The whole POINT of going to the Eastern States Exposition (known as The Big E) was so I could get a picture of E standing next a sign that said “The Big E”. And although I took 114 pictures of various others things and people somehow I did not take that picture, despite spending 6 hours and a good portion of my sanity wandering around looking at cows and fried things and Fair People.

Fair People makes me think of Bill Engvall’s stand up bit about the fair. Which is why I took this picture:

Sorry, that’s probably only funny to E and me. We’re dorks. And maybe rednecks.

Even though I didn’t get a picture of E next to the sign, I did get a ton of other pictures. There was food…

That's the face of a child getting a major brain freeze from my strawberry-lemonade slurpie.

And animals…

That's one of the Budweiser Clydesdales getting a foot rub.

All that WOOL! I could knit so much stuff! And Baby Evan liked petting them too.

And plenty of things to buy and touch and look at…

That unicorn in the upper left is part of the Massachusetts building. Apparently they have unicorns there. Or maybe they USED to have unicorns, until the pilgrims ate them all at the first Thanksgiving and everyone got gay married. I was never very good at history.

That was some sort of crazy skateboarding themed fun house on the midway. I just like the picture because Baby Evan's wearing his rock'n'roll shirt.

Not pictured: Framed poster of the Jersey Shore cast dude in a tank top was carrying around. I guess that’s what counts as a “prize” from the ring toss game these days. Hand on my heart, that’s 10000% true.

It was a very fun, very busy, very long day. We planned to stay until about 1:30 and ended up hanging around until 4 to meet some friends. My feet were SCREAMING and my horrible pelvic pain threw my left hip out of joint. I ended up half limping, half waddling, clinging to the stroller and breathing like I just finished a marathon. It was dead sexy. And despite my huge pregnant belly, the people who had claimed the very few benches showed absolutely no interest in letting me sit down for even a minute.

So I took a little rest in the grass. At least SOMEONE got a seat.

And just so you know, I TOTALLY resisted having this done:

But it was really really hard.

Maybe I’m a little more redneck than I thought.

The people involved in decorating and planning the events and meals for The Creative Connection were, of course, brilliant and crafty and…creative.

(Here’s a tip for anyone tired of hearing about my trip: start at the first post and drink every time I say the words “amazing”, “awesome” or “creative”. You’ll be so smashed after 2 paragraphs you won’t even notice I CANNOT shut up.)

From the very first lunch to the cupcake farewell party every table & place setting was gorgeous. Here are the pictures I managed to catch before I shoved the gifts in my bag and the food in my face.

Lunch on Thursday, Keynote Address by The Pioneer Woman

Clockwise from top left:
Adorable place setting with note pad, antique fork and mustache-on-a-stick
I heart gourds as table decor – so fall-y!
After picture of my red velvet cake (I seriously considered eating that piece in the background too)(I did not)(But I regret that decision)
Before picture of the red velvet cake – it’s The Pioneer Woman’s recipe! We also had the Asian Noodle Salad I made for dinner once before

Cocktail Autograph Session & Gala Dinner, Speakers were MaryJane Butters and Amy Butler

Clockwise from top left:
The BEAUTIFUL tables – the tablecloths are 400 yards of Amy Butler fabric hand sewn by Jo Packham & her friends!
Apple crumble for dessert – we had dessert at EVERY meal, including parfaits at breakfast
The super cute tables for the cocktail hour – an author was at every single one to sign books & pictures & chat
Lisa Leonard gift box at every place setting – she gave a beautiful necklace to every attendee!!

Box lunch on Friday, panel discussion was Women Entrepreneurs

Clockwise from top left:
Adorable tables full of lunch boxes
The third gorgeous centerpiece of the event
Another picture of the table set up – I wish I had gotten one of the beverage table, it was all mason jars of lemonade & buckets of ice
Gift at the place setting – a mini apron made from a tea towel

Breakfast Saturday, Editorial Panel with TONS of great advice on publishing & the future of the industry

Clockwise from top left:
Table from breakfast – what you can’t see is the flower pins for everyone made by Suzanne from Italian Girl in Georgia
“Flowers” made with old pages & clothespins
Close-up of the centerpieces – I STILL can’t figure out quite how it was done
I was so excited to see someone fancier than me using milk glass to decorate a party! I’m so hip! And stylish!

Cupcake Farewell

Clockwise from top left:
Gorgeous table of (delicious) cupcakes
Adorable little signs – so Alice in Wonderland
The chocolate ones disappeared in about 2 seconds
Good thing I prefer to shove vanilla cupcakes into my face – NOM NOM NOM

(Disclaimer 1: Yesterday and last night Baby Evan was a fussy mess. His 3 hour nap was broken up by several crying fits, stayed sad and grumpy most of the afternoon and got up twice last night, a record I would have thought was awesome just a few months ago but now sends me into a spiraling mess of exhaustion and hopelessness, as in “OH GOD I REMEMBER THIS NOT SLEEPING THING AND I CAN. NOT. DO. IT.” )

(Disclaimer 2: I don’t actually have a second child yet, so take everything with a grain of salt. Or maybe a ginormous, huge, Utah salt flats sized block.)

I’ve decided that having a second baby is infinitely easier than having a first baby.

When you’re pregnant the first time, most of your friends are childless. Childless people flock together like beautiful, exotic birds to go out on Saturday night and do fun things like drink alcohol in bars and rub up against each other and plan spur-of-the-moment trips to Thailand or Paris or Antarctica or Mars or whatever fancy location is hip this week. There is no place for babies in that world – it’s too hard to find shoes to match every color of poop. Even if you have a sister or a cousin or a best friend who had babies first, they probably aren’t a part of your daily social circle. You get all your advice from books or message boards or magazines and end up setting incredibly unrealistically high standards for every part of your life as a mom. You struggle through the first few months of babydom alone, or at least feeling alone, until you finally venture out of the house blinking and squinting at the lights like that poor groundhog in Pennsylvania, hoping the long winter is over.

The second time around, your childless friends have flocked away and you hang out with other parents. Parents understand babies. You meet at the library or at a playground or through daycare or a mom’s group or a local baby store. You plan mid-week playdates when all your old friends are at work and only visit coffee shops that have drive thru windows and take trips to the zoo instead of weekends at the spa. You plan to go to France and Antarctica and Mars together…someday. Right now you’re too busy trading baby sitter stats and tips for hiding vegetables in your brownies.

And Thank God for all of that. Mom friends have no problem listening to endless complaints about morning sickness and exhaustion and diaper explosions. They have real world advice on how to deal with teething and spit up and problems latching and first solids. They have maternity clothes in various sizes and seasons that they will lend/give you. Their garages and attics are full of boxes of baby clothes they are dying to get rid of, especially if you are having a baby the opposite gender from the first one. (You will, of course, still buy a few things yourself but you don’t actually have to.) They will watch your kid at the playground while you run off to find a bathroom because you need to pee. AGAIN.

If you’re super lucky, you’re mom’s group will have an organized Mama Meals program and by the time you actually get around to having the second baby your freezer will be stocked with enough frozen lasagnas and casseroles and homemade baked goods to feed an army of hungry husbands and toddlers.

You know that, realistically, you probably won’t need that crib for at least a few months so having a nursery done before 32 weeks gestation is overkill. You already have the baby gear you ACTUALLY couldn’t live without, rather than the things on the Must Have Baby Items Registry List Sponsored By Babies R Us, Enfamil And Your Own Psychotic Need To Plan Ahead.

You know that there IS such a thing as too many newborn size diapers.

And when the second baby actually comes and you’ve got spit up in your hair and haven’t slept in a week and would kill for a pizza instead of a frozen casserole, you will have friends who understand, bring you a frappuccino, and maybe even watch that pesky first kid for an hour or two.

I an 25 weeks today and I haven’t so much as opened my copy of What To Expect this time around. It is glorious.

This week I took Baby Evan into the pediatrician for what should have been an easy visit that ended up being incredibly stressful and annoying and bad-mother-guilt-inducing.

Then I had a visit to the emergency room that was the most relaxing part of my weekend.

Doctors are weird.

Because of the weight-loss between his 12 and 15 month check-ups, our pediatrician scheduled a quick weigh-in on Friday for Baby Evan. I knew he’d been eating more and had definitely gained, so I expected a nice “You’re doing great and clearly not neglecting your kid” visit. That’s not quite what I got.

After the nurse weighed him – up almost a pound in 1 month –  the lady pediatrician, one I don’t think I’ve met before, came in to talk to us about what we feed our kid. Want to feel bad about your parenting skills? Try honestly answering that question. Peanut butter, bread, Goldfish, pita chips, cookies, french fries, fruit leather, cheese…yeah, I win mother of the year for sure. I didn’t even bother explaining it’s whole wheat bread! And organic fruit leather! And homemade cookies! And I offer him TONS of fruits and vegetables, I just haven’t figured out how to make him eat them!

Surprisingly, the ped didn’t seem to care much about the totally lack of color in my kid’s diet. She was more concerned that I get him to drink at least five cups of milk a day, offer him even MORE food and having us come back again EVERY MONTH for another weight check. When I went through my list of what caused the original weight loss and why it wouldn’t happen again, she made the same face my mom used to make when I came home late for curfew. The “I don’t care about your excuses” face. The “I doubt your ability to do the right thing” face. It was AWFUL. I’ve been thinking about that face constantly since Friday – every time my kid tosses his cup on the floor, every time he feeds his sandwich to the dog, every time he sleeps through a snack time. Today at the grocery store he ate a whole piece of cheese the deli lady gave him and I almost cried with joy, knowing the doctor would have approved.

You know that feeling you had when you left the hospital with your tiny newborn, the one where you couldn’t believe the staff was just letting you TAKE A BABY without any sort of instruction manual or rules or scheduled home checks to make sure you were doing it right?

This is the opposite of that. This is the feeling that just when you thought you were finally doing everything right and really getting the hang of motherhood someone comes along and tells you you suck. It sucks.

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On Saturday morning I noticed I had had some bleeding the night before and called my OB to see if he wanted me to come in for a rhogam shot. It was an exact repeat – almost to the same DAY of pregnancy & the same OB doc on call – of what happened when I was pregnant the first time (hint: certain grown up activities are apparently a little too much for my cervix to handle after the 22 week mark) only this time around I wasn’t a freaked out mess. I knew what it was, I knew what caused it, I knew the baby was fine. If I had an OB checkup scheduled this week I wouldn’t have even bothered to call on a weekend, but my next appointment isn’t until September and I could just imagine the doctor’s face if I brought up bleeding a MONTH after it happened, especially because he had JUST reminded me to have any bleeding checked out because of the rh-negative thing. O- might be the good blood type for donating but it SUCKS for pregnancy.

The doctor wasn’t super concerned, but said I could go into the ER for a shot “if I wanted”. I told him no, I didn’t really WANT a painful shot in the ass, so I’d just skip it. Of course, then he decided what he really meant was “You should definitely go in for a shot” although why didn’t he just say that in the first place? So I left E and Baby Evan at home and popped over to our very nice local ER for my rhogam.

It’s a funny place, the emergency room. There was an old lady with a broken hip who kept yelling “I’m peeing! I’m peeing! I have to go!” even though the nurse kept coming in to explain it was ok, she had a catheter and was supposed to pee. There was the kid laughing his head off at the doctor’s jokes even though he was still strapped into a car seat – they had been in some sort of fender bender and the paramedics brought the whole thing in on a gurney. There was the tearful family in the room next to me who cried as the doctor explained the definition of a DNR. There was the male nurse who kept saying “This is why people need a primary care physician” and “I wish more people would call their doctors before using the ER as a walk-in clinic” and “Well, the doctor doesn’t KNOW you so he might not just give you whatever medicine you want” despite the fact that I said my OB was right upstairs and said I needed a shot and he could verify my non-drug-seeking status if anyone wanted. Like rhogam is some sort of narcotic that gets you high instead of just making your thigh hurt for a couple days. DUDE, YOU’RE TOTALLY ON TO ME. I’M A JUNKIE FOR SURE.

Like I said, weird place. Happiness and sadness and noise and quiet and fast and slow at all once.

Because everyone has to check with everyone and everyone’s mother and then do a bunch of paperwork about what was said before they could treat me for my non-condition, I spent a good 2 hours just waiting around. I had my knitting with me and managed to finish a whole scarf plus catch up on everything in my Google reader on my iPhone. There were no babies climbing on me, no food being thrown, no dogs running in circles, no loud noises. The doctor was totally cooperative and happy to get out his fancy ultrasound machine to print me some pictures. The paperwork admin lady came in to chat a few times and we talked about kids and babies and pregnancy. After he realized I wasn’t a drug addict or a crazy person, my nurse was very nice and didn’t make me stay for the required 30 minutes post-injection so I could get home and enjoy the beautiful day.

I left feeling like I had taken a mini-vacation. Although next time I’d like one that didn’t involve quite so many needles. Or blood. And maybe included a massage.

But hey, I can’t really complain when I got enough quite time to finish knitting a whole project.

So to sum up: I’m much better at caring for babies that haven’t been born yet. Maybe I’ll just stay pregnant forever.

I don’t have enough to say about anything to make these individual posts (and really, you should thank me for not even TRYING to make any of the following blurbs into 500 word essays) so you get bullet points.

– Is it possible for a kid to drink too much orange juice? Baby Evan is OBSESSED with it, to the point I’m afraid his skin might turn orange. He ate a slice of the actual fruit yesterday so I might steer him in that direction, especially if there is a reason he shouldn’t drink 30 oz of (watered down, calcium added) juice in a day (besides the ridiculous amount of sugar). (EDITED TO ADD: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGOOOOOOOD. I’m not going to tell you any more than that except I finally discovered something cloth diapers can’t contain and a VERY good reason to cut back OJ consumption.)

– The bridesmaid dress I am supposed to wear on September 5th is not going to fit on September 5th. It fit yesterday, with much pulling and sucking in, but I have officially reached the “popped” part of my pregnancy so my rib cage is getting bigger by the second. I have some material to alter it take it somewhere to be altered but with the way it’s constructed I don’t even know how they’re going to manage that. (p.s. It’s this dress, if you want to make suggestions)(p.p.s. Which is now ON SALE for for $65 less than I paid. I wonder if I can return the one I bought and buy a new one in a bigger size?)(Although it’s only available in one size larger than the size I currently have so I’ll probably still need to have it altered.)

– I’m still knitting and really enjoying it, or at least I was until I attempted to make something-adult sized and lost my everloving MIND. I’m still hoping to have my own version of this done in time to wear it to the bridal shower next weekend:
But I might stab out an eye with a knitting needle before I’m done. (Free pattern & picture from Classic Elite Yarns.) I think from now on I’ll stick to baby-sized items.

– Speaking of things to wear to the shower, I’m looking for a pretty, comfortable, CHEAP sleeveless dress (maternity or just roomy) that would match the above vest knitted in a nice shade of blue-green. And it does NOT have to be boob-accessible.  My next stop is Forever 21 but frankly that place gives me hives, despite their huge selection of trendy, reasonably priced dresses.

– Today is the last day to enter my Planet Wise Wet/Dry Bag giveaway! In case you missed my edit the last time, I opened the contest up for Canadians – if you win I will mail you a bag personally. I have one more super-cute, eco-friendly giveaway coming up on Monday and then I’ll take a break on the review stuff for a while.

– Gender Important developmental and birth defect stuff ultrasound for Baby Sandy is on August 4th (LESS THAN 1 WEEK). First round priority text message goes to immediate family & people who might kill me if I didn’t tell them the boy/girl news first but mere seconds later I’ll be peer to peer texting it to the Bebehblog Facebook page/Twitter so some time around 2 pm you can check in if you’re curious. Giant post to follow, of course.

– I FINALLY switched hosts from a company I was less than happy with (see here and here) to the AMAZING AND WONDERFUL Twenty70 Hosting. Kelly has been infinitely patient in transferring everything for me and even managed to find my lost posts last week. Plus she’s charging me less than the old people (shhhh, don’t tell her or she might charge more). Please let me know if you have any delays or problems loading Bebehblog so I can pass them on to Twenty70 and they can fix them with their internet magic.

Phew. I think that’s all. What’s new with you?

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