Week 30

Today, I took my mom to my 30 week ultrasound. I have ultrasounds at least once per month to check Max's growth to make sure he isn't getting too much sugar (however, since I've been having lows on the insulin, it would be hard to be getting TOO much!!) My mom had never been to an ultrasound, so that was fun to see her responses to it. I've had so many that they are completely routine, not at all fascinating. She was definitely fascinated.

We didn't get to see Max's face, as he was curled up, head down, both hands crossed in front of his face. On 2 other occassions, I've gotten lovely shots of his face---and he looks like the other children. Turns out, my nose seems to be dominant. John's grandmother's eyes seem to be dominant, too, so the kids are a great mix. Only time will tell if he got all the dimples and the cleft in his chin. He measures 31 weeks, and for a diabetic, that's perfect when you're 30 weeks. For a Phippen, equally good! LOL.

My liver is not functioning at its peak. I'm suffering from a terrible itch all over my body, mostly on my trunk and legs. It hurts, but I got some cream for it, and hopefully I can make it the next 6 weeks. All that can be done is benadryl and cream---and it doesn't help much. Neither is a "magic bullet"---that's for sure!

I'll be having an amnioscentisis on 10/9/07 to check to see if Max's lungs are mature. He'll be 36 weeks on 10/10, and that's our "expected" delivery date. Hopefully, he'll be born on 10/10 and be healthy and happy. We're in our final count down: 5-4-3-2-1, blast-off!! It's also nice to know that I have a "vacate-by" date.

Adventures in FHE

I am quite certain that Family Home Evening is an instrument of torture for parents. Today we had a lesson on keeping the sabbath day holy, and it was an adventure, for certain. We started with a song (Jack's favorite: Latter-day Prophets) and then had the lesson from the Children's Friend. One would expect 8 paragraphs to only take about 2 minutes to read, however, with a 2 year old climbing all over every participant, the 4 and 7 year old jockeying for best postition to see the pictures, and loud laughter and giggling abounding, it took 15 full minutes--and then I had to do the Teletubbies route of re-teaching and going over every piece of information again. On top of that, I am quite certain retention was zero.

However, the banana splits were declared roundly successful, and all 3 clean children went to bed far stickier than they had been before FHE.

We've done all the homework (Mama had 20 minutes of reading with Jack, where he fully impressed me with his ability to read the hard words in his Avatar book, and then Dad had to do the math game while the pizza bites and garlic bread for dinner cooked. What do people who have more than 1 child DO? Where does one even find time to do all the homework AND practice an instrument?) Xandri went to soccer practice. It was "great!" and she had fun. Asa cried from the moment he came home today until he went to bed. Delightful. His one, brief shining moment was when Mama and Asa sang all the songs he knows. He knows almost all the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle" and he loves "Wheels on the Bus." Embarrassingly, he also sings "Hey, Delilah" by Plain White T's and "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne. His mother is a bad influence, it seems. He's still garbling the "ABC's" but he can always sing "G" in the right spot. He's also figured out MOST of the words to the song about being Asa Phippen. He's come great strides in 2 weeks, I must say.

And that's the Monday write-up. Thank Goodness Tomorrow's Tuesday. Hahahaha. I'm very ready for Monday to be done!!