VT3

 The biggest news around these parts:

My facebook announcement:

Lord willing, this September God will be granting one of my earliest little girl dreams, to be a momma of 3.

I feel so blessed.

A decade ago, when I turned 30, I was facing an unwanted divorce. A future so unknown and I feared so many dreams went with him as he left. But God. He literally opened the door of a friend's home providing a place to live, He opened a door for me to go to nursing school and start a new career, and in His timing, He led me to a wonderful godly man. And I'm so thankful. I never thought I'd be a 40-year-old pregnant lady, but I'm so thankful God dreams bigger dreams than I do!

All that said, we did think we were done at two- so if anyone has a baby swing, nursing cover, or bumbo to buy or borrow, we are in the market!

Doug and I had wrapped our minds around being parents of 2. We are busy and blessed with them, and there are logical reasons like only so much time, money, and attention to go around. But our hearts both wanted 3. I ended up having a daydream one cold walk into work one morning, had a talk with a OB doctor at work "go for it!" were her exact words, and came home and talked to Doug. He said, 'well we'd decided on 2' but agreed to pray about it. The next day we both said how about giving God a 3 month window if He wanted it to happen. For reference, August took 11 months, Jeanie took 6... and sure enough, this one took 2. So we figured God agreed with our desire for another little face at the table!

We are very excited. 15 weeks now, still so many nerves and fears, but very hopeful to meet this little bean on or around September 11th (probably after knowing my body!)

Thank you God!

the changing of a changing station

Once upon a time there was a sweet little diaper changing area where I could lay my little baby and have wipes and a lamp within reach.

Fast forward a year and that baby is now 2 and a half+ feet long and swiping the wipe basket onto the floor and yanking the lamp cord. So then you go several months with things just piled on the floor.

Oh how that bothered me.

So, I finally got things in gear, made a couple floating shelves from some scrap wood and picked up a couple drywall anchors from Lowes and then Doug installed them for me.

Make sure it's level daddy!

Done and done. I like how it looked before a little better, but this look is ok, and more importantly it functions and keeps things off the floor. Go team!

Lasts

We are down to the last bags of frozen breastmilk for August. Just a couple more days worth. I had hoped to make it to two years, but 19.5 months is pretty good.

I've been feeling pretty discouraged lately as we are so hopeful for another baby, and yet it's just not happening. I look at August and I feel so blessed to be a mother, his mother, when some people aren't given the gift of motherhood at all. But I always wanted more children. And as I look at that last box of milk, and at my growing boy, I just hope he isn't my first, and last, baby.

So. Praying today to trust the Lord. And His timing. And that I can learn to be content in all circumstances (Phil. 4:11b), and with whatever the Lord chooses to give me.

life lately

Not up to much these days. I've had the week off so I've been doing stuff on my to do list like hemming a pair of pants that have been sitting there for months, trying to figure out how to wipe my old laptop since I've finally transitioned to my new one, we celebrated Doug's birthday last week, making meals and taking family walks.

He's been jumping like crazy in his jumper

bugger nose! haha, sent this pic to his daddy. I think this was his 4th cold since birth? Already gone. We've been pretty blessed 8 months in and hasn't had more than the 4 colds here and there.

not crawling, but sitting up like a boss

He's started to do more of those annoying baby things like throwing his head back and arching his back when he cries. He fights naps and going down for bedtimes occasionally. Last night we tried the 'cry it out' but I couldn't take more than about 5 minutes. So Doug and I took turns holding, singing, and then Doug just sat next to him while he played around and eventually got tired. All in all he's pretty good though.

We started veggies. I made a mix of sweet potato, kale, swiss chard, and spinach. I don't think I minced the leaves small enough, pretty soon he was gagging and threw it all up along with huge amounts of milk that he had before the veggies. Whoops, maybe you're supposed to do milk more like an hour before?

We got a 'new' wooden highchair last night off a swap site, I don't really like the cloth one we registered for. Even though the fabric wipes down, too many cloth crevices for gunk to get stuck. I guess something can look great on a registry, but real life shows you need something else.

He's not really a huge fan of food. A bite or two and then he's done. Which is fine with me, breastmilk should be a baby's main nutrition at least until a year, and the WHO says until 2 actually.

less barfy, buggery pictures of our boy:

LOVES bathtime

our little cutie

park walks

I love that our neighborhood backs up to a park. August and I have enjoyed several walks lately enjoying the sun and fresh air.

My cousin had given me her stroller with the warning that we might need a couple tires as she walked the heck out of that thing. And sure enough, the other day, one tire popped! It was scary loud. Anyway, it turns out finding a new stroller tire to fit isn't as easy as it sounds. So we are down to the one stroller that he can only use with his carseat and it's not quite as nice. Oh well, Doug is on an ebay mission to find me new tires.

Happy baby

The other night was book club, we enjoyed the sunset on Liz's deck. August was sitting on Miss Molly's lap

We haven't read any good books in awhile, dud after dud. The last book was I'm Down which looked funny, and I could almost relate as I was raised until 10 in Detroit as the only white girl, however, it just seemed sad in the way her parents were raising her aka almost to the point of neglect and I just couldn't read more than a few chapters. Oh well. The next one sounded promising, but I don't know if it will come in to the library before the next book club, I miss the huge library when I was living with Jill. (and miss girl time living with Jill *Jill shoutout :))

3 month update

August is 3 months!

He's doing great. Still eating well, slept 7 hours last night, and is generally a pretty happy guy.

We have been doing the cloth diapers since 6 weeks or so, I forget, and it is going good. I have to do a load of diapers maybe every 2-3 days, so that's not bad, it's easy. The only problem is his diaper pail was too small to hold more than a days-worth. So we still use that pail for the disposables he wears at night, and then just have a trash can in the corner of his room with a wet bag liner, but it doesn't close so by the 3rd day it is smelling pretty ripe in there! I could've gotten a trash can with a lid, but since I wanted it to fit between the wall and dresser none of them were wide enough. Oh well.

I went back to work last week. One day he was with my mom, and the past weekend he was with Daddy. Everyone did great. I came home and Doug had kept a little chart of when he ate and slept and then the next day it was pretty close within a half hour! So today I tried to keep one, but he's super off. He was only sleeping 45 mins for Doug, and it just hit 2 hours over here for me. Every day is a bit different!

He hasn't gotten any colds again, and he's made it to 3 months without getting Pertussis so we are pretty thankful for being out of the super dangerous window and feel ok about our decision to delay his vaccinations.

I wish he liked to cuddle more, I try wearing him in the Ergo but he's not super excited about it. So then bought another carrier (since my Ergo won't let baby face out) I almost like this one more and it was only $25. But he still doesn't last too long in it either.

it looks like he's trying to see how he looks in the camera :)

His neck is pretty controlled now, he's been sitting in his Bumbo chair

He was going to town gnawing on that thing.

Still fits in his 0-3 month clothes, all the torsos are a little too short for the cloth diapers but we're making it work. Maybe someday I'll either make or buy some of those onesie extenders.

That little hat! When Doug and I got the gender test results back at about 9 weeks we had the nurse leave it in a voicemail, then we went to Baby Gap and picked out a pink hat and a blue hat, asked the cashier to listen to the voicemail and then ring us up for the right gender while we weren't looking. Then we went out to dinner and opened the bag, that's how we found out we were having a boy. Seeing that little blue hat in the bag that day, and now seeing it on my precious baby boy, oh the feelings!!

He's such a cutie.

2 cuties! I'm very blessed.

I'm starting to see the resemblance to his daddy in the eyes/eyebrows, took me awhile to see it.

So anyway, we are all doing very well :)

the nursery tour

I guess I never did a post on August's nursery, here it is:

here was the room before

I put the pallet wall up myself. Real pallets can be dirty and full of chemicals, so we used wood from my dad from a old pipe organ crate he had made. I cut all the boards in the garage with a saw and used the nail gun to put them up

I went thru with "stainable" caulk and patched hundreds of little nail holes. Then we stained it to discover it wasn't stainable at all! It looked awful. It was almost polka dotted. So then Doug went thru and with a pocket knife scraped out all my putty and put in this wax crayon stain that matched the color of the stain we used. It was a huge pain. But looks great now.

I got this lantern online, it had been a kerosene lamp but they altered it to be electric. I wanted navy, but when it came it was a bright teal blue. So then I spray painted it this nice hunter green, turned out great I think!

We painted the walls a soft light brown. We chose an outdoorsy theme so lots of wood and nature. The park posters were from Amazon, and I did some free Bible verse printables. I got all the frames from Wal-mart. There is our little mushroom bank from Austria. The Jesus poster Doug had already, it's really cool, His whole face is made up of Bible verses and some tiny drawing of like a shepherd with his lambs.

The crib was Jenny Lind from amazon, I got the mobile pieces in a garland and strung them into this mobile myself- it plays 'the teddy bears picnic which my Dad always sang to us, and the quilt was handmade by my aunt.

more National park art over the changing station.

Bookcase and rocking chair from Craigslist.

Doug made this curtain rod from an old paddle.

This is how his room looks now, with the rocking chair that I was rocked in as a baby!

I love this sweet little room. I used to go in there before he was born and rock the cat. Look at all his tiny clothes. Look at his books and imagine reading and singing to him. Look at the art and hope he'd be a little boy going on adventures with us. I get so sad every time Doug talks about moving.

Such a cute room and he hasn't spent one night in it yet. We use his room for changing and getting dressed, but so far he sleeps in a little side bed in our room.

My friend Liz's husband made this side-bed for their son and we're borrowing it. It's so great having him close. Doctors recommend babies be with mom and dad until 6 months, supposed to make them "feel more secure", and lessens the chances of SIDS. I love having him close. I'd planned on transitioning him at 10 weeks into his own room before I went back to work, but he's still getting up 1-2x per night, so I haven't. It's pretty easy, I hear him stirring and wiggling, just change his diaper, nurse, and we go right back to sleep. He's never really laid there crying, so that's great.

A mini tour of this crib, haha, a pad to catch diaper leaks, mostly catches spit-ups; a pile of diapers and wipes by the feet, a trash bag hangs at the end for dirties; he's swaddled at night and gets a blanket on top; he's got a little turtle mirror there he can admire himself; little mittens for when he wiggles his hands out and they are cold; and a flashlight we used to use a lot when he was little to peek at him; a white noise machine (we already sleep with a fan, but sometimes if he's fussy he gets the waves too); and recently a piece of cardboard wedged between our beds. A couple times I've woken up to see he's inch-wormed himself into the crack, he definitely can't fall through, I just worried he'd smother himself in my covers.

Anyway, I love having him close. I stink at side-lying nursing so still have to sit up and get the Brest-friend pillow and nurse, but it's super quick and easy. I think if he was in his own room by the time the monitor picked him up he'd be crying too loud and it would be hard to calm back down, I love how quick it is to grab him or sometimes just reach over and pat his head and he'll go back to sleep. I don't think he'll stay till 6 months, but when he can sleep thru the night, out he'll go. Doug says we can re-do the wall at the next house, but it was so much work! We'll see.

life lately

Made a tasty dinner last night, bad picture though. Veggie burgers, side of roasted potatoes, and spicy acorn squash.

After dinner we ate some brownies and ice cream, listened to Christmas music and decorated the tree.

I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping! It's been really fun this year.

So there is a woman I used to work with at my old hospital job and she keeps sending me random gifts for August! It's super kind and generous, altho also a bit strange as I wasn't that close to her. I don't know, maybe she just loves babies and her love language is gift giving! Those little Santa feet are so fun.

Another gift he received were these fun books from my friend Missouri Jill. Moby Dick and Les Miserables, the second one has one page English/ one page French. Pretty cool, except I have no idea how to pronounce the French side!

I saw this one day and was laughing so hard:

Haha! So true! I'm always asking Doug to help me with something.

My brother and his family are coming to town in T- 1 week, so excited! I'm so happy I have this time off to enjoy it and really treasure the family time. It will be the first time they meet him and he meets his cousins, fun!

And now for a stream of August pictures:

blue eyes for now!

I find myself just wanting to remember every detail about him. I love his baby soft hair. It's so short on top and like an inch long in the back. A little mullet already! And it's always all mussed up when he's done nursing or sleeping. So precious.

sweet little baby

he liked his bath bucket more this time

in the family rocker, me and my siblings were all rocked in this chair, and now I get to rock my own baby.

I thought it was so sweet he was blowing bubbles, only later did I realize he had his first cold :( although he seems much better now! Praise God. Even a little cold made me so worried. He looks super blonde in this picture.

such a sweetie.