Week 28

  

I keep meaning to write about the pregnancy, but then I forget to have Chris take a picture of me when I’m actually dressed in nice clothes. And since he happened to be home before church today, this is what we got. A shadowy face, but better than the ones he took first from a lower position until I pointed out that I don’t prefer pictures from that angle because double chins are never cute. (And I’m really bad at photoshop).

Some days I feel really big, mostly because I know I am bigger this time around. And I keep trying to wear things that just don’t fit well. I finally ironed a bunch of shirts that had been sitting in a box since the last pregnancy (including the one in this picture), so I think I might have enough clothes to make it until August. But it’s highly possible that I’ll be walking around half naked all summer because I’m already sweaty and uncomfortable in the middle of May.

Baby girl is getting more and more active everyday. There were a few days a about two weeks ago that I think she must have turned her back to the outside giving me a nice respite from constant kicking, but it also made me worry that something was wrong. But then she moved again and I haven’t really slept well since. Except when I take Tylenol PM.

As of now we’re pretty sure that we will induce on August 1st, which I’m not very comfortable with, but really don’t have many other reasonable options. And that sounds so silly. But if I want Chris to be able to take the first few days off with me, it just makes more sense to schedule it. And then there’s the worry that I’ll have the baby at home because I won’t make it to the hospital in time. My doctor seems to think that this baby will come just as fast as Miles (or faster), and I’ll still be about 20 minutes away from the hospital with a toddler to try to pass off on someone. I guess it makes sense, but I just feel weird about scheduling a birth.

We’re still not even close to having a name, but that’s not much different than with Miles. We know we won’t name her until after she’s born, but we’re having a hard time agreeing on any.

For now, she’s just Baby Girl. And that’s good enough for me. For now.

Birthday festivities, part 2

Since Miles’s actual birthday was on a Tuesday, we waited until Saturday evening to get together with the entire family. The weather was perfect for a picnic at the park. And by picnic, I mean I ordered pizzas and had them delivered to the park. But it was a perfect outing for all of the cousins.

The boys playing croquet together.

Miles tried so hard to swing the mallet (is that what they’re called?) like a big boy.

Here are all of my sister’s adorable kids (even William with his mullet that has since been taken care of).

And the birthday boy being his cute self.

I love having my family close enough for get-togethers, and I know Miles adores his cousins.

Birthday festivities, part 1

 

We started the day with birthday pancakes (complete with a candle since we didn’t have a real cake planned). This kid can down those pancakes! He also got a birthday balloon that provided some frustrating play because I didn’t have them make the string long enough.

But then we went about our usual Tuesday activities: speech therapy and music class. But we did have lunch at Chick-fil-a, always a favorite for the entire family.

My parents and brother drove down to spend the evening with the birthday boy (who didn’t wake up from his nap until 5:30). My mom bought him an oversized bear from Costco…you know, the ones I have been trying to avoid in the store every week for months now. We bought him a slide from Ikea which has turned into a large car ramp. And he also received some cars from Papa and Bubby in Texas and some trains and a train track from us. Overall, a successful birthday.

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I took this video of him coming upstairs from his nap, and I just love how overwhelmed he seems by all of the people of stuff around him.

Miles: 2 years

I love having a two-year-old. And I hate having a two-year-old.

He is so fast to figure things out now, especially words, but he is also becoming too independent for my taste. Sure, he still lets me snuggle him occasionally, but it’s becoming a battle to convince him to hold my hand in parking lots or anyway that I don’t want him running around. He wants to do most things by himself, but can’t always do what he is trying to do. He gets easily frustrated, so we’ve been working hard on reminding him to ask for help instead of whining. It’s a challenge. But I think “help” is the cutest word he says. The tantrums are different now, but still manageable. He luckily doesn’t throw fits much out of the house, just when we’re here alone and he’s bored with me or doesn’t understand why I won’t let him have five pouches of apple sauce for a morning snack.

He still loves to play with cars, and watch both Cars movies, but has just started branching out the world of trains. Unfortunately, I would rather watch Cars (even the one with too much Mater) 400 times than listen to the Thomas the Train narrator. Why are those trains always cross?

He is making huge strides with his speech; his speech therapist says she wouldn’t be surprised if he no longer needs services when pre-school comes around in a year. He’s finally string two words together, but we still have a long way to go. But he definitely babbles a lot more as he gets more confident with his ability to make the right sounds.

He loves his Dada more than me, I think. If Chris is home when Miles wakes up in the morning, he will take cars or books into bed with Chris and spend sometimes 30 minutes in there. Lots of times they watch YouTube videos on Chris’s phone of trains, Elmo, trucks, Muppets, etc.

He loves to play outside, even if he’s just throwing rocks in window wells in the backyard. He loves the park and will go down all of the slides now, but gets easily overheated (just like his mom) and has to leave earlier than he would like. I’m looking forward to having a nice yard and patio that he can play in this summer once we move into the new house. I thought about getting him a balance bike, but because he’s not the most coordinated kid in the world, I don’t think he’s ready. I mean, this kid hasn’t even tried to climb out of this crib because I think he knows he can’t do it.

We love having him in our family and hope that he adjusts well to being a big brother. We’ll enjoy our last few months of spending time alone with our Miles Man.

 

Mexico

The day after Easter Chris and I left town for our babymoon to Mexico. It was extremely difficult to leave Miles, but I knew he was in good hands at my parent’s house—with grandma, grandpa, Uncle Steve, two dogs, a cat, and LOTS of cars to play with, I doubt he even noticed our absence. But previous to this trip, I had never even slept under a different roof from Miles for even one night. But my mom insisted that everything would be okay, and I tried my best to not feel guilty.

We flew into Cancun on Monday afternoon and took a shuttle (non-stop so as to avoid spending three hours in a hot van dropping people off at every resort along the way) about an hour south of the airport in the Mayan Riviera. Our resort was beautiful! We used a travel agent to book everything and she got us a deal on a new 6-star resort that was running specials to get people in. It was super exclusive. And full of French Canadians.

We didn’t have much time the first night to do much but sit briefly at the pool and eat dinner. But it was nice to do those things without a toddler.

We spent the second day at the pool (before we had a meeting with our travel representative), in the room during a brief rain shower, and then at the beach for the afternoon. Chris spent the rain shower finishing the movie he started on the airplane—so adventurous.

 

I think we went out to a nice restaurant that night, but Chris deleted the picture because he said we didn’t look good. But the food was good, so that’s all I really care about.

We spent the second day on an excursion to Chichen-Itza, some Mayan ruins that have recently been named one of the new 7 Wonders of the World. I think there is still a lot of work to be done to make it a nice tourist destination, but it was really cool to learn about the amazing ways they built everything. We found it slightly amusing that they were trying so hard to de-bunk the “myth” of the bloodthirsty Mayans.

They no longer allow climbing on the ruins because they are trying to preserve it for the future, so this is the best picture we could get. Oh, how I hate pregnant pictures.

And because we did something adventurous on this day, we spent the entire next day at the private beach with our lounge chairs, cabana, and free drinks. Not bad, eh?

And Chris attempted snorkeling.

We also took out the sea kayaks after convincing them that I wouldn’t drown just because I’m pregnant. They only agreed to let us go if I had Chris sign for me. You know, because he should sign for my body. Whatever.

And here we are before going to dinner. This was before our extreme sunburns kicked in. As it turns out, no amount of sunscreen keeps us from burning. And Chris wonders why I put sunscreen on Miles for an hour and a half at the zoo.

We spent our last full day at a natural water park called Xel-ha (it’s where Brooke Shield’s filmed the movie “Blue Lagoon”). They have done an amazing job setting up a really cool experience. It helps that it’s an all-you-can-eat-and-drink park. The soft serve ice cream was fantastic. But we were able to snorkel around the lagoon, take a short bike ride on some very interesting bikes, and go on a natural lazy river (which they were hesitant to let the pregnant lady do even though I was wearing the required life jacket and sitting in a tube).

The only thing worse than normal pregnancy pictures are bathing suit pregnancy pictures.

We left for the airport in the morning on Saturday and spent about 7 hours at the airport before being put up in the Marriot for the night because our flight was canceled. I would tell the whole story, but I don’t have the energy for it. Let’s just say that customer service is different in a Mexican airport. They kind of leave it up to the passengers to figure things out and spread it around to everyone else. And five minutes does not mean five minutes.

But we made it home a day late and were very excited to see Miles. He apparently had started to ask for us the day before, but my mom assures me that he was a pleasure to have around. She just had to get up earlier than usual to be ready before he woke up. And oddly, he learned how to say “no” while he was there. 

We won’t be making trips without kids a regular thing, but it was so nice to have a great vacation to celebrate a new chapter in our lives. We missed Miles terribly (I actually told Chris not to talk about him for the first couple of days), but I know I needed the re-charge. And it’s always good for Chris and I to spend alone time together that isn’t just watching tv on the couch after bedtime.

Easter 2012 (otherwise known as picture overload)

I had visions in my head of the perfect Easter outfit for Miles—a white shirt, blue plaid tie, blue blazer, crisp khakis, and brown loafers. Actually, I had the outfit hanging in his closet for months. But didn’t think to try it on him until Easter morning about 30 minutes before church. And it was all WAY too big. So no Easter outfit 2012 pictures here. Just pictures of his Easter egg hunt at my parent’s house after church.

This was his first egg hunt, but he picked up on it pretty quickly.

Putting his first egg in the basket with help from Grandma and the dog.

Very serious faces for a very serious activity.

Asking my brother to open the egg because he somehow figured out that there was candy in there.

Trying to take a family picture required providing sugar first.

But it got us this cute face (just pay no attention to my fly-away hairs—Chris has taken over photo-editing and doesn’t realize that I typically edit myself before anyone else).