Eleven Months!

Our sweet baby girl was eleven months yesterday! That means just one more month until she is blowing out the candles on her first birthday cake (okay, I am sure BIG SISTER will be helping her with that part!). It has been an eventful month for Serena as she is trying to perfect her toddling skills. Just recently in the last few days she has learned how to get to a standing position on her own. Before she was having to crawl over to something and pull herself up. This is quite a good skill to have mastered when you are falling on your bottom a lot! Now she just picks herself up and keeps walking to where ever she was going. It is still so much fun to see her taking those steps and amazing at the same time. A few months ago she couldn't do much more than lie on the floor and stare at her toys and now she is walking all over it and getting her toys herself.

She is becoming quite vocal lately with her sister. Just as I thought, now that Serena is older, Calli is having trouble with it. She actually really loves her baby sister and is always giving her hugs and kisses and telling her that. But she doesn't like to share her things and she will take toys away from her sister. Serena has started putting up a fight when Calli does this and will just yell at her. It is really funny because usually it causes Calli to give back whatever she took.

It is nearly time to give up the bottles and formula too, which will actually be really nice. I hope the transition will be easy like it was with Calli. Serena is down to just her morning and night bottles anyway and so I'm not too worried. She can fall asleep on her own, she doesn't need the bottle in her mouth. And when she wakes up in the morning I will just need to feed her breakfast ASAP instead of the bottle. I tried Calli will whole milk at about 11.5 months so I will probably do the same here. Speaking of eating, Serena pretty much eats everything in sight. She eats more than Calli does usually! It is crazy! I don't know where she puts it all and I'm thinking we'll go to the doctor in a month and she will weigh thirty pounds (okay maybe not that much!). I think her absolute favorite foods are oranges and peas, but she really loves almost anything you put in front of her.

I am just in awe that pretty soon we will have made it through her first year of life. It seemed to go by so quickly, much faster than Calli's first year did. She has been an easier baby though. She still sleeps so well, going to bed at 7:30pm each night and not waking until about 7:30-8 the next morning. She takes one nap a day, at 11am and that's all I have been able to get her to take the last few months. That is fine with me though, I'd rather have her taking one big nap than two short ones so I can get more done. I hope the next baby adapts to a schedule so well like Serena did!

Anyhow, Happy Eleven Months Serena!! We love you!

A Video

This was taken on our Valentine's Day morning (last Saturday). As you can see, Serena is quite the walker now! She gets better every day too and is walking so much! It is just incredible to me to be able to watch her and be a witness to such a huge development in her life. Calli was her usual self; she received some glitter glue pens for her present and had to start using them right away!

Tired. Just tired.

You think you are tired with the second pregnancy. Well, let me start over; you think you are tired with the first pregnancy. All that sleeping in, napping whenever you want or need, taking hot relaxing baths and vegging on the couch can really get to you! Okay, so pregnancy in itself just makes you tired even if you aren't doing anything. But you have to admit, a first time pregnancy seems pretty easy in retrospect.

So then you decide that it really wasnt that bad and hey, let's do it again! So you get to cooking Baby #2 and realize that it is not quite so easy. As I said, you think you are tired. Toward the end of it, I knew I was tired! And maybe it depends on the age gaps you have with your kids. If you wait a long time and have a child who is in school all day, I would think it would be a bit easier than chasing after a toddler all day, which is what I did. I had this rambunctious two-year-old who had started to give up her daily naps and sometimes it was hard to get through the day. At the end of my pregnancy I was so tired I had no idea how in the world I was going to manage two children! I thought I would drop from being so tired all the time. But this amazing thing happened; when Serena was born I suddenly had all this energy! I didn't really realize or think about the fact that I was pregnant and that alone was eating all my energy. I just thought I was going to feel like that forever! But I was wrong. Once she came out it was a brand new world for me! Even getting up several times a night with her was much less tiring than being pregnant with her was, how crazy is that!? Like I said, I thought I was tired.

But I am here to tell you that it is really the THIRD pregnancy that does you in. Oh. My. Gosh! Am I ever tired. Now this may have something to do with the fact that that two-year-old has turned into a sassy, spunky three-year-old who wears me out. She is now more emotionally exhausting than physically. She still likes to run and be crazy, but she is three (nearly four!) and doesn't get into things she shouldn't be getting into and doesn't need such a constant watchful eye. She'll sit still to watch a show (or ten if I let her!!) and I'll have a few minutes of peace. But now she is older and able to back talk and give me attitude and drive me crazy! So she takes care of my emotional well-being, while my ten-month-old makes sure I am physically exhausted from chasing after her new walking legs each day. The nice thing about said ten-month-old is that she actually naps during the day. There is a brief two to three hour break that I get from her and I wish I could convince Calli to follow suit. But no.

I am *almost* in the third trimester and by the time you hit the third pregnancy, the myth about the second trimester being the best and the time when you get all your energy back is complete crap. I have been worn down for about two months now I would say and May cannot come soon enough. Of course I know it will be tiring caring for three children under the age of four, but as I remember last time, I will get my energy back when I have this baby in my arms instead of in my belly.

Oops! New Blog!

I have been neglecting this blog! So here is my update.

Calli is on the downhill slide to four years old. How did that happen? I would say her favorite thing to do right now is art. So that is why I signed her up for an art class. It is every Monday from 12:30-2 and I can just drop her off and come get her when the class is over. The last two weeks I have spent running errands during that time. It is SO much easier to do the grocery shopping with just one child in tow. And Calli loves her time in the class. Every week they do a new project. Yesterday they traced what were supposed to be slices of bread onto their paper and drew on all different toppings for them. I am sure when her class ends in a few months we will have accumulated all kinds of art projects and I don't know what we will do with them all! I hate throwing away anything that my kids do. I save way too many of Calli's drawings she makes at home, but I can't bear to part with them.

I recently had a funny moment with Calli, a definite "MOM Moment", when she asked me "Mommy, how did the baby get in your tummy?" I didn't quite know how to respond and am sure my answer wasn't sufficient, but she did stop asking. I don't know what I will say the next time she asks. She is only three, she is not supposed to be saying these things already!! When I was pregnant with Serena she was very interested in how the baby was going to come OUT. Now she wants to know how it got IN. Kids!

Serena is growing every day and learning new things. She is taking steps all the time now and getting braver and braver. She is becoming unafraid to let go and walk on her own. She'll walk from couch to couch, toy to toy, person to person. Her record is about seven or eight steps now. It is so amazing to watch. I really really love this milestone. It is just so adorable to see her let go of the safety net she is holding onto and venture out on her own. She takes a few shakey steps, stops to balance herself and takes a few more before either reaching her destination or falling on her bottom. Just a few weeks and she will be running alongside Calli!

One of the really cute things she has been doing lately is opening her mouth really wide when she is happy. It's so cute! It's like her face is too small to contain all the happiness and joy inside, but she is trying to express it anyhow. She has given up her old wave (to herself) already and started the big sweeping side to side wave. She dances to music, responds to her name (sometimes) and loves on the kitties, her favorite animal. This is my favorite baby age, the time they just start walking and their little personalities really start to shine through.

Our baby boy (who is yet to be named) is doing great as well. I had a doctor's appointment on Friday and his heartbeat is strong. My due date was also changed from May 12th to May 25th. I am so relieved about this because I have known from the beginning that my due date was off and now I feel vindicated.

I have been doing okay myself. I have been having sinus problems for the last month and haven't been sleeping well. Last night I finally took some benadryl and was able to sleep much better. I just hate taking medicine while I'm pregnant, no matter if the doctor tells me it's "safe". If you will notice, nothing is really 100% safe that they know of because it's all under Catergory B, not Catergory A. I just really hate that I've had to take so much. But I am miserable! I hope I don't have to suffer this the rest of the pregnancy.

Well here are some much needed pics!

The kids and me on my birthday

Calli in her pretty, new dress
This is Serena walking. It is very hard to capture a photo of a person walking!!

My two princesses! We were getting ready to go out to a Princess Breakfast at Chick-Fil-A

This is Serena's super happy face

My ballerinas

She decided to pop a squat on the diaper box

Playing outside

My beautiful model in my shoes

Five months pregnant. Calli wanted to show off her belly too :)

This picture is so sweet!

And one more of course because I didn't want Serena to be left out. I love her facial expression!

Milestones

For the most part I enjoy this baby age. I don't enjoy the constant teething. I am one that blames everything on teething. I hate it. I hate when people do that. Oh, the baby is cranky, must be teething. Drooling everywhere, yup teething for sure! Hands in the mouth, trying to relieve the teething pain. I don't know about other babies, but mine both did that all the time. Serena does seem a bit extra cranky when one tooth is going to poke through soon. She got a tooth on the top recently and I am waiting for it's partner to come in, so I have no doubt she is truely teething right now.

Anyhow, aside from that annoyance, this age is pretty darn fun. Even though Calli and Serena are only 2.5 years apart, it's easy to forget everything in that amount of time. (I don't think I'm going to have that problem between the next two kids). I love seeing all the new things that Serena learns every day. Yesterday she drank out of a straw for the first time, which was pretty neat. I really like that since it makes it so much easier when we are out. If we forget a sippy cup, it's not a huge deal. She loves climbing up the stairs. We can't leave the gate down or she is on the bottom step in no time. She makes sure to look over at one of us and make sure she has our attention before she squeals in delight and starts booking it up the stairs. She can climb all the way to the top without breaking a sweat. She loves to wave now, always to herself. It's adorable watching her little fingers move back and forth as she waves toward her face. She loves kitty cats. We have two and each grandma and grandpa had two cats in California so she has had a lot of exposure. When she sees a cat or a picture of one, her face lights up with joy. Her hair is growing longer and is fun to put in a ponytail sticking on the top of her head (Cindy Lou Who!). She has attempted a few steps on her own, but nothing too serious yet.

These are just a few of my favorite things that have happened over the last few days, weeks and months. The really great milestones coming up are walking and talking. I can't wait for those to happen. My kids amaze me every day with the things they know and can do.

I will have to do a post later of the great things that have been coming out of Calli's mouth lately. She is just as amazing and wonderful.

Happy Birthday to Me!

That's right, it is January 14th and it is my birthday. The big 2-4, wahoo! Being 24 feels fantastic. Okay, so it doesn't really feel any different from being 23. Does it ever feel different turning a year older? I think it feels different when I look back and think, "wow, I am 24! It feels like I was just 18". I am sure I will have some kind of epiphany around my 30th birthday about feeling old. But for now, I just feel like me. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME!

My Birthday is Tomorrow!

My birthday is tomorrow, my birthday is tomorrow!! I am kind of like a kid when it comes to my birthday. I am still at that point in my life where getting older is not too much of a big deal yet. After all, even though I am *only* going to be 24 I think having three kids at this age would make anyone feel older! So I know that I am young still. But I can already feel this is only going to last a few more years before I start getting depressed about the day. I just loving having the one day out of the year that is MINE, my special day. I am not sure what we'll do yet, go out for dinner somewhere so I don't have to cook. And I got a grasshopper pie from Baskin Robbins, yum! Can't wait to eat that, I know Calli is looking forward to it too.

So Serena has been taking a few steps. I don't know if they really count, but she is getting closer to walking. We have two couches, about two feet apart from each other in one spot. She wanted to get from one to the other so she let go of the first couch, took a step and flung herself toward the opposite couch and managed to stay on her feet. Here and there she has been taking a step unassisted and yesterday while I was cooking dinner Richard said she took three. We are getting closer!

Yesterday was a pretty nice day, around 60 degrees. Not too hot and not too cold. So I took the kids to the park. Calli has learned how to ride her "big girl bike". She finally mastered her tricycle about a month or two ago and went straight from that to being able to ride her two wheel bike with training wheels. She does really well with it and I can't believe how grown up she looks on it. Yesterday we also went to the DMV because my California license is set to expire tomorrow. I remember going to get that particular license when I was 18 in 2003. I had to take a written test over because I had been in an accident two years before. I passed of course and received this license that was good for six years. 2009 seemed SO far away. When we moved to Texas in 2005 I didn't want to give up my California license. It was all I had left of my "home" and I wasn't ready to give it up. Four years seemed still so far away. But here it is, 2009 and I had no choice but to give up my expiring license for a Texas one. I will receive it in the mail in a few weeks I guess and I didn't even get to keep my CA one. I guess they have to mail them back in. How depressing. I won't ever call myself a Texan, but I am stripped of my last possession that made me a Californian.

My birthday is tomorrow, my birthday is tomorrow!

Our Healthy Baby

It never fails; when you go to a doctor's appointment you are going to have to wait. This is probably some law we all don't know about. I have never seen a doctor at my actual scheduled appointment. Even if you get taken back at your appointment time, you still sit in the exam room waiting for the doctor past your scheduled time. Why is this? Yes, as the day goes on things get backed up, it makes sense. But even having the first appointment of the day I've found doesn't really matter. You still won't have contact with the doctor until 10-15 minutes later.

These last few years I have had A LOT of doctor's appointments, so I have become pretty familiar with the waiting process. Yesterday at my appointment I was the only one in the waiting room for a 2:00pm appointment. Yet, I didn't get back there until fifteen minutes after the hour. I was by myself and had some time to think and that is what I hate. When you are waiting for an appointment where you could potentially get bad news, your mind goes a mile a minute. You can't help but think all these bad thoughts and all the time you are waiting your stomach gets more twisted up in knots. By the time I finally do get to go see the doctor my stomach is a ball of sore nerves and I've envisioned all the worst case scenarios.

Luckily yesterday turned out to be a best case scenario. The doctor said that the baby's heart looks fine and I can now continue on and have an uneventful pregnancy (something that you wouldn't think would be such a huge blessing!). The white spots on the baby's heart are gone and the doctor was able to locate a nasal bone right away when we were looking at the baby's profile. He is still measuring two weeks behind and at this point it looks like my due date is off (which probably threw the quad-screen results in the first place). So instead of having a mid-May baby I suspect it will be more like an end-of-May baby. This means I have to "redo" two weeks of my pregnancy and instead of being twenty-two weeks along I'm more like twenty. But that is really okay, it gives us an extra two weeks to prepare right!?

So I now feel like I know so much about this baby. I know that his DNA is fine. And I know that he doesn't have any heart problems. About the only things I knew about Calli and Serena were that they were babies in there. I didn't even know their sex! This time is different. I feel grateful for our blessings and that everything turned out fine. I can't even begin to express that in words. In a way, going through this has made us stronger and taught us A LOT. I know I would never opt for the quad screening again, that is for sure.

Oh and in case we had any doubts, in case the first ultrasound and the 100% amnio confirmation wasn't enough, this is definitely a boy. He is not shy. It's funny because both my girls crossed their legs during their ultrasounds (Calli did it for two!) and so I said if this one crosses it's legs it is a girl. But low and behold, here is the boy proudly showing us his parts.

Ultrasound

Today I have another ultrasound to check on the baby. At the last one the doctor was concerned he may have seen a hole in the baby's heart. This is not uncommon and they can close before birth or be operated on after birth (scary). Then again, my hope is he didn't really see anything and the baby will be 100% fine. But this is also the kind of hopeful attitude I went into the last ultrasound with and I was devestated coming out. So I am trying to be positive, but remembering to give myself a reality check. I am so tempted to google everything I can about this condition, but I did that last time with my ultrasound and ultimately discovered that sometimes, knowledge is not power. I know you would think it would be helpful to know everything you possibly can, but all it really does is freak me out. There is just too much information out there and too much focusing on the bad. Google should implement some kind of filter for "positive" and "negative" information. I like to have things fed to me in a positive manor and hear the good in it so looking at all the terrible things out there that could be wrong with my baby is hard. I can also sit on the computer for hours and hours and do research and still not be done. I have learned to rely a lot on my doctors for information and know that they will give me what I need to know. After all, I am trusting them with my life, with my baby's life, and if I can't trust them to give me information then what am I doing as their patient?

This blog is a lot of rambling, but this is kind of a hard day. The last time I went to this office and had an ultrasound there the news was not good. It took a week to find out everything was actually okay and even now I am still trying to come to terms with it. I am up some nights worrying about things. What if the test results are wrong? What if they switched mine with someone else's? What if something else is wrong with the baby? It is so hard not to let these thoughts dominate my mind. All I can do is wait until May comes and my baby gets here.

So today I am hoping for good news. I am hoping to leave the office with a smile instead of tears running down my face. I am hoping today will be different.

Buying Blue

Now that we know Baby #3 is a boy that means I get to start doing some shopping! Since the girls were both surprises at the delivery, I have a whole bunch of gender neutral 0-3 month clothing. And it seems the yellow/green/white tends to suit baby boys more than girls, so we are all set for the first few months. Of course, that hasn't stopped me from buying a few blue onsies for that age. Mostly though I have been trying to do a bit of shopping for the 3+ month age since that is when all of our clothes turn to pink and frills. I have a friend who has offered to set aside some clothes as her baby boy outgrows them to pass on to me. My sister also nannies for a little boy whose mother offered his outgrown clothes to me. I am grateful to have some hand-me-downs, but that is not going to stop me from purchasing some of my own things. I think that is a new mother's right! We pretty much have pink baby clothes coming out of our ears. We pulled out all the pink after Serena was born and she has also been accumulating new clothes as well from relatives and sometimes from me. She was a spring baby and Calli was born in the summer, so their seasons didn't really sync up all that well. Plus with Serena being a bigger baby than Calli was she could pretty much be wearing Calli's one-year-old summer dresses now in winter.

Anyhow, I've started to do a bit of boy shopping, although where I will put these blue things I have no idea! The first place I looked was Kohls where I found a really cute set of five onsies. That was my first blue purchase. Looking around the rest of the store, I found a couple other things, but nothing to go crazy over. Meanwhile I am drooling over all the cute girl clothes and wishing for a tiny second this was another sweet girl to dress up again! I have briefly looked around Target and found nothing. Then came Babies R Us. I have always noticed that the girls' section of clothing is larger than the boys but I never noticed exactly how much larger until I actually went in it. There is almost nothing!

Here is my plea for the manufacturers of baby clothes: please make them as cute as little girl clothes! Is there a reason that blue can't be cute too? What is with all the trucks? I am tired of seeing trucks! And the dinosaurs; ugly! Puppies are the only animal that seem to dominate the blue clothing. About the only theme I like is the sports, but even that can get old. I know, pants and jeans are not as cute and dresses and skirts. I mean, who can walk through the girls clothing section and not see ten thousand cute items they would like to add to their daughter's closet? But I want my little boy to be well dressed too. So please come up with better clothing options for those of us having to shop for the blue!

My Serena Girl!

She had her nine month check-up yesterday. She weighs less than I would have thought, but is still perfect according to the doctor. She is 18 pounds, 5 ounces (50th percentile) and 28 inches (75th percentile). I think she is starting to thin out and will be like her sister. And now that she is on the move more that burns calories. She also has started not liking her bottles. I am actually not too upset to be having this problem since I have to stop the bottles in three months anyway. I would much rather have her rejecting them now than wanting them six times a day. She is lucky if she gets three six ounce bottles a day, yesterday it was two. She just likes to be a big girl and eat her meals at the table. She is completely on table foods and I think just enjoys eating real food instead of formula now. She is a really good eater and the doctor was not concerned so I'm not really either. I think I may start giving her an infant vitamin, just in case! But like I said, I would rather have this problem than the opposite.

I also noticed yesterday when we got home from the doctor that she cut her top left tooth. Yay Serena!

Nine Months!

Serena is nine months old today! Hard to believe just three more months before she turns ONE. And not long after that we'll be adding another little one to the family. There is going to be so much going on for us this year and it will be crazy and wonderful. I am sure we are in for a tough second half of the year trying to adjust to and juggle three small children, but I have faith that we can do it. We don't really have a choice. We just do it and get through it and hopefully enjoy some of it :).

We are back from our trip to CA. They always go by so fast and this time is especially hard because we don't know when we'll be returning. Traveling with three kids on an airplane won't be as easy as two (which wasn't all that easy either!). We are just settling back into our life here in Texas again and it feels like we've never really left. We got home around 1am on Friday morning and I was off to the doctor's for my 10am appointment. Everything went well and hearing the baby's heartbeat was really great. I haven't had an appointment with my OB since the whole mess with the ultrasound and amnio and then I went out of town for three weeks so I was a little worried. I have felt small movements I think, but with the third it is hard. I have two very young kids, one who is only nine months old and constantly crawling all over me so I am just not as in tune with my body and pregnancy as I was with the other two. My doctor reassured me that this was normal though and she often hears third time mothers say the same thing about the movement.

Anyhow, things are good on this end. I am just trying to adjust to the "winter" here again with the temperature all over the place. Yesterday was 85 and tomorrow will be 48. Nice. Should help me get rid of this cold for sure! I miss the constant weather patterns, what I really miss is a winter. I got a taste of it and am hungry for more.

Calli and Serena are enjoying all their new toys that Santa and all their other relatives spoiled them with. Serena is getting so smart and BIG. When we were in California she learned how to clap. It is so cute! We say "yaaaaay" and clap our hands together and she gets this big smile on her face and makes the "yay" noise and claps. She also started to point a lot. This just cracks me up because you pick her up and she points at something like she wants you to take her to it. So then she gets to see that and will point to something else she wants to go to. I think she has also started to wave, but it's the backwards wave to herself. Calli did this too and I think a lot of babies do it, where they wave to themselves instead of the opposite. She also cruises like a pro and is very daring, moving from one object to the next. Sometimes she will be holding onto the couch, let go and kind of throw herself towards me to hold on to. Calli was 9.5 months when she took her first steps so perhaps I will writing about that later on this month??? We'll see. She is a very fun baby with an awesome personality and so happy most of the time. She is just getting over her third cold though, which she generously passed onto me.

Calli is Calli. She is hyper and energetic with her little attitude and lots of love. Now that her baby sister is getting bigger and into all her things, she is not wanting to share quite so much. I knew this would happen though, it is just how it goes when you have two spaced pretty close.

No pictures because we left our camera cable in CA so we're waiting on my parents to send it. Oops!