Jump! Jump!

Will suddenly loves to "jump". I say that with quotation because he does the whole wind up thing with knees bending and arms swinging and a huge grin on his face... but his feet never actually leave the ground. It's so hilarious to watch and Will has such fun doing it. He likes it best when someone stands across from him and takes turns jumping. I got some really cute video of him "jumping" with Papa Riedeman on Sunday. And then last night, Will and Craig were jumping in Will's new room.













Last night, we spent some time just hanging out in Will's new room. I put his step stool beside the bed and he can climb up on his own. He thought it was pretty cool to be up there and pointed out the "pillows" and the "yight" (the lamp on the nightstand) to me. Then he called "Bru-too!" (our dog Brutus) to come jump up on the bed with us and we read a couple books.








Will has really started to take an interest in the dog. They've always kind of left each other alone and kept their own spaces. But Will loves to see him scratching at the door when we come home and he's been calling his name and trying to throw his ball or bone for him to fetch now. He also likes to pet Brutus and say "nice doggy". Unfortunately, Brutus seems to prefer the way things WERE and isn't digging this new friendship Will's trying to create. Brutus doesn't get nasty with Will by any means... he just sort of ignores him and doesn't try to play. It's too bad, because I've really neglected playing with Brutus since Will came along and he'd finally have a friend again if he'd open up to Will. Then again, my sister made the point that if he became more playful with Will, he might get confused as to why he can't be so playful with Sophia. Maybe it's better this way for awhile...


In other Will updates, he's learning to count! He actually can count from 1-5 on his own, then skips 6 and can usually make it up to 10 from there! Pretty impressive huh? His favorite number seems to be 8, so when he gets confused, he always falls back on 8. LOL. His favorite toy right now seems to be his wooden puzzles and he has several, including number, letters, and shapes. He recognizes and says circle, oval and square. And he also recognizes but can't yet say triangle. And finally, we've been practicing saying his last name (he says "Ree-dee") and spelling the letters in his first name. His first name letters hang on the wall above his crib, so he will say "dub-ee" (W), "I", and then I have to remind him of the "L" sound. Too cute!

Nesting

It starts simply with a kitchen cabinet or dresser drawer... ("Hmm...that Tupperware drawer could use reorganizing" or "I have GOT to stop wearing socks with holes!") It's innocent enough - you simply get a sudden urge to clean up, start fresh, and organize. But cabinets lead to closets and dresser drawers lead to entire rooms and pretty soon you have an inexplicable urge to clean and organize EVERYTHING in your house. It's called the "nesting instinct" and it's a domestic urge that strikes most pregnant women at some point, especially in the third trimester. It may be a weird phenomenon, likely triggered by hormones, but it's very real and all female mammals do it - prepare their surroundings for a newborn before birth. It's supposedly natures way of ensuring a safe, warm, and welcoming environment for the baby.

My nesting instinct is intense and it drives my laid-back, easy-going husband crazy. Though, in my defense, his carefree, procrastinating tendencies drive ME crazy sometimes. Normally, our differences make us a very good balance for each other... However, when mine are hormone-driven and reaching their peak due to the constant reminder of my growing belly... it's hard for me to accept anything but "okay, honey, I'll do it right now." :) LOL

I think I started with my sock drawer around Christmas, going through and getting rid of the holey ones and reorganizing the drawer. Then, of course, the pipes froze and we had the bathroom to focus on. Meanwhile, I started washing up baby clothes and needed a place to put them away. Thus beginning a complete organization and cleaning of the kids' bedrooms. (It's so funny to say "kids"... as in plural.) So EVERYTHING got cleaned out, wiped down, washed, scrubbed and put back in a newly organized fashion. Bedding, valances, bed skirts - all clean and ironed. Clothing - also clean, ironed and put away color-coded from short to long sleeves, sweaters to jackets. Walls and floors - wiped down and scrubbed. Things can't get clean enough.

I'm still super excited about my Christmas gift of visits from a cleaning lady, and I'd like to have her come maybe once before Sophia is born. But right now, it would be a waste of my energy! I need these projects - it brings me peace of mind. Mostly, the cleaning lady will be a huge help AFTER the birth.

So, my to-do list still includes the following projects:

1) get out & clean up baby gear (washing up the car seat, swing and bouncer seat liners) and reset the pack 'n play to the bassinet setting in our bedroom
2) get the carpets cleaned
3) go through mine and Craig's closet and take a load to Salvation Army
4) clean out fridge and freezer really well
5) prepare 8+ meals for the new deep freeze for after birth; also do some baking and freezing
6) re-stock our basement overflow shelves with non-perishables, cleaning products and toiletries
7) select and purchase all greeting cards and birthday gifts for April - August so I don't have to think about that while on maternity leave
8) wash windows
9) clean kitchen cabinets
10) wash slip covers on living room furniture
11) pack my hospital bag
12) wipe the wood blinds upstairs
etc. etc. etc.

It's good to have projects. It's part of bonding with the baby because I want everything to be ready and clean for her. When she arrives, I anticipate a good couple months before I feel back on my feet like normal again and I want to be able to focus on my family and my healing self - not my house. But I'm also limiting these projects to Will's nap times and after his bedtime. His world is going to change soon and I want to savor the last bit of him as the baby and make this time special for him.

One major thing I regret after Will's birth was trying to do too much. I felt like I had something to prove about getting out to all these events with my new baby and it was very overwhelming and stressful. I think we attended something like 6 functions (graduation and engagement parties, a wedding an hour away, etc) by the time Will was 3 weeks old. That was foolish of me. I hadn't even given myself a chance to heal and lay low. This time, it will be different. I owe it to myself and my children to worry less about expectations and focus my slowly building energy on what's important - bonding with my new family. If people want to see us, they can come to us. That's the expectation that SHOULD be upheld.

Happy Valentines Day

Our Valentines weekend was spent at home as a family. Will is recovering from another minor cold so he took 2 nice long naps each day and Craig and I used that time to get lots more productive work done around the house. Craig's been working on tiling around the new bathroom tub and repairing a wall in the nursery (a spot near the ceiling was damaged when the pipes froze). Will has been sleeping in the pack 'n play in his new room while the nursery's under repair. I painted in the nursery and today I got all the walls and furniture wiped down and put back into place. So the baby's room is as good as new and Will is back in the crib until we take the plunge and try out the big bed in his new room.

For Valentines Day, we cooked a nice steak dinner at home and Will "helped" me bake a berry kuchen for dessert. (He dumped the flour and brown sugar into the bowl and helped stir.) He liked standing up on the stool to see the action in the kitchen.

Will and I also made special Valentines last week for the babysitter and all his friends at the sitters. This one was for Lisa (the babysitter):



And here's a sample of the kids' Valentines. We used teddy grahams for a treat.



And we baked cupcakes that spelled out "B-E M-I-N-E" too.

Will also gave his daddy a special Valentine - the perfect treat for Craig...





We used a box of Nerds (Craig's favorite) and 2 peanut butter cups for the iPod and ear phones. I can't take credit for the ideas - I found them all in a magazine but they were pretty easy and I think they turned out cute!

Here's my littlest Valentine:







He's such a handsome little man. Cupid spoiled me twice with Craig & Will! They both stole my heart!

As of Friday, I'm 30 weeks. You know how on New Year's Eve when everyone starts counting backwards from 10 just before midnight? 10...9...8...7... and you're realizing that there's only seconds left of the current year and soon will begin a whole new one... 6...5...4... and you're excited but also sort of nostalgic of what is behind you and what is yet to come... 3...2...1...!!! That's what it feels like right now. Like the countdown to a big change is ringing in my mind and there's no slowing down the rush towards it. I'm so excited and definitely feeling more ready (though not "sick" of pregnancy yet), but can't really believe it's almost here.


Here's my Sophia-belly at 30 weeks. I'm up 21# now.

Stretchy pants... and other fashion faux pas.

There's comes a point in pregnancy when nothing else compares to the tragic fashion statement of stretchy pants. Sweatpants, yoga pants, gauchos, track pants, and other size-forgiving pants of that nature... they're heavenly.

This is especially true after a work day in which I must endure "business casual" in the form of maternity pants or pre-pregnancy pants with a bella band. (P.S. The bella band is an indispensable accessory in any maternity wardrobe - see http://www.ingridandisabel.com/ for what I mean.) Anyway, after a day of restriction, the lower abdomen is in need of looser comfort and the only sufficient option comes in the form of super soft cotton and, of course... stretch. Thankfully, there are acceptably cute options available that allow for errand running and guests over without embarrassment.

But wait... there's more...

Have you seen how much cuter options are available in maternity pants? So why are people still wearing those hideous over-the-belly-panel-pants? They're not even comfortable. And why do they even sell maternity underwear? If your butt gets bigger, just buy normal underwear a size bigger! It's bad enough that the majority of tops and shirts are empire wasted or tie behind the back, allowing us to look like 2nd graders or housewives in aprons.

So to all of the above, I say "no thank you"... accept to you, stretchy pants... you're always welcome in my closet. If we have to put up with our bodies getting huge and out of sorts, at least give us something fashionable to wear. Right?

Now if only we could get professional places of employment to accept flip flops as formal footwear with dress pants when our "cankles" make their appearance...

Happy Groundhogs Day!

I don't know about you all, but we still have our Groundhogs Day lights up from last year. LOL - just kidding.

What do you think? Spring around the corner?



We lost our mailbox (see above) for the ump-teenth time due to a plow truck. And check out these crazy drifts!



Will is not crazy about the white stuff. We were only outside for like 5 minutes on our way from the garage to the house, but he picked up some snow and wasn't impressed.



We had our friends Jason & Angie and their daughter Addison over for the Super Bowl on Sunday night. Addison (aka Princess Aurora) brought dress up clothes for her and Will to wear for the evening so here are our little princess and pirate.



Addison was quite the little lady and loved to pose.



But Will was too distracted by the long white sleeves and figuring out how to walk in a dress.

28 Weeks and Third Trimester!

As of Friday, we have entered the final homestretch of the pregnancy: THE THIRD TRIMESTER!!! I confess I'm a little scared to imagine how much bigger I will get, as I already feel huge and I still have 12 weeks to go! Our baby has technically been mature enough to survive on her own for several weeks now in the event that she was born prematurely. Thankfully everything appears to be going very well, though, and we don't anticipate any early arrivals. So Miss Sophia's job for the next 12 weeks (now that she is a fully-functioning human being) is to pack on the pounds... and MY job is to endure and support that. This trimester will definitely entail a major slow down for me, despite my best efforts. EVERYTHING becomes more difficult to do: cleaning floors on my hands and knees this weekend put a definite strain on my back; the extra workload my heart is managing in order to pump the additional 50% blood volume makes any physical task more exhausting so I find myself breathing heavier just from carrying a basket of laundry up the stairs; my belly is at exact counter height so I have to stand further back and lean over to brush my teeth or wash dishes in the sink; and of course sleeping is less comfortable and more interupted by bathroom trips so I'm less rested and still trying to take on a normal work day and be a good wife and mother. It's much more important now to start taking time for myself. My goal these last 3 months is to go to bed earlier, continue eating well, get outside walking as soon as the streets aren't snow-packed, and really focus on my body and my pregnancy. Not to mention the task of preparing for labor and childbirth - which is probably 20% physical and 80% mental. But that's a whole other topic, which I'll save for another post. Until then, here are some pictures for your visual pain - LOL:







If you look closely at the last picture, you can see the beginnings of my "linea nigra" (black line)forming - the slightly darker "racing stripe" that runs down the center of my belly. It will get darker and more obvious the closer I get to the end and then will disappear by 2-3 months postpartum.

On Monday morning, I go for another check up as well as my one-hour blood glucose screening. As of Friday, I'm up 18#11oz - within the ideal range, but more than I gained with Will at this stage.

More House Updates

This has been an insanely busy week and weekend. Besides working, Craig and I have been up late every night last week and spent ALL DAY Saturday doing non-stop house stuff. Our bathroom is nearly done and functional now. Since my last update, Craig put in the tile floor, Jim put in the tub and mirror (had to carve into the wall for the medicine cabinet), we painted and painted and painted, and finally Craig installed the toilet, sink and overhead light. I am so pleased with the results so far. We still have to tile around the tub walls, put in a large cabinet above the toilet, and put in the accessories like towel bar and ring, shower curtain, wall decor, valance, etc. Those are the things that really complete the picture, but we are just so happy to have a bathroom back!












In addition to the bathroom, we've been simultaneously working to prepare Will's room. Craig patched holes in the walls and touched up the paint, I purchased the new mattress and washed up the new bedding, Craig installed new shelving in the closet, I wiped down all the walls and floor and moved everything in. The nice thing about the closet is that there are built-in drawers and shelves, eliminating the need for any dressers in the bedroom. It may be awhile before WILL actually moves in because I anticipate some time needed to make the big bed transition. (That's a BIG bed for such a little guy!) But we have a bed rail for the sides and we're going to start with just weekend naps and go from there. So far, though, he's enjoying the new space that he seems to understand is for him and he loves playing with his new toy storage unit. We also indirectly decided on a map theme for the walls and decor. It's seems fitting because geography is something we're both pretty interested in and we already had a wall map that I had nicely mounted and framed for the office with colored push pins marking the places we've traveled (the one in the dark espresso colored frame). So we put in a Leap Frog globe and another world map and I think it looks cute. I also added a bunch of my favorite framed pictures that Craig and I have taken of Will for the shelves that were already up there.














It's such a relief to have all this work done. I couldn't help but stress about it and I'm definitely getting the nesting bug of pregnancy. My to-do list is still long, but now it's mostly organizing and preparing projects around the house.