Pregnancy commentary 33 weeks and Easter

Why is creating life so exhausting? I don't need to be told "sleep now while you can". I'm on it. We've had three days of spring break, and I'm 3/3 with naps. I have prioritized sleep over literally every other aspect of my life, aside from the absolute non negotiables (aka work and mothering).  Hygiene, cleaning, socializing, exercise, and every other optional activity have all taken a backseat. I refuse to be up at 2am with a crying baby regretting the pregnant sleep I could have had. It's the third trimester so we are solidly into heartburn/insomnia/backache/beached whale territory, but sleep is still an option and I intend to work my hardest for it.



Going in to spring break, I planned it would be a combination of preparing for the new baby, and doing all sorts of fun stuff with Dalton as our last hurrah as a family of 3. But, deep down, I knew that one of those was going to take precedence, and it wasn't the one that was a lot of boring work. Part of me says I should try to pull an all day-er (stay up all day without a nap) and get stuff done while he naps, and part of me says, you're creating life, you're basically God, take a nap.

If you want to have two kids close in age, don't let haters fool you into thinking it will be tough. Dalton has already taken over many of the household responsibilities, including cooking. 

And putting dishes away.

No seriously, everyone says just child proof everything before the baby arrives. Well, this child dragged a chair over to the counter from the dining room,stood on the chair to move all the drying dishes out of his way (carefully though, thanks bud), and climbed onto the counter to get to the cupboard. I don't know how to child proof that. He watches us and plans his moves so carefully. 

Anyway, we are getting closer and closer to being ready for baby. 

Nursery, 8  months pregnant, baby #1

Nursery, 8  months pregnant, baby #1

Nursery, 8  months pregnant, baby #1

Nursery, 8 months pregnant, baby #2

It just hit me that I'll be full term in just 3.5 weeks - that's not much time! My good friend Kristin will be stepping in until my mom arrives to care for Dalton when it's go time. I finally remembered to tell our daycare provider she might be picking him up (but that would be, like, an EXTREME situation, since it's on Eric's way home from work), and she added us to her favorites so we can wake her up in the middle of the night. She's a good friend. We are also going to be doing weekly get togethers so Dalton can really get comfortable with her. 

I'm starting to get really nervous about labor and delivery. Generally my thought process is something like "dang, contractions are really going to suck. I hope I can get the epidural earlier this time. OMG if we have to go to the hospital in the middle of the night Dalton will wake up and we won't be there and he'll be so confused, poor baby, I hope he's ok...". Typical second pregnancy thoughts. I also am realizing I really want the VBAC to work out. I'm trying not to get too attached to it because, as my sister said, emergency c-section moms know birth plans are total BS. But it would be cool to be able to push the baby out and hold him or her right away. 

He really does love me, despite appearances.

I don't really have any hopes for their first "meeting". Dalton isn't really a people person (wonder where he gets that?) and isn't really too excited to meet anyone. His focus is really just on playing and or climbing. He hasn't expressed any jealousy when I've held other babies (or even bigger kids, closer to his own age), so I'm not concerned about that. I think he will only react where it affects him, such as if I can't play with him or pick him up. Luckily Eric and I are pretty interchangeable for all his daily routines, but obviously there will be times he wants me and I will be busy. He'll learn young that life can be cruel, I guess.

I'll admit that, at this point, I truly can't imagine loving another person as much as I love Dalton, but that doesn't mean I'm not super excited to meet this baby. He or she is super active and I can't get enough of it. Some of the kicks are so powerful they actually hurt, which is new for me. I absolutely can't wait for little tiny newborn snuggles, to see what this baby looks like, the new baby smell, and all the teeny tiny baby stuff that's so fleeting. And, of course, I really can't wait to find out if the baby is a boy or girl! I still have NO solid inclination either way. For a second I thought it would be fun to do some sort of display of everyone's guesses, but then I realized it would look like "Girl - literally everyone we know minus one. Boy - my one friend at work and that's it." So probably not worth it and realistically that doesn't sound like something I would do anyway.

Easter was fantastic this year. I've said this a million times, and I'm sure I'll say it a million more, but this age (18 months WHAT) is so much fun. Saturday morning, Carolyn and I took our boys to an easter egg hunt.

Once they got the hang of it, they had a great time and it was hilarious. They first met when Dalton was only a week old and I love that they are finally starting to interact and play.

Dalton cracking Nathan up running around with an egg over his nose.

After egg hunting, we went to Carolyn's house to dye eggs. Dalton has eaten enough hard boiled eggs to know they are food and was not about to let them go to waste for decoration, so he just demanded to eat all our eggs, and most of our stickers. Nathan discovered you could smash the eggs, so that was his plan. We laughed so hard. Maybe next year. 

Despite the fact that when I went down for my Saturday nap, I had no idea what I was cooking for Easter, I think I pulled it together pretty well. 

Bunny pancakes with a side of baby belly.

Asparagus amandine, potatoes au gratin, orange mustard glazed pork chops, more baby belly

I didn't make a huge deal over the Easter Bunny since Dalton is still young and I could get away with it, but we did get him a little basket with some things he liked.

He just has begun to show an interest in coloring, so the sidewalk chalk was a hit.

And now we have a whole week off work to smoother this adorable little face with love! I mean, uh, prepare the nursery.

Baby's first peep.

Where do you stand on peeps - love or hate? If your answer is hate, and you're local, send them my way. 

Goodbye, running

During your first pregnancy, generally people treat you like a special snowflake and are all "let me carry that loaf of bread for you! Don't exert yourself!". The second...people are still generally really nice, but in my experience, something about seeing me wrangling a 25 pound toddler makes me look not so delicate and in need of assistance.

He's cute but he's STRONG

But good lord the struggle is REAL. I'm not trying to be a d-bag and complain when I've had it really good in the baby growing business. I just wish I had fully appreciated how easy the first pregnancy is. It's freaking exhausting being pregnant with a toddler, and involves constant heavy lifting, and getting up and down, two of the hardest prego tasks. I could pawn everything off on Eric, and I have with most things, but I still want to obviously play and have fun with my kid. And he doesn't enjoy things like laying on the couch reading novels, my current favorite activity. So I should probably just suck it up and quit whining.

At the playground last week, he just decided - nah, I'm done with the baby slide. 

My current biggest challenge is the car seat, and I've only brought it on myself. When I went to put Dalton in recently, he discovered he could jump out before I strapped him down and climb up into the driver's seat. Then when I go around to the driver's side door to get him, he screams and runs away from me. The issue I'm having is that I want to discourage it but it's so freaking cute and funny and I can't help but crack up. Which means he thinks its a game, and wants to do it over and over. I think after spring break, Eric is going to have to do drop off and pick up from daycare.

Telling him no is a challenge

I tried something new that was a little crazy to combat the pregnancy exhaustion, which is back from the first tri in full force. Exercise and eating healthy.

Helping prep stuffed peppers

I actually used to do that stuff all the time, but clearly it's gone by the wayside and I needed to bring it back. I tried prenatal yoga twice last week. I was worried it would be a whole bunch of laying down and OMs and bonding with your fetus crap, but it was actually a good workout where my muscles were shaking at some points.

I also tried Barre (I'm doing a trial at a studio). I was kind of terrified, because it's supposed to be such a hard workout and at 30 weeks pregnant, just being alive takes all my energy. I even went at 6:15am. It was rough. So many tiny little one inch movements that were so painful. 

Wednesday it was 77 degrees after work so I thought it would be a great time to do a stroller run. I made it half a mile before I was having painful cramping in my belly, and walking back didn't help. I always get lots of Braxton Hicks (fake contractions), but I had some that night and into the next day that seemed more intense, more like the early labor contractions I had last time than BH. It freaked me out enough to call my doctor (but let's note that I made to 30 weeks before calling and asking about something that turned out to be nothing). They said I was probably dehydrated and to just rest and drink water (see above - not possible). I did feel better once Dalton went to bed and I chugged some Powerade and laid down. Still, I'm officially done with outdoor running. I'm due in less than 9 weeks, even if the problems are all in my head, it's not worth my peace of mind. There are plenty of other exercise options available to me. 

Although, I'll still have to do some sprints to keep this guy out of danger. He busted his lip Saturday morning while both of us were within arms length. 

Poor little guy.

Two months today till my due date! I feel like I've been pregnant forever.

Moms of 2+: What was your greatest third trimester pregnancy challenge? Yes, I know that the real challenge will be two kids. 

Updates on my kid

Really probably nobody who doesn't share DNA with this child cares, and not even probably  most of those people, but I'm obsessed with him, and I feel like writing about it.

Dalton will be 18 months old this month, so I SHOULD just be telling people he's a year and a half, because no one cares about anything more specific. But I can't bring myself to round up. I feel like he's already growing fast enough without me prematurely aging him. I need to just get my head around it. I want him to stay a baby!

In exciting mom news, which means in actuality incredibly mundane, boring news, we are now a pacifier free household! For the next 2-3 months, anyway. While this violates my "NO CHANGES OF ANY KIND BEFORE BABY" policy, once again, I forgot I'm not in control of things around here.

Dalton kept throwing his pacifier out of his crib (even though we clip it to his pjs, but he's strong enough to rip it off) in the middle of the night then crying for us to rescue it. Aka, for Eric, because if I ever go in in the middle of the night, it's GAME OVER. Forget him ever going back to sleep. It was kind of odd because he's obsessed with that thing. He's always sneaking to his crib during the day time and fishing it out, even though he knows he's not allowed to have it when he's awake. So finally we told him we are not going in to get it for him any more if he threw it out.

The next two nights, he threw it out before he fell asleep for the night, but we held strong and he eventually went to sleep without it. The past two nights we didn't even give it to him, and knock on wood, he seems fine! He still has it at daycare, but we plan to nip that in the bud too. I almost caved and gave him my emergency car pacifier when he threw such a big tantrum about having to leave a slide and go home yesterday. I honestly thought I was not going to be able to get him in his car seat, he was doing the classic toddler "make my body stiff as a board and refuse to sit" thing, and I haven't really been hitting the gym lately. Luckily, I eventually managed to somehow wrestle him down and strap him in, and two minutes later he was happily singing to me like nothing ever happened. Babies be cray.

I just got basically his whole summer wardrobe (from our local mom facebook exchange group, because buying baby clothes new is just insane, unless they are REALLY cute). It's size 2T. He's just so big, I can't stand it. 

Side note, I don't even know if 2T will fit for the summer. Fingers crossed.

He's kind of obsessed with imitating us, in a way that's simultaneously adorable, hilarious, and terrifying.

Always has to wear his dad's shoes.

If he gets a hold of a tissue box, he has to wipe his face, then run over to the nearest trash can to throw the tissue away. While I glanced down at a (work, totes important) text last night, I looked up to see this.

Oh, it's no big deal he's on the table. That's status quo in our house. The funny part (to me) was that he grabbed the bottle of cleaner and napkins and started wiping the table. And that's why we switched over to cleaning exclusively with white vinegar once he became mobile.

He's obsessed with sitting on the counter to help/watch me cook. I had him sitting up there when I was about to grate cheese, and handed him a slice to eat. Instead, he started "grating" it.

Yeah, he could have cut himself, but he didn't, we aren't raising no dummy. 

Dalton is pretty in to reading right now, which I'm thrilled with. He has a million books but only has maybe 5-6 that he chooses for us to read to him at night, including, but not limited to, Where's Spot?, Dear Zoo, and Click Clack Moo. He likes to turn the pages so sometimes "reading" means just flipping through for two seconds. This morning when I got him out he wouldn't let me change his diaper until we'd read two books. He picks up the book in one hand, picks up my hand in the other, thrusts the book into my hand then plops into my lap. It's the cutest. 

Wearing Eric's sweatshirt, because nothing of mine fits. 

He just makes me happy.

Pregnancy illness #546: Bronchitis

Ever hear that pregnancy decreases your immune system's effectiveness?

#proof

I thought I had a cold Wednesday and Thursday, no big deal. Then Thursday night I started coughing pretty bad and my chest started to hurt. I was up in the middle of the night coughing for like an hour and a half before I finally got out of bed and took a shower, and then was able to go back to sleep. At work Friday morning, my cough just kept getting worse and worse until I knew I wasn't going to make it through the day without losing an organ (or, lets be real, peeing my pants).

So I had to be that asshole who left everyone in the lurch. Luckily my primary care doctor had a cancellation, so I was able to get an appointment there instead of waiting all day at urgent care. It got a little scary for a second when she said they were ordering an EKG to make sure my symptoms were just a lung infection, and not something wrong with my heart. After that, I was relieved that it was only bronchitis. The doctor said to rest.

Someone else had other ideas.

I'm sure we can all agree that bronchitis isn't fun, especially with a little tiny person pushing up against your lungs (and, often, a bigger little person pushing against them from the outside while trying to climb you like a jungle gym).

When it's too cold for the actual playground, he creates his own. It's me. 

I definitely can't complain though, since the baby isn't at risk, my other baby can't catch it, my husband can't catch it (because, man flu, can't handle that), and I even got antibiotics. Most importantly, if I had to get sick, the timing could NOT have been any better.

 And of course, the real reason:

HOW does he only improve with age?

I'm only halfway through the season though, because Saturday Eric took over parenting and I spent the day pretty much like this.

I DID NOT MOVE.

I think that maybe the nesting instinct is beginning, just a little bit. We didn't have any plans this weekend, so I had a bunch of random stuff in my head I wanted to get done around the house. Obviously, none of that happened because I spent the entire weekend either sleeping or coughing. I did find my copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and started to look over the section on labor and delivery, and then remembered how much contractions hurt and decided to stop. I really need to be healthy for spring break, because that's when it's on in terms of baby prep.

Unrelated - are we ever getting a Game of Thrones trailer? It's less than two months until the season 6 premier and there's only a lame teaser trailer that shows absolutely nothing. Is HBO just planning on keeping everything under wraps? The only things I've done to prepare for this birth, other than skimming what to expect, is get Dalton a cute brother shirt from Target and verify with Eric that we can stream GOT in the hospital on the tablet if we end up staying on a Sunday night. Things like pre-registering at the hospital, adding my friend who will be watching Dalton to my daycare emergency contacts...I'll get to all that. Eventually.

Thoughts on Fuller House? The first episode was epic. It brought me so much happiness. I've enjoyed the rest quite a bit, but I'm disappointed everyone (especially Uncle Jesse) were only special guests and aren't around for most of it.

Our 24 hour vacation

This one time we drove from Baltimore to North Carolina to hang out for 24 hours.

Like, we stayed in NC for literally 24 hours. 

Our good friends from college live there. We used to visit all the time, and then we all had babies.

Beautiful, photogenic babies.

It's been way too long since we visited, so I decided we were going, come hell or high water, before the baby comes and we never travel ever again. Since we have a three day weekend for President's Day, and we are getting close to the point where I'll be humongous and unable to travel, it was now or never. We were all going to have a romantic Valentine's Day weekend together.

We left Saturday morning, because I still have nightmares about the one time we tried to travel after bedtime. It was like Ramsay Bolton level of torture. We arrived about 5pm Saturday night, and immediately enjoyed a relaxing Mexican meal out with our other friend, and three kids ages two and under. Entertainment included, but was not limited to: drinks being spilled, vomiting episodes, and general chaos. 

Then we came home and put the babies right to bed. HA. Kidding. Like babies go right to bed. Is that something babies do? 

In the grand toddler tradition, Dalton isn't exactly a huge fan of sleeping in new and strange places. He will NOT go to sleep ever if I'm anywhere in his sight, because like Aerosmith, he doesn't want to miss a thing. He suffers from FOMO (fear of missing out). BAD. He was asleep in the bed cuddling with Eric, but apparently not deeply enough, because he woke up when I came in and was like YES IT'S PLAYTIME. Long story short we eventually got him to sleep at like 10:30pm with me hiding next to the bed, on the floor out of sight, and Eric pinning him to his chest. Parenting win. I'm starting to feel really bad that friends take the time to set up pack and plays when we visit because they are pretty much useless. Then this described the rest of our night.

Cosleeping = NOSLEEPING

A combination of YAY CUDDLING I LOVE THIS and being awoken from a peaceful slumber by the 13th kick in the head that hour.

In one of my short bouts of sleep, I had a dream that our friends kicked us out due to the impending snow storm (which at that point we all thought was just going to be a minor dusting). I told everyone about it in the morning and we all laughed. Then we checked the weather for real and they were like hmmm yeah actually you're going to need to leave. 

It would be utterly ridiculous to drive all day Saturday then leave Sunday morning, so we stayed, hung out, did Valentine's Day photo shoots.

I mean....I just can't. 

And just because I'm already that parent.

We moved our romantic Valentine's Day dinner up to 3pm. More of a linner, really. Coke marinated ribs and corn fritters. Amazing.

Our little Valentines

Then, since we were already facing my nightmare of driving after bedtime, we met up with my cousin and her family on our way out. And took zero pictures. Such a fail. But she has a blog, so you can look at her adorable kids and imagine them in Panera with Dalton.

Technically our moms are the cousins, but more importantly she has a 6 week old and her son will be two next month (exactly 6 months older than Dalton to the day!) so we got to see the #twoundertwo lifestyle first hand. Seems like a piece of cake! At least, for an hour, in Panera, with both parents present. I'm sure that's a completely accurate representation. Still, it was awesome to get to meet her family and spend some time together!

We left about 5:30. We originally thought we would just get a cheap hotel somewhere halfway in between, but upon closer examination of the radar (all teachers are also amateur meteorologists), it appeared that our options were either make it home Sunday night, or finish driving in a snowstorm. In the south. At rush hour. In the DC area. Which pretty much meant that no amount of toddler screaming would force us to stop, so I was braced for the worst.

I planned to drive for just an hour or two (since 6 hours of being a prego passenger is just not fun in terms of nausea/back pain) then let Eric take over. Dalton crashed not too long into the trip. And that's when I developed super human strength. I drove from 4:30-9:30 without stopping (aka two hours past my usual bedtime), then we stopped just long enough to fill the gas tank, switch places, and continue home. That's right, at 27 weeks pregnant, I made it from Panera in Durham, NC to our house, without peeing. SIX HOURS. Because parents will do literally anything to avoid waking a sleeping baby. And through some miracle, our sleeping baby slept the entire trip. AND went back to sleep in his crib without a peep when we got home, which has never once happened before. At least, we think so. We forgot the baby monitor camera in NC, so for all we know he played silently in there all night, but we didn't hear anything and he woke up happy.

It snowed all day today before switching over to freezing rain, so we were beyond glad that we decided to leave early. Plus, since Dalton slept the whole trip, I didn't feel like I missed any time with him, and Eric and I got to have hours of adult conversation.

And that was officially our last little trip as a family of three. I plan to stay put until well after this baby joins us.

Have you ever made a trip where travel time nearly exceeds your time in the actual destination? Sadly, this is not our first experience with that, but having a toddler adds a whole new level to it. Still, worth it!

Goodbye, Second Tri

Um, I'm almost in the third trimester. 27 weeks tomorrow (Friday). HOW did that happen so fast? The first trimester seems like it lasts years and then the second tri just flies. At least in my two experiences.

HOW

I finally took a bump picture this week. The last one was at 15 weeks. With Dalton, I took them weekly, religiously. This kid is already suffering from classic second kid problems.

Eric took this before my friend Lily's bridal shower. I felt like all the pictures from the shower made me look like a hippopotamus, so I'm posting this one that is flattering.

The well known "I'm pregnant not fat" pose.

I wouldn't say the second trimester has been the burst of energy everyone talks about. Maybe that's only with the first baby. I haven't felt crushing exhaustion like at the beginning, but I've been pretty tired. Maybe that's just life as an adult though.

When I don't cook dinner fast enough, he takes matters into his own hands. 

My main concern has been not being able to play/do things with Dalton, but luckily so far I've been fine. Sure, taking him to the grocery store by myself has me wishing I could lay down on the floor and nap halfway through the trip, but overall, I can still pick him up, sit with him in my lap, and chase him pretty easily.

I'm eating ALL the things and doing...not all the exercise. Last week I did actually exceed my goal of 3 workouts and did 4. This week...it's not going great. Although I did have some sort of stupid respiratory bug and was hacking up a lung for like 3 days. When I have run, the hip pain is crazy. I never really had that last time so it's annoying. I really need to just accept that I need to mix in other types of exercise for the next 13 weeks and give up on running, but it's my favorite. First world pains. I'm attempting a date with Steven Avery on the treadmill bright and early tomorrow, so we'll see.

I did the glucose test this past weekend.

Everyone's favorite way to spend a Saturday morning. Instead of breakfast and coffee, you chug this nasty sugar water (you get 5 minutes or less), sit in a lab for an hour (at least in my case, I had to go get the drink at the lab and then the receptionist made me sit in front of her and watched me drink it), and get blood drawn. Despite my horrific needle phobia, and also my fear of not being allowed to drink coffee in the morning, it wasn't bad at all. Now I just have to wait to see if I pass. Although ultrasounds are much more fun, since you get to see the baby, this test is so much less nerve wracking. It checks to see if you have gestational diabetes, so the worst case scenario (to my understanding) is that you have to be on a special diet for the rest of your pregnancy. Ultrasounds check to see if the baby is healthy, which is obviously much scarier.

The main pregnancy news is that I talked to my doctor and I am "officially" going to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Of course, nothing we decide is official, since the baby is the one actually calling the shots. But if the baby is in position and everything looks healthy, she was optimistic about it for me. She even said I could get induced if I go past my due date (not that I'm dying to get induced, but this would be opposed to just having another c-section). I kept trying to talk myself in to just scheduling another c-section, since it made sense - having control over the birth, being able to plan ahead of child care, etc. It just didn't feel right though, so I'm going with my gut. If I end up having another one, that's fine, but I want to at least give myself the option to try to avoid surgery. Fingers crossed! I requested to join a VBAC group on Facebook, so I feel like that will most likely seal the deal.

Just because it's adorable.

I still really have no clue what sex the baby is. I've started to picture the baby as a boy, but it's hard to say if that's an actual feeling or just because that's been my only experience with having a baby. It's weird to me because I had such a strong, positive feeling that Dalton was a boy from 8 weeks on, and even had two separate dreams that the ultrasound tech said boy the night before we found out. Maybe I'll have a dream about this baby the night before he or she is born? I can only hope I'll be getting a full night of sleep before that happens.

Two trimesters down, one to go. I can't wait/I'm terrified and not ready.

Any other moms feel like the second tri flew by?