Man I have not been a good writer lately. We’re getting to the end of the semester and between the term project and getting ready for the exam that’s sucking up my “free” writing time. (I say “free” because in reality I have to sneak out of the living room and set up my laptop in the bedroom in order to do homework, and even then Kate’s whining at the door when she realizes I’m hiding!)

Den and I had a date last night, as it was his work Christmas party, and so she was with the babysitter for 5 hours. She loves her babysitter, but she is starting to make the connection now; when the babysitter arrived Kate looked from us to her and then grabbed my leg and whined “Up! Up!” But thankfully her unhappiness at us leaving is short-lived, from what we hear, and she is always just fine. That really makes me feel a ton better about going out, I have to say. When she was younger and I knew there was a very good chance she’d be hysterical while I was out I really couldn’t ever relax. So it’s quite a treat to leave knowing she’ll be playing and happy and maybe fall asleep. Our babysitter has not yet managed to get Kate into her crib to sleep – which is, I admit, a tricky thing that only I seem to accomplish without crying – but we aren’t strict about bedtimes here so I just tell her to do whatever works for her, if she falls asleep in the living room or stays awake, whatever. So unfortunately we came home at 11pm to a wide awake child who was totally thrilled to see us. But that had three very big benefits. First I got to cuddle her and hold her for a little bit before bed, which I admittedly almost always want to do when I’ve been out for more than an hour. And then there were very big bonuses in that she went to sleep very easily since it was so late, and she slept until 9:30 in the morning! That might just be ideal after a night out! I certainly appreciated sleeping in.

The evening wasn’t a full success, however. I still don’t know what triggered it, if it was simple overeating at dinner or if something at dinner or earlier in the day that was bad, but right after dinner at the party I got sick. Really, really sick. I kind of expected to overeat and throw up, that’s just how it goes when I eat too much, but this went way beyond that. I had stomach cramps from gas pain, I threw up a few times, and basically I couldn’t leave the bathroom for a long time – and when I did I had to go rushing back more than once. Clearly my body thought I had eaten something bad because it flushed my entire system out. After that I started feeling much better, it was only an hour or two long, but my stomach is still very sensitive and kind of sore to be honest. Not really how I wanted to spend my night. Thankfully it was all gastrointestinal, no uterus anything going on, and the little alien in there just gave me yet another good kick to let me know it’s alive in there.

I would love to write more but I think my sore belly and I need to lay down.

Last night Kate went down at her usual 9pm without a problem and when I woke up after 9am all I could hear was silence. Den was up (and home, day off), so often he will get her up, but I heard no cartoons, no toddler babbling, no banging on the highchair. She was still asleep. She didn’t wake up until 9:40am, actually. That’s crazy. And even crazier? She went down for her normal nap at 1pm and slept two hours.

At bedtime tonight she was running around talking loudly and shrieking and laughing. I gave her some mild “It’s almost night-night time” warnings, but realistically that doesn’t do much with an 18 month old. I tried winding her down by getting her PJs on and reading her a book, but she still wanted off my lap to run around. I really wanted her to go to bed, though, just so I could eat some food and watch TV in peace. I’m tired, I need my alone time. So I took her in her bedroom in the dark and attempted to lay down with her, rock her, and sing to her like I do every night before I put her in her crib. She squirmed and kicked and patted my cheek and talked to me. I could see her rub her eyes once or twice so at least that was something, but she was still squirmy as hell when I put her in her crib. I figured it was not going to go well, but I was going to try. I left the room and closed the door behind me. And…. there was silence. That was it. She fell asleep.

I swear, she’s paying me back for all those months of horrible sleep she gave me. As Den said to me, “We always figured we’d have a good sleeper… we just never thought it would be Kate!”

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I am so irritated right now. We cleaned our house pretty good – not fully (no house is every fully clean!) but we moved a lot of stuff out of the living room, put another shelf up to store things up high, and tried to reorganized and put things away. It’s great! I love having a tidier living room. Except…. there are at least four things that have gone missing. I know I had them out before, I knew roughly where they were, and I put them “somewhere.” I cannot for the life of me figure out where. One of these missing things is my box of Christmas cards that I need to send out shortly. I have hunted everywhere for days and still they remain missing. Well now I’m just pissed off. I’m going to have to buy new cards. And I’m sure the damn things will show up the day after Christmas. (As further insult, these are cards I bought years ago and never used because, yes, I lost them! They were just recently found in the massive dump that was our garage, and I was very excited to use them. Ha. Joke is on me.)

I also only just now decided on and ordered a dress for Kate, which means I haven’t taken pictures, which means I can’t send out cards or finish the calendar yet. Gah. And right when I think I’m on top of everything (gifts are pretty much all set – if not purchased, I know exactly what and where).

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I read an article for my class yesterday about our brains and getting away from technology – taking a break and not being at the call of email, text messages, phone calls, Facebook, and any number of things that we occupy our brains with during the day. Now just for the record, the idea of being without my laptop or at least my droid for any length of time makes me outright twitchy. It’s just not good. However, there was something that I was thinking about.

In general I dislike phones. I always have. I used to have a lot of anxiety about talking on the phone when I was a kid, something that most people (family, friends) didn’t understand at all. When I got into college and was your stereotypical computer geek staying up all night writing code all my new computer friends loved to hang out in chat rooms. I didn’t. I had panic attacks when I logged into chat rooms. (Never quite figured that one out, other than the fact that it’s too many people all talking at once.) I no longer have anxiety when I talk on the phone. I don’t love to sit around chatting, but I have no issues making appointments by phone or calling to order something or calling up my mom. But the thing is, when my phone rings I will do everything I can to avoid answering, unless I see it’s Den or my mom. I will let it go to voice mail. Voice mail, by the way, does still give me anxiety, so I will avoid listening to it. Clearly that has nothing to do with the anxiety I used to feel about communicating by phone, but there’s something about listening to recorded messages that make me squirm and want to just hit a fast forward button, especially because very few messages are brief.

I love my phone for its access to the internet, and because of that I do tend to keep it nearby. I text message with some people regularly. I get email and notifications on my phone, which I find useful. For all of those I need to actually check my phone. I choose when I’m available, when to devote time to it.

There is something about the ringing phone that drives me up the damn wall. I hate the imposition, the interruption. I hate the expectation that I need to answer it right this second. It was bad enough when I was a kid and the phone would ring (it was never for me, but my mom would yell for me to answer it, and of course the whole anxiety thing). But now the phone follows you everywhere! There’s no “Oh, I was outside” or “running an errand.”

I turn my phone ringer down when Kate is asleep, because of course that’s the only time I actually get phone calls. I forget to turn it back up. It’s not really a conscious decision, but rather a result of me having absolutely zero desire to ever hear my phone ring. I later may see I missed a call, but unless it’s Den who was calling I have zero remorse.

I guess I just really like my quiet time. I enjoy being social, I am active in online communities, I go out to playgroups and hang out with friends, I keep in touch with friends on email and messaging systems… but I have my bubble of space in my house. I’ll be social when I want to be. But sometimes – often – I just want to be by myself and not be disturbed.

I have started waiting to snack until Kate is in bed, or I sneak snacks in the kitchen. It’s no longer good enough for me to give Kate something appropriate for her while I’m eating, she wants MINE. Sometimes I can trick her, but some days she just keeps pointing and saying, “EH!” And I admit, I have not been eating the healthiest things lately.

We were out the other morning and I was starving and getting a bit faint so I decided to stop at Ihop that happened to be right there. We got a table right away and I put her in the highchair while I perused the breakfasty yummy goodness on the menu and ordered. She colored with the crayons they provide, very nicely I might add. Our water and food came straight out. First, let me say that I am wicked happy that restaurants have figured it out and are offering drinks to toddlers in plastic cups with a lid and a straw. This makes life SO MUCH easier! As for the food, I ordered a full meal consisting of two full pieces of strawberry french toast, two scrambled eggs, hash browns, and two strips of bacon. I was thinking that I’d eat the french toast and bacon (which is all I wanted in the first place), and she could have the eggs and maybe some hash browns. Yeah. So Kate dug into the eggs but then started pointing at my french toast and yelling “EH!” very loudly, so I gave her a little bit. Then a little bit more. She ate ate least a quarter of my french toast, most of the eggs, a good chunk of the hash browns, and then I had to feed her a couple syrupy strawberries because she wanted more. We both left that meal a little hungry. Damnit I wanted all my french toast! Guess I’m going to have to start ordering her an actual meal.

Her appetite is unreal. She would like to still be nursing, but I have no milk left at all – it declined throughout my first trimester and the last couple weeks I can tell it’s just not there at all. So I think the increase in appetite is linked to that, plus whatever growth spurt she is having. But this kid eats ALL day long. Breakfast she’s not a huge fan of, but then she HAS to eat something before her nap (first lunch), then she is starving when she wakes up from her nap (second lunch). Then dinner around the time when Den gets home. Then later in the evening she’s hungry again. Now some of those meals I give her just a little snack to get her through, but the rest… sheesh. We have to keep going back to the fridge and scratching our heads because we already gave her everything we can think of! Yesterday for dinner we had pork loins. Den had one, I had one, and Kate had one. Den went to wrap up the leftovers and was confused, because there were none!

Very helpful in this whole eating-like-a-piggy thing are her signs for “more” and “no/enough.” The more is accompanied by loud “EH!” yelling and frantic hand signing. She’s sometimes even repeating “Mow!” to us verbally while nodding her head. Her signal for no more thanks is actually kind of funny. It started out when we were feeding her mostly with the spoon or fork at the highchair, and she would lean sideways when she didn’t want more (or when her mouth was already full) to avoid the spoon. It evolved into that being her sign. She can even be standing on the floor and if I offer her something she doesn’t want she leans her head way over sideways. Looks hilarious, but gets her point across!

Her vocabulary is just increasing at an incredible rate now – she mimics so much! She comes out with new words almost every day, and has really started talking a lot more. Super Why has become her above-all favorite TV show and she is now repeating letter sounds when they say them and shouting out “Go!” and “Ready!” with them too. It’s so funny how into it she is! She definitely understands that letters have meaning, and one of her favorite things is to have me point out and name letters so she can repeat them. She claps her hands and grins in excitement.

Her favorite toy right now – though she has a bunch she plays with all the time – is definitely the megabloks. She’s been taking them apart for a while now, and sometimes putting things together, but now she gets really focused building big towers. She usually needs one of us to hold the base so it doesn’t fall over, but she’s very serious and methodical about stacking them up higher and higher. Then she takes it all apart and swipes the blocks around the floor like confetti. But between those and the stacking/nesting cups I can keep her occupied for quite a long time.

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As for me, I’m feeling a heck of a lot better than I did in the first trimester. The sun has come out to shine, I feel like doing more than laying on the couch, and I can eat and sleep without puking. The nausea still isn’t all the way gone, though. There are days when I wake up gagging and sometimes random foods will make me feel ill.

I’m feeling the baby move a lot more frequently now, and stronger than it was a few weeks ago. I still can’t tell you if I’m able to feel it from the outside, though, since every time I carefully put my hand where I’m feeling kicks they stop completely. That’s even worse than what Devin used to do! (Devin would let me feel the kicks, just not anyone else!) Little booger head.

2 more weeks until we find out if it’s a girl or a boy. It will be nice to figure out a name for this one. Maybe then I’ll start feeling a little more connected. It’s still such a vague concept still… the little kicks still surprise me during the day, like I forgot there’s an alien in there.

I am a writer. I am. It comes easy to me, the words flowing out. I’ve done it for many years. I get a lot of positive comments about it.

So why the hell does my head hurt so much when I’m trying to write a lab report for my bio class? It feels like I’m trying to squish my brain through a funnel. A very, very small funnel. Like one word drops out at a time on the other side, hard-fought and hard-won. And then I realize… it’s the wrong word.

The exam, not worried about that at all. Concepts and understanding, no problems. Hell even essays aren’t too bad. But for some reason these reports are just torturous.

Oh, did I mention it’s a group project? A group report. With three people. The other two sadly have a lot of other classes they are stressing out over. One seems to not read her email at all. Which really sucks, since we’re supposed to be figuring this all out by email. And pulling together a cohesive report. By Tuesday.

It will all be over on Tuesday. Maybe then I’ll be able to sleep. Last night sucked, all hyped up on adrenaline, brain continuously nagging at sciency-report thoughts even when I sternly told it to shut up and go to sleep. Tonight is not looking much better.

Damnit.

I realized today that she hadn’t nursed at all today, and I don’t think yesterday either. She sat on my lap and asked a couple of times during the day, but when I asked her if she was thirsty and did she want some milk she said yes and eagerly took the sippy of milk from me. I’ve realized that a lot of the time she sits on my lap it’s her way of telling me she’s thirsty.

I’m not telling her she can’t nurse, I’m just offering alternatives. If she’s upset and really wants to nurse, then that’s fine. But man, it’s really starting to hurt. I’m not all “I need to wean her!” but I’m gently encouraging I guess. She’s doing just fine – even sits in my lap and just cuddles now, which I really appreciate! I’m the one who gets a little emotional if I think too much about it. I don’t think in terms of being done, but more just “didn’t nurse today.” Maybe tomorrow. I am pregnant and have no milk so it’s not like I have to worry about my supply crashing or anything!

Yesterday when Den got home from work I heard the door open, then I heard thunk “Ow!” I asked him what happened, he said he walked into the door. Apparently Kate had carried her violet puppy into that room at some point and dropped it right behind the door… so that it only opened a foot then wedged and stopped suddenly. LOL She is dangerous!

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Her current obsession is climbing onto chairs. And tables. It’s the tables thing that is problematic. Today I found her in her bedroom with two pens. How did she get pens? From where? Not good. We’ve already been pushing things back from edges as her height [slowly] creeps upward, but now we’re really going to have to find other spots for things. Jeez. Well at least I haven’t found her standing on the table or anything. (Yet.)

Super Why is her show of choice, and she has become absolutely fascinated by letters! She’s started recognizing them too. The other day I had her on my lap and she wanted to play on the laptop so I opened up a blank document and typed a few letters. For the hell of it I asked her what letter that was. And she said, “Ayyy!” “Beee!” “Ceeee!” “En!” “Oh!” I just sat here with my jaw dropped and Den and I looked at each other like holy shit!

She’s such a funny toddler. She’s started really hamming it up because she knows it makes us laugh, so she gives us a big goofy toothy grin with her head thrown back. It looks a lot like my too-wide grin, in fact. (Everyone says, “She looks just like you! Except the eyes.” The eyes are clearly not mine.)

She’s not a cuddlebug, but she sits on my lap to watch TV, holding my hand and resting her head on my chest. I stroke her hair and rest my cheek on her head. Sometimes I wish I could just curl up around her and never let her go. This feeling of love and joy is just beyond imagining.

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I figure I’ve gained about 10lbs so far this pregnancy, which isn’t bad. I’m past the nausea-all-the-time stage and now I’m just in a food-doesn’t-usually-look-good phase. Except junkfood. Junkfood often looks good. I discovered that salt and vinegar potato chips are to die for. Really. Chocolate is hit or miss, I want it but then I’m all “eh this isn’t as good as it ought to be.” Carbs definitely make my tastebuds happy. I’m struggling to take in enough protein. And it is a struggle because while I want to do good and eat all healthy I’m mostly just feeling lazy and doing whatever is easiest. (Hint: easiest is cookies that sit in the tub on the counter.)

The baby has gotten a lot more active in the past week, I feel it every day now, multiple times a day. Still usually when I’m sitting still for a length of time, but I’ll just be sitting in class or typing on the computer or eating lunch and I’ll feel thunk thunk thunk down at my belly.

Oh, and the stinker has dropped again. It was up high off my bladder for a few weeks and that was quite glorious, but now I feel everything down really low again and I have to pee all the damn time again. Get off my bladder!

One more week until I can stop calling it “it.” So impersonal! Although, as excited as I am to find out boy or girl, mostly I’m fighting the anxiety about an ultrasound. I try not to think about it much, but I haven’t seen the baby on ultrasound since 6 weeks, so I have very little in terms of reassurance that everything is okay in there, all in the right place and such. I hope it’ll be fine. I certainly feel it moving.

I should be recording more, I’m doing a poor job of it!

I haven’t written it down anywhere, but I started this pregnancy at around 125lbs (maybe a little less) and I’m right now around 133, depending on the time of day. We’ll see what the doctor’s scale says next week, it’s usually way higher than mine is at home so they think I’ve been packing it on. ;)

People have asked me about cravings, and this one is being weird. With Devin I lived off of Cheerios, craved salads, and couldn’t eat chocolate at all. With Kate I wanted sweets and chocolate. With this one… I’m craving not-so-good foods. Pizza and salt and vinegar chips recently. I’m eating a lot of cookies (oops). I’m eating chocolate, but it’s not my favorite things in the world. But then when I go out to eat I’m loving on the salads (just not at home). So basically it’s in between both pregnancies.

I’m feeling really pretty good right now. No real physical complaints, the nausea still sticks around when I don’t eat enough or eat too much, but mostly I’m great. No aches or pains, except the random ligament tweak when I reach for something too fast in the wrong direction. I am starting to get random, mild foot cramps… I expect that will get progressively worse. The belly is definitely feeling heavier this week though… baby must have shifted position.

I am getting a bit uncomfortable when I’m sleeping though. I’m typically a belly sleeper, though I have one knee up so it’s not flat on my belly. The problem is that I sleep on top of one arm, and that arm is now either uncomfortable against my pelvis bone or it’s pressing into my baby belly. I kept shifting around last night and just could not find the right position. I think sleeping with the body pillow is not far away. I’m trying to hold off as long as I can because I know once I go that route there will be no going back to sleeping on my belly… I’m trying to take it while I can!

And I’m feeling a ton of movement (well, a ton relatively speaking for 17 weeks pregnant). Every time I sit down at the computer or watching TV or in bed I feel some kicks or rolls, like right as I’m typing this. This week I was finally able to catch some kicks with my hand, I can feel them from the outside – but they’re still so random and infrequent that Den hasn’t been able to get in on it.

Driving to my friend’s today I had the music turned up, my sunglasses on (it was bright!), and I was bopping to the music thinking how cool I must look in my pajamas and all.

I started thinking about just what a good life I have. My kiddo was home with her very competent daddy in our small (and somewhat messy) but cheerful house, I’m driving my nice (though older) SUV with a baby in my belly going to visit some friends for the afternoon. My hubby has a good job that brings home good money, so I get to stay home with our kids. We own our home. We have two vehicles. We have lots of toys and books for our child. Our kid is healthy and brilliant and happy. We’re somehow expecting another hopefully healthy little one. We have all kinds of tech gear and gadgets including a laptop and an xbox and big screen TV. (We don’t have a new kitchen or bathroom and our garage is not functional, but at least we have the tech stuff – priorities, you know.) I get to take college classes and work on my next degree.

And we are happy. Not every day, not all the time, but I really like my life. I have a lot of fun being a mommy. There is a lot of laughter in our home. I have intelligent conversations with my husband and non-intelligent conversations with my toddler. I have friends. I have extended family.

We are so very blessed.

My ultrasound is 2 days away. I’m excited, but anxious too. At least the baby is kicking me quite regularly so I don’t have to worry that it’s dead… but I still worry that they’ll find something wrong.

I’m starting to prepare myself for the reality that this may not be a boy. We’re pretty sure this is our last kid, for many different reasons. Having two in our home was always what we envisioned, and there is a long list of reasons that we feel two [living] kids is a good number for us. It just feels right.

But. This may not be a boy. I wouldn’t be upset about the fact that it’s a girl – Kate is fantastic and it’s hard to argue with that. Girls are wonderful. I would love her just the same, that’s not the issue. But… Devin. How am I going to give away those boy clothes in my basement without ever having used them? How am I going to adjust to peoples’ comments and well-intended (but missing the mark) jokes about having all girls?

A boy would heal some wounds – certainly not all, but some. It would be a relief. It would be scary it its own right, carrying another boy, but still.

What we really want is closure. And we’re not sure we’ll get that with another little girl. Maybe we’ll always wonder if we should try again one more time. If this is a boy then we know we are done and it would be a huge relief.

As for gut feelings… well in the beginning I thought this was a boy. Now I think it could be a girl. I’ve never been this unsure before… with both Devin and Kate I was very positive I knew who was in there. This little one is a mystery to me.

I am really looking forward to finding out who it is, though. I’m still feeling quite disconnected from this pregnancy, whether it’s from having an older child to care for this time or still dealing with the shock of actually being pregnant, I really haven’t felt all that emotionally connected yet. I think being able to know who it is, to name it (though we have no name picked for a girl), will really change that. I hope so, at least.

Soon!

First things first: baby looks healthy. It was curled up with knees above head, which made it hard for the tech to get all the pictures she needed. But everything looks completely normal, heartrate is great, all the parts are there. Baby was kicking me on the way to the ultrasound so at least I knew it was alive. But still I cried in relief when I saw the baby’s face and hands and legs, all moving about.

She took a look between the legs and said, “Looks like a girl.” And I just couldn’t help it, but I started crying little tears. I’ll be okay for a little bit and then start crying again. And it feels totally selfish and ridiculous to me, but my heart hurts. A part deep down inside me wants to yell, but I don’t WANT another girl, I want Devin back! If he had lived we would have a boy and a girl and now… now. Now he’s gone and I’m going to have two girls and I just totally can’t wrap my brain around that. Nothing has brought up this much old grief in years. I just keep sobbing over the boys outfits in the basement that now I have no idea what to do with, and mostly over this picture I had in my head of what this family would be.

And making it worse is that we had a name picked out for a boy and for a while I was tentatively calling it “he”. I went into this ultrasound really hoping to connect with this baby and instead I feel totally knocked off my feet and more alienated than ever. I can’t even picture a girl. I already have Kate. I am irrationally angry at this baby for not being what I thought it was… hoped it was.

I know I’ll be fine in a little bit, it’ll just take some time to process this. I know logically that I’ll love this child and bond with it eventually. But right now my heart really hurts. I really miss you, Devin.