Compare/Contrast: So far, everything has been the same. Movements this time are insane and so much fun and I almost feel more connected to this baby than I did with Cara, but everything is going good. I'm definitely feeling super ready for this baby mentally. With Cara I had no idea what to really expect after she was born, and even though I still don't know what to fully expect after this one either, I feel like the emotional issues I had in my postpartum time with Cara might not be as big of issues this time around. I feel I have a good postpartum plan for this time.
Sleeping this time around is so different! I swear I was sleeping SO much better when I was pregnant with Cara, but this time I swear I only get a few good hours and then it's tossing and turning and my brain being on overdrive for the rest of the night! I get foot, leg, and bum cramps all the time at night so that sure makes it a bit more difficult.
Heartburn!! Oh man, I only had heartburn once during my pregnancy with Cara. Granted, that one was way worse than any I've had this pregnancy, but I ended up moving the Tums bottle to my nightstand because by bedtime I NEED them, it's pretty crazy how much more I have heartburn this time around. Totally worth it, plus Tums are like my candy these days, but wowie!
Also, apparently around this point last time I was starting to get so swollen I couldn't wear my ring, but I haven't reached that point yet. I'm not sure if it's because I resized my ring after having Cara or if it's because I haven't had that weird arthritis/carpal tunnel thing where my knuckles hurt a lot, but I'm so glad I can still wear my ring. Hopefully that doesn't change!
Best Moments This Month: Coming up with our list of names, We have some good first names, but as usual, figuring out middle names is difficult, but it's still fun to play around with them.
I also ordered the bedding and room decorations for this little one so I'm excited to have a bed to set up...which won't be till after she's born, but still! And as a last big order I got her crib ordered. I still need to get the double stroller, her dresser, and then any little things, but I'm so glad shopping is SO much easier this time around.
We also keep buying her little outfits...I need to watch that haha. I'm sure we don't need half of what we've gotten as we do still need to go through Cara's old clothes to see what we can re-use this time around, but she does deserve clothes of her own too. Now to pick/find her coming home outfit.
What I'm Looking Forward To: Just continuing with movements and having a new baby in the house...I'm feeling more ready every week that passes. The nesting bug has bitten really bad lately so I'm looking forward to getting to when our schedule allows me to get that done (yes I put it on the calendar when we'll be doing cleaning).
We also have a trip planned in September to visit Stacey so I'm really looking forward to that trip!
Also, Fall has been starting a little bit towards the end of this month so I'm really looking forward to the rest of Fall and starting our Halloween theme movies :)
So, now that Cara is getting older, even though she doesn't understand the whole "other kids are other people and not just random objects" concept, I realize we should probably find ways to socialize her. We take her to playgrounds and parks, but she just does her own thing. I haven't worked up the courage to talk to many other parents to set up play dates so I figured I'd go looking at classes or some mommy and me things we could do together. The only one I found that worked for her age was a tumbling class at a place just down the road from us. It seemed perfect, PLUS the place (once the kids are potty trained) does a date night out once a month. You can drop your kids off, they put on a movie or let the kids just run around, and you can go have a date night with your spouse! Such a great idea and made me love the place even more.
First class outfits...I'm obviously really excited!
We took her to her first class today and...well it'll be something she'll have to get used to. She cried almost the entire time. She like the slides and eventually warmed up to crawling through the tunnel, but we had to give her snacks after each and every thing they did. The teachers were really nice and let us know kids do tend to have a harder time in the beginning but end up warming up. I figure we'll pay for the classes through November (when I'm due) and if she still doesn't like it, we'll pull her out and try again next year.
Overall I think it'll be good for her. It's a fun class that helps get her energy out and she'll get to meet other kids in it. Granted there was only one other kid there this time, but they said they just barely opened up the Saturday class so hopefully it'll build up as we go to more classes. I just hope she does start to like it. My heart kind of broke feeling like I was making her do this against her wishes, but I know it was more about her not getting to explore on her own and the fact that we were forcing her to sit still for part of it. Fingers crossed we can stick with this!
So what do you do when you made plans with your Grandma to fix her computer but she made other plans with other kids without inviting you? (I'm not bothered or anything by it, no. Haha) Well Larry looked up things to do around us and saw that the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point (really the Dinosaur museum) was having a shark-themed event today only so we decided to go check that out instead.
This museum is pretty cool, probably geared for an older crowd (as far as kids go) and man is it pricey! I was thinking of also doing the animal farm as well, but the museum alone was $20 per adult (granted it would have only been $24 if we wanted to do both attractions so...hindsight!). We walked through and just let Cara go at her own pace through each area. She definitely loves touching things so if she can, that's where you'd find her. She also LOVED walking along this log bench thing they had in one of the rooms. We even let her walk in this little kid tunnel area, but because you could see the log bench from there she'd just go straight back to the bench and just walk back and forth...over and over....until we made her stop haha.
Yeah, none of the tunnel photos
Weren't a tiny bit blurry
This was easily her favorite part of the
Whole museum
We ended up going through the museum twice because we couldn't find the shark stuff and then when we did find it, it definitely wasn't something for Cara's age. They had TONS of cool things for kids to do, but Cara was just a tad too young for it. I hope it's something they'll do again when she's old enough to appreciate it and actually participate with it. The good news about going through twice was the second time we found a little kid area that had a water and sand table with dino figurines and so we let Cara go play in that while we sat off to the side (I totally got a flash for when she's in school and has real friends and I won't be her best friend anymore and it totally pulled at my heart strings!). Cara LOVED this as well. She kept playing with the one dinosaur we gave her in the beginning and, when she could reach it, she'd splash in the water. It was cute to watch her play, even though she ignored all the other kids (because she just doesn't see them as people to play with yet).
In the end, I'm glad we went, but I think I want to get a membership to Thanksgiving Point to make the price of these things worth it if we are planning on going as much as we might want to. I can see it being such a good area to visit as Cara (and her little sister) get older and I want to teach them different things.
Ahhh...the totally relaxed feeling I have after such a nice week! Now I am a big lover of traveling, seeing new places, eating new foods...all of it! I don't even mind staying in hotels (in fact, that can be half the fun for me!), but there's something about a Staycation! A week (or however long) of sleeping in (in your own bed), being comfy on your couch, having access to all your clothes (not just what you packed) and just taking each day as it comes!
One thing I will say is I'm not a TOTAL go with the flow sort of person and I have developed busy body syndrome, so I did plan a little something for the days, but it wasn't too much and we still got a lot of down time. Honestly, the things I did plan just made us (at least me) appreciate what down time we did have.
Here's a bit of a breakdown of our week:
Saturday and Sunday (the 4th and 5th) were spent playing with blocks, trying on new accessories, and watching animated animals dance and sing in preparation for our week off.
Monday I made plans to visit some day care centers near us. With a second baby on the way I worried having 2 under 2 to watch while Larry worked might be a little much so I figured we should go price day cares and see if there were any we liked, just in case. We visited with 3 of them, 2 we really liked and 1 was a no go. Larry still doesn't like the idea and after seeing how much they cost I became okay with his confidence. He said the only positive to putting Cara in day care would be he'd finally get to see her excitement with him when he picked her up - like she gets with me when I get home (queue the AWWWWs from my heart) - but overall he really didn't like the idea of someone else taking care of her. I hope that it works out that way!
Honestly, I loved the 2 we liked, and it made me excited about the possibilities, but the money was a big stressor for me. Even still, I did get some ideas of a good schedule to have Cara on and good day time routines for her (in fact it convinced us to move her nap from 1:30 to 12:30 just to see if that would help her go to bed...we'll be trying that next week to see the effects) so visiting them wasn't a total loss.
Cara caught onto the Staycation vibes REALLY quickly haha
Tuesday we had some Dr appointments in the morning. We did the eye doctor and pediatrician for Cara's 15 month checkup. I'm happy to report that she's gaining weight at a very healthy level (I was nervous switching her to solids and off a bottle would make it hard to match the calories, but she's actually closer to the 50th percentile rather than 30th now) and her head is just as big as ever haha. I also made it a mission to finish up my Seasonal Totes while we had this week off (a 2 hour midday nap really makes it easier to get stuff like that done). I finally printed off my labels and we went to Hobby Lobby to get some good thick paper and got them all ready. We also decided to stop off at the Asian Buffet nearby (SO yummy...and I'm not normally a big Asian food person) for lunch. Cara loved all of it, but mostly the watermelon (of course).
My tote labels...Cute, right?
Wednesday we had some more Dr appointments. This time was the dentist in the morning and then I had my general checkup in the afternoon. I decided while we had a little grass left we should have a play in the sprinklers outside time. Cara didn't care too much, but I had fun with it haha. She did end up running around on the trampoline while the water hit part of that and she appeared to have fun with that. I also took my first nap in forever while Cara napped. It was only an hour, but it was nice to say I actually got to take one! I don't know if that'll happen once #2 is here. Overall it was a really fun day. Totally relaxed, got a nap, had fun!
Thursday was an unexpected day, but turned out to be one of the funnest days! I had originally wanted to go down South - one of the towns near Provo was having a festival with a petting zoo and pony rides (I mean could you just imagine Cara on her first pony?!). I was SO excited to go, but the unfortunate timing with this week was the awful fires in Provo were making the air REALLY bad. We got a warning on our phones Wednesday night that the air was SO bad that we shouldn't be outside unless we had to. Even though I still wanted to try going, Larry convinced me that for Cara's and my own (pregnant) sake we really shouldn't! I found I couldn't just sit at home all day long though so my pregnancy hormones dared him to find an alternative to our plans. His suggestion: Furniture Row and Ikea! Okay, he totally wins with this one! We hadn't been there in SO long (we went ALL the time right before Cara was born and I kind of missed those days) and I was excited to see what was new. Furniture Row had some cute couch/love seat combos that had me convinced we needed to buy them to replace our living room sectional (to be moved to the basement)...they had cup holders, automated recliners, were SO comfortable, and would give us a little more room in our living room. While I was ready to find a salesman to ring one up, Larry explained that moving the couch to the basement with only himself would be too difficult and we could wait on any large purchases...I realized he was right and on to Ikea we went. I got SO many awesome home ideas at Ikea, including some fun planter ideas for outside and some shelving ideas for one of our front rooms (the one I like to call our activity room that I'd love to put built-ins for games and books). And even though I did get some comments about how big I was and should be due "any day now" (gee...thanks!), it was still such a fun time! Plus I ended up finding a couple fun toys at Ikea for Cara...I'm REALLY bad at waiting for Christmas to shop for her. We got home in time for lunch and Cara's nap (movie time for me!) and Larry mentioned we might want to go walk a mall or something. I also hadn't been to South Towne in a bit so I thought that would be a lot of fun. We went there, checked out any stores we wanted (I got some Christmas ideas there), browsed Fall scents at Bath & Body Works, and just let Cara burn off some more energy. Dinner in the Food Court was just the cherry on top (I LOVE Melty Way's triple cheese sandwich with the tomato soup for dipping!). I think this day might have been my favorite of all the days!
Cute planter idea!
Friday..oh Friday. We knew it was the end of the work week time off so we had to make it worth it. Larry finished digging up ALL the grass and our old planter boxes so we can officially start our yard makeover (yes, this is going to be a LOOONG project). Larry had his general checkup that afternoon while I finished up the my totes (putting the binders in the correct sized containers, moving them to the basement, cleaning out my old office supplies boxes to consolidate into one, etc.). Overall, it was our most productive day ever! Unfortunately, Cara got a bad bonk to the head when she ran into the corner of our dining table, so I got some cuddle time with her while I put on Sesame Street (she loves those puppets!).
Saturday and today, while also still days off, have been such a bummer for me. I know I should enjoy them, but I really just hated that our time off is over. I LOVE spending time with my family so much! They are just my favorite people and we have so much fun! I have decided we need to do more of these staycations in the future! I have a few actual vacations planned for next year that will eat up my PTO, but I'm definitely going to need to make more time for these awesome days where we just get to enjoy being together!
I know, I know. I'm probably going to get a LOT of flak for this one, but I had a revelation this week and I wanted to share it. Parenting (in our personal experience) isn't hard, but it is challenging.
You might wonder how on earth those are two separate things. Let me explain!
Exhibit 1: a baby who decides to throw off
Their own schedule by taking an earlier nap
So far in our parenting journey with a 15 month old girl, there have been times where I've thought "man this is a hard stage". Then I start to think about my words and realize, no, not hard, but it's a new challenge I didn't realize would be one I'd have to face.
Exhibit 2: a baby that won't keep pajamas on
During the night. So I become a mom who worries
She's going to suffocate somehow :\
That's what parenting is: challenging. As in, there's ALWAYS a new challenge! First it's being born and getting used to sleepless nights. There's introducing something new (like solids). There's getting them to roll over, crawl, pull up to stand, walk. There's getting them to speak or understand your words to them. There's teething (oh is there teething!). It's just never ending. You get used to one stage/phase/development and very shortly after there's another one.
Exhibit 3: New foods, friends, and learning
New tricks.
Now, I will admit, I'm only 15 months into this "game" with only one kid and a very helpful and supportive partner. So maybe if you have 3 kids, all around school age, as a single parent then I'm talking out of my ass and I definitely applaud any single parent for doing what they are doing. I mean, it's not hard to me, but it's still work. Tons of work. All the time work! The only break I get (or allow myself) is when she's sleeping, otherwise it's "how can I teach her something?" or "how can I utilize this time with her?" or "what's going to be the best toy/food/book for her?"
Exhibit 4: New experiences lead to head bruises
Sometimes (to be clear, the swing didn't cause
A bruise, but she does get them quite a bit)
I have also learned that being a parent means having patience and lots of it! It means being willing to put another living person and their needs before your own. It means understanding when they are whining that sometimes you need to get on their level to find out what is going on in their little world. And also understanding that they are seeing and experiencing things different than you do/have. It's a very thin line of ignoring their needs because they are whining just to whine (one of the most annoying sounds in the world if you ask me) and figuring out what they are experiencing and if it can be altered to make them adapt better and what makes you a helicopter/coddling parent vs teaching them more free-will.
But in the end, the cuddles and smiles make it ALL
Completely worth it!
For me, though, I feel I've gotten a good grasp of this with Cara and that's why I feel ready to have this second little baby to throw in the mix. Who knows? Maybe this time next year I'll be posting about how it's extremely hard and I had no idea what I was saying when I wrote this post haha.
