Look what I made!

As usual, I feel like I have a ton of stuff to update on. First of all, there is the family reunion to cover.

We spent the first half of the reunion by camping. Normally this time of year isn't too chilly, at least not from what I remember. But this year, we actually had snow at the site (I say we, but David and I actually didn't arrive until the next day when the snow had already melted). The temperature was in the low 50s and most of the time was spent sitting by the fire. It seems we are destined to experience the extremes of the weather every time we camp. The last time we dealt with scorching heat, so I guess we were due for freezing cold. Despite the weather, we enjoyed being able to chat around the fire and have fun. Lucy seemed to not want to stay warm, however, and she often spent time running around with her cousins. Even with running, I don't know how she was able to ignore the cold. I certainly didn't like pulling myself away from the fire to fetch her before she wandered too far from camp.

At night, we had planned to set up Lucy's playpen and cover her in heavy blankets, but it became clear that was not going to happen. One, our tent didn't have room to set it up, and two, she would've been frostbitten by morning. So David and I placed her between us. Being on the sides, we could literally feel the cold sucking the heat from the side of our bodies that wasn't next to Lucy. She slept fine, which is better since it's impossible to sleep well when your child can't. But I doubt I slept more than two hours the whole night due to my feet being freezing cold. Even with David laying on top of them, they couldn't seem to contain a single particle of heat. I was grateful when I saw the sun rising, because I had given up on trying to sleep a long time ago. The whole experience gave me an even deeper appreciation for the handcart companies, because even though we were so cold, and some of us had been pretty miserable, it was nothing compared to what the pioneers went through. We had food, water, tents, cars, sleeping bags, a fire, warm blankets, coats, a restroom, and the snow barely covered the ground. On the other hand, the pioneers didn't have any of that and the snow went past their ankles. They had to push and pull their meager supplies and they had little to no shelter from the cold, which I think was closer to zero than ours was. We spent no more than two nights in that kind of weather, whereas they dealt with it for a few months. Yeah, I'd say my respect for the pioneers has grown and I'm glad I got a small taste of what they went through.

The rest of the reunion was spent at the house where it was warm and we even had to turn on the AC. I took advantage of the opportunity to let Lucy run around without having to keep an eye on her all the time, and I was able to relax.

At one point, we went to the park and let the kids use up some pent-up energy on the jungle gym.

It was pretty cute watching Lucy play with Cassidi.

We also kicked a ball around (again I say we, but I was mostly sitting and observing).

The next day we went to church and slowly people began to head home. We hung around another day, which was a good thing because suddenly everyone started feeling sick. I was glad we weren't driving while feeling this way, or it would've been absolutely miserable. Poor David got it first and then I followed, but mine went away before his. Luckily, it missed Lucy completely.

The day after that, we felt well enough to make the long trek home. Despite some of the discomforts we experienced, we enjoyed the time we got to spend with everyone.

So back to life as we know it, Lucy has some more skills to add to her list. Lately she has proven herself to be a very good helper. Granted she is pushing a toy vacuum in the picture below, but it is still adorable.

These days, I make certain I involve her in folding laundry, stocking the dishwasher, putting dishes in the sink, putting her toys away, sweeping the floor, putting dishes away, tossing stuff in the garbage, etc. I find it's easier to have her help rather than keep pushing her away so that I can work. Sometimes it's hard thinking of tasks she can do, but she often surprises me by proving herself to be more capable than I realize.

But I think dressing herself is going to have to wait a while.

Speaking of capabilities, I finally decided to overcome my fear of sewing and make something. I asked someone in my ward to show me how to do it, and together we tackled a couple of sewing projects. I decided to focus on things I would be using when the baby comes, so my first project was a simple nursing shawl. I became interested in making one when I saw someone else who had made one for herself. It's a little more practical than a nursing apron because it covers you front and back and you don't have to worry as much about the baby kicking and exposing you for everyone to see.

I chose a light, silky material so that it wouldn't be too stuffy to use in the summertime. And the color is neutral because I intended to use it as a scarf as well. This way I can wear it with anything and use it whenever I need it. The main flaw is that I made it longer than the instructions suggested so more material than I need, but I still see it being very useful. Also I can shorten it anytime, but I prefer to see it in action first so that I'm certain how much I should cut back.

The second sewing project I tackled was a carseat canopy. I felt it might be useful to help the baby sleep or stay asleep when we're out and about as well as protect him from the elements. I also saw it as something that might help random people, mostly kids, from helping themselves to touching and playing with the baby while the cover is down. Again, I wanted a thinner material for the summertime. The ones I saw in the store were more equipped for winter, but that seemed silly when we live in California and I'm perfectly capable of adding a blanket to keep the baby warm. My main concern was making sure the baby didn't get overheated, and I feel the material I chose would be the best one to achieve that. This project was a little more complicated than the shawl, but I did it myself from start to finish with just a little guidance.

If you can't tell, I'm very proud of my finished projects, and it even motivated me to pick some others back up.

I made this by printing out the font, covering the back of it with chalk, tracing the letters, and coloring it in with metallic markers. This was the best method I could think of to display Lucy's birth info so that I could be consistent with all my kids rather than rely on the store to keep my plaque, or whatever, in stock. I'll do the same for Paul when he arrives and so on. Now all it needs is a frame, which I will worry about when we're ready to hang them, which probably won't be until we have more to hang with it.

 

I wanted to create more, and my next project to complete is my baby blanket, which I've been working on time and again over the past few months. I had to start over a couple times because they didn't have any more of the yarn I was using in the stores. So I'm trying to spread it out more by including more colors since it isn't enough by itself.

Obviously it's still in progress. But I like how it is turning out.

I still have more catching up to do, but I'm going to save it for another post, because we've done quite a bit in the past couple of months.

And the gender is...?

So I went in for my 20 week appointment at the beginning of May. As usual they check to see that the baby is developing properly before they get to the gender. The good news is the baby is developing just fine. The bad news was the position was poor in order to get the gender. The technician had me roll from side to side and she pressed harder and harder to get a clearer picture, but to no avail. The result was inconclusive and I was left to continue wondering as before. Nevertheless, I was convinced that it was a boy and I just needed a confirmation that my instinct was correct.

I waited until I met with my doctor 2 weeks later to ask when I might get a second peek, but he said they wait until there is a complication before they do another ultrasound. However, he did mention a nearby clinic that does ultrasounds for pretty cheap. I looked into it and they had an appointment available for the next day. David said to go for it, so I set it up. What can I say? We didn't like not knowing.

Lo and behold, I was right. Lucy is going to have a little BROTHER! This is a big deal for David's side of the family because this would be their first grandson. Also David jokes about how he is the only man in the house because even our dog is a girl, but not anymore. We would be just as excited if it was a girl, obviously.

Now that we know the gender, I feel I can properly prepare. Do I have boy stuff? No. As hard as we tried to keep things unisex, our house is pretty much overrun by pink stuff. Now I can make my traditional baby blanket, that is that my making it a second time will then make it traditional. I like to get stuff done in the second trimester because I have discovered that the third trimester leaves me very immobile and fatigued. It is best to do it when my energy is at its peak, especially with an unpredictable 2-year-old running around to make even the simplest of projects take forever to complete. She's not two yet, but it feels like she is.

In the end, the best thing is that the baby is healthy and growing the way it should. It keeps pretty active and has started kicking harder than before. Both Lucy and this baby have a habit of halting their kicks whenever I try to get David to feel them, but I think it won't be long before he won't need to feel them to know they're happening, because he'll be able to see them.

Right now, healthwise, my energy is picking up and I've been able to do quite a bit. Headaches have lightened a little but they still have an impact. I recently got a massage because they had turned into a daily thing for two weeks. After that, I haven't had them more than once a week. Heartburn isn't that bad (so far) but time may change that. One thing that's new that I didn't have the last time is hot flashes. My pregnancy with Lucy was practically the same time of year, over the summer. (Need I add that both have been in California?) But I never assumed I had hot flashes because there was always someone who felt hotter than me. Now I'm the one who makes sure our ceiling fans are on and who pushes for the house fan to be turned on for longer. I'm not used to having that responsibility.

So even though we still have about four months left before we get to hold the little man for the first time, we have plenty to keep us occupied until then, like a toddler for example. I'm pretty sure Lucy has entered the terrible-two's stage and it is not fun. We no longer have a perfectly behaved and happy little girl. (Ok, she wasn't perfect, but we had very little to complain about before now.) These days Lucy enjoys shrieking to try to get what she wants, which we don't give into. In fact, we give her exactly what she doesn't want, which is a time-out. She now puts up a fight by kicking and squirming to get away, which is more complicated by me trying to aim those kicks away from my stomach. Now she knows how to ask for certain things and recognizes when we tell her no. So she responds by throwing a tantrum. The list goes on and I miss the days when I didn't have to pull her out of sacrament meeting because of her behavior. She gives us a glimpse of the girl she used to be every once in a while, but then she switches back to the terror. That isn't to say she doesn't behave well in other areas. They're just a little overshadowed right now by her more recent behaviors. But we recently graduated her to a toddler bed and has yet to climb out of it. She still waits patiently for us to come pull her out, and I hope it lasts. The next adventure will most likely be potty training her, and I hope the transition is just as easy.

Lucy's quirks and progress in general

There's a few things I failed to mention in my last post, but now things are just piling up, so I'm just going to get as much done as I can and post the rest later.

Back in March, we went to Utah to attend our neice's baby blessing. She is Lucy's only cousin on the Hixson side. On the Law side she already has twenty cousins, going on twenty-one.

Lucy is here sitting with Great Grandma C. and Charlee, her cousin.

While we were in Utah, Lucy made a few discoveries.

She discovered she enjoys the park. Long ago when we first took her down a slide, she cried the whole way down and some time afterward.

Obviously, she has overcome her fear, although it wasn't without some protesting at first. Pretty soon she was ready to venture onto other slides.

We have visited the park a little more often since then.

She also discovered how it feels to ice skate.

The skating rink we visited just happened to have skates in her size. So we set her up and brought her on the ice with us. She ended up clinging to us the whole time, dragging her feet on the ground, not allowing herself to put any weight on her skates. Can't say I'm surprised, especially when she hasn't even spent an entire year walking on a steady surface.

When we returned from Utah, life went back to normal. I eventually became aware how long Lucy's hair has grown and I wanted to get a picture of her curls that show up every now and then. Her hair is usually pretty straight.

Looking back through her pictures from the past, I'm amazed at how little hair she used to have. She is almost unrecognizable to me when I look at her younger self. Now I finally get to play with her hair, something I've been wanting to do for a while since she has stopped allowing me to put headbands on her for quite some time.

Now I've done it enough that she has actually learned to sit still when I do her hair.

So I played with her hair some more by doing Easter pictures.

And every once in a while, I catch a photo on Sundays, after church of course, when I'm not running around trying to be on time.

Lucy's hair is not the only thing that's grown. Her list of words that she uses on a daily basis is getting longer and longer. Her vocabulary not only includes "mom" and "dada", but also "oh no", "all gone" ("aw gah"), "what's that" ("wha da"), "cracker" ("cacka"), "please" (which sounds more like "tchee", not sure why), "baby" ("beebee"), "uh-uh", and "amen" ("ahmeh"). We get excited whenever she learns a new word. She also knows how to point to different parts of her face and we're currently teaching her more body parts. 

On a random note, I one time entered her room to wake her up and I found her like this. I guess the sun was shining too brightly that morning for her taste.

I actually videotaped her for almost two minutes in this position. I guess she was just bored.

Another moment where I caught her being unnaturally still.

 She was just staring at the dog on the other side of the baby gate. She was lying like that for almost fifteen minutes.

Another odd thing she likes to do is giggle and squeal at people standing behind me in the grocery store when I'm in the checkout line. I'm pretty sure she has no idea how much she brightens their day. They can't help but laugh with her.

Though she can be quite a handful, she brightens my day too. I wonder if the next one will be as happy as she is.

Order Up for Baby #2

It's definitely time for a little updating. Though a lot of things have happened this month, there is one thing whose impact is greater than all of them put together.

So far, these are the only two photos I have of the new addition to our small family. They were taken when I was almost 10 weeks. Now I'm at 16 weeks, so I can imagine it's grown since then.

And this is my first belly photo at 15 weeks. I don't remember showing this much the last time around this point.

I have already felt the little flurry of movements, starting around 14 weeks. They say people normally don't feel them till they are at least where I'm at now, but I don't know why I'm an exception to that. 

Going through this for the second time, there are quite a few symptoms I didn't have before. Morning sickness didn't seem that much worse than the first time, but I have sure felt more exhaustion. Hardly makes sense when I was struggling to graduate from college the last time and now I obviously don't have to worry about finishing my assignments on time. It could be that I got better exercise then than I do now because I had to walk uphill to classes and back in the snow. That was all the workout I needed at the time. Now I have to make time for that kind of exercise and it doesn't always happen. So I'm more tired than usual.

I am also more aware of growing pains this time around, which my doctor warned me about. You would think that once a balloon has already expanded that it would be easier to blow it back up again, or at least that it wouldn't hurt, that is if balloons could feel. Well, my assumption is false and the second time isn't as fun. I only hope it doesn't become more painful with each one, but I don't think that would stop me even if it did. I just have to be more careful when I stand up or do anything too quickly, so I'm working around it.

As is the case with the first child, you don't typically have a little one running around during your very first pregnancy. I'm sure veteran moms with two or more kids are shaking their heads right now, but we all have to experience things for ourselves. I never noticed how roughly my daughter climbs in and out of my lap until I became pregnant, how she uses her elbow for support and how she digs her heels in for balance. The doctor reassures me that it hurts me more than it hurts the baby, but that doesn't change the fact that it still hurts! There are times that I absolutely refuse to let her sit on me, because I am usually experiencing some growing pains or some other ailment at the time, but I do encourage her to sit next to me instead. Sometimes that works and other times daddy has to intervene. Taking care of a toddler at all while pregnant is definitely a challenge, because they are so active and yet so dependent. It is something I will have to get used to for sure if I plan to have more children.

As usual with pregnancy I get headaches and migraines and Tylenol can only do so much. I'm kind of a whimp when it comes to not feeling well, so headaches pretty much put me out of commission.

On a more serious note, I've had more scares with this pregnancy than before. In February I celebrated my birthday, and later that evening as I was driving home from a mutual activity (because my calling is in young women's), I suddenly sensed that I was bleeding. It was just a hunch, but I got home and discovered I was right. I was devastated, because I thought there could only be one explanation for bleeding during a pregnancy, and that it was I was going to miscarry. I alerted David and he called the doctor for me. We were told to make an appointment the next day and that I was to stay on bed rest until I could get checked. I asked David to give me a blessing, to which he complied. After that I felt calm about it all and knew I could handle whatever the doctor had to tell me. The next day it couldn't be determined why the bleeding began but the assumption was because the placenta was lower than usual. He tried to find the heart beat with the device, but I wasn't surprised he was unsuccessful, because they couldn't find Lucy's without an ultrasound until I was almost 20 weeks. So I wasn't any more concerned by the fact that he couldn't find it. He turned on the ultrasound and tried looking for it that way. At first the baby looked still, but it didn't take long to notice the heart beating at a steady pace. All of the sudden it became very active and started kicking and moving up and down on the screen, so everything looked good and I could rest easy. As long as the baby was alright, we had nothing to worry about. Since that night, the bleeding did not come back for at least a month. Then, out of the blue, it started again. Once again, I called the doctor to get checked, and they still couldn't determine the source of the blood, but that appears to be normal with bleeding in general. And he found the heartbeat without an ultrasound, and it was just fine. One thing they could tell was the blood was not coming from the baby or the womb, which was a comfort to me. Now things are okay in that regard and I have decided not to worry about it anymore while at the same time being careful not to take on physical activities that I shouldn't. The doctor gave me the okay on going back to my regular routine, but I still take it a little easy.

So despite all the complaints I've had with this pregnancy thus far, I am still excited to be pregnant again and would not change that for anything right now. As is expected, the anxiety has already hit me of what it will mean to have two little kids and the changes that will take place to compensate for it, but I'm also optimistic about it. I'm addicted to how it feels to hold them when they first arrive. That seems to be enough to make you forget the pain and discomfort you experience leading up to that moment.

I realized I never mentioned the due date on here: September 20th. We will reach the halfway mark in May and will hopefully know the gender by then. For no explicable reason, I sense it is a boy. But we'll see how right I am, because I'm not exactly psychic, even if I was right about our first one being a girl.

Lucy will have had her second birthday before then, and I wonder if she will comprehend what's going on by the time her sibling arrives. She does show a little jealousy when the dog is being played with instead of her, even though she gets more attention than the dog in general. So it will be curious to see how she responds to having another baby around. We try not to spoil her, but who could say no to that face.

Just kidding. We say no all the time.