Pregnancy Update - 18 Weeks

Since I just did a Mac update, I figured it's time to do a baby girl update as well!  So many of you have asked about this pregnancy and how it's going, I figured I'd put all your questions in a post and hopefully answer everything.  

(16 weeks)

How far along are you?

18 weeks!  Can you even believe it?  This pregnancy is flying by.  Baby girl is the size of a bell pepper and weighs as much as three eggs.  She has eyelashes and fingernails.  I've been feeling flutters for a while, but she's just now starting to make her presence known with kicks and punches, which has to be the greatest feeling in the world.  They're not strong enough to feel from the outside yet, so feeling her move is like a little secret between just the two of us.  It's such a wonderful and reassuring feeling. 

How do you feel?

Terrible!  Yeah, so far I've felt pretty awful for the majority of this pregnancy, but it's finally getting better (knock on wood).  This this around has been so different than my first.  With Mac I felt great, like I could take on the world, all the time.  I was happy and calm and (according to my husband) a joy to be around.  This time...not so much.  Up until this past week, I've been queasy and nauseous and exhausted. I've had horrible headaches, I've moody and quick to anger, I haven't been sleeping well and worst of all, food has not sounded good.  I haven't even been able to play around on Pinterest because just looking at the food would make me want to vomit.  Two rounds of the stomach flu this winter hasn't helped either.  If I never eat another cracker again for the rest of my life I'd be fine with it.  Luckily everything's starting to get better and my appetite is slowly coming back.  I still can't stomach the idea of fish or a green vegetable, but a BLT with extra mayo sounds mighty good (even at 9 a.m.).  Yay carbs!  As of last week, I was only up 3 pounds, but I have a feeling that's all about to change.  Baby's going through a growth spurt and so am I.  My bump is out in full force, along with my appetite this week, so I'm planning on a big gain over the next few weeks.  Bring it on!

(bump)

This is probably the last time I'm ever going to be pregnant (boo!!!), so I really want to enjoy it and savor as much as I can.  I breaks my heart just saying that this is it, but 2 is probably the right number for us.  Even though this pregnancy hasn't been as smooth as my first, it's been incredible.  I really do love being pregnant, even if I'm sick. Just knowing there's a baby in there, growing strong and kicking away, makes me so proud and excited.  I'm amazed at what my body can do and I love watching my stomach grow bigger by the day.  I love knowing that I'm protecting her and feeding her and taking care of her, way before she's even born.   I love rocking a giant bump and I can't wait for it to be bigger!  I've never felt more beautiful in my life than when I'm pregnant.  Pregnancy really is spectacular.  

How's nursery planning going?

It's begun!  I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, now I just have to make it happen.  I'm keeping it under wraps right now, because I know I'll change my mind a dozen times before it's actually ready to be shown to the general public.  Don't worry, I'll do a big reveal and before/after post when it's all done and I'm sure I'll give some sneak peeks on Instagram.  I'm getting some decorating tips and advice from the amazing Natasha, who is helping me design the nursery and pick out decor.  So far I've made a few purchases, but everything's still in boxes until we can get the room cleaned out and organized.  We've decided to do a whole new nursery and not convert Mac's room for the new baby.  Mac's room is closer to our room than future baby girl's nursery, which is currently being used as a spare bedroom (mainly for the cat), but we've decided to keep Mac in his current room.  Switching rooms would be a ton of work for us and I just think that might be more change than our little dude needs right now.  I also don't think he's ready for a toddler bed (I'm not ready for him to be able to get out of it!) yet, so we're going to buy another crib and convert his to a toddler bed later.  The less change/stress for him, the better.  And so what if we have to walk another 10 feet to get to her room.  We'll survive.  

(17 weeks)

Do you have a name picked out?

No.  This is so hard!  I like really classic traditional names and Ryan like more trendy modern names, so we're having a really hard time coming up with anything we can both agree on.  He has a hard time separating a name from anyone he knows with that name and I am just really picky.  We also have a lot of friends and family members that have chosen great names for their girls (our friends have excellent taste), so a lot of the names we really like have already been taken and we don't want to be duplicative if we can avoid it.  We do have one name we both really like, but it's not definite.  Unfortunately the people that I've mentioned the name to (our nanny and my parents) both gave me such strange looks and polite "oh, that's nice" responses (I don't believe them) that I've decided not to mention the name to anyone else for fear of getting my feelings hurt.  No, I don't care if everyone loves the name we pick, but I want to love it and I don't want other people's negative reaction to influence my decision.  So if we do choose a name, we're not going to tell anyone.  However, we're still open to suggestions, so fire away.  In the meantime, I think I'm going to use a nickname for her on the blog, like I do with Mac.  "Baby Girl" just sounds so generic.  When I started using "Baby Mac" to refer to our little bean, I never thought it would stick like it did, but I love it.  I want to give baby girl a nickname we also love (although I'm not sure we'll ever call her that directly), so I'm I will call her "Baby Mim."  And no, that's not foreshadowing the name, we still don't know what her name will be.  

What are you looking forward to?

Our anomaly scan is next week, so I'm excited to have another ultrasound and get a good look at baby girl (Mim?). I think the ultrasound will help me have some peace of mind. Still, in the back of my mind, I can't shake the feeling that this is all too good to be true and that something is going to happen.  I'm trying not to let it get to me too much, but it's always there.  I'm not sure if it's because of the miscarriage last year or maybe it's because I think Mac is the most amazing and perfect child to ever live and how can we possibly be that lucky again.  You know, a whole lightening doesn't strike twice mentality.  I'm still a nervous wreck.  I can't go more than 48 hours without breaking out the Doppler and listening to her heartbeat (which is strong!).  The more I feel her move, the more relaxed I'm becoming.  I hope she continues to dance away in there so I can finally calm the eff down. 

(18 weeks)

How is this pregnancy different than with Mac?
It's so different in so many ways.  Like I said, I was never sick with Mac, so 17 weeks of continuous all-day nausea was very different.  I also feel like I'm much bigger this time around. Of course I started out with a few more pounds this time, but the bump grew much faster.  And it's way less round this time.  The bump isn't exactly just in front of me like a basketball, it's more like an inner tube all the way around me.  Seriously, back and side bumpage?  WTF?  That's not cool.  Also, although I'm much more nervous this time around, I don't think about being pregnant as much as I did with Mac.  Sometimes I go hours without really thinking about it, whereas I don't think I went 30 seconds with Mac.  This is probably just due to the fact that I'm much busier this time, chasing a toddler around.  My skin is really dry, but that could just be because of the weather.  My hair is pretty awesome right now, which I'm totally digging.  I've been pretty good at keeping up with my pregnancy book so far, but I'm doing a poor job at getting pictures of myself that aren't taken with my iPhone.  I need to get the camera set up on the tripod and get some good ones.  I apologize for the crappy photos above.  I'll do better, baby girl.  I promise you'll have tons of photos and your entire life will be well documented, just like your big brother.

So there it is.  All is well and I finally feel like I might not die.  I have a renewed excitement about the rest of this pregnancy and I hope I'm able to enjoy it.  Being pregnant is such a blessing and I really want to love it as much as I did the first time around.  I'm so excited for this little peanut.  I've been dreaming about her for so long.  I can't wait to get maternity photos taken and for Ryan to feel her kick.   I can't wait to meet her and hold her and rock her to sleep at night.  I can't wait to do this whole baby thing all over again.  I feel like the luckiest person in the world.  

Baby Mac - 21 Months

Dear Baby Mac,

I know I should probably stop referring to you as a baby, but until your little sister makes her appearance in July, you are the baby of the family.  Actually, you'll probably always be a baby to me - that's just part of being the mom, I think.  I'm also just not ready to admit that you're much more like a kid these days than a baby.  You are a walking, talking force to be reckoned with.  Boy, oh boy, do you have OPINIONS.  Toddler independence is rearing it's head in our house and it seems like nearly everything is a battle.  The control freak in me is having a hard time letting go, but I'm trying to let you do things on your own, from brushing your own teeth to watering the plants to feeding yourself pudding.  Everything ends up a mess, but how else will you learn?  (See, this is me letting go.)

Right now you are in a phase where you LOVE to help.  Whatever it is that I'm doing, you want to help.  I think it's sweet and sometimes I get free labor out of it, so I let you help as much as you can.  Some of your favorite things to help with are washing the windows, mopping, vacuuming, laundry, feeding the dogs, watering the plants, bringing in the paper/mail, loading the dishwasher and making dinner.  Obviously not all of these tasks are doable for a 1.75 year old, but it doesn't stop you from trying.  Your absolute favorite thing right now is to vacuum.  Actually, it's for me to vacuum and you stand in the kitchen (away from the vacuum cleaner) and giggle with excitement.  At least 4 times a day you go over to the closet, point to the vacuum and say "Mama varoomvrm."  Our house has never been so clean.  I finally got you your own little baby Dyson so you can vacuum too.  But you still insist on using the big one from time to time. The highlight of your week is when the cleaning lady comes and you can follow her around helping her vacuum, mop and dust.

Over the last month, not only have you gotten more independent, but also more talkative.  I can't get over the language explosion that happened this past month.  You put 3-5 words together now, can repeat anything we say (which is dangerous), remember everything and ask for items by name.  It's so much easier to figure out what you want, now that you can talk and ask for things.  You constantly babble and talk to yourself in the car and while you're playing.  You have the cutest names for things, some of which I've written below so I don't ever forget how adorable they are.  You must be up to a couple hundred words by now.  I couldn't even write them all down if I wanted to.  I don't know how you know so much!  The only thing we still can't get you to say is "thank you."  You still use sign language to sign it instead.

You can identify all your colors and most animals (with noises).  You can count (sometimes) and can identify some letters.  Purple and orange are your favorite colors and you love the number 2.  Anytime I ask you how many there are or how many you want, it's always two.  You are figuring out possession and make sure to identify who the item belongs to (mama sock, dada hat, Sage bone).  You call yourself by your proper name (not "Mac"), despite us hardly ever calling you that.  I don't know how you know that's your name, but you do.  It's adorable and we probably need to be better about referring to you by both names.  You brain is just amazing in that you make the most incredible connections to things.  If we see a tractor you automatically say: tractor, Papa, maaaaaaaa, hay, golf cart, Go Cardinals, Cooper, birds.  This is because you saw a tractor at Papa's house, which was hauling hay to the goats, that say maaaaaaa, and Papa has a golf cart that you ride to the garden to see the cardinal and say Go Cardinals, and Papa's dog is Cooper and he chases birds.  It's amazing that one thing sparks a string of memories and thoughts.

Physically, you're also pretty amazing.  You love to throw the ball for Sage, shoot baskets and hit the golf ball with the club - all of which you are really good at.  You love to run fast, while saying "fass fass fass" and laughing.  You are a jumping/hopping machine.  Anytime you see a frog or bunny in a book or on TV, you have to hop around the room.  You are also a phenomenally bad/wonderful dancer.  Your dancing skills are more of a hop/flail combination that makes you look like you're having a seizure, but is so stinking cute I can't even handle it.  Your dad plays Pandora's James Brown channel in the playroom for you every night and you go nuts.  You jump around like crazy, arms everywhere until you fall down or you jump as high as you can and land on your butt.  Then you get up and do it again.  It's fantastic.  

Your dad is by far your favorite person right now.  You just can't seem to get enough of him.  You insist on him holding you, putting you to bed, helping you with things.  It's cute, but I hope it's just a phase because I miss being your favorite person.  It seems to flip-flop pretty regularly, so I'm holding out for a shift.  But your dad is pretty awesome and you guys do so many fun things together.  He takes you for 4-wheeler rides, out to mow the lawn or shovel snow, to the fly-shop to hang out with the dudes and for rides in the truck.  He's definitely your hero.  He's also really starting to rub off on you in other ways.  I mentioned before that you two love to play Big Buck Hunter on your iPad.  Well, now anytime you see a deer or a duck, you say "shoot shoot shoot."  This drives me nuts, but cracks us up.  My mom sent you a little stuffed deer and the Bambi II DVD, with an assurance that nobody gets shot in the movie and you wouldn't be traumatized for life.  However, as soon as you opened it and saw the deer you took it straight to daddy and said "shoot shoot shoot."  So much for that.  

You started swim lessons this month, with Grandma Bonnie.  You have a bit of a rough transition from the nanny to Grandma that early on Monday morning, but you always recover pretty quickly and you love the water.  Grandma says you have no fear and your favorite thing to do is jump off the edge into the water and go all the way under.  What a little daredevil you are!  At home we practice kicking, splashing and blowing bubbles in the bathtub.  I've been really cold at night lately, so I've been getting in the bath with you and we have the best time splashing and squirting each other, painting and blowing bubbles.  You love the water! 

You are very much a boy, in that you love trains, tractors, balls and dirt.  You love being outside, picking up sticks, jumping in puddles and raking the leaves.You also love your pets and all dogs and animals you see. Although, one weird thing that I've noticed is that you have somewhat recently developed a hatred of monkeys.  I have no idea where this stems from, but every time we mention monkey or you see a photo of a monkey you get this tragic look on your face and say "no no no."  We even had to turn Daniel Tiger off the other day because there was a stuffed monkey on the show and you were not having it.  None of us can figure out if you had some traumatic monkey experience or what happened.  It's weird.

One my favorite things about you is how sweet and loving you are.  You give the most amazing two-armed bear hugs and sloppy open-mouth kisses.  You now sometimes stop in the middle of playing or running around and come over just to give me a hug or kiss.  It's the greatest thing ever.  You are so loving to your stuffed animals too.  You have a giant dog, horse and giraffe in the basement and they are the recipients of so much love and affection.  You also sleep with at least 5 animals (babies) now: puppy, kitty, brown dog, giraffe and tiger.  There's also a little deer, cat and bear in your crib.  You take excellent care of your babies and love them so much.  Last night you weren't ready for bed when I put you in your crib, so I told you to sing a song to your babies.  You spent almost an hour singing to them until you fell asleep.  I listened to you on the monitor and cried because you are the greatest thing ever.  I just know you're going to be the best big brother this little girl could ask for.  

One of my least favorite things that you do is what we're calling a "water dump."  And no, I don't mean a poop in the bathtub (which you also do sometimes, but we're not going to go there).  You love love love playing in the sink, filling up cups of water, pouring them into other cups, washing the dishes, using the brush and soap.  But, when we tell you it's almost time to stop, you take a giant cup of water and dump it all over the floor.  On purpose.  Just to watch us get angry.  EVERY TIME.  It's always so fast and happens before I can stop it, even if I'm standing RIGHT THERE.  Then you give us that look...you know the one...the "screw you, I'll end this on my own terms" look.  Which results in you getting banned from the sink for the rest of the day and an inevitable meltdown.  This drives me bonkers!  And yet, we do it every day.  

Like I said before, you like to do things on your terms and are showing some serious independence these days.  And although I'm not emotionally ready for you to grow up so fast, it does make me incredibly proud that you're so assertive and confident and ornery.  You have the greatest personality and I couldn't be happier that you are mine.  Somedays I can't believe that you're almost two, although you are wise beyond your years (months) and you must think you're closer to 5.  You change so quickly that who knows what you'll be doing three months from now when you actually turn two...riding a bike, programming a computer?  Whatever it is will be amazing and I will be the proudest mama in the world, right there next to you.  

Love,

Your mama

Some of my favorite words:

• heabie (heavy)
• noonoos (noodles/macaroni)
• shit (shoot)
• Bonnie Kel (Grandma Bonnie or Granny Kel)
• bwirdie (bird)
• varoomvrm (vacuum cleaner)
• Ti Ti (tiger or Daniel Tiger)
• Shagey (Sage)
• Maui (Mally)
• feeesh (fish)
• geen (green)
• ribbit (frog)
• coo coo (cookie)
• hullo (hello)
• nack (snack)
• arepan up up (airplane)
• chair (sit)
• cacee hot (coffee)
• piss (please)

5 on Friday - Volume 10

ONE.
After last weekend's pukefest, I'm happy to admit we're all finally starting to feel better.  I ate my entire dinner last night, which hasn't happened in weeks.  Food has not really been my friend this pregnancy, which I'd really like to change.  I miss tacos.  Mac is back to being his usual ornery self and can flip that devil/angel switch faster than I can blink.  He can push my buttons to the point of explosion and then say "mama" so sweetly that I melt all over him.  I have a feeling he's going to be doing this same thing to me and his sister, girlfriend, wife, etc. for the rest of his life.  I know I say this all the time, but I can't believe how fast he's growing up these days.  It seems like he's aged 5 years in the last month alone.  I wasn't going to do a 21 month update, but I think I might now because he's so different than he was just last month.  Plus, his haircut makes him look like he's in high school.  Kills me. 

TWO.
I'm so glad it's Friday because we've got a pretty exciting weekend coming up.  Tomorrow morning Mac and I are heading to a "messy" play date at our local early childhood center.  As long as it's not crazy packed, I think he'll really like playing in the bubbles and sand and making a big mess.  Saturday night is date night!  Ryan and I are going out to dinner with friends and then going to the Avett Brothers concert.  Of course I know nothing about this group or their music (I'm so out of the loop), but I'm excited to get dressed up and out of the house with my handsome hubby.  I say this all now, but I'll probably want to go to bed by 9:30 p.m.  Sunday morning is the Pet Parade in Soulard, my old stomping ground.  Depending on the weather, we were thinking about taking Mac down to see all the dogs in costumes.  I think he'd get a huge kick out of it.  That afternoon I'm taking a photography class!  I actually won a free entry to a photography for moms seminar on another blog, hosted by a local photographer and I'm giddy at the thought of learning some new tricks and tips to be able to pass on to you guys.  Maybe I can finally master back-button focusing that we've been talking about forever.  I'm bummed that I won't have my favorite lens, but she mentioned that she'll have her lenses available for use.  I hope I don't fall in love with them or this is going to get really expensive.  

THREE.
USA!  Anyone else going to have withdrawals next week when the Olympics are over?  I'm not ready!  Whatever will I do with those 25 minutes of free time I have to watch TV?  :)  But seriously, the mom commercials are killing me.  I cry 3-4 times a night, just watching the commercials.  Pregnant hormonal women should not be allowed to watch those.

FOUR.
I know I just had a birthday and Christmas is long gone, but I'm going to need these...right now.

FIVE.
I mentioned this in my last post, but I'm so excited to be teaming up with some other fabulous bloggers to host a St. Patrick's Day recipe swap.  This will be open to ALL bloggers, so I really hope you'll consider linking up your favorite Irish/green/lucky recipe.  Anything goes (sweets, drinks, entrees, candy, bread, etc.).  Then you'll get swapped with another blogger and get to try her favorite recipe.  I'm planning on making some homemade Bailey's McCarty's Irish cream.  Mmmmmm...

Valentine's Play Date

A few weekends ago Mac and I were invited over to my friend Angie's new home for a Valentine's Day playdate.  Angie went all out with donuts and fruit and Valentine's goodies.  There were great decorations, toys galore, cartoons on TV and kids everywhere.  Of course I didn't get photos of any of that stuff because about 5 minutes into the playdate I realized that my camera was not working.  I'd dropped it a couple days before and must have done some damage to the lens...my favorite lens!  But Angie was a lifesaver and let me borrow one of her Canon DSLR lenses to take some photos of the kids that day.  I was too flustered after that to remember to take pictures of the food and decor.  Oh well.  Trust me, it was great. 

The whole playdate was great.  This has been such a long lonely winter, I was absolutely thrilled to get out of the house for a couple hours, somewhere safe and full of toys where Mac could play and I could chat, drink coffee (decaf) and catch up with some of my other favorite mamas.  Mac, on the other hand, was a bit of a crabapple that day and took a while to warm up, even after strawberries and donut holes.  He had an absolutely effing meltdown when we had the audacity to ask him to sit on the mantle with the other kids for a photo.  I mean, whoa!  He lost his shit.  I grabbed a couple of the major meltdown photos below from Angie's FB page because they were too funny to not share.  I love the look on the other kids' faces as they watch Mac throw a fit.   Hilarious.  And then Alyssa sent me that sweet one of Mac and I together while I was trying to calm him down.  I love that one.  The rest of the pictures are just happy kids at play.  Love.

Time for a group picture!

I mean, is that not hilarious?

Toddlers are so much fun.

Angie, I hope you don't mind me sharing this hilarious photo below.  She mentioned that N has been on a nose-picking streak lately (typical little boy), so I just had to get this shot.  It'll be great mama blackmail one day. 

Thanks again for having us all over and going above and beyond, Angie.  It was so nice to see everyone again and get the kids together for some play time.  This makes me want to have another playdate at our house (am I crazy?).  :)  

P.S. Is "playdate" one word or two?  I've used it both ways here and now feel like an English major failure.