November, 2008:

Are you shocked? I am.

I can’t believe that I’ve hit the 30 weeks pregnant stage and I’m entering the home stretch now. It’s rather unbelievable how quickly our spring pregnancy turned into the summer, then the fall and its now fading into the winter. It’s crazy to think of how fast time has flown but when you sit down and look at everything we’ve had going on over the last few months it all makes sense. I’m sure over the course of the next few weeks I’m going to really regret saying that things seemed to zoom by because pregnancy seems to slow right down in those end weeks. When I sit back and think of where we’ve come from during this pregnancy it makes me really emotional to think that at one point our “baby” was considered a blighted ovuum and we were on our way towards a D&C. Sitting here now and feeling her move inside me, I can’t imagine how broken and upset I would have been to have gone through losing her….of course losing her now would be much more difficult but I try really hard to not think about anything like that these days…I simply look forward to meeting her and getting to know everything there is to know about her.

The baby is entering its busiest time for growing over the next 10 weeks and will work over the next 2 months to build up its weight to the size she will be when born…I have absolutely no idea how big this girl is going to be but I imagine if I go full term she’d be over 8 pounds and probably closer to 9 pounds based on how big Mike and I were at full term…of course I’m hoping she stays head down and ready to go for the rest of the pregnancy unlike Mike who was breech (and delivered that way) and his brother who was feet first (and also delivered that way). Jacob was 6 pounds at 36 weeks and 2 days so I don’t know how big he would have been had he baked another 3-4 weeks….but my guess is probably over 8 pounds. So much is happening for the baby right now but an important one is that the baby is practicing her breathing…that’s very important for life outside of the womb…obviously. I think the baby is supposed to be somewhere around 2.91 pounds now, still so very small! Keep baking baby girl…we’re patient!

I have so much to do to get her room prepared but I keep telling myself that its not important because she’ll sleep in our room with us for the first 6 months at least so there is definitely no priority on her room which is nice because it means we can take the time to get it just right! I am not certain that we have a lot of baby things that we have to get but I did contemplate getting her a jumperoo a couple months after she was born…I always wanted Jacob to have one of those and the rainforst jumperoo is just so cute; I guess we’ll reassess because really its more of what I consider a luxury item and not something that is needed, plus we have Jacob’s exersaucer which is in pretty good shape if you ask me! I definitely need a diaper bag and a family member of Mike’s gave us a bit of cash so we can put that money towards the cost of the diaper bag.

Once our move is settled down I’m going to focus on packing my hospital bag which last time got thrown together in the heat of our emergency induction moment and this time I’d like to have it done by 33 weeks so that if something happens someone can just pick it up for me instead of me making the big trek home from the doctor’s only to go all the way back to the hospital like last time.

I guess that’s it for now…nothing else to report! I ‘m feeling good overall but I’m definitely losing energy as the pregnancy continues and some days I do have a lot of pelvic pressure but nothing worth complaining about! My 31 week appointment is next week and it will probably be just another run of the mill average pregnancy appointment so don’t wait for any fascinating news….I’m really hoping that we’re riding this one out!

I’ve really started falling in love with brown and pink as a color combination lately. I’ve seen so many cute baby clothes in this combination and I’ve got to admit that a few of the pieces have come home with us. Recently, on one of my mom’s board I saw some pictures of a baby shower that had a pink and brown theme and it was so cute! It’s so fun to see that people are able to turn such a blah color in brown and make such sweet stuff with it when it’s combined with other colors! One of the outfits I have for our baby girl is aqua and brown and super cute and I have a noticed a lot of sweet baby boy clothes in blue and brown! I love it all!

Jacob has a really keen interest in letters, phonics, and spelling thanks to a show called Super Why! I’m not sure how we found this show but I’m sure we just stumbled upon it one day and since then he’s been hooked on it and his alphabet skills have definitely grown by leaps and bounds. He’s been able to to spell his name for months now but recently he’s learned to spell the word baby, papa, and nana as well and he’s very interested in learning how to spell other words. It amazes me the ability this child has to sound out words and he’s very capable of recognizing the sounds that can be made by a lot of the letters in the alphabet. I’m sure there are people who think we probably push him to learn this stuff but I promise you it’s his interest and while it impresses us greatly, our agenda is to just let him be a kid that learns and develops as he experiences life – this just happens to be something he’s picked up on all by himself. What’s most important to us is that Jacob has a good exposure on three fronts…..education, physical activity, and socialization. I love this kid so much….I hope that through everything we say and do for him he is able to see that….most importantly I hope he continues to see that when the new baby arrives. I just feel so in love with him, who he is and he’s just such a super important part of our lives.

I love this…..a good friend of mine emailed it to me today it’s a response and spoof of the Motrin Ad about baby wearing that I recently posted.  Ha! Do enjoy….

Thanks to all the extra hands who helped us work on the paint situation at our new place!  It seems that as this week continues to unfold it is just one thing after the next in terms of unpredictability.  The light blue color for the top half of Jacob’s room was being sucked in by the walls and as a result needed two coats of paint so the darker blue color couldn’t be started today….then the color that Mike and I picked out for the living room turned out WAY darker then it looked in Home Depot so it’s definitely going to take some clever lighting to help me get use to it.  The living room is about half done with the first coat and will also need a second coat tomorrow so it seems that another day of painting is in store for everyone tomorrow, kinda sucks and is not where I wanted to be at the end of today but I can’t complain because everyone worked very hard and was super helpful – stupid paint just didn’t do its part!  I’m hoping that by tomorrow afternoon we’ll be heading to Ikea to pick up the chair rail that Danny is going to put up in Jacob’s room and then we can be off to Costco to pick up Jacob’s mattress before one last stop to purchase his big boy bed.  Mike has Monday off from work so I’m hoping we can spend that day carting stuff back and forth and start emptying out this old place….it’s going to need a lot of work before we can hand over the keys!

We got the keys to our new place today and we’re pretty excited!  After dinner out at the local diner we went over with Mom and Danny to take another look and mark off Jacob’s bedroom for painting.  Jacob was so excited about his new room that he was crawling around and rolling on his floor at first and it was so awesome to see him happy about the change…we’ll see how he adjusts when we move.  I have to admit I HATE the stairs and the horrible feeling they leave in the pit of my stomach…they are steep and have a twist to them that is very difficult for Jacob to get up and I worry about him.  I am also worried about getting up and down those steep stairs as my pregnancy progresses and getting up and down with a newborn!  I guess I’ll have to break out the sling!  Tomorrow my aunt is coming in from Woodstock and Mom and Aunt Carol will work on painting Jacob’s room while Mike and Danny work on our painting our living room/dining room.  I’m going to do laundry for most of the day and play/entertain Jacob while the painting gets done.  Once those two rooms are painted we’re going to focus on getting the baby’s room done.  From our brief stay tonight there are a few things I am certain we need to find soon and hopefully for a decent price:

Medicine Cabinet for the Main Bathroom

New Doorbell with two receivers so we can hear it upstairs

Chain Locks for the back and front doors

New Light Fixture for the Living room

A Rug for the Back Entryway

Baby Gates for the Stairs – ESPECIALLY the top of the stairs.

A Towel Bar for Each Bathroom

That’s just a very basic list….i know there is a lot more that will come together over time!

If Santa Claus could bring me one thing this Christmas it would be a brand new Ipod Touch because my old 30gig Ipod Video has bitten the dust and I miss it a LOT!  Unfortunately, Santa Claus isn’t bringing presents for Mommy and Daddy to our house this year because he decided to get us a new place to live instead!  I guess all I can do for now is admire my desired Christmas gift from afar and hope maybe the income tax fairy brings it to me in April.

The Christmas season is upon us here in Canada and I tried really hard to get the majority of my Christmas shopping done early.  It really  helped that we decided to do no gifts for adults with Mike’s family so I only needed to pick up a gift for Dianna who is 15.  I also planned with Lisa that we also wouldn’t exchange gifts for adults this year so this past weekend we went out and got Sofia’s Christmas present.  It feels great to have Sofia and Dianna’s gift purchased and we were able to stay within our budget of about 60 dollars for each of them.  We also started to get Jacob’s gifts early too and aside from one more gift and some stocking stuffers we’re pretty much done his shopping as well.  Here’s what Jacob is getting this year…

Imaginarium Train Table with 4 Thomas the Tank Engine Trains

Playdoh Set – includes lots of playdoh and plenty of instruments for playing.

Melissa & Doug Dinosaur Floor Puzzle – LOVE THIS

Candy Land Board Game – For ages 3 and up but I think Jacob will be interested.

We have a little Santa Sack that is for Books/DVD’s/Puzzles and for that we got a Wonder Pets Book, Wonder Pets DVD, and Wonder Pets Puzzle (can you tell what my son’s favorite thing is right now?)…plus a magnet board activity…we’ll probably get a few more story books to go in there.

For his stocking so far:  Crayons (the twist up ones), Flashlight, Kids Tape Measure, Hot wheels Car’s, then Santa will add some tasty treats, a coloring book, a whistle, a new toothbrush (maybe a spinny vibrating one), and an orange!

Of course he’s getting Christmas Jammies to wear on Christmas eve!

The other gifts we wanted to get him was the Tonka Bounce Back Racer or the Fisher Price Kid Tough Camera but the Bounce Back Racer is sold out everywhere and the Camera is 49.99 and I’m thinking my brother is going to get it for him…at least that will be my suggestion! Ha….so it looks like we’ll just go with what we have which is plenty and if  per chance we should stumble upon the Bounce Back Racer then we’ll pick it up.

I’m having a lot of anxiety about our upcoming move.  Without getting into the details of the whole whacked out event, I can tell you that things are not unfolding according to our plan.  We have A LOT of work to do in the old place before we can hand over the keys and it seems impossible to overcome at this point.  We seem to have a good plan that involves my family helping me get settled over in the new place and I think some of Mike’s family  have offered help to get the old place ready to hand over.  Truthfully, I am so ready to be done with this darn place and off into our newer bigger place with the stress of this small 2 bedroom behind us.  I wanted a smooth transition with no stress that would have us move in before our actual moving day so that I could start unpacking and setting up for Christmas…not going to happen.  We need every single day now…there is no time to rest.  Over the next few days Mike and I really need to focus on getting the crap we are getting rid of out of this house and packing up the remainder of our stuff.  This weekend a few of my family members and Mike will be painting the new place (at this point only the living room and Jacob’s room) and I’ll be taking care of Jacob.  On Friday morning I’m going to go over to pick up the keys to the new place and put some toilet paper in the bathrooms and some drinks in the fridge so that when our wonderful volunteers are over there will be a place for them to do their business and some drinks to quench their thirst.  I believe (don’t quote me  on this) that Victoria is going to help me on Friday by wiping out the cupboards and cleaning the bathrooms.

I just wanted to take some time out to say thank you to EVERYONE that is helping us out with this move….sometimes I wonder what I would do without such generous people in our lives.  I am truly very grateful for everyone….and it’s totally crazy that I’m moving when I’ll be nearly 31 weeks pregnant!  Duh me!

From the moment I was a parent I was swarmed with the ideas of other people about how I should raise my children and at first I tried hard to listen to people’s advice before I finally  just gave in said screw it…I’m going to do things my way.  It took me a while with Mike’s support to find out what would work best for us as a family and what seemed to work best was always going with what Jacob seemed to need at that moment.  We started solid foods when he seemed to want them, we put him in his own bedroom when we felt it was time for him…I just believe that as parents we’d be able to make decisions when the time called for it and that jacob in his own way would be able to tell us when it was time…so far we’ve never been wrong.

Since Jacob has turned two and more specifically since I got pregnant we’ve felt a lot of pressure from various people to get Jacob potty trained so that we didn’t have two children in diapers and while we tried we just couldn’t get him to do it full time and he eventually just kept telling us no thank-you I’ll just do it in my diaper.  Once again I should have trusted my own instincts that Jacob would tell us when it was time and that he did….tonight.  Mike went around the corner to the hallway where Jacob’s potty was sitting and lo and behold there was Jacob sitting buck naked on the potty taking a poop.  Yup, he took off his own clothes and diaper, sat on the potty without telling us and took a poo. I think this is his way of telling us he’s ready and we’re totally prepared to do a laid back approach at this which I think will be the most non-stressful thing for him.   I just beleive that he can do this in his own time and when he’s ready and while that is not what works for every family, I believe whole heartedly that it works for ours.