Alright, so I decided that baby #2 should have his own post. I keep forgetting to even MENTION that I'm pregnant on the blog, so this is my way of making good.
First off, I am currently 20 weeks pregnant (my "day" is Saturday). Half way! Woot! Even though I'm half-way there I still don't really "feel" pregnant. I had some mild nausea in the first trimester. Basically enough so that I felt blah and didn't feel like being up and around much, but not enough to actually throw up or be totally miserable. Other than that I've had virtually no symptoms! Not even a belly. I am truly sorry to all the poor pregnant women out there who have normal pregnancies and therefore plenty of miserable symptoms, but this has not been one of those pregnancies! I had WAY more symptoms with Harp. Things could definitely change though, who knows? Until then, I'm just feeling grateful and trying to convince myself that I really am pregnant.
Gender
For both pregnancies, I had no feeling whatsoever about what gender the baby was, but Tom was 100% for the very beginning. With Harp, the very first thing he said to me after I told him I was pregnant was, "It's a girl." And, of course, he was right. This time he said it would be a boy. Because of that, I had a hard time thinking of it as anything else. So, before we found out I remember thinking that if it was a girl I wouldn't be disappointed, but it would be strange and I would have to wrap my brain around it. Well, we had our gender scan on Christmas Eve. Since Tom couldn't be there we decided to not have the tech tell me either, but to just write it down on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. Then, when we got together with Tom's family the next day we gave his sister, Stacey, the envelope, a newborn outfit for each gender and some wrapping materials. She looked at the gender and wrapped up the appropriate outfit like a Christmas present and we opened it with Tom's family (in person) and my parents on skype. I thought it was a pretty fun way to do it.
Here's the video of us opening the present. It's a bit long, so feel free to skip to the good stuff:
And, if you're too lazy to watch the video, and you don't already know, here's the result! :
Names
For Harp, we had her name for, like, 4 years before she was born and it was a no brainer. We were a bit annoyed that it started getting popular, but it was just her name. We had a name like that for a boy too, but Tom started having second thoughts, so I started having second thoughts. Now Tom is back on it and I'm still not sure. So, we've tried to come up with another name and it hasn't been wholly successful. So far we have a bunch of names that we kind of like, but aren't 100% sold on. He might end up being one of those kids that still doesn't have a name when he leaves the hospital.
Movement
With Harp, I felt movement pretty early, for a first time pregnancy - around 17 weeks. Tom even felt it a few days later. With this one I felt it even earlier. I started wondering if I was feeling it REALLY early on - like, 13 weeks. I'm not even sure if that's possible, and I wasn't sure if I was feeling it or not. But, sometimes it sure felt like it. I started feeling it for sure during week 15 and Tom a few days later. For me, it's hard to say for sure at the beginning unless I can feel it on my hand when I put my hand on my tummy. I did during week 15 and have felt it very frequently since. He seems very active! Pretty much any time I lay down I can feel him (he's kicking right now since I'm leaning back on the bed) and often at other times too (though it's harder to notice at other times. You can see it if you look at my tummy and pay attention too.
Thoughts about having a second baby
When we were first thinking of getting pregnant again, I wasn't entirely excited, but for some reason I felt like it was the right time. As we started trying, though, I started getting more excited. There have been lots of moments of nervousness when I've thought about sleep deprivation and trying to juggle two kids and all that. But, overall, I've steadily gotten more excited. And just recently I've started getting REALLY excited. I'm finally starting to get to that point where I'm just ready for him to come and I want him NOW. It was actually kind of nice before, because I felt the time passed really quickly. Since I wasn't as excited I wasn't thinking about it as much and before I knew it a week would pass, then another and so on. I have a feeling that now that I'm excited the weeks will drag like they did last time. At any rate, I'm so excited!!! Little sweet, roly-poly, baby boy!!!
What I am imagining him to be like
So, Tom thinks this little boy is going to be super rebellious and crazy. I feel like he's going to be a super sweet, cuddly, momma's boy, but a horrible sleeper. In a lot of way I expect him to be the opposite of Harp since I feel like you're not going to get two in a row that are the same - hence me thinking he'll be cuddly and a horrible sleeper. I also picture him with dark hair, but we both picture Harp with dark hair and that's didn't happen, so who knows? I hope he looks like his daddy.
Photos
I have been HORRIBLE about taking photos this time. As in, the one below is the first one I've taken, and it was taken today (20 wks + 1 day). But, now that I've started, I'm going to try to take one once every week or two and I'm going to try to wear the same shirt. I picked the shirt because after looking at my pics from last pregnancy I noticed that a lot of the shirts don't show the belly very well. I wanted one where you could actually tell how big the belly was, for comparison's sake. This one does that well. So, without further ado:
20 Weeks with Harper (in Mexico):
20 Weeks this time, with baby boy:
I'm pretty sure I showed more quickly last time even though you're supposed to show more quickly after your first pregnancy. Basically, barely a belly so far.
And here is an ultrasound pic:
I know I'm biased, but I think he looks cute already. But what is your name honey??
The big thing this month was obviously Christmas. Thankfully, this year I was a bit more on top of things than I have been in years past, so I was able to just enjoy it and think about it without being too stressed. And it was sooooo nice to have Tom home a little more around the holidays. Though it would have been EVEN better if he didn't get sick during his time off. BOO.
Also, around Christmas time we started noticing that there's something amiss with Harp's eyes. Her left eye (and sometimes her right) tends to drift toward her nose, making her look cross-eyed. As a result, she'll probably have to wear glasses or a patch soon to correct it. We won't know for sure until we see the specialist toward the end of January. I'm managing to not be TOO worried about it yet since it's generally correctable. Tom on the other hand is freaking out! But I am a bit worried about trying to keep a patch or glasses on her without her ripping them off 24/7. The silver lining is I think she'd look adorable in glasses. A patch though? Maybe not so much. Anyway, you can play "look for Harp's crossed-eyes!" while you go through the pictures later.
Let me tell you all the cute/awesome things about Harp this month. First, here are some of her new words since last month:
bounce
moo
baaa
papa (Tom's dad)
sock (sounds like, "huck")
chair
nap (usually "bap")
Jill (our neighbor and good friend who she's around all the time)
grapes
help / help me
bless you (didn't try to teach her this, she just started doing it after we'd sneeze, or even after she'd sneeze)
diaper
book ("gook")
spaghetti (can't even spell how this is pronounced)
Ellie ("Eh-yee" her cousin, who she LOVES)
no
peanut butter
water
Minnie
Santa
hot (sign & word)
cold (sign & word)
cup
gas (she now giggles when she has gas and says, "gas")
flag
bite
piece
heavy (doesn't know what it means)
Also, even though she started saying it last month, I have to mention that she pronounces shoe "hashish."
Here favorite words right now are:
no - I feel blessed that she didn't even started saying this til this month, but man, once she started she really started! She says it ALL the time now and it's both adorable and funny. One of the first times she said it we were at Tracy Aviary and I was having her follow me into an area that was inside because it was coooooold. The building had two sets of double doors and I was holding the second set open for her. Right when she was walking through, she just stopped, looked up at me and very matter-of-factly said, "no." Then she just turned around and walked back the other way. Totally caught me off guard.
thank you - this is just adorable. Lately she's been saying it in response to eeeeverything. Sometimes she'll say it after each bite of food. It's awesome. I love it.
up - oh how I am sick of this word. She is obsessed with it and is always wanting "up" on everything. She wants up on the counter, the chair, the bed, and all kinds of other things that you can't even really get up on. Plus, it also means "down" right now, so it's pretty overused.
baby - she's starting to notice other babies. I'm not sure if she realizes she's a baby too, but she likes to point out the babies wherever we go. Little does she know she's going to have one right in her very own home in a few months!
good girl - she just says this all the time. Sometimes she says it for a reason, like to compliment herself for doing something good. And sometimes she just walks around the house saying it. The other day she was in her crib and we were trying to get her to nap. Tom and I were talking (low enough there's no way she could hear us) about how she was such a good girl. Right after we said it we hear her, in her crib, in her cute little high-pitched voice say, "GOOD girl." So funny. She knows.
eat - well, naturally. Kid loves her food, so of course this is a favorite. This morning when I went to go pick her up out of her crib I walked in, she looked up at me and immediately did the sign language for "eat." She must have been standing there thinking about food in her crib! That's my girl.
Other things about Harp:
- Anytime a flower is mentioned or seen she starts doing this really funny sniffing thing with her nose, like she's smelling it
- She blows on hot food
- She spins in circles, on command, with a big cheesy grin and only so much balance
- She gives hugs and kisses (open mouthed)
- Loves to bounce up and down holding onto the headboard of the bed and the backs of chairs
- Loves to pick out a stuff animal/doll after she wakes up then snuggle it while she fully wakes up
- She loves to clap for herself
- If we go in the closet or pantry she closes the door and laughs
- Tom counts to her in Chinese sometimes and sometimes she'll say the next number for him
- She's forming her second mullet. We cut off the first one and it just came right back. The front and sides of her hair refuse to grow. The back, however, is growing strong!
- Right now she loves to take things out and put things back in. For instance, she got some plastic dinosaurs for Christmas and spent a half hour taking them out of the bag, putting them in the rice cooker bowl and back again. She was soooo into it. But she does it a lot, with many things.
- She's just cute
Just a short note on sleeping. Harp is a GREAT sleeper at night these days (usually 8/8:15ish - 8/8:30ish). She went from taking 3 naps that were 1-2 hours in length (and if one was only 1 hour, the other two would be longer) to taking two 30min-1hr naps. And sometimes she fights her naps (which she NEVER used to do) and even then her 1 nap is still short. Makes it so hard to get anything done or get a break. I just hope that when she transitions to 1 nap it's 1 long nap instead of one super short nap! I think when you're spoiled with a great sleeper it makes it that much harder when they start sleeping worse.
Ideally, I'd like to put other stuff in this blog besides just Harp, but, um, there's not much else going on! And I'm planning to do a separate blog post for Baby #2. So, I guess it's onto the photos:
One day she would not sleep unless I was next to her, so I put her on the bed next to me, then snuck off.
Playing in the lights corner I made for her.
Looooooves having us read her books. Probably reads 50/day. I get so sick of reading the same ones over and over, so when Tom's home I always send her to him.
One of her favorite books. It's, "This Little Piggy."
We went to Gilgal Sculpture Garden and, naturally, she loved the flag.
She liked climbing up on the Joseph Smith sphynx statue. If you're not familiar with Gilgal, you should look it up. It seems really weird, but if you actually go and read about all the statues, it's not so weird. I like it.
It was the wrong day to wear white pants. Whoops!
Lately we like to go see the ducks at Fairmont Park sometimes. They are always very obliging and swarm us as soon as we walk up. Ducks have quickly become a favorite animal for Harp.
They have an awesome live nativity near us that we like to go to. Unfortunately there was a huge line to get in and it was super crowded, so Harp had to be held a lot, which made her pretty unhappy about the whole thing:
Took Harp to Christkindlmarkt at This is the Place: Heritage Park one afternoon. She enjoyed wandering around the big open square. And, of course, the flag.
They had an awesome Santa there who was FREE and there was NO line. We were the only 3 people in the hut.
This Winter started off really warm for a long time. On one of the man warm days we went to the park. I brought her shovel and pail set. She could not care less about the sand in the sandbox, but was obsessed with the sand I put in her bucket. She carried it all around the park, periodically stopping to examine it, then walking some more:
Tom and Harp singing, "Pat-a-Cake"
Harp is just delightful in the bath.
Went to the Festival of Trees with Tom's mom, sister and niece. Harp didn't love it and was kind of crazy since there wasn't much opportunity for her to wander around. But we took this cute picture of Harp and her cousin, Ellie.
Evidence of the warm weather. I took the screenshot at night, which is why it says 39 deg, but this was the middle of December!
She went through a stage where she liked to have me put her headbands on her.
Went to the zoo on a warm day:
Harp loooooves to push the stroller. Also, one side of the stroller's breaks broke, so it does this if she pushes it while it's locked.
I just have this image in my head of Harp following me to the carousel with this look of total curiosity on her face because it was mostly covered with a tarp, but you could hear loud happy music coming out of it and see that something was going on inside. She loves watching it go around.
The seals were crazy active when we went. We even got to watch them do tricks for their food.
She likes to wear Tom's hat:
We went to the Aviary and she's finally starting to care about all the birds! So much more fun:
This was her favorite spot - just watching the ducks and geese.
Ate lunch in the amphitheater
Tom wanted me to get a picture of her with an owl, which is kind of hard. I was soooo proud of myself for getting one where she looked happy and you could see both of them. Turned out he didn't even realize this picture had an owl in it and later, hours after I emailed it to him, he was like, "did you ever take an owl pic?" You guys can see the owl, right??
Harp was kind of off and on sick/clingy in December. This is one of the days when I tried to chill with her and just watch Carebears and it just turned into me watching Carebears. She's just not a screen watcher.
Snuggling her panda and her monkey.
Went to DI and looked through all the toys. She couldn't care less about any of the toys except this random, gross tweety mug. Thus the reason why it's hard to pick out toys for her.
Wearing her Christmas tree hat.
We went to Wheeler Farm one day and started off playing at the playground. Here we are in the tunnel:
When the pig was done eating that metal hatch slammed shut and it was loud. She started crying hard and could NOT be consoled. For the rest of the trip she was just pathetic. Luckily that was pretty much when I was ready to leave anyway.
Haha
Enjoying her nesting boxes
Playing with her shape sorting blocks
Being sweet.
Haha, I love when she does this.
She'd been going through the kitchen utensils and walked into the living room with some tongs stuck to her binkie clip. She didn't seem to care.
What it looks like when Harp wears 18 mo. pants.
Jamie Oliver is our favorite TV chef, and Tom likes to watch him on Saturday mornings. Harp was totally entranced too and kept getting angsty about not being able to eat all the food. She kept scooting closer and closer.
Tom and I went on a date to Barnes and Nobles and played Scrabble in their cafe.
Harp and her 'nana
If you crouch down and hold out your arms she puts he head back, laughs and runs into your arms. Sometimes she gets so excited she totally eats it before making it to your arms, so you have to be ready to lunge forward if you're doing it on the concrete!
Went to the Children's Museum:
She found a 'nana and carried it for like an hour.
Wearing a construction hat
Walking the cart. She loves pushing things around.
One day we got aaaaaall geared up to go to the pool. That takes a ton of work and we were pretty excited too. Unfortunately we forgot that the pool had RIDICULOUS hours. It's only open from 9:30-11:30 in the morning and 4-8? in the evening. So, basically, it's closed almost the entire time I'm home with Harp during the day. BOO. Unfortunately, we had a Pediatrician appt. in an hour or so and we were already right there so we didn't want to just go home. Daddy saved the day and suggested McDonald's. It was a hit. Harp enjoyed the fries and parfait and exploring the playplace in her swimsuit.
For some reason she LOVED this little platform thing. She was like giddy and squealing for several minutes on top of it:
Exploring the playplace. For a while she just went back and forth between the slide and me and was just soooo dang happy about it.
Tom's work had a family Christmas party. Here we are waiting in the lobby. Harp makes friends with random strangers wherever we go:
Christmas tree:
Since we were really wanting to enjoy a pool and our local one has dumb hours we went to a farther one. It was a good thing, because they also have better hours for swim lessons and we're going to start putting Harp in swim lessons there!
In the family restroom they had this big built in bench that Harp was obsessed with. She ran around it for a long time and got mad when I made her get off so we could actually go to the pool.
Looking unsure.
Watching the ballers.
Tom took this video while laying on the floor. It makes me happy.
We often clip her binkie onto her coats. This time we didn't detach it when we took it off. Harp found it and was walking around sucking on the binkie with the coat still attached. Poor thing.
We had this toybox in the living room for a while and one day Harp just starting thinking it was fun to get inside of it. I think it started with her trying to get to the other side of the play table, but after a while she was just sitting in it, pulling toys from underneath her, drinking her water, enjoying being in the box.
Tom and Harp playing.
Cross-eyed. This was before we really noticed it.
Tom failed to button all the buttons on her jammies, so she woke up like this.
These days when we go to the grocery store I just stand her up in the cart and she's totally happy. This time I tried to take her out and she just said, "no." She just wanted to stay there in her cart.
Watching Baby Signing Time while I prepare breakfast.
Using her toy as a chair
Christmas!!! These picture below are actually the first time we realized she had a problem with her eyes. She was being really cute and happy and sitting so nicely for the picture, but her eyes were all funny.
For her stocking we just put all her favorite foods. We should have opened it last because after that she couldn't care less about any of the presents.
My parents got her this Little People School set that she loves. It's pretty much the only toy we could get her to pay attention to that morning. Though she liked other ones later.
Somehow she ended up naked, aside from her new shoes and diaper. Here she is opening her new finger puppets.
Christmas morning was the first day we got real snow this Winter! So awesome. After presents Harp and I bundled up to go play in it (poor Tom was sick). Turns out she does NOT like snow:
Later in the afternoon we went to Tom's parents' house for just a few hours. We'd missed out on a family dinner earlier in the week and Christmas Eve festivities because Harper and then Tom were sick. We shouldn't have even gone over for those few hours on Christmas because we got Tom's whole family sick! No!!! I really don't know how I made it through because literally everyone else in the family got sick. So sad.
Harp playing with cousin Ellie.
Harp likes to sit on her Little People school when she plays with it. So funny.
Putting dinosaurs in the rice cooker bowl, then back in the bag.
Harp was really clingy toward Tom during the holidays and just wanted to snuggle with him all the time. It was really sweet. Here they are snuggling on a walk.
One day while Tom was home we went to the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. The main exhibit was under construction so there wasn't a whole lot, but it was still fun:
Then we went to the Temple Square Visitor's Center:
On another walk. Harp is terrified of walking on the snow so she wouldn't move from that spot no matter how much I enticed her.
Cutest outfit ever. Been using pigtails to mask the mullet and am loving them.
Eating pita bread while mom cooks. Always wants to be "up!" on the counter. Too bad our cabinets are so low/counter isn't wide.
Watching BST with her Minnie
Got a second seat for our stroller so it can be a double stroller when Baby2 comes. Harp reeeeally enjoyed trying out the seat.
Her hair has been CRAZY lately.
She was being so sweet laying next to me in bed and snuggling her doggy. Of course she stopped as soon as I pulled out the phone to take her pic.
Walking around with Minnie.
We can never go to Book Baby (storytime) at the library because it's always during her morning nap and ALL the libraries have it at that time (why does everyone do this to us???). She'd been fighting her nap a lot, so I decided we might as well just embrace it one day and go to storytime instead of taking the nap. It was SO fun. Harp thoroughly enjoyed it (despite not paying attention to the person leading it or anything) and I met some moms and had a good conversation with them:
Can you find Harp?
Went to the Children's Museum and Harp was obsessed with all the chairs:
She kept trying to sit on the edge of this baby crib and would fall and bonk her head so finally I just put her in it. She loved it. She's holding a fake slice of bread, which she carried around for an hour. She always finds something and carries it around a long time. So far a banana, this break, a fork and spoon and probably others that I've forgotten.
Being souper (hehe) excited to eat the soup I made.
The next few are from Tom's phone. They could be from November. I have no idea.
Harp dunking her ball. This is all she knows to do with balls.
Watched this awesome, happy African choir that was playing in a cafe we went to.
Harp gets in these really hilarious moods sometimes where she's just super content playing by herself and she talks to herself non-stop and is just cute. This is one of them.
Well, that was December!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
