Viewer discretion may be advised ??

Big day for big boy Peter!

He announced he had to go potty! What we've been doing lately is letting him sit on his potty while in front of his computer so he can type words. Not sure what that really says about him, but anyway, it works to get him to sit for longer periods of time.

About twenty minutes pass and we hear,

"I did it! I poo-poo'ed! Come and see!"
Both Sam and I rush out of our offices and this is what we see:

If you can't see, Peter has successfully done #2 in his potty (blurred for blog comfort) and at the same time typed the word "LOGS" on his computer. I guess the boy had only one thing on his mind! :)

An added thought to this milestone: As we recall, Peter started to walk on his own the same week Natalie was born. We're only hoping this is a sign that he'll be well on his way to being potty trained now that #3 is on its way!

Got a taste of labor this morning

Don't get too excited - I'm still pregnant.

This morning I had my 38 & 1/2 week appointment. We took the kids with us since our neighbors were there to help watch them and possibly take them home in the event I was sent to labor/delivery. Well, after a week of pains and contractions (that I'm starting to feel), there was no change from last week and I'm still only 6cm dilated. How this could be, I have no idea! Luckily, I felt like my OB was becoming sympathetic to my misery (or -as Sam noted - every sentence I spoke this morning was pressure talk to get this delivery going). My OB stripped my membranes while checking my cervix. Two things about that are 1) OUCHY OUCH OUCH!!! and 2) a little more than 2 seconds warning would have been nice. It was just a glimpse of what labor is going to feel like - which, oddly enough, I've forgotten the level of pain laboring a baby can bring. After my OB was done, he spoke the words every 9-month pregnant woman wants to hear "Have we set a date for induction?" When he asked, I was too shocked and in awe of those words I couldn't respond right away. I felt like I needed a moment to take those words into my reality. So, now, he has me set to come back on Monday morning for induction! YAY!!!

So, that all happened at 10am. We were advised to stay in the hospital and walk around just in case something were to happen immediately. After 3 hours in the hospital (with the kids mind you) nothing happened and we came home. It's now 5pm and still nothing, only pain from getting membranes stripped.

Nevertheless, as Sam keeps reminding me, it's what I wanted - to get closer to having this baby! If it's not going to happen naturally over the weekend, I'll still have Monday!

PS: When asked when does he think the baby will come, Peter response is "100 weeks"!!!

I sure hope he doesn't know something that I don't know!

Another funny kid saying - this time in public!!!

Sometime last week, we took Peter to Great Clips to get a hair cut. I had done it before, but not the greatest job. Also, being 9 months pregnant doesn't make one want to bend over and cut a moving boy's hair! So, there was the typical haircutter at Great Clips cutting Peter's hair as he sat nice and still in the chair. When she was starting to cut around his ear, she said to him,

"Now don't move! I don't like to hurt little boys!"

Not a second passed and Peter replied,

"I don't like to hurt big mamas"

I about died of embarassment! Even after that comment, she still did a nice job on his hair!

Iowa 2008 Flood

The river crested over the weekend. FINALLY! It seems that the worst is over as levels are slowly but surely going down, interstate roads are starting to open back up, and the news channels aren't pre-empting shows all day long with flood coverage.

I feel like we can finally let out a huge sigh with the scare of being separated from the hospital. Although there's still pretty badly flooded areas of town that creates sort of a separation from east and west Iowa City and Coralville, the feeling is that citizens are looking forward to recovery and rebuilding.

Here are some pictures from press-citizen.com that show only a few of many flooded areas in

Iowa City/Coralville.

This one shows Park Road bridge which was the first one to flood over the Iowa River. There are some fears that the bridge may be damaged enough with debris and water that it may actually collapse.

This second picture shows the bridge we normally would take to get to the hospital, Highway 6 bridge. I discovered it to be closed while going to my Friday morning appointment - talk about anxiety!

And alas, Burlington brdige - our last hope to get to the hospital. The river reached pretty much to the bottom of the bridge. There actually should be a sort of a waterfall to the left of the bridge, but in this picture, it's just turbulent waters.


Here is a street level view of Burlington bridge at its worst. Most of that water came from a tunnel that they were pumping dry to let electrical something to dry for UI buildings to regain power. My big question at that moment: "Was pumping the water right onto the Burlington Bridge the BEST solution, be it the only bridge connecting east Iowa City to the hospital?" Of course, this was coming from me, the almost 38-wk pregnant woman with a 6cm headstart in dilation.

This aerial shows Coralville strip that has a lot of businesses and restaurants. It's quite amazing that this wide aerial view doesn't even show the complete area of flooding!

Old Chicago is one of the restaurants on the Coralville strip. It's probably had 5 feet of flooding, whereas some other parts were reported to get as high as 8 ft of flooding!

It's obvious that the time for waters to recede, clean up and recovery will be quite extensive. I just hope it all goes smoothly and quickly, and this city that I love being a part of will be back stronger than ever!