Big boy bed!

Phase 2 of getting ready for Baby QQ has been rearranging the kid's rooms. SOOO FUN. (Not really.) After de-junking and de-cluttering everything, we had to figure out where to put the crib and all her stuff.

Luke's room a few days ago....we've decided to keep the changing pad on his dresser and the glider in the corner. Then we'll move his bookshelf out of the closet and put another dresser in there for the baby's clothes, move his hamper into the closet and put the nightstand in storage. (Hoping it all works out the way it does in my head, haha..)

We also needed to find Luke a big boy bed. Weirdly enough, a few days before I was going to go out and get him one, he told us he needed a big boy bed, even though we hadn't talked to him about it yet. I guess it was time!

 I sneaked in like a creeper mom and took a pic of him in his last night in his crib/toddler bed. He has gotten so big.

 We are getting a new crib and gave ours away to our friends Jeff and Lindsey, who work with Mark and are having a baby girl two weeks after us. Goodbye crib! :( It's been a good nine years.

One last hurrah with his blanket bench (which he has pounded the heck out of)...

 On Friday, Mark only had to work half a day, so I had him stay with the kids and went to St. George on a mission to find Luke a twin bed. Since I'd visited literally every single furniture establishment in the area back when I was shopping for a kitchen table, I knew there were only a couple of places that matched my style and price range. The first store (DownEast Home) only had one bed that was affordable, and then I went to Passport Furnishings. I'd checked their website before I went down, but I didn't know what they'd have in stock at their warehouse. And lo!

They had these three adorable beds! The white and black ones were only $119 (I know!) and the wood finished one was $149. But then came the moment when I had to DECIDE, ON THE SPOT, which one I wanted. The agonyyyyyyyy. I was supposed to meet up with my sister-in-law and only had a few minutes. I completely loved the white one, but it is more girly, so finally I texted Mark pictures of all three. He told me Luke liked the black one the best. For a while I wondered if I should be taking design advice from a 4-year old, but it is his bed after all.

So I paid for the black one, and the mattress that was on the brown bed because it was only $75 ($206 for the whole transaction, I couldn't believe it) and me and this other skinny twig of a girl heaved it all out to my car and shoved it in. We had all but the driver's seat folded down and we put the mattress on an angle and got it to fit. Shwoo!

Then I went to TJ Maxx and Target to find some bedding--and just to do fun shopping, because, hello--and I texted Mark a bunch of pictures of the quilt sets I found. Luke picked out the Basic Circo quilt set in green, his favorite color (which was only $30, conveniently, compared to $70 or $80 that some of the others were) and finally drove home.

 He had fallen asleep on the couch by the time I got home, but Mark woke him up after he got it set up for him.

 I love how he still sleeps like this.

 

He sort of rolled out of bed at some point on the second night (at least we heard his lamp crash) but so far, he loves it!

We got Madelyn's old box spring mattress out of storage the next day and added it and a black bedskirt at the bottom. I think the room looks GREAT! I already had the gray sheets. The rug is from Ikea, I made the pieced quilts on the bed and wall. The wall color is Frozen Pond by Behr.

My big boy! Of course he's thrilled that he can get under his bed now.

I couldn't find a more recent pic of Madelyn's room, but we've changed things around in there, too. Her white baskets of dress up stuff have been moved to storage or her closet, and she's not longer using the pink nightstand for her humidifier. Her bedding used to be pink and brown (which I'd bought ages ago but never really went with her room).

Now her bookcase has moved from the other side of the room along with her set of drawers with the 100 miscellaneous little toys she has, and her new easel. The other side of the room is still a work in progress, but it's where the crib will go.

She got a new comforter from Ikea and duvet cover from Urban Outfitters for Christmas. Her favorite color is turquoise and I had my eye on that bedding for months!! It finally went on clearance and I snatched it up. It fits her personality and age so well.

I just got her the cute polka dot sheets from Target while I was there getting Luke's stuff. They are the Circo Dot Sheet Set - Purple (there are green, purple and blue dots). Her accent wall color (a very pale blue) is Ice Folly by Behr. Her dad built her loft bed from these plans.

For the baby, I have my eye on this cute little white crib from Ikea...and I got this in the mail to go with it:

My friend Anya, who is a compulsive crocheter and made my my epic TARDIS afghan, asked me to choose a pattern and colors for a baby blanket. So I chose a scallop pattern and told her I liked bright blue and pink. I LOVE IT!!!

The rooms are far from being done, but we're getting somewhere!

25.5 weeks and insurance junk

I only have 100 days left till my due date. WHAAAAAAAT. Holy crud, folks.

I had an OB appointment yesterday. High fives because I finally gained 5 lbs. last month. I've been eating like a horse and I know it. The baby has been demanding more calories. (That is what I'm telling myself..)

She is growing well--right in the middle of the growth percentiles. My other kids started slowing in growth in the last trimester (or just plain stopped growing, in Madelyn's case), so we'll have to keep an eye on that. Turns out my POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) was probably to blame because my circulation goes all haywire. The syndrome also sometimes causes me to have shortness of breath/heart racing when I'm digesting a big meal. It reroutes my blood to my digestive tract--which happens to everyone to a small degree, but this is more pronounced--and my lungs and brain get starved of oxygen. So I feel like I can't breathe and like I'm going to pass out and it's SUPER ANNOYING.

It's also started happening in the middle of the night, when I'm not digesting--I'm just trying to sleep for crying out loud. It's becoming more frequent and I think it's partly because as the baby gets bigger, my uterus squashes my vena cava--starving my lungs and brain of oxygen again. Most women can't lie flat on their backs for that reason, but I'm even having trouble lying on my side now, too. It's ALSO SUPER ANNOYING. Add to that all the mind racing and constant peeing that keeps me up at night anyway and I'm a total zombie.

Anyhoo, there's nothing I can do about it other than hurry up and have this baby. I'm going to aim for 85 days instead of 100. My other kids were born in their 38th week so it's not too far fetched.

....................................................................

OH. The insurance fiasco I have hinted at the past couple of months.

Even though Mark works in health care, his company (a private practice) doesn't provide insurance for our family. It covers him, but if we were to get on his plan, it would cost us almost $1,000 a month. No thanks. So the kids and I have been on a high deductible, bare bones plan because it was about $750 less than that. At the time I signed up, it had a maternity deductible of $7,500. Totally lame, but at least it was something.

So starting last fall, I started to accumulate all sorts of medical bills. I managed to rack up $4,500 in cardiology claims alone (of which my insurance covered maybe a couple hundred). I knew we'd pretty much be paying cash for the baby, but it was twice the amount I thought it was going to be. About $3,000 for the OB and minimum $3,600 for the hospital. Any complications or extra testing would be more. (And I always have complications and extra testing.)

Then I found out that my insurance company had COMPLETELY DROPPED any maternity coverage, and even if I met my $10,000 regular deductible, they still wouldn't touch anything regarding it, and also my deductible had reset to $0 at the beginning of 2014 anyway.
*cue mental breakdown*

I'd tried signing up for the healthcare marketplace back in October but the website wasn't working, and by the time I tried again in December it still took me several days and several re-starts of my application for everything to submit right. Then I was told I might qualify for Medicaid (!) and submitted that application to the state. I thought it was odd, but went for it anyway. I started dreaming of them reimbursing me for the thousands of dollars I had already paid..... Well, it turns out it was a FLUKE, a glitch in the computer system--they had been telling everyone in my area that they might be eligible for Medicaid. Mark talked to someone who works at the DWS and they got 10,000 applications from our county in one day. So I had to go back to square one because of course we didn't really qualify. It took a few more weeks of frustration and tears before I was finally able to find a new plan that worked.

So now I am on a totally separate plan and paying $244 a month just for me, but get this: a $750.00 maternity deductible!!!!!! It is a new company called Arches Health Plan and it is only in Utah but it is a member owned co-op like a credit union. I feel so blessed to have finally found something, and with the new laws, all insurance companies are required to cover preexisting conditions (like pregnancy), so switching over when I was already 22 weeks along was no problem.

We are still going to be paying on all the cardiology bills I accrued last year, but overall the cost of the pregnancy has gone way way down. So thank you for all your concern and prayers while I figured this out--I really appreciate it!

Luke....

I know it has been a while since I posted about Luke. Perhaps you thought he was no longer getting into mischief. You would be mistaken. In fact, this winter he is going stir crazy and his active little mind and body are having a hard time being stuck at home all the time with his pregnant, tired mama.

 Nearly every day for the past two weeks, he has begged to go back to "Sesame Street Park" at Sea World. When I tell him we don't have the time or money to go right now, he says, "I have money!" and dumps out his piggy bank and fills his pockets with coins. 

He has more cash than I do.

It's sad to keep letting him down, poor kid. I WISH we were going to Sea World. He also begs to go to the park and the swimming pool all the time. Well the parks are all iced over and taking the kids swimming (i.e. following them around making sure they don't drown in a muggy, loud indoor pool) isn't happening either. I can't wait until our back yard thaws out!!

 He discovered Madelyn's Play-Doh last Sunday, and when we were all watching Sherlock, he snuck into my room with a brand new teal container of it and used a screwdriver and pair of tweezers to shove it down into my humidifier.

 See that headset? Luke sucked on the end of the mic last week and ruined it--the FOURTH TIME he has done this. Mark was not happy about yet another electronic casualty.

 Luke's been learning to use scissors in preschool and so I find stuff that he's chopped up all the time now. I caught him trying to cut the tag off his shirt all by himself.

 We find his guns everywhere....

 He still can't resist messing with the baby wipes (which we still need because he still occasionally takes a poop in his nighttime Pull-Up even though he knows better).

 When I was cleaning out his closet, I thought it was finally safe to bring these pop-up books back down from their hiding place. He didn't even see me put them in the bookshelf but he discovered them within hours and of course it WASN'T actually safe to trust him with them yet...

 I was decorating for Valentine's Day last week and the bin also had some Easter eggs--he was not satisfied until he had opened every single one of them and spread them all over the floor.

He has to trash his room at least 2-3 times a day. (If you clean it up, he'll just dump everything out again. Tidiness is against his moral principles.). This mess isn't even that bad--it can and has been ten times worse but we just cleared out a lot of his toys into storage. And it's early in the day, so there's potential for further damage.

I thought we were past the chewing phase? Guess not.

 

 He is way off his sleeping schedule and has been staying up past midnight the past few days and then taking long naps in the afternoon. I know it's a problem but sometimes it's hard to fight the sleep battle. He still wants to be really close to me when he falls asleep (on top of me, basically, sometimes with his arms wrapped around my neck). It's sweet but it does get old when he comes into my bed a few times a night to do it. He is too big and heavy and since I'm up peeing every few hours anyway, I feel like I am never ever going to get a full night's sleep again, ever.

Since he's been tired, he's also been a cranky fuss-pot. He's usually very even keeled, but apparently he's picked up on some Drama Queen tactics from his sister and has been throwing a lot of tantrums lately. Crossing his arms and saying "HUMPH!", scowling, screaming, stomping off and slamming doors, hurling stuff across the room. Sigh. 

He freaks out if you go anywhere without him (even if it's just to take out the trash) and wails, "You missed me!!!" He still wants to be there every time someone gets out of the shower so that he can push down on the little button that makes water come out of the faucet and fill a cup with the water. If he finds out that you got out of the shower and he was not there to do this, you will PAY. You will also pay if you drive into the garage without letting him run out from the house and hop in the front seat with you. And if he hears the kitchen timer go off but doesn't get to push the stop button, he will throw the timer across the room and writhe on the floor and cry.

4-year olds can be psycho.

 Yesterday was a doozy. He told Mark: "Don't look in my yellow thing." (The secret compartment on his trike.) Turns out he he had my garlic press in there. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Smashing the marshyewwos." Smashing the marshmallows. Awesome.

Then when he was taking a bath before church, he kept getting out, running into my bedroom with his towel, dripping everywhere, and then running back into his bathroom and BLOOSHHHH creating tidal waves all over the sides of the tub. The whole floor was flooded.

THEN during church, he had to give a talk in Primary (he refuses to say anything into the microphone but they keep insisting that he give talks and prayers). Mark and I were in the back, and Luke was sitting on the front row facing all the kids. While he was waiting for his turn, he was sprawling out over the chairs and being the wiggly kid that he is. Next thing I know, he has his head poked through the little square hole in the back of the chair, and when I went up to help him give his talk, yup..........his head was stuck.

All the teachers had a good hearty laugh and I turned bright red but it was really quite funny. I got him dislodged eventually and then he buried his face while I gave his talk (he did help hold the pictures) and he did say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." so I guess that's progress. LOL.

 This morning....

 Our poor, beleaguered cat. Look at the expression on his face. Luke has detected a "dirty paw" again. He won't leave the dang cat alone. Lately he has decided that it's fun to pick him up. He gets in trouble every day for bugging him.

 He's really proficient with his trikes now (he has two that he rides through the house) and I'm pretty sure he ran over Tiger's tail the other day. On accident. (I hope.) His fur color does blend in with the floor and makes him hard to see...

 His latest pastime is watching YouTube videos of Pacman, funny cats, the Mother Goose Club, and all sorts of random stuff. He's just like his dad and feels the need to be entertained every second of the day.

He just put these sticky notes on his face. Nice mutton chops, son.

......

Either he's going to be a great and eager helper when his baby sister comes along, or everything will descend into Even More Chaos. Heaven help me when May comes along.