New years come and new years go,
Pieces of time all in a row.
As I live my life, each second and minute,
I know I'm privileged to have you in it.
My appreciation never ends
For my greatest blessings: my family and my friends.
Happy New Year!

Here's to sleep on New Year!

I am convinced the cat and dog are making a concerted effort to prepare us for parenthood - the cat had an upset tummy last night (poor mite), but that meant meowing and going in and out of the cat box as loudly and as often as possible meaning we were awake most of the night with the telly on trying to woo ourselves to sleep... when Flex got up in a paddy and stomped through the house to find her and let her out she hid and would not get up - AGH.

Not to mention Teeny appears to have grown some more and his/her head is lower and for the first time the little devil did not sleep when Mummy slept and tossed and turned all night... meaning I did the same - so our big New Year's plans involve dinner at Flex's Nani's and then home to bed...

I am feeling a bit emotional as this will be the first year in memory where I will not be with my friends either the English or American ones... but life is evolving!

So, to close, have a happy, healthy and safe New Year... may 2009 see the start of many new and exciting things for everyone!

Well, another Christmas has come and gone... I hope everyone had a happy and healthy time enjoying family and friends and food and each other... whatever it is you do to celebrate! :) We spend Eve with Flex's family and the Day with mine.

It was nice this year as being on the brink of 8 months preggo everyone kept telling me 'not to worry' so I did not have much to do... we personally decided not to put up our tree this year as the thought of organizing a baby's room - moving stuff from all our closets to the new utility shelves AND dealing with storing decorations seemed overwhelming. We did however have some bits on the shelves and stockings on the mantle.

We had a lovely meal with the in laws on the Eve - steaks, salads, platanos and other yummy foods. We got some lovely gifts from all the family and our first official holiday gifts for Teeny Fleener!

Then home to enjoy our gift exchange, done in the Eve as the Day is so busy... I had dutifully stuck to our agreement of a low gift budget due to a troubling financial year and impending birth... so Alex got a Star Trek (original series) phaser and com unit in one - working sound and lights and some socks and his favourite body shop soaps... I got a new notebook - yes the computer kind, some new earrings and a stainless steel kitchen sink... now racked with guilt I quickly pointed out that I was carrying his child and the next generation of his family name... all is well in the gift exchange world!

I got up on the Day and went to church with my mother as this is the most important gift I can ever give her. Home and finished up preparing the feast veggies - sister, Mum, niece and I split up the meal preparations every year - and we headed over to Sister's house for time with her and BIL and 3 nieces and one great-nephew... It was a lovely day - Flex and BIL spent most of it doing various sports on the WII and the ladies chatted and ate... lots of yummys... oldest niece made a fab starter of green salad with english prawn cocktail or American prawn cocktail or smoked salmon... next up turkey, ham, roast potatoes (we Brits LOVE our roasties), chipolatas (sausages wrapped in bacon and roasted), mashed sweet potatoes - no cinnamon or fluff, steamed green beans, carrots and cauliflower cheese... Then we had christmas pud with fresh cream, fruit or Tiramisu... of course my beloved sister (aka Human rubbish bin - seriously) had some of each!

We got some lovely gifts and had fun watching great-nephew (22 months) tear paper off his... can't believe we will have a child this time next year - although too young to enjoy any of the festitivies - it will be fun for us! :)

Then home and Flex played online games while I watched crap telly - then over to the annual Crimbo party at our good friends - the 'other' preggo couple... brave of them to have people over and such a late night as I was TOTALLY done in by 12.30 a.m. Was lovely to catch up with friends from all over the country/continent and all years from our school... and a fun surprise visit from one giant canadian who moved away 2 years ago... funny how as we get nearer the end there seems to be lots of bump rubbing from various parties - although I don't mind that like others... the party was lots of fun - thanks to B&J and I LOVE your baby room!

The rest of the weekend was spent touring Home Demon, cough Depot, and clearing out cupboards, moving items to storage boxes and shelves and FINALLY getting all my cds off Teeny's floor and getting the book shelves and some things set up in there... PHEW weight off... we also managed to squeeze in time to use Flex's annual gift cert from my Mum to go to Bangkok for dinner on Saturday with our good Argentinean friend we had not seen in a while...

Have a fun week and enjoy your New Year's Eve... will be a strange one to not be with all my friends in a smoky bar - but will herald the start of an amazing and insane new year for us! Stay Safe....

Happy Holidays and a peaceful new year everyone...

the cat...

Okay, so we have a beagle, Chiron, and a cat, Cleo. Cleo is a buff coloured tabby cat, found by Alex, weighing only 1lb and being buffeted by Tropical Storm Tammy and harassed by some hungry buzzards. Now maybe she never had a mama cat to teach her the way of the world of cat defication... who am I to say - and she is my first cat - so maybe they all do this?! Anyhow - she always walks with Chiron and myself on our morning walk... unless it is too cold for her Florida self.

Interestingly as time has gone on she uses her box less and less and actually waits until our morning walk to do her family business when Chiron does hers... if I don't jump out of bed the moment the alarm goes off she actually comes into the bedroom and meows until I get up while Chiron dances around in anticipation.

So on to the point of the story - under the trees on our walk when she is ready for action she digs herself a hole like a good cat - a very serious business as far as I can tell the way she gets into it. However, this is where it all seems to go wrong - she stand in the hole and does her business outside it - I always thought she should stand outside the hole and do her business in the hole... she does then spend some time covering everything back up. I believe this is backwards and just had to share my thoughts with the 2 of you readers... ha ha...

In other news - I saw my usual OB yesterday, Dr. Cohen, and he agrees that we are fine to go ahead and just be normal preggo people and go into labour when it happens and go for a non-c section delivery. Yahoo... he also has decided we are not going to do the non-stress tests they wanted to do as everything is going so well. He, like Dr. Baron, expressed his amazement at the way my uterus and body have just moved around and accommodated everything and at how I am just like a normal preggo woman. I mean I have 2 fibroids above my uterus that are several inches each - and one lower down that is 3-4" - and I am only 36 cm - 3 cm more than my gestation in weeks and no more uncomfortable than any of the other preggos I know... may this last for the next 7 weeks and may I not have jinxed myself with this post.

Feliz Navidad and a peaceful New Year!

Had the 'specialist' docs this a.m. to do ultrasounds of my high risk pregnancy.. got to see the heart, arms, legs, spine and back of head! Everything is perfect from what they can tell.. the baby was practicing breathing – which is when they gulp the fluid into their lungs and then blow it out – this is something they should be doing at this stage occasionally through the day and getting to see it was pretty cool and a great sign… the baby is head down and in perfect position… she said everything is great and she is releasing me from high risk – I am back on normal pregnancy and don’t need to see her again… she says I should go to term easily and have a normal vaginal delivery and she is just so pleased and also very surprised after all that I went through – it is like a little miracle!

On to the baddies of the pregnancy (boo hiss), the ultrasounds showed the fibroid had gone throuh some degeneration as there were dark areas, so the pain I had in October was from the fibroid breaking up.. but all looks stable now...

The main issue with this is that as it has died and calcified it won’t shrink after the pregnancy like it would have done – so we may have to look at removing it surgically before I get preggo again! We shall deal with all that in time though and once we have this little Teeny Fleener in our arms and for all to see!

Welcome to Josephine Helena Andre, born 12.20 a.m. west coast time to Ilsa and the Doctor... 7lbs 4oz... super cool and exciting! Much love to them all...

Quick update just to say that Operation Possum let down has begun for my dear friend Ilsa and her other half the Doctor on the west coast.... cannot wait to meet the new bundle of joy in their family. Like us they chose to be surprised on the sex... so what an exciting day... Am overcome with emotion for them so can't imagine how they must be feeling. Sending love and positive and easy labour vibes to Ilsa!

Okay all, quick update - just had my 31 week visit - got to see Teeny - although not SO teeny anymore... Spoke to the doc about going for vaginal birth... all great to go ahead for that. Its the first time the doc has said yes, we can go for that as our first option... so very excited! Also told him we are having a doula... he was totally cool with that, although he wanted to know who it would be. Apparently he had a patient who was unable to start immedicate breast feeding due to the fact that the baby had complications and was being worked on... so the doula instructed the husband to start suckling. This story being told in a Jamaican accent by a giggling doctor was a bit too much for my Mum I think... ha ha!

Here are some pics from over the last few months...
Me at 18 weeks, me at 24 weeks, a couple from our photoshoot at 26 weeks - then Alex and I out and about at 27 weeks and then some of Teeny when he/she was only 18.5 weeks!

And bear with me - I am still getting used to this set up/placement thing on here!

My first ever blog post...

Well, I decided the time had come to create a blog, I've seen many a friend do it and as the birth of Teeny Fleener is now only 8.5 weeks away then I'd best get it set up and get used to it.

This is after all such a great way to keep everyone updated on us, the baby and other family events, both mine and the hubby's. Since he is of Swiss (and American) descent - but born and part-raised in Venezuela - and I was born and part-raised in the UK then what better way to keep everyone all over the globe in touch with the goings on of the Sarasota crew - without mass emailing!

So without much ado... here is the new blog - titled The First American Born - as it will be for both the Reids and the Fleeners for a generation or more... well - my great-nephew Jamie was born here... but that aside! :)

Pregnancy is going well now that I have entered the third and final trimester - apparently the 2nd trimester is the one where you will glow and be full of energy and joy... BS... but the third trimester appears to be good to me... I do have the aches and leg cramps and all that - but after the trials and tribulations of the first 2 trimesters am feeling pretty darn good.

Also, I want to give a shout out to my dear friend over on the West Coast that is in the process of starting to labor with her first as of yesterday.... so cool we ended up preggo at the same time and I can't wait to 'meet' her little one...

So keep an eye on this blog for updates on us and the coming attaction....