Thank GOD it's Friday, kind of! I dunno, but even short weeks are hellish to get through these days. The heat and humidity and vog doesn't help much either...it's so gross...I don't remember the vog being quite so bad before...I can only imagine what it's like on the Big Island and Maui. Good thing I'm not there cuz it would only add to my pissy moods.

Baby's moving around more now...can't say it's quite the movement I remember with Caleb yet, but we'll see how it goes as we progress. I told my mom and Dave last night that I think this one's going to be bigger than Caleb was with the amount of crap I eat...I'm seriously always wanting sweets...and not apples this time, like it was with Caleb, but chocolate, cookies, candies, etc. Nutts.

I'm freakin' tired. Dunno why. Been going to sleep pretty early this week but somehow, I'm just tired. It's the freakin' 2nd trimester...I'm supposed to be all good. Oh well.

Caleb's been eating his homemade meals for lunch and dinner for the past two days. I boiled a chicken breast, 1 cup rice, and 2 carrots, then blended it all together. It looks like orangey kamaboko dip. Thought it would last him a while, but that'll last him 3 days...I gotta make some more tonight. Plus too, I dunno if he's still hungry or what, but he CRIES and SCREAMS when he knows we're getting to the end of the meal...when you start scraping the last bits in the bowl, he starts to fuss...if you try to take him out of his eating chair, he throws a fit. I dunno what the deal is. We give him his meal AND snacks for dessert after each meal and he still acts like he's hungry. I don't get it.

Please let this day go quickly, nicely, and quietly...I'm tired...

It's a GIRL...we went for our ultrasound at Queen's Hospital today (which, if you ever get to make the choice of where to go for ultrasound or delivery, I would DEFINITELY recommend here)...kidneys have some fluid in them, but the technician said that it doesn't look like it's too bad or abnormal. It's amazing what they can see on that thing...we asked how she knew it was a girl, if it was just the absence of a dingding, and she smiled and replied that they can actually see labia. She pointed it out to me, but it just looked like two little white dots. Baby was sucking her thumb...you could actually see her putting her hand to her mouth and then you could see the tongue lapping vigorously...like she was hungry or something. Grrrreat, we gonna have another hungry sucker like Caleb! She weighs about a pound now....which means that there's a whole lot of time for her to get to Caleb's weight!!!

Our name right now is Bryna Su Colmenares. We're debating on the double-n or not...Bryna or Brynna. Colmenares is such a long last name that we wanted to cut out any unnecessary letters, but as I look at it typed out, Bryna looks kind of weird...like we're dyslexically trying to spell Bryan or something.

Caleb just finished his dinner, and is whimpering/crying because he hates when his meal ends. He LOVES to eat. I've been making him less food (giving him rice cereal instead of regular rice, cutting down on the portion) so that he would take in more milk...he is drinking more, but he seems hungry...he's waking up at 3:30-4:00 instead of his usual 5:00-5:30, and hungrily inhaling his 6 oz. of milk. This morning he drank 6 oz at 3:30, then had another 4 oz at 6:10...which sucks for us.

I made his first homemade meal tonight...rice, carrots, and chicken boiled in chicken broth and water. I'm gonna try to blenderize it and see how it turns out. He needs more food.

He's freakin' crying now cuz Dave took him out of his eating seat...wth?!

We can feel the baby moving now...we'll see if he/she is as active as Caleb was in there.

My feeling now is that it's a she...we'll see on Monday.

Caleb's been having issues about drinking his milk...so I'm cutting back on his meals a little bit, using milk to mix his rice cereal, and not giving him much table food (doctor said stick to rice and tofu for now). So we'll see...what this means, though, is I gotta go get him more baby food, which I wasn't planning on doing...oh well...only little bit more until he's a year and able to eat more table food.

His new thing is crossing his arms. He's also been a bit of a crybaby lately. Caleb knows what he wants and what he doesn't and will let you know loudly when you are not meeting his need. Gosh...sounds like his mama...

Okay, we're watching Milk and it's kind of disturbing to see James Franco and Sean Penn full on kiss and make out.

well, baby was not cooperating so we couldn't find out if it's a boy or girl...

gotta go to Queen's for an ultrasound on Monday morning...partially to find out if it's a boy or girl, partially because doctor wants better/clearer pics of baby to determine what the spot/s he saw on baby's kidneys are. he said could be just blood vessels, but could be a cyst so he wants to make sure.

heart seemed fine. growth seemed fine. got a blurry pic of baby's profile but not much else.

caleb had a rough day. didn't drink anything except 3 oz of milk...ate his breakfast, lunch and dinner fine, though. took 2 maybe 30 minute naps. went to bed at 7:00 p.m. after a fast-kine shower since he was being a big fussy butt.

i'm tired and grouchy. finished figuring out what i'm doing tomorrow so i'm going to sleep.

holy smokes, i'm making another hairy baby. the heartburn is starting to get ridiculous again...yuck. oh well. at least this time i know what it is and that it's never going to go away so no sense trip about it too much.

looked at my week 21 pic from last time. my stomach is huge this time around. oh well. whatever. people will wonder why i've been pregnant forever cuz it looks like i should be in my 7th month or so...

gotta go nene...been getting super tired again the past few days. probs cuz i'm sleeping in the daytime, then not being able to sleep as early as i should at night.

i think i'm feeling baby again...bubbling feelings, small kine kicks. it feels so much less than what i remember of caleb, but of course what i remember with caleb was already when he was a big monster moving around in there...

i already feel like we're neglecting this next baby...we don't talk to her/him, we don't read to her/him, we don't make her/him listen to music...

i don't watch what i eat like i did with caleb, i don't watch what i lift or how i move, i'm not as on it when it comes to taking my prenatal pills...

i keep thinking, maybe when i start feeling this one move it'll be different...or maybe when we find out if it's a girl or a boy...

poor baby...will never get the undivided attention that caleb got...

my body aches...i have a kink in my shoulder/neck that is driving me nutts. i have arthritis in my right hand and it aches. the kink is making me feel a sore feeling running down the length of my entire arm. my body is rejecting being back in school. i miss caleb. i wonder if he notices that i'm not home with him after being home with him for a week. hehe...probably not cuz he has gramma back.

4 day weeks are a blessing in disguise. the money will be tighter, but hopefully the mental health will be stronger. until, that is, i realize how much the kids are missing because of it and how much harder i have to push them to learn what they need to know. then i'll just be pissed off even more.

i need a massage.

On Wednesday Caleb will be 10 months old...that's a trip! And it does make me a little sad, but also very, very happy that his cranky, colicky days are long gone. He's turning into an "easy" baby now...pretty good on a routine, eating well, developmentally sound. He seems happy, content, and like he's learning things in leaps and bounds. I'm wondering how he'll transition to having a new sister or brother...he's very clingy at times and doesn't like to be ignored. In a week we'll find out, hopefully, whether it's a brother or a sister we should expect...Dave prays for a girl...I dunno. With Caleb, before we went in for the ultrasound, I asked Dave what he thought we were having...he said boy and I agreed. This time, I don't have a clue.

Being with other parents and kids makes me see things I want to do and things I definitely don't want to do as a parent. The main thing, though, is consistent discipline and praise. I'm wondering if the "terrible twos" can be avoided or if it's just a natural course of action for kids...cuz seeing some of those "terrible two" antics from other kids...I'm gonna wanna hang Caleb up from the ceiling if I see that in him...

Anyways, tomorrow should be an adventure...heading to Maui at noon for a funeral and coming back on the 9:15 flight...which will mean it's gonna be way past Caleb's and our bedtimes by the time we get home and settled...yikes. Then the 2nd quarter starts and I'm kind of scared for it cuz I definitely don't feel as confident about 2nd quarter as I did about 1st...oh well.

We're gonna miss our first Teacher's Institute Day on Monday...wait, I'M going to miss my first one, Dave only started going since he's been forced to with me. Anyways, we're going to Maui for the day for my gramma's funeral so that will be interesting. First two times Caleb did wonderfully on the plane, we'll see about this time now that he's mobile and wants to move non-stop. My mom will come back with us on Monday night...late flight, so Tuesday and the rest of the week should be interesting.

Caleb's been waking up earlier than usual lately.....well, since we've been on break. What the heck? Usually he's still knocked out when we leave the house at around 7. This week, he's waking up much earlier than that and insisting on being out of his crib. Tried to make him just cry this morning cuz I was hella tired, but he cried for like 25 minutes so I figured it was time to get his butt out of jail. Actually, Dave went to get him but he was in need of a mommy-fix so he was still cranky until I paid undivided attention to him.

We finished his Halloween costume yesterday...saw the idea in a Parenting magazine and thought that it was something I could do. Caleb's gonna be a little tamago sushi for his first Halloween. We'll see how that goes. Anyone know where we can get those Genki sushi hapi coats?? Then we can be a sushi family...lol.

My dad will be here for the weekend...he hasn't seen Caleb since July and I hope the weekend goes smoothly. It should be fine...hopefully Dave isn't forced to drink too much. Thankfully I can't be forced to drink so it's all good.

Okay, gotta get ready and figure out Dave's lunch since I won't be home for lunch. Dave is going to enjoy his day of no harassment while he watches ESPN and goes on the computer to incessantly look at his fantasy football stuff and play bejeweled. He'll probably get in a few games of baseball too...his idea of a heavenly day. Hopefully Caleb takes a nice, long nap for him so he can play.

so on day one of our break week, i managed to clean the kitchen, vacuum the living room, and finish correcting some assignments. my back is hella sore, but that's nothing new. it's incredibly hot and sticky, which is irritating. and i wanna do something with dave and caleb tomorrow, but i just don't know what. made beef stew for dinner, but with just dave and me it'll take a while for us to finish it up. have tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion, but no lime to make the shrimp ceviche. bought a whole bunch of apples because i figure that i need to stop eating junks and start eating fruits to cure my sweet tooth...but i did finish making the rest of my refrigerator choc chip cookies today, and that was ono. and i just really wanna eat a piece of chocolate or some ice cream but i'm trying to curb the urge. the other day at ala moana i fully cut tash off mid-sentence to say that i wanted to eat ice cream cuz i saw a guy eating a cone. so bad.

caleb is probably wondering where gramma is....he crawled to the bedroom like he usually does, looking for her, but no gramma.

i hope he sleeps better tonight than he did last night...we've been getting up to hold him and put gel on his gums when he's been waking up but last night, when i held him he immediately stopped crying so i knew it wasn't his teething...he's just wanting to be held. so i let him cry but it ended up making me and my mom wake up and stay up...so that sucks.

dave is watching the damn football game again even though he already watched it earlier. i'm mindlessly blogging cuz i'm bored. i'm getting grouchy cuz i'm so bored. but really, what is there to do??? i should go read or something...or take a nice, leisurely shower by myself, without caleb and his tub in there with me...yea, that's what i'm going to go do...

caleb had a bloody mouth today...not super bad, and good thing he never cry plenty so i didn't get all nutts. he hit his mouth on the little japanese table thing, so now i can't put that out anymore until he's at an age where he won't be liable to fall over and bump himself on it.

i was looking at his baby pictures...man...it's a trip that in about 2 months he'll be a year old already! well, at least i won't have too much time to be sad about him not being a baby anymore cuz soon we'll have another baby. good thing i have short term memory loss so although i remember how crazy it was when caleb was a baby, i don't quite remember. lol. i'm sure it will all come flooding back to me as we endure sleepless nights, disability with breastfeeding, incessant crying, paranoia, etc. lol. everyone keeps telling me that you get a nutts baby and a mellow one, so i'm hoping caleb was really the nutts one cuz if there's something more nutts than him, i'm done for.

holy smokes...i went back to look at my week 19 picture to compare what my belly looked like the first time around compared to this time...wth!!!!!! Seriously, at week 19 with Caleb, I looked normal...sheez, I never even get back to that before I got pregnant again!!!! Whoa. That's crazy. I'm in shock.

So anyways, he finally got caught, after a couple of weeks...

So I asked Dave if he thinks Caleb will try to pull that kind of crap with us. I could foresee myself being the hounding mom, making sure Caleb did all his work, double checking, making him redo, etc. I also see, though, that the kids I have who are sneaky about whiting crap out of their planner, "forgetting" their planner on the day I'm stamping grades, etc, are the ones whose parents (usually moms) are on top of them and give them hell for missing work and falling behind. So will my hounding be the cause of his sneaky behavior?

I don't remember being hounded to do my work...I just did. Dave says his parents only hounded him if he wasn't getting his stuff done...so to avoid getting hounded, he did what he needed to do. I just can't see myself not being very involved in Caleb's education...like not looking in his folders and not checking his homework every night would be weird to me. But I would also want him to learn to be independently responsible and not just on it cuz I'm on it for him...

I guess if we set the foundation up from the beginning, early education, he should be in the habit when he gets to those slacking intermediate years. I hope he has something like athletics to motivate him to do well too, and that he doesn't succumb to the pressure of being the cool dumbass.

In a way, I do hope Caleb is one of those awkward boys who doesn't blossom until he's a man so that the social part doesn't catch up with him until later on in life...hehe...like his daddy...people think I'm a butt for saying it, but seriously, you gotta see Dave's intermediate and high school pictures...

Anyways, I'm going to keep learning all the tricks these damn kids have up their sleeves so hopefully Caleb will never be able to pull one over me...lol.

Here I am, in my room, at lunchtime...which never happens cuz I know that if I don't eat lunch, everyone will suffer for it. Luckily, Dave brought me down my sandwich, in his bare hands, with no napkin, but hey, I'm not going to complain cuz at least I have lunch...lol.

Kay, this will get to be about parenthood...promise.

I'm in here with a student who has been pulling a fast one over his mom for the past couple weeks. Now, she's not a dumb parent, nor is she not a dilligent one. In fact, she's a school counselor and checks his planner daily to see that he's staying on top of his assignments. She was under the impression that teachers have not been stamping planners for the past couple weeks cuz she hasn't seen anything but his writing in there. So what's going on??? Brudda has two planners...one he shows us, one he shows mom. It all caught up with him today because I was emailing back and forth with the mom and it finally came out that this was the reason there was a lack of communication about what he's been doing this past couple weeks.

See, he was coming to tutoring after school, doing what he needed to do, turning everything in...until the last few weeks. And now he is sitting in here with me, and won't be going to the dance, because of his poor choice.

I'll continue laters...