Happy Holidays

We made it through the holidays and I can only wonder how many pounds I have gained. As we all can attest, it is hard enough to get through the holidays in a normal state let alone being almost 5 months pregnant! It seems this is the period in your pregnancy where you are famished at all times. There are moments that I feel that I haven't eaten in days and realize it was only about 1/2 hour ago that I had an entire meal!

Besides having an insatiable appetite, my heartburn is also quite bothersome. But, I think I sort of bring this one on myself - I think any normal person would have heartburn after eating tater tots saturated in vinegar (my favorite) followed up with 2 frosted holiday cookies. TUMS are my best friend these days - I don't go anywhere without them. Matt was very kind and even included a deluxe plastic box of them in my stocking. I guess pregnant women and old people are the only ones that are lucky enough to get something that aids in digestion from Santa!

At this point in my pregnancy I am just beginning the time where sleep is approaching "uncomfortable". Sleeping on my back is almost not an option anymore. When it happens accidentally, I wake up with back that feels like it has been beaten with a sledge hammer and legs that are tingly. So, sleeping on one of your sides is about the only option that doesn't create a bad start to your day! I guess it never helps when you have only a sliver of a king size bed because Harper is sleeping diagonal, the dogs are on either side of my legs and there are at least 2 Elmo toys and some random dog toys scattered throughout the bed. I wonder if the pain could be perpetuated by the environment?

This week I have also started wearing the Baby Plus monitor both morning and night. It is a belt that my friend Kristine loaned me during Harper's pregnancy and didn't get returned before the 2nd pregnancy. But, she gave me permission to use it again. I guess she thought I was the only one crazy enough to get pregnant again so soon and she would hold off! Baby Plus is a belt monitor that you wear for one hour 2 times per days. Here is the jist of the product outlined by their website (www.babyplus.com):

BabyPlus is a series of 16 scientifically designed rhythmic sounds that resemble a mother's heartbeat. The rhythm of the sounds increases incrementally and sequentially as the pregnancy progresses. The BabyPlus sound pattern introduces your child to a sequential learning process, built upon the natural rhythms of their own environment.

They don't tell you that for two hours of the day you walk around sounding like a time bomb that only gets faster with each passing week. But, the claims / results are both powerful and intriguing. By wearing the monitor, Baby Plus makes the following pregdictions about babys whose mothers wear this "education system".

BabyPlus® babies at birth and infancy:

1. Develop better sleeping patterns - Harper has always been a child who is easy to put to sleep. He hasn't ever made too big of a fuss about bedtime. But, who would when they got to sleep in a king size bed with mommy and daddy? I guess I believe this one about 75%.

2. More readily nurse - This one I believe in wholeheartedly. Harper has always been ready to eat from the time he was born. But then again, he could have inherited my appetite.

3. Have increased ability to self soothe - Maybe / Maybe not. But, he hasn't ever been a child that whines too much. Even at birth he wasn't a baby that cried alot.

4. Are more interactive and responsive - Very true. But, his mother is a complete extrovert so he might have inhertied this too.

5. Are more relaxed and alert at birth - Alert, yes. Relaxed, no. From the time Harper was born he has always had to let the world know he is around. His screams could be heard all of the hospital for the first 1/2 hour after he was born. He has a very strong set of lungs!

I guess we will see about the ones below. Although the last one is defintley not turning out to be true. He has the shortest attention span I know!

And later in life, these children demonstrate:
Earlier developmental milestones
Improved school readiness
Improved intellectual abilities
Greater curiosity and independence, and
Longer attention spans

Of course I have said in my previous blogs that I don't buy into old wive's tales, but I will be honest and say that I do buy into modern marketing gimicks that have claims as powerful as these. I guess we have felt good enough about Haper's beginning months and current abilities and development that we don't want to deprive BB of any phenomenal educational opportunities in the womb. Only time will tell.

Hope your holidays were full of cheer. Ours was very "Elmo" inclusive but lots of fun. Harper now has so many toys that we wonder what life is going to be life when we have another one! I guess our house will be completely consumed for the next several years with odd toys and devices that don't exactly match the decor of the house or accentuate any your the furniture. But, we wouldn't have it any other way. We are starting to get use to having Fisher Price toys that take up two shelves in our entertainment center where pictures and a beautiful glass vase use to be. These things have had to find new homes for now.

Hope you have a great rest of 2006 and feel pity on Matt and I as we drudge through hundreds of boy names to try and find the perfect one!

p.s. Here are a few pics of Harper during Christmas!

Guess What We are Having?

Well the Brace genes have prevailed! Today we had our ultrasound and within a minute, BB showed us his tiny little package. We are having our 2nd BOY! So, I am officially a non-believer in old wive's tales. A fast heart rate, different cravings, the pregnancy glow.... none of them added up to anything of scientific value.

We couldn't be anymore excited to add another "little guy" to the mix. Plus, I must say this baby should be much less expensive because we are well equipped with boy stuff! That inevitably brings up the topic of the "second child syndrome" who gets all of the hand me downs! Of course there will be a bit of sharing things that were barely used, but we promise not to have BB living in the shadows of his older brother Harper. We will spoil him just the same.

The ultrasonographer did comment that BB seemed a little bit on the stubborn side and having a mind of his own. He just didn't want to cooperate with our session. He kept moving around and covering his face with his hands. She asked if this was a trait that would fit in to our family and Matt and I laughed. Stubborn - are you kidding, you are talking to two people who are both first born children who already have 1 stubborn son and 2 stubborn dogs. BB is going to fit in just perfect!

Our next task is to begin the arduous process of picking out a name. We really have steered clear from this topic until finding out the sex because we know the consequences of starting too early. You end up with 15 girl names you love and 1 boy name. Then you discover that you aren't having a girl and you panic for the next 4 monthss! But, we have some ideas - so we will begin comparing our lists soon.

Things at our household have been pretty hectic for the last couple of weeks. As with everyone the holidays are always a crazy time of year. This month started off with me spraining my ankle on Matt's birthday by falling down our garage stairs when I was trying to get groceries in. All Matt wanted for his birthday was just a relaxing day without having to change any diapers. I really ruined that for him because he ended up tending Harper all day because I couldn't even walk on my right foot. Matt's brother Jake had to take me to the doctor - after several unnecessary Xrays, they discovered I had stretched or torn a ligament and gave me a set of crutches and "the big black boot." Nothing like a pregnant lady on crutches hobbling around. After about 5 days, I was able to shed the boot and I am walking fine - although I have commited to only wearing flat shoes - nothing that exceeds a 1/2 inch sole. So, as I said in a previous posting, I have clumsy down to an art!

We are busy preparing for Christmas and trying to educate Harper on the idea of Santa bringing "free" toys. He has acutally learned to say santa which comes out as "Tanta" but we are pretty sure he would rather look at pictures than the real thing. While shopping at Wal-mart last weekend, I heard over the loud speaker that Santa was cruising through the toy section and was looking for good boys and girls. Of course I began squeeling through the aisles with Harper in the cart to make sure that Santa knew he had been a good boy. Within seconds I spotted him coming up the next aisle and quickly I turned the cart on two wheels to make sure we were at the end of the aisle to "accidentally" bump into him. As Santa approached, he gave a HO HO HO and Harper gave him one look and went into a terrified, screaming, panic! I think I may have scared him for life and maybe the Wal-mart Santa too! So, for now, we'll just stick to pictures and I will chill out and not make any crazy mad dashes the next time Santa makes his appearance in any store we are present!

I hope your holiday is getting off to a good start and I am hoping to have our Christmas cards and newsletter out by the end of the week. We look forward to hearing from each of you and if you have any fanatasic ideas for boy names feel free to share!

p.s. Below we have attached the ultrasound photos. The proof that BB is a boy is the one that has a little circle and has BOY typed on it. Most of the pictures look rather alien but I still think they are cute - of course, that is proof of a mother's love even at this early of a stage.

More Pictures from Thanksgiving

I tried inserting these in the previous posting but I am still learning how to do this blog thing. I hope to be a pro before BB's arrival so that we can send out pics instantaneously!

Where Did All That Turkey Go?

Our third doctor’s appointment was this morning and we are officially at week 16 (to view this week's progress, click here http://www.babycenter.com/general/1498248.html ).

All is well and we now have our ultrasound appointment to find out the baby’s sex on December 14th. Although we did have to wait for about ½ hour for Dr. Sharp to arrive for my early morning appointment, the visit itself was the shortest on record. I think we were only in with the doc for about 8 minutes.

Amazingly enough, I only gained 1 pound from my last appointment. Yes, you read it right, ONE POUND! Even Dr. Sharp was impressed that I made it through the holidays with so little weight gain. To be honest, I think I have gained more than this through previous holidays when I wasn’t pregnant. Now I regret not going for that 2nd piece of mom’s pumpkin roll!

We also heard BB’s heart rate right away today – it was 159 beats per minute. My sister, Lorie, thinks it is a girl – along with all of my family back in Wise (although I think my dad might secretly be hoping for another boy so that he can build his own “club” of fun and begin vetoing the girls who always want to go shopping).

Basically that was the gist of the appointment! All is progressing well.

Now to recap our Thanksgiving… we did have a wonderful time visiting my family back in VA and TN. Although we did have an epiphany that traveling with 2 is going to be LOADS of fun (are you picking up on the sarcasm?)! Harper has now gotten so big that when he falls asleep on the plane he can no longer just nap in my lap – he has to take up both mine AND Matt’s laps! I wish I had the same lack of inhibition that he has because let me tell you he sprawls out like he is in our king size bed – arms and legs everywhere. So, to say the least, Matt and I don’t get very much rest on the plane trip.

I made a mental note of things to do and not do when traveling with a little one (and soon to be 2 little ones):

· Never wear black – I made this mistake and by the time I arrived at our destination I was covered in snot on my shoulder because Harper insisted on wiping his nose there and I had remnants of Goldfish crackers all over me because Harper sneezed 2 times while he had his mouth full of crackers. Does he give me any warning…. NO!

· Buy a cheap stroller – As with all of our previous trips we have taken our nice Peg stroller and have not had any bad luck. But this time we arrive in Atlanta on our trip out and discover that our stroller now only has one handle. The guy who delivered it was oblivious when I pointed it out – as if he didn’t notice that one was missing. So, we are now walking around with the ghetto stroller with a missing handle. Delta did say that would pay for the repair but they were quick to say that we needed to handle all of the legwork and just submit receipts. I just hope we get reimbursed before Harper goes to kindergarten.

· Watch what you teach your kids because they are sure to repeat in public – For the past couple of weeks Harper has only been letting me wipe his runny nose if I show him what is on the tissue and then say “Ooh Harper look yucky boogies – let’s clean them off”. So much to our surprise, Harper has learned to repeat. For about 15-20 minutes on one of the plane rides Harper kept wiping his nose and in his very loud toddler voice he says “Ooh boogie” and keeps showing me over and over and over. I know everyone around us must have thought we do this for entertainment.

· When your child is fussy don’t visit one of the airplane stores where they sell Elmo dolls – Yes, we have fallen prey to the crazy hold that Elmo places on young children and yes, we did break down and buy him a stuffed Elmo in the airport that was marked up by about 50 percent more than other non-airport stores. Now, we have the doll and the Hokey Pokey Elmo book!

Although the plane ride was sometimes a challenge, Harper did great over all. Once we arrived at my parent’s house we couldn’t keep him out of the barn. I think Harper would have slept with the animals if we had let him. My parents now have 5 miniature ponies, 2 Chinese pheasants and about 10 bunnies with a litter of 6 that were born a week before we arrived. You would have thought Harper had been raised on a farm by the way he was getting around in the barn so comfortably. He fed all the animals, petted them and bossed them around like he did this stuff everyday. I think we averaged about 8 to 10 trips to the barn a day – thank goodness the weather was about 70 degrees. I guess he has a little bit of country in him after all – which is exactly what my parents love. We almost had to watch dad more than Harper because he would be off riding the tractor with him, letting him ride the horsies and just doing all the fun boy stuff that dad never got to do with us. I guess I will only begin to worry when he pulls out the guns! I have included some pictures from the trip.

Well that’s it for now – I’ll write more in 2 weeks when we find out if BB is a boy or girl….. Any bets?