20 weeks.

Before we talk about 20 weeks pregnant me, how cute is my little lady with the Easter bunny?

It was pretty funny, Hartley walked right up to the Easter Bunny and waited to be lifted on to his lap. As soon as she got up there, she struck a pose and flashed a smile. And as I've done quite a few times lately, I wondered where she gets that from. The mom behind me told me how lucky I am; I always am afraid of taking credit for it because there's nothing I do that makes Hartley the easy going ham she is. 

The best part was that Brian came with us this year. There's nothing quite like a family fun day on a weekday!

Now onto the bump. 20 weeks! This felt like a huge milestone last time, too. Now that I've made it halfway, I'm getting that, "I'm gonna make it!" feeling.

So here we are, Patrick halfway done leaving in the belly: 

I wish I had been able to copy the old pregnancy survey but since I couldn't, I'm trying to get it right. Here it goes: 

How far along? 20 weeks (and 2 days now!)

Total weight gain: not sure - our bathroom is under construction so our scale is in the basement bathroom

Maternity clothes? A mixture. I mainly live in yoga pants and non maternity shirts. But I'm slowly starting to transition to maternity shirts (like in the picture), and I'm all about my maternity jeans. 

Stretch marks? I don't think there are new ones yet (I have tons from Hartley though!)

Best moment of the week: having Brian take Friday off to get a little extra family time. 

Miss anything? Alcohol. I did cave recently and have a small glass of wine but I wish it could be a weekly thing ;)

Movement? Yep! I felt Patrick move about 6 weeks earlier than I felt Hartley move. He's a strong, active little guy already. 

Food cravings? Just give me all the food. I'm always hungry. My stomach is always growling. I eat almost anything but chicken just isn't my thing unless is coated in sauce or hidden somehow. 

Anything making you feel sick or queasy? Coffee, chicken and meat can be rough on me sometimes.

Starting to show? Yep! I think I'm smaller than I am, which is pretty funny. I keep thinking no one can tell I'm pregnant but Brian says it's becoming obvious. Though he said the sweetest thing to me. He said: I wish you could be pregnant forever because you are the most beautiful pregnant lady. Sweet thought but I'm not trying to be pregnant forever ;)

Gender? Boy. 

Belly button in or out? In. And Hartley is obsessed with my belly button these days. 

Wedding rings on or off? Everyone knows I suck at wearing my wedding ring but it fits still and I wear it when I'm going to see people! 

Happy or moody? Mostly happy. Life is very good. But I definitely get teary sometimes and I get a little more anxious during this pregnancy. In some ways I feel "not ready" and have little panic attacks but those are becoming fewer as time goes on. 

Most looking forward to: being out in the nice weather, taking our last couple trips before the baby comes. I'm really trying to savor where we are now and make the most of our very short time as a family of 3. Pregnancy wise I'm looking forward to the 24 week mark, Viability Day! Not that I'm wanting an early baby but that mark is very comforting. 

This pregnancy has been very different than my pregnancy with Hartley. It's flying by, and I often forget a baby is coming this summer. When I do stop to think about it I realize how we're not nearly as prepared as we were around this time last pregnancy. It's very odd to experience a surprise spontaneous pregnancy so in some ways it really hasn't hit! Crazy, huh? 

I need to start getting the babes' rooms in order. Though I've been working on some artwork for Patrick's room so that's something! 

Of course the house is starting to seem small so we've been talking a lot about moving - but not this year.

But like I've said, life is good. I'm in a great place in my pregnancy. I don't want to jinx it but I'm thinking it be smooth sailing (as much as pregnancy can be!) until that last month. 

That's all for now. Maybe I'll start trying to keep up with these surveys!

The day I won the nap battle.

This weekend Hartley napped for less than 1 hour total. Yes, you read that correctly. 

Today she napped for almost 2 hours total because I changed the plan.

When Hartley started walking, Brian and I high fived each other. While the rest of the world warns you about your kid starting to walk being a bad thing, we were thrilled that we could finally wear Hartley out. I remember saying, "as soon as the weather gets nice, I'm having her walk around the neighborhood circle until she passes out from tired". Well, I thought my plan would go even better when right before the spring weather started, Hartley started running. 

But to my surprise, something funny happened, napping got harder than it was before.

Color me surprised. I thought if I got my child to run around all day, she'd be a napping goddess. Turns out for Hartley, it has the opposite effect.

Now that she walks, she literally doesn't stop moving. Have you ever seen a picture of my baby in recent weeks sitting on her butt? Nope, because it physically doesn't happen unless he's strapped to a high chair. Even if she's confined to a small space she just walks from each corner to the other, hardly pausing, never sitting. It's impossible for anyone to understand outside Brian, my parents and I. We've all had her on our watches for prolonged periods of time so we get what it means to describe a child as never being still. My dad jokes - very accurately - that Hartley has no "off switch". And both my parents say after watching her, they just want to go home and sleep because it is exhausting. 

I'm very used to it. I've addressed it with my doctor. They've assured me it's nothing to worry about, that it's going to just be tiring more than anything else. 

Well, Sunday Hartley ate her lunch with her eyes closed. She was that tired. Can you imagine being that tired to where you physically can't manage to open your eyes when you eat? She got that way just from non stop moving. And Sunday night, Brian looked at me and said, "do you realize she didn't even nap for an hour with all her weekend 'naps' combined?"

This morning, I decided this couldn't continue. I refused to let my baby eat lunch with her eyes closed again. So I carried her downstairs and kept her in the living room all morning. No running. No dancing. I read to her - a dozen books. I tried to show her how to color. We played with her shape sorter, her ring stacker and her name puzzle. We went over every animal in her toy basket. And for the most part, I kept her physically still. 

Her morning nap was 30 minutes! Success!

I repeated this after lunch. Then I gave her a bath. Her afternoon nap? An hour and 20 minutes! 

Now, maybe today was just her ceiling but I think Hartley needed to stop running and bouncing and dancing for a bit. I think we need to establish some balance between physically moving and moving her mind. I think her body gets physically exhausted but her mind doesn't. This is something I know very well being an insomniac myself. My body can be dead tired but my mind can't stop. Outside of that, you hear of kids getting overly tired - that is my kid. She can't help being a busy body, unless I help keep her in one spot for as long as I can to get her body to calm down. 

I don't need her to be some champion napper. Honestly, I'm not even a person who really likes the day to be wasted on sleep. But I'm hoping for her not to get to the point where she can't open she eyes while she eats. It's funny but it's also a little sad that my kid is that tired. 

So sometimes, when you've tried all the logical solutions - go the other direction to change it up. I can honestly say we're going to be doing a lot less running here in hopes of a few Z's! 

Life lately

Life has been non stop lately.

Brian is napping. Hartley has finally crashed after being awake and active for over 6 hours straight. And I am laying on my side on the couch so I can feel Patrick kick.

I can honestly say I've had moments where I've questioned my mothering capabilities but after this week, I feel like a total rockstar mama. I'm very proud - and will brag - I'm 19 weeks pregnant and keeping up with the world's most active 13 month old!

Every single day Sunday through Thursday I managed to get Hartley outside to play. Whether it was running around the neighborhood or going to the park, we played outside. We only ran errands that involved walking or strolling to our destination. Fresh air and sunshine are musts these days. 

I managed to get home cooked meals on the table and stay on top of the dishes and the laundry. And everyday when Brian came home, it didn't look like the toddler tornado had been through (even though she certainly had). 

When Brian got home from work, we'd head back out to play. 

Then on Friday when crappy weather hit and the rest of the world complained, we just stayed inside and savored a slower, indoor day. 

And even though I am someone who naps less than a handful of times a year (literally, I only nap after surgeries or having a baby), I crashed. At 2pm on Friday, my exhausted pregnant body just couldn't go anymore. I put Hartley down, and a few minutes later I was in nap land. 

When I woke up, I felt great. Nothing like an wonderful, exhausting week with a nap finale. My mom brought over dinner, which was amazing and such a huge help. We all sat on the living room floor just watching Hartley dance and bounce the ball (her new favorite thing to do). It was a great way to ring in the weekend.

Yesterday was probably the prettiest day of the year so far. We were super productive while also being super playful outside. A very hard balance to strike as parents, especially when one of us is slower than usual!

We learned of Hartley's love of digging in mulch and finding gum tree balls. Doesn't nature have the very best toys? I swear, before gum tree balls - sticks, rocks and leaves were her thing. She finds them on the ground and carries them with her. Then when a cooler one is spotted and she realizes she can't carry them all, she's drops what she has and gets the new one. 

None of us slept well last night. I swear being an insomniac stinks but when you can't take sleeping pills, it really stinks. Brian did overnight Hartley duty, and she wasn't in the mood to sleep. We all fought the tired this morning, and the cranes' nest should've been called the grumpy zombie nest.

Now Brian is up. And you know after a 20 minute nap, Hartley is up, too. She will hit her wall one of these days but until then we'll just stand back and wonder how in the hell she does it. 

She can do nap yoga though:

Now when we go places and people ask how old she is, we always receive looks of shock when we say "13 months". And if only they could know how little sleep it takes to charge that whirling dervish! 

It's off to the playground. 

There ain't no ham like a Hartley ham - cause a Hartley ham don't stop! 

Oh and my latest favorite picture. Girlfriend is a future yogi: 

spring cleaning or something like that

I've mentioned before, this pregnancy my nesting instincts are through the roof. My energy, however, is better spent towards caring for my toddler tornado than working on the mental laundry list of to-do's in my head. 

If you were to come upstairs in my house right now, you'd probably be scared. Our teeny master bathroom is under renovation and will be for awhile. So that means our bathroom products are scattered around to every possible bit of real estate upstairs. There are tools and construction dust. There's a pack n play in our room that we haven't bothered to pack up and store but it's been a great place to throw my pregnancy pillow! The three of us are sharing Hartley's bathroom, which hasn't been bad but her bathroom is just a clutter fest (think bath toys, baby wash, shampoo, conditioner, loofahs, washcloths, etc.).

Our window replacement project is in the works but we're waiting to get an installation date. After that date, we can work more on cleaning out the rest of the lady cave so Hartley can move in. Brian and I use that closet as our overflow closet so it'll be interesting to see where that overflow goes! 

All of this feels so daunting every time I get to the top of our stairs. Internal panic ensues but I remind myself that all of this flux is temporary. 

I've debated asking my parents if we could drop Hartley off with them on a weekend day so Brian andI could  seriously power through some of this stuff.

And every now and then, Brian and I look at eachother like, "should we be thinking about moving sooner rather than later?" Our current plan is to move closer to the kids being prepubescent. I mean, we are kind of amazing at making small spaces work. Remember all those years we lived in a one bedroom condo together? We learned a lot of tricks. But it seems everyone we know is moving, including both of my siblings. We see the big single family houses and think about how that'd be nice for a family of four (which we'll be in 5 months!). 

We both know at the end of the day that staying here is actually the better plan for our family. We just need to get past this little hump of work because in the grand scheme, it really is a little hump. 

For me, it's a hard balance these days. I use nap time as my rest time because my body feels like it really needs it. I need my body to get rest when it can to keep Patrick and I safe. Sometimes I feel guilty about that. Brian comes home, and I feel like a failure of a stay at home mom for not getting anything done. But when I try to get stuff done, I feel guilty for leaving Hartley to her own devices. 

You're thinking I should've used this blog time to get shit done. I probably should have but this helps me soothe my worried little mind. It helps remind me that there are reasons my house is a crazy town - and they are some really important, incredible reasons.

Preparing for baby number two is way different than preparing for baby number one. I actually have moments where I want to push his due date back! So wish all of us luck as we power through a few months of getting this house ready for baby boy. It'd be so much easier if wine were on the menu ;)

Happy Spring Feelings.

I've decided that this weekend kicked off spring. I know, I know - there will likely be more cold weather and maybe even snow before winter is really all said and done. But for now, we'll enjoy the sunshine and actually being able to be outside. 

I'm 17 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty damn good! Let's face it, during pregnancy you never really feel as great as when you're not pregnant but compared to last trimester, I feel like a whole new woman. The only complaint I have is sleep. The silver lining? My sleep was so crappy prior to spring forward that I didn't even feel losing that hour. I'm actually completely in love with the spring forward time change. I also got a prenatal massage this weekend, and let me tell you, that is the best thing ever when you're pregnant. My body feels so much less achy. 

I slept in until 8 today, and Hartley slept until 9! Yeah, you better believe I used my extra hour between our wake ups to lay in bed and watch the today show in my pajamas. Shower? Laundry? What are those, right? As a parent, slow, quiet mornings are few and far between so I know not to waste them on being productive.

Hartley officially turned 13 months yesterday. We went for a family lake walk, which is exactly what we did a year ago to celebrate her turning 1 month old. The loop we walk is 3 miles. Before winter came it was our regular loop, and I pushed her stroller up the hills without being out of breath. After this brutal, frigid winter where walks didn't happen, that walk kicked my ass. But it helped my sleep and my restless leg syndrome. Hopefully that walk is a regular thing from here on out so my pregnant self gets into better shape. 

As we walked, Brian and I talked about how excited we are for this spring and summer. There are so many places we want to take Hartley. No more indoor time... we're all over it! We also have two little vacations coming up. In May, we're going to Ocean City for a few days with my parents, my brother and his fiancé. My parents generously are treating us to the trip and have already offered to watch Hartley so Brian and I can have some toddler free time. Then in June, we're going to visit my sister and her husband in Raleigh, NC. Our trip to Raleigh last fall was cancelled due to an ear infection so I'm happy that we're finally getting down there, and we'll get to stay at their beautiful new house! 

Truth be told, I'm really looking forward to all the time leading up the August. I'm excited to meet our baby boy but I totally remember that scary/draining/exhausting/emotional postpartum and newborn stage. That shit is rough. So I'm well aware that the fun will temporarily be placed on hold at the end of summer so we've got to make the most fun of what we have until that time comes. 

Hartley is so much fun these days. In some ways I wish Patrick could just come out as a 13 month old!

And random piece of information: I placed on order on OshKosh the other day. I had to spend $40 to get a 20% discount so I did a first: I bought outfits for both my babes. I got Hartley's Easter dress, which isn't very fancy but I want it to get lots of use out of it because it's adorable. I also got her a casual summer outfit, and I got Patrick the sweetest newborn set. I got really excited when they arrived; I really felt like a mom of 2! 

I'll be posting some more blogs soon. I'm calling this our "week of fun" because it's jammed with fun plans. Tonight my mom is bringing over dinner and watching The Bachelor finale with us. If that's not fun, I don't know what is! And some pictures for your viewing pleasure. One of these days I'm going to hop on the other side of the camera ;) 

16 weeks, almost 13 months, and rent

I need to find my old survey format. I'm not going to keep up with weekly pregnancy blogs but for some reason I love reading other people's, especially in survey format.

Here I was on Saturday, the 16 week mark: 

I know, I'm supposed to lament about how much bigger I am the second time but I'm totally embracing it. I actually never minded the growing belly with Hartley - well, until that last month when it was hard to breathe. Plus, I conceived this baby when I was about 9.5 months post partum so I'm well aware my uterus was nice and pre stretched and probably still tilted out a bit. 

On that note, eating is finally getting so much better. I feel like I "turned the corner" early this pregnancy (though full disclosure: I still take the highest dosage of Diclegis). I haven't thrown up in close to 2 weeks, and my energy is way better than it was during the first trimester. 

I don't really crave anything crazy. I do notice my babies like Taco Bell when they're in utero, and I've been consuming more McDonald's fries than I normally would. But I also crave a lot of healthy stuff and have been known to snack on salads and fruit this pregnancy. 

I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. Really no big pregnancy news. No news is good news though!

Hartley is almost 13 months. I'm debating if I should keep up with my monthly entries. I probably should as she is growing and learning so quickly these days. Here's a quasi 13 month entry: 

Since I last wrote, she's learned to say "bye bye" while waving good bye. She's learned to stack with her ring stacker. She was getting really into her shape sorter but being the smart, sassy girl she is, she quickly learned that you can load the shapes faster without that pesky lid. So she whips off the lid and throws the shapes in. She's also been known to take my phone and throw it in the box. So that's always a fun game of hide and seek for yours truly. 

She's very into pointing to everything. We praise her and tell her what she's pointing to, and she gets super impressed with herself. She's also begun mimicking. Crazy, right? She mimicks gestures and sounds. That's probably typical for this age but since I rarely research milestones, I think she's a genius. 

She's learned to give hugs. Well, she's learned to barrel into you when you ask her for a hug. It's probably my favorite thing she does.

And I know I shouldn't even admit her tv milestones but she claps and stomps her feet to certain Sesame Street songs that prompt her to. Again, I don't know why but its adorable. 

She's doing well with finger foods. She loves all the typical toddler foods. She loves fruit the most. But she also loves hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pancakes and green beans. She'll tolerate eggs, macaroni and cheese and certain types of pasta. Of course, when we go out to eat she loves French fries. Her love for Cheerios and puffs is still strong but they are no longer the crutches they once were. I'll totally admit, I use them to calm her sometimes. 

As far as eating what we eat, it's hard. I like spicy food that's totally not appropriate for toddlers. But when are eating something that's not too spicy and is a reasonable texture, we give it a whirl. Sometimes it's a hit, sometimes it's a miss. But I've learned I don't need to stress about that like I once thought I did. She's a 1 year old; she's going to eat like a 1 year old. As long as she's growing and developing properly, things are good. Plus, Brian and I have very unsophisticated palettes so what did I really expect? 

She's obsessed with books. I'm not exaggerating, I probably read her 12-15 books a day. Winter is so exciting, right? I think her favorites are Snuggle Puppy, Olivia, Five Black Cats and The Biggest Kiss. The Easter Bunny is probably bringing her some Olivia board books. I might be a tad obsessed with how much H is like her favorite female protagonist, Olivia. 

Hartley is currently obsessed with Winnie. She has learned to gently pet her, finally:

She's very active. She's always running, laughing, babbling, jumping, stomping and shrieking. 

I love this age. It's so much fun!

Oh, and the last thing: rent. 

I got the $500 bill to renew the embryos' rent for the next year. Of course we're paying it as we continue to hang on to them. It was probably largely due to pregnancy hormones but I cried a little when I got the bill. It's a reminder that I have little babies in their earliest stage of life just waiting to see if they'll come to fruition. We play the lottery and have decided that if we ever win, we will try to meet all of them. Yes, if you've followed along, there are 7. I know we likely won't win the lottery, and they will be huge blessings to another couple. But neither of us are there just yet.