Things Texas Says: Vol 2

It's been a while since I did one of these and I've got a few gems I've jotted down so here goes....

While flushing some of his poop down the toilet:
"Bye bye poopies. Have a nice weekend"

While riding in the car:
"Mommy, do you have a steering wheel?"
"Yes"
"Daddy, do YOU have a steering wheel?"
"No"
"You should buy one"

After being told not to go outside:
"Grandpa, what is my shoe doing?" (as he sticks one foot out the door)

While I'm making him some pancakes:
"Oh Mommy, I just love you very, really much"

As I'm shuffling him of to the bathroom to brush his teeth:
"Easy, mommy. EASY"

He's quite the little character. I wish I could remember all the silly stuff he says. He definitely keeps us laughing.

Video....yay!!!

I've been waiting to be able to post video's in my blog and now it's available. Get ready for lot's of silly videos of the kids. Here's one of Curren as a test.




That's his Aunty Laura holding him.

Ask and you shall receive

Last night for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long no one in the Huckabey house woke up before 4:30 am. Not Texas. Not Curren. And not ME. Woo hoo!! It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do for your sanity.

We had our little Curren baptized yesterday. It was the perfect way to celebrate Father's Day. He wore the same baptism outfit his daddy wore 37 years ago and looked like a little angel. As the minister walked him up and down the aisle and the congregation sang "Jesus Loves Me" I swear there wasn't a dry eye in the place. Silly me, I was all choked up before we even left the house.

In unrelated news, Texas pooped out a penny this morning. Apparently it runs in the family; my mom said I ate one when I was a kid, too. I just hope there's nothing else in his belly that we don't know about.

Can I get some sleep, please

Well, here we are and Curren is 8 weeks old and most of it seems like a bit of a blur. Lack of sleep seems to have erased a lot of it but I do know it's been fun and challenging in more ways than I imagined. And, thankfully, not as hard as I feared it would be. Don't get me wrong, it's not all a walk in the park, but we've settled into a routine and I'm finding that I better at double duty than I thought I would be. Curren is an easy baby and is happy as long as he has a full tummy and a clean diaper. Texas is having his share of ups and downs trying to adjust to sharing mom and dad's attention, but he loves his little brother and, as always, keeps us entertained with his questions and charismatic personality. You'll never meet a more outgoing 2 year-old. Sadly, it amazes me how many adults will ignore a child who is speaking to them. As if they don't exist or couldn't possibly desire a response to "Hi, how's it goin'?" Oh well.

A photo journal of the last 8 weeks....

Almost there

Well, I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow and yesterday was my last day at work. It's a relief to have one less thing to worry about. I get the occasional burst of energy, but for the most part I'm pretty tired and definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore. I told the little guy he's more than welcome to come any time after my doctor gets back in town this weekend. Texas seems like he's starting to get the idea that a baby is coming soon. He says his name is "Brother" and he's going to make him laugh. Too cute.

Trip to San Diego/30 weeks and counting

Here are some pics from a recent trip to San Diego with my parents. We went to celebrate Dad finishing his radiation treatment (yay!). Unfortunately he was feeling pretty lousy but we all had a decent time anyway. We went to the zoo and Seaport Village but came home early when it started raining.

I'm currently 32 weeks (30 weeks in these pics) and looking forward to maternity leave. Being 8 months pregnant, working full-time and chasing around a 2 and a half year-old is wearing me out! I'm really hoping this little guy decides to come early like Texas did. I'm betting on sometime between the 13th and 17th. Anyone care to place a bet? :)

You'll see in the pics that Scott is growing the rally beard again. For those who don't remember, he decided a month or so before Texas was born that he'd stop shaving until he was born. He decided to start earlier this time. Oddly enough, Texas doesn't seem to notice or care about it. We'll see how surprised he is when it comes off.

I think Texas is starting to get the idea that a baby is coming into our lives. He knows that his baby brother is in mommy's tummy and occassionally hugs or kisses him. I've been explaining that he's going to be born soon and will come live with us and be part of our family. That seems to get him thinking a bit and pondering the idea. I don't know if he really gets it or not. I guess we'll soon find out.

Tex and Daddy watch some monkeys

The Belly

Texas gives the gorilla a kiss
A fire engine!

My new mom mobile

6 months and counting

Well, I’m a little behind in getting this taken, but here I am at 25 weeks. I can’t believe it’s already January! April will be here before I know it. I’m still feeling pretty good; just starting to get tired again and a little uncomfortable at times. The baby is growing great and he’s an active little guy. I’ve been busy “nesting” and can’t seem to stop cleaning and organizing things around the house. The name debate continues so it’s a good thing we’ve still got a few months to settle on something.

Here’s how we made it home from Colorado

50 mile an hour winds, 5 foot snow drifts and lots of hot chocolate later, we got word that the Denver airport was open again (In case you missed it, there was a blizzard). If the roads were plowed in time, we might be able to get to the airport and get on our flight home. 2 days later than planned, but just in time for Christmas. So, bright and early on the morning of the 23rd we headed out of the newly shoveled driveway with hopes that the snow plows had done their job. The highway was clear and we made it to the airport with no trouble. Hurdle 1: cleared.

Upon arriving at the airport we decided to pay the small fee and check our bags curbside. It worked great in LA. Should be ok in Denver, right? So, mom gets in line (outside in freezing weather) while I go in to see what things look like inside. I guess now would be a good time to note that we arrived at the airport 3 and a half hours before our departure time, as we’d been instructed to do. If you saw the news stories you know what a mess things were in the Denver airport; lines as far as I could see. I heard someone say something about the security line being 6 hours long……and hoped they were joking. I was also told that the inside check-in line was running about 3 hours. I went back to check on mom and gave her the thumbs up to stay in the line she was in. Why wait in a 3 hour line when you could wait in a half hour one?

Unfortunately, when mom got to the front of the line the man told her that he couldn’t give her boarding passes because our original flight had been cancelled and that we needed to go stand in the line inside. Neat. So, we lug all the bags, car seat and Texas inside. Mom strategically placed herself where folks in line would see her and maybe take pity while I tried to find the end of the line. Keep in mind, this is just the line for United Airlines. All three hours of it. None of the other airlines had lines and for a moment I wondered what it would cost to just get a new ticket from one of them. Too much, I’m sure.

At some point mom calls me to tell me that someone has allowed her to cut in line. It was far enough up that we probably made up the hour wasted outside but that meant we still had at least another 2 hours to go. Maybe more. And that was just to get our boarding passes. Next we’d have to wait in the security line.

(This is getting awfully long, but what the heck, I’ll keep going)

Fast-forward about another hour and we still have a long way to go. At this point we have asked a number of United employees to help us. Everyone tells us there is nothing they can do. “Keep waiting in line. You’ll miss your flight but just try and get on the next one.” Right. The only exception was a woman who said that if we could get boarding passes and it was within an hour of our flight she could get us through security. Of course, everyone after her said she was crazy and couldn’t do that.

Panic and pregnancy fatigue is setting in and I decide it’s time to take action. Up to the front of first-class I go with plans to not move until someone helps me. I present my case, tears in my eyes (it was pretty Oscar-worthy), and practically beg to be helped. “I’m almost 6 months pregnant, I’m traveling with a 2 year-old (who, to his credit, is being very patient) and my mom, who just had a kidney removed because she has cancer (yes, I played the cancer card), is hauling all the bags.” This gets nothing but “I’m sorry….blah, blah, blah…..wait in line.” I demand to speak to a supervisor. He apparently had some Christmas spirit left and tells the woman to help me. Finally, someone who cares. She grumpily helps us but reminds me that we’ll never make it through security in time to catch our flight which leaves in 20 minutes. We’ll just see about that.

We make a mad dash downstairs to the security line and, much to our relief, the woman who told us she could get us through is there. She recognizes us and lets us go right to a screening station. At this point I really was crying (I blame the hormones). We hugged and I wished her a Merry Christmas. I hope Santa gave her something extra special.

By the time we got through security (Mom got stopped because there was something funny looking in her bag. Turned out to be a branding iron that Andy got dad for Christmas. They said it was a curling iron. He he) we had only minutes to spare and still had to ride the subway over to the other concourse and hope that it wasn’t too far to our gate. We ran to the gate, which now said the flight was closed. Luckily there was “something wrong with the plane” and it hadn’t left the gate yet so they let us on. I half expected cheers as we stepped onto the plane. I know I was cheering inside. A couple of passengers congratulated us on making it as we found our seats and settled in. The story should end here, but not quite. We ended up taxiing for an hour and a half because there was only one runway open and then we were finally on our way. Horray! We arrived to find that our luggage hadn’t, but we really didn’t care. We were home and that was a lot more than a lot of people could say that week.

Through it all Texas was soooo good. I was so proud of him. It was hard on us adults and I don’t know how he managed the whole day without a melt-down.

So, that’s our story. Our very long story.

There's a blizzard, and Tex and I are stuck in Colorado

I decided to venture out

Huckababy #2

5 months and counting

I thought this might be a good place to provide updates for those who are interested in following along until our new little guy arrives. I’m 5 months along (21 weeks to be exact) and this pic was taken on Thanksgiving. Seems like every Monday folks at work are saying I grew over the weekend. I’m starting to feel pretty pregnant and can’t believe I’ve only got another 4 months to go. He’s due on April 24th, but Texas was 2 weeks early so I’ll give this one until the 15th or so. We’ll see if I’m right.

I’ll be posting the ultrasound pics tomorrow or Friday so check back if you’d like to see him. We think he’s pretty cute. :)

Updates

Well, it's been a while since I made the time to post here. Lots has happened since September: being pregnant, dad was diagnosed with cancer (both parent's in one year, can you believe it??) and my aunt passed away.

Pregnancy is going fine. We'll find out what it is in 2 more weeks and hopefully I can keep updates going here. Baby is due at the end of April. I think it's a girl, but Scott's not so sure.

Dad found what turned out to be a tumor on his side a few months ago. Had it biopsied (sp?) and his doctors were unable to determine what kind of cancer it was. The way his doctor explained it, its like your driving on the freeway and you know that all of the things around you are cars (cancer). Usually they have labels or you can tell what kind they are by how they look. Dad's don't have labels and don't look like any of the usual cars you see on the road. He's been scanned and scoped from top to bottom and no other tumors were found (thank goodness). They took it out a few weeks ago and sent it to the national tumor registry to help get it diagnosed. We should be hearing this week or next what the final pathology report says. So far there are no plans for chemo or radiation. Depending on what the diagnosis is, they may just keep an eye on him and do regular scans and check-ups to see if anything else pops up. So, lots of hurry up and wait. I think we're all feeling optomistic at this point, but that may only be because we've had just enough time to relax and let our guard down. Hopefully everything turns out ok.

My Aunt Irene (mom's sister) had been diagnosed with breast cancer about 6 years ago and had been doing well since finishing treatment, etc. Unfortunately this year she began suffering from back and neck pain and found out too late that she had developed bone cancer in her spine. By the time they found it in September it had already spread throughout her body. She passed away in October about a week before dad had his surgery. Poor mom had to fly out for the funeral the day of his surgery. She and Andy barely got to see the surgeon and hear that dad had done fine and they got all of the tumor out and then they had to head off to the airport. This has all been really hard for her, with all of this on top of her own cancer diagnosis back in June) and I know we're all hoping that next year will be a quieter one.

So, there's my last two months (ugh). Being that Thanksgiving is coming up, in spite of all this, I know I still have a lot to be thankful for. Mom is healthy. My family is healthy. We all have jobs and the things we need. Things could be worse and I'm thankful they're not.

My little artist

Thought I'd share these pics of Texas and his new easle that his grandpa made for him. He loves to paint and is very particular about what color he wants to paint with. I think his first piece is pretty great.

Museum of Bad Art (MOBA)

Andy sent this to me and I just had to share it. The Musuem of Bad Art is a collection of art deemed "too bad to be ignored." There isn't a single piece I haven't liked. Check it out.

Too funny

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/24/fake.bomb.ap/index.html

Hour 3.5, road closed....Vegas or bust

Put me on the waiting list, please

Seems as if some scientists think they are close to creating technology that will allow invisibility. Wonder how much THAT will cost?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/08/09/feature.invisibility/index.html

Darn

I thought of something really funny to post while I was driving home, and now I can't remember.