You know you're close when...

You know you’re close when:
- You keep telling everybody how hot it is and they say, “it’s really not that bad.”
- Contractions/pressure causes you to stop dead in your tracks/takes your breath away/brings tears to your eyes/don’t surprise your spouse.
- You start eating a fourth meal a day (my favorite – oatmeal!!)
- People start talking to you more about the sex and name of the baby and asking more specifics about maternity leave
- People openly stare at your belly and do double-takes of you
- You can’t chase around your toddler anymore. Your toddler begins to understand better what “come closer to momma” means.
- Your toddler starts getting more attached to your spouse because you’re so tired, unable to carry/hold and at times, impatient/crabby.
- You’re finally willing to admit that at times your brain is in la-la land. You start making more lists at work to remember important things.
- People are more willing to offer their chair, open the door and your spouse does the heavy lifting without being asked
- You start brainstorming names with family
- You’re so tired again, you just need to add back in more caffeine by necessity.
- You could throw out your back at any moment.
- You can distinguish a hand or a foot in your belly. Others can see your baby move.

* p.s. This is supposed to be funny, not a bitch-fest.

Second baby is different than first because
- People don’t tell you so many scary labor/delivery stories as the first time around
- You don’t feel the need to do birth classes, you don’t think about how your spouse will be during labor
- You don’t read obsessively about baby’s in-utero development
- You look like you’re in your 9th month in your 7th one (at least for me).
- You think all the time about your first’s reaction to the new baby.

30 week appt

Quick update:
I had my 30 week update. Nothing too exciting which is I guess what you want. It had been 8 weeks since I had seen the doctor. My uterus measured perfectly for 30 weeks size. My hemaglobin, platelets and glucose leves (diabetes test) were all fine. I will see them again in my 34th week.

I have been feeling more and more tired. I am easily susceptible to dehydration and have had stomachaches and sickness related to that recently, with all the heat we're experiencing. I no longer have the strength or energy to chase Kaylee around when she is avoiding wanting her diaper changed or running away while dressing her. I just calmly wait for her to come back now or else Eric helps. My emotions are more at the forefront. So I have been trying to remain as calm and stress-free as possible but hard to do at times with a toddler throwing tantrums. I'm feeling like it would be great to have a vacation - it's been an awful long time. But we're saving my time off for the leave I'll be taking. Maybe I'll take an extra day around the 4th or something...

The baby is kicking a lot. There are times I can see the whole belly move like bowl of jelly right in front of you. Eric was astonished to be kicked by the baby last night while we were watching TV. He's like "did you just hit me?" I smiled, "No, that was the baby." In the past three weeks or so, I can distinguish a knee, foot or butt. He's very active, perhaps slightly more than with Kaylee but it's really hard to remember how active she was - I remember a lot of kicking from her too. Moms out there maybe you can identify with this...there are a lot of times I forget that I'm pregnant. I told Eric pregnancy is just a state not a lifestyle. People look at me for longer, stare openly or else smile a lot more than usual at me and my first reaction is always like, "What? What are you looking at?" And then I remember that I am so utterly pregnant people just have a reaction to that. I have continued to get the "are you having twins" comment. Looks like I'm on track to gain about the same amount that I did with Kaylee. I got really really large with her in the end. I already feel very stifled in this weather, I can't imagine what another few pounds and outward growth will do to me.

Don't know if I've said but now Kaylee talks about that she's going to be a big sister. I have been reading her a book about new babies in the family called, "Hello Baby." Kaylee rocks her baby, kisses her baby after a fall, enjoys still changing baby's diaper and putting it in her stroller. She rocks her baby in her arms singing "Rock a bye baby in the treetop" or "Hush little baby."

Touche

Today I was out by the pool with Kaylee, swimming in the water. She wanted to sit down by the ladder and put her feet in the water, but she was worried that her crocs might fall off and she'd lose them.

I took one off of her foot, and showed her that even if you put them under water, they'll float up on their own. I told her "Don't worry Kaylee, even if your croc goes in the water, it will float. Since it floats I can get it no matter what."

She stood up, walked backwards a few feet and said "No Daddy, I don't want it to matter."

Working moms and Dad's day

The guilt of being a working mom gets to us sometimes. A co-worker made me think of this today. When you are at work you think you should be at home (esp. when the child is sick, fussy, clingy or tired). When you are at home you think you should be working. It never ends. My co-worker said she’d received the advice that you should just let go of that guilt and realize that it is a total waste of emotional energy. Easier said than done. But today Kaylee surprised me, normally I think I rush her out the door too much in the mornings. I was just putzing a tad in order to make our exit go better (i.e. avoid fits, tantrums or fixations) and she looked at me and said, “Should we get going?” I was so surprised and relieved because we were already 15 minutes late. I was like, “Yes! Let’s kiss Daddy good-bye and be on our way!!!” So maybe it gets easier to some degree as the child ages, matures, gets used to schedules/routines??? Not sure… I am hopeful though.

I think Eric had a nice Father’s day. Sat night we celebrated with my family on the new deck my Dad constructed. It is a beautiful thing. The backyard was a fun place to play bocce ball, red rover and duck duck grey duck (the latter two for Kaylee’s enjoyment of course!) The barbeque pit was a fun place to gather and think of possible baby names. Then Sun morning we went to go see Becky painting at the Stone Arch Festival. She did a great job and it was fun to get out. I move more slowly now and do less well with the intense heat. I was tired after. Then in the afternoon, we had the neighbors over (very large family) to swim. It was fun, we had a pizza party and Kaylee enjoyed very much watching the older girls in the pool. She developed enough courage to go in the water herself on the steps near the “big pool” and not just in her kiddie pool (which she still enjoys very much!) Eric had a good time just shooting the ____with the neighbors and relaxing. This Monday came all too fast, we could’ve used another day. The weekend felt busy!

Kaylee was very excited to see my Dad on Sat. She said, “Let’s go over and see Grandpa.” And then she asked “How is Grandpa’s owie?” (My Dad injured his leg recently with a crowbar in a house project, which required surgery) When she was on her cell phone (playing) she said she was talking to Grandpa.

Hope all you Dads out there had a great day too.

Kaylee went peepee in the potty!

This morning was the first time Kaylee went peepee in the potty! She's been sitting on the toilet for months with no action. This morning she had a dry diaper so I brought her over to the potty and asked her if she could squeeze out some peepee. And she did! I was so excited. She was so excited and proud of herself. She proclaimed afterwards, "I don't need a diaper." We had to explain that she needs to be going in the potty everytime until we'll let her do that.

For months she has been interested as I mentioned. For a couple months, she doesn't want to be in her wet diaper and tells us as soon as she's gone. Also she will now walk with us instead of running away after she's had a poopy diaper. So she no longer wants to be in the diaper - and that's one step forward!

Yay for Kaylee!

Conversational tone and storytelling

Well, Four of my friends have now had their babies. I think everybody I know pregnant at the same time now has their babies. It's so exciting and now I am in the mode of ohhing and ahhing over their babies. I love seeing little newborns again and it's making me all the more excited to meet our little one about 11 weeks from now! I am also reminded of the hard work, the schedule, the breastfeeding beginning hardships, the labor & delivery, the hospital, the NICU ... everything. I'm a little scared too. I don't want baby to get sick this time! Although her sickness was lucky compared other baby's sickness level in the NICU, I am aware. Still...I'm hoping this time I can go home the same time as baby. Cross your fingers for us. I'm also hoping that maybe just maybe I'll get a little nurser and not a screaming and shaking her head at the breast baby. But to give Kaylee her full bio, she was a wonderful baby who smiled right away (I mean right away!) and had such a wonderful personality from the get-go. Not to mention I think we were sleeping through the night for a brief period after about 3 weeks old. Ah,the memories are flooding baby. I remember her being very fussy right before bedtime about 3 weeks - 7 or 8 weeks old. THat's when Eric came to the rescue with his many ways of walking, bouncing, holding and consoling that he mastered. My expertise was my growing confidence in breastfeeding, which always soothed a fair amount of fussiness out of her. I can only hope and pray that this baby is like Kaylee, she's been such fun and an honor to raise.

We have been cleaning our house for a while in preparation for the baby and that will continue this weekend. My parents will take her for a few more hours and we will be back to tackling clutter, mainly in our basement. Getting rid of stuff making way for space over stuff. I am ready with baby boy's clothes (mostly except for the winter gear like jackets - I'm in denial). We are thinking on our daycare and how much she should take Kaylee during the first weeks of my leave and we're thinking maybe more than what I was originally thinking - I was thinking we'd start our 3 day a week schedule. But Eric's right, there's a lot of bonding, recovering and teaching to be done with the brand new baby that can best be done while concentrating 100%. So I think we'll be asking Hollie to do 5 days a week for a bit, the when things get sane we'll go to the anticipated 3 day a week schedule.

Kaylee continues to be our little climber and adventurer on the playgrounds. Her legs are filled with bruises and her knees are scabbed. She creates a lot of drama telling you about her owies and falls. She will sometimes even start pouting again or acting hurt after running around for 20 minutes after with no problem, just cause someone took an interest.

On that note, her imagination is amazing. She played last night with a coloring book. Talking to the characters in it and saying, "Do you want to go to Hollie's? Do you like that? Are you hungry? Do you want to play?" Almost like talking to an imaginary friend. We are happy to see her so easily entertained and she is entertaining us herself in the process, unbeknownst to her.

When I colored with her last night, she said to me, "Oh Mom, nice kitty. That is amazing. Can you draw more?" This is the first time I think she's given me a compliment. She then continued on to turn the pages faster than allowed for any coloring and I gave up. Such is life with a 2 year old. She's also made it a little hard to read books to her lately because she wants to read it "by myself." She flips through the book several times, dialoguing the plot she can remember and adding in other stuff whatever comes to her mind. It is remarkable how much she does remember. Some books are favorites and she spends more time developing these stories. Eventually she lets me get a word in, I've been trying to introduce a little bit the idea of it's time for me to talk and you to listen. But she's a little little for this concept. But she will need to know it to get the most out of what we and Hollie, and eventually preschool teachers try to teach her.

What else can I say, she's an absolute delight... yesterday she stayed the day with my Mom cause we had no daycare. My mom played some paper dolls and she said, "Kaylee you seem to only like the pink one. I should go out and get you more pink ones." Kaylee looked up and said to her, "Grandma, don't worry about it."

Her skill with talking is conversational, her words are usually conjugated correctly, her ability to hear and repeat exactly the noise or sound is extraordinary. It's amazing what kids her age can absorb in a day. She's changing all the time and it's so fun to watch - I don't want to miss a moment. Usually I don't want to spend much time away from her outside of my work day. That seems like enough time away...especially with the new baby coming I'm trying to spend as much 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 (with Eric as a family) as humanly possible. Speaking of that, I'm going to see if she's up yet...

Memorial day and more

Kaylee has been doing so many funny new things! I’ve said before that she sings and makes up songs. Now she melds nursery rhymes together. Her favorite one to combine into all the songs is “Hi-ho-the-dairy-o.” She sings in a good pitch with her high little voice – and verbalizes sounds like the ones she’s heard when she doesn’t know a word.

We went up to Lake Pepin on Monday since the Smith’s were visiting. She ate well at a restaurant loving the popcorn and the grilled cheese. She got a taste of her first ever pop – and we were able to get her back onto the juice. We visited a park in the rain and she laughed hysterically at her “mom-and-dad caterpillar” running with blanket over our heads to the car. On the way home, she saw a school bus yard where they all park and screamed out as if she had just seen a rockstar! She kicked her legs and squealed at that site, yelling “Shool bus! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Shool bus!”

She has learned to use her words in a persuasive way already. She said to me one breakfast, turning her head to the side eyes wide and eyebrows raised, “Mommy, does it sound like fun to go out in the backyard?” She nods as she says it like, “If you don’t know I will tell you the answer.” She is already good at getting her way as much as she can muster. We have continued the time outs when warnings and such do not work and she’s insisting too much on her own way or will not follow reasoned calm requests. Those go pretty well, the whole time she says, “I’m ready! I’m ready!” through tears, telling me that she’s ready to say she’s sorry and be done with timeout. I have learned that I cannot let her out until the time is up or else the lesson I’m trying to teach will be unlearned…

She has learned to differentiate the sets of grandparents by Grandpa Dave, Grandpa Dennis, etc. She also just started to know the distinction for great-grandparents.

We did so much great cleanup the past couple of weekends – baby nesting is underway for sure at our house. 2 weekends ago was clothes organizing, last weekend was clutter managing and this past weekend with the help of my in-laws we tossed 2 desks, they weeded the yard and a giant pile of trash from our backyard. I set up a kiddie pool for Kaylee after that and she’s been loving playing in the water with her pail and boat toys. Now I can barely keep her out of her swimsuit!