Life Updates

More Appointments, More Sugar

Since my last update (only a week ago!), I’ve had three more appointments scheduled. Yes, it’s getting ridiculous.

They were all interesting for different reasons. One was for my three hour glucose test - yup as predicted, I failed the one hour test again. So off I went to spend three hours sitting in a waiting room, drinking super sweet orange drink, and getting my blood taken a million times. I’m almost getting good at it! Fasting, chugging the drink, bringing a book to read, and then packing food to eat for after.

Always More Pumpkins

Christmas is going to be interesting this year.

Well, in more ways than one. But let me back up - I’m actually talking decoration wise. And no, I don’t have my tress up (yet!). I did start pulling out my Halloween/Fall decorations, though. Not all of them, but a few pumpkins here and there. It didn’t take long for a certain tiny human to notice… and demand that he be allowed to carry them around everywhere!

The Bike

It’s not really about the bike. Sure the bike may have set it off, but in reality, it’s more about being a toddler. Being a toddler means learning crazy amounts of new things every day, discovering emotions that are overwhelming at the best of times, and having little control over anything in your life. Together it makes for a frustrating existence. Oh, and did I mention your mouth constantly hurts because teeth are literally ripping holes through your gums?

So that’s where we are.

RIP Flappy

The other morning, Tom was holding E while he opened the trash can to throw something away. From across the room I heard Tom laughing and saying “Oh no, don’t worry about Flappy in the garbage. You saw nothing!”

Remember our singing elephant? The one that my whole family hates, but E love so much? Well it officially makes the list as the second toy we’ve played with so much that we’ve killed the batteries. A singing toy truck from our neighbors was the first, and I’m pretty sure a singing laptop from my parents will be next since it’s been struggling and making some interesting noises lately. Are you sensing a theme? Our Bubba likes things that sing to him!

Fall Fun

Fall has something the rest of the year doesn’t have - these crazy big pumpkin/apple farms that open up for picking. Well that’s the general premise anyway, but they’ve become so much more than that. They’re comparable to amusement parks in their size and activities, and they’re only open for two-ish months in the fall where everyone flocks to them.

They’re so overwhelming that Tom and I are a bit afraid of them. We’ve been to all the big ones and have had bad experiences dealing with lines and traffic and getting lost, so we usually stick to the smaller and less intimidating ones. Of course that means they offer less to do while you’re there.

What We've Been Doing

A lot! The fall is always my favorite time of year. It seems like it always gets filled up with fun trips and visits and activities that we never get around to at other times of the year. There are holidays to look forward to, the weather is perfect, life is good! However, it seems like I’ll never get around to making a separate blog post about everything we’ve been up to, so instead I’m going to try and play a bit of catch up. So here are a bunch of random but good things we’ve been up to.

Also in completely random updates, E has 4 teeth! We have no idea when #3 and #4 came in - we flipped him upside down the other day (the only way to really check) and he has a mouth full of teeth up there! But since he only has 1 on the bottom, we hadn’t noticed. I guess that’s a good thing though. (Although now that we know they’re here, we’re thinking back on a cranky week last week and wondering if that’s what was going on!)

Mamas' Night Out

When I bought these tickets, E was about 3 months old. I actually forgot that I had them for a while.

But it’s so necessary to get out once in a while with my best friend, to talk about non baby things (and a lot of baby things), and just have some fun. It was a super late night which meant not a lot of sleep for us, but it was totally worth it.

Feeling More Optimistic

There's a reason I switched doctors this time around.  I just love this doctor so much.  She'll give me straight talk, odds and numbers, she'll tell me when to worry, and she'll also make me feel a lot better.  Maybe it's the first 5 minutes of every appointment when she spends time telling me how cute my belly is haha, but I always leave feeling better.  

Anatomy Scan, Take II

After my original anatomy scan, I got a call from the midwife on staff explaining some possible complications that they had seen, and she let me know that they were sending me to a specialist at Tufts to get another scan. Better machinery and more experienced/specialized doctors would get us some additional information that they needed. 

It got me a little nervous, and of course googling all the possible bad outcomes (some of which she'd already told me over the phone), but I was glad for the availability of the specialist. Unfortunately they wanted to see me in the middle of our annual vacation to Maine, and I was told that I really shouldn't wait, especially since if I skipped this one they might not be able to get me in until October. Womp womp. 

Whatever You Do, Don't Google

The anatomy scan!

Last time we were super excited to find out the gender and we counted down the days to the scan.  This time, I went alone and almost fell asleep in the room.  It's not my fault - it's a dark room, with white noise pumped in, and they lie you down on a bed while no one really talks for an hour.  Sure there's a screen showing you what's going on, but it's like watching an old black and white movie with no sound on a tv channel you don't really get a good signal on and it's full of static. 

A Night Away

Sometime around Mother's Day, when I was feeling constant all day nausea and exhaustion, Tom mentioned that I should get a hotel room some weekend and have a night away.  A relaxing, kid free night, where I could catch up on sleep, and the boys would stay home and bond. 

As nice as it sounded, I kind of laughed it off.  "Maybe someday!" I said.  

Toddlerhood

Well, it's finally hit us.  We have a toddler.  And?  

I miss my baby!

One of my friends has a newborn right now.  I know she's not getting sleep and it's hard and she's recovering... but that cute little baby isn't throwing tantrums yet!  Well at least not about the things E is throwing tantrums about. Because if he was upset only because he was hungry or tired, that I could do!  I have a year's experience on that!

I Keep Meaning to...

I'm not doing a great job with this pregnancy.  I keep forgetting to do the things I'm supposed to do.  Like tell people that I'm pregnant.  In 15 and a half weeks, I've told maybe 3 people?  And that doesn't include my family haha.  First I was waiting for an ultrasound picture (which I still don't have), and then I was waiting to see them in person, which keeps getting cancelled or pushed back... and then I just keep forgetting. 

I'll be in the middle of a conversation with someone and realize, oh I should totally tell them I'm pregnant!  And then it seems weird in the conversation, and we were talking about their problems and how weird and selfish would it be to suddenly say, HEY want to talk about ME?? I know you're dealing with some heavy stuff and all, but let's ignore that for now and discuss ME!!!  

Busy Busy Busy

It's funny, when we have free time at home, I don't say that E plays.  Instead I say he's hard at work.  He never stops moving, and is always on a mission.  I'm not sure where the mission comes from, or why he's doing what he's doing, but he's very determined.  

First he may come down stairs and go to his table and chairs, where all of his books are displayed.  Very purposefully, one at a time, he must take every book off the table and put them on the floor.  Once they're on the floor he'll ignore them for the rest of the day, but if you try and put a book back on the table, it must immediately be taken off again. 

Lesser of Two Evils

So I mentioned that I asked for nausea medication this time around.  I'm not sure why, but morning sickness hit me so much worse this time around.  And even worse that last time, I couldn't just sit on the couch when I felt horrible - I had a baby to chase around. 

There were nights when Tom would come home to find E half in his PJs, using me as a jungle gym while I was lying on the floor of his bedroom trying not to throw up.  It wasn't sustainable.  So I filled my prescription and wondered if it would change anything.  And boy did it.  They are magical magic pills that took away the nausea completely.  

Getting Real Now?

I've been here before, but a lot of things are different.  I had my first doctor's appointment at 8 weeks instead of 10 this time.  Two less weeks to wait to see if this was real, but less to see when we did check.  The place was different too.  I decided to leave my OB practice from my last pregnancy and go directly to the doctor that delivered E.  There were a lot of reasons, and I went back and forth deciding for a while, but I left today pretty sure that I had made the right decision. 

E Lately

We went on vacation for a week recently (more on that later - I'm still sorting through so many pictures!) but it turned out to be a big week for E! We woke up the morning we were supposed to be leaving to one very grumpy baby.  I finally got a peek in his mouth and it looked like there was a tiny hole in his gums.  Could he finally be getting a tooth!?

Of course we had no idea, because we'd made it 14 months without one, so we weren't sure what to expect.  We tried giving him some frozen teethers, but he refused.  He also refused all food.  And he was STARVING.  That combined with a failed nap left us worried.  We pulled out the Motrin and decided to just jump in the car and get to Maine.  We bought all the soft food pouches we could, which he sucked down the rest of the day.  The Motrin seemed to help, as did the friends we met in Maine.

Why Choose One

...when you can have four different pregnancy announcements!?

Honestly it was lack of vision.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  So I sort of did everything?  What ended up happening is different people saw different announcements at different times or places.  Here's a round up of most of them.