Toxic Environment

     Earlier this week I was looking up healthy meals that I could prepare ahead of time to put in the freezer for when baby comes, and came across an interesting blog. It brought out my inner hippy. And then I got thinking about our life in general, and how, in the last few months, we have been living in a somewhat toxic state. Josh is, on an almost daily basis, grumpy due to some physical ailment that is plaguing him. I know he would feel at least a little bit better if we made more of an effort to eat healthier. The thing is, what with being pregnant, I often have very strong likes and dislikes of various foods, which has been problematic in us eating well for the last several months. I am, on an almost daily basis, grumpy due to one physical ailment that is plaguing me, too. ;) Once again, I feel guilty about Laura getting the short end of the stick on this. She didn't ask for another sibling; she didn't ask for her Mom and Dad to be short-tempered and impatient; she didn't ask for any of this. I'm sure in the long run, she will be happy and better off to have another sibling, but right now I feel like we have just been ruining her life for the last eight months, and probably the next four.
      Anyhoo, I have decided that starting now, as a family, we need to make a more conscious effort to control all the 'toxicity' in this house. Eating better food. Choosing our own moods rather than letting environmental factors influence us so greatly. Being thankful for what we have, which is a lot, and generally trying to have a positive outlook on life.

All Things Baby

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I felt like anything I had to write about lately would be redundantly whiny. I feel like this new baby has taken over my mind, body, and soul. I spend most of my waking (and non-waking) hours thinking about baby, wishing baby was here, looking forward to baby snuggles, working on my long 'before baby' nesting list, or resenting the fact that I can't be working on my nesting list.
This week I cleaned out the car and both Laura and the new baby's carseats and got everything ready to have them installed. Since I am a Nazi about car seats, I won't settle for less than the cop shop installing them themselves, but the day we went to get it done, they couldn't do it. Maybe next week.
I have also finished gathering everything up for the baby's hospital bag: it consists of diapers, wipes, shampoo/ soap/ coconut oil, 5 preemie sleepers, 5 newborn sleepers, a couple 0-3 month sleepers and various onesies, pants, etc (probably overkill on the clothes, but we don't know how big the baby will be, and all the stuff we brought for Laura to wear when she was born was miles too big, so I wanted to have a variety this time. Plus we don't know how long we will be in the hospital, either.) Now we just need to finish gathering the stuff on the list for my hospital bag, which is significantly less fun.
Recently, we also purchased our double stroller (that we got on clearance - yay!), and a new mattress cover for our bed, since I'm sure the baby will inevitably end up sleeping with us and possibly puking, peeing, expelling some other form of bodily fluid, or some combination of all three on our bed at some point. So I think we are done buying things for baby now, which is a nice feeling.
There are quite a number of things left on my nesting list, but a lot of them need to be done closer to the due date. Seven weeks away. 7. Oi.

P.S. - I felt the distinct outline of a little foot poking out of my tummy this week - it was pretty exciting. :) <3

Happy Easter!

      We spent the long weekend laying low and mostly just tried to use our extra spare time to get things done from our To Do List before baby comes.

      Friday we did some yardwork that involved moving our vegetable garden. Our yard is pretty small and we need that space for a seating area. We also want to get Laura a swing set for the back yard this summer so I can sit out there and watch her play while being able to tend to the baby. So, yeah, lots of moving dirt (Josh did most of it, but Laura helped with her little garden trowel. <3) Everyone went to be pretty early in hopes of catching up on much needed sleep.

     Saturday we got groceries as early as possible since it is always a mad house at Easter when the stores are only open one day of the whole weekend. We had a pair of somewhat shady men come to our house to clean our furnace ducts in the afternoon, and were supposed to have someone else out to measure our windows that we are replacing, but they never showed. Afterwards we went out and bought some edging stones for the shade garden and finished filling it up with top soil. It looks great now - I can't wait for the plants to start sprouting in there! :) I did some more crocheting, and cleaned the house a little. Clearly we need to clean the floor behind the toilet more often than we do. Yuck.
Not an overly interesting day.

     Sunday, Laura woke up early (even though she didn't go to bed until like 9pm) and so we did her Easter basket and egg hunt all before 8am, which she was really into this year - very cute.

(Note work on garden) :)

Then we hung out around the house for awhile before we headed to the family cottage for Easter dinner. My mom was determined she was doing an egg hunt for us (since she apparently can't let go of the fact that her children are not of Easter-egg-hunting-age anymore) but, as I told her would be the case, none of us were really that into it since it involved running around outside in the cold wind and rain finding clues as to where the next egg was hidden. However, once my cousins showed up with their kids, they were happy to finish it up, despite the weather. We had a lovely dinner, and probably the highlight of my day was watching Laura getting to play with her older (second) cousins. They are 11, 9, 8, and 7 (I think), so I wasn't sure they would be too into playing with a 2-year-old, but after dinner they were all having fun running around and letting Laura chase them - her favourite!

Camoflaging as trees (apparently)

Then they played "horsey" after that, all taking turns giving her rides around the room on their backs, which she also loved. It was very cute. <3 Unfortunately the night ended on a kinda crappy note for various reasons including, but not limited to, coming home to a lovely mess from Chester, who was apparently feeling sick, and Laura not falling asleep in the car on the way home even though it was past her bedtime, and thus becoming overtired and unable to stay asleep all night.

     Overall a pretty nice weekend!

Crocheting Machine

Or, as Josh calls it, "crack-cheting".

     I am in full nesting mode now, and so this week I taught myself how to crochet. Or, more correctly, some lady on youtube did. The baby needs clothes, right?! And newborn stuff is relatively difficult to come by... so I googled free crochet patterns, and...
So far I have made 6 baby booties (it took me about four attempts to get two that looked similar enough to call a pair from the first ball of yarn,

then I got cocky and decided to make a bigger pair for Laura),

and a hat for a special little someone who is turning two very soon (which I actually had to take apart about five times because it didn't seem to be the right size!)

(not completely done yet, I think I need to get more yarn to finish up the brim)

I also made another hat - one for the baby to match the booties, although it came out a little more boyish than I had hoped... maybe I'll make a flower to add to it if it's a girl ;)

So much fun! (But I think I'll take a break now, for Josh's sake. I'm apparently driving him nuts with my obsessive need to finish all of these projects).

Pregasaurus Rex

Ten weeks to go and I am rapidly becoming the Crabby Pregnant Lady. While I am eternally grateful that I have the priviledge of carrying my own children, and we don't have any fertility/ maintaining pregnancy issues, etc, it does not negate the fact that the third trimester is a fairly uncomfortable time. I don't remember being this uncomfortable during my pregnancy with Laura, especially not this early, so I thought I should document it this time to make sure I remember. ;)
This time I have already grown tired of:

• insomnia for the entirity of this pregnancy. And having to wake up to pee.
• almost constantly being overtired/ grumpy/ having very little patience for Laura 
• having only two options for sleeping positions: left side or right side
• the recent development of heartburn being caused by chocolate. Just in time for Easter.
• feeling 'full' of baby and consequently not having enough room in my body to eat enough.
• normally I don't mind being touched, but since I am pretty much constantly being 'touched' from the inside, Laura climbing on me is not going over so well these days.
• requiring Josh to massage my aching back every. single. day. 
• no energy
• sugar crashes 

So, if you see a Pregasaurus Rex running around on the loose, it's probably just me.

Looking forward to this baby's debut!

Since It's Summer....

     How fabulous has this weather been lately? So crazy for March!

     Since today is the first day of summer spring, and it has been so amazingly nice out this week, we spent the day yesterday playing outside. A lot.
     I wanted to try this sidewalk-paint-water-balloon activity I saw with Laura. As it turns out, this is an activity to be prepped before the toddler gets involved, as it was a fairly frustrating process trying to fill the balloons, and Laura lost interest rather quickly due to her not really being able to help... As mentioned in the link, the result was not very "painty", but more of a watered down, faint final product. I only made eight balloons to begin with because it was too hard to try and make them while Laura was impatiently waiting. There ended up being a lot of food colouring splatter around my kitchen, and the eight balloons went pretty quickly.

 

     She immediately demanded more, so we went inside to make more. I was pretty sure she just liked splatting them on the pavement, so I didn't bother trying to put colour/ corn starch in the second batch. Much less frustrating for me, and I'm sure equally fun for her. Win.

      Again, this batch didn't last too long, but she had fun...

     We tried the sidewalk paint in another form, one in which I could control the consistency/ colour more easily:

     And Laura had fun just using it with a paintbrush and/or dumping it on the pavement.

     It looked pretty when it dried...

So there you have it: our fun, outdoor activities to try. Happy First Day of Spring!

(there is a robin in our tree) :)

Third Trimester. What?!

     So today I am 27 weeks pregnant. That's 6 months. Three months until I'm due. Whoa. Where did the second trimester even go?! I am starting to feel the pressure now, and we have started taking steps to get ourselves prepared to soon be adding another member to our family.
     Among the things we are doing, I have taken out several books from the library on birthing techniques, because I am highly motivated to have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Caesarean). I want to be as prepared as I possibly can be, both physically and mentally, for a natural birth this time; I really feel like I was robbed of this experience the first time around. We have also started the interviewing process for a doula to accompany us in the labour room, which I am also hoping will help facilitate a successful VBAC.
     I have gained back about 6 of the 10-11 pounds I lost in the first trimester, and my belly is starting to poke out the bottom of many of my shirts now. I currently suspect this baby might be transverse, because mostly all of the movement I feel is at either of my sides, especially when I am trying to lie down/ go to sleep (whereas earlier in the pregnancy I felt it in more of an up and down direction). Of course, this may mean nothing - what do I know? As long as baby doesn't end up breech at full term, I don't really care!

    In these last few months, we still want/ need to do/ get:

• newborn cloth diapers (have been ordered already)
• a double stroller (we're thinking a Sit 'n Stand)
• new waterproof mattress cover for our bed
• finish decorating the nursery
• get Laura out of the crib (yes, she is back in the "baby bed")
• get Laura out of our diapers
• go through and wash all of the baby items we have
• maternity photoshoot and belly cast
• and probably some more stuff I am forgetting right now due to preggo brain/ lack of sleep :)