Baby Hicks's diet

When I was pregnant with Grant, he always wanted Chipotle. That guy could eat Chipotle 5 days per week if I let him.

With this pregnancy, my baby wants fried chicken. But only 2 pieces... and in 2 hours, 2 more pieces (and so on and so on). Baby isn't picky - Popeyes, Chickfila, DQ, or even with waffles.

My friend Cat has a unique psychic ability - she is a baby gender psychic. Cat has predicted a girl. She predicted Grant correctly, and several other babies. We'll know in about 2 months if her abilities are still in tact.

Today I'm in a maternity top and pants. I'm not concealing my belly anymore with drapey, loose clothing. This top is tight and just BEGS strangers to ask "When are you due?"

My friend Hayley is due 1 month before me, but I look like I'm due 1 month before her. The second baby must have it so nice - a luxury suite instead of a shoe box motel. I'll have to be careful - Derek has strong feelings about ladies that get huge while pregnant. He's going to write a book called "Don't Get Fat in the Face - I Don't Want to Look at That." I don't know what kind of chapters it will contain or if it's just a picture book, but this idea seemed brilliant to him last year at the annual crawfish boil.

I'm looking forward to getting more and more round. And I'm really looking forward to dinner with friends this Sunday - all you can eat fried chicken!!!

Mrs. Hicks goes to Austin

Tuesday night I went on my FIRST EVER Southwest flight to the capital of weird - Austin. I was thinking all day that it would be my first night away from my baby, but then I vaguely remembered Meadow's birthday. So it was my SECOND night away from my Grant, but I did have another baby with me.

Robby, Ericka and Olivia picked me up - they had burgers and I had chicken and waffles. The weather was great so we ate on the play ground, and Olivia was an angel. She climbed up the ladder and went down the slide about 100 times. That's not an exaggeration either. The steps on the ladder were almost as tall as her.

The next morning I walked to the capitol and met up with our lobbyist and local counsel. I had packed my walking shoes (flats) and my lawyer shoes (heels), but I'd forgotten my round brush. It was close, but I survived.

I provided about 1 minute of testimony, which you could have streamed online. But I really didn't want a larger audience, so I kept that nugget to myself. The committee asked me no questions, which we thought was either great or terrible. The committee didn't hear all of the bills before it in the morning special session, so it didn't vote while I was there. I was back in my office before 3 p.m. At the end of the day, the committee voted on most of the bills before them but left mine and a handful of others pending. We're hoping for a vote on it today.

I was thrilled to have this opportunity. I was relieved to have 2 pros by my side to walk me through the process (and to the committee hearing room). Now I'm hoping for great news. Our bill died last session (lots of bills died last session - voter id stalled everything), so it would be a big feat to have it pass this session!

New daycare photos

Here's a few of my favorite photos of Grant from March & April at day care:

I love elastic

Today I'm wearing maternity jeans. I had forgotten how WONDERFUL maternity jeans are - stylish denim on bottom with a comfy elastic waist band on top.

I ordered these jeans in between my miscarriage and this pregnancy. If Derek reads this, he will be hearing about this new batch of maternity clothes for the first time! You see - I have a slight addiction to babysteals.com. And I fell in love with maternity clothes they had on their one day. And well - we can skip the middle part where I wasn't sure if it was "ok" to order maternity clothes when I wasn't pregnant - and jump right to the part where I confess that Rachel made me do it. She's a terrible influence - anyone who knows her will tell you that. ;)

I was shocked to see that I had ordered an XS. They actually fit GREAT, and I'm hoping to dump these before long in favor of my previous, stretched out pair of maternity jeans. That way I can keep a "small" pair for post-pregnancy.

So this pregnancy, maternity clothes were broken in on day 74. Last time around, I wore maternity clothes for the first time on day 83 (which I know thanks to my previus blogging). Last time, I started with maternity tops and this time I'm starting with bottoms. I definitely feel bigger. And now that maternity clothes are on the table, I can start pooching out my belly instead of (trying) to suck it in!

Videos - playing and walking

Look at these 2 kids playing:




And Grant has become a pro at walking. Exhibit A:

Teeth

I tell you what - I'm getting the hang of being a mama (almost). This morning I saw at least 4 new teeth poking through the top gums in Grant's mouth. He gave me a very good view when I took his bottle away from him to get him dressed. I couldn't see if anything was coming through on bottom though. I won't be able to update this evening because I'm having some quality girl time tonight at the Ronald McDonald House. I love Jill for getting me involved in the volunteer craft night there - it's something I would never do on my own and I absolutely LOVE going! Honestly, before I went, I thought Ronald McDonald House was an orphanage.

I did manage to forget to give Grant some Tylenol this morning, so I'm sure they are having fun with him at day care. See - ALMOST getting the hang of motherhood.

Grant is 11 months!

Grant is 11 months now! He is 30 days away from his first birthday.

Here's what he's up to these days:

* weighs 23-24 pounds
* Still has 6 teeth (but I suspect more are coming - Grant was pretty cranky today)
* Can take at least 20 steps at a time (sometimes he falls after just 5 steps though)
* Walks with his hands up
* Eats just about everything - but we have not revisited pears or blueberries
* VERY impatient. You better have that food ready when you strap him in the high chair!
* Weekend schedule is:
*8am - breakfast & bottle
*9am-10:30 - morning nap
*11am - bottle
*1pm - short nap
*2pm - lunch & bottle
*4pm - short nap
*5pm - bottle
*7:30 - dinner & bottle
*8:15 - bedtime
* In 2 weeks, he moves into the toddler room at day care.

Easter 2011

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous, making for a perfect, albeit windy, Easter egg hunt in Red Oak. Derek, Steve and Matthew went early to help set up. Gloria and I followed much later after Grant had his morning nap.

Daddy and Grant during the egg hunt
Grant had to eat during the egg cracking, but his daddy did make sure he celebrated. This also meant that mama missed out on the fun of chasing down folks. I especially like getting the rookies. Part of Derek's family was there this year for the first time, so I'm sad I missed chasing them down. Karl can't be that fast - too bad he missed out on confetti in his pants! My mom made over 50 dozen confetti eggs this year. Thankfully, the wind helped with the clean up quite a bit!

Grant listening to the Bereuter Band playing Rage and sleeping on his girlfriend Susie. It was very windy and he insisted on napping in the wind.
On Easter Sunday, we played catch up around the house. I took 2 naps - I was so tired. Derek and Grant worked in a nap also:

We worked in a family trip to the grocery store, which was unnecessarily expensive because we were (a) hungry and (b) pregnant (only me - don't worry). The grocery store was a test for Grant because it's the time of day when he just wants to be held. I'm not sure who - but someone failed and I ended up carrying him around the grocery store most of the trip.

Walking

Grant has been taking steps for several weeks. Here he is perfecting his steps on April 2, 2011:



And here he is on April 24, 2011:


He now walks between things when he's cruising (rather than sit and crawl). His teacher at school said he's been walking a lot more lately. And the more he walks, the sooner he goes into the next room, so she was tempted to push him down. Yep - they let her work with children. ;) Actually I think his move date is set in stone - he starts transitioning May 16th.

They all fall down

Well - not quite all. Last weekend, we lost 2 segments of our fence after a particularly windy hail storm. We patched it up with construction fence/netting.

This weekend, we got home from the annual Easter egg hunt JUST in time Saturday evening. The rain hit just as we closed the garage. Sunday morning, we awoke to the loss of even MORE of our fence:

We are now hoping that we lose it all in the upcoming storms. If it's a total loss, our insurance will cover it (after we pay the deductible, of course). I'm not confident this plan of attack will work, but I'm hopeful that I don't have to pay the ENTIRE cost of a new fence.