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A few days ago Patty came home from school with a turkey she made by stuffing a brown paper bag with tissue paper. Glued to it were its feathers and head. She showed it to me and seemed a little disappointed with her work. “What’s wrong?,” I asked her. “Well,” she said. “I think it looks more like a peacock than a turkey.”
“I think it looks like a GREAT turkey,” I said.
“It doesn’t even have a snood,” she said. “Turkeys are supposed to have a snood.”
“What is a snood?”
“A snood is that little red thing that hangs from a turkey’s beak,” she said. “I learned about it in school. You didn’t know that? I thought you knew everything!”
Patty’s life lesson #1 – daddy don’t know squat…
Anywhoo… I hope everyone who reads this has a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We are headed to NOVA to have brunch/dinner with my family, and to participate in our annual Stevens family Thanksgiving Day football game. It’s a lot of fun and usually ends with someone running home hurt and in tears (usually me).
I have a theory that, thanks to the recent reality-TV explosion, each and every person in the world will have a chance to star in their own television show at some point in their lives. This may be our first and only shot.
A few months ago Kristin, I and the kids were approached by Virginia Commonwealth University to be participants in a VCU-produced TV program called "Secrets of the Sequence." It's a classroom teaching video series that focuses on a number of medical topics. They were interested in our family (who wouldn’t be!) because of the all the various medical conditions we suffer from (my eyes, Patty's eyes, Amanda's eyes, everybody's eyes...etc). A video crew spent a day with us, following the kids to a doctor's appointment, visiting our house, interviewing Kristin and I and shooting footage of the kids playing and us playing with the kids.
The title of the video we participated in is called All in the Family: Genetics and Family Health History and focuses on heredity and how our genes (not jeans - you Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fans) pass inherited traits from one generation to the next (i.e. - eyes) and the importance of keeping a good family medical history.
The video is about 10 minutes long and is very informative. If you’ve got some time, I suggest you take a look. You might learn something ;-)
Ahhhh Fall...
This is what I have to look forward to for the next month or so. Raking leaves.
It's a lot of fun...well not really...It's a lot of back breaking work. Most folks in my neighborhood use bagger attachments for their mowers, leaf blowers or hire landscaping companies to do the work for them. Me. I use the old fashioned method. A rake.
It's good exercise, but I hate exercise...
One year I had the bright idea to use my riding mower to mulch the leaves. It didn't work out like I planed. The heat from my mower blades ended up making the leaves catch fire. My mower overheated and the drive belt broke. I was not a happy camper.
This year I'll stick with the rake. Wish me luck :)
Kristin went to the doctor today (I think she actually saw nurse practitioner, or maybe it was a midwife) and everything is going well with the pregnancy. She’s just over 12 weeks along and we heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was a little scary at first because the doc/nurse/midwife couldn’t find one. But this was mostly due to the fact that the little Doppler machine thingy she used was low on batteries. With a new machine and new batteries, she found the heartbeat right away.
To me, the heartbeat sounded a bit slower than when I first heard Patty and Amanda’s. According to an old wives tale, a slower heartbeat means we’ll be having a boy. If it's from a bunch of old wives it must be true, right? A boy would be nice. But he’d have to get used to wearing pink. Cause we’ve got A LOT of girl’s clothes :)
In other news, Patty’s soccer career is officially over - for now at least. She had her end of season awards dinner last night and was handed her first trophy. Will she play soccer again? Who knows? She enjoyed being on the team. Liked going to practice and LOVED her teammates. But when game time came around, she spent most of her time on the field pouting. Her biggest complaint was the fact that she couldn't score any goals. Trying to explain to her that soccer is not all about scoring and is more about having fun with your teammates just went over her head.
Anywhoo...I'm off to watch The Office!
Yep. Big news. We’re pregnant!
Inside Kristin’s belly, cooking away, is baby #3!
We’ve known for about a month now, but have been keeping it under wraps until Kristin’s first official doctors appointment. Everything is going smoothly. Kristin has even sneaked a peak at the baby (using an echo scanner-thingy at her work) and saw a heartbeat! The baby will be due sometime in mid to late May.
We’re very excited. And scared. Right now maybe a bit more scared than excited. Another baby means another mouth to feed. Another daycare bill. Most likely a bigger car (I’m anti-minivan, but might have to resort to buying one), more clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, etc…the list goes on and on. The only thing that there will be less of in our household will be sleep.
According to a USA Today article from a few years ago, having three kids is becoming more and more common. And for many parents, its easier going from two to three kids than it was going from one to two. I also found a helpful website, called www.havingthreekids.com, full of stories and advice from parents who have had, or are thinking of having, three kids. Let’s hope they’re all right!
We told Patty and Amanda the news and they were thrilled. Patty hopes for a boy and Amanda wants mommy to have two boys. One for her to play with and one for Patty. I don’t know about two boys, but one would be nice :-)
