Double Joggers, Woolies, Preggo Heartburn and Velcro Shoes

Here's my 27 weeks (plus 3 days) belly shot:

 And here's my 27 weeks pic from last time around:

I think my belly actually looks bigger in the pic above from the first time around!  But then when you look at my 28 weeks pic from the first time around, it looks almost identical to right now:

I think it depends a lot on what I'm wearing, or how exactly I'm standing, or how the baby is laying at that exact moment.

So it looks like I'm right on track with the first time around now.  And I'm thinking a bulb must have burned out in the bathroom, because the older pictures are so much brighter than the recent ones.  I'll have to look into that.  But anyway, moving on......

I'M SUPER EXCITED!!

A while back I mentioned that the only thing I really needed for the arrival of Baby #2 was a double stroller, and that I'd like a double jogger so that I could hit the pavement with it as well.  A friend of mine commented on the post, saying that she had a double jogger I could buy from her that she LOVED but that her kids were finally outgrowing.  Well, I picked that stroller up today to "test drive" and now I can't wait to actually test drive it!

Thar she blows!

It's a Bumbleride Indie Twin, and it's all sorts of fancy.  One of the main things I needed to do with it was make sure that my infant car seat would work with it, and it does!  The top part of the car seat actually locks down onto the bumper bar and the stroller seat folds up to hold it even more secure.  And once the car seat strap is strapped around the foot-end of the car seat, it will be snug as a bug!  It came with a removable cup holder that clips to the side, but I've already been online eyeballing the Parent Pack Console attachment for my drink/keys/phone and the Snack Pack attachment for Delano's drink/snacks/toys.  I think tomorrow will be a good day for a test drive, even though my pregnant butt can't do much jogging at the moment!  And who are we kidding......I'm pretty certain I'm not giving this back!  ;)

So it was time to wash and lanolize Delano's wool diaper covers (this happens every few weeks), so I found out how to do it and did it myself last week.  The first couple of mornings after my first lanolizing experience, Delano was wet, so I figured I had done something wrong even though I had NO idea what that "something" was.  But this morning, Delano was bone dry on the outside of the diaper just as he should be.  So I'm thinking next time maybe I'll try separating the washing from the lanolizing (which is typically done together), and see if that helps with the first couple of uses.  I also know I used more lanolin than recommended, so maybe the next time I'll actually follow the recommendations and see if that makes a difference.  These aren't the instructions I originally followed (I watched a video I found somewhere), but here's an example of how you clean and lanolize wool.  It looks like a lot of work, but like the lady says in her instructions, it's REALLY easy and not much work at all.  I know from experience!

Washing/soaking a woolie.  Looks like fun, right?

Speaking of woolies, you can Google patterns for them online and make them yourself out of old wool sweaters (or, of course, wool you buy at the fabric store).  I'm not crafty enough to make them myself (nor do I own a sewing machine), but my mom is.......so I'm going to recruit her to make one for me to see how well it goes.  EVEN THOUGH SHE'S ALLERGIC TO WOOL.  That's because I'm an awesome daughter like that.  ;)  Just kidding.  I mean, my mom really IS allergic to wool so she said she'd have to wear a face mask while she sews, but she also said she doesn't mind trying it out.  BECAUSE SHE'S AN AWESOME MOM.  So next week when the Practically Perfect Consignment Sale hits Chattanooga, I'm going to scour the racks for some old, soft, wool sweaters we can cut up!  But if all else fails......the diaper doesn't come out as we hope or she can't handle working with wool.....the lady I bought my first two from has already made some more cute ones!

Monkey butt!

Since I talked about my constant heartburn in a recent post, I decided to try a lot harder to see if I could pinpoint what was triggering it.  For the longest time I couldn't seem to pinpoint it.  Sometimes when I ate greasy food, I got heartburn, and other times I didn't.  Sometimes when I ate sweet stuff I got heartburn, while other times I didn't.  Sometimes I felt like simply drinking water was giving me heartburn.  The only things I knew for sure that would make my insides sizzle up were peanut butter (anytime I eat a PB&J) and soy products (like my oh-so-yummy Morning Star corn dogs and chicken patties).  So I only eat those on occasion with the knowledge that Tums are the dessert.  But all this time I had never tried fully eliminating anything else from the equation, since there didn't seem to be any sort of pattern.  Until last week.

Last Thursday, I ate a bowl of Chex cereal in the morning, and decided that I was going to eat a salad for lunch (which I did, from F2O).  Then when I was STARVING in the afternoon, I ate an apple.  The apple did very little to quench my appetite, but I wanted to stick with fresh fruits and veggies to see if they caused my chest to cry.  THEY DIDN'T.  Then for dinner I had Japanese hibachi at Ichiban, which I thought would SURELY set my chest on fire.  IT DIDN'T.  I went all day and all night without chewing a single Tums! 

The next day (Friday), I had my chocolate sugary cereal for breakfast.  My cereal has never seemed to cause me any heartburn, but I wanted to make sure.  IT DIDN'T.  Then for lunch, I had leftover Ichiban.  NO HEARTBURN.  For a snack later that day I had grapes, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.  STILL NO HEARTBURN.  It was turning out to be a glorious second day. 

I was feeling like this lady.

But then that evening, I had Mexican for dinner and went to a birthday party where I had a couple of cookies and about half of a cupcake.  That night my chest was back to being on fire.  Ironically, I don't think it was the Mexican food (though I can test this theory), since I ate about half of a taco salad and none of the chips and salsa.  I'm pretty certain it was the cookies and cupcake.  So I'm thinking that it's sugar that gives me heartburn!!  But not all sugary things, which is why I hadn't pinpointed it before.  My chocolate cereal in the mornings doesn't bother me at all.  And the homemade strawberry shortcake at my parents' house Sunday night didn't bother me, either.  It seems to be the really junky sugary stuff, like cookies and icing, that does it.  Good thing my craving for cake icing as a snack in the afternoons went away several weeks ago!

Because this was all sorts of a good idea to begin with, anyway.

I still think that other junk food, like the really-bad-for-you-fast-food kind, probably also flares up my chest like sugar does, but I don't eat enough of it to bother worrying about it.  I can just avoid it.  Or if I do have a craving one day for some french fries or whatever, then I'll know.  But I'm definitely going to avoid the high concentration sugar snacks, even though Halloween is right around the corner!!

I thought this was a neat and artistic photo for sugar addiction by an artist known as Nao-Dignity.

Delano has moved up in shoe size already from a size 3 (which I JUST bought at consignment sales last month) to a size 4 (luckily I bought some of those, too).  And I've already learned something, besides the fact that his feet are growing like weeds.  Velcro shoes are awesome for kids because you don't have to deal with laces, both getting them tied and keeping them tied.  But the downside to velcro shoes is that your child can also easily take them off.  Delano hasn't actually pulled his shoes off yet, but he undoes the velcro all the time because it's fun times.  But that's ok, because his shoes are adorable, and he DOES try to re-velcro them himself.

Star Wars!

I bought one pair of size 5 shoes at a consignment sale last month just in case he needed them before the next round of consignment sales hit in February/March, but it looks like I should buy a few more pair at the last couple of fall/winter consignment sales this month and maybe even a a couple of size 6s!!

Crazy weed baby.......