Ten weeks.

Originally written on 9/22/13 at 10w0d

How far along?: 10 weeks, 0 days
Total weight gain/loss: 0, which is semi-surprising considering my diet of late.
Maternity clothes?: None. But a new pair of maternity skinny jeans are waiting on my dresser for when the day arrives. The only other time I’ve really been pregnant in cold weather was the end of Brooke’s pregnancy, but I’m starting this one out 25 lbs lighter so none of those things will fit me.
Sleep: It’s rough, friends. I’m uncomfortable already, even with 4 pillows. And just as I get comfortable, 1 of 2 things happens: a child starts crying or I have to pee. Because I pee, at minimum, 3 times a night...which isn’t at all annoying.
Movement: No.
Food cravings: None, but plenty of food aversions. Vegetables and salads are not my friends. Neither is yogurt (except for the frozen kind.) Most of the time, the only things that sound even remotely decent to me are carbs (bagels, cereal, english muffins, etc.)
Gender: I think girl.
New w/pregnancy #3: Nothing new just yet, same crap from last time.
What I miss: Being able to stand up without feeling like I’m gonna pass out 2 seconds later.
What I am looking forward to: Spreading the news with everyone so I can stop pretending I’m not about to fall asleep standing up all the time.
Best moment this week: Hard to say. Just feeling blessed to be doing this again.
Weekly Wisdom: Don’t plan your pregnancy around the time your 3 year old is dropping her afternoon nap. Because all she wants to do is taaaaaaaalk to me and all I want to do is sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Milestones: All of the baby’s vital organs have developed. Now it’s just time to start putting on weight! Grow, baby, grow!

Tired & sick.

Originally written on 9/11/13 at 8w3d

A lot of pregnancy symptoms take a few weeks to really kick in. But the exhaustion? That starts the minute you see those 2 lines, if not before. I spend the entire day yawning. Like, the whole day. I’ve pretty much napped almost daily the last 4 weeks (thank goodness my children love to watch shows and quickly announce “it’s all done!” when it’s over.) And my bedtime has been moved up an hour or more each day. I’ve noticed a serious correlation between exhaustion and nausea – the nausea is ramped up when I’m extra-tired. Because I’m nauseated enough, I’m doing my best to get some real rest.

Oh, the nausea. Morning sickness, my ass. All day, most days. I’ve lost my appetite for most things. I’m pretty much living on bagels, cereal, & Life Savers. (And I may or may not have revisited my old friend from my last pregnancy, Pop-tarts. I don’t know why, but it’s the one thing that always sounds okay when everything else makes me queasy.) My diet is about 90% carbs. The OB & I agree that nutrition can come later – right now, it’s survival mode. Eating more frequently is key – once I hit the 2 hour mark, I’m basically screwed.

The one new thing I don’t remember from either of my last pregnancies is a very short-temper. Maybe it’s because I have 2 bona fide toddlers that love to fight with each other and press my buttons this time. But I find that my fuse is short and my patience is very limited. I’m just too tired and too sick to want to deal with crabbiness & defiance by the little people. Now that I’ve recognized it, I’m making a very strong effort to improve this.

One day at a time. Just one long, exhausting, nauseating day at a time.

Two pink lines.

Originally written on 8/10/13 at 3w6d.

It's 6:24 a.m.

Brooke woke me up crying because she had to go to the bathroom. So after rushing her to the potty & coaching her through the process, I carted her back to bed. And here I lie, 18 minutes later, wide awake. With absolutely no sign of going back to sleep. My mind is going a mile a minute & my heart is pounding in my chest. Oh but how full that heart is.

Because about 9 minutes ago I saw 2 pink lines on a pregnancy test. #3 is on his or her way.

Currently feeling...
- Blessed that He thinks we're doing a good enough job with the 1st two to give us another chance to love someone so completely.
- Like the most fertile human being alive.
- A great wave of responsibility to take even better care of myself these next several weeks to give this pregnancy a fighting chance.
- Exhausted because, let's face it, pregnancy is tiring. (Well, that & I went to bed at 1 a.m. & it's now only 6:33, so...)
- Bummed that I have to wait several weeks to tell my mom & my sister...unless they figure it out before then which is way more likely.
- Hopeful that our news will bring some much-needed joy to my family.
- Confident. Just confident. We wanted this, we prayed for this, we can do this. It's gonna be a lot of work both before & after this baby arrives, but when he or she finally debuts next spring, we will be ready.

I already am.

Hurry up, Baby. We're waiting for you.

Outnumbered.

We've got some pretty exciting news around here.

 

That's right, friends. Baby Reeder #3 is on the way! And we are ecstatic :)

 

If you ask the kids what their "big news" is, they'll tell you, "There's a baby coming out of Mommy's belly!" Not right now, obviously. So if you ask them when, they'll tell you "After Easter!" Our tiny little addition is actually due on Easter, April 20th. But let's be honest: Reeder kids don't come on time. So it's more likely that we'll see this kiddo towards the end of the month.

 

We heard a strong, beautiful heartbeat a couple weeks ago & felt safe to tell the kids. They are thrilled at the idea, though I'm not certain it's fully sunk in yet. They both bring up the baby in conversation every so often, so I know the concept is not completely lost on them. In fact, just last night, Joe told me "I gonna teach da baby to play football when it comes out of your belly, Mommy." (Yes, these statements make my heart explode.) And Brooke thinks of the baby in terms of timing, when he or she is coming & what events we have until then. Knowing the timing would be a focus of hers, I made her a calendar to keep in her room of the months leading up to the baby. It has all the major holidays and birthdays between now and then, with a Baby Week designated for the week after Easter. She refers to it frequently! (We're gonna get a lesson in days of the weeks & months of the year out of this, too. Bonus!)

 

Baby #3 is already growing at Reeder pace, i.e. rapid. My belly at 14 weeks is equivalent to that of someone much further along. But the OB is pleased with our progression, so I'm confident that I've got a healthy little one swimming around in there :) I've been blogging about this baby since the day I found out, so I can't wait to share those posts with you in the coming weeks!

 

 

And in case you hadn't noticed, with a 3rd little one comes a need for a blog refresh! We're no longer traveling "the Road to Baby Reeder". Babies #1 & 2 are here and #3 will be here before we know it. So it's time to start chronically our life as a party of 5! I'm hopeful that the refresh will also give me the drive to update more frequently, since I'll now have a pretty place to come tell our stories.

 

Big adventures coming soon!

My boy.

Oh, this boy.

He had a birthday a month ago. And then a birthday party a few days later. And I didn't even upload the pics until a week ago because, well, life got busy. So here we are.

Our little sports fan had a basketball birthday and it couldn't have been more perfect. I was worried because ever since he turned one he was all "basketball! basketball! basketball!" all day long. And then, mid-summer, he became fascinated with baseball & the Reds, & basketball kinda took a back seat. But I rolled with his original true love anyway, and it was a huge hit!

The decor for this party was soooo easy and ended up being incredibly cute (boy stuff can be cute! It's a miracle!) Marrying into a big basketball family made decorations a breeze to collect: trophies, posters, shoe boxes, jerseys, etc.

One of my favorite parts of his party was the mini basketball court on our back patio. The birthday boy was out there shooting free throws before the guests even arrived. He was a sweaty, sweaty boy within minutes - typical. But whatever, he had a ball. (The pics are a bit blurry because the kid doesn't stand still, but I love how they showcase his perfect form.)

He's never been much of a baked goods guy, so we went with his favorite dessert instead: ice cream with sprinkles! It was the perfect treat to cool him down after some serious play :)

Our very generous family members gave him so many fun things to play with & clothes for the fall. He was much more focused on opening gifts this year than last, even taking the time to rip open his cards.

 

He was a happy guy at the end of this night! It's always so fun to get our families together and surround the kids with everyone they love in one place. It was definitely a great night for our family :) 

(For the record, referees' shirts are not the most flattering. And this picture has convinced me that I need a hair cut ASAP - it's a little out of control...and this was over a month ago!)

Swim lessons.

Better late than never, right?

So this summer we signed both munchkins up for swim lessons. After 2 summers in a row of failed private lessons with Brooke, I was adamant about getting her into lessons this year. And because I really didn't want to deal with scaredy cats all summer, I decided Joe needed lessons, too.

Joe's lessons were the Mommy-&-Me type, so I had to join him in the water. Lessons started mid-June & his lessons were at 10 in the morning; if you'll remember, we had a pretty mild summer, so to say the outside air was a little cool for wet bathing suits would be an understatement. The first day didn't go so well (it was especially cool and cloudy); Joe was pretty unhappy about the whole thing. But by the end of the 2 weeks, he had certainly warmed up to his instructor Ashley and was willing to do more things. He loved kicking his legs to splash and jump in off the side. On the final day, he reluctantly went down the slide with Ashley, something he still talks about when we pass the pool.

Brooke's lessons went well...most days. She had brave days and then some not-so-brave days. On her brave days, she'd jump into her instructor Patrick, blow bubbles, and even go partially underwater (she'd put her mouth under and tell you she "went under!") Her favorite activity was playing Ring Around the Rosie; on the "we all fall down" part, they would go underwater. I actually have her on video going almost completely under once; she was especially proud of herself that day. On the last day, she also got to go down the slide. It took a LOT of persuasion, but once she did it, she loved it.

I think swim lessons helped us have a pretty decent summer at the pool. Joe wasn't afraid of the water and Brooke was brave enough to venture out on her own a little bit. While we certainly don't have fishes-out-of-water in this house, we were at least able to enjoy our time in the pool. I have my fingers crossed that the long winter months don't completely wipe out all the bravery earned by the end of the summer!

Preschool, 2.0.

Year numero dos of preschool started a couple of weeks ago. To say Brooke was excited is an understatement. She spent the entire summer longing for school to come back. So as the weeks started dwindling, a pretty severe countdown to school began.

We spent a lot of time talking about her new classroom and her new teachers; we wanted to make sure she understood that this year wouldn't be the same as last year. She's going to the same school, but that's where the similarities ended - new teachers, new classroom, new routine, all new classmates (9 of the 12 kids from her class last year are in the other class, including her bestie; she somehow ended up with only 1 boy from last year in her class this year.) She was pretty shy and nervous at her Open House the week before; she was jazzed to go, but the nerves kicked in when we got there.

The excitement was hard to contain the night before the first day. She got her back to school pajamas (a family tradition we started last year), and, while it was a million degrees outside, she was insistent on wearing the long-sleeved jammies that night.

Donuts for breakfast on the 1st day of school is another tradition we started last year. She was thrilled!

When it was time to go, she was all-smiles in her new shoes. She was happy to pull that Minnie backpack from last year out of her closet for the first time!

Little brother was more than a little jealous, so he needed to put his Curious George backpack on for some photos.

This year, her teachers asked the parents to make it a very quick goodbye in the classroom to help minimize the separation anxiety. There was no anxiety with this one! Once she hung up her backpack, she was quick with a hug for me and then off to find her spot on the carpet.

 

So far, she seems to be doing really well in her class. Every day they read a book on the carpet and every day she is able to explain to me what the book was about (which impresses me.) She absolutely LOVES to spend her free time at the craft table; she gets to use scissors and a glue stick every day! It doesn't sound like she's really interacting with the other kids much yet, but I think that's pretty typical of this age. Because she's old enough to be dropped off at the door this year, I don't get much interaction with her teachers. The one time I really spoke to them, her main teacher commented that she was 3 "going on 14". So....yeah. Evidently, Little Miss Personality has already crept out in her new class!

 

Because I never got around to posting her End of School pics in May, here's a quick comparison of her First and Last days from last year. I've also included the before & after of her school shoes; pretty telling, if you ask me :)