Rolling over, swimming, shots, and siblings

I'm sad to admit that almost all of the progress made in the last week with the kids at night has been lost.  We all got a case of the stomach flu. In an attempt to help Zoey find a little extra comfort and sleep better at night, we gave her binky back at night.  Today she woke up at 6AM instead of her usual 7:30 or 8.

Nate also learned to roll over while sleeping. This is a great milestone. And I would be more excited, but it wakes him up, pulls his blanket off, and makes him quite upset.  I'm not really sure how do deal with this. I don't want to have to interfere every time he rolls over, but I'm not sure how else to get him to sleep.  I'm sure he's not going to figure out how to roll back onto his tummy for a couple of months.  Sigh.

Such is life, I guess:  two steps forward, one step back.

Some other things we have been doing lately include Nate's first, second, and third time swimming.  We tried to get it all in before the weather got too cold and the pools close.  I even slipped his head under for half a second a few times. He was a champ every time. He is always very surprised, but never cries or chokes.

Zoey is swimming better than ever.  She can swim about 3 feet under water in one breath.  She loves the hot tub, jumping in, and playing motor boat with dad as well. She is learning to swim out a little bit and turn around to swim back to the step all by herself.  Sometimes she swims a little too far before turning back tho and needs a little nudge to make it in time.

Zoey is such a sweet little two year old right now.  She is really learning to deal with her feelings and take deep breaths to calm down. She can articulate what she wants and is even polite and patient most of the time. She plays with her little brother so well.  She tries to tickle him both with her hand and by "eating" his belly. He thinks it's funny.  She loves to cover him with blankets and tuck him in.  She plays peek a boo with him even tho he has no idea what is going on.  It's so fun to see them interact.

Nate just got his 4 month shots and cried for about thirty seconds.  What a champ.

Bye bye binky

Yesterday Zoey had little sores, like a tiny rash or cold sores on her chin.  Tanner said something to Zoey about them and asked them if they hurt. I don't think she had noticed them or knew they were there before he asked, but sensing his concern, she too was concerned. She said, "ow. Yeah it hurts dad." She has had these sores before and they went away after we put some petroleum jelly on them. Tanner told Zoey that he thought they were caused by her binky (or more precisely from her slobber when she sucks on it).

"I think we need to take a break from your binky for a few days to help your chin get better.  Do you want to try sleeping without your binky tonight?"  "Yeah!" She replied enthusiastically, to my surprise.  Later, when it was actually time for bed, I thought she would change her mind. But she was still up for the challenge. So the two of them went up to her bed together. Tanner was secretly armed with a binky in the case that she insisted she needed it, but he didn't end up using it. He said she did get sad when she laid down. And he did have to do some more convincing, but she put on her brave face and said in her shaky brave voice, "I not use binky." Probably followed by her hysterical laugh to keep from crying.

But after he left, she fell asleep like any normal night. And was quiet til morning. Could it be that easy?

She got her binky back the next day for her nap because she was so hyper and wiry and not close to sleepy at all. As soon as he slipped the binky in her mouth, she immediately put her head on his shoulder and cuddled. We decided she can use it for naps for now.  This was really just an experiment.

Night two and three without a binky have been successes as well. I'm so proud of her.

Nate slept!

Nate hasn't been sleeping very well lately. His naps are regularly 30-40 minutes and it feels like he is starting to wake up more and more at night.  Although he will actually sleep in his crib, which is far beyond what our first baby would do, I'm not completely satisfied to wake up every 1 1/2-2 hours all throughout the night to nurse the little guy. We have his crib in our room so I don't have to walk down the hall 6 or more times a night every time he wakes up. Climbing out of bed, picking up the baby, and sitting in the chair for 15 minutes to nurse him, where I can't really even slouch or get comfortable starts to feel like torture when I have to do it over and over and over.

After a particularly grueling night, when Nate was waking way too often and then having to be held and bounced because his stomach couldn't settle, I decided it was time to start sleep training him and stop sharing rooms. As convenient as it was to have him close, maybe we were bugging him and I think I was too quick to respond to his every noise. I didn't want him to bug Tanner any more than necessary, so I would pick him up if I thought he was close to crying.  I think I was unintentionally forcing him to wake more by picking him up instead of helping him.

That morning I told Tanner about my bad experience and that I was planning to blow up the air mattress for Tanner and I to sleep on in the room next to Zoey. We would leave Nate and his crib in our room, down the hall from Zoey so as not to wake her when he cries. I was determined not to feed him till 4 hours after his bedtime feed.

He went down really easy that night around 8:30 after I nursed him at 8. He woke up at 9:30 and I let him cry for 5 minutes. He has been throwing up frequently, so I went to check on him expecting to do a quick clean up, but there was nothing. I picked him up and he kept crying for about a minute. Then he spit his binky out and was quiet, so I put him back in his crib. He just kept sleeping. Weird.

He didn't wake up till 3 1/2 hours later (11:30). Not quite the 4 hours I was hoping for, but also not the fight I was expecting. I was happy to feed him. When he woke up 2 1/2 hours after that, I was expecting a hellish night. I let him cry for 5 minutes and went to check on him again. I caved and nursed him. He fell right asleep and I went back to bed.

I woke up at 6am, went to look at the monitor to check on him and realized that the sound had been turned off and it was facing down. I wouldn't have noticed if it turned on when he cried. He was sleeping at the time, but I felt guilty not knowing if I slept through a crying spell that may or may not have happened during that 4 hours.  I shrugged, thought 'what can I do now?", and went back to sleep.  I was more aware from then on. Every time he peeped, I knew it, but I didn't go to him. I didn't need to. He never woke up.  Not till 8am. That's 6 straight hours of uninterrupted sleep for me, people!

When he woke in the morning, he just sat up on his elbows and looked around. He didn't cry out. He was all smiles when I went to him. If he did cry for 3 hours straight, (I don't think he did) he was holding no grudges. I am thrilled with our success. I am definitely encouraged to keep our training going.

To make things even better, he went down for his first nap 2 hours after he woke up and slept for 2.75 hours straight. He has not done that since he was a teeny baby. Go Nate.

Bye bye crib complete

I guess since I made the big girl bed a "thing" by writing about it when we first bought the bed, I will follow up. Even though it hardly seems like an event now.

 We ended up giving up on the bed for a month or two because Zoey was just nervous about it and it was taking a lot of convincing to make her even consider sleeping there. So it sat there in her room, across from her bed, empty for quite some time. It wasn't ever a problem with baby Nate because he slept on my chest for a couple of months, and later we put him on our pack n play mattress next to my bed.

About two weeks ago (Zoey is now 2 years and 3 months old) Tanner decided to have an activity where we took the sliding wall off of the crib to make it a day bed. Zoey thought it was kinda cool. And we were now a lot more confident that she wouldn't fall off. When night came, naturally, she got nervous. Tanner was quick to remind her what one of her favorite TV characters, Daniel Tiger, sings, "when we do something new, let's talk about what we do." She was happy for the reminder and they talked about how now she can get out of her own bed in the morning instead of having to wait for mom or dad to come get her out. She slept the whole night, no problem. And every night after that.

Close to a week after, I decided to move the whole crib into my room after her nap was over. She helped me unassemble and reassemble the crib to get it through the doors.  Tanner took her to her "go go bed" (big girl bed) that night and they talked about it. No fight. Maybe a little nervousness.  But no problem. She just slept and has been doing great ever since.

What a night and day difference this experience was compared to all other sleeping experiences when she was a baby. Even in the couple of months from the time we bought the bed to now; she has matured so much. For us it was all about timing.

Welcome Baby Nate

Nathan James Cox was born at 8:00AM on April 27, 2015. We call him Nate.

We had scheduled a c-section because of the complications and failure to progress with the last pregnancy.  It was weird, but very comforting and convenient to know his birthday before the day actually arrived.  That alone took away a lot of the suspense and anxiety with giving birth.

 I was very nervous because giving birth to Zoey was simply hell. And the recovery afterward wasn't a whole lot better.  I remember feeling kind of panicky as we got ready for bed the night before Nate was born. I slept so terribly that night though because the baby was hurting me trying to push his head down and his feet up into my ribs. By the time morning came, I was ready for whatever it took to get him out of my body.

My mom stayed the night at our house, so Tanner and I left Zoey sleeping in her crib as we headed for the hospital. 15 minutes later, at 6AM, we were checking in to labor and delivery.

It was weird how calm everyone was. I put on my gown, the nurse put my IV in and just sat and talked to us for a while, asking about my medical history and whatnot. The anesthesiologist came in to tell us about the spinal tap and what he would be doing.  Then the ob came to say hi too.  When everything was all set up, they just walked me into the operating room.

 I sat on the table, had a couple pokes in my back, felt my legs go numb, and proceeded to lay down on my back, with help of course.  Soon, my doctor came in and they draped the blue sheet in front of my face. There I was: naked, but warm, comfortably uncomfortable; having a baby without even knowing it.

Most feeling was gone, but a little bit of a tugging sensation in my abdomen, which to me, felt kind of like baby kicks

It is so surreal to me. There were about 15 other people there hanging out in the OR. Some were helping with the surgery, handing instruments and stuff. Some were just waiting for their turn to take care of the baby.  Still though, everyone was so calm and quiet.  No franticness or even excitement.  It was just like a regular day at the office for them.  I could hear the doctor talking about his weekend.  I thought it was so bizarre.  Later, when they were stitching me back together, I realized the anesthesiologist was being really quiet, just sitting there by my head.  I asked him,  "whacha doin?" He was apparently just texting! Answering a question about another patient, he said.  No worries, just hanging out as if we were at the park roasting marshmallows together or something. 180¤ turn around from the painful, chaotic, tramatic birth we experienced with Zoey. I almost wish I could do it again. No. But I would watch it if there was a recording.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, they lift gross, purply, goobered, perfect, crying Nate over the blue sheet for me see for about 3 seconds.

Then they take him over to the side of the room (where I could still see) to wash him off and weigh him. When he was clean, they brought him over to lay on my chest while they finished sewing my insides.

He wasn't even crying by then.  The whole experience was amazing! After, they wheeled me, baby in arms, to a room to recover for an hour.

This is when Tanner's mom, my mom, and Zoey came in to see us.  I was worried that I would be too loopy or in too much pain immediately after the surgery to really interact with them, but that was not the case. Although super itchy from the morphine, I was a regular person, just without a baby inside me anymore.

I was thrilled when Zoey came running in with grandma all jumpy and chipper as ever. I had been nervous about how she would react to waking up with someone new; Tanner and I not being there at all.  She was a champ throughout the whole thing though.  Apparently she would get sad when they would have to leave the hospital without me for nap or bedtime, but other than that, I think she was pretty good.  She has been and still is obsessed with her little brother.  She always wants to hold him. She's always trying to share her food with him. And she's always trying to climb into the pack n play where he sleeps during the day in our living room.

Nate is the perfect baby.  I don't know how we got so lucky. He is almost always content. He's cried only a handful of times in his whole life and that includes his first cry out of womb and the four times they had to poke him for his jaundice test.  He was a little yellow, but it's going away on its own without having to have a light treatment.  We're happy he's here with us now.  And I'm happy I don't have to share my body as living space anymore.

Oh by the way, he was born weighing 7lbs 11oz and was 20 1/2 in long. He's still very tiny.

Bye bye crib part 2

Wednesday day 8: Zoey slept in her crib again last night. When I took her up for her nap and started to put her in her crib, she wiggled and whined in my arms and said, "crib, bed, diffent." She's a little confused about the names right now, but after clarifying, I knew she didn't want to nap in her crib.  I told her ok, but that she has to stay in bed. I told her that if she climbs out, I'm gonna put her in her crib.  She didn't try to climb out. She just laid there snuggled in her blanket til she fell asleep a couple minutes later and I snuck out of the room. She woke up an hour and a half later, turned off her heater and fan, and came downstairs all by herself. I really like the part where I don't have to go upstairs to get her out of her crib. By bedtime though, she didn't want to sleep in her bed. She wanted her crib. I wish I knew why.

*update*  Since March 10th (about 3 weeks ago and 3 weeks after her first night in her bed) I have documented that Zoey had slept the night in her bed 10 times and has taken 6 naps there. I'm thinking that she has done a couple more that I didn't get documented, but we'll go with that.  16 out of 46 sleep times, she slept in her big girl bed. We tried being strict about it for a couple of days; to just remove the choice to sleep in her crib and be very firm about staying in her bed, but that seemed to cause a lot of contention before falling asleep, which kind of defeats the purpose, so we backed off a little.  Lately we have been placing her straight in her bed without asking. Almost every time she will ask for her crib, but sometimes if we just ignore it and continue on, she won't push it or ask any more.  When she does push harder for the crib and tries to climb out of the bed, then we don't fight her.  We let her have her way; and she gets to sleep in her crib for the next few hours.

It may not be a quick fix, but that's not what we need right now.  I just want her to feel comfortable and safe. I think that once we stopped making it such a big deal and eased up on both Zoey and ourselves, the process went very smoothly. When Zoey willingly sleeps in her bed, she always stays there the whole time till morning or till she feels rested enough from her nap.  She doesn't fight me when I leave the room, and she wakes up happy. We have only done about 3 nights in a row at this point, but she is becoming more and more accustomed to this being a permanent thing.  I'm proud of her so far! Change can be very hard.

Feeling anxious about another birth

I'm just now remembering how awful the whole baby - having process is.  I'm afraid to do it again and have Zoey to deal with too.  I remember being in the hospital for 3 (was it 4?) days to recover from the surgery.  I had almost forgotten the swelling, the numbness, the bleeding, the constipation, the thirst, the pain, and the exhaustion that all came with the c-section.

It took everything out of me just to get out of bed to pee. I wouldn't be able to lift my own legs back into my bed. My legs were so heavy and numb and weak.

I remember trying to pump breast milk every two to three hours.  I really struggled at first; the machine didn't work like I was expecting.  They told me how important it was to wash it after every time I pumped, but how was I going to get in and out of bed and hobble all the way over to the sink that many times? It felt like by the time I would get my dead legs back into bed, it would be time to pump again. It is a good thing Tanner was there to help me with this many times. I should be better at that this time with the experience I now have, but there is still that awful schedule of not getting more than three hours of sleep at a time.

Then, Zoey was in the nicu downstairs with nurses to take care of her. I would make the very long journey down there a couple of times a day to nurse her and hold her. I remember staggering down my hall to the elevator, one arm clinging to my husband for support, the other desperately trying to keep my insides from falling out through this new 5 inch cut in my abdomen. The muscles that usually would have done that job were basically deteriorated by this time.  Not to mention, they had split right down the middle from the stress of trying to hold a nine pound baby. Oh, and of course, they too had been sliced apart to get that baby out. By the time I got downstairs to see my little angel, I could barely keep my eyes open. I would sit there with my baby in arms trying to rest enough to make the trek back upstairs to my bed.

Oh the exhaustion! But what I'm worried about this time is what we are going to do with Zoey.  She can't come to the hospital with us, especially not for 3 or 4 days.  There will be no nurses to care for her around the clock.  Not that I would want that anyway. I want Tanner to be home with her.  He knows her schedule, her routine, her tricks, and how to make her listen and calm down. He's her daddy.  But I want him to be there with me.  I guess we will have to find someone to replace him in one place or the other.

Those worries are all reserved for before we even bring the baby home.  What about after? I remember how I had to sleep in the reclining chair in our living room for about a week after the birth because I couldn't recline all the way onto my back due to the incision and stitches on my stomach. We will have to set up shop on the mainfloor for a while. I'm worried that I won't be able to go up and down the stairs to help get Zoey to bed and what not.  I'm worried that our schedule that we spent so much time perfecting will be thrown in the garbage.

And how will I keep everyone fed? I could barely eat enough nutrients and calories for myself when I was nursing Zoey in the beginning. How will I find the energy to feed four of us? I'm tired just thinking about it.

Speaking of tired; Do I even have to mention the sleepless nights to come? With a restless infant waking, crying, pooping, and nursing all throughout the night? Let's not. Let's just try to forget about that for now.

In fact, maybe I should just try to forget all of these things for now. The problems will inevitably arise; there's really no avoiding them. There will be pain, some hardship, and definitely change, but there will also be good.

Even with all of the craziness at the hospital those first few days of Zoey's life, I can't help but look back at the experience with sweetness in my heart, for they were just that, the first days of Zoey's life. Holding her in my arms, I felt something indescribable. Something so miraculous, I'm surprised my heart didn't explode. I know it will be amazing to hold my little man in my arms too. Maybe even so incredible that all the struggles will be made worth it.

Mealtime struggles with a toddler

If you need to practice your patience, I have a really great exercise for you: try to teach a toddler to use utensils to eat. Zoey has been learning, trying, and practicing for months now and it still frustrates me. I cooked her a bowl of oatmeal today and she insisted, like always, on eating it all by herself. This would be fine if she could actually get the food to get mouth before turning the spoon and dumping it all over herself, the table, chair, and floor. She is stubborn about this particular thing.  If I try to explain to her that she has to keep the spoon facing upward on the way to her mouth, or heaven forbid try to show her, she freaks out and shakes the oatmeal filled spoon trying to get me to let go. I, in turn, trying to prevent a gigantic mess of splattered oatmeal in hair and on walls, hold on to the spoon even tighter, which, of course, makes her shake the spoon even harder. It's quite the struggle and it makes meal time last oh so long. Today tho, after 5 or 10 minutes of this patience practice, Zoey took a good spoonful of oatmeal, slowly brought it to her mouth, keeping her elbow up and her spoon facing the right direction the whole time and slipped it directly between her little lips without even a drop falling off. I praised her and told her to do it just like that again. To my surprise, she did do it just like that again! And again and again. Finally something clicked between her brain and her little muscles to complete the task like she has meant to. All of a sudden she was eating the whole bowl of oatmeal like a regular spoon user. Wahoo! I was so happy, I wanted to squeeze her.

It's hard to believe that all of the negative things I have felt over each meal time in the past few months were erased and made completely worth it by this couple of minutes of accomplishment of eating a bowl of oatmeal. I tell you though, it happened.  I don't even care about any of that anymore. I'm just a proud little mama. I was even more proud when I gave her noodles for lunch and she was still able to use the spoon to get them to her mouth. You never really know if something is a one time occurrence or if it will stick till the next time.  Today, I relish the joys of motherhood that outweigh the frustrations.

Bye bye crib

I want to write down the process we are going through as we transition Zoey out of her crib.  It might be interesting to look back on later when we are ready to try with another kid. Zoey is 21 months old now.  We bought a toddler bed that is low enough to the ground that she can climb in all by herself and it has a little railing on each side of her pillow so she doesn't fall of the bed.  It holds a crib size mattress. It is a used one that we found on the ksl classifieds; $40 for the bed and mattress.  We picked it up on Sunday and just let it be in her room for a couple of days.  She would climb onto it and get used to it when I was putting the laundry away or just doing whatever in her room during the day.

I thought we'd start with night time and get that established before I tried naps. She can see better for naps and I don't want her climbing out after a 20 minute snooze. Right now we've got a good thing going with naps where she goes down willingly and sleeps at least an hour and a half. I'm not in a hurry to mess that up. 

On Wednesday, day 1: Tanner put her in the new bed at bedtime. She snuggled in and didn't even act like anything was different.  She slept the whole night till 6:15am,  when she woke up and cried, "daddy, daddy, binky, binky." I think she was scared because she woke up in a new place. Tanner went in to her to try to coax her back to sleep for at least another hour.  She stood up like she would do in her crib and just cried, "get out!  Get out!" meaning that she wanted to get out of bed.  She didn't even realize that she could climb out of this one by herself.  Sadly, we didn't get that extra hour of also we are hoping for.

Day 2: I can't remember all that well. I guess because it was a couple of days ago and apparently nothing that noteworthy happened. I believe she slept like normal till 7ish, climbed out,  and came to cuddle with tanner in the morning.

Day 3: I checked the monitor at 5 and saw that she didn't have her blanket or binky which often means we will have an early morning when she realizes it. So I snuck into her room like a ninja, recovered her, and placed her binky very close to her hand so she could easily put it back in when she wanted. Just as I was closing the door behind me as I left, she saw me and started to cry for me to come sit by her as she fell asleep again. Dang! So I went back and sat on the floor next to her bed forever because I wanted her to be all the way asleep before I attempted to leave again.  This time I made a safe escape. The morning was pretty great tho. When she woke up at 7ish , she looked around and said, "bed, beddy, bed" in her happy, well rested voice.  She climbed out of bed and said, "Yay!" and went straight downstairs. She came back up about 5 or 10 minutes later,  said hi to tanner in bed and went back downstairs to watch a show on the tablet (cus she knows how to turn one on all by herself) for another quiet hour.  Can you believe it?! I didn't have to wake up with her and go entertain her.  She actually let us sleep without causing any trouble or whining or anything.  I felt a little guilty around 8 and went down to be with her anyway.

Day 4: Zoey woke up at 4:15 to realize she didn't have her blanket on anymore and her binky was lost. She screamed, "daddy, daddy!", (notice what a daddy's girl she is) hurried to climb out of bed, and ran to our room.  Tanner took her back to her room and lulled her back to almost - asleep.  But she noticed when he tried to leave the room and tried to climb out of bed again.  He ended up putting her in her crib so he could get away without her following him.  She didn't mind when he left after that.

Day 5: She has been cranky all day.  We had to put her in her crib to sleep tonight because she won't stay in her bed and had to cry for a minute before falling asleep.

Day 6: I tried to put her in her bed, but she stood up and begged for her crib.  I didn't feel the need to fight with her about it, so in the crib she went. She was happy to be there and laid down immediately.
Hmm.. Maybe she's not really ready to grow up in that way yet.  I wonder if the runny noise that started today has anything to do with it. Although I would love to not have to go get her out of her crib every morning, it's not worth it if we have to go in to her at 4am instead.  I'm okay with waiting a little longer. I'll just update as we go.

update: 27 weeks along with baby boy

I have 12 weeks left of being pregnant. I believe that puts me officially into the third trimester. I am feeling anxious to have the baby! Not only because I don't particularly enjoy being pregnant, which I don't, but mostly because I just want him to be here with us. I want our family to be complete. Even tho we know he is real and I can feel him moving inside of me all the time, it's like he's only pretend. He isn't really here. Not yet.

I can't wait for Zoey to finally know her little brother and to start to get used to the life of sisterhood as opposed to only-childhood. I feel like the longer she is here, alone, with only mommy and daddy, the more she thinks that is how things are supposed to be. She is getting awfully familiar with hogging all of our attention.  The longer this baby stays inside my body, the harder it is going to be for her to get used to having another baby in our house. I'm being a little bit dramatic I'm sure. How much of a difference is 3 months going to make anyway? I don't know. I can't do anything about it anyway. But I just want him here with us now.

My sister, Taylor, just had a baby shower this past weekend.  And my mom was smart enough and adamant enough to get a picture of she, my cousin Leisa, and I all together with our baby bellies. We are all having boys. If you include my other cousin, Nicole, who has a one month old baby, and my sister-in-law, Staci, who is 6 weeks behind me, you will count 5 baby boys all born within 6 months of each other. Our little guy is going to have some fun buddies to hang out with when the time comes. Anyway, here are the pictures that my mom took of us. Just for the sake of knowing what I look like this go-round, since I've taken about 0 pictures this whole pregnancy. I am 27 weeks along, Leisa is 41, Taylor is 34, and Taylor's aunt is 24 weeks along with twins. I hope no one minds me putting pictures of them here.

Baby belly kiss 

St George Spontaneity

Tanner and I have started to feel spring fever because it has been pretty good weather lately,  not freezing, snowing, winter, January weather that we have been expecting.  It has been nice,  but also leaving us wishing for just a little bit warmer,  so when we heard that it was going to get into the 70s in St George, we decided Friday to pack up and go there that evening .  We have been wanting to get away but then we get overwhelmed with the planning of hotels and traveling around nap time and heaven-forbid flying anywhere, so we have put it off. This trip was the most spontaneous thing we have done since Zoey was born. I think it was the lack of planning and worry time that made it possible (and the two bedroom hotel rooms we got so we wouldn't bug the babe while she slept).  We left here at 5pm on Friday and drove 2.5 hours to Beaver so Zoey could be in bed only a half hour late.  On Saturday, we played at the hotel pool and then left to drive the hour to get to St George.  Zoey only napped for 40 minutes in the car, but was a champ the rest of the day considering how tired she must have been. I should mention that she woke up at 5:45 and wouldn't go back to sleep. We didn't do much,  just enjoyed the wonderful, warm, sunny weather.  We played at the park for most of the day.  Then on Sunday, we packed up the car and drove all the way home.  It was nice because we weren't in a hurry to get home.  We stopped for an hour at lunch time in Fillmore and played outside some more.  It still only took us 5 hours to get home. No nap at all on Sunday; Zoey was practically begging for bed when the time came.  All-in-all, the trip was a huge success.  We really needed that warm weather boost. 

Baby again

I guess this as good a time as any to tell the new news in our lives. Baby number two is on his way.  I've been cooking this little bun in my oven for almost 6 months now.  The due date is May 4th,  2015. I haven't been taking pictures like I did the first time around.  These are a couple of quick pics my mom took on her phone two months ago.

 You can see something is happening, but the bump is nothing like it is now.  Maybe I'll get around to getting some up-to-date pictures taken off my family and I before the little guy gets here.  Maybe.

The first three months were annoying with all the queasiness and food aversions. I found it very challenging to feed Zoey because I felt like I was gonna throw up if I looked at any food.  I was always exhausted and my stomach and belly hurt constantly.  It's hard to explain, but it felt like my belly was tired from holding all the extra new stuff inside. It doesn't make sense because there wasn't really anything there yet,  but it felt like it. I'll chalk it up to hormones I guess.  Time pressed on though, and the sickness gradually eased up and went away for good by month four. I was feeling way more energy too.  In fact, month four and five weren't bad.

Now month six is getting annoying again, but for different reasons. Mostly just because of this huge stomach I now have.  I have few shirts that cover it, most of which are special maternity shirts.  None of my regular pants fit.  I have maternity pants that stretch over my belly but squish it so bad, it's hardly worth the pain.  I'm just happy that my current boss (my kid) doesn't care if I wear my husband's pajama pants all day.  I already feel short of breath like my lungs are running out of room.  I can only imagine what is in store for the next 3 and a half months.  I'm being a baby though, I know.  I don't have any real problems like high blood pressure or the many other worse things that often accompany pregnancy.  I actually have it very good compared to a lot of other women.

Zoey is already learning to adapt.  She knows that I will only hold her if I'm sitting, lifting her out of her crib, or giving her a piggy back down the stairs (if I'm feeling nice).  She hardly ever even asks anymore because I anyways tell her "I can't hold you, it hurts my tummy." It makes me a little sad. I want to be able to hold her sometimes too. This is just the first of many changes that are going to be happening in zoey's life. I don't want to take away these sweet pleasures, but that's the way life goes I guess. She will be a great big sister.  (picture taken in August)