Week 31 - Week 33: A Delivery Date!

Week 31

This weather is crazy!! We had to go buy shorts for Ava and I had to dig out my maternity shorts again! I caved and turned the AC on for about an hour the other afternoon. The house hit 74 degrees and I was melting! The humidity is super high, too. It's been odd to have temps hit 80 in December! I feel like I am in some sort of strange land full of heat and lizards and sand and pine needles and fire ants and the occasional palm tree!

I feel like Liam is SO BIG! According to my app he is almost full length already; he will spend his remaining weeks filling out! He's already over 3 pounds, too! My belly is stretching. I've really been feeling it. It feels like a side cramp from running, but across my belly! My back hurts. I get Braxton Hicks contractions a lot. I feel pretty good in the first half of the day, but the afternoon and evening I get "needy", haha! It's almost like Ava knows and wants me more because of it. A few days ago she insisted that I hold her while cooking dinner. It was really convenient and fun. She is mastering the art of throwing fits. She really likes when I play on the floor with her; that's all she really wants. But that's not realistic at this point in my pregnancy. I play on the floor for as long as I can, but that's not very long! And I feel bad. I try to do everything I can, but when those darn contractions kick in, I have no choice but to go relax on the couch. I try to keep things interesting for her, like let her play in Liam's room or get out new things she hasn't gotten to play with before or let her play with my jewelry (her fave!). New toys from Christmas are helping! She still has a short attention span so it is still work to keep her focused!

Week 32

Ava is becoming quite the chatterbox! She really likes to say "buh-bye" and says it whenever she leaves the room, or when someone else does. It's really cute because she will kind of lean and wave at us and say "buh-bye!" a few times and wave a bit more and then she'll run off down the hall! It makes us laugh every time! Her favorite word is probably "elbow" and she says "dah-dee" alllllll the time! Mommy? Not so much. If she's crying she might say it. We are working on "again"; she says "ah-gee!" and she'll say "corn": "corrrrr" and "banana": "nah-nuh".

Ava is starting to exhibit some early potty training signs: disappearing when she does her "business"! She retreats to a corner and squats for a bit or runs to her room and re-emerges - stinky!! She enjoys coming to the bathroom with me when I go and we got a faucet extender so she can wash her hands at the sink. She already loves to climb her stool to brush her teeth at the sink, and it occurred to me that I need to start hand washing with her. I want to give her as much independence as she is ready for!

She has also been enjoying her new swing in the backyard! Chris built her a swing set - it's nice to have since we are no longer in walking distance of a park. I'm realizing she is outgrowing some of her baby toys...there are some that she doesn't even touch anymore! I have soooo much work to do in Liam's room - I keep putting things in there and then just shutting the door. At this point in Ava's pregnancy I had her whole room put together and some of her laundry done! It really is different with your second! I am feeling the pressure to get his room in some sort of order, but bending and leaning for any period of time is hard now! With Liam reaching 4 pounds, my belly really has its own gravitational pull now! I really rely on my arms instead of my abdominal muscles to get up out of a chair or off the floor. Rolling over in bed is seriously a chore and I usually feel a lot of pelvic pain and tenderness in the round ligaments if I'm not careful. My wedding ring still fits and I can still see all my veins and tendons in my feet, unlike at this time with Ava! So maybe I won't be as swollen this time! I think weight gain has been comparable; I'll admit, I don't really care as much this time around!

It's been kind of an busy eventful week. Ava came down with a cold of some sort; we assumed it was teething again. Her bottom canines are about to cut! We were having to tag-team her during the day. She was very fussy and not much made her happy. I cannot physically handle her when she's fussy because she does a lot of kicking and just general thrashing around so I have to put her down, and that makes her more mad. Sometimes when something upsets her, whether its a toy that keeps falling down or she can't turn a page in a book or she gets hurt, she is more mad than sad...and she wants to be left alone to cry! And then she has a hard time calming down and she just cries and cries no matter what we try to distract her with! She's an emotional girl! By Tuesday morning she was just miserable and we decided to take her in. It was a good thing because she had an ear infection! I was actually relieved to hear it because at least we could get medicine to help her! It was a loooong wait at the pharmacy and fortunately I thought of quietly turning on some Taylor Swift, and that helped a lot! The pharmacies on post are all take-a-number, and there are a lot of retirees that use the pharmacies as well, so the wait usually averages half an hour. She does not like to be in her stroller for long unless it is moving! And I can't take her out because then she wants to run. It was a long morning. Her lunch was late, but she barely ate anything, so I gave her the meds and put her down for a nap. I went in to the dentist earlier that morning for tooth sensitivity after a filling a month or two ago. Fortunately it was an easy fix - just my teeth hitting awkwardly and filing it down quick was the solution. It feels better already!

I had another check up! Ava was mesmerized by the sound of Liam's heartbeat! We have a c-section tentatively scheduled for February 22nd! 2/22! He will have an easy birthdate to remember, assuming he doesn't come early! We discussed getting tubes tied, and the doctor said that's fine but he will continue to ask me if I am 150% sure up until literally the second he starts the procedure. I feel like at this point we are 99% sure. I want to pour myself into our two kiddos, and I feel like I can be the best mommy to them with our family at this size. There's not much more I could want than 2 miracle babies! We continue to talk about it, and the more we do, the more ready we feel to do the procedure.

Liam's movements have really changed in the last couple of weeks. They feel more like real baby movements than alien jabs! Lots of limbs rolling across my belly and what I imagine to be a little babe just happily squirming around! The movements have really slowed down and are much more coordinated, but they do hurt a bit as he has less and less space in there! Some days my belly feels really tight and I'm uncomfortable for a lot of the day. It's really hard for me to not be productive. I still feel like there's a lot I'd like to do, and that I need to do. But I keep up with the cooking - I've started my freezer stash!! So excited!! And I keep up with the light chores and laundry when I remember, so the rest can wait. I'm starting to want naps again, but I can also have been feeling the urge to nest here in the last week or so, so I'm hoping that is what will get me motivated to finish Liam's room! And do the last finishing touches on the guest room before our helpers arrive!

Week 33

I finally caved and bought a belly support band. I've only had it for a day or two, but it already provides relief!! I plan to only wear it as needed, which is usually in the afternoon/evening. I think its really going to help get me through the end of the day. I am getting NOTHING done. Ava is much happier when I'm off the couch and playing with her, so I'm hoping it will help with that, too. Although little girl is going to have to get used to it...I will be out of commission for a few weeks until my incision heals! I'm not looking forward to that. I think Ava will hate it. I guess we will just deal with that as it comes!

Speaking of Ava, we are now doing hand washing with her and she LOVES it!! I got foaming hand soap and that faucet extender and she smiles so big the whole time! Sometimes if she's a crank, I will ask her if she wants to go wash her hands and she goes running to the bathroom! When we pull into the driveway, she gets excited because she recognizes that we are at home and says "ohhhhhm!". She really likes to eat off of utensils and has gotten pretty proficient at feeding herself with them. Food still falls in her lap a lot, though! She likes to run her messy hands through her hair during meals. Makes for an excellent hair-do! She is really into the ABC's and loves to hear the song and then looks around at her toys to find letters. I found an adorable ABC wall plaque at the dollar spot at Target. I hung it up and she loves to look at it and starts dancing and says "ceeee" and wants us to sing! It's pretty cute!

She's feeling a lot better but still has a wet cough. She was draining SO much, so that doesn't surprise me. A new part of her bedtime routine has become watching daddy go down the hall to feed the kitties after he tells her goodnight. She'll look at me say, "kee hah-gah? Hah-gah?" ...meaning, "kitties hungry?" It's cute to hear her string a few words together - she's getting better at it! She thrives off of routine. Which makes me nervous for Liam's birth, but I guess there's no way around it.

I can't believe we are just 6 weeks away from meeting Liam!! I guess I really need to get with it and put his room together!