Pre-Term Contractions

Everyone keeps telling me to relax a little with this pregnancy. Don't do so much, you're older now and you don't want to have your baby early! Well, it's true. I don't want to have my baby too early but life is crazy and the fact is I live 2 steep flights of stairs above ground level with 2 busy kids doing lots of things. It's really hard not to just do what needs to get done.

It all caught up with me Sunday night and I ended up the the hospital with contractions that were 3 minutes apart. YIKES!

It took 2 shots of Tributilin and an IV pumping me full of fluids to get them to calm down. I guess i was a little dehydrated.

Anyway, all is well now and I am definitely taking it easy. We've got some sweet pics on doug's camera. will post when he gets home tonight.

And a special shout out to Rossy for coming over to stay with the kids just before midnight on Sunday. I told him it was a dry run for the real thing and he passed with flying colors. Lucky devil...

A Happy Poem for this Rainy, Rainy Day

As a part of a heritage project at school, Sophie wrote a poem about herself that follows the pattern of George Ella Lyon's Peom "Where I'm From." This is Sophie's version.


Where I'm From
by Sophie Chamberlain

I am from dice,

From playing cards and an old couch.

I am from the kidney-shaped pool,

Tasting like salt

And smelling like chlorine.

I am from the prickly pinecones

And Emma’s cumquat bush.

They smelled like citrus

And tasted sour and sweet at the same time.

I am from brownies and BBQ’S,

From uncle Ross and Gideon.

I am from laugh-out-louds and snapping photos,

From “Practice piano” and “Don’t eat like a pig”.

I am from “ If all the raindrops” and whale watches.

I am from “The California Grey“.

I am from the sunny beaches of California,

Banana pancakes and chocolate milk.

From long trips with sunflower seeds and diet coke.

I am from the old photos in a box, in the closet.

I am from moments that I will pass on to my children.

I am just a leaf-fall from a family tree.



**It's just about enough to bring a mom to tears.

2 down 18 more to go!

Owen lost his second tooth last night. Wohoooo! He was so exctied and then promptly lost it in the bathroom somewhere. I told him he could draw a picture of the tooth for the tooth fairy if we couldn't find it. She won't mind.

When the kids are away, the parents will play

The copious amounts of "free time" i've learned to enjoy while the kids are in school are coming to a quick close.

Less than 8 weeks, actually.

I use the words free time loosly because I still have to deal with the ghettoplex and the stupid tattle-tale, whiney tenants that live in this building.

(note: gentleman in 116 approached Doug rather aggressively about a car leaking oil that could be a potential "slip and fall" law suit. Really? you too, guy in 116? Is there one person on the planet NOT looking to sue my building?? Fortunately, Doug handled the whole situation and the next time i saw said gentleman in 116 he was apologizing for the "misunderstanding." Whatever!)

Anyway, the whole point is I've really enjoyed having my kids in school and for as much sympathy as i get for having a husband who is freelance (i,e. unemployed a lot with an unpredictable schedule) there are some great trade offs.

Like this lovely little Puch ride around Encino today. We had some gift certificates to The Habit so we rode on over, had a free lunch and then cruised through the back streets behind Ventura until the rain started and we had to head home.






And i've included this picture for two reasons:

1. I don't have many pregnancy pictures of myself.



2. There is an uncanny resemblence between me and Marvin from 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.' We're both bulbous in the middle and bulbous on top. Ha ha. If you haven't seent this movie, go rent it today. It's so funny and random and wierd. But Sam Rockwell rocks in it, so there you go. (sorry for the tiny image, i had limited resources.)

just a side note...

If i don't get sick this week, it'll be a miracle. I realize i've just jinxed the crap out of my chances of staying healthy by mentioning it, but everyone around me has been sick lately, including the guy I sleep next to every night. (and excluding our lovely weekend visitors.) I think it's only a matter of time...

A fun weekend with the cousins!

Happy MLK day, everyone. That means no school and that makes for a sleepy, happy morning.

Doug's sister, Kaylene, came to visit with her kids and Grandma Chamberlain this weekend and we had such a fun time. They helped me get so much done for primary and the kids just ran and played the every second we weren't cruising around in their minivan. Apparently, the weather in Utah is a bit nippy, so everyone loved being out in the sun.

No pictures of Kaylene for some reason. Not sure what happened there. Although i know she has some good ones of her on the merry go round with the kids after eating PINKBERRY, her favorite southern california treat. We chased that one down on saturday evening and it was so worth it.


At the Park Friday night.





Owen playing a little soccer. Can you even see him in the sea of green?



Grandma with all the grandkids at half time. It was such a gorgeous day.



I put together a "Chutes and Ladders of Earth Life" game for Sharing Time on Sunday. It was a total group effort. Grandma glued the squares, Gideon drew all the chutes and ladders and Kaylene helped me come up with all the good and bad choices for the gameboard. Ross was actually no help at all. He was super into it, can you tell?



Doug with his mama.

Normally, I have pretty crazy dreams. very vivid, ususally scary where someone is chasing me with a large weapon trying to kill me or something. what... doesn't everybody?? Or, I dream of different events going on in my life at the time and smash them together. Like, i'm in court with F. Sammy from 111 and i'll be heroically testifying that she's a greedy, lazy, system sucking liar to a courtroom full of people applauding my eloquence and bravery and then suddenly the primary children will come in singing a song that we're supposed to be singing for the Children's program. Weird junk like that.

But it seems like from the start of this pregnancy i've been a relatively calm dreamer.

I don't often dream about the baby but the over the past week ive had dreams about baby names. I am really nervous that it's a boy and that we'll end up in the hosptial without a name that i love and I think my subconcious is trying to help out.

So the first night, I dreamed about Ike Chamberlain. Ike....what a great name!!! Doug has been working a lot so he doens't get to hear about these revelations until they've been smacked down by sophie, which is exactly what happened when i told her about my new favorite name, Ike....

"This is my boyfriend Ike," she said in a very mocking tone. "Please don't name it Ike, Mom!"

So my subconscious tried again the night before last. Beckford Chamberlain, and we can call him Becks! Becks Chamberlain, that's cute! Maybe a little too David and Victoria Beckham but still cute. (note: if you say it with a british accent it sounds even better!)

Yeah, that one was not received very well either.

So, if you've got some great baby boy ideas, send them on over. My overly helpful sleeping brain needs a break.

cloned meatloaf?

i just read that the FDA approved the sale of cloned beef in America. Ew! if that doesn't make me want to go vegetarian I don't know what will.

Then i kept reading and they said that cloned cow and goats milk was approved as well, and all can be sold without a special label!!

That just grosses me out. We are no longer safe at the grocery store, that's for sure.

Sophie won her game last night, 14-5. She played her good friend Rachel and it was so fun to watch them defend each other.

I am becoming increasingly bothered by this basketball league, however. They have just moved all practices to Sunday for the entire league and her coach was pretty rude to Sophie becuase we didn't show up this past weekend.

Even if you don't go to church, do you really want to have your entire weekend taken up with Basketball? It was the same this past soccer season, but foturnately they had at least one practice we could attend. But the schedule now for BBall is Game Saturday, Practice Sunday, Game monday. Who wants to do that?? Plus, we had a stake conference last weekend and they hit it home how important it is to keep the sabbath day holy so if my resolve was wavering, it was strenghtened once again. I guess if he continues to complain we can decide not to play.

Happy Birthday Doug!

Oh yes. He's 35. He mentioned last night that he is half way to 70. Whoa! that sounds wierd.

It was a pretty low key day. He was shooting a commercial all day and got home last night to a decorated house, an almost completed red velvet cake



and 2 super excited kiddos ready to party. His 5am call time made for one sleepy daddy which explains the cake in bed.



Take a look at that blaze!

The best answer to everything

Owen was in the bath tonight pegging me with questions about the soap bottles in the bathtub. There are 3 of them they are red, green and white. Cherry, Strawberry Kiwi and Coconut, I believe. (the cherry is his favorite). But of course I was looking up a bunch of stuff on the lap top at the same time so i wasn't really listening.

"Mom, what does green and red make?"

"What about White and green,"

"What about red and yellow... Mom, MOM! why aren't you answering??"

"Oh sorry," i muttered. "um, yellow and red make orange." (still distracted)

"What about Red and Green, mom... hey, mom, what about red and green!"

"Uh, brown or purple maybe," I toss out pathetically.

Come on, think harder. You're are a mom," he says. "you're really smart."

And then i remembered all the times the kids ask me how i know something and i say, "I'm a mom, I know everything."

I guess it sunk in.

For the record, Red and Green make a pretty nasty brown. I checked with our sharp new crayolas.

New Hampshire Primary

I guess i don't understand the logic of our system of Primaries. Or maybe it's just i don't understand why Iowa and New Hampshire (2 teeny states) determine the fate of any candidate. There are 50 states. Huckabee wins in Iowa by a huge margin and takes 3rd in NH and now everyone is counting him out completely. Romney takes 2nd in both Primaries, probably averages a larger percentage than both Huckabee and McCain and it's like he should hang up his hat and go home. It makes no sense to me. I guess McCain is on top until the next primary in Michigan, whatever!! Obama and Hillary are neck and neck but because she won NH she's the Queen and everyone else is out.

My question is: What makes Iowa and NH so important and why should they have so much say in this?? It kills me.

Sophie and I had a great time last night, however, watching the results come in. She had to write down the number of votes and the percentage for each candidate. It was a fun conversation.

As she went down the list, she'd label them so she could keep them straight in her head.

McCain: the old guy - "we shouldn't elect an old guy because he'd probably die in office."


Romney: the Mormon - "Should i really vote for him just becuase he's mormon?"



Obama: the first African American one - "My teachers says that most people vote for him because he's good looking."



Clinton: the girl - "I like that she's a girl and she wants to be president but i don't think i like her."



Edwards: the one that looks the most like a president. - "What about Mr. Edwards? I think I like him."




So I guess we've got an Edwards fan. I did mention a time or two that it was ok to vote Romney because he's a Mormon. I don't think she believed me.

I'm a little late, 2008...

Well, it is a new year. Welcome 2008. I'm exactly 8 days behind in writing my New Years Post. I"m behind in that department, and sadlly, the laundry department. I just struggle getting the heavy laundry up and down the stairs anymore. It makes my belly cramp, and i'm not just saying that to get out of it, it really happens. So, what's a big ole preggo to do? Teeny loads, I suppose. UGH!

Everything else seems to be going well, though. Primary is totally organized in a way that made my councelor ask, "Who are you and what did you do with Emily?" I know. But it feels good and is probably that wierd nesting phenomenon that will end in about 10 weeks when we attempt to squeeze another chamberlain into our tiny apartment. At that point, i think i'll just give up. Sorry, no more space. I hope Jr. doesn't grow out of it's drawer for awhile. he he.

The other day Doug was putting some heat on a sore spot in my calf and i had my leg in the air and my pant leg pulled up and Owen walks in and says,

"Whoa, Mom. Your legs are f..."

Then he stops himself, thinks about it for a minute and continues,

"Your legs are pretty and fat."