Chillaxed

I FINALLY got around to scanning our ultrasound pics. I only included the 2 most entertaining. The others you could probably use for an inkblot test and have everyone come up with what they think the image actually is. Well, they aren't quite that ambiguous, but the two below are certainly the best.

Our ultrasound went quite well. Walking into the room, I was more nervous than I thought possible. I never really think I am "immune" to anything. Not that I don't hope for the best, I'm just a realist and I know that there's always a chance that something could go differently than I expect. As a teenager, I don't think I suffered majorly from the "immortality" complex most teens have-they think they're untouchable, nothing would ever happen to THEM, etc. Guess bits of that have carried into adulthood and the world thinks I'm a terrible pessimist. O well.

These ultrasounds are rather involved-at least an hour in length. Bones are measured, cavities of the heart, kidneys, stomach, it's rather insane. During this time of measurement, the baby originally stayed in one position with its feet over its head, sleeping. At some point, it woke up, and was going nuts for awhile. Rather uncooperative. Of course, all this happens while she's trying to measure things and what not. Eventually, the baby settled into another position to sleep. This position, is rather unprecedented. I've never seen a picture of a baby in the womb laying like this. It's something I'd expect from a cartoon or something. Anyhow, the doc was trying in vain to get a measurement of the skull, and here's baby Ruiz, laying in the "hammock" of my uterus, hands behind his/her head, as relaxed as can possibly be. Unfortunately, this position did not allow the doc to easily get the measurement she was looking for. In effort to make the baby move, she jiggled my uterus around a bit by pushing on my lower abdomen (not cool, bladder was filling up), and this kid...go figure, shakes his head as if to display his annoyance, and goes right back to his chillaxed lounge position. Thank you, you're just o so cooperative. Mind of its own already.

Eventually she managed to get the measurement she wanted, and then took these fun 3-d pics.


I tried to stretch these out as much as possible but they're still kind of small. Essentially, you're looking at a semi-abstract clay sculpture of Baby Ruiz, laying in the womb with his/her hands behind the head. The second one is a bit more obvious, and you can even see a little hand with curled fingers near the left side of the head. Technology is nuts. Simply nuts. Robots will take over the world some day.

So that's the first glimpse of baby Ruiz, and since we had no problems at all, it should be the last glimpse until this baby enters the world. The doc said everything looks fantastic, and the baby is right on target growth wise for its due date of September 27. Only other notable details we laughed at were that the technician said Jonathan was an unusually calm father-I guess they often pace around the room or jiggle their keys out of nervousness, and at one point, the doc was pressing hard to find something or other, and scanned across my bladder and says" Whoa, looks like that's quite full, sorry about all the pressure...I'll try to let you go here in a minute." That sounds like the story of any pregnant woman-full bladder all the time, but it's pretty characteristic of my bladder my entire life. I always dreaded dealing with my bladder during pregnancy because I'm already prone to stopping for a pee break with a mere 1-2 hour drive if i'm not super careful about what I'm drinking. It's been slightly more annoying because it's a bit more uncomfortable when it's full, but all in all, I'm glad I've been "trained" well for such things.

Anyhow, that's the latest. We're headed to Atown tomorrow for a Mexican birthday party to celebrate all three of the Davco siblings-all the birthdays are within 2 weeks of eachother. Homemade pinata (gracias Austin) and all. No idea why we're generally obsessed with Mexican food and party activities. Otherwise, just a few things to do with the house on Saturday. Hopefully it will be a more relaxing weekend than not, we sure could use it. Oh-and thanks to those of you who sent FB well wishes and prayers. Whatever food poisoning or 36 hour bug I had was completely gone as of last evening. came home from work early and managed to get a few more solid hours of sleep in before dinner...woke up to feel essentially normal. Phew. It's amazing how wonderful it feels to wake up with energy and an overall sense of wellness after being sick...I have to keep that in mind, it's like an extra level of feeling great and set for the day, we just normally overlook it.

Peace.

weekend progress

The fam was out in full force this weekend helping to paint the new house. We 5 rooms to do, but since I have a thing for darker colors, some of those rooms were receiving 3 coats of paint...so, it was no small job.

Jonathan's parents came up with their van loaded with goodies and supplies on Friday morning and worked straight through the day, only to barely get sleep that night on an air mattress. Woke up Saturday morning and were at it again once coffee and breakfast sandwhiches were passed around.

My dad stayed for the afternoon to help out, which was great because he doesn't need a step stool to paint the high spots. With some classic rock in the background, he was quite content.

My mom continued to clean clean clean, floors, windows, doors...and we continued to make messes here and there.

Jonathan was a painting madman, picking up my slack due to trying to stay away from fumes, as well as helping his dad fix some of the basements steps, and doing other random things on the to-do list.

Saturday we went to pick up our new furniture near the Lehigh Valley Mall area...managed to fit the new couch and new chair/ottoman in the massive van Jonathan's parents brought up. Turns out we have a fascination with the color "Cheyanne Rock" (it's Behr paint) not only for our walls, but for our furniture. We didn't mean to pick a couch and wall color that were so close in color...I was getting tired of thinking of what color to paint the living room when Jonathan pointed to a color in a picture (on a Behr pamphlet) and said that one is nice. It happened to be a color I had circled hoping to use at some point in life, so we figured eh, this works. We love the color, we'll just have to spruce up the couch with some vibrant pillows or somethin so it isn't quite so camouflage.

Hmm...that's a basic update of the work and progress, with some pics below. Jonathan's mom has some great before (and after) pictures on her facebook, so check there to see the comparison.

We had a fun ultrasound Friday as well...but I will wait to post about that until I scan in the pictures tomorrow. The baby is doing well, growing perfectly, etc.

Time for bed. We're both rather wiped out after this weekend. Thank you SO MUCH to our families for your help this weekend-we enjoyed spending time with you, too!

view of our backyard through our dining room window. YES TREES!!!!! 7 of them in our yard actually.

this is our dining room. it's not quite as orange as it looks in this picture..it's called "mexican chile" and is sort of a reddish terricotta?

this is our bedroom. again, the pic doesn't quite do the color justice. this was our random leap of faith color.."garden view". we're happy with it. quite energetic for the mornings (and um, odd hours of the night to feed the baby)


and the living room. do not be mistaken, jordan is not exhausted from working hard on the house...he was out at a graduation party last night. actually, we made him lay on it to see if his whole body could fit (he's 6'3"). yay, our new couch is big enough. and this is the cheyanne rock color we're obsessed with. fantastic with the beautiful, shiny, clean hardwood floors (thank you mom!)

when he tells his mother no...

The ceremonial mowing went well. Cutting the grass is always nice because you often get time to think, as there is pretty much nothing else going on. So here are a few of my thoughts...

...I now say "cutting the grass" instead of "mowing the lawn", thanks lehigh valley.
...We need to do something about all these trees.
...I hope we have a boy first. Still working on names for the boy by the way, but if it is a girl it will be named Amaris.
...I had more thoughts then I am currently posting but I am just too excited about the last one...

...one day, if we have a little boy, or girl for that matter, he is going to tell Jocelyn, "No" to cutting the grass. So I thought about what a few of those scenarios would like...

"No" twice
Jocelyn asks son again, "You need to cut the grass (or mow the lawn)" and he responds "No" again. Jocelyn lets the son know their will be consequences such as no this or that and yadadada and he complies. Lawn mowed.

"Wait till Dad gets home"
Jocelyn lets him know that the consequences will be life threatening. He "understands". Lawn mowed.

Grandma's house
Son rides his bike to Nani's house because he is trying to avoid cutting the grass. Nani skillfully determines the reason for his arrival and not only sends him back to cut my grass, but her own as well. Nani is good. Lawn mowed.

"No" one too many times
Jocelyn gets sick of the "No's" and due to some extenuating circumstance decides she needs to mow the lawn because it is a must right then. I am coming home and notice Jocelyn is cutting the grass. I ask her to stop. She stops. Son hides when he sees dad come out of the car. I find son.
I say something along the lines of, "if I ever, ever, ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever, see mom home cutting the grass while you are home, it will be the end of your life. I do not just mean your social life--the end of your life. And after setting him straight, I do go onto tell him the reasons Why he should never let his mom cut the grass. She is awesome, his mother, caring for her, being part "man" of the house, and so on. He develops a better understanding of "Why" as well as developing a healthy fear of the real man of the house and complies.

Grass is cut.

and it continues...

I was pretty disappointed today to learn that I either misunderstood something or my doc forgot to mention that I was supposed to schedule the level II ultrasound at the hospital-they don't do the ultrasound in the doc's office. So, I got there today, my mom came, etc...and we were ready for this, and then they let me know that OH, no no no...you'll have to call the Perinatal Center to schedule that, not happening today. Sheesh. SO we will have that on Friday at 1pm, and will continue to be slightly nervous for this week. Seeing the baby's heart chambers!? Intense, awesome, but yea...intense.

In other news, we've picked out nearly all the furniture for the new house and came in under the budget we had hoped to stick to, so that is exciting and we're relived to have those details settled. I think I have all the paint swatches picked out as well, so this coming weekend will be painting time extraordinaire. I will be gardening extraordinaire because of all the fumes, which is semi-heartbreaking because I LOVE painting, but so it goes. We'll save the detailed painting like woodwork and such until next year when I'm itching for something else to do.

Here are some pics from this weekend. the Moms were SO helpful...they have completely cleaned the baby's room, the guest room, and our bedroom. Superheros.


this one's a view from the living room into the dining room. powder room door on the left, basement door on the right. and a YARD out back!


picnic in the living room (YES nice hardwood floors!!!) after some cleaning)



jonathan in the living room, smiling that classic jonathan ruiz smile

So those are a few....I got caught up in cleaning and forgot to take more, though I think Mom Ruiz did. I need to remember next time so we have some good before and after shots. That's about all for today I think.

providence

When I was in my younger teens, I mowed the lawn pretty regularly and also mowed my grandparents. We had a riding mower and it took about 2 hours and some change to finish it up and then another hour or so to do my grandparents for which I used a push mower.
The push mower I often used was our own and one day I carelessly filled it up with gas and it wouldn't start. Hmm. The "Dad" calling began and he eventually showed up. It turns out I hadn't push gas in but a gas/oil mix that is suppose to be used for the weedwacker. I cant believe weedwacker is actually a word.

It ruined the mower. Well it needed to be fixed at least. In the meantime we bought and new mower and it has been sitting ever since, and it was a pretty new mower back then. Now that I have a house, with a lawn, the push power will be coming back out. Fortunately, I ruined one about a decade ago that is now ready for our house. So the ceremonial (pulling of the cord) first mow will be this weekend. I must say I am pleased it all worked out. I ruin a mower so that I can use it multiple years later. That, most certainly, is providence.

In other news, we will be away for most the weekend on our second anniversary. And will also be preparing our baby room for a few hours on Saturday. Who would have thought, a year after our first anniversary we would be preparing for another member of the family. Life changes quickly.

PS

I added the National Geographic Photographs gadget because these pictures are almost always fantastic.

So, Jonathan says I'm supposed to blog today. Well, he said yesterday, but I just didn't get to it. What to blog about...hmm....

Oh, the only recent news, I think, is that the news is public at work. I was prepared for it, and was either going to tell people this week or was expecting it to just sort of get out this week, so all is well. One of our managers asked Kim about it Monday, and I told Kim he was allowed to give a truthful answer if someone asked him...so Tuesday morning the congrats began. Not sure why I'm so shy about it, sometimes I'm excited and like to tell people, but at work...work is that weirdo environment where you kind of know people, but really don't know people, so sharing such personal news feels almost invasive or something. The last thing I felt like (feel like) dealing with is having to walk out on the production floor and having people stare...too many grungy guys out there that give me the creeps on an average day, let alone now. But oh well. I don't go out there often, and especially won't now because the fumes from the machinery and adhesives and dyes are nasty and surely can't be good for the baby. This place has air quality akin to that of where we live in the city. It is entertaining to see who comes in to comment on it and who just looks at me funny and doesn't want to say anything. So many rumors fly around here that I guess some people might be hesitant to say something because there's been no notarized announcement or something.

I don't have much else to say...I've been sort of emotionally drained all week and don't have much of an explaination. Things are going well, I have nothing to complain about. Maybe it's just sort of the fallout from having such a stressful week last week. I could've sat by a lake this week, hiked around and not talked to a single person and been fine. Contemplative mode? I don't know. Just ready for some downtime and alone time and time where being pregnant and planning life doesn't dominate who I am. Not that it always does, just been spending a lot of energy lately on those 2 areas and not enough time otherwise. I guess it's time spent on talking about those 2 areas...constantly explaining the baby story this week at work, and the moving story, all that stuff. A balance that needs to be struck now, or I'll never strike it.

At least it's getting nice out...ready to go to the beach.