This Summer

I remember how long summer sounded on that first day after school let out. Three whole months. Maybe not whole months, but days in portions of months, when there was no school or homework. Where you could spend endless amounts of time playing, hunting down the ice cream man, and staying up late. Infinite possibilities and endless amount of time to get it all accomplished. And then....

 

BAM!

 

It's August and your mom is dragging you out for back to school shopping and school supplies.

 

It still feels like that, 37 years later. I was excited for this summer. Annie would be big enough to do some big girl things, we would no longer be trapped indoors, and I felt like I had a good "to do" list of activities. I think I kept the mental list starting last summer when we would try things and they would be difficult due to one reason or another and I would think "this will be perfect next summer".

 

And they are. 

 

Rides at the fair.

More rides, and a little girl who is not afraid to ride them.

 

A child who is comfortable around water...

 

....sometimes a little too comfortable.

 

And cuteness abounds.

 

 

But then there's the pregnancy. The pregnancy that makes me think that maybe we should take a nap instead of going to the pool. Or maybe it's best to stay indoors and close to home because it's just easier.

 

But as any of you that have ever even heard mention of a toddler, nothing is ever easy. So when we were given the option of spending a week down with my parents at the beach, my initial thought was "no, that will be too hard." I would have to fly down with Annie by myself, and then Rick would come down a few days later. And it would be difficult and tiring and....you know how it goes.

 

But then the memory maker side of my brain kicks in. And I start realizing that this may be our last trip as a family of 3. And while it's not easy by any means, the business of traveling is about to get a bit trickier. And the grandparents were offering to watch Annie during the day so I could get some work done until Rick got to town.

 

So we said yes. And we went. And the flight was not easy. But as it goes with toddlers, it was an adventure and a few tears were shed (by all parties) and many pop-pops (lollipops) were consumed (again, by both parties) and eventually you get to where you are going. And you manage to have some fun along the way.

 

And then you are there and you forget how hard it was....



Because it's perfect.

 

And you get to eat push pops at 9 in the morning while feeding fish off the dock.

 

And eat more pop pops and run on the beach.

 

And learn to love the ocean as her mom and dad and aunts and uncles and cousins did before her.

 

And eat more pop pops.

 

Did I mention the pop pops?

 

And then you get home and it's still summer and there's still some time do to the hard, but so fun things....

like dressing up to play ball in the driveway at 7:00 in the morning,

And going the wrong way on a slide...

 

..and coloring in the drive with your big cousins who have endless patience.

 

I am already feeling nostalgic about this summer, this pregnancy, this stage where Annie is and our family is right now. Stepping over into the second half of the pregnancy and the last part of summer, I just have to keep reminding myself that the hardest things are always the ones with the greatest reward.

19 Weeks

It seems Boom decided to grow a bit while we were on our workcation trip last week. But since I refused to put on anything that was tight (other than my swimsuit, which is TIIIIIGHHHTTT because I refuse to buy a maternity suit). I felt some pressure and general discomfort which I attributed to my steady diet of chocolate chip cookies. 

 

 

But the photo tells a different story. Boom is officially bigger, and seems to be hanging out a bit lower than Annie was. Chaney declared that I "finally look pregnant".

 

 

So far this pregnancy is a whole host of new experiences. I am huge much earlier. I had a bit of nausea, which I didn't have with Annie. I feel like I have to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes, day and night. I am having trouble sleeping, which is partly due to the bathroom breaks and partly because I just can't get comfortable. I am already feeling the baby move, which is wonderfully reassuring. Basically it's as if every pregnancy symptom is amplified ten times. In some cases it's good, but in some...not so much.

 

One similarity is that I hate meat again. Meat in almost any form except hamburgers and lunch meat. And the latter is working its way up the list of dislike again quickly. Thankfully we have stocked up on plenty of cheese and peanut butter so I am not protein deficient. And woefully constipated.

 

We are almost to the halfway mark, which blows my mind. We go for our anatomy scan on Monday, which will be exciting to see our little guy. It also means we should have some good pics to show of him during next week's post.

 

To give you an idea of Boom's size, he is roughly 6 inches long now, and 10 ounces. I will spare you the fruit size reference, but it rhymes with rantaloupe.

Operation Meal Planning: Update 1

I previously mentioned here that I nearly pushed us all over the edge into a diabetic coma after an exceptionally stout candy consumption at a Monster's University viewing. I vowed to do better, to try to make more healthy dinners, and to eventually lower the chances of me killing us all slowly via various diet related ailments.

 

I hit the ground running. I got tons of recipes off www.emilybites.com, I ordered a cookbook, and one kind soul took pity on me and sent me a cookbook as a gift. Really, my two readers are quite generous.

 

The first night I made this grain/edamame salad with some trader joes turkey meatballs (Monday). I also cooked some chicken ahead of time and made pesto (from scratch, HEY HEY LOOK AT THIS CHEF!).

 



 

 

I then used the pesto chicken mix and made chicken pesto Panini wraps.

They were as good as they look.

 

Ok, they were better than they look because this pic is disgusting.

 

I think we also had veggie burgers and sweet potato fries one night this week, along with the leftover pesto chicken mix in some pasta.

 

 

More food pics to come, because what's more exciting than pictures of food? And I am hoping that by keeping you all in the loop on this, it will motivate me to keep it up. 

 

 

17 weeks-Plus the week from hell

There's really not a huge amount to report from ye ole pregnancy camp. Boom is progressing nicely, my backside is also progressing right along with him. Since we are all experts on this pregnancy thing (ha!) and I am not throwing fruit references in your face every minute, I am not sure what else to inform you all about. I went for a checkup on 7/8 and all was well. I think I have gained 9 pounds total, which is....whatever. Right now I am pretty much at the weight I was when I got pregnant with Annie so I feel pretty good about that. I wear some maternity clothes, some regular clothes/pants but with a belly band because those darn buttons are just so far apart. I have this weird shoulder pain when I sleep, but usually I am so exhausted I just power right through that shiz.

Speaking of sleeping......

A week from this past Sunday Aunt Shisha was over at the house. We were discussing options for moving things around in Annie/Boom's room. Just on a lark, we moved the toddler bed to the dormer/window nook. I don't know if it was because it was a new space, or she liked the cozy security of having two walls on either side of her, but all of a sudden, Annie was hot to trot to sleep in that bed.

I should mention that Annie was a bit groggy on this day and felt a little warm, so perhaps this was a fever-induced decision that all parties will come to regret in the near future. Dum-dum-DUMMMMM!

So Sunday night, and just about every night for the next five nights, were torture. Like newborn torture, but worse because the only thing more horrifying than a newborn waking you up with their sad shrieks every hour is your toddler doing the same, but screaming "NO! NO! NO! MOMMY! DADDY!" at the top  of their lungs. That'll get your heart racing at 3 in the morning.

After fever on Sunday-Tuesday, sometimes as high as 104, I took her in Tuesday afternoon to get checked out. Ears and throat were clear, so we were advised to just wait it out. Of course, Annie had the energy of an Olympic gymnast on speed during our doctor's visit, so it made Dr. Eaton a little less concerned about her 102 degree fever at the time.

By Wednesday night, I remember getting really concerned at bedtime. She just seemed so miserable, and refused to go back to her crib. I was worried that there was something wrong and that we would have to undergo additional tests if the fever wasn't gone by Friday. I remember being so concerned that I had trouble falling asleep. But then my crazy tired pregnant brain kicked in when, each and every time I would be thisclose to falling asleep, Annie would wake up screaming. I went from being a worried parent to being convinced my child was purposefully inflicting mental torture on me. Those charmers at Guantanamo Bay could take a few pages from the toddler bed transition playbook. By the end of the night/morning, I was ready to confess all my sins and turn in every member of my family for the various crimes I was convinced they had committed against humanity, if I could only just get 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

But as all things go with toddlers, things turned around fairly quickly.

No fever on Friday, and she's been sleeping like a champ in her big girl bed ever since. Probably sleeping better than she did in the crib. She doesn't get out and she sleeps about 45 minutes longer in the morning. It really is delightful.

I have no advice for parents transitioning to a toddler bed. So anyone that googles "how to transition to a toddler bed" and ends up on this blog, my apologies. Consider this more of a cautionary tale. Make sure your child is in perfect health, make sure you can consume alcohol during the process, and make sure there are grandparents in town to save your ass from going crazy in the event it all goes totally sideways like ours did. And good luck!

16 Weeks-Big News

We are officially one day away from our 16th week! I tell ya, this advanced maternal age thing does have it's perks. Because apparently my ancient body is one stiff breeze away from falling apart, they monitor me like a hawk and I get all sorts of fun tests and ultrasounds. The most recent one being this marvel they call Materniti21. It tests for chromosomal abnormalities and also screens for gender, if you are into knowing that kind of thing.

which we all know we are. And by "we", I mean Rick.

It's a procedure that is relatively new (within the last 18 months or so) where you just get blood drawn and they can figure all this stuff out without having to scrape or poke at dangerous places for actual fetal cells. Since the stats are super scary at my age, my doc recommended we get the peace of mind that comes with the test. Here's a fun fact regarding the stats: it was something like 1:16 (probably not exactly right, but it was a scary low number) women my age has a child diagnosed with down syndrome in utero. That seemed insane to me and staggeringly high. So I dug a little deeper with our genetic counselor and found out that the statistic noted was of the women who chose to get diagnostic testing. So, if you don't get a test and your child is born without down syndrome, you don't factor into that statistic, which results in the number being a little scarier than it needs to be. I think the actual number of down syndrome births to old birds like me is something like 1:225. Still lower than I would like, but not in the TEENS!

But I digress. Enough scary talk because Boom's results came back with the correct number of chromosomes and all is well there.

And, we also found out Boom is a BOY!

Yes, a boy. Who knew we could even make those in our family? I think we are all still reeling a bit from the news, but obviously we are over the moon about it. I am especially elated because it means that I was RIGHT! If you must know, the thing that tipped me off was very scientific.

Leg hair.

That's right. With Annie, I would have to shave my legs MAYBE once a week. I have now turned into a human chia pet and without proper grooming would likely end up looking like Antonio Banderas by the end of this pregnancy. So that's how I knew Boom was a boy.

A Boy.

A He. Him. His. Brother. Baby Brother. Son. Nephew. Grandson. All semi-foreign words around these parts.

I have trouble even picturing what a he will be like.

But I can't wait to find out.