Over Halfway to Meeting BCM

I'm the luckiest person in the world to be able to spend every day with this smiling face. :)

Well, I’m over halfway through the pregnancy at this point, as I’m now 21 weeks along!  Only 19 more to go!  This pregnancy is going by more quickly than my first one.  Last Monday, I turned 29 years old.  It was a less-than monumental birthday to be honest, but it was a good one.  Brian took off work to spend the day with me (yay!), and he and I went on a date to see BCM via ultrasound.  Everything looked good, and they confirmed that he is in fact a boy.  Even I could tell that he’s a boy based on the ultrasound.

the baby's profile

Yes, definitely a boy.  No question.

BCM's adorable foot. 

He's looking at you here with his head sideways (kind of hard to tell)

For dinner, Brian, Dominic, and I went to Maggiano’s, which is always delicious.  Dominic behaved pretty well but refused to eat anything but (tons and tons of) Cheerios for dinner (it was a special occasion, so no big deal).  Brian gave me a Flip Slide video camera, which I really wanted and already love, and let me know that Dominic’s gift was on the way.  Dominic, being the amazing son he is, pre-ordered the Hey Dude DVD series for me, which was released the day after my birthday. It's a childhood TV series that I loved.  I can’t wait till it arrives!  Spending the day with all 3 of my boys made it a great birthday for me!  Now less than a year till I'm 30...

21 months and growing every day

The pregnancy is starting to catch up with me I guess.  My sleep is getting worse by the night – thank you, tiny, little bladder for my 3-4 wake-ups each night – which is making me tired again during the day.  I officially can’t lie on my back anymore, adding a challenge to the mix.  I’m not sure if it’s the lack of sleep or pregnancy brain, but my mind has just been seriously being funny lately. Twice last week I showed up half an hour early (yes, me showing up early is pretty crazy) because I had put the time 30 minutes early on my calendar.  I guess it’s better than coming 30 minutes late, but still.  My ring rash is getting worse instead of better, and now the rash is on my right ring finger as well as my left.  It seems to be from my hands swelling, making the rings fit more tightly and get soap and water under them, all of which irritates the skin under the rings.  I’m trying to wear my rings less especially around the house, but I hate not being able to wear my rings.  On the other hand (no pun intended), BCM is moving around a ton, which is the best part of pregnancy by far.  I love when he makes his presence/existence known to me. J

I think we’ve decided that Winnie the Pooh will be the theme for BCM's nursery and keep Snoopy for Dominic in his new room.  I didn’t even realize that Disney was releasing a new “Winnie the Pooh” until after I started considering that for the theme, but I bet we’ll be able to find more theme-related items now too.  We’re still working on getting the former office emptied out so Brian can paint Dominic’s new room for him, and he can get moved in soon.  What a process!

We’ve had a big week and a half at the Morton house.  It started the weekend before my birthday with my cousin Thad who lives in Seattle and his brand new wife Leyla from Russia coming for a visit.  We had the two of them and my family (12 people) over to meet Leyla and congratulate the happy couple in person after they got married earlier in the week.  It was great getting to see everyone but a lot of people in our house considering we're still getting everything moved around.  It was a lot of fun!

The rest of the weekend Brian, Dominic, and I did some other fun things like going to our neighbors’ kids’ birthday party at Gymboree.  Thankfully, I got Brian to come with us so he would chase Dominic around for me.  Dominic loved that place with all of the climbing, playing, and running around involved.  It was perfect for a little monkey like him.  We’re thinking of having his 2nd birthday party there or at a similar place.  I guess I need to start planning that soon since I’ll have just had a baby when I would have  normally been planning it.  Dominic did get tired by the end of the party and being the youngest child there (and one of 3 boys) he didn’t really do so well with the group/structured activities.  Overall, he had a great time though and I definitely want to go back again soon!

Brian, Dominic, and I also had a fun family trip to the Sprayground that weekend.  Dominic and I love that place (and I love how cheap it is), but Brian had never been.  It was terrific having him come because I took pictures, while Brian got in all of the sprays with Dominic and do all of the chasing that's becoming harder for me.  We all 3 had a great time!!

With Brian staying home for my birthday that Monday, I had a 4-day “work week.”  As I’ve said before, there really is no such thing as a 4-day work week or a 5-day work week as a mom because it's a 24-7 job, but whenever Brian stays home, it feels like a day off at least somewhat because he will help with diapers, feeding Dominic, and chasing him around for me.  I will state for the record, I did have to change a diaper on my birthday because something – conveniently – came up at Brian’s work just as Dominic needed a diaper change.  Coincidence?  I think not. ;)  It wasn’t a big deal though, and Dominic was especially well-behaved and sweet during the change.  I guess he knew it was my birthday.   

This weekend we had more family and marriage-related celebrations when Brian's sister Christina came to visit along with her now fiance Tom (or Uncle Tom as he will now be referred to).  Christina and Tom got engaged last weekend, which we're all so excited about, and came to visit from DC this weekend.  Dominic always loves getting to spend time with both sides of the family and all of the attention he gets, so luckily it's been a big week for that! 

Anyway, the rest of the week was pretty short, but Dominic started suffering from some serious clinginess!  Actually, I should say I was the one who suffered from it because the child has become stuck to me like Velcro, forcing me to carry him around more than usual, something not fun when you’re 20 weeks pregnant.  Any time I leave his sight, he gets upset – unless he’s really distracted – and often refuses to go to anyone else.  He even hardly left my side at one of the playgroups this week, barely playing with the other kids or toys, which was very concerning.

On top of the clinginess or in association with it, we’ve noticed that Dominic has been especially tired lately, sometimes even needing a second nap.  Very strange.  With the added tiredness has been an increase in his thumb sucking.  I hadn’t been that concerned about him sucking his thumb because it has honestly in my opinion helped Dominic be such a great sleeper over the last 17 months plus it's so much cuter than a pacifier, but the increase in frequency of sucking it this week has made me a little more worried about when he’ll stop and how we’ll even begin to get him to stop.  I sucked my thumb until I was 6 years old and would like to help Dominic avoid taking it that far.  He typically only sucks it when he’s tired, so the fact that he’s been more tired than normal – even after waking from a full night’s sleep, is the bigger problem I guess.  I think it might be a growth spurt, but I’m definitely keeping an eye on it. 

I’m not sure if the clinginess is related to being tired, but I also worry (yes, I worry a lot as a mom) that it could be related to starting timeout with him in the next month or so.  Let me preface this by saying that timeout *seems* to be working very well.  Dominic is not hitting or biting as much as before, and he needs to be put in timeout less and less as a result (yay!!).  However, when Dominic is put in timeout, Brian and I are noticing his reaction is more and more severe.  He gets increasingly upset and takes longer after we take him out of timeout to calm down.  Plus he just wants to cuddle – something I don’t mind at all – after we take him out of the timeout.  You could argue that the whole thing is because he’s tired…he misbehaves when he’s tired, which puts him  in timeout and then cuddles because he’s tired too.  Who knows!  Being a parent is more like being a detective sometimes because you’re constantly trying to figure out why your kids are doing what they do and what should you do to help them. 

Obviously, another possible cause for his recent tiredness and clinginess is teething – the reason for every symptom a baby/toddler suffers from for the first 2 ½ years of his/her life.  I felt this morning and Dominic’s 2^nd molar (the bottom right one) FINALLY popped through.  I can’t get in there to feel the other side, but it looks like we’re about halfway through with these molars…and then we have the canines and the 2 year molars after that.  Fun, fun.  Did I mention that I hate teething?!

Dominic has been doing better in the last couple of days since giving him some extra naps, so hopefully whatever the reason, Dominic will be back to normal soon.  In accordance with the growth spurt theory, he’s finally doing some things that I’ve been waiting months for him to do.  He has finally started pointing more often.  This is a huge relief as the not pointing is a sign of autism.  However, the last few days he’s pointing at pictures of things I ask him to point to and I think that 5 Little Monkeys song has helped with it too.   He’s starting to point to different facial features and tries to say the words.  

Another big thing is that Dominic has started in the last week or two is sharing - or attempting to anyway.  He finally started holding out toys and objects he plays with to Brian and me.  However, he's a bit of an "indian giver" (sorry for the less-than PC term) and won't actually release the object to us, but it's progress.  Maybe he'll actually share by the time his brother gets here!  I won't hold my breath for that one. ;)  A favorite thing to me that he is doing is reading books by himself more often.  He opens the book correctly and turns the pages the appropriate way and direction.  As a (former) teacher, I know these are important pre-reading skills, so it makes me very happy to see him developing them.    

Dominic continues to improve with his swimming, now he’s kicking and even sometimes pulling his way under the water between me and another person who is several feet away in the water..in other words, truly swimming!  It makes me even more convinced that I have to join to gym over the fall-winter-spring so Dominic doesn’t lose these important swimming skills between summers.  I know that for him to do that, we’d be not only starting over next summer but probably starting further behind since they often develop fears of the water when they haven’t been in it for a while.  Right now, Dominic's favorite thing to do at the pool is climb up and down the steps in the water and swim and splash around on the lower steps.

Loving the water!

On top of time at the pool, I also inflated his new pool in the backyard (the one I bought that’s the same as his playgroup friend).  He seemed to like it, but unfortunately some ants attacked the pool, so it was short-lived fun the first time.  Since then, Brian has treated the yard as has the exterminator, and Brian took Dominic out there while I was napping over the weekend.  Hopefully, no more ants will bother us!  We also tried play-dough again, using cookie cutters and popsicle sticks this time, but he was more enamored with the popsicle sticks than with the play-dough. Haha

Dominic's new pool

Play-Dough: Attempt 2

Activities with a toddler never go as planned - as I've learned, but they are always a lot of fun!  Dominic’s silly personality keeps coming out more and more.  He’s a “trickster,” clearly enjoying pulling tricks on us and making us laugh at him.  I can't even imagine how much more we'll laugh when BCM finally arrives and starts interacting with Dominic.  I seriously cannot wait for that fun!!!

This kid makes me laugh. :)