5 months

Last week we had our big ultrasound - the anatomy scan!  No, we didn't change our minds about finding out the gender, and the ultrasound tech that I had specifically requested did a great job of keeping it a secret.  The tech and OB who met with us after the scan said that baby looks fantastic and there are absolutely no concerns (yay!).  The placenta is nice and high, and also located along the backside of my uterus which they told me is likely why I felt fetal movement so early on.  Baby was moving around so much the tech had a hard time getting some views but eventually saw everything he needed to.  At the end when he turned on the 4D picture so we could see the face, I was having a contraction and poor baby was squished right up against the uterine wall.  When baby did move his/her head the arms and hands were up over the face.  So we didn't get a super clear picture but from what I saw I think this one looks a bit like it's older brother!  Here is the best picture we got, everything below the nose is baby's arm, you can't see the mouth in the photo even though it looks like you can.

I left the ultrasound feeling overwhelmed with gratitude, and that feeling has not faded.  Not that I expected anything would be wrong with the baby, but the fact of the matter is that not everyone gets good news at their ultrasound and really, the chance of a congenital abnormality is a real one.  And then there are couples who try for years to conceive and can't.  Or have miscarriage after miscarriage, even if they have already had a successful pregnancy.  Or try for so long only to have an ectopic pregnancy.  Maybe it's because I work in healthcare where I see these things on a regular basis, but I just feel so fortunate that we were able to conceive quickly when we wanted to and have a healthy, growing child and a seemingly healthy second on the way.  I do not take these things for granted, and my heart is saddened for those who might find themselves in very different, difficult situations. 

So, that felt a little heavy for a pregnancy update.  Onward to a lighter topic.  Last week we also had our second visit at the birthing center.  Since during this appointment I knew I would be seeing the midwife who caught Arlo, I made sure to schedule it on a day off where I could bring the little man along.  It was pretty awesome to be back visiting our favorite midwife, and crazy to think she was the first one to hold our now two-year-old.  Arlo was most interested in asking me "what's that?" and pointing to every single thing in the room during the appointment.  Baby's heart rate sounded great in the 160's.  Belly measured 22 weeks and I am only 20!  Eek!  Weight gain is up 8 lbs which is the total for the pregnancy so far.  Here is a picture of Arlo with Allison, he was not at all interested in holding still so this is the best I could get:

In terms of how I am feeling, I have to say I am now feeling pretty great!  Definitely more like my old self than I have this entire pregnancy so far, and much like I did when I was pregnant with Arlo.  About two weeks ago I decided to start taking an iron supplement that I already had on hand, just to see if it made any difference in my energy level.  And perhaps it is a complete coincidence and I would have started feeling better around that time anyway, but within a few days of starting it I felt like a new person.  I haven't had any lab work done yet and have never had any problems with anemia so I don't know if it's really the iron helping or what, but I plan to stay on it just in case.  It's so nice to have energy again and I am getting back to doing a lot of things I haven't felt like these last few months.

Symptom wise I started getting braxton hicks around 17 weeks.  Actually I had them for many weeks before but I would only notice them when I would lay down and my belly would be all firm feeling and in a strange shape.  Now I notice them as a tightening in my belly and it feels slightly uncomfortable, large, and heavy.  I am getting several (sometimes maybe even up to 10 or so?) throughout the day.  I mentioned it to the midwife and she said it's completely normal and recommended a herb that may quiet down my exercising uterus.  I have been trying to drink more water and rest when I feel several within in a short time.  I remember having braxton hicks with Arlo but feel like it was so much later in the pregnancy.  Other symptoms - very mild and occasional round ligament pain (actually a lot less than I had with Arlo), and craving everything sweet.  Oh my.  My chocolate and ice cream cravings are getting out of control.  Perhaps why I am measuring two weeks ahead?? 

Since the ultrasound went well and I am pretty darn obviously pregnant at this point, we decided to make the baby news facebook (and IG) official this weekend.  Here's the picture we used:

"conversations with baby brother or sister.  baby 2.0 coming in August!"

Maternity clothes are now in full rotation and have been for a few weeks now.  I was still fitting into some non-maternity stuff but realized that I had a full maternity wardrobe already and why not get as much use out of it as I can, and be way more comfortable at the same time!  Here are a few more pictures we took the other day, I am 20 weeks here:

for comparison, here is 20 weeks with Arlo:

And here is what happens when you try and involve your two-year-old in the photos, and all he wants to do is get down and play:

I have been asked a few times if I had any feeling one way or another on the gender.  And really, I don't!  If I absolutely had to guess though, I would probably say girl and that is based on symptoms alone.  This pregnancy has been the complete opposite of Arlo's, and so in my mind it makes sense that something is different this time around.  That being said, I will still be quite surprised if we actually do have a girl.  And also confused if this baby is a boy - how could two boys equal two such drastically different pregnancies??  My medically inclined mind would want that explained, and not just "every pregnancy is different."  I need more than that!  ;)  In either case, we will be super excited and love this baby like crazy no matter what the gender.  I think about having a little brother for Arlo, and my mind conjures up images of them playing trucks and trains together while wearing matching pajamas and that feels just right.  And then I think of a little girl and how neat it would be to experience one of each (and eventually teach her how to crochet and sew) and that sounds amazing too.  So really, it's gonna be pretty rad either way.

Since the gender will be a surprise until birth we need to come up with at least two names (and two middle names) that we both like and agree on.  And that fact alone would probably lead you to believe that we have made some progress in the name department, and honestly we really have not.  We have a boy name that we first heard shortly after Arlo was born, and Erik and I both liked it immediately.  But we haven't settled on anything and have always struggled coming up with girls names that we both really like.  We will not be telling anyone what it is until baby is born and named, but I can tell you that it will likely be another uncommon name.  We both tend to like unusual names and I find myself drawn towards names of the old fashioned kind.  This is one reason I don't want to share the name ahead of time, you will always get someone who thinks (and isn't afraid to share) how weird they think the name is.  And the other reason is that we really want to make sure the name we pick out actually fits the baby when we meet him/her.  Maybe we will just let Arlo pick out the name.  Last time I asked him he said we should name the baby "Peanut Butter."  That's a solid name, don't you think?

I will wrap this up with some life updates.  I was going to make this a separate post but will elaborate on these things more later...  In a few days, my parents are coming to visit!  They will be on Arlo duty for much of this weekend while Erik and I furiously work on two major house renovation projects we are hoping to accomplish before this summer.  We have already started, and mostly finished, the kitchen project, but still have quite a bit to do in there.  And I am set on having a renovated laundry room before this kiddo arrives, so we are hoping to at least get a start on that while we have the grandparents around to help with the little man.  Other house projects on the "to-do before baby" list include painting the nursery, our master bed & bathroom, and some closet organization downstairs.  I am in complete nesting mode and thankfully it's rubbing off on Erik.  Our other big task right now is finding me a new (to me) car.  I refuse to put two kids in the back of my tiny subcompact so this car purchase will need to happen before this summer.  We know the vehicle that we want, it's just a matter of finding it in the right color, year, and in our budget.  We thought we had found it a few weeks back, and Erik even flew up to NJ with intent to purchase and drive it home, but we found out at the last minute that the dealership had not accurately represented the vehicle and we were not comfortable with some things that had been done to it.  Anyway, the search for our unicorn vehicle continues...  In my usual nesting style, I have also picked up a few baby things recently.  Double stroller, check.  A few gender neutral onesies, check.  Newborn sized cloth diapers, check.  This past weekend I even pulled out all the newborn stuff I had in storage and oxicleaned, washed, folded, and organized it by size and gender.  Yes, I am doing all this stuff really early, but I know how time just seems to fly by and the more I can get done now the better.  And I think my very-large-and-round-end-of-pregnancy-self will thank me for it! 

Next up, hopefully some pictures of a renovated kitchen and laundry room (crosses fingers), a post about moving Arlo to his big boy room, and some craft projects I have been working on recently!

Easter 2016

The weekend before Easter, we took Arlo to a local egg hunt.  It was huge, and had multiple fields set up for various age groups.  Arlo was in the 0-3 group, and there were (what we were told) thousands of eggs on the field.  Once they blew the whistle everyone stormed the field and it was an egg collecting frenzy.  Arlo was not in any apparent hurry and was rather gentle about his collection process but still managed to score 10 or so eggs in the short time the hunt lasted.  I was confused to find that nearly every egg contained a tootsie roll which is both a choking hazard and super unhealthy for such a young age group, but Arlo didn't seem to care that we opened them and gave the contents away pretty quickly (note to self - this won't last forever, have a backup plan for next year!)  After the hunt he played with another little boy about his age and they ran around dumping out their empty eggs and recollecting them.

The best part of the hunt was meeting the Easter bunny, which Arlo didn't get to do last year.  He was a little apprehensive about approaching him by himself, so Erik held him for a picture.  Before we walked away we asked him if he wanted to hug the Easter bunny and he did not once but twice, and with a big smile on his face.  It was pretty sinking adorable.

 

This past Sunday was Easter and I spent the evening before putting together his basket and filling up eggs with treats and small trinkets.  Erik saw everything I had set out for Arlo to find the next morning and joked that the Easter bunny was a little too generous at our house this year.  But my defense was that when your kiddo's birthday is just six days from Christmas the other holidays throughout the year are good opportunities to add in a new book, puzzle, or toy.  I always feel guilty buying him stuff for no reason and rarely do but to me Easter is a perfectly good reason for a few new things!

Arlo was pretty excited to find his little pile the next morning, and almost looked at us confused like "is this for me?"  His basket had a sketch book, crayon/paper set (for taking on the go), sidewalk chalk, kinetic sand, a little tow truck, a new book by one of our favorite authors and cute wooden alphabet puzzle.  Of course his favorite things were the $0.40 plastic wall walking bug I bought on clearance after Easter last year, the paper grass, and the basket itself which he loved wearing around all day on his head.

Since the Easter bunny wasn't sure if it was going to rain that morning, he waited to put out the eggs until the weather was clear.  Fortunately his timing was spot on, and we were able to have a little egg hunt right in our front yard, and made it back inside just minutes before the rain started.  There were three jumbo eggs with small toys inside - a talking Thomas Train in one, bubbles in another, and a light up bouncy ball in the third.  The rest were small eggs filled with mini play doh, stickers, fruit snacks, and probably half had organic animal cookies in them.  Arlo opened up the big eggs first and the look on his face when he found Thomas was priceless.  I was afraid that after he found the train it would be game over since he likely wouldn't want to put it down, but once he discovered the snacks he went from egg to egg, opening them, eating the contents, tossing the empty egg on the grass, and moving on to the next.  The fruit snacks were equally as exciting to him as finding the train.  This kid isn't much for sweets but is crazy for fruit snacks and gasped every time he found one.  Now please indulge me as I include all of my favorites from our Easter photo shoot....

telling us about the clouds and that rain comes from them

 

Even though it rained most of the rest of the day, we accomplished what we had hoped to and spent the afternoon mostly being lazy and flicking Arlo's new wall walking bug so many times that eventually it stopped sticking to the wall.  I guess I know what I will be filling his basket with next year  ;)

Halloween, twenty-fifteen.

I am not sure who enjoyed Halloween more this year, Arlo or Erik and I.  This year was everything that I hoped the Halloween experience would be as parents of a little one.  Last year was fun dressing Arlo up in his fuzzy little caterpillar costume, but he was still far too young to go trick-or-treating and appreciate all the things that kids (and adults - lets be honest here) love about this time of the year.  Although he is still too young for candy (we will be riding this train as long as we can) we still took him trick-or-treating and he had so much fun.  This whole post is going to be total picture overload, so consider yourself warned.

The Halloween decorations came out way early for us this year.  My parents visited us at the beginning of  September, bringing with them boxes of Halloween decor that my Mom always put out when my sister and I were little kids.  Seeing all the pumpkins and little figurines I hadn't seen in years brought back many memories, and I am so lucky my parents hung on to everything for so long, and even luckier that they passed them along them to us.  I decided that instead of hauling everything up to the attic only to bring it back down a month later, I would just go ahead and decorate early.  I don't usually have seasonal decorations up before the stores even put them out, but this year I won.  Take that, Target.

Our neighbors also got into the Halloween spirit somewhat early.  At the beginning of October, the house two doors down put up these giant inflatable ghosts and a grim reaper in their front yard.  It became our daily ritual to stop at this house and look at all the decorations on our morning walks.  If I forgot, Arlo would point and yell "ghost! ghost!"  It didn't take me long to learn that we were stopping there everyday, no matter what.

As I mentioned in my last post, the weekend before Halloween we visited a pumpkin patch in the mountains where we took some photos and picked up some fresh apple cider and local apples.  Arlo was a bit pumpkin obsessed this year, so he was thrilled to be in a field full of them.  It was on this trip that we scored Arlo's costume at a kids consignment store, an adorable monkey suit that we couldn't resist.  Last week, I took Arlo to a Halloween-themed story time at our local library and he got to wear the costume for the first time.  All the kids and even the librarians had on Halloween costumes, and after story time everyone went trick-or-treating through the library.  At first Arlo was confused and seemed to wonder if it was okay to take random things from strangers, ha!  He didn't care at all about the candy but loved the tiny bottle of bubbles they passed out and thought the pumpkin hand stamp was pretty cool too.

That night, we kept the Halloween spirit going and carved our pumpkins.  I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin before this year.  It was a long time ago, that's for sure.  Even though we obviously were not going to let Arlo play with sharp carving tools, he had a blast scooping out the pumpkin guts and watching Erik and I do the carving.  I let Arlo pick out the stencil design from the book that came with the carving tools.  No surprise here, he picked the ghost.  Erik was a little more hard core with his carving process.  He printed out a stencil from online, cut it out with a razor, and then busted out the power tools to carve his Grateful Dead pumpkin.  It was worth all the extra steps, his pumpkin turned out awesome. 

When we were finished carving, I put the pumpkins in the foyer, lit candles inside them, and turned off the lights.  Arlo came running in, stopped dead in his tracks, inhaled sharply, and let out a big "wow!"  I only wish I had recorded it on video.

On Friday Erik's office hosted a trunk-or-treat in their parking lot.  Arlo decided to take a super long nap that day so we missed the outdoor activities, but we still stopped by to show off his little monkey suit.  Everyone loved having him visit, and many of Erik's coworkers found a little trinket or two from their desks to put in Arlo's pumpkin basket.  He received some very random items: pumpkin stickers, zip ties, a happy meal toy, a foam dumbbell, and a monster truck.  Someone tried to give him a full-sized candy bar and Erik quickly put the kibosh on that, ha. 

The three of us left Erik's office together and headed to a little village of shops near our house that was hosting a big trick-or-treating event.  Every store was participating and handing out candy.  We got there right when it started and it was packed!  By this point Arlo was getting pretty good at his candy collection skills and walked right up so he could get candy put in his basket.  When he got to choose his own candy, he took only one piece and always picked a pack of whoppers.  We ate dinner in the village and then headed home to rest up, for the next day was Halloween!

Last year we were living in a not-at-all trick-or-treating friendly neighborhood.  There were not many kids in our area and the houses were rather far apart.  So, in addition to enjoying their company and the fact that their daughter is one of Arlo's besties, we decided to spend Halloween with our friends in their much more kid-friendly neighborhood.  Even though this year we are now in a family-friendly neighborhood ourselves, we decided that we cared more about hanging with our friends and letting the kids play together than passing out candy at our own house, so we went over to John & Rhianna's house again.  The kids had so much fun together and I think Arlo would have trick-or-treated for hours if we had let him.  We decided to just stay on their street, and went to maybe seven or eight houses.  Arlo can say trick-or-treat ("tick teet") but in the usual toddler fashion, didn't want to perform on command.  He did say "tanks" after he was given candy though which was completely adorable.  He wasn't at all shy about going up to get candy, and he even hung around one house probably hoping to score more.  He kept looking at their candy bowl and showing them his loot, and they commented on what a social little guy he is. 

Erik and I were originally not going to dress up, but he was able to score a free "Scream" costume at a yard sale a few weeks ago, and I decided to just be a devil again - it was like my third or fourth time wearing that costume but it's the only one I had on hand.  They all worked out well though because they were warm costumes and it was a chilly evening, and hey, you can't beat free.  Arlo's little friend Lyra went as Minnie Mouse, and she was super cute as always.  Can you see the pigtails in the photo of them together?!

Now can we also just take a second to look back at last years Halloween photo?  I barely recognize these tiny babies!

And now back to present day...

group shot photo credit goes to Rhianna and her new camera!

And to address the question that I have been asked many times already, and will likely have to answer for years to come - "how do you do halloween as vegans?" 

This year was easy.  Arlo doesn't eat candy yet and doesn't even know what it is, so he just thought he was collecting "things" as we trick-or-treated, and didn't even miss them when I dumped them in the big candy bowl back at the house.  We did of course hang on to the mini jar of play-doh - he was super happy to have received that.  I was prepared in case he wasn't so easy going about giving up his treats, and had bought mini packets of organic graham crackers, fruit ropes, and a Halloween matchbox car.  However, I forgot all about those treats until we were leaving for home as there was never any need to get them out.  Arlo was more interested in snacking on the baby carrots and tortilla chips when we were done going house to house.  Next year will probably be something similar in terms of how we address the non-vegan candy situation.  I will have a bag of health(ier) treats to swap out after we make the rounds, and can hopefully do it without him noticing.  I realize as he gets older this won't be such an easy task, but I hope by that point I can explain why we eat the way we do and he will more or less understand.  And it's not all about the products being vegan, even vegan candy is often unhealthy and a really unnecessary part of a kids diet.  I get it, I get it, it's only one day of the year.  And we all ate it growing up.  So, maybe when he's much older I won't care so much about avoiding things like "hydrogented palm oil, potassium sorbate, and red 40" but right now, well, I just do.

And in case there is any worry that Arlo has been missing his favorite ghost at the neighbors house, not to fear.  The day after Halloween, the ghosts and grim reaper disappeared and were replaced by a giant inflatable turkey.

Thanksgiving twenty-fifteen, we are ready for ya.

rain all morning = sleepy turkey  ;)