29 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the Week: We made some new friends! I unofficially met Jen through one of my moms' groups...she was moving here from California and had some questions about the area, and I answered them for her, and we've been emailing back and forth ever since. Now it's a few months later, and her family has arrived in the Sunshine State, so she and her sweet kiddos came over for a playdate. Jackson is 3.5 and was perfectly content watching "Myna Mo" on TV while the little ones played, and Clare is 22 months old so she and Carter had a blast! We always love making new friends.

Epiphany of the week: My friend Sasha from one of my playgroups is pregnant, too, and she's due in November with her second son. She just announced that she's naming him Collin! We both got a good laugh out of our similar taste in names, so there will be TWO cute new Collins in our playgroup!

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: Carter was "reading" Cat in the Hat to himself the other day. It was mostly babble, but he was turning the pages and got some of the words and storyline right on his own..."No, no, Cat in the Hat!" was one that I caught. When he was done, he said "The End" and shut the book just like I always do. I don't know how early he will actually read for real, but I think it will definitely be early at the rate he's going!

Obsessions: Still moving. We had talked about the possibility of the previously mentioned Jen and her family renting our house when they moved here, which would be great because there would be nice, normal people taking care of our house instead of random people who may not. It doesn't look like that is going to work out from a timing standpoint for us or a budget standpoint for them, so I think we're going to have to hire a property manager...booooo. But when?

And my NEW iPhone!! After dealing with my "possessed" Droid Eris for a year and a half, we finally bit the bullet and paid the $200 to get my pretty new iPhone 4, which is wonderful!

What I am most looking forward to this week: Pool party on Monday with the Meadow Pointe Moms' Club, Aquarium on Wednesday with Meg and Hunter, another playdate with Jen and the kids at some point in between, and (YAY!!) meeting my friend Erin's baby boy Fischer on Friday! Fischer and Collin will be about 3 months apart, and I know they will be good buddies!

What I miss the most: Not much.

Symptoms: Sore and tired with some crazy Braxton Hicks contractions

Milestones: Baby is growing rapidly now. This week he weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is getting bigger to accommodate his growing brain – which is busy developing billions of neurons.

Weight: 147.5

Carter at 20 Months

Wow, 20 months already?! My little guy is not so little anymore. He's getting closer and closer to being a big brother, and thankfully keeps getting more and more ready with each passing month. I just wanted to take a few moments to capture Carter Glenn in all of his brilliance at 20 months. I know how easily I forget exactly when he did what (and a lot of this has been going on for a while) but I just wanted to document it here for posterity. :)

- He knows most of the alphabet (still mixes up a few letters here and there) and can identify most of the letters, match letters if there is more than one of a kind, and is starting to learn the alphabet song with me.
- He can count 1 to 10 well, sometimes up to 20, and is starting to understand how to count things...he definitely understands when there are a few items, but gets a little mixed up when there are a lot (I think once he starts counting, he just doesn't want to stop, so if there are 8 of something, he keeps going to 10 most of the time!). He's started counting the steps when we go up and down them.
- He knows all of his basic shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval) and also knows star, moon, heart and even octagon. Glenn has even started teaching him crazy shapes like rhombus and parabola. If you draw shapes on a piece of paper, he can color certain shapes certain colors, which just amazed me.
- Speaking of colors, he knows his colors...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black and white. The hardest ones for him to get were orange and purple. He still mixes up black and brown occasionally, and purple and pink.
- He has a crazy vocabulary! When we go through his books together, he can identify pretty much everything I point to in every book, even difficult items like microscopes, caterpillars, feather dusters and octopus. Sometimes his prononciation isn't the greatest, but he definitely knows what things are if you take the time to understand him. He loves his lift-a-flap books and his look-and-find books best of all, and I think these have helped with learning so much so fast.
- He can identify pretty much any animal we run into and knows sounds for most of them that make sounds, and motions for anything I could think of that doesn't make a sound. We go through these a lot in the car when I'm trying to keep him awake, and recently, I started telling him the sounds and he is able to tell me what animal makes the sound, too.
- While he's still far from reading, he's starting to understand the concept. He knows that "C" is for Carter and Collin, "M" is for Mama, and "D" is for Dada (plus a few others, but these are the main ones) and if you write those words down, he can identify the four of them by looking at the letters. He is also good at filling in words when we read books...sometimes by pointing at the pictures and he fills in the blanks for me (Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Goodnight Moon), sometimes just because he remembers from reading it so many times (Knuffle Bunny, Ferdinand).
- He's starting to understand relationships...big, little and medium (we work on this with his "quack quacks"), in and out, on and off, etc.
- He knows all of his body parts, even his eyebrows, and can identify them on himself, other people, and in books. He loves to pound on my back saying "backabackabackabacka" which I'm hoping will translate into nice backrubs down the road!
- Some of my favorite "Carterisms": duck = quack quack; bird = peep peep; monkey = ha; lion = grrrr; elephant = finit; pigs say "eh eh" instead of oink; roosters (and usually chickens, too) say cock-a-do; yogurt melts = myna melts; ice cream = ki keam; apples = a-a's; pineapples = a-a-a's; bicycle/tricycle/motorcycle = guycycle; Mickey Mouse = Myna Mo; Elmo = MoMo; Grancy = Cee Cee; Zoey = Suzzy; Sophie = Phie Phie
- He really is such a sweet little guy. Sure he has his moments, but he's a total cuddle bug, loves to give hugs and kisses and snuggle, and will occasionally say "love you" which melts my heart. What he lacks in independence, he more than makes up for in affection, and I don't think I would trade that for all of the independent sleeping in the world. :) I am such a proud Mama and just can't even believe that we made this amazing little person from scratch!

28 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the week: A fun day out at the Aquarium with my moms' group. I tried out Carter's "leash" for the first time since he's been so active lately and I was nervous about having to chase him around when I'm so pregnant. (I swore I would never be one of those parents who put a leash on their child, but there are a lot of things I said I would never do as a parent that I totally do now...those of you who don't have kids yet will understand this concept much more when you have kids...it's totally a survival mechanism...for me, and for Carter, too!) Not only did he tolerate the leash well (it's actually a little tiger backpack he can wear and a strap clips on and lets me hang on to him) but he didn't run away from me, either. He held my hand most of the time and I just kept the leash as a backup plan that I thankfully didn't even need. We went out to the splash park for the first time, and Carter LOVED it! He had so much fun playing in the fountains, looking at all of the "sea creatures" and running around like a crazy man. It was really, really, really hot out, so I don't know how often we will attempt it, but I loved how much he loved it.

Epiphany of the week: I am way less antsy with this pregnancy. With Carter, I just couldn't wait for him to be here already, to be done being pregnant, to meet him, etc. With Collin, I'm just trying to enjoy my pregnancy. I'm not sure if we will have a third child, so this might be my last time being pregnant, and while it does have its challenges, I really do enjoy pregnancy once I get past that whole first trimester nonsense. I'm also really trying to enjoy our time with Carter while he's still an only child. I completely understand how challenging life is going to get when we have two instead of one (and how wonderful, too, but also challenging), so I'm savoring the calm before the storm and trying to make each moment special.

Also, it really occurred to me this week that Carter is a "real person" now. As a baby, he wasn't really all that conscious or what was going on and didn't have that much of an attention span or memory. Now he really understands things. He obeys commands, remembers things that happened days or even weeks before, and just has such a personality. He is completely his own person now. I'm not sure if that's a GOOD thing or a BAD thing now that Collin is coming...guessing it will be a little bit of both. And yet he is still partially a caveman...doesn't completely understand the concept of being gentle, has to go to timeout a couple of times a day for hitting me, Glenn, my mom or the cats (he's just playing, not being malicious, but still) and doesn't listen all the time when I ask him not to do things like climbing on the furniture. We'll get there, right? Hopefully before September. :)

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: "Wow, you really look pregnant now!" - Kara Clavio from my moms' group...not meant as an insult, just a statement of the truth...my belly is getting B-I-G

Obsessions: Moving. Not sure if I've even talked about it here, but we are planning to move from our townhouse in Wesley Chapel over to Glenn's dad's house in Clearwater. He's been in a nursing home since last summer, so his house is vacant, and we have to rent out either that house or our house. The Clearwater house is about 30 seconds from Glenn's office and 10 minutes from my parents, so it makes way more sense for us to be over there than over here. The catch is that it needs a lot of renovations before we can move in, which takes a lot of time and money. We're bartering a lot of work with a contractor (I did their branding and am going to do their website) but Glenn still has to do a lot of it himself. Between money stresses and not having enough time, there's still a big question mark hanging over the whole situation, and I don't know if we'll be able to get everything done in the less than 3 months before Collin gets here. Pregnant ladies need to nest, and I currently don't know where my nest will be, which is driving me bonkers. I'm just trying not to think about it...

What I am most looking forward to this week: Pool playdates with friends will be fun...but I also have a lot of work to do, including a lot of potential new business that has just been bombarding me this week...when it rains it pours! New business is always a good thing for my company, but I always get butterflies in my stomach as I take on new projects and new clients, hoping that everything will go smoothly and that they won't be "nightmare" clients. I'm also not quite sure how I'm going to juggle all of the work that is potentially about to start, yikes!!

What I miss the most: Not much.

Symptoms: Headaches are back, boooooo! I had really nasty ones during my first trimester, but they were almost completely, blissfully absent from my second trimester. My third trimester starts and within a few days, so do the headaches! I try not to take too much medicine, but I've had to take a lot more Tylenol to keep them under control, along with a daily dose of caffeine, which used to be all I needed. Yesterday, neither Tylenol nor caffeine did the trick, but a couple of pieces of dark chocolate knocked it out. Oh well, there could be worse cures, huh?

Milestones: By this week, baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of his head to his heels. He can blink his eyes, which now sport lashes. With his eyesight developing, he may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. He's also developing billions of neurons in his brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

Weight: 146, up 13 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight

27 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the week: Fun playdate at Carter's girlfriend Abby's house with my Mommy friends on Wednesday, and lunch with my ex-coworkers yesterday...always nice to spend good times with friends!

Epiphany of the week: By golly, I think I must have passed my glucose test! I should have had a call by Tuesday if there was anything amiss, so even if they took their time, I think I would have heard something by now. I thought about calling to ask, but nah, I'm just going to be happy about the lack of news!

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: All courtesy of the Munchkin...

• Carter had his first really good swear word this week, courtesy of Mama. I don't even remember what inspired it now, but Glenn and Carter were going upstairs, and I was closing up downstairs for the night. I think I dropped something on my toe, or stubbed my toe, or something painful like that, but I yelled "F**K!!!" really loud, and then heard a little parroted "F**K!!" from upstairs. Glenn and I both just about died laughing. Is this something we write in his baby book?? Guess it's officially time to watch my language.
• Glenn was in the office and I was lying in bed, exhausted, but Carter was nowhere near ready to sleep. He ran helter skelter down the hallway, screaming "aaaaaaaagggghhhhhh!!!!" at the top of his lungs, then into the bedroom and over to me and said "Hi!" then "aaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhh!" down the hallway to the baby gate by the office and said "Hi!" to Glenn, then back and forth about 20 times, screaming and laughing the whole time. Eventually he burned off enough steam to slow down and go to bed!
• Carter likes to play with Glenn's big Maglite flashlight, and he's learned how to turn it on and off himself. We were lying in bed at bedtime the other night and he would turn it on and say, "There it is!" then off and say, "Where did it go??" He did this over and over again, then turned it on and said, "There's the moon!

He is just so darn cute these days. I am so, so in love with that little boy!

Obsessions: Collin's little feet. He's strong enough now to give me some really good kicks, and if I push back at him, I can actually feel his feet just like I could with Carter. They are usually on my right side, about even with my belly button, but getting higher and higher up.

What I am most looking forward to this week: Going to the aquarium with my mommy group...always fun! I think I will bring Carter's little backpack-leash with me this time!

What I miss the most: Nothing this week. Carter is mostly back to his normal, sweet self.

Symptoms: Braxton-Hicks contractions started this week. I've also really had trouble sleeping. Twice this week, I spent a few hours awake in bed wishing I could get back to sleep, which is the worst when I know how tired I will be the next day (last night was one of them). Zzzzzzzz.....

Milestones: I'm in my 3rd trimester, woo hoo! Collin is about 2 pounds and 14.5 inches long. He's sleeping and waking at regular intervals and opening and closing his eyes. His brain is very active now (going to be smart like his brother!), and his lungs are finally developed enough that he could make it on the outside now with help.

Weight: 144.5

26 Weeks Pregnant

Best Moment of the week: Feeling Collin's adorable little hiccups for the first time! I was sitting at the dinner table and thought he must be flailing around a lot since I was feeling a lot of movement, and when I put my hand on my belly, I realized that it was a predictable pattern and he just had the hiccups! He gets them a few times a day now, just like Carter did. Which means he will probably have them all the time once he's out, too! He's been moving a lot more in general, too, and I've been able to push back on his feet and have him actually kick me a few times, which is fun! Glenn has had a few "whoa!" moments watching the turbulence in my belly.

Also, a pool party with my moms' group was lot of fun yesterday, but it was flanked by one of Carter's worst days of crankiness yet! I really, really, really hate teething...it turns my sweet boy into a nightmare! Thankfully he seems to be in better spirits today.

Epiphany of the week: Go to the bathroom before I get in the car. Even if I don't have to pee now, I will have to pee as soon as you start driving and then I will be miserable!

Entertaining question/comment/story of the week: My friend Larisa told me my hair looked nice yesterday and asked if I had something done to it since it was almost curly. I told her no, my hair just gets wavy during pregnancy and laughed that I hadn't even washed it in two days. Our friend Birgit added, "So basically it's a combination of pregnancy and motherhood."

Obsessions: Hiccups! Passing the glucose test....my fingers are still crossed on that one. They're supposed to call within a week if the results are abnormal, so I've almost made it that far. Though I think they took their sweet time to tell me it was abnormal last time, too. We'll see!

What I am most looking forward to this week: Fun playdate on Wednesday, hopefully a fun lunch date with my ex-work friends on Friday.

What I miss the most: This week, it was my sweet Carter instead of the teething monster! :)

Symptoms: Sore and sleepy, but generally feeling good. Also still pretty emotional, especially on "bad" days when Carter is driving me nuts. :)

Milestones: He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel.

Weight: 143