What a Ham!

Last night I came home and as usual was greated by Roadie and Padon at the baby gate that keeps them in the dining room and out of the kitchen as Walter makes dinner. Padon was telling me all about the punching balloon he received at Ivor's Birthday Party on Sunday, and how there was a fish, in the fish bowl, in the water, on the wall. He then climbed up on the chair ,that is jammed against the gate to insure that Roadie and Padon will stay out of the kitchen, to explain the fish in closer proximity. I happily listened to his explainations and then asked him to get down so I could get out of the kitchen (typically I would step over the gate but at almost 8 months pregnant I can't anymore). He started to get down quickly and then stopped, half of his body hanging of the chair, his legs kicking and his arms flailing. Smiling he started yelling "Help, help, I'm falling, I'm falling, help, help!" As if he was on the edge of a cliff. I laughed and told him to get off so I could get out.

When I finally did get out of the kitchen I went in the bedroom to put down my stuff and get out of my work clothes and into more comfy clothes. When I came back out Padon was at the TV watching the rolling credits from the movie Ice Age. He had his fingertips hooked on the TV where the screen glass meets the plastic of the TV monitor and he had his chin pressed against the TV stand. Suddenly he started making gobbling gestures with his hands and making gulping sounds as the credits rolled down toward his face. He was eatting the credits! He looked so funny and these acts of creativity and imagination were just too funny to experience. I'm so glad I got to be there to see it. Walter said he hadn't seen Padon do either of those things before and I think he was bummed he was making pancakes when it happened.

I Have To Find A New OB-GYN When?!

So PACCAR just had their once a year Open Enrollment period where you are given the opportunity to change your health insurance and update your flexible spending account for the new year. This year I took a long hard look at the three insurance options that PACCAR offers and found that while Group Health and Premera Blue Cross are nearly identical in coverage, Group Health's monthly premiums are $100 cheaper! Well, dang-it, I could really use that $100! Not to mention Group Health caps out at $4,000 a year and Premera does not. I figured it out and by not having that cap with Premera I was looking to spend about $2,600 more this coming year then I would if I was with Group Health. Phenominal! So I had to make the tough decision and change our health insurance to Group Health.

Sadly this means, because my doctor's office doesn't take Group Health HMO, I can't use my lovely, empathetic, and understanding OB-GYN come January. January 1st I need to find a new Group Health OB and luckily there is a nice list of providers even closer to my work then my current OB-GYN's office. Phew! I already checked and Group Health's local Bellevue Hospital is Overlake so luckily I can still go back to Overlake with Sopha.

This transition totally made my stomach flop when I realized this very late in the pregnancy change we were going to have to make, but then I realized that we never got a tour of Overlake with Padon because he was early, a strange doctor delivered Padon because Dr. Graham was on vacation and wasn't available, and they only keep you for 24 hours anyway so who can't suck it up for 24 hours; especially when all the doctor does is come in and catch the baby and isn't there for most of the delivery anyway. Really, it will be pretty much the same as having Padon. I still hope the doctor is cool though.

A Pregnant Christmas Gift

I can't find a picture that can do City Flowers' (a florist shop on the 1st floor of the Hyatt, here in Bellevue) Christmas Display justice. Imagine a floor to ceiling Christmas display in Neiman Marcus smashed into a box about 9 ft wide and 20 ft long and you will have an idea of what City Flowers' shop looks like right now. It was beautiful and intimidating all in one breath and the store was so full that you couldn't lift your elbows away from your waist without fear of knocking something down. The cheapest something running no less then $100. Okay, they had tiny olive ornaments for less then $100 but even they were almost $10 a piece.

So I was in this florist shop waiting for my order of a dozen long stem roses for my Bosses' Wife, for their proposal anniversary, and I was weaving my pregnant self in and out of the opulence, gawking over prices, and how beautiful some of the artistic sculptures, ornaments, and chocolates were. As I was looking around and listening to the clerks and a customer discuss flower displays and how pink tea roses were $25 each, a gal came in wanting to look at their decorations and Christmas items. Turned out she was doing her Christmas shopping early and just had to see what they had. She had that really rich lady air about her but she was super nice and turns out super gracious. I had stepped out of the shop to allow her to circulate around the tiny aisle and when she came out she said excitedly gesturing towards me up and down "Oh, it looks like you are expecting, possibly a Christmas baby?!" I said "I am!" with as much exhuberance. She said "That is wonderful! When are you due?" I told her January 26th and then she said "Oh, that is so exciting and you just look so lovely and so skinny! You must work out! Do you work out often because you look so lovely and slender!" The whole time she was talking with a look on her face like "you just can't be 7 months pregnant and look so good!" I just about fell over. I said "Oh, no, I don't get to work out; just try to walk around often" (a total lie). She said "Well you just look wonderful and congratulations!" And she made to leave. I was gracious back to her, thanked her for her kind words and wished her a great day and good luck on her shopping.

I was just about wowed out of my Alice Crocs and thought, "now that is how you talk to a pregnant lady!" Just about then my flowers were ready to be picked up and paid for. What an extremely nice gesture! The one thing I like about being an admin; being able to go places and meet people you would otherwise never have the opportunity to go into or approach.

Great Giant Pumpkin! That Was a Great Halloween!

This year Walter, Padon, and I were invited to a Halloween Party with the theme "Come As Your Alter Ego!" Walter and I were stumped as to what our alter ego would be but if Padon had an alter ego, one such ego would definitely be a puppy and a puppy costume I could do! I also already had the fabric for it and was in the mist of sewing Padon some new pajamas, so using the pattern I had already created for the pajamas, I made him a Puppy costume and it came out awesome!

Poor Bean! I didn't realize how tried he was until after I took this picture and took a good look at his face.

The Wednesday before Halloween our friends Joel and Stacey invited us to come with them to the annual Trick or Trunk party at their church. It sounded like a lot of fun and a great way to introduce Padon to Halloween. Stacey was amazingly helpful as we went through the festively decorated rooms where there were games to play and prizes to win. There were small children running in and out and helping Padon while maneuvering my pregnant self was proving to be really difficult so for the most part Stacey took Padon through all the activities: musical Halloween cut outs, bobbing for donuts, feeling for body parts (Padon ate the spaghetti intestines and so we stopped there and left the room), haunted hallway (too scary, we turned around and went back), putt-putt golf, bowling, pin the nose on the Jack-o-Lantern, and a bean bag toss. At every station Padon got a prize no matter how he did and that was just so cool.
About an hour into the rooms everyone evacuated the building to start the Trunk portion of the Trick or Trunk party. In a portion of the parking lot there were roughly 20-25 cars with their trunks open (most decorated in a Halloween theme) and in the trunks sat someone handing out candy. It was like hitting a bunch of houses but in 20 minutes flat. Padon was super cute, walked up to every car said "trick or treat", said "thank you", and then ended with the most adorable little 2 year old voiced "Bye!". By the 6th car or so Padon threw out the need to say thank you and just said bye but everyone thought he was so adorable. And he was so caught up in the large amount of candy being offered to him that he kept pausing at cars and staring into their bowl of candy just mesmerized which often awarded him another piece of candy from the awwwwwing and touched candy holder.

I think Padon was a tad overwhelmed but went with it in a state of "wow!" with Walter from car to car.
The Trick or Trunk Party was a great introduction to Halloween. I had already decided that instead of attending the booze fest that would be the Halloween party Walter and I had been invited too I would stay home with Padon who would sleep better in his bed and where I wouldn't feel so out of place not being able to drink the booze offered (Walter went to the party as a Vault 42 Fallout character). Everett Mall was having their annual Trick or Treat sponsored by KMPS and I thought that would be a great thing for Padon and I to do. He was more than happy to get back into his Puppy costume on Saturday, and off we went. We both were overwhelmed when we arrived. We entered through Sears and hit a wall of people circulating the mall. There was no real starting point and so we just joined the line of people shuffling from store to store collecting candy. I kid you not! Every single store in the mall, including the food court was giving out candy with the exception of maybe 20 stores.

Even the cleaning staff was dressed up! I thought this guy was great!

Padon had a great time looking at the other kids, commenting on their masks and costumes, and he did a great job of moving through the grade school kids to the candy gifters, saying Trick or Treat and collecting his candy. After I explained that you shouldn't touch people who haven't asked you to because it makes them feel funny, Padon stopped touching the other kid's costumes and would point at them and say "Don't touch!" and then elaborate about what he thought was neat about their costumes (Incredible Hulk's teeth for example). Too cute! He was really impressed with the plastic pumpkin trick or treat buckets (for the life of me I hadn't been able to find one to buy him in time for Halloween) that were a multitude of colors including orange, yellow, and blue. He was most impressed with one that looked like Elmo's head.
Padon ate some candy while we were walking in the line and just when I thought we had, had enough, and was about to propose to Padon that we get out of line I saw Sears again. We had actually done the whole mall! To end this trick or treat excursion properly we plunked ourselves down in a big open patch of floor in the middle of the mall and I let Padon go through his bag. We went through 5 lollipops (opened at the same time and passed off as one was sampled after another), one Smarty (he gave me the first one, aaaaahhhhhhwwwwwww ), one box of nerds, one piece of gum, and a package of chewy life savers before Padon got bored and got up to play with the gumball machine island stationed near us. The lollipops were so reminisent of Patrick having found Jane's stash of lollipops and being caught with them all in his mouth.

Padon and I ended the night eatting popcorn and watching "The Nightmare before Christmas." Padon sweetly treated Romeo (cat) and Roadie (dog) to some popcorn which I tried to inforce was only ok because it was Halloween and we didn't do that on any other days.

He had a really good time and Walter and I have created a small candy monster. Eh!, was bound to happen sooner or later.