The Kavanaugh Report

A couple weeks ago, before the morning sickness set in and I was overwhelmingly tired, Morgan and I took Henry to a local apple orchard/ pumpkin patch. It's the same place where the infamous grumpy lip picture was taken. It was the most beautiful day, and I'm so glad we did it before I got too sick and the weather got too cold.  This was one of those days that I was happy the heat of summer was gone. Plus, who doesn't love eating a big donut, and apple cider?  Have you been to the pumpkin patch this year?

Henry is 31 months old.  After a one week fall break, tot school {and tot school co-op} were back this week. The letter is U, which is pretty challenging. We are starting on a streak of tough letters so hopefully I will be able to figure out some activities. Prior to this week Henry could say and identify the letter U.  On the first tray was a "you" activity. Since the letter U is limited, we did a few "you" activities. On this tray were pictures of each of the children in the co-op printed on a colored card. Then, there was a second card with the child's name printed on it in a dashed font. The children could then match their picture to their name, place it in a dry erase sheet, and use a marker to trace their name. The name and picture cards were the same color so the activity was self-correcting. I think many of the children were able to find their name and picture, but not as many {including Henry} were able to actually trace their names. I thi...

So, I'm sorry it's been slow around here the last couple weeks, I'm really hoping to get back to blogging regularly next week. I'm dealing with pretty crippling anxiety that's making it hard to do anything other than lay in bed or watch TV. The good news is, as far as I know, I'm still pregnant. We stopped betas after the 3rd one because they were making me too anxious, so I have no real confirmation -- other than I've had no spotting or bleeding and I'm starting to feel more crappy. I can also pretty much eat an enormous amount of food all day long, but I've had a few moments of nausea. But, I've also been really crampy which worries me. I'm also on progesterone twice a day, so part of me just believes that's stopping a miscarriage from occurring even though it should have. It's also making me so tired I can barely function and causing super bloat. By the evening my bloat bump is as big as it was with Henry at 10-11 weeks. Tomo...

{This is Lindsay, and her experience with losing twins. To see all the pregnancy loss guest posts, click here .} In February 2011, my husband, Charlie, and I were in the thick of early parenthood. We had a rambunctious, beautiful 1 ½ year old son, Gus. We had many dreamy conversations in our early relationship about the large family we one day hoped to have, so we started entertaining the idea of “trying” to add to our family a few months after Gus turned 1. A month later, we were staring at a positive pregnancy test. We were absolutely thrilled. This baby would be due in November, right after Gus’s 2 nd birthday. My OB scheduled an ultrasound for a couple of weeks later so we could nail down an expected due date.             On the day of the ultrasound, we were shocked to learn that we were expecting twins. The ultrasound tech warned us that Baby B’s sac was a bit on the small side, but not to worry too much.      ...

{This is my friend Holli from It's an Ordinary Blog . Thanks so much for sharing Holli! Check out all the posts here .} I vividly remember the day I found out that I was pregnant. It was late August 2009 and I had this strange urge to grab a home pregnancy test on my way back from work. It hadn’t missed my period and, other than feeling tired that week, I wasn’t exhibiting any of those “tell tale” symptoms associated with pregnancy (I would later come to discover that most of those symptoms don’t even surface until around week 6-8). The next morning, I quietly took the test in the comfort our our master bathroom and was shocked to see a positive result. It was a happy surprise. Joyful tears flowed down my face as I realized that life was stirring inside me. In the weeks that followed before our first prenatal appointment, we shared our happy news only with close friends and family. It wasn’t until after our first ultrasound that we shared the news of our impending arrival with...

{This is my close friend Kate, her loss and my first were right at the same time and she was a HUGE support for me. To see all the posts, click here } Apparently we have a lot to be aware of this month. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month . According to my friend over at The Naptown Organizer, it’s also Window Covering Safety Awareness Month . The sign at my local community college let me know that it’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month . A quick Google search confirms that it’s also Autism Awareness Month , Dwarfism Awareness Month , and on a lighter note, National Squirrel Awareness Month . No, I did not make that up, I swear. (WTF, America?) With the exception of the latter, October is a pretty heavy month. Today, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day , which is part of the month long Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. But I hope you never have to be aware of pregnancy loss. As you may or may not know, I became very aware of pregnancy loss myse...

{This is Megan. I love her advice, and I think much of what she suggests has been true for me. For all the stories, click here.} Hi everyone, my name is Megan from  Megan's Digest . I had a miscarriage earlier this year at the end of February.  I found out at 11 weeks but the pregnancy had actually ended at 9 weeks, I just didn't know.  I ended up getting a D&C to complete the miscarriage. I guess I should say I did know because deep down I was expecting this for the entire pregnancy.  I have no idea why, but I kept expecting something bad to happen. I was very confused with these feelings since it was very opposite from how I felt when I was pregnant with my son.   When I found out I was distraught of course, but at the same time I was slightly relieved that I wasn't crazy to feel this way for the past two months (mother's intuition really is something).  Dealing with this was hard but I found  blogging about it  to help the mos...

{Friends, this is Steph, she has been an amazing source of support for me, and I hope she can be for you too. Here is her journey with pregnancy loss. For all the stories, click here.} Hello The Kavanaugh Report readers!  I’m Steph and I blog about life over The Kat Almanac . Thanks for letting me share my story today. My husband and I began our baby making process in September of 2009. The reasoning was we would like to have the baby in May/June so that my mom could come stay with us for the summer and help out. I was young. Healthy. Why wouldn’t it take just one time? Well, it ended up taking time. A lot of time. I had been charting for a few months before we started trying. I used ovulation tests. But the months went by and nothing happened. To complicate matter, my cycles were getting longer and longer. So instead of having a chance at a baby every month it was more like every month and a half to two months for us. I went to my doctor  because I was...

Today marks Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. While I sit and pray that this new pregnancy is my chance at a rainbow baby, I have not forgotten the four babies that have come before. I firmly believe that these babies each have a soul and that I will meet them one day. Until that day comes, I will honor their memory.  I also know that I'm not alone in having angel babies. In fact, the March of Dimes estimates that 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage. I am, however, in a unique position that I have this blog, and my readers, as my support. So many women suffer alone. As I announced earlier , this week, I'm giving anyone who wants the opportunity to share their experience with pregnancy loss a voice here on the blog.  I have several guest posts lined up this week. I hope you are able to offer these women some of the amazing support you've offered me.  Want to share your story? It's not too late, email me and I will work you in. 

As we continue to work through the alphabet, this week we focused on the letter T. Here are some of the letter t tot school trays that we explored during this unit.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  Main Trays On our first tray was a basket of wooden blocks and a sheet with a letter T and t. Henry could use the blocks to make each of the letters. My {now officially broken} laminator ate the sheet half-way through which is why it is creased. I saw a lot of the kids trying this one at the co-op so I think it was a success. Henry wasn't super into it, and only sort of understood what to do with the blocks. The second tray was a tiger dot sheet that I made. I placed some dots on the black parts of the tiger and some on the orange. Then, I included orange and black pom-poms and some tweezers. Then, Henry could tweeze the poms into place to complete the tiger. This was a big hit with Henry who seemed to like the friendly tiger. ...

So, it has been a little quiet around here this week. This is why -- Of course, panic has set it a bit. Paralyzing even. But despite the panic and fear, I have hope. My HCG levels have risen from 21, to 58, to 134 -- doubling perfectly in 48 hours. After 4 losses , I'm not feeling confident, and I'm pretty sure that I won't for a long long time. And, at this point, anything could happen. So, once again, I need your prayers and your hope. *And if we happen to be friends on Facebook, let's keep this a secret for now!*

I love a good themed tot school, and this time of year there are plenty of themes to choose from. Instead of sticking with letters this week, we did a fall theme. I had a blast putting these trays together and it was one of those weeks where all the ideas came from stuff I already had which is always good for the budget!  On our first tray was a tree I made with many different "fall colored" circles. Then, the tray included a basket with corresponding colored wooden beads. The goal was for Henry to fill up the tree with the beads to make a fall tree. The color matching was easy for him, but the fine motor work turned out to be a little more difficult. The tree kept his interest for a long time as he tried to figure out how to keep the beads from rolling around.  The second tray included two pitchers and some more fall colored wooden beads. It was a simple practical life tray that always gets a lot of use from Henry. These pitchers are still a tiny bit too heavy for him...