Misc. updates

So at Luke's one year well baby visit (which was, um, 2 months ago...) they gave me the lab slip to get his iron levels checked and some standard thing for lead poisoning too. He had a bad cold that day so I wasn't compounding his misery with needles. (In fact, we had to go back for a shot or two a couple weeks later because I didn't want him getting them while he had a cold.) Then I ended up in the hospital and dealing with the hand saga, and then school started, and whatever, here we are two months later and I still haven't done it. (His pediatrician did tell me I could just get it done anytime before his 15 month appointment, but that's actually at the end of this month.) Anyway, yesterday we sucked it up and did it. Everybody says that shots are horrible but Luke generally does okay with them. But this, this sucked bigtime. It seemed like it took FOREVER for the two small vials of blood to fill while Luke *for real* cried with tears streaming down his cheeks. I managed to not cry (and I am pretty proud of that), but still, oh man that sucked. Hopefully we won't have to do it ever again. I told Joe next time he's doing it. (Although whenever Luke is crying, I want to be the one to hold him, so I probably wouldn't actually let Joe take him anyway.)
He is turning into such a little boy. He likes dancing and shaking his butt to the music on commercials or when it comes on tv (especially thanks to his Aunt Brooke who has encouraged and tutored him in butt shaking on the days when they watch him while I'm in school.) He climbs on everything, constantly, and is fearless. He is pretty tough, the other night at the baseball game he fell walking on concrete and didn't even so much as whimper, he got back up and resumed collecting sticks. Luke is pure boy, and loves all things sticks and rocks, dirt and mud. I managed to keep him contained and occupied for an hour at the baseball game in his stroller, but towards the end it was either let him out or leave because he was DONE sitting confined. I gave him my empty soda cup and he proceeded to spend the rest of the game sitting on the ground in a pile of dirt, putting sticks in the cup and "stirring" them around, occassionally stopping to clap his hands when he felt like it. ( He also really likes to clap, and sometimes during the game when no one is clapping at all, he would stand up and start clapping. It is awesome.)

  He also LOVES books, which of course I love as a former English teacher. He is constantly looking at books by himself or bringing us a book to read to him. His attention span is still really short so the books are pretty blah for the most part, except for the book about balls that makes me giggle a little. (It's called "Elmo loves balls". And goes something like "balls balls balls! Elmo loves balls! Balls can be big or small! Some balls are round, some balls are not..." Yes, I am immature.)

 Luke still calls all dogs "bad" which sounds like "ba" and points his finger at them. Occassionally we will be somewhere and he'll point at a person and say "ba", luckily only we know what he is saying. Even though he calls dogs bad he loves them and is fearless around them, which is not necessarily a good thing.

I saw my MFM (high risk doctor) on Monday. Blood pressure and everything was good. I've gained a bunch of weight but am not really swollen so she's not too worried about it. (Uh, I've been eating a lot of ice cream.) I don't have to go back and see her for 6 weeks, which is really nice. The only downside was she said she doesn't really want me outside unless I'm in a pool or walking to my car. Not that I am all that crazy about BEING outside when it's 108 degrees anyway. But Luke LOVES all things outside and could care less how hot it is. So we'll see how that goes. (That night I went to my brother's baseball game, it was still hot, but it was dark so I figured that was okay.) The next 4-8 weeks are the rough ones when I know we are soclose to viability but things could go horribly wrong in less than a day. Luckily, so far I'm not having symptoms of issues, and my quad screen was normal, hopefully baby's growth will still be on track when we go back for another ultrasound in 2 weeks, so there isn't a lot for me to actually worry about except for all the things that *could possibly* happen. But honestly, I have a one year old to chase around and entertain, and three classes to try to keep up with, so I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about what could possibly go wrong. It would probably be a different story if I was having symptoms. But I'm not. I feel this baby moving a few times a day, I know 20-23 weeks is "nothing they can/will do about it anyway" territory, stressing over it isn't going to make a difference either.

I am much more worried that we will never come up with a name that we both like that we can agree on. Because we are so very not even close. Joe joked to my parents that he was going to say he hates everything I like so I will eventually give up and just name him Joe/Joseph/Joey. I am pretty adamantly against that because 1) Three Joe's in the family would be a lot. (My dad is named Joe.) 2) I don't really particularly like the name Joe for our next kid, anyway. 3) I am the one juggling a million doctor's appointments and ultrasounds with a busy 1 year old accompanying me, jabbing needles in my belly daily, not to mention all of the normal pregnancy issues, (and listen to Joe whine when he has a measly cold), and then get to end with a c-section....if anything we should be naming this kid after ME! 4) Now that I suspect that's his plan (which might have actually worked had he not said anything), I am adamantly against it!  It is extremely likely that we will use "Joseph" as a middle name, though. I don't have a problem with that at all. So that's where we are on the name front, nowhere. I may have to check out a baby name book from the library to at least maybe try to come up with some names I like, although I'm not sure I'll come up with anything in a name book that I haven't already seen online or on nymbler, etc. We may have to give up for awhile and revisit this later and maybe some names that I didn't initially love will grow on me. We may also just wait until he is born, but then I'm worried he may end up as "baby brooks" for a week as we try to agree on something, because I could totally see that happening. Joe and I are both really stubborn. We'll come up with something eventually.