Fever Update & 20 Weeks

Here I am at about 20 weeks along. Still feeling decent enough and enjoying the arrival of another cute little bump!

Natalie’s fever didn’t escalate into a nasty sickness of some sort, thank goodness- she was pretty much back to normal after a day or two, although she still seemed tired. But now we’re dealing with a new issue- she’s started to throw these little mini tantrums. The other day, she didn't nap well (that may have been part of the problem) but then she got really frustrated, fell to the floor, put her head down and just screamed. This happened after she took just two bites of her mush dinner and then decided that she didn't want any more after she saw my bagel (with nutella!). I wanted her to eat her dinner, but she just wasn't having it. So I took her out of the chair and then she did her little fit (which I ignored) and then she bit me! I couldn’t believe it! So I grabbed her and gave her a little time out. Then I gave her a bath and put her to bed early. She went right to sleep as soon as I put her down with her paci and slept straight through the night. Poor thing. It’s tough dealing with her on my own when Eric’s away at work in the evening!

Eric and I are going to be in a wedding for our good friends, Stephen and Jenny, coming up in May- I'll be over 8 month along at that point, so it will be interesting to see what kind of bridesmaid dress I'll fit into! Anyway, I've been trying to organize Jenny’s bridal shower this past week. Luckily the other girls in her party have been pretty helpful. We'll see what actually happens, but I'm just happy to see people stepping up to help out. I offered to do the invitations, and then I emailed a little task sign-up sheet to everyone a few days ago. So far, food, drinks, dessert, and decor have all been accounted for. That just leaves games and favors I guess, and I'm still waiting on one more girl to reply. Not too bad! So maybe it won't be so much work after all.

First Fever :(

Natalie spent the day with Grandma yesterday. When she woke up at 7:30am (which is late for her), I noticed she was a little more groggy than usual, but figured it was since she had slept so late. Then when Eric and I got home, she still seemed the same. According to Grandma, she was a little more crabby than usual, so we took extra care to make sure that she was happy.

She went to bed at her usual time, although she didn’t want much of her bedtime bottle, which was odd. Then she woke up at about 12:30 in the morning and Eric brought her to our bed complaining that she felt too hot. So we took her temperature and she was definitely running a fever- it was 102.4. We then gave her a dose of Tylenol, gave her a bottle and luckily she fell back asleep within an hour or so. She slept really restlessly though.

Poor baby :( She’s never had a fever before. We’re hoping it’s due to teething, since she doesn’t seem or act sick otherwise. Hopefully it will resolve soon. I just hate knowing that she probably doesn’t feel great and there’s really not much I can do about it.

19 Weeks & Our Big Ultrasound!

I can now feel baby moving around quite a bit- it's such a neat feeling! Baby likes to move around mostly after I eat and in the evenings, just how I remember with Natalie. And I'm definitely into my old maternity clothes now. I have a modest bump and I think people can now tell that I am indeed pregnant and not just plump! It's such an awkward phase when you look and feel plump- you can't help feeling kind of self-conscious about it. Once I was able to show off the bump with Natalie, I felt so much better. I think I'm at that point. And I feel pretty good too.

Yesterday was our big ultrasound and Eric and I were both able to take off work a little early to go. It worked out great too, since Grandma was at home with Natalie (Kaiser doesn’t allow little ones under 12 in the radiology department). Anyway, it was so fun to see baby floating around happily. It made me remember what it was like to see Natalie dancing around on the screen for us to see- it makes the pregnancy feel and seem far more real. And it is just amazing what the technicians are able to make out. For the most part, I couldn’t tell what she was looking at, except when we saw a profile or a clear limb here or there. But the technician was able to get all the measurements she needed. She was very kind. Actually she was the same technician we had with Natalie.

We weren’t exactly decided whether we wanted to know the gender or not at the appointment. Eric kept asking, and I honestly wanted to stick with our original plan of being surprised. But then I was reminded of my response to learning Natalie was a girl and how I was so glad that I was able to prepare myself ahead of time. It wasn’t that I was disappointed that she was a girl- I just had some sort of momentary freak-out that I was becoming my mother and that she would eventually grow up to hate me. A day or two later, after moving past my fears, I started getting excited about having a girl! And I was so relieved that those unexpected feelings weren’t saved for delivery day. I would have felt terrible and she didn’t deserve that. I still feel bad enough about my reaction at her ultrasound. But I was able to enjoy Natalie’s birth and that’s what mattered. Had I not known, I think it would have been too much to take in at once. Plus, being able to visualize and prepare was really helpful for me.

At this point during our appointment, the technician had me take a little break to move around while she checked on another patient. It was then that I kind of decided that I did want to know the gender- I didn’t want to grow really anxious over the next few months and then feel disappointed in some way on delivery day. And luckily baby was a little more cooperative after our break. The technician was able to show us very clearly what we were expecting- a baby GIRL! I was super happy to hear the news. Not only will we be able to re-use a lot of our stuff, but we already have a name narrowed down! But most importantly,Natalie will have a sister, just like I have Elaine. I’m so happy that I’m able to give that to her! That’s really what I had wanted.

Eric was all smiles as he sat and took in the news- he said that he was happy of course, but it would have been fun for him to experience a boy. I guess I can understand that. Maybe next time, we figure! We’ll take them one at a time. I told him that he’s such a great Daddy to a little girl, it’s no wonder he’s being given another. We went home with some great ultrasound pictures once again. Here are a few of our new baby:

The full profile shot above is my favorite- and I noticed immediately that it is nearly identical to one we had of Natalie at the same time. Makes me wonder if they will look alike! I can already tell that they have the same little nose and cute round head. We also have a very clear picture of baby girl's girly area, complete with an arrow, but I'll refrain from posting that one... there was no question she was indeed a girl!

Yay for little girls!!

Christmas Festivities 2011

We had such a nice Christmas with Natalie. I kind of feel like it was her first Christmas, since she was only six weeks old last year! The best part of it was that Eric was off work on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we could enjoy it all as a family.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, I was busy trying to finish up my homemade good of the year- caramel apples. I like to try to make something nice to hand out to everyone, since we can’t really afford to buy gifts for so many people. Plus, we had already decided and tried to spread the word that we didn’t want anything for ourselves- that we wanted to just focus on the kids. So anyway, the apples turned out decent. I made the caramel from a recipe I found online and it turned out really well! The only problem was that I didn’t consider the weight of my chosen toppings- M&Ms, peanuts, marshmallows, and Oreos. The chopped peanuts and marshmallows stuck to the caramel just fine, but the Oreo pieces an the M&Ms slid down the apples as they dried… so that was frustrating. Since I didn’t have a lot of time, I tried to fix them as best I could. I was so irritated about how they had turned out!

Elaine and I decided to get together that afternoon so the cousins could exchange gifts. I made lunch for the four of us while the girls napped and then we had fun watching them open their new things. We picked out a pretty summer dress for Stacie and a doll that teaches how to dress, such as using ties, zippers, snaps, buttons, and so on. Stacie gave Natalie a Little People school bus with a little set of blocks.

Then we were off to Dad and Sally’s to visit for a little while, since the holiday dinner we spent with them the weekend prior was so hectic! It was much quieter with just the babies and we had the chance to chat with Dad and Sally for a while, which was nice. Stacie showed off her new-found army crawl and Natalie walked all around the house, following Joelle around.

That night, we had planned to head over to Patrick and Lucha’s house for their annual dinner and gift exchange, but we heard that Lucha had landed in the hospital! Patrick decided that everyone would meet up anyway, as planned. So we drove over and met up with everyone else. But, after a couple hours of just hanging around and no word from the hospital, we had to take Natalie home. Everyone decided that they’d return Christmas night instead for dinner and the gift exchange. We finally heard the next morning that Lucha had had a kidney stone! She felt terrible for being an absent host, but we were all glad that it wasn’t something more serious.

We woke up Christmas day and actually had to go get Natalie from her room (she slept through the night!). Then we had breakfast, fired up the holiday log (a la television, that is) and spread out the gifts. Sadly, I had neither the time nor the energy to make my Christmas cinnamon rolls!! I didn’t get around to making them last year either… so hopefully I can make them this weekend instead and call them New Years rolls. Anyway, we took turns opening gifts one by one, helping Natalie along. She did really well ripping the paper and tearing tissue out of the bags! We bought Daddy a new pair of slippers, a movie and a CD set that he had wanted while Daddy and Natalie bought me a replacement wedding frame (the original broke a few weeks ago when Natalie pulled it down from our entry table and dropped it), a gift certificate to a reflexology place downtown and some Aveda lotion I had wanted. Natalie received some building blocks, a classic Fisher-Price chatterbox telephone (just like I had when I was young) and an Ariel the little mermaid doll that Daddy picked out for her. It was so nice to take our time and spend the morning with Natalie. It wouldn’t have been the same if Eric were stuck at work!

Then we got ready to go and headed over to the Longaneckers house for their annual exchange. We ate lots of good finger food and then had fun opening gifts. Eric’s cousin and his wife have a baby boy just three weeks younger than Natalie, so it was fun to watch them play together. I think everyone enjoyed seeing Natalie all dressed up in her holiday dress, complete with tights, shoes and little red bow clips on her pigtails. It was a lot of fun to watch the kids open and play with their new things- everyone was so generous! We came home with a few bags full of fun toys, books, clothes and of course some extra money to add to all of our savings accounts, which was so nice!

Natalie did so great where ever we happened to take her- I was so happy that she was happy that day. I knew we were wearing her out, but she seemed to be having fun. After a nice re-scheduled dinner with the Fleming family, we exchanged gifts once more. Natalie had fun playing with Ava and Amelia while the rest of us opened more gifts.

Then finally- we headed back home! It was another crazy year, but it was so enjoyable. After getting over the frustration of my caramel apples, I decided to just enjoy the day with my family and it was great. Hard to believe that next year we’ll have two babies in tow! I’m sure it’ll be all the more fun and exciting.

Yay for Baby Signs & 18 Weeks

We’ve been spoiled by Natalie’s sleeping patterns lately- she’s been sleeping through the night pretty often throughout the last couple weeks. But then of course, last night was a challenge. She woke up at about 4am and was just inconsolable. We tried giving her a bottle, rocking her and then eventually brought her to bed, but she was really restless. We were thinking maybe it was a new tooth trying to sprout that was bugging her. Poor thing. She finally fell back asleep just in time for me to get up for work at 6:30… at least she and daddy got a little more rest.

Natalie has started using the sign for “more” all the time- we think she uses it as if it meant “I want” because she’ll use it for things other than food and for things she has yet to try. It was so cute- the other day, when she was standing at the sliding glass door looking outside, she saw Daddy approaching the house after work and started doing the sign. And then if she sees us prepping her bathtub, she’ll do the sign as well. I’m just excited that she does the sign at all- she caught on to it so quickly! She also did the sign for “milk” once this past week. We’re still working on that one, along with “eat.”

It’s been really helpful for her to show us a quick sign to communicate what she wants or needs. We don’t plan on expanding beyond the basic signs- we’ll teach her one or two more as we find them useful. But while we’re waiting for those words to develop, her little signs have been great!

So Natalie is completely weaned now and has been for about 2 weeks. I nursed her for the last time on either Christmas Eve or Christmas, I forget. But I had a quick thought to myself, thinking “this might be the last time.” And that was that. She’s been doing so well with her whole milk and hasn’t seemed to miss it, so that’s a relief. I’m proud of myself that I got her to the one-year mark, but I’m a little disappointed at the same time because I know I could have continued for a little longer if I wasn’t pregnant at the moment.

Speaking of pregnancy #2, we’re over 18 weeks currently. I’m still wearing a lot of my regular clothes, although many are getting too tight! I started wearing my maternity jeans weeks ago, since they’re so comfy. I’ve found that any extra pressure right on your lower tummy just isn’t comfortable at all, no matter how far along you are. So my two pairs of low rise stretchy maternity jeans solve that problem nicely.

At this point, I feel like I have a little bump. I was looking back on pictures of myself with Natalie and it looks like I’m bigger. Or maybe I feel bigger, I’m not sure. I’ve heard you get larger a little earlier the second and subsequent times around. I loved showing off my bump with Natalie- hopefully I’ll feel the same in a few weeks once my awkward plumpness and slightly rounded tummy turn into an obvious baby bump.

One odd thing that's been going on a lot lately is that I'm having a lot of very vivid, realistic, strange dreams. There was the triplet dream. And then Once I had a dream that Eric was fired from his job and then woke up wondering whether or not is was true. I've had a handful of other dreams involving people from my past as well. It's just been odd. I usually don't dream (or at least remember them) so much.

In other news, I’m still searching for a new rental. And it’s still frustrating, since the market is still limited and I don’t want to raise our budget. There are plenty of nice rentals our there, if only we had a little more money to work with. But I’m really trying to stick to the same monthly amount that we pay currently or less if possible. We get by as it is now, and I don’t want to add any more pressure on our finances. So I’m being very cautious, hoping we’ll be led to the right place at some point.