Another week in the bag. Here we are!

Baby

Baby Sister is still on the inside – a cause to celebrate! She’s big, and strong, and sometimes violent, and I’m loving her to pieces.

Not sure why, but I’ve been feeling a little extra excited the past few days. Maybe because we are pretty sure we have her name? Maybe because her room is “substantially complete”? Maybe because I’ve been feeling better and can focus on the future a little bit better, rather than being stuck in the misery of “now”? Whatever the reason, I am just dying to see what she looks like.

And yes, the nursery is mostly finished! Yesterday Kyle donned his Mickey Mouse “#1 Dad” tshirt, and built the last furniture item. He also put up everything on the walls! So other than a few knick knacks, and cleaning up the cardboard and the tools, Baby Sister’s room is ready to go! Her clothes are even in the drawers, if you can believe that!

Me

You probably caught this above – but I’ve been feeling better! “Better” is a relative term, so things still aren’t totally easy and normal, but I am so grateful for the improvements. The biggest improvement is that I haven’t felt dizzy in days. DAYS! I remember that the perinatologist said that around 32 weeks, pregnant ladies’ blood vessels start to constrict a bit. She mentioned that I might start to feel a bit better when that happened for me, since that would help with the low blood pressure aspect of my struggles. She seems to have been correct!

I’ve still been keeping up on my water intake the best I can, just to be on the safe side. And that seems to have been helping keep any remaining dizziness issues at bay. However, I’ve still been contracting – albeit not quite as much. The contractions do hurt occasionally still, especially when I “overdo it”. They often hurt in my belly, my back, my hips and my bottom. And sometimes they fool my body into thinking I’m having abdominal cramping that sends my digestion into a bit of overdrive.

But honestly, truly, I would take these contractions over the dizziness anytime. It is so much easier to manage a little pain and discomfort than to feel disoriented, short of breath, and need to lay down. I can go about a fairly normal life with the contractions, which is not something I can really say of the dizziness. So this feels like a major win.

My only other complaints at the moment are that my hips are quite sore still, making sleep difficult, and walking a bit of a challenge. I have also been getting some intermittent heartburn, and I’ve noticed a few stretch marks in places where I didn’t get them with Lewis. But these small annoyances are so run-of-the-mill that I almost welcome them as a replacement for the dizziness. Bring on the “normal” pregnancy stuff! I’ll take it!

All of this “normalcy” has made me feel so very optimistic about how long Baby Sister is going to stay in. The less weird things are, the more likely it seems that we’ll make it to full term. My anxiety levels are dropping along more with each “normal” day.

I haven’t talked about cravings in a while! Lately, they have included ice cream sundaes, popcorn, ice cold carbonated beverages, and cucumber + cheese on toast. Although I think the toast craving might be on the way out after a good, long run.

I got my hair cut and dyed yesterday for the first time in ages. My last haircut was 6 months ago, and the last time I altered the color was well before Lewis was born. So I’m thinking it may have been about 3 years! I feel amazing. With all the weight I’ve gained, I feel so very disgusting, and I had hoped that refreshing my hair might help me feel better about myself. Sure enough, it worked! I love it!

Not sure if this link will work, but my stylist posted a couple pictures of my hair. https://www.instagram.com/p/BWF3lTijht8/

Lewis

Lewis has been mostly cheerful lately. He’s had some silly little two year old discipline problems that we’re working through as they come up. You know, things like throwing and hitting – not cute!

Poor buddy hates getting in trouble so much that he usually breaks down immediately after being scolded and has a full-on meltdown. Our new go-to line is, “We’re not mad at you, we just don’t like what you did.” After a few minutes, that usually sinks in and he starts to calm down. Then we ask him, “would you feel better if you said sorry to [person] for [offense]?” He usually says yes, gives the person in question a hug, says sorry for his infraction, and then announces, “I’M HAPPY NOW!”

Clothes have also become a daily battle, as opposed to an occasional fight. He usually becomes obsessed with whatever shirt (sometimes pants, too!) he is wearing, and decides it is the one he wants to wear forever. We max out at allowing the same outfit for 24 hours (he gets sooooo dirty!), but we face big meltdowns if we try to change him. The meltdowns double in length and intensity if the clothing item is purple, or if it has Mickey Mouse on it. Although, last night Lewis got to try juice at Grammy’s house, and then he found out that the zebra on his jammies is drinking juice, so I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to wear the zebra/juice jammies forever now. They might have joined purple/Mickey clothes in the “I could wear this forever” category.

We’re ramping up the frequency of talking about Baby Sister’s upcoming arrival so Lewis is as ready as he can be. He is so, so excited about Baby Sister – he claims he loves her, he wants to be in her room all the time, he wants to “snuggle” her (he rests his head on my belly)… but we haven’t found a way to convince him that it’s going to be fun to stay at Grammy’s house for a few days when Baby Sister comes. As soon as we mention that, he frowns and says, “NO! I don’t LIKE Grammy’s house!”, which is – of course – a total lie. He loves, loves, loves it there! What he actually means is, “no, stupid mommy. It will not be fun to be at Grammy’s without you.”

Fair enough, kiddo. But remember – Grammy gives you juice. I think that’s our ticket. After he tried the juice yesterday evening, the whole drive home he was telling us from the back seat, “I like juice a lot. That was special. I like special juice!” While I’m not keen on making juice a staple of his diet (he gets plenty of sugary beverages in the form of Pediasure!), I am jotting this down as a bribery tool. Use what you’ve got, right?!