If you swallow a watermelon seed...

Your belly will get really big and a watermelon will grow inside it!


Or, at least, that APPEARS to be what's happening to me! This pregnancy has made me crave watermelon like its cool. Its so delicious and juicy and sweet. And, when diced into cubes and stored in a container, its just so EASY to sit down and eat the whole darn thing.

I've always loved watermelon, but this is a little beyond the norm. Mmm...Its so delicious that its distracting. I just cut the watermelon yesterday and its G.O.N.E. now. Or will be when I finish slurping the juice out of the bowl.






In other, non-watermelon-related news, we had our BIG ultrasound yesterday. Which, in some ways, was anti-climactic. The tech was nice enough and explained everything he was doing, but he didn't let Daddy and Smidget come back until the very end. By that time I'd been sitting in there for 20 minutes getting to see the little one all by myself and not having anyone to share it with (as nice as the tech was, they don't get excited for you, ya know?). We went over things like the Nuchal Fold (a test for Down's Syndrome risk)---which was normal. Kidneys, bladder, 4 chamber heart, and brain all looked normal. And, most interesting (to me), baby measured EXACTLY the right size. By the time I was 20 weeks with Smidget, he measured several weeks over "normal"---but this baby is measuring dead-on.  That, and the fact that baby is so quiet in-utero makes me think that this baby is going to be very different than Big Brother. Personality AND size are bound to be different!  We shall see!

FINALLY, they let Smidget and Daddy come back and view it with me...and after that the ultrasound was pretty exciting. It was so nice hearing Smidget call out to the baby by the proper pronoun and making a big deal about being able to see the baby. When the tech let us take a look at the genitalia, we were relieved to see that the same genitalia as we saw at 17 weeks. Not that we care about gender, but after I already went and bought bedding and made the registry, its nice to not have to re-do it. And, amusing to see how differently the baby reacted to us peeking...the first time we had to poke and prod to get a glimpse---this time, it was pretty obvious!!!

But, according to Smidget, baby's feet look kindof like a puppy :D
Good to know!

Alas, that portion of the ultrasound was far too short. After about 5 minutes, the tech printed out a few photos for us and sent us on our way, with Smidget chattering on about the baby (just loudly enough to make other folks in the hallway smile and tell me how cute he is. Which always makes me pretty happy...not because I don't recognize his ridiculous cuteness every minute of the day, but because its nice to know that I'm not totally biased and that other people see it too, haha.

If it were solely up to my judgement, my son would be declared the cutest kid on Earth and that would be that. But, I recognize that I am pretty biased about the whole thing. How could I not be? I'm kindof his MOM!

And now I have to figure out how to balance having the TWO most gorgeous kids on Earth. And the smartest. And the silliest :D See? Bias. But, they are both pretty cute :D

Snail Love...

I do NOT have it. My son does.

Here is why I don't possess this trait:

2 days ago I planted 24 Vinca in my garden. In 1 night, the snails managed to eat 2 of them 1/2 way and 1 COMPLETELY. Let them eat their fill...at 1130 last night I decided I'm going snail killing! My son might love them, but my vinca are NOT amused! Ill be armed with coffee grounds, vinegar, a flashlight, and a bucket and I'll be killing them by the hundreds (I wish I were joking about how many there are...I'm not. There were 50 out there on ONE plant!).

I was going to wait til morning to go hunting, but I decided that since I'm awake I might as well go get them early...killed about 400 of the lil bastards by plucking them off into a bucket and then drowning them in vinegar...I took a pic of all of them just before they died...because I'm gross like that! Ill post it with a warning for Jenny when I upload it tomorrow. I normally feel bad about harming bugs/etc...but not when the overpopulation is THAT bad! I knew we had a lot when we moved in and ax started pointing them out everywhere (he loves them) even in the daylight. But JEEZE...going outside after the sprinklers stopped made me stop dead in my tracks in shock. And I do not feel at all bad when they are wreaking havoc on poor little plants! I fear 1 of my plants is GONE and 2 more may not make it (they've only got 2-3 leaves left) and ALL of them have damage...and the tree in my front yard has SIGNIFICANT damage from them too (to the point that I need to call management and make them take a look because 1/2 the trunk is eaten away and rotting from them living in there during the day). Yup...they had to go! 

So, I woke up early this morning to go out and assess my success. I found about a dozen in their little hiding spot at the base of our tree in the yard (and another dozen on the tree by the curb) and plucked them off to dump into the vinegar bath (vinegar bath = instant fizzy death). So, I was just about to dump them when a little Smidget I know (ya know, the guy with the love of snails), comes out and decides to be all cute with them. After that, how can I just kill them all?

Very very easily. BUT, not in front of him, for sure!

So, I went in and found myself a mason jar (I keep them on hand, because i'm awesome) and I poked a few holes in the top with a knife and grabbed a handful of dirt and a fistful of leaves and a couple of rocks...voila, instant terrarium! The kid loves it!  He thinks the snails are all happy and peaceful (all 17 of them in a mason jar!) and I don't have snails in my garden.  Win-win.

And, just to keep the over-crowding down, I'll be taking about 1/2 the snails out and killing them tonight after Smidget goes to bed. No way 17 snails can survive in one jar, man. Its ridiculous!

But, for now, it works. And my little guy has a bunch of friends to show off to neighbors and daddy and grandpa (via phone) and the snails get to have dinosaur books and train books read to them and they get to go pee pee on the potty and ride in a Tonka Truck and even eat breakfast and lunch with him (althogh, I drew the line at family dinner and naptime/bedtime). Yep, this will work, for now.

I'm anxious to see how many of those slimy little bastards show up on my plants tonight, though.

We shall see...oh we SHALL see...

JENNY---SKIP THE NEXT POST. It contains disgusting snail pictures!