Avoid Chuck E. Cheese

Consider yourself warned.  At least around our neck of the woods the Chuck E. Cheese you might remember from a few years ago is a far cry from the Chuck E. Cheese of today.

I expected loud.  I expected overpriced pizza.  I expected it to be crowded.  I expected birthday parties.  I expected really cheap prizes.  In all of that, I was not disappointed.

Unfortunately I also expected a show.  You know, where the curtain draws back and you watch the whole band perform?  Instead we got one stuffed Chuck and a few TV screens showing something constantly.  I never even watched them because it was so loud from the parties and Millie wasn't into it.

I expected a little toddler area, kind of off to the side full of the ride on toys and other "lame" things big kids weren't in to.  Not the case here.  That stuff was just mixed in with all of the racing games.

Case and point:

I was also expecting the playground area to be half decent and with a ball pit.  Didn't their commercials used to center around the ball pit?  Am I the only kid that watched that much TV?  I recall a lot of commercials from my childhood.  I know ball pits aren't as easy to find as they once were for safety reasons, but I had hopes.  Millie has been watching kids play in ball pits for weeks on Youtube.  How does she find these videos?  I'm just not excited to fork out $12 for pump it up (or the like) when she'll play for 15 minutes and be ready to go.

Overall, I'd say if you've got a 10 year old then Chuck E. Cheese is for you.  I'll probably try and avoid it for the next 8 years or so.  By the way if you feel the need to go, it will be worth your time to sign up for the emails for the coupons.  We easily saved $10 on our pizza/drink/token package that way.

For inquiring minds, my pregnancy (12 weeks 1 day today!) is still scooting along.  I feel fine some hours, and horrible others.  When I feel horrible, especially when I'm trying to fall asleep, I find myself deep in though.  My appreciation for women that carry children without the loving support of a husband and women that carry children knowing they will give the child up for adoption has grown this week.  I could write and write my feelings on this, and I do have a deep appreciation for adoption since my family consists of an aunt and four adopted cousins, but I will leave you with a summary.  Basically I feel like these women individually deserve a parade.  Or something huge.  Whatever they would want, but it needs to be big.  Their situations aren't ideal, but the sacrifice and love they show to these babies is about as Christ-like as it gets.

This week I go in for a hefty 2-3 hour appointment where my baby is screened for diseases like Down Syndrome.  It is routine here, and I am not nervous.  While I hope for a healthy, normal baby I would feel incredibly honored to take care of one of Heavenly Father's special children.  I feel honored to take care of any of his children, actually.

One last thing to keep in your back pocket.  If you find yourself pregnant and thinking that the smells from a dirty diaper or dinner cooking will be the death of you, go buy febreze air effects.  I wish I had thought of this sooner.  I've been going to great lengths squeezing my nose into a clothes pin (ouch!), changing Millie by the front door, and hiding in my room while Buck cooks dinner to avoid these smells.  One little spray and I can breathe again!  Unfortunately it doesn't work on your now-smelly-to-you husband.  He used to smell so good, too.

Brush With Death

It melts my heart when I find Millie in her crib looking like this:

You'll be glad I don't have actual pictures that go with the meat of this post.  I've been saving those gems for a good time to share, and now seemed as good as any.

So I'm 10 weeks at 2 days pregnant now.  Feel free to shout hooray.  Week 8 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but week 9 was quite possibly the worst week of my life.  At least I hope I never go through that again.

Let me start by saying Nursery at church is awesome.  I love everything about it, except the occasional germs Millie brings home to share.  I mean let's be honest.  My child definitely puts the fake baby bottles in her mouth in Nursery, and I'm betting she's not the only one.  Germ swapping is inevitable.

Millie came down with a nasty bug in the middle of the night.  Luckily Buck checked on her (I'm so adamant about her crying it out for a while, but he has a soft heart and decided to get up) and found her in throw up again.  I stayed up with her all night long watching TV and cleaning up her throwing up about seven more times.  Eventually she stopped and slept, but the next day she was so weak she just laid around and slept.  It never even dawned on me that I could catch what she had.  I just held her and tried to help her in any way.

Well I got it and it was horrible.  I don't know if it was so bad because of the morning sickness as well, but I literally couldn't get off the couch (except to run to throw up).  Needless to say Millie ate lightly that day and watched anything she wanted...even Caillou which I strongly dislike.  That night Buck caught it, and had pretty much the same story as me.  In the more than 10 years I've known him I've never known him to throw up.  He definitely did, poor guy.  I mean I'm at least used to it.

So the point of this story isn't to gross you out, though I'm sure I have.  The point is to say Buck's Mom has certainly earned her spot in Heaven.  She was planning on coming to help me (over her birthday, I might add) and showed up right in the thick of our stomach bug.  She nursed us back to health, took care of Millie (we really couldn't have done that ourselves) and scrubbed our bathroom!  I had to share the details of our sickness to really drive home the magnitude of cleaning our bathroom.  We eventually got better but she still let me rest while she cleaned, cooked, grocery shopped, and entertained Millie.  I really think being pregnant with a full-time housekeeper is where it's at.

One last thing about the sickness, I promise.  Laying around thinking about the pain I was in gave me time to ponder a little bit.  I really felt like being on the verge of death couldn't feel much worse.  I've been blessed to be surrounded by long-living family members, so I have not seen a lot of death or suffering.  My Dad's Mom passed away a few years ago somewhat slowly.  She kept coming to mind as I tried to convince myself I would eventually feel better.  It must have been so hard for her to smile and even talk with each family member that wanted to see her.  Actually when you feel that crummy, smiling and talking is downright heroic.

Enough of the heavy stuff.  I'm feeling so good today I think I might actually do an activity with Millie. I've got another ultrasound this week and I'm meeting with a genetic counselor in a few weeks.  My doctor has everyone do it as well as some tests for the baby I didn't have in Utah.  I can definitely tell I live in a more liberal state.  I'll save my pro-life post for another day.