32 Weeks

I had a check up yesterday and will now be going to the doctor every 2 weeks. I am curious when/if there will be another sonogram appointment. I know with Natalie they checked her pretty late in pregnancy, I think when I was full term. I think that was standard and not because they thought there was a problem but I am not sure if that is still what is done today.

Overall I am feeling better, my cold is mostly gone. My back has been bothering me a lot more though. On Tuesday it was so painful that it made it hard to do much. I took a 2 mile walk in the morning that day and was really struggling. Sometimes my belly just feels heavy and uncomfortable too. My energy is so so. I am lucky that most the time I can rest however much I want during the day and I usually take a nap an hour before I get Natalie from school. Just sitting around gets boring and there is always something around the house that needs to be done, so I try to get everything done before taking it too easy.

The nursery, aka her side of our tiny room, is all put together. We had to mount the t.v. to the wall and move a dresser to make room for the crib. I added a painting and some wall decals (well, Natalie put most of them on) to make it more homey as well. I've checked more items off the registry and washed blankets and burp cloths in addition to cleaning out a couple drawers of mine for all the baby stuff.

I have a feeling there will be a bit of sibling jealousy when Nugget arrives. Natalie already has made comments how the baby is lucky because she gets xyz like a fluffy blanket with rainbows on it and such.

 "Is this your height limit?" (Don't worry, we're going to do something about the ugly cords.)

A special moment decorating little sis's room together. 

Easter 2019

Another busy day is done and over with. 

Matt has now caught my never ending cold so he isn't feeling great. I've been having on and off headaches, nausea and a bit of random dizziness in addition to my stuffiness/congestion.

Like the Dayquill commercials say though: parents don't get sick days, so this Easter we did our usual traditions of an egg hunt in the morning for Natalie (she was very patient with us as we slowly got the morning started), then a visit to my mother in law, and ending the day at my parents house. 

We did a lot of sitting around while Natalie played outside with her cousin, my friends kids and a neighbor. Originally the weather was calling for rain, then it to be cloudy all day but it ended up being absolutely gorgeous and sunny. 

There is thankfully no school tomorrow. I am really not looking forward to it starting back up again and having to wake up early and send my baby off. I look forward to summer break and sleeping in and the luxury of deciding what we want to do with our day. I know life will get more challenging when the baby comes but I think the end of the school year is the perfect time for that change to come. 

Hope everyone had a happy Easter! 

Salon Baby Shower

Today was my work baby shower (and the only baby shower I am having). It was a pretty short shower with a smaller group but the generosity from my co-workers was anything but small! One of my absolute favorite items was a lovey that someone hand made! It was so soft and cute and I just love the time and effort put into it. I also got really spoiled by one co-worker in particular who I've known for over 10 years and who has been supportive of the whole process it's taken to get where we are today.  I really loved all the items though and it seriously is just so thoughtful to give anything.

I still am not feeling so well from having a cold but there is so much I feel needs to be done. I already finished my thank you cards (yay me) but tomorrow is Easter and I have a lot of cleaning/putting stuff away and some food prepping to do (it's 10 minutes to midnight) that I will try to knock out before morning.

Spring Break 2019

Before the school year began in September I went through the calendar and marked off every day there was no school. Spring break being the longest stretch (besides summer, of course) and it certainly seemed far, far away.

Well, it came and went very quickly. We started off the break with a trip up to NJ for a family celebration on Saturday. Matt's cousin Sarah is getting married June 1st (I'll be about 37 weeks pregnant so I am unfortunately missing the wedding) and her and her fiance had a "stock the bar" party. It was in lieu of a bridal shower and everyone brought alcohol or bar related items for the happy couple. A shame I couldn't partake in any drinking but it was still a fun time! My niece Bridget came along and her and Natalie had a blast just being in a new surrounding and mingling with family. We stayed in NJ until Monday since our plan was to go from there to O.C., MD.

Our second day in NJ was a bit rough for me since I have a cold and was feeling really lousy. My head was so stuffy and achey and I won't even take Tylenol while pregnant so I just suffered. We hung out with family before everyone parted ways and then Matt and the girls and I went to lunch. We originally talked about going on a little hike/nature walk before I felt like my head was going to implode, and the kids still really wanted to so after lunch we went to a reservoir and met up with Matt's uncle and his dog Dewey. The walk didn't last long because all the paths lead down to the water and the closer we got the thicker the swarm of mosquitoes were so we had to turn around. It was insane how many bugs there were and even though my whole body was covered in clothing I still managed to be the only one to get several bites on me.

The third day was spent driving to the beach and then heading to the indoor pool, ordering pizza, having hot cocoa and popcorn and playing Clue and cards the rest of the evening. Day four was more pool, a nice lunch at a restaurant with a playground and then a trip to Candy Kitchen where the girls got 36 inch gummy snakes as a treat. We then went to the beach for about an hour where the girls collected seashells and built sand fortresses. The evening was followed up with more pool, take out and games. The following day was...you guessed it: more pool, lunch, and then we went to a playground despite the wind and chill. We went back to the restaurant with a playground for dinner, then did a quick pool trip before ending the night per usual with family game playing. The last day (today) I requested a later check out time so we had a fairly lazy morning of lounging around before packing up and heading to the beach shortly. Since it was now past noon we decided to go to lunch before hitting the road so we went to a new restaurant with a playground before we headed back home.

Whew. I can say I am glad to be back home! This was not one of my favorite vacations by a long shot. I was sick, then Natalie got sick and became very sensitive/emotional and grumpy. It was a challenge to keep her in a good mood and she often complained and cried over the simplest things, which was obviously not fun. Still, I hope the kids look back on this and all the things Matt and I do to try and make life enjoyable and feel loved and like life is awesome, because it really is. My list of problems and complaints is very small and insignificant. I have my family (even when they drive me nuts) and that is the most important thing.

7 1/3

Seven years ago today Natalie was 4 months old. Obviously at some point I stopped counting the months and forgot about the date on the calendar and it's relation to her next birthday. Well, not my father in law...

He stopped by this afternoon with a box of donuts and a card for Natalie's 7 1/3 birthday like he does on the 4th of every month. He lives a few blocks away from us, and we have weekly dinners with him on Saturdays, plus he's my go to man when we need anything fixed in the house.

Since I am on a roll with the blog updates, I might as well do another Natty post on my big girl.

-She is generally just a happy, smiley girl, but she can tend to get in a grumpy mood quick when life isn't going according to her plans, especially when it comes to her best friend not being able to have a play date.

-She recently found a baby calendar that I wrote things in for most her first year and she loves looking at it. She told me how much she loves it, so I spent today looking for baby pictures to match the months and milestones in the calendar so we can add to it. Since she discovered the calendar she likes to play and pretend she's a baby again, something she used to do a lot. When she was about four years old she asked for Santa to make her a baby again on her wish list--so precious.

-She is very precise when it comes to time telling. She'll ask me what time it is and if I say, "8:00" she will say, "Exactly 8:00?" so I'll say, "No, it's 7:57" and she'll say, "Okay, that's not 8:00" 😐 No idea who she gets the smart mouth from...

-She likes looking through her yearbook and deciding who has the most unique name/last name. We  play a game where we choose two people and decide between them who's name is less common, something that started in kindergarten.

-She is well behaved most the time, but man do I have to repeat myself 100 times to get her to listen. I don't know or really think she's intentionally trying to ignore me, I think she just tunes me out and is busy in her own world that she doesn't process what I say until I sternly tell her.

-Just like when she was younger, she seems to prefer the company of adults over her peers. She does like to make friends from time to time with new faces but she gets a lot of positive attention from the adults around her (even if it's another parent on the playground) with encouragement or amazement at her cartwheels and such. She's literally gone over and made friends with adults on the playground. I love that she has the courage to chat up grown ups.


Updated 4.9.19

She says the funniest and cutest things.  We were walking home from school a few days ago and she randomly asked me, "How do bees decide who's the queen? Do they have a contest? And see who's the better dancer?" She knows they don't really have a dance contest to see who's queen but I absolutely adore her silly nature.

Last night after her bath she was looking out of the bathroom window as a train with graffiti was going by and she said, "Who hires people to do vandalism on trains?" and the usage of the big word vandalism (I didn't even know she knew that word) along with thinking someone pays someone to do that was just so precious.

She got a new baby doll thanks to some money from Matt's aunt and uncle who visited from Pennsylvania this weekend, and she has been such a good little mommy since! She brought her baby along with us wherever we went and packed her a diaper bag. She dotes on the baby like it's real and the first thing she asked about yesterday when she came home was where her baby was. She calls me and Matt the grandparents and asked me if I wanted to hold the baby. I did but apparently not very carefully so Natalie got a bit annoyed and asked me to give the baby back to her. Once I did she said to the doll, "I'm sorry you have a bad grandma." Haha!

29 Weeks

Hello, April! If time was flying fast before, it is going to speed up even more this month. We've got spring break coming up that includes a family wedding shower, a beach trip and then my baby shower right when we get back, plus Easter the day after my shower. Whew! 

Things are getting slightly less comfortable with my expanding and changing body, but nothing too bad...yet. Backaches are frequent,  my appetite has increased, I've started getting a hint of heartburn here and there, especially when I lie down and I also get winded pretty easily. Yesterday when I was just sitting down I felt out of breath and exhausted after no physical activity so that freaked me out a little but I think it's normal. I noticed my feet fall asleep easily too, so hopefully Nugget is just sitting on a nerve or disc or something and it's not a circulation issue. 

Another change that isn't physical but is definitely happening is irritability. Ugh. Matt thinks I am easily annoyed in general (which is kinda true, people are easily annoying) but I notice just how much more people are starting to get on my nerves lately. It's nothing major but I just don't feel like interacting with anyone much. 

I was told my belly "popped" which I can't really agree or disagree on since it's hard to know how big I've gotten since I see myself everyday. There are several things that factor in how big my belly looks too like what I'm wearing, how I'm standing, how big a meal I just had. I can't wait for the weather to get and stay warm, but I dread how hot and sweaty I'll be once May comes along. On nice days like today it's great to put on a comfy maxi dress and enjoy the mild weather.