William Wednesday

Yesterday morning William was getting himself dressed and I said, 'I can't believe how you're doing all of that by yourself! You're so big!' He said, 'I'm 4 mommy!' I tried arguing back, but at this point it's just a matter of days. I told him I couldn't believe I almost had a 4 year old, and I asked him what happened to my little bitty baby. 'He's gone!' he responded.

And he pretty much is!

4 is going to be a very fun age I can tell. I recently saw a sign that said the average 4 year old asks something like 650 questions per day, which I'd seen before. And with the birthday fast approaching I've noticed his constant questions have amped up already, almost as if he has a daily benchmark he must reach. But, I truly love it. I love driving in the car and hearing 'mommy what's a supermarket?' and then not 2 minutes later 'mommy why did Archie's heartbeat sound like water?'. I love how obvious it is that his brain is going a mile a minute trying to learn and grow, and the sponge is still absorbing the world around him.

We are very excited for his birthday this weekend. He's having a planes party at a local gymnastics place. They run and play for an hour then eat snacks and cake. What could be better? Luckily I hadn't overdone myself with plans and decorations, keeping it fairly simple, because now I'm not sure how I'd follow through on it with crutches if I needed to! We've got everything lined up and ready to go. I'm excited!

But the best part (I think) will be after the party when we surprise him with a night at Embassy suites. May sound odd, but William has a little love affair with the big hotel we pass daily. It started before we went to Disneyland last April and it's still there. He gets so excited when he sees it and he talks all the time about wanting to go there. We won a free one night stay at a relay raffle last year but hadnt used it, so we decided to use it for his birthday. He's gonna be so excited to go in, ride the elevator, see the water fountain and eat dinner there. I don't know if I've ever been more excited just for a hotel!

I think that's the best part of mommyhood; seeing things through the eyes of a child with the awareness and appreciation of an adult. I hope he's as thrilled as we are anticipating - I'll be sure to report back!

A sad sight

Pregnant people are extra clumsy right? That's an excuse right? I hope so -- cause I'm looking at 2 weeks on crutches. I've never been on crutches in my life and I remember thinking it may be fun to get that special treatment. Well, 24 hours in and I've found it's absolutely NOT fun. At least not for control freaks. 

Anyway. I slipped and twisted my foot. I was worried it may be broken because I couldn't even see it on the floor when I woke up Sunday, but the X-ray says no fractures so that's good. Just a sprain. Although, 'just a sprain' makes me feel kind of wussy. But, that's neither here nor there. I'm truly thankful it's not broken and it won't be longer than 2 weeks.

But. The best part.

At the ER The nurses were mostly concerned with the baby, obviously. I didn't fall, but I began to think they didn't believe me because they asked over and over if I thought the baby was affected by the impact. Anyway, they wanted to check on him which was perfectly fine and good. They brought a hand held heart monitor in, but rather than it playing the heart beat out loud it required ear pieces similar to a stethoscope. I guess basically it was a stethoscope attached to a monitor. I was kind of disappointed, but the the nurse offered to let William hear the heart beat. He was anxiously waiting and kept asking me what it would sound like. I explained a few times that it'd sound just like his noise machine in his bedroom, which he seemed to accept. 

But then when he heard it his face lit up as if he'd just been exposed to a whole new world. Then he said 'that was AWESOME!!!'

He is so so so excited for his brother. Remember all those times I whined about their age difference? Well, it's still not my favorite - but I am enjoying how aware and excited he is about what is going to be happening soon. 

Happy weekend

Friday was parents night out at William's school. They call it PNO, and the kids love PNO. Friday when Austin dropped him off William pointed to the sign up sheet and said, 'dada! Guess what? I get PNO tonight!' Austin said he laughed thinking, 'no, WE get PNO tonight' 

In any case, we had date night. Austin had booked a surprise massage for me at 5:00, but they place called at 9:30 Thursday night (a bit annoying!) to say the therapist went into the hospital so I'd have to reschedule. I hadn't known about it prior to that so I was pleasantly surprised, and was still happy even though I had to reschedule. So instead of a massage we planned to go to dinner and to see a movie. When we got to the theater the crowds were too much for Austin who doesn't do very well in really crowded places, so we decided to skip it. We went to Macy's to get me some maternity clothes (sounds more like a ME night than a date night huh?) and then after that we went and played putt putt before ending our night with some milk shakes. There wasn't really anything special and a few broken plans, but sometimes those are the best nights. We had a really good time and even spent some time talking about baby names. Didn't make much progress, but we talked! :)

Saturday we all went to brunch while we had Austin's truck washed then went to babies r us. William loved picking stuff he thought would go well in Archie's room, but he wanted to buy it all RIGHT THEN. He also informed us he doesn't want Archie to be a 'name just for fun' but a 'forever name' -- I think I am going to bow out and let my 2 leading men fight this one out. Should be brutal. After babies r us we went to a friends house for a one year old's birthday party and then spent our evening relaxing at home. 

Sunday after church Austin and William got haircuts, new fish, and surprised me with a cupcake while I had my reschedule massage.

Prenatal massage = heaven. Incredible.

After we got home we spent some time soaking in some vitamin D at the park and walking/bike riding to the grocery store. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and we are enjoying it while we can.

So - we had a fun and happy weekend! I'm running out of weekends before tax season, so I'm glad we have had some nice family time and great weather before the stress piles on.

Category 5 Meltdown

Some days - scratch that, a lot of days I think to myself, 'my son is really almost 4!' 

And then other days I think to myself, 'wow - my son is 3 as 3 as 3 can be'  3 with all the trimmings. 3 with the power to throw one of the most torrential tantrums. Worst part is, I never even know how it happens.

He had a great day today and was excited right before dinner when we opened his latest package from Yaya and papa. It had a sticker from HEB (only the best grocery store ever) and some new jammies...what could be better? 

Not chicken, I can tell you that. Chicken isn't better than a sticker and cars jammies because the moment he noticed chicken was on the grill for dinner he began one of his best tantrums to date.

It started with not wanting chicken. Then turned into not wanting his planes plate. Then it turned into wanting his planes plate. Not that wretched toy story plate. And it just kept going.

An hour after it started I find myself sitting here while he eats. Chicken, I should add. Chicken on his toy story plate that he didn't want. An HOUR.

I'm giving myself a few pats on the back as I think Austin and I probably handled this better than any tantrum to date. But, riddle me this: if we handled it better, why was he so, so, so much worse?

Ah. I got it. Cause he's a three year old with the brain and reasoning skills and stubbornness and determination of a 4 year old.It gets better at 4 right? I really thought it already was getting better. About an hour and 10 minutes ago I would have sworn so.

Parenting: it's not for wusses.

Archie

Did I write about William predicting I was pregnant before I knew I was pregnant? I'm guessing I did, but if not basically he told a babysitter one night he had no siblings but 'little by little'. She asked if he meant his mom was pregnant and he just said 'little by little'. A few days later I found out I was pregnant!

So Wednesday night when he was so adamant that his baby sister or brother was in fact a brother I didn't really want to argue. He seems to predict things really well and, even if he's wrong, he's far too stubborn to ever think he could possibly be wrong. (Weird huh?) Then yesterday the doctor confirmed what William apparently already knew:

At the beginning of the pregnancy we used to ask William what we would name a boy or a girl. His first pick was Jose for a boy and Elizabeth for a girl, but then a few weeks later he told us that the boys name was to be Paul. He actually said God told him so! Now, I'm not too crazy about the name so we never pushed it too hard but it was pretty funny anytime someone asked him what the name would be!

All the while, as he referred to it as Paul, Austin and I referred to the baby as'the scare pig'. If you haven't seen Monster's University #1 shame on you, and #2 you won't get the reference. There is a character in the movie named Archie the Scare Pig. He is the mascot of a rival university. Around the time the movie came out on DVD, and subsequently was on constant loop on my iPad, we were having a lot of little 'scares'. I think most of the scares were in my head and were a result of my heightened fear of losing the baby I begged and pleaded for for so long. But, at 6 weeks (and then 7, and then 9...) miscarriage is so common - so any abnormal signs are worrisome. I tried my best to remain calm and faithful on the outside, but I was screaming bloody murder on the inside. So, as the scares continued Austin and I dubbed the baby the scare pig. 

William overheard this one day about a month ago and asked what we were talking about. Leaving out the part about being scared we'd lose him, we just said we nicknamed him that, just like Archie. He corrected us saying, 'it's not a scare pig, it's a scare baby. Archie the scare baby'. Ever since then he has referred to his brother as Archie.

So, Paul is but a distant memory in his mind. Only problem is, now Archie is very much at the forefront. Last night at dinner I told William I had a surprise for him. I told him that my doctor looked at Archie with his doctor equipment and told us that Archie is a boy! At first William looked at me with a blank stare, then he said 'yeah, I know' and continued eating. I thought that was a little anti climactic but a few minutes later he blurted out, 'it's a boy!!!' -- maybe he just needed time to process it. After he said that Austin said 'yeah so now as the big brother you get to help us decorate his room and pick his real name and get ready for June when he will be born!'

'His real name is Archie dada'

So, in 6 months or so if you see a blog titled 'Archie Monday' I guess you'll know why!!! We are all three very excited for our little boy who is growing rapidly and is on his way. We'd be equally ecstatic with a girl (well, at least I know 2 of us would) but it's just so exciting to know what it is and begin imagining the bond and relationship that is already growing.

Fingers crossed we can help William come up with a new name before June!!!

A small bit of inspiration

A few weeks ago I received a comical, though heartfelt and sincere, email from a friend about how hard it is for a mom to see her son grow up and have girls start to enter his life. Her comical side pointed out that no girl will ever know her son like she does. She knows what food makes him feel better, she knows his favorite kind of cookie and so on. But she obviously genuinely grieved the loss of that little baby boy who had a heart and stomach for no cookies but her own. She  addressed the email, 'dear your-son-is-still-a-baby-and-all-yours' and so I attempted a comical reply with that as my signature. I did acknowledge that somewhere down the line I know I'll lose that.

Somewhere down the short line I guess.

A few nights ago William was laying in bed and I noticed he had something in his hand. He had pulled it out of his pocket when he got undressed and never put it down. I opened his hand to see what it was and it was an acorn. I asked him why he had an acorn and he said, 'oh, mommy! Emma gave that to me!' 

I couldn't respond because this is where my brain instantly jumped:

Oh. Emma. Well, doesn't Emma know you like leaves and rocks? What does Emma know anyway? 

Austin came in the room so I told him the story and he couldn't even detect the cynicism dripping in my voice as I told it; he was too busy beaming with pride over the fact that a girl had given his son such a priceless treasure.

He looked at me after soaking in the moment and said, 'what's wr- wait? Are you mad?'

No, that's ridiculous. Why would I be mad?

'Oh. No. You're not mad...you're JEALOUS! You're jealous that a girl gave an acorn to your son.'

I instantly walked out and prayed to god that someday Austin be blessed with the curse of having a daughter. Only then can he know what it feels like to have to look at that acorn every morning as I go wake William up.

Who even likes acorns???

Sincerely,

My baby is apparently only a little bit of my baby now

Making progress

 I felt like we were very behind in prepping for this baby going into the weekend. May sound silly seeing as we still have 5 months until we bring the baby home and we already have a months worth of diapers, but you have to have a better point of reference I think. We are the people who bought William's furniture on Craig's list (for a STEAL!) before a doctor ever confirmed the pregnancy. We also had his room painted before I was 20 weeks pregnant. It turned out to be a lifesaver that we were so ahead of the game seeing as at 32 weeks I was rendered useless (bed rest) and 2 days after I was useful again he was born. Imagine if we had waited until the third trimester to get on the ball!

So, I've felt like we needed to make some progress in the oh-so-important nursery. Babies need more than just love and care, after all. Ok - so it's not THAT dire, but it is one of the most fun parts of pregnancy for me -- a new closet to organize, a room to clean out and Re-design...it's all music to my ears. 

Now with Christmas behind us and our dog sitting days over (I've purposely refrained from talking about that...) this weekend we decided to make some progress. 

We previously had a pretty nice guest room set up. Critics informed me the bed was great, drawer and closet space was a plus and all we needed was a TV. Well, that's gonna have to wait because we had to get rid of the comfy bed to prepare for the baby. A couple of months ago some people at church were hosting a garage sale to benefit a mission trip to Africa, and a couple from our D group was in need of a bed. So - we sold our guest bed to them and gave the money to the mission trip garage sale. It was pretty efficient! That left us with a somewhat empty room...if you consider all of the junk that had been hiding under the bed and occupying the closet now sitting in the middle of the room 'empty'. How do we accumulate so much crap?? Guess that's for another day.

Saturday Austin got in our garage rafters (translation: our storage area) and got down William's crib. The Craig's list steal is paying off dividends now! And with the eager help of big brother Austin got the crib set up.

(You thought I was kidding about all of the C R A P didn't you??)

Oh - and someone thinks the crib is quite entertaining 

I sorted through the stuff to determine what belongs in the room (diapers, clothes, gifts baby has received), what belongs somewhere TBD (very well may be the top of the closet), and what belongs at goodwill. After I did that the room had some space to breathe.

We really didn't like giving up our guest room. We LOVE that we have so many people who spend their precious vacation time and money to come visit us and we really enjoy being able to host them in our home. But, unless God had granted us twins, we knew we weren't going to be moving into a 4 bedroom house so we didn't have much of a choice there. But, with the bedrooms being of decent size we realized we didn't have to give it up entirely. We saw a couch at Costco that would fit the space perfectly and could convert into a bed very easily. (So easily William had already done it 10 times) it's fairly comfortable to lay on, and in the event it's not comfortable enough I'm pretty sure there's a big brother who would gladly trade rooms with the guests :) so once my sorting project was done we made our way to Costco to grab the couch before they changed their inventory.

While the initial thought behind the couch was for sleeping space, after we thought through it we decided it'd be pretty useful. We love our bedtime routine with William and there were many nights when one of us laid on his floor while the other read books in the glider. I'm envisioning beautiful, peaceful evenings of the 4 of us curled up on the couch reading books before bed. (Stay tuned to find out how life with 2 kids may turn my dreams upside down) But, even if the vision isn't quite on target I do think we will spend a lot of time in the room and it'll be nice to have a place for all of us to sit.

And when people need to sleep...

We may get a cushioned mattress pad/cover to slip over it before we put sheets on so the cracks aren't so apparent. But it's not too bad to lay on - I may even be willing to give up my tempurpedic if guests act right :)

So - now we have 2 nightstands to repurpose, a couple of storage bins to find new homes for, and some baby stuff ready to be organized. The curtains will come down, the corner ladder will likely go, and there's a box of stuff ready to find its way to goodwill. I'd say we had a productive weekend and I almost feel like we are on track now.

Now to just find out the gender...then the real nursery fun can begin!

P.S. William tried to sneak out of his room last night to go sleep on Archie's couch. He was pretty disappointed when we caught him! More on the nickname Archie another day. 

2014

I do not think I have entered another year with as much anticipation as I have entered 2014.  If I have, it's a pretty close race that's for sure.  I tried looking back at my blog from this time last year to see where I was when entering into 2013, but I didn't write anything about the new year.  We were on vacation and I wrote about the happenings on our trip, then I just went back into the normal every day (or a couple times a week) updates on William, work, football, etc.  I wish I had written about my outlook for the year so I could compare, but I am going to guess that I 2013 did not live up to my expectations in the slightest.  In the least important avenue, it certainly didn't fulfill all of my football expectations and left much to be desired for 2014. (and, yes, I once again find myself counting down the days from January until August) In more important ways, I could not have predicted the struggles I'd have as  mom, as a wife, as a friend, as an employee or just as a person.  But, with great trials can come great growth and I do think that's the case for me.  So, while I'm pretty happy to bid farewell to 2013, I do think it was a blessing-through-raindrops type of year.

I am so excited for the coming year and I can only imagine the surprises that may be in store.  But above all of that, I am excited that THIS year I can say with much certainty we will have a second baby.  I am guessing no moment in 2014 will top that, but I am sure that there will be plenty of other high points and milestones to document along the way.  I am going to make a small and attainable resolution that I will blog at least twice a week.  I hope it will be more and I do miss the days when it was 4-5 times per week, but I also know that between work, William and a new baby I can't really promise the free schedule I once had.  However, I enjoy looking back and seeing snippets of time as much as some people enjoy reading it real-time and enjoy joining in on the journey.  Blogging is as much, if not more, for me than it is for you so I hope that in 2015 I do not look back to moments in 2014 only to find that I hadn't found time to jot it down - even if it's just a brief synopsis of an every day adventure.

And even thought 2013 didn't quite offer all I had hoped it would, I am thankful for the year that we had.  I am thankful for my lessons in grace, humility, determination, marriage, parenting, and general life.  I can only hope that while 2014 may offer more high points I do not miss out on the lessons and blessings in disguise along the way.

Happy New Year!  
Now I'm just anxiously awaiting small milestone number one: finding out the gender of baby #2! 
(and happy 92nd birthday to the 12th Man - Jan 2, 1922.)