grandview, WA staying with Jeff’s parents until that glorious (hopefully soon) day when Jeff finds a REAL job!!! I am very grateful to have a place to stay during this icky time of transition, but I will still be very glad to have my own little place again sometime soon! 

If you survived that long monolog, you deserve something sweet:

 
Toss the baby! GramaDear (Jeff’s mom wants Jay to call her that…but we’re still working on Mama, so it may be a while…) got a family swim pass for the summer! So we all went swimming last night. It was Jay’s first time in a pool, and he loved it! The water was cool and refreshing. I realized I hadn’t even been in swimming pool in 2 years!!

Jay liked kicking and hitting the water, too

 
Jay got cold and his chin started shaking, so Grampa helped him warm up. Swimming is hard work. Tired cheeks!

I’m going to miss these kids

Today was our last Sunday here in the wonderful Walla Walla Second Ward, and my last day teaching my dear Primary class of 7 yr olds. They are an energetic, enthusiastic, loving bunch. I love them. They love me. Since 4 of them all want to sit on my lap during singing/sharing time in Primary, I started doing 10 minute rotations so they could each have a turn.…I think I might sometimes be more fun than what’s going on up front…not sure that’s the best example…

When Jeff and Jay came in to take our class picture today, it was Jay’s first visit to my class. He was a tad overwhelmed (it was nap time).

Some of my favorite quotes from my class:

“I’m getting my muscles out” --Brennan, while rolling up his sleeves

“Teacher, he stuck his TONGUE out at me!” –Crystal

“Teacher! Teacher! Guess what!!!!  …..umm I forgot.” –Addison

“Please help Sister White and Jay and Brother White to drive safely when they move.” –Brennan, while saying the closing prayer today. I almost cried. Why are we leaving again?

Our Recent Discoveries:

Jay can climb onto this box by the window! He is also pretty good at falling off of it.

This dresser was just sitting out by the dumpster, so we snagged it! Of course, right when we are about to put all of our stuff in a teeny tiny storage unit for the summer, we decide to start a furniture collection…

Isn’t this desk SWEET?? I was out running one day and I saw this partially purple pupitre on the curb about 8 blocks from our home. I stopped to examine its structural integrity, and then went home for Jeff. It didn’t exactly fit in the trunk of our Honda Civic, so Jeff wedged a corner of the desk into the trunk and then trotted behind the car carrying the other corner while I drove very slowly home. Yep, we’re crazy scavengers. Who now own a purple desk. [para los non-españoles, pupitre=desk in Spanish]

And now on to the not-exactly-free stuff: We got a new laptop a while ago (mine is ancient) so Jeff could take it to school. It’s a tiny little netbook and it’s a good one! And yes, after 3 1/2 years without a cell phone, we finally got one of those too, since we won’t have a permanent residence this summer. We got a sweet T-mobile no-contract plan with unlimited anytime minutes! And that last little black speck up there is the newest electronic addition: an MP3 player! We only have CDs but no way to play them, so we figured a refurbished MP3 player was a good idea. Jeff used his birthday $$ for it! It’s no iPod, but it was about $150 cheaper than those guys.

It is insane how far laptops have come since I got mine back in 2004!

Jeff woke up on June 1st and discovered that he had turned 28 over night. Happy Birthday, husband! This is what the birthday dinner looked like: he requested homemade pizza, as usual. We had mushroom herb white pizza and bacon apple pizza, our own tasty invention. I made him a birthday treasure hunt leading to his present (a nice, big messenger bag). The clues were all lines from Disney songs. My favorite was: “Think of instead, a girl worth fighting for” –answer: Shaina’s back pocket. hee hee hee

You’ve heard me say how perfect the weather always is here in Walla Walla. Maybe that’s why we’ve had SO much rain lately! We discovered that Jay really hates rain. He’s only ever seen it a few times in his whole life, I guess. Plus he loves going outside. He spent TONS of time at the window whimpering on all of the many rainy days we have had recently.

Why do pictures of my child in distress make me laugh so much??

Jay still knows where his “bee-bo” is, and he likes to show it off. He can usually find his toes for us too, and we’ve been working on “head.” (I think that one is harder because he can’t see it).

I love the small glimpses we get out our front window of the glorious sunsets here. Alas, the sun is setting on our time here in Walla Walla. Jeff officially graduates on Sunday June 13th, but he elected to “graduate in absentee” or whatever it’s called, so we can move on Saturday the 12th. We are putting our STUFF in storage like I said, and we will stay with Jeff’s parents in Grandview for the summer during Jeff’s joyful job hunting. If no full time job pans out, then we plan to find some place around Grandview to rent and Jeff will substitute teach and work part-time. We’re hoping and praying that soon we can add “Jeff’s New Job” to this list of Our Recent Discoveries!