Pregnancy Update- 29 weeks

How far along: 29 weeks 1 day (countdown-- 10 weeks and 6 days to go!)

Gender: girl

Total weight gain: 16 lbs

Maternity Clothes:  Nothing special, just whatever fits.  Happy to be able to wear long sleeves and sweaters finally!

Stretch marks: None- still very thankful!

Sleep: Sleep is becoming less and less comfortable. It's getting to where I need to sleep on my side 100% of the time, which means I toss and turn from one side to the other all night long.  By morning time my hips just hurt.  Luckily I still only have to get up once in the night, so I'm able to get plenty of sleep.

Miss Anything:  I miss seeing my toes- they have officially disappeared .

Movement:  Emmy is moving all around.  Her favorite time to move is right after dinner and when I lay down to sleep.  She's exploring the space and is starting to migrate into my rib cage every now and then (or at least that's what it feels like!).

Cravings:  Frozen yogurt. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Symptoms:  Thanks to my pal Nexium, I have heartburn relief!!  No new symptoms, other than my hip pain after sleeping on my side all night.

Belly button in or out:   Still an "innie", but just barely.

Exercise:  None in the last couple of weeks.  No excuse, just laziness.

Mood:  Overwhelmed.  I've piled a million projects on my plate-- Halloween costume for Aubrey, Halloween and Thanksgiving dress for Aubrey, finish up the nursery, embellish some onesies for Emmy, the list goes on and on....

Looking forward to: Getting everything finished up in the girls room. I don't have much left at all- so I"m on the home stretch!

Aubrey Update- 23 months

Aubrey has been so funny lately. I was typing up a list of some of her latest and greatest tricks today and couldn't resist posting.

Here's what she's up to:

·   She can say- Where is he?  and Where is it?

·   She can say- “I see you!!”

·   She knows when we’re in the parking lot of a restaurant- she immediately starts asking for a bite.

·   She can identify the color purple (and all other colors are ‘yellow’ to her)

·   She loves stickers- she likes to stick them on her forehead and on the dog.

·   She can dance-- and she's got moves.

·   She asks for help when she needs something—she says “Help! Help! Help!”

·   Her song of choice recently has been “Wheels on the Bus.”  Her favorite part is when the mama’s on the bus go “shhh, shhh, shhh.”

·  She can ask for Cheerios, and yogurt- a couple of her favorite things.  She says, “yerrio, yoyi”

·  She can tell the difference in taste between milk and water—even if they’re cleverly concealed in her sippie cup.  No foolin’ her.

·  She likes to slide around on her bottom in the bath when she’s done bathing and the water has drained.  This is something her dad taught her to do- she thinks it’s a blast.

·  When she gets impatient and whiney or even a little frustrated, we have started asking her to just fold her hands together and relax for a moment.  She folds her hands politely together—for like 2 seconds.  But it does help her calm down.  We are trying to teach her a little patience.  She winds up folding her hands quite a bit when she’s waiting on us to get her drink ready or to get her cheerio snack ready.

·  She has been playing with her baby doll lately—she can put it down for a nap, kiss her boo-boos, give her a hug, feed her a snack, make the baby sign “more” with her hands, and put the baby in the bath.

It is hard to believe her 2nd birthday is next month!  Here's a sweet picture from her 1st birthday photo shoot.

Photo by Carrie Linn Photography

Brunch and a Playdate

We visited some friends last Saturday for an early brunch and play date.  Saturday mornings are seriously the best time to get together with friends who also have kids.  Everyone is usually awake, except for the wee little ones who may be taking their first nap of the day already, and the kids can play while the adults visit.  No babysitter needed!

My friend Suzanne snapped a few photos when we joined them at their house for Saturday brunch.  I stole a few pics to post here :)

Aubrey had a blast playing with all of Perry's toys and climbing on the slide outside.  She looked so grown-up playing with her little friend and wandering around outside with him by herself.  She's growing up....

Serious conversation

Hiding under the umbrella

Who gets the best kisses?

I thought this was a very insightful post from Joanna at "A Cup of Jo."

Motherhood Mondays: Who gets the best kisses?

Enjoy!

Tiny Baby Has a Name

We've finally settled on a name for tiny baby- aka little sister. Her name is....

Her full name will be Mary Elizabeth and we will call her Emmy.  Some might consider it strange to name your child one thing with intentions of having them go by a completely different name.  It's certainly not traditional- but I'm not sure anyone would classify either Weston or me as being overly concerned with the "traditional."

The name we chose is special.

Mary is my mother's name and Elizabeth is the middle name she will share with her sister, her mama, her Cookie (Weston's mom), and many of her cousins and aunts. Her initials are "M.E.B"

I can't wait to meet her and call her by her sweet little name!

Pregnant Meltdown

I had a significant pregnant meltdown yesterday.  There were tears, lots of tears. Honestly, no sane person would have reacted the way I did to the events of the day, so I have to blame this one 100% on hormones.

Preggo belly- 27 weeks and a few days

Here's what happened:
I cried about my food
I cried because Aubrey threw food on the floor
I cried about my ruined bath

The food:
My sweet sweet husband cooked up some delicious looking chicken fried steak for dinner.  He had literally been standing over the stove for at least 30-40 minutes before I made it home.  The house smelled of friend, delicious goodness.  As we went to fix our plates, I began to prepare a plate of food for Aubrey and noticed that the steak was a little more pink than I felt comfortable feeding my 22 month old and myself, with unborn child in tow. Weston swore up and down that it was fine, and I'm sure it was, but I just couldn't get over the level of pink in the steak. I found something else for Aubrey to eat and tried to eat my food.  But I just cried with every bite until I finally got myself something else to eat. That's no way to react over food, and I hurt Weston's feelings. He was hurt because he had spent the last hour cooking dinner and because I was basically accusing him of trying to poison us all.  By the way, everyone is fine and I missed out on what I'm sure was a delicious dinner.

Food on the floor:
Then Aubrey kept throwing her green beans on the floor.  I told her to stop throwing her food on the floor- several times. Each green bean that hit the floor summoned more and more tears.  Finally Aubrey was sent to her room for time out and we both cried it out for a bit (Aubrey in her room and me at the dinner table).

Ruined bath:
And to top it all off-- all I wanted to do was take a nice bath before bed.  I settle into the tub and am startled by a weird scratching noise.  Is it coming from the attic?  From under the house?  From my closet?  Is Aubrey scratching on the wall in her room?  I call Weston into the bathroom to listen and he determines it's just something up under the house.  It is directly under the bathroom to be exact.  Why is this stupid varmit trying to ruin my bath?!?!  All I wanted was a nice bath and now it's ruined because there's a weird nocturnal animal directly underneath me.  More tears.

All in all- my extreme sadness over seemingly unimportant things was remedied by a good night's sleep.  Almost 10 hours of sleep, to be exact!

10 Things

Today I was thinking about some of the strange things pregnancy causes.  Here's my Top 10 List:

Pregnancy will....

1. Cause you to deviate from your original plan to head to the bedroom for sleep at 10pm and instead begin cleaning the bathroom, folding clothes, vacuuming, mopping or doing some activity of that variety. Seriously, it's 10pm, you head towards the bedroom and notice something along the way. Next thing you know it's midnight and you're on the step ladder in the laundry room hunting for the liquid nails.

2. Make tears flow from your eyes at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason.

 

3. Inspire some very strange food combinations.  "Yes- I WOULD like some Siracha sauce on my Fettuccine Alfredo!"

4. Make you pee when you sneeze.  'nuff said.

5. Cause you to eat like a 300 pound truck driver.  "Did I really just go through the KFC drive-thru so I could get a biscuit, mashed potatoes, and some macaroni and cheese?"

6. Allow you to grow closer to your husband than you ever imagined you could.  Just talking about how your family is growing and changing will change your marriage.  Watching your husband nest in his own way is about the sweetest thing you'll see- next to watching him be a daddy to your children.

7. Bring out the perfectionist in you-- even if you didn't know one existed.  All of the sudden everything has to be perfect and it's like a ticking time bomb will go off if you don't fix it all before the baby comes.  That weird spot on the wall that needs touched up-- you have an overwhelming urge to fix it.  You'll rearrange the furniture, get up in the attic for god knows what, paint a room or two, and create a million "To Do" lists.  And you'll probably do it around 11pm as I mentioned before. 

8. Make doing laundry fun again.  All of the sudden it becomes so sweet to wash and fold tiny clothes.  You will "Ooooo and Ahhh" over tiny shirts, pants and gowns and breathe in the sweet smell of Dreft as you fold the clothes.  Laundry will be sweet and special again.

9. Summon the heart-burn demons from deep within.   Who knew an innocent glass of OJ or some tomato bisque soup could be so disruptive to one's sleep??  

10. Cause you to be acutely aware of time and want to document EVERYTHING.  I can't remember the last time I counted each and every passing week... much less the weeks and the days.  If someone asks me how far along I am, I can proudly tell them 27 weeks and 6 days.  And I've either journaled, blogged,  photographed, or documented in the baby book how each and every one of the past 28 weeks has passed by.  My fears, my progress, my excitement, etc..

It's easy to get caught up in a bunch of silly things when you're preparing for another human to join your family, but I think it's natural.  It's natural to want to welcome your new baby into a clean and tidy home.  It's natural for your body to change and require different things during the 40 weeks it takes to grow a baby.  It's natural to go a little crazy and then snap back to normal and realize all of the tremendous ways you've been blessed.  Being pregnant is weird- but it's amazing.