No modesty here.

These Mateus babies have no qualms about showing their goods.  The first image we saw yesterday during the ultrasound was this:

A few things.

1. Ultrasound tomorrow. Hopefully we'll figure out what flavor we're having.

2. Day two of underwear at daycare = only one accident. We're going to do something to celebrate tonight.

3. I am on the verge of killing two cats. If you want to save them (aka take them from me), please let me know.

So, so random...

Mainly because I can't manage a very long train of thought these days.

We've been working on potty-training boot camp (our version) this weekend. So far, only one accident. Aside from about three hours this afternoon (and overnights - not ready to tackle that yet), Reed's been in the house and in underwear all weekend.

This week is going to be rough - Reed's favorite (and our favorite, too) teacher at daycare is leaving. Carla isn't technically Reed's teacher anymore - she is the toddler room teacher. She was our saving grace when we first moved to Hutchinson. That's when Reed was transitioning from an in-home care to a daycare center. She seemed to understand immediately how hard this was going to be on all of us, and she gave Reed all the extra hugs and attention that he needed. Even now when Reed is having a rough day, he'll ask to go into Carla's room and she can magically make everything okay. We are going to miss her so much.

With the holidays approaching, I'm sad about not spending them with family. Yes, I'll be with Alex and Reed, but I'm starting to feel sad about not going to Kentucky for Christmas. There's only been one year since we've been married that we didn't make it (Alex had just started a new job and didn't have any time built up), and only once prior to that (the year my sister got married - a week before Christmas - and I didn't have enough vacation time to do both the wedding and Christmas). When we decided to go to Kentucky in November and skip Christmas, it seemed like a great idea - and I am still really glad we went when we did. That said, it's sad to think about the things that we will miss by not being there - even though it will be a ton easier on us to not have to make the drive with Reed, reschedule Santa's visit, and so on and so forth.

I have a few blogs that I read on a regular basis; one of which belongs to Emilie. She lives in the cities and is the mother of two adorable little boys. She is also battling soft-tissue sarcoma. This has been a rough week for her, and she's been on my mind quite a bit. Her story is full of sweet and sour, as she says, but she is also very hopeful and gives me great peace whenever I read her entries.

Funny things I never want to forget.

- The way that when you ask Reed a question, and he answers you in the affirmative, he says "s-ure" - not "shure" like you and I would say - he can't quite pronounce his "sh" sounds yet.

Fun stories from daycare -

The first story:
Reed recently had his first trip to the dentist. He went with Alex, and the hygienist cleaned Alex's teeth first, and then it was Reed's turn. He was not incredibly cooperative, but we got him exposed to the dentist anyway. Alex took him to daycare after the appointment was over, and the following transpired -
Dee: Reed, did you go to the dentist this morming?
Reed: no.
Dee: Are you sure? Where did you go?
Reed: I went to see chickens. Bawk, bawk, bawk. Chickens go bawk.
For the record, there are no farms or anything that resembles a farm between the dentist's office and daycare. We have no idea where that came from.

The second story:
Reed and a buddy were playing on the loft at daycare. Dee reported to us that he came down the stairs, cradling a baby doll, with a very serious look on his face. She said, "Reed, what is wrong?" He replied "she's sick." Dee asked what he thought they should do about it, and he said "she needs to go to the doctor." Dee said that he then put the doll in a toy car (like a Barbie car) and said "buckle up, sweetie" and "drove" her to the "hospital" where he and his buddy took out the toy doctor's kit, gave her a shot, listened to her heart, and returned her to daycare, good as new.

I have a lot of catching up to do.

Things have been busy - life is just getting in the way of time to jot things down.

Last Friday (10/10) was Reed's fourth birthday. How we managed to let four years fly by is beyond me, but they certainly have been the best four of my life. My parents were here for a visit, and we had a birthday party for his friends last Saturday. The weather was perfect, and we really couldn't have asked for a better day for a party.

Upcoming - Reed and I leave this Friday (the 24th) to make a quick trip to Austin. I have been looking for tickets for a long time, and finally found some that wouldn't break the bank. I'm looking forward to some girl-time with a very dear friend of mine who is in the midst of a divorce. She has two boys who will keep Reed busy while she and I visit and catch up. We're also planning on stopping to visit Miss Sharon for a bit on Saturday morning - Miss Sharon kept Reed from the time he was about eight weeks old until the time we left to move to Minnesota. We keep talking to Reed about Miss Sharon, but I'm not sure how he will react to her. Will he remember anything about her? I'm doubtful, but I know she's dying to see him.

The weekend after we return is Halloween, and Reed is dressing up as an elephant, which will be a hoot. Then Election Day (it will FINALLY be over!), and the following day we all leave to go to Kentucky for a week. As usual, we'll have just a fraction of the time we need to do everything we want to do - we're going to Murray for a few days for a sorority reunion, and we'll also have some quality time with my sister and her girls. All of the extended family members want to see Reed, so we'll work that in somewhere, too. And then we'll come back to Minnesota, where we're planning on staying put for a while. No travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. I have really mixed feelings about that, but that's another topic for another post.

In the shorter term, I have to find Reed some ice skates this weekend, because he starts skating lessons on Wednesday. Monday afternoon is a preschool parent-teacher conference. Tuesday afternoon is a daycare parent-teacher conference. Wednesday is ice skating lessons, and Thursday is a Happy Hour with the folks that were in my class for the HLI. How I'll manage to survive (and get packed!) until the end of this week is beyond me. Wish me luck.

The Kitchen Project - DONE!

I haven't gotten around to posting these - but we've been done for probably six weeks now. We still stand in there and marvel at the fact that all of that storage and counter space is for real.

Puddle Jumping

Reed loves to jump in puddles - I mean, who wouldn't love it, really? Click the photos for a larger view.

And a bonus shot of our house.

Recent Reedisms

The Pacifier -
Reed has slept with a pacifier for-freaking-ever. When we moved to Hutchinson from Austin, his new daycare wouldn't allow him to have it all day long (like he did in Austin) so he tapered off then to just nighttime use (and has used it at night for the past almost-two-years. To me, it wasn't a battle worth fighting - I figured as long as he was only using it at night (and not even all night at that) that he'd eventually decide he was done. I was right.

A few nights ago, I was so tired I was about to die. Reed wanted to come to my bed, so I said fine. He laid down with me, had his elephant and paci, and all of a sudden he says "my paci is broke, Mommy. I need a new one." I told him we didn't have another one and that it was the last paci. He asked me to fix it, and I told him that we can't fix pacifiers. When they break, they're trash.

He went to his room and dug around and found another one, but didn't like it because it didn't have the grooves on it (he was using a Nuk that has the soothing grooves on it for teethers). He threw it at the wall and said he was done. Fell asleep and stayed asleep without it.

The next night, we were getting ready for bed and I asked him if he had his elephant. He said "yes, I have elephant, but no red paci." That was all he said - and he got in bed and went to sleep.

We've had a few nights where he wanted to argue about needing it ("but I loooove my red paci") and have to remind him that it's broken and we don't have any more, but so far, he's been sleeping fine without it.

If only potty training will work out to be that easy...

The Piggies
I have always called Reed's toes "piggies." Somewhere along the line, the piggies have started talking back (kind of like Hand-Hand and Alex). I was trying to get him ready to leave the house for some reason, and trying to get his shoes on him. I said "come here piggies, get in these shoes!" to which the piggies responded "but it's so dark in here!"

I laughed so hard I peed my pants.

The Yeah-Buts
A recent phrase in our house is "yeah but" whenever I'm asking him to do something that he doesn't want to do. Apparently he's doing this at school too, because they started telling him "yeah buts live in the woods." We decided to try that approach at home because honestly, I was so tired of the arguing.

One night last weekend, I was asking him to do something (eat his supper, pick up his toys, who knows what), and he kept cutting me off with "yeah but" and telling me that he didn't want to. After he cut me off the fifteenth time, I said, louder than him, "BUT..." to which he looked at me, pointed his index finger at me and shook it saying, "Mommy, Buts live in the woods."

I'm pretty sure he saw me laugh.

Astute readers might have noticed...

that I made reference to my pregnancy in a previous post. I wasn't holding out on you; I just wanted to see the heartbeat before I shared with the world. Since we saw a strong little heartbeat on an ultrasound last week, I am now ready to announce to the world that Reed is going to be a big brother, sometime in April. My due date is April 14, but I am 99.99% certain that I will go for the scheduled c-section at about 39 weeks, as recommended by my doctor.

Reed has no idea that this is coming; he has no concept of time and would ask me every day between now and April when the baby is coming. I suppose I will tell him when I can no longer hold him on my lap or when he starts asking about my belly. I have such bittersweet feelings about having a baby. I know that I want to give Reed a sibling. It has always been part of the plan. What I didn't think about was how much Reed and I would bond, especially within the past year. I worry that I am not going to have enough time or patience to maintain the closeness that we have now. I know that he will benefit greatly from having someone to share with and play with and even fight with, but I also worry about what he might lose.

Passive-Aggressive behaviors, Facebook, etc.

One of my favorite pages on the web is the Passive-Aggressive Notes page. It's always got something awesome that is cracking me up at any given time. When you combine Facebook *and* PAN, it just gets freaking awesome, as is evidenced here.

While I don't have anything that exciting going on in my Facebook world right now, what I do have is, well, interesting. You see, I have this Ex. And I mean Ex, with the capital E, as in Ex from Hell. None of the details there matter now (this was about ten years ago now - how time flies), but he and I have recently ended up beinging added to the same person's friends list. I have not been in touch with this friend (for simplicity purposes, we'll call him Joe) and I'm relatively certain that Ex hasn't been either, up until now. Joe posted in his status update yesterday that his wife just found out that she is pregnant with #2. I posted congratulations to him/them, and said that I am about nine weeks along with our second as well. Ex posted right after me on Joe's page.

There's nothing illegal about that, and I suppose that I should actually be okay with it. And it's certainly not going to keep me up at night, but dammit, it annoys me. Why does he have to be there, tainting my good wishes for a healthy pregnancy?

When I discovered that we were friends with the same person, I was a little panicky - my sister talked me down, telling me that I have nothing to be ashamed or embarassed of, because he was the one who lost his mind and his character and lied to me for God-only-knows-how-long. And she's right - I did nothing wrong at the end of that relationship (and for the record, I claim responsibility for many other things that went wrong over the course of that relationship, but not for his "dropping-off-the-face-of-the-earth-and-eloping-without-ever-telling-me-act."). But for some reason, it just irritates me that I've managed to not cross paths with him for the past ten years, and now he suddenly appears.