The View From the Top

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Oh wait, here they are in all of their swollen glory!
I'm 26 weeks now and I just realized that I can no longer see my feet!Not seeing feet + not reaching feet = PEDICURES!! Yay!

Mao-Mao's Trip to the Vet

Yesterday was the Mao-Mao's annual trip to the Vet for vaccinations and a check-up. Minnie does great, she's been to the vet for various treatments and tests so going in for her shots is not a big deal for her. Sweet Pea had always been fine up until visiting a new vet in Cincinnati several years ago and for no apparent reason she completely freaked out, trying to scratch and bite the vet. He ended up having to put on these leather gloves that went clear up to his shoulders (similar to the gloves that falcon handlers use!) in order to give her her shots. Doing any kind of exam was impossible! I think this must have traumatized poor Sweet Pea because she has been a holy terror at the vet ever since!
Last year at Sweet Pea's visit to the vet, she had to be taken to the back room and immobilized to get her shots. She ended up scratching the crap out of the vet with her back claws. We were instructed not to bring her back unless she was pretty much dying. This earned her a note in her chart "EXTREME CAUTION". Apparently this is vet-speak for "watch out everybody, this cat is a complete maniac".

Yesterday Sweet Pea saw a new vet and we tried a different tactic this time...put Sweet Pea in an anesthesia chamber minus the anesthesia, cover her up with a thick blanket, and hold her down with the strength of a Norse woodsman while the vet went for her rump with the shot.
This worked great---for about three seconds until Sweet Pea decided to become a catapult (no pun intended) and somehow kicked up her back legs, shot her back end out of the box and in the commotion caused the vet to stab herself in the arm with the needle. You wouldn't think a fluffy 10 pound cat that LOVES to be petted and sit on our laps could go that crazy. Poor Mike witnessed the whole thing and was horrified, I'm sure.

The vet told us we should get ourselves a trout fishing net to wrangle, wrap up, and immobilize her next time; not to worry, once Sweet Pea turned 10 years old, she would mellow out. Umm...sorry lady, Sweet Pea's already 12+ and showing no signs of slowing down.

Baby Jinx update!

I had an ultrasound to check BabyJinx's growth last week. At 24 weeks, baby is growing well and getting big...1-1/2 pounds! The pregnancy is flying by! The next big step is passing the glucose challenge testing for gestational diabetes at 27 weeks; wish us luck!

From the start, this little one has not wanted to cooperate for good ultrasound pictures; BabyJinx is on the move constantly! Here's the best facial shot that we could get.

Fender Bender

Many of you have heard by now about my little "incident" on Mike's birthday...I think I nearly gave him a heart attack! I was driving home from work on I-29/35 as usual, with moderately heavy traffic, and right before the Paseo bridge some lady decides to cut across 3 lanes of traffic as all of the cars ahead of us were slowing. She rammed into the guy behind me, which then pushed that car into me from behind. The lady's car was totaled, the guy in the middle had a smashed trunk and crumpled up hood, and I got a dented bumper. THANK GOODNESS my car sits up pretty high because it allowed the guy behind me to just smash into the bottom of the bumper and slide underneath me instead of coming on into my backseat. Luckily, I had been paying attention to traffic and had plenty of room ahead of me so that I wasn't really in any danger of getting pushed into somebody else. Also, luckily, nobody got seriously hurt.

The worst part about the whole thing was that it happened on Mike's birthday, just as I was planning to take him out for a date. We ended up having to stand on the side of the road in 100 degree heat for 2 HOURS with no shade, waiting for the KC, MO police to show up!!! I couldn't believe it took them so long to respond to a 3 car pile-up accident in such a heavily traveled area during rush hour. I actually called 911 FOUR TIMES, before the officer showed up! Finally, on my last call to 911, I had to pull out the pregnancy card and tell them if they didn't send somebody soon, they might as well send an ambulance because I was about to have a heat stroke...

It was determined that the lady in the back was at fault (duh!) so everything was turned into her insurance company. Piece of cake right? Well, yesterday I found out that she does not have enough liability coverage to pay for repairs to BOTH my car and the guy in the middle's car. So, a little piece of advice for all of you out there...double check your insurance policies to make sure you have enough liability coverage so you don't risk being taken to court for being underinsured and if you have the option to purchase insurance for when the underinsured hits you-do it!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Mike's birthday was last Monday. We had an eventful time to say the least! I mustered up as many of Mike's friends as I could for a little surprise party at The Dish Friday night. IT WAS AWESOME! Mike was really surprised and had NO idea! It was great to get everybody together for dinner and cake! For his birthday present, I sent Mike and one of his good friends to see the sportbike races in Topeka on Saturday. I think they had a really good time, especially trying out the wheelie machine...

Sunday Mike mounted a wall bracket for our new TV. It was quite an undertaking and we worked really hard ALL DAY at getting everything in exactly the right place. Once we were finished and were ready to sit down and watch a movie we realized that the left side of the TV is about 2" lower than the right...grrr! Apparently we didn't get the bracket exactly level and it only magnified the slope when we mounted the TV. I think we're going to need some strongarms to help us unmount the TV again and level out the bracket. Mike was so disgusted I thought he might kick a hole in the wall! So, for now, we're watching lopsided TV!

Hunger!

I had my 23 week OB visit today and everything is still going great! Babyjinx is growing like crazy and is REALLY active these days. I have even started to notice some sleep/wake cycles. All of that activity and growth must be burning up some calories because I was in no way prepared for the amount of HUNGER that I would be experiencing! Poor Mike might starve because I go around eating everything in sight! Usually he gets to take leftovers for lunch, but this week the poor guy had to scrounge for leftover guacamole and chips one day and 2 hot dogs the next day! Oh, and the pregnancy brain has definitely kicked in...I can't believe how many totally brainless things I can do in a single day!

I swallowed a basketball!

Due to many requests to see the baby bump.....here I am at 5 weeks:

And today, at 21 weeks! Impressive, huh!Impressive huh!

Sweet Pea is getting ready too, she's been doing some reading up!