August, 2008:

Despite having a vacation in early July, I am finding myself in desperate need of another vacation already!  I think being pregnant and working as well as running around after a toddler have really worn me out and I’m anxious to relax and have no other responsibilities aside from growing a baby and taking care of Jacob.  I’ve got to say that I planned my summer very well because I am off the last week of August (starting on August 23rd) and I’m not returning until September 8th!  That is 2 full weeks off from work and I feel that this time it will really feel like a real vacation!  I haven’t really put much thought into what I’d like to do on vacation but I do want to take Jacob to the Toronto Zoo and Toronto Centre Island so I’ll have to make sure I’m able to squeeze both of those things into the 2 weeks.  I remember my mother mentioning another camping trip but I’m not sure how serious she was since she is leaving for Europe not long after my vacation!  The one thing I’m really hoping to do is have a scrap booking day with Lisa since we never really get to do something together without the kids and we both love scrap booking and have fallen behind.  I think I’m hoping that Mike and Jim will do something with the kids and Lisa and I will have the day to ourselves but as always with children schedules and lives can be unpredictable and add a pregnancy to that and I think it only makes it a bit more difficult.

So…I am officially counting down the days until I am on vacation!  I love my job but like I said previously I am craving the rest and relaxation!  I have 8 more shifts until I am off!  Sweet deal if you ask me!

We’ve been talking a lot to Jacob about the baby that’s going to come when it’s snow time!  We were telling him the other day about all the fun things we had to do before the baby came like….going to the pumpkin patch, apple picking, seeing the Thomas Live show, trick or treat time, turkey time (thanksgiving), skating lessons, the santa claus parade and Christmas.   I’ve been telling him that after all those fun times with just the three of us we’ll get ready to have his little brother or sister come home.  Jacob continues to insist that the baby is a “girl girl baby” and that we should name it “fia” which makes me wonder if he’s just going to call the baby “fia” when it comes home; it’s really sweet and cute that he associates the only other baby we know (Sofia) with the fact that we’re going to have a baby in our house too.

The other morning I asked Jacob for a good morning, glad to see you, gosh I love you hug and kiss and after giving me a hug and kiss he leaned down and put his lips to my tummy and I curiously asked him what he was doing, to which he replied:  kisses for baby too!  Being the pregnant hormonal mess that I have been this past week I got tears in my eyes and said “yes that’s right, kisses for the baby too” and then told Jacob thank you.  It wasn’t even a few hours later that I found Jacob in our big bed alone with the home doppler we have in one hand and the bottle of ultrasound gel in the other….the probe to the doppler was against his belly and he was trying to put gel on too.  Again, feeling quite curious I asked Jacob what he was doing and he responded “jakey listen to his baby” and of course I just felt my heart melt.  I sat up on the bed with him and told him that there is no baby in his belly but that the baby is growing in Mama’s belly but it will come out when the snow comes to meet us all.  Jacob smiled as big as he could and told me that “baby needed lots of milk too” and I told him that “yes the baby is going to need milk just like Jacob” and then we chatted about how big brothers can sometimes help Mommy’s and Daddy’s with the baby but sometimes if they don’t want to help they don’t have to because they’re just a little guy too. I asked Jacob how he wanted to help take care of the baby and he said he’d play train set with the baby which made me chuckle!

I’m excited and nervous about making Jacob a big brother and can’t wait to see how the transition goes for him….of course I still wonder what we’d tell him if something horrible happened and the baby did not make it to come home, but I do try not to focus on the negative and keep telling myself that this baby is coming home with us forever!

Well, I am officially 14 weeks pregnant today and really just excited to be out of that horrid first trimester!  I have to admit that some days are still kind of sickly but I am slowly starting to have some days where I feel decent.  At 14 weeks the baby is roughly the size of a lemon….

I have to admit that I’ve been pertty relaxed through this pregnancy but I’m very very eager to have our ultrasound and doctor’s appointment next week – I can’t put my finger on it but I’m still kind of shocked at a February Due Date when we know the last time we “did the deed”…it astounds me that the “little swimmers” could last 6-7 days to catch ovulation for the February 2nd due date.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and wondering how it is even possible but I guess I just can’t understand it and will have to just accept that everything is as it should be.  We have our ultrasound next Tuesday at 9am followed by an OB appointment at 11am and then right afterwards Mike and I will have lunch before I am off to work.  I am excited and really nervous as always because when you are a mother who always worry about your children and want everything to be ok even when they are not born yet.

Over a week a go you might recall that I went in for the First Trimester Screening tests for Down Syndrome and the Trisomy Disorders and I’m happy to report that on Friday we got word that we screened negative for all of those issues….I was very relieved!  I know that technically we very well could still have a baby with one of those difficulties but it’s a good feeling to know that the chance is very low that we would.  The next ultrasound that I previously mentionned is part one of our anatomical scan that we are doing in 2 parts at 15 weeks and 19 weeks which is not normal protocol but I have a difficult shaped uterus so they want to make sure they can get optimal views.

In other news, I am already ready for another vacation!  Just three more weeks of work and I am off for 2 weeks!  By the time those two weeks are over I should be around 19 weeks pregnant!  I am eager to hit that 20 week mark for some reason….maybe because I am just excited to meet this little bean growing inside of me!  Soon enough…..soon enough…26 weeks left to go!

It’s a pretty quiet morning around this house today and I cant’ decide if I like it or not.  i just finished off a bowl of multigrain cheerios with three strawberries chopped up and there was no little blonde boy on my lap saying “just one bite Mama, just one”.  Jacob is gone with my mom to the cottage for 2 days and despite all my big talk about sleeping in while he was gone…my internal clock went off this morning and I was up at 7am.  You know, I never thought there would come a day when I would be able to leave Jacob in someone else’s care for even an hour and now that he is 2 years old I’ve let him go for 2 whole nights!  I miss him terribly when he’s gone but I also know that my mother and her husband love and care for him and protect him the same way that Mike and I do.  It’s a wonderful feeling when you have people in your lives that you can trust so much that you are willing to allow them to take your child away from  you for a few days.  The truth is, I know that good seperations, healthy seperations like this one are great for his personality and wonderful for his development.  I still firmly believe that we’ve done a good job with this child in helping him to feel secure, loved and appreciated by us – so much so that we can let him go away with family and he knows very surely that we’ll be right there waiting for him when he gets back.

My mom and Danny took Jacob to Wasaga Beach which is really exciting for him on many levels!  First, he gets to ride in Papa’s big shiny red truck which he adores and loves because it’s so high up that he can see right out the window with a clear view of everything.  Second, he loves the beach with all its sand and water and fun things to do that he’ll probably just talk and talk about it for a week or two when he comes back.  Third, and most importantly, he loves his Nana and Papa so much and just gets tickled pink when he gets to go spend time with them.  Last night I got to talk to him over msn on video chat and he was just so excited about the good time that he was having and equally as excited to see Mama and Dada waving at him and blowing kisses from the computer; He’s a special kid that boy I tell you.

After Jacob left yesterday, Mike and I spent some time cleaning some of the places in the house that needed a good deep cleaning like the kitchen and the bathroom.  It’s such a relief to get both of those rooms knocked off our list of things to do because I’ve been so stressed out about it since I got pregnant and so sick that housework was the last thing on my mind!  Hooray for the second trimester!  After all the cleaning we rewarded ourselves with some pizza dinner and a movie (Sweeny Todd) which was not exactly such an appetizing idea since the movie had a lot of blood in it; it was still fun regardless! Afterwards, Mike was tidying our bedroom while I spent some time reading the new Stephanie Meyer books “Breaking Dawn”…of course it didn’t take long before I was passed out in bed!

As I type this, Mike is still sleeping as he should be!  I am trying to decide between throwing a load of laundry in or going for a long hot shower!  Hmmm.  Maybe I’ll do both….it’s not too often you an squeeze a shower in without a little blonde head sticking into the shower curtain to say “BOO MAMA!  BOO!”….

It’s time to go public with our litle family secret!  I am pregnant!!!  Mike and I are expecting our second child on or around February 2nd 2009 and we couldn’t be more thrilled!  Family life is just who we are and we are both excited to add a fourth person to our clan!  Jacob will be a big brother!!  I will be 14 weeks pregnant on Monday and so we felt it was time spilled the beans to our family and friends!  We’ve spent much of the past week trying to update people and now I’m making it all the more public by announcing it on my blog!  I won’t go on and on about it here in this post but you can go back through my blog posts and you will find a TON (18 to be exact) of posts that were hidden up until this very moment!  I’ve been journaling about this pregnancy since the moment we found out and have titled all of those threads “Super Secret Bloggy Threads”….I guess now my updates dont’ need to be private!  I’m excited to go through this pregnancy journey with all of you bloggy stalkers friends!

Here’s all the pregnancy related posts so you can all easily find them!

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Today is August 1st and i am so stinking happy that the summer is nearly half way done!  Have I mentionned how much I hate the humidity in this city?  Honestly, the humidity is just getting worse and worse as the years go on which I know is because of Global Climate Change and the pollution in this city.  Every year it seems that the summer drags on and on as I wait for my most favorite time of the year – autumn!  Truthfully for super secret reasons I can barely wait for this summer to be long gone and for the cool colorful days of the fall to be in our midst!

I am really looking forward to a lot of activities that come during the fall!  This year we are planning a trip to both Chudleighs Apple Farm and Whittamore Farms!  Last year we did Chudleighs as an alternative to Whittamore Farms and while I loved Chudleighs for what it had to offer….I missed the pumpkin focused portions of Whittamore Farms.  I am guessing we’ll do Chudleighs with Lisa, Jim, Sofia, Melanie and Suzanne again but I’m not sure about Whittamore Farms…perhaps we’ll do that one with Nana and Papa this year or maybe just the three of us will go!  We have lots of time to plan so obviously I am not too concerned!  After those fall outings we’re really looking forward to Jacob’s third trick or treat!  I really think this year he’s going to understand it way more then he did last year!  I’m thrilled!

Once halloween passes we’ll start gearing up for Christmas with our usual holiday preparations including the annual Toronto Santa Claus Parade!  Maybe Jim, Lisa and Sofia will join us this year!

Anyway, the point of this celebratory blog post is to say that I am rejoicing that the summer is nearing its end and my favorite time of year is approaching!  September can’t come fast enough!