When I'm not sleeping....

Sleep. It's SO important right? I've had less of it for the last 22 months, due to Beth. She was never a good sleeper. Even as a newborn she usually slept in 2 hour shifts, and at the longest, I'd get a 1 hour nap during the day. At the time, I didn't know any different since she was my first baby. Around 10 months her habits changed. And after a few weeks of her sleeping 6-8 hours a night, and 2 hours during naps, I realized  how sleep deprived I was. For the last year or so, she's had one nap a day (1-3 hours), which is wonderful! But, she was still waking up between 2-5am for milk. I got rid of her bottles at 15 months (way too late!), but I allowed her to keep the milk in a sippy cup since at the time, we were dealing with a toddler bed transition and teeth.

I realized that a lot of her bad habits came from my behavior. I made a lot of mistakes as a first time mom. I decided to buck up and get her on a good sleep schedule before I have this baby. So, in an effort to curb her late night milk addiction, I decided that she could no longer go to bed with milk. Not for a nap, not for bedtime, and not in the middle of the night. I didn't know how I was going to hold up, since I am usually SO tired in the middle of the night I will give her anything. But I was determined. So, after about a week, I am happy to report that she only has milk with meals and she rarely wakes up in the middle of the night (this has happened 3 times in 10 days). She gets to have a water bottle in her room so if she wakes up thirsty she can get a drink and go back to bed. It's amazing how much better I feel in the morning. Granted, I still get up at least twice to go to the bathroom due to pregnancy, but twice is better than the four to sometimes even five times I'd get up before Beth slept through the night.

It's been great to have the "extra" sleep since recently I've been EXHAUSTED! I'm not sure if it's due to my unborn child having a growth spurt, or my very "born" child wearing me out, but either way, it's tiring. At the end of last week I woke up with a scratchy throat, head ache, and I probably sneezed 50 times that day. I wasn't sure if it was allergies or a cold, but either way, I knew the best way to get rid of it was to sleep. So, that night I took a tylenol and benedryl (which is the ingredient equivalent to tylenol PM). I hoped the tylenol would help with the headache, and the benedryl would help the sneezing. I knew that I had a very limited window to get rid of these nasty symptoms before they turned into something worse. You see, in my sick "history" it's noted that I go from feeling perfect, to having full blown strep, laryngitis, or a nasty cold virus, within about 12 hours. So, you can probably imagine how relieved I felt when I woke up the next morning and I felt better, not worse!

Having kicked those symptoms, I jumped into the day and tried to get everything done that got missed the day before. That evening I was disappointed to have the nasty headache return, with horrible nausea. Typically my pregnancy nausea is made worse by a lack of eating. So, I tried to eat small meals, but after every meal, my nausea would get worse. That evening before bed I took a Phenergen, a wonderful anti-nausea pill. With my 1st pregnancy I could take 1-2 pills, sleep soundly through the night, wake up without nausea and go to my full time job. After a while my body got used to it, and around the 1/2 way mark in my first pregnancy, 2 pills no longer had any effect. 

At the beginning of this pregnancy I tried using Zofran (my day time anti nausea) and Phenergen (my night time anti nausea), but neither did anything. I've refrained from testing them further during this pregnancy because they used to put me to sleep, and before now, Beth was still getting up at night. So I was surprised to find that when I took Phenergen this time, it worked! My overwhelming nausea went away so I could sleep and I felt much better in the morning. The only downside? Even though I only took 1 pill, I was tired for a full 24 hours. I turned on some cartoons for Beth around 9am that morning, and the next thing I know it's 1PM! WHAT? (Yeah I know, I'm a terrible mom). This drowsy state continued all weekend. Most days I slept 12 hours at night, and I even took a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. Luckily Andrew and Beth were understanding. I guess my body and mind needed that sleep, because today, I feel much better. 

With the gorgeous weather today we decided to go to the Zoo. And apparently so did everyone else. There were 2 preschool groups, and a plethora of other parents and kids. Luckily we had made most of our rounds before the large groups got in. We stopped by the Wallaby area and got to walk inside the exhibit and see the Wallaby mama. The baby was hiding in her pouch. She didn't really enjoy the onlookers, and having a baby in my "pouch" as well, I can't say I blame her. The last thing you want is to have people staring at your midsection. 

We noticed a "Giraffe Experience: Come feed the Giraffes!" sign about 20 minutes after we got there and luckily they were still doing it for another 10 min. We paid $3 for a large leaf of lettuce and had no idea what to expect! As we got up to the almost nonexistent line, we saw a dad and little boy in front of us. The little boy was TERRIFIED. And I started to worry about Beth enjoying the experience. The Giraffe was RIGHT THERE. It was so close and I was unsure if Beth would love it or hate it. Either way, we were about to find out.

Beth was a little timid at first, but she loved it! She wasn't scared, and Andrew and I both thought it was SO COOL! We couldn't believe just how long the Giraffe's tongue was, it probably could have gotten the lettuce even if Beth had it behind her back.

It was probably the best $3 and use of lettuce EVER! I found out that they let Zoo Patrons feed the Giraffes daily from 10:15am-11:00am, weather permitting, every day. Since we have a Zoo pass, we'll definitely be coming back to do this again.

After the Zoo, everyone was hungry. For about 6 months I have been craving a really good Hot dog. Weird right? Well a few months ago Andrew and I watched season 1 & 2 of Man V Food on Netflix. And it seemed like he was always eating the most delicious Hot Dogs and Polish Sausages. So I think that's where my craving originated. I am a huge skeptic of hot dogs in general. For the last 10 years I would only eat one if my dad assured me that it was 100% Beef, no junk. My Dad has worked in food service for 20 years, so he knows his stuff about....well....the STUFF that some people put in their hot dogs. 

After about 20 min of convincing, Andrew finally agreed to go to a newer place in Boise, call Stan's Hot Dogs. We walked in and Stan himself greeted us and showed us the menu. All his products come straight from New York, including their frozen custard. He assured me that it was a great product, 100% Beef (or pork if you opted for that dog) and NO fillers. We were also happy to find out that on Mondays their special is Beef on Weck. Which is Prime rib, on a German roll, with Horseradish. Andrew had that and LOVED it. I had a traditional Hot Dog, and it was amazing. We also had their home made, super FRESH, onion rings and fries. Beth was happy to eat a few fries, but Stan came over and asked if he could give her some frozen custard. I said "Sure, that'd be great!"....Visions of an ice cream covered child went through my mind. Kids can NEVER finish an ice cream cone without it melting ALL OVER. But hey, it was a fun day, bath day, and a free sample, so lets go for it. It was awesome. The custard is sweeter than ice cream, but has less sugar. It doesn't melt like ice cream does, so Beth was able to finish the entire cone, and stay relatively clean! After tasting some of Beth's, Andrew went and got his own. This is definitely a new Monday tradition! It is a little pricey, but it's great food and great service. 

Beth was alternating her Custard Cone and a Dill Pickle, Sympathy Cravings?

Just for the record, I LOVE pickles (Dill only) and I love sweet things. But, NEVER. Ever. Together. Yuck! So I have no idea where she got this. Speaking of cravings, or lack of for me, we are in the home stretch with this pregnancy. I have 6-7 weeks left. With Beth I was dilated to a 1 at 37 weeks, stuck at 3cm for about 4 days, and had her 8 days before her due date. I know that every pregnancy, labor and delivery is different, so I figure I'll plan to go to my due date but be pleasantly surprised if this baby comes when Beth did.

After all the teasing Andrew got from the Empathy Belly pictures, I figured I'd go back to posting my own pictures. I am 32 weeks in this picture, it was taken last week. My hair is getting quite long, I'm hoping wear it braided during labor.

Well, that is our fun week. I slept through most of it, but when I wasn't sleeping it was a BLAST! Andrew has about 2 weeks left of this semester, and then he'll be gearing up for summer semester. He'll only have one online class, so it will be somewhat of a break for him. He'll need the "school break" because all through the late spring and summer we will be studying  "How to labor and delivery Naturally," "How to raise a 2 year old," and "How to handle being a family of 4."  Tough classes, but I know a lot of people that have passed them with flying colors. :-)

I hope everyone is well rested, cold/allergy free, and craving another hot dog like me!

Happy Blogging!