All the drama, the boyfriends, the prom dresses, the makeup, the bad hair day meltdowns, the slammed doors, the (INSERT MORE DRAMATICS HERE)- it’s all coming for me.

It’s. A. Girl! (Also, and most importantly, she looks 100% healthy!)

The tech said she was really, very confident and I had her scan and re-scan that general area several times. Nothing. Not a hint of anything boyish that way. It’s totally a girl.

So, YAY! RuffleButts!

And HOORAY pillowcase dresses and adorable collections from Gymboree!

I’m not ready to embrace all pink. It’s just not in me, but I can warm up to purple, I think. Pretty sure the nursery is going to start with a PB&J inspired color palette of dark purple and light brown with a bit of white thrown in.

And names? Well, don’t even ask. We haven’t even discussed it, and I’m fine with that. We may very well not settle on anything until she’s born anyway, just like we did with Kendall.

I know she most likely will have a birthday very close to Christmas (with a due date of 12/24), but I’m actually excited about what that entails, at least for the first few years. We can have cookie decorating parties and ornament making parties. And then when she’s old enough to get irritated with sharing her birthday with the holiday season, we can celebrate 1/2 birthdays in the summer with pedicures at the pool!

Okay, so I’m a little excited, yes. But also? Terrified.

Totally.

Terrified.

What do I DO WITH A GIRL? Y’all, I’m a boy mom. I don’t know shit about this girl business. How do I be a girl mom? What if I break her?

Kendall is 2 and already excited to share his love for “wowers” with his little sister. I’m nearly 19 weeks pregnant… and that means I’m nearly halfway there… and that means I have SO MUCH TO BUY!!

I am hoping, though, that this means those first 6-8 weeks of newborn hell might pass just as quickly this time because last time those first 2 months stretched out for what seemed like 2 millennia. No really, it’s okay. It can go fast. I know you “never get those days back,” and thank you sweet baby Jesus for that! I don’t want them to begin with. Keep them and send me home with a 2 month old, please. One that has already mastered breastfeeding, has it’s days and nights figured the hell out and has developed some semblance of a routine, preferably. *Sigh* If only…

Anyway, what I’m really trying to blog about is the big ultrasound we have scheduled for next Monday. Yup, only 4 days from now we’ll know what this baby, who I’m lovingly referring to as BBQ, is! So before I start the inevitable anxiety roller coaster that is waiting for a giant ultrasound that will determine if all of my baby’s organs are developing and functioning properly, lets have some fun and do some guessing as to what the gender is, shall we?

Some things for your consideration:

Cravings- Duh. Meat and BBQ sauce! And lots of Chipotle and Mexican food with sour cream. Other than that, though, it’s all over the place. I never had really extreme food aversions like I did with Kendall, but I had, and still have a really, really hard time settling on what it is I truly want. The other day at Dairy Queen I nearly had a nervous breakdown because there were just too many Blizzard flavors.

Physical changes- I did break out a lot in the 1st tri, but my skin is back to it’s glorious pregnancy self now, for the most part. Scott swears I broke out at the beginning with Kendall, too, and that I’ve just blocked it from my memory. I think I’m carrying a lot lower than I did with Kendall. I have to sag all my maternity pants half way down my ass because the bands cut me off mid bump. I’ll try to take a bump pic and post it later for your review. As for hormones, I’m as much of a psychotic, emotional wreck as I remember being with Kendall.

Statistics- Okay, I know that, really, I have a 50/50 shot of having either one, but these are some interesting facts to play with.

1. Myself and my 4 best girlfriends will have produced nothing but 6 boys in 2.5 years come this September (no girls from any of us). Who’s going to break the streak?

2. K is in a playgroup with only one other boy. 4 of the other moms are pregnant again, 2 of them have found out the gender and they are both girls. Is our playgroup destined to be overrun by girls?

3. Scott has 3 siblings who’ve had more than one baby. Each have had a boy and a girl. Will I be the mom to end up with two boys in a row (and possibly all boys)?

As for what my feeling is, well… honestly… I *feel* like it’s a girl. BUT, that being said, I wouldn’t be shocked at all to find out it’s a boy. I felt like K was a girl right before we found out, too.

I set up a little poll widget. You can vote below or in my sidebar. No winners, obviously, just for fun. Feel free to ask me any questions you think will help determine your answer.

It seems this blog is, like, helpful to people. I’m a finalist for a SocialLuxe BlogLuxe award in the Blog I’ve Learned the Most From category! How exciting! Thank you so much for nominating me and voting for me to help me get there. Now the final decision is up to the judges, and I think I need to prove to them how Baby Rabies is actually a blog you can learn things from, not just a place where you can laugh at my mis-adventures with poop.

Let’s see… well, we all know that I’ve shown you how to make the most fantastic Rocket Ship cake, right? Okay, okay, seriously. I *have* taught you all the importance of reading labels on medicine bottles so as not to exceed the daily recommended dosage of Tums while pregnant. You’ve learned what it was really like to have a med-free birth, from my point of view, and all the scary stuff that comes after it that nobody tells you about. I’ve made it clear why I think Always pads are the devil. Mae will tell you I saved her life by telling her about playing static on the radio and downloading vacuum and hairdryer noises from Itunes for colicky babies while in the car. I was also very upfront and honest about our breastfeeding battle over the course of 13 months.

I’ve gone on quite a bit about our decision to cloth diaper and all the fascinating details that go with. I let you all in on what made me want to ban chicken nuggets from my family’s diet and start our own little food revolution. I explained my decision to turn Kendall’s car seat back to rear facing a little bit longer.

I’ve shared my crafty side on here, too, by showing you how to make things like crib rail covers, pillowcase dresses and a cheap and easy cupcake stand.

Maybe, most of all, I’ve shared with you all how I get through the craziest, hardest moments in parenting by just trying to live in the moment and laugh.

But I’m not entirely sure if all of that is what people have learned from me, from this blog, and I’d really love to hear from you if I’ve left something out. If you voted for me as a “Blog I’ve Learned the Most From,” I’d love to know why. And THANK YOU, again, for the support. I love, love, love my readers.

1. Potty training is all well and good until you decide to take a 16 hour road trip. Through the desert. With nothing but the country’s most foul and frightening truck stops along the way. For sanity’s sake (and for the sake of my newly cleaned car) we opted to put a diaper on him for the trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah… BIG potty training no-no. I KNOW, but I do not care. Nor did I care when in the middle of a part of the country that civilization has neglected for obvious reasons like inferno-like temperatures and lack luster views my kid informed us from the back seat that he needed to “Poopy Potty!” Scott and I both looked at each other as a tumbleweed blew across the road in front of us, the temp gauge reading out 101 degrees. “Pretend you didn’t hear him,” I whispered. And we proceeded to ignore his requests to find him a toilet until he finally just went in his diaper. I’m sure that was all sorts of confusing for him, but, bottom line, I was NOT stopping every two hours to help him go on a toilet that may or may not have been cleaned in the last year or on the side of a road most likely infested with rattle snakes.

2. My kid crapped in Chick-Fil-A. I knew it was only a matter of time. The first day we were here we sought out our favorite food joint for lunch and Kendall decided the corner of the play area made a nice place to fill his pants (possibly still confused by the diaper situation, more likely deliberate revenge for the 16 hour roadtrip). Luckily, it was all solidly contained in his underwear and I didn’t have to be the parent that makes CFA shut down their playground for the day. I cleaned him and his pants up in the bathroom and he free balled it the way home. Yeah, like the ONE time I was without extra undies for him the last month. Perfect timing. I wish I could tell you I lost my appetite after that, but I was immune to the toddler poop and starving. I came back to the table and polished off my Spicy Chicken Sandwich like the pregnant woman I am.

3. After many unsuccesful attempts by his father, I was the one to finally get Kendall to pee *AND POOP* outside. (Let me clarify, we actually haven’t attempted to teach him to POOP outside… just the peeing in the privacy of our own yard.) While hiking/picnicking  yesterday he informed me that he needed to go, so I took him to a nearby tree, completely stripped him naked from the waist down because he refuses to go if there is a stitch of clothing  on his lower body, even when sitting on the toilet. After a couple minutes I was ready to give up waiting for him to make it happen, but he finally started to go just as I realized we were faced uphill. The pee streamed back down toward us. Mental note for next time- pee downhill. (Yes, I should know this. No, I never pee outside. Okay.. sort of not true.  I’ve peed outside while drunk and unable to tell or care if I’m peeing up or downhill. This, unfortunately, was a very sober experience.)

OH, but it does not end there because minutes later he insists he must poop. I beg him to please hold it until we can make it up the hill to the bathrooms, but realize I’m screwed when I feel he’s already started the task in his pants. I rush back over to the tree, whip down his pants, underwear, tear off his shoes and instruct him to squat while I hold his arms. It was like a weird second nature thing. It all happened so fast, like I just instinctually knew how to teach my son to shit in the woods. And he did, which leads me to…

4. You know when you’re changing diapers and it’s a really loaded one? You know what you never think about? How that would have probably been the most massive, man-sized log if it actually made it, un-smashed, into the toilet. Let me tell you, the size of the crap I have seen come out of my 2 year old’s butt leaves me in shock. Last week he pooped something so enormous I, for the first time in our nearly 10 year relationship, yelled at my husband to come look in the toilet. Yesterday’s deposit in the woods was nearly as awe-inspiring. Even more fun? Cleaning it up. Oh yes, I cleaned it up. We were at a picnic area, I had to. Well, I say I cleaned it up when really I made my dad’s wife do it, all the time choking back my gag reflex. It cleaned up just like a dog crap, with a plastic baggie, which I’ve done countless times without gagging. It was just something about human poop that really got to me. The odd thing is, I have no issue wiping it from his butt still, but I’m pretty sure I’d lose my lunch if I had to wipe my dog’s ass. Weird.

In closing, this post probably just made you gag, and I’m sorry about that. Folks, all I have to talk about these days is poop. My world revolves around it. Well, I could tell you all about how pregnancy is making me psychotic, but that’s another post for another time.

I’m off to enjoy a family dinner and the fact that Scott is home from work and on potty training duty the rest of the night.

Kendall is 2 and I’m 17 weeks pregnant

What I haven’t really let my mind settle on,  though, is all those things that I did a really good job of erasing from my memory last time, like the flush and sweat that came over me when my baby woke from a nap in the farthest aisle at the back of Target, while I was grabbing something like Tucks hemorrhoid pads and a can of Dermaplast, and began screaming his head off, not to be soothed by any shushing or jiggling of the infant seat, and drawing all eyes on me as I waddled (as quickly as I could considering the still healing stitches and enormous pad between my legs) to the front of the store to purchase only 2 of the 15 things on my super important shopping list.

Or the meltdowns that came after 8 hours of what seemed to be non-stop crying/eating/crying again. Me laying on the bed next to him, begging, pleading, cursing at 3 in the morning to please, Oh MY God, please just sleep. Like that one time that I snapped and yelled at my 2 week old to “just SHUT UP!” and then left the room bawling my eyes out, thinking that I’ve already lost the battle of motherhood and that at this rate I’ll lose custody of him by the time he’s 1.

Or the cruel joke that is a soundly sleeping newborn and my inability to enjoy it because of my anxiety and need to check his breathing every 5 minutes. The way I’d jolt from my bed any time he made a strange gurgling exhale while sleeping to check to make sure that wasn’t his last breath. The way I’d jolt from my bed anytime he slept more than 2 hours between feedings, heart racing, yanking him out of bed and startling him from a deep sleep, only to curse myself for ruining a perfectly good long stretch of rest.

I like to tell myself I’ll be less neurotic this time around, less anxious, but I honestly don’t know if that will be the case. I still check on Kendall at least twice before I go to bed, and the mornings I don’t hear him stir on the monitor by 7:30, I have to stifle the urge to run to check on him, rarely able to drift back off and enjoy the extra sleep.

Thinking about it all just exhausts me again. How on earth am I going to have the energy to be this way with TWO kids? And sleep? Oh, I’m going to miss sleep. After all the hardships we endured through the days and the nights mixed up, the colic, the frequent night feedings, we are at a GLORIOUS place with sleep now. I almost hate to tell people that my 2 year old sleeps 10 hours a night and then another 3 during the day. I always follow it up by telling them how sleep challenged we were the first 9 months of his life in an effort to save myself from the knives they probably want to throw at me. I hate to think about hitting the restart button, or even worse, the challenge of getting 2 kids to nap at the same time. Moms of two, give it to me straight. I need to be prepared. How do you do it?

Kendall is 2 (and still in my custody) and I’m just about 17 weeks pregnant.

P.S. Today is the LAST DAY to vote for me for the Social Luxe Blog Luxe awards. I would really, really appreciate your vote if you think I’m deserving Baby Rabies is up for Funniest and Blog I’ve Learned the Most From.  Go here to vote, even if you already have. You can vote once a day. Thank you so much!!

Hey! Have you checked out Party Like a Kid (my new blog baby) yet? Have you, huh, huh? Well, if not, march your little fingers across the keyboard right now and head over there to enter a HUGE giveaway from BornFree. They’re giving away a party favor prize pack of 10 Training Cups and 10 Twist N’Pop Straw Cups to one lucky reader to use as favors at your child’s next party. Yup, just like I did for Kendall’s party and like Tori Spelling did for her 2 year old daughter Stella’s party. We use the heck out of those Twist N’Pop cups still. I love that they are easy to clean and don’t leak when I toss them in the diaper bag.

Okay, I’ll be back soon with a real post… hopefully… if the monster that’s taken over my inbox doesn’t kill me first. Thanks for all the support !

1. Let me just start by saying I’m in love with my new headshots! Bludoor Studios in Southlake, TX really came through with some amazing and fun images for me to choose from. This photoshoot was a blast from beginning to end. I wound up not even doing anything (professionally) to my hair. I just ran a curling iron through it and, in true TX fashion, sprayed it with about half a can of hairspray. If you look closely in some of the pictures you can see some of my premature gray hairs, but I’m going to lie to myself and call them “highlights.” I did, however, treat myself to a wonderful makeup application by a M.A.C. makeup artist. She was the best one I’ve ever had work on me, hands down. He name is Nia and she’s the counter manager out of the Firewheel Dillards (for local gals who might be interested).

While I need the pictures for professional reasons, I’m not going to deny that, on a personal level, it was a ton of fun to dress up and feel pretty. Not pretty for a mom or pretty even though I’m carrying a diaper bag and there’s a spot of spit up on my shirt. Just good ol’ fashioned, children have nothing to do with it, pretty. I think all moms should treat themselves to something that makes them feel so good.

If you’re in the DFW area and looking for a photographer to take some fun shots of yourself, your family or your children, definitely give Rejana and Mike at Bludoor Studios a call. You will not regret it (seriously, look at this scrumptious baby picture). Plus, if you mention “Baby Rabies” you get $50 off your session rate!

2. I’d like to formally introduce you to my newest blog baby- PartyLikeAKid.com! Around the beginning of the year I started doing some searching around for birthday party inspiration for Kendall’s 2nd birthday and was frustrated that there didn’t seem to be one blog/website that focused solely on kid’s parties and featured more than just inspiration boards. I wanted to see what other people had done for their kid’s parties, and I wanted to get inspiration for my own DIY and creative details. I could find this information on tons of blogs, of course, like personal ones and general party blogs, but it was frustrating having to hunt all around for ideas. I just wanted to go to ONE place and find all the inspiration I could ever want without having to sift through other stuff. So… I decided I’d make it myself.

I’ve been working with a designer Judith Shakes Designs for a couple months now and we just got the design finalized this week. The content is very minimal at this point and there’s a lot I have to add and tweak, but the bones are there, and I’m looking forward to watching it grow. I’ve already got some awesome partnerships and giveaways in the works (including one I’ll tell you about tomorrow), and my inbox is filling up with amazing reader submissions. This blog relies HEAVILY on people sharing and showing off their creativity and great party ideas, so please head over and send your idea if you have anything to show off! PLK also features baby shower ideas.

You can also find PLK on Twitter and on Facebook.

(And for those blown away by the beautiful design of PLK and looking for a web designer, Judith Shakes Designs just announced an awesome new special – “Now through July 18th, enter your favorite Elvis song in the promo code section of your quote request and get either $50 off a Blogger Quickie Supreme package or WP Starter Package or $100 off a Wordpress Advanced or Expert Package. Share this on Twitter, Facebook or wherever else you share the things you do, and get another $25 off.”)

3. Just got back from my 16 week appointment. That baby sounded great. I got to hear his/her heartbeat for the first time and it was going strong at 143. The “big” ultrasound is set for Monday, July 26th!

You know, when I was in the thick of the 1st trimester exhaustion and non-stop hangover I sort of felt lame, like maybe I was being a wuss for complaining so much and doing so much laying around and sleeping and bitching about food. But now that I’m starting to feel better, SO MUCH better, I’ve got to cut my 1st trimester self some slack. That was not really that much fun. at. all. Granted, I certainly didn’t have it as bad as so many (with the puking, thank goodness I didn’t have the puking), but it wasn’t pleasant. I’ll give myself that.

So I try to keep that in mind when I’m doing things like cleaning our house that was neglected for the last three months. Don’t get me wrong, we kept it in livable condition (and by we I mean my husband while I laid on the couch and moaned/cat napped/pressed play on another episode of Diego/threw fruit leathers at the toddler), but you know, there are certain things that will go untouched when it’s left up to my husband… like the microwave… with chunks of chili stuck to the roof.

I don’t know if it will ever be possible to get back on top of things around here, to get this house sanitized and smelling less like… pee before the baby comes. I had a mini-tantrum today as I cleaned the play room and started ranting about how I’m so sick of disgusting things like dog pee and cat vomit and toddler pee ruining my day and making my house smell. I’m one crazy hair away from ripping all the carpet (which has been steam cleaned and scrubbed with nearly every chemical I can bring myself to exposing our family to) out and living with concrete floors until we can get wood/laminate floors put in. At least I could spray it down with a hose. (I’m only half joking.) But I take this new found interest in the cleanliness of our home as a good sign because a month ago I didn’t know, nor care to remember the last time I vacuumed.

(Seriously. If anyone has any secrets to getting dog pee smells out of carpet with chemicals that aren’t going to make my baby grow a second head, please cough it up.)

I’ve also got to reclaim the television as Kendall now thinks he is the master of it and is quite disappointed when I don’t allow him to watch 4 episodes of Diego in a row. True story, that totally happened. A lot.

While I won’t venture to say I have the energy of a marathon runner these days, I will say that I now only need a small nap (1-ish hours) instead of a 4 hour nap and an 8 o’clock bedtime. The food aversions are fading, and I’m still in LOVE with all things red meat covered in BBQ sauce. I need to get back into the gym soon, especially now that I really want to E-A-T.  Maternity clothes are just now starting to look not so ridiculous on me, although I’m not nearly as big at this point as I thought I’d be. I guess I was super bloated in the beginning. Now, there are days I wake up that I really don’t look pregnant at all. Of course, 12 hours and a couple BBQ sandwiches later it’s a totally different story. Truth be told, how pregnant I look really just depends on the last time I pooped.

So there you have it. I’ll be 16 weeks tomorrow and we have an appt. on Thursday to hear the heartbeat. We’ll also schedule the big ultrasound then, so I should be able to tell you all soon when we will find out if it’s a boy or a girl. What do you think? I almost hate to type this because I might jinx it, but I have a feeling it’s a girl, but then again, I would not be at all shocked if it’s another boy (or disappointed).