37 Weeks

That is right ladies and gentlemen, I am now what they call FULL TERM.

Minus the day I have this little girl (and only if possible) this will probably be my last picture where I specifically feature my belly. Its so funny because this time around my pregnancy pants have literally been falling off, which is fairly normal in pregnancy because the pants are stretchy, but this time around my pants fall down from sun up to sun down. And yet I have managed to gain about 10 more pounds this go around. My conclusion/ fear is that it's all in my legs, and before you tease me my ankles and knees are so puffy this time and have been for months! Only so much of that can be fluid retention people.

I'm also really starting to feel physically done. My mind is half split between "yup lets get this baby out of there" and "oh my gosh how are we going to be able to finish all of our packing, keep the house clean and organized enough to show,  AND finish my thesis with two kids". 

Here's the full size picture of Davie showing me his "big belly" from the collage above. He saw David taking these pictures of me and started posing in the background. He is such a goof! But also so observant, darn I love him.

So my mental self is still a little wary about being ready to "technically" have my baby any day now. Something else that has made me wonder how much longer I'll be are the two appointments I had recently. I've been at a 1cm since about 35ish weeks and this last Friday I was still 1cm and 50% effaced. Well yesterday I was 2-3cm and 75% effaced, that could literally mean nothing BUT this is the third time my body has been pregnant so it could also mean SOMETHING. Haha, count on my to make lots of sense. 

This weekend was my Sugar & Spice themed baby shower, put on by my lovely sister Lauren.

As you can see it was very PINK and super cute. The food too was great, which is great for pregnant ladies and therefore extra mention worthy. 

There she is! So thankful for her and all her great planning, everything went perfectly. 

Can You Smell That?

So lately I have been in LOVE with smells. The joke around here is that I have pica, although in my defense I have no desire to eat the things I'm smelling, but I have seriously considered carrying around little scented bags so I could enjoy smells on the go. My newest favorite scent came after watching an episode of the Duggars last fall semester. On one of the episodes they talked about how they make their own laundry detergent. For some reason that really caught my attention so after Christmas festivities were over and our lives had gone back to normal I set out to try and make some detergent myself. 

Apparently I am WAY behind on this because all the trendy pinterest ladies have been making this stuff for about 3- 4 years. The biggest difference between what the Duggars do and what I was willing to do was I did not want to have to cook/ melt my soap (too much work). So I set out to find a dry version. These are the two websites I got my recipe from-

http://www.howdoesshe.com/cheaper-and-better-diy-laundry-detergent/

http://wellnessmama.com/462/how-to-make-nautral-homemade-laundry-detergent/

It was really easy and fun, but the smell! Oh it is soooo good! I made two flavors one was with Dr. Bronner's lavender soap and lavender blossom Purex crystals

 the other was pink Zote and Tropical Splash Purex crystals. 

I never did take a picture of my tropical splash mix, but this is what the lavender one looks like.

You are really only supposed to put in 1-2 tablespoons per load but I love the smell so much I'll readily admit to using 3-4 scoops. Another plus is leaving the measuring spoon in the detergent makes for easy stirring and smelling of the detergent for my occasional sniffing sessions (oh how I wish I was kidding).

I'll spare you all the directions and details because there are literally hundreds of blog posts out there about this stuff. Most of the posts had the detergent in a cute little decorated mason jar, so when I decided to give some away that was what I looked for. Turns out Mason jars were like stupid expensive so for the same price I got these much fancier little jars.

After I tested it out on my own laundry I was ready to then share it with my Visit Teachees. It seemed appropriate to give soap as a little New Year's gift. Right? A clean new start!

My other new smelly obsession is the Eucalyptus Mint wallflowers. Another SUPER clean smell that I just CANNOT get enough of! 

So now I have 5 Wallflowers (in our tiny place that probably only needs 2 or 3) all full of this flavor. I feel like its the best smell for trying to sell the house, clean and fresh! I realize this post is purely not personal and other than relating to pregnancy and my need to have clean smells it's kind of stupid but I had to share my new obsessions :)

My Mommy Moment

Occasionally some of you ladies will post articles about being a mom, having children and all those other details that go along with it on Facebook. Some articles I really like others... not so much. Today as I was going through some of Davie's things that are too small or can be put into storage (we are getting a bigger storage unit and meeting with a relator on MONDAY!) I was remembering my biggest "new mom" hurdle. 

For me nothing about having a baby is that "gross" a little uncomfortable? sure. Less appropriate to talk about in some situations then others? Yup. A squeamish topic around men? Yes sir. But in reality its just a body process that (like many) has it's share of fluids. I was never taught that birth had no "yucky" parts. I just slowly learned how it worked and I was fine with it. Did that mean when I had Davie that I wanted the doctor to hand him to me when he was still all "wet". NO! But in that moment I quickly realized, oh thats not as bad as I thought it would be. I should also add that Davie was not as slimy or sticky as some babies are when he was born. I also realized he didn't stink, not sure what I thought it would smell like but it wasn't anything "gross". 

Must protect the blessing outfit!

Flash forward to having that new baby. I was prepared for baby poop messes, long nights, lots of crying and maybe even an "I don't care about myself" phase. Well not much of that ever happened. Instead I got the baby that literally spit up ALL the time for ALMOST the first year of his life. And not like "oh he drooled, how cute!" Like drench a blanket in one go, use 4+ blankets a day, outfit changes, drool by the pint (without teething I might add), buy 10 more spit up blankets, always doing laundry, and SOOO many bibs all the time kind of spit up. 

That picture of Davie right there was after he spit up ALL over had a yucky diaper and then peed on us. Whew! Talk about your clean up marathon. He literally wore out his bibs, we still use them even though the velcro on them does almost nothing. Turns out theres only so many times you can wash velcro before it gives up the ghost (four washes a day sometimes). That was so tough for me! 

Here I was thinking "wow this mom stuff isn't so bad", Davie wasn't so bad, I really felt like I had time to get "washed up/ made up" for the day. My bigger deterrent was the thought of Davie spewing allll over my "nice" clothes. And without fail most days that I actually got ready he did. Including a black lace shirt, it was gross. 

All of that basket is HIS laundry.

So as I was picking out the very boy spit blankets and leaving out the yellow, green and ducky themed ones for the new little miss I got the tiniest bit of dread at the thought of having another baby. What if she spits up the way Davie did!?! I'll deal, because I have to, but darn that would really stink. That picture of all the spit up blankets above doesn't do itself justice because there really are an abnormal amount of them, they are just really flat from being folded in their box for so long.

He was a happy spitter-upper

For the most part every baby has their "downside" some don't sleep their first year, others have colic, while others seem to have a curious amount of diaper catastrophes. I guess what I am trying to get at here is this is my official "putting what I want out into the universe" blog post concerning this next baby- please be a decent sleeper at least until my classes are finished and please don't spit up on me for the whole first year of your life. That's all I ask... for now. 

Davie is Two

Just like every other mom on the planet, I cannot believe my baby is two. He has the best personality, he's super sociable, loves people and is as stubborn as they come. In fact if it wasn't for the the fact that I too am stubborn (David is the "good guy") he would walk all over us and be a regular little tyrant. One the more geeky side Davie was born in the year of the Dragon (so was I) but because of when Chinese New Year starts he's technically a Rabbit. Can I just say I wholly disagree with that categorization! Haha to give you an example of what I mean one of the descriptions of the Rabbit is that they are serene animals. Nothing could be more untrue for Davie, but maybe he will grow into it :) I still think he fits the category of Dragon much better, stubborn, firey, passionate etc. Ok I'm done being geeky... for now.

Some of his accomplishments in the last 6 months include, 

1. Loving, pointing at and carrying around cars. It started with any vehicle was a car but he has now added truck and bus to his list. 

2. Pointing out the color of objects he is holding or that you have. He is really quite good if he is the one who mentions the color first and I think it's because he has had time to think about it. When we ask him what color something is about 75% of the time he will get it right. 

2. Knowing what numbers are counting (a little) and asking for two of something like crackers or cookies. He's also loved the ABC's for quite some time now, depending on his current mood he actually sings a lot of the letters.

The Q doesn't belong to this puzzle but I looked over and saw Davie put it in the correct spot!

Loves a good book. For as wiggle CRAZY busy as he is I'm still amazed he likes books SO much. It really makes no sense because we barely get him to fold his arms at night for his 1 minute long prayer but he will sit through several books at night and then ask for more!

3. A while back he started telling us he was "kuck" when he was in his carseat. I don't think I paid too much attention at first because he was still babbling a lot at the time. When I figured out what he actually meant it was because I turned around to see him lean against his carseat straps while grunting and repeatedly telling me "I kuck, I kuck!" That was when I realized he was telling me he was stuck. 

Davie telling me he's "kuck"

4. He has officially climbed out of the crib, bye-bye freedom mommy and daddy. Bedtime takes closer to an hour and nap time takes about 30 minutes now. I know all toddlers are but Davie too is an especially good little manipulator at bedtime now. He so sweetly will say "sit mommy, sit mommy" when I go to leave the room or "come here mommy". It gets me every time because after I walk out of the room he cries like I broke his heart. What a stinker, darn we love him! I still think he would have made it a while longer if we hadn't had him in a pack'n'play he could climb out of over Christmas vacation. In the end though, I'm thankful we are making the bed transition now though and not after the baby. I can just imagine the kind of pain that transition would have been. Two not sleeping babies. Not good.

5. He absolutely LOVES singing "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" and "I am a child of God". If he wants to sing them he will say "sunbeam, sunbeam" or "chil Got!" I was actually unaware of how well he knew the song I am a child of God until one of the ladies at our parents church told us she was impressed with how well Davie sang it. Not that I hadn't tried to sing to him, goodness me did I try! Davie was just one of those babies who needed absolute quite when it was time to go to bed so I stopped singing or trying to a long time ago. Now I try to incorporate the songs into his bedtime routine more often. The other night we were singing together and he actually fell asleep shortly after, it was a wonderful mommy moment.

6. He can identify a lot of his family that lives far away. I have really enjoyed that. He knows who my mom and dad are if we talk about them and David's parents. He's a little more rusty on our siblings but there's quite a few. Well except for Mike and LaLa who live here in Toledo near us, he LOVES them.

Picture of him while I bug him and try to keep him from sleeping in the car so that he won't ruin his nap. The next picture isn't the same day, but there is something so beautiful about a sleeping baby.

7. He still HATES to have his diaper changed and can be quite the grouch most mornings. I can tell he is starting figure out the potty thing, my new less-favorite thing he does is tell everyone you are going poopy if you are in the bathroom and someone asks for you. Oh geez!

Must not be held still!!

8. Davie finally has more than 6 teeth! Back in November/ December we noticed he was getting 4 molars almost instantaneously. Thankfully they were on top and bottom so he can actually use them to chew. No sign of his other bottom front teeth so the boy definitely struggles to bite stuff, haha and we call them his little rat teeth.

These are my socks and for some reason Davie always finds them and LOVES to wear them around.

9. Davie LOVE, love, lOvEs his Daddy. He is the BIGGEST daddy's boy around. He pretty much picks David over me any day. It's tough for this first time mom to take but I love how much he loves David. Their relationship gives me some of the greatest joy there is! Overall though he has become much more affectionate lately and will actually come up and randomly give you a hug. So I'll forgive him for the Daddy thing.

Walking with Daddy at the University

10. The day of his second birthday started with him somehow getting a hold of a blue Crayola marker and coloring all over his dresser. Thankfully it came off very easily. Then while David was fixing the chicken for Davie's little party Davie got into the fridge and kidnapped his cake. Luckily that too didn't end in too much of a catastrophe but he had ruined the words on his cake that said Happy Birthday. At first I was really irritated, but it's a great story to tell no? There was one more happening the following day that let us know Davie was taking his mischief to a whole new level. We put him down to nap and he finally calmed, so I checked on him. Well he had actually just ripped up a whole ABC flap board book. I am so glad we keep his books way up high now.

His last free seat on a plane.

I was talking to David the other day and I got all emotional and asked him if he would be mad if I felt like the day Davie was born was better than the day we got married. He wasn't upset at all in fact he sort of agreed. I think when you get married there is a lot less change in your life (in every way) than the day you have your first baby. When you get married you know who you are marrying (hopefully) and what they are like. The day you have a baby, other then the gender, you know almost nothing about them and just about everything in your life changes. Having Davie with David there and bringing him home are some of the best, sweetest memories I have!

We love you Davie every little crazy busy part of you.

I am Still Pregnant

It's true, even with everything that's been going on I am still pregnant... with my 3rd baby, that still blows my mind. About 90% (or more) of my doctors appointments have been between classes or on Fridays so that I didn't have to take Davie or miss class. I recently passed my glucose test, and my hemoglobin levels are excellent too, just in case you all wanted to know. 

Aside from that I think I have spent more time on my bottom during this pregnancy than any of my others which has lead to my weighing as much as I did when I delivered Davie and Colin already. Only I was 7.5 ish months along not 9 months. Yeah that was a tough moment. All that sitting in class, and studying on top of bad schedules and general lack of energy for working out there has also been a large amount of eating out. Throw in David never being around and Davie eating like a mouse and eating out becomes a very wonderful alternative for cooking. 

This pregnancy has been different than my other two in a lot of different ways. I never really had morning sickness instead I had extreme food aversions and crazy bad fatigue. My tummy issue this time around has mainly been tummy aches that feel like someone has punched me in the gut and they usually last all evening. This was all going on right after Mike and Lauren moved in and while David was gone for 4 weeks to Minnesota. It was awful.

 Then sometime in October I started getting horrible pelvic/ thigh bone pain and I'm still dealing with it. The other night we went to the zoo and I hurt SO bad I was using Davie's stroller like some kind of elderly walker. This daily pain is totally new to me and it has definitely given me a new perspective. The saddest part about this pain is the way it has affected my sleeping. I never struggled to sleep while pregnant and now I find myself tossing and turning on top of my 2- 3 nightly potty trips. And of course this time around I have experienced the highest need for extra potty breaks than ever before. I am the potty queen this time. Oh yes and I have been very itchy, all over, a lot.

So even with the literal pain in my bones, tougher nights, ichy-ness and extra potty breaks here I am passed 30 weeks and unlike my previous pregnancies I'm not feeling the "I"M SO DONE" feeling. I worry now that I have admitted and posted this something will happen and I'll immediately regret it, but it's true and I'm still a little shocked to be able to say it. I'm still super excited to bring home another baby and I get really excited when I think about bringing her home, but overall I still somehow feel less "tight or uncomfortable" compared to my previous 30 week milestones. 

34 weeks on Friday
I was going to try to get a nicer picture but the bathroom selfie is all that happened.
Also feel free to tell me if I can wear a polka-dot scarf with stripes... it seemed legit.

The next thing I am currently looking forward to is our third trimester ultrasound, I found out that my doctor's office does these as a courtesy two appointments ago. This will be exciting since I never had a 3D ultrasound with Colin and Davie's pictures done in 3D were lack luster since he was still so small. I can't wait to see this little gal's face and see if she looks like Davie or if she has her own look!