Crouching fetus, hidden baby

My ultrasound took a long time on Thursday because the baby was hiding down under my pelvic bone. The doc was getting a little annoyed, but he was funny. He could only see the head and check that out, and it was all good. He showed me the whole big uterus that the baby could be swimming around in, but instead baby was crouched down low in the corner. He said he'd never seen a baby at 18 weeks hiding so far down.
So, we tried many things; drinking cold water, moving around, shaking my belly, using the restroom and finally they gave me a sweet candy to eat.

Then baby moved up. The assistant ran and got the doc and they finished the ultrasound. Baby is lying on my placenta with it's butt in the air, but everything checked out, the heart, which is why I was sent for this special ultrasound, looks great, all the other organs look great too.
I didn't want to ask if he could find the sex for me after he'd had such a hard time with everything else.

But the assistant asked if I knew and the doc said, "well, let's find out" after some more jiggling to get the baby to roll he caught a glimpse of something, then baby moved a little further and doc got the "money shot", which I feel that I can not post online because it's not PG, as you can quite clearly see that this baby is definetly a boy!

Bye bye Grandma Val

Well, the loiterers outside of LAX got a show on Saturday as Bronson and I tried to outdo each other with the waterworks, saying goodbye to grandma Val. Unfortunately for Bronson I had a secret weapon: pregnancy hormones. Poor Matthew had to drive home two whimpering babies who would periodically start bawling all over again, through downtown LA.

We really enjoyed your visit, mom, thanks for all the help! Everytime one of my family comes to stay, they leave me with a renewed love of salads. It happened last year with Amy, and again now with mom. Salads...mmmm.

Here's B telling Grandpa Tim how it is.

In other news, the night before mom left was Family night at Caltech, we went and had a pasta dinner on the lawn. followed by Disney princess entertainment. Matt and B then went to the screening of Wall-E in Beckman Auditorium. My mother and I went downtown to shop. We were finally free of the toddler (Matt had been gone for 2 days to Stanford), we were independent, we had cash and we.... were ready to go to bed 30 minutes in to our excursion. But we held out for frozen yogurt regardless :)

Yup, we let Tinkerbell tatoo our son with a dinosaur.

In other news, the Pasadena Art Expo is this week and 2 of my paintings have been selected for the juried art show, which makes me really quite happy. The 2 are Orchid and Snow, you can figure out which is which.

Tomorrow I go for an ultrasound with a specialist to check on the baby in my belly (the one kicking but not screaming), hopefully he will be able to tell me if it's a boy or girl, so look for an update on that tomorrow.

Bronson helps dad to water the garden everyday. When dad is gone, he reminded grandma and I to water it, too.

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Today we drove 30 minutes to a nearby Pumpkin Patch in Mission Hills. My mom is in town and she came with us. We took a tractor pulled train ride, did a hay bale maze and climbed a hay pyramid! We also had fresh roasted corn and bought 4 pumpkins and some produce.

Apparently I am not very good at guessing pumpkin weight, there was a huge pumpkin there, and if you guess the weight, you win the pumpkin and $100. I guessed 96 lbs. I then found out that Matt guessed around 400 lbs. Oh well, at least I won't have to empty out the seeds.

The unborn baby is doing well, and I am feeling SO much better. I can barely remember how it felt to be sick, it's a nice reprieve. I didn't really get this period of feeling well when I was pregnant with Bronson. We don't know if it is a boy or girl yet, having an ultrasound on the 23rd which might tell us. My cravings are all different this time - sour candies, cranberries, tabasco sauce and bacon (not combined). The only consistent craving is coffee between the 2 pregnancies.

Hope you all have a good Thanksgiving, we will celebrate it tomorrow night with a Tofurky and some pumpkin-ish dessert (and a ton of cranberry sauce). Then we will celebrate it again with the Americans in November.