bump-date: 10 weeks.

10 weeks pregnant today!

baby: size of a kumquat. fingernails forming, peach fuzz growing on skin.

cravings: sour cream and onion chips. laffy taffy.

aversions: chocolate. hot coffee.

aches/pains: starting to feel better. still some nausea but not nearly as bad as it was before. tired. waking up a lot at night (mostly because i have to go to the bathroom!).

body: i've gained a couple pounds. i knew the bad eating habits would catch up to me sooner than later! now that i'm starting to feel better, i need to get back to eating a little healthier. i still haven't done a whole lot of grocery shopping since we've been in the new house, so i need to buckle down and get some good staples- especially fruits and veggies- and stuff to pack lunches for work. i've been eating out for lunch WAY too often lately!

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last night i had a really scary dream that i miscarried. it was awful. i was really nervous about miscarrying early on in this pregnancy (not sure why...), but now i don't think about it very often. except subconsciously, apparently! yikes.

i don't even know where i've been this last week or so but i don't even have any pictures of ben to post. lame. plus, somehow in the move i have misplaced our camera battery charger. soooo, this is a picture-less post. i'm really excited to post some before and after pictures of the house, but that's tough to do with no camera. i'm hoping i can track that down tonight and post some house stuff in the next couple days.

anyway, bennett's doing well and seems to be continuing to adjust well to his new daycare. he has cried a few times when i've left, though, which is new for him. i think it's a combo of it still being a new place and him getting older (separation anxiety is pretty normal for this age). regardless, it's heartbreaking seeing him try to cling to me and cry when i leave. i hate it. on the upside, he LIGHTS up when i pick him up, which just makes my day. yesterday when i picked him up, he and all the kids were in the driveway playing with bubbles. i just sat and watched him for a couple minutes and he just looked like he was having a blast interacting with the other kids and waving the bubble wand around. when i went up to him, he got a huge smile on his face, walked over to me, and was excitedly tapping me with his bubble wand. another kid, who couldn't have been much older than 3, came up and said (very sternly), "bennett. that is not for fighting." it was adorable. kids are the best.

baby love.

yep, it's true. i'm nine weeks pregnant today! i'm due march 26th, and bennett will be almost 21 months old. two under two... ready or not, here we come!

we found out we are expecting just 2 days after we closed on our house. talk about a lot going on at once! we are thrilled to add to our little family, and the timing couldn't be better now that we have the space to actually put another baby. i've been feeling OK- not terrible, not great. pretty nauseous throughout most of the day but no actual throwing up. craaazzzzy tired. pretty emotional. essentially i feel about how i felt when i was pregnant with ben (except maybe more intense- not sure if it's just that i've forgotten what it was like last time or if it's actually worse). i'm looking forward to getting some energy back- hopefully soon! being pregnant with a one year old is way harder than it was being pregnant with the first. turns out ben's not in for staying in bed all day watching chick flicks. weird, i know.

baby: size of a prune (about 1.5" long), bones and cartilage are forming

cravings: it changes by the minute. anything "heavy"/comfort food like pot roast and fettuccine, bread, cottage cheese (i craved this with bennett too!), cherry arctic rushes from DQ, cold milk, orange juice (though it seems to give me a stomach ache afterwards).

aversions: coffee, any food smells, anything i just ate (things will sound good and taste good until i'm getting full and then that food almost instantaneously has me dry-heaving)

aches/pains: just nauseous mostly. some lower abdominal pain (feels like stretching). super tired, but not sleeping great.

body: i've only gained a little over one pound (despite all the comfort food- thank goodness!). but my clothes already feel tight and all i want to wear are loose skirts/dresses. jeans are a thing of the past, which happens to make my wardrobe pretty limited at this point. i pulled out my old belly band and have been wearing that when i'm miraculously able to talk myself out of wearing the same cotton maxi dress 3 days in a row. i've been trying to go on fast-paced walks a few times a week, which has felt good. bennett seems to like getting a chance to rock his shades :) i'm wanting to look into some prenatal yoga classes somewhere. any suggestions of a studio near-ish to shoreview?

as excited as i am about a new baby, and about bennett being a big brother, i could cry thinking about ben not being the "baby" anymore. i know it's semi-irrational, but something about him having to share us and having to soon make some big boy transitions (big boy bed, room downstairs, etc.) in order to prepare for the new baby has me feeling oddly guilty. it's bittersweet, i suppose. he'll still be kind of a "baby" himself when the new babe comes along, so i'm hoping the adjustment will be smoother than i'm anticipating. he's resilient, after all. more so than joe and i give him credit for.

speaking of resilience, we decided to make the weekend after labor day "operation: bye-bye nuk" weekend. we've talked a lot about wanting to do some of the tough transitions for ben us over the next several months so that we don't have to tackle those while also adjusting to being a family of four. the nuk is the first battle we're choosing. i'm already dreading it. but having the date on the calendar is helpful for me, much like when we did the cry it out weekend.

thankfully, despite a terrible night of crying it out on monday night this week (bennett had been waking up in the night fairly consistently for 3+ weeks and we'd gotten into a bad habit of feeding him), ben slept through the night last night. i literally feel like a whole new woman after a full night of rest. i guess it's another reminder for me that joe isn't always wrong (love you babe!). joe had been hesitant to feed ben in the night, thinking he'd start waking up regularly wanting milk. i, on the other hand, insisted he'd stop waking up when he wasn't hungry in the night anymore. what can i say? i'm a sucker for that big belly our little boy has. honestly, it's so hard to know what to do when your babe randomly starts waking up in the night again. you assess all the possibilities: is he hot? is he cold? is he hungry? did his diaper leak? did he lose his nuk or binky? do his teeth hurt? as much as i'd like to say i know bennett so well that i can determine just what he needs at any given time, it's honestly anyone's guess sometimes. regardless, whatever it was, it seems he didn't need it last night. i don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched, but i'm hopeful that we're moving past the middle of the night wake-up calls for now (maybe even until march 26th?!).

hi!

we had a great weekend this weekend. joe was out of town from friday morning to saturday night, but bennett and i managed to stay busy. the biggest weekend "event" was that bennett said his first official word! he has been saying "hi" constantly for days now. it is so cute! and he waves with it so we know he knows what he's saying. what a big boy :)

on friday we went to the splash pad with my friend katie and her 3 boys. bennett wasn't so sure about it, honestly- the water was pretty cold! but it was fun to be outside and he liked just hanging out and, of course, eating snacks.

love that big belly

my good friend missy had her baby on friday morning, so later friday afternoon after ben's nap, we went to visit her and baby jack. he's so sweet and TINY! he's just 2 ounces smaller than bennett was when he was born. how is it possible my little guy now weighs over 23 pounds?

jack david, born 8/16/13

on saturday bennett and i went to the minneapolis farmers market with my friend nicole. naturally, she bought lots of fresh veggies to cook with, while i simply bought snacks to eat on the spot (pulled pork sandwich, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and roasted corn on the cob). it was fun though and nice to be outside. i hadn't seen nicole in a while, so it was fun to catch up with her and see her new apartment.

that night, we had landon's 2nd birthday party! bennett was quite a ham at the party and had everyone talking :) like at his own birthday party, bennett loved popping all the balloons. i can't believe that balloons loudly popping in his face doesn't scare him, but he loves it! and landon kept saying "ben! pop!" so i think that meant landon liked it too. also, ben enjoyed getting snacks wherever he could find them (meghan's plate, off the ground where another kid spilled his goldfish, etc.). i swear this kid would eat all day if he could.

"ben!" "pop?"
it seems landon comes up with the ideas and ben carries them out.
could be interesting as these boys get older!

speaking of that, he has continued to wake up crying in the night. actually, lately it's been more like 5:30am. for sure too early to get up for the day, and i can tell he's still sleepy. the only thing that's seemed to help has been giving him some milk. ughhh i am hoping it's just a phase but it is getting EXHAUSTING not getting full nights of sleep. especially when he wakes up at 5:30 on a weekday because i don't think we really get back to sleep fully after that, knowing our alarms are going off shortly. a few nights in a row we gave him an extra sippy before bed which seemed to help, so we need to make sure we're doing that consistently to see if we can kick this early wake-up call thing. cuz it's not my fave. any other ideas? i don't think it's an ear infection. he had one not too long ago and he was crabby all. the. time. this is just crying around 5:30am, he drinks his milk, goes back to sleep and then when he actually gets up for the day he's his happy self...

anyway... joe got home saturday night. on sunday we lounged around, had lunch out, and then went to a bbq last night at a friend's house. they were hosting this barbeque for some young shoreview families. i knew a lot of the families there, but it was fun to meet some new people too. as we drove home, joe and i talked about how it made us even more excited about where we're living. having so many nice families with kids around the same age as bennett is a major part of what made us decide to move to shoreview in the first place. hopefully we'll have many more gatherings like this in the future.

moms and kiddos at the shoreview family bbq

house progress and life lately.

we had a busy, but mostly productive weekend. let me rephrase, joe was productive, and i mostly hung out with ben, ran a few errands, and went to bed early. i've been exhausted lately. it doesn't help that bennett had been waking up in the night most nights for a week or so... dang teeth. thank goodness that seems to have passed and we've had full nights of sleep the last few nights!

over the weekend we had the carpet in bennett's room replaced. we hope to put this same carpet throughout the house in the next 6 months or so, but wanted to at least get ben's room done, since his carpet was TEAL to match the TEAL walls and TEAL trim. gross.

here's a before and after... this room has made quite the transformation so far! the pictures don't really do it justice, but you get the idea at least...

Before (obviously not our stuff ;)
you can't see just HOW teal that carpet was, but it was bad...

after: new carpet, new white trim, walls painted light gray
(the walls look green-ish in this picture, but they're sherwin williams zircon gray)

joe also got the new hidden hinges installed in the lower kitchen cabinets and got them hung. they need the 3rd (final) coat of paint, but that will be easier to do now that they're hung up. he did a great job! he's hopefully going to finish the upper cabinets and get the final coat of paint on all of them soon! can't wait to have a finished kitchen!

cabinets: painted with sherwin williams snowbound in a satin finish.
after much debate, we went with the hardware on the right.

joe also got a ton of unpacking done in the kitchen this weekend. he's a saint; have i mentioned that? it's starting to feel like a house instead of a post-natural-disaster area, which feels great.

outside of house-related stuff, we went to "a day out with thomas" in duluth with our friends mike, meghan and landon on saturday. honestly, ben was probably a little too young for it, but all things considered he did really well. he loved looking out the window on the train ride! it was fun to get out and do something fun as a family rather than just another day home working on the house.

us with the conductor before the train ride!

nice, long naps on the way to duluth and the way home for this boy

bennett's new thing is giving hugs or "snuggles." he always gives his lion a snuggle when he sees him, and has been giving mama lots of snuggles too. he's a little more stingy with dada though!

this is blurry, but shows him giving snuggles to his lion!

bennett started at his new day care full time this week. it's been going great! all the little boys get so excited when ben gets there in the morning, one yelling "GUYS! bennett is here!!" and then they all come running to see him. :) becky said he's been taking good naps, eating well, and that he's been giving lots of hugs to everyone. such a sweetie. they went to story time at the library on monday and are having the spanish teacher there for an hour today. i love that she has lots of fun activities planned for the kids to do! good day care is such a blessing. we really lucked out with both day cares we've used.

we don't have much going on the rest of the week. joe will be out of town friday and saturday for work in chicago. ben and i are going with my friend katie and her little boys to the splash pad on friday morning. saturday morning we are meeting my friend nicole at the farmers market and then we have landon's 2nd birthday party saturday night. other than that, i'm hoping to make some more progress on the house, do a little cleaning, and get some relaxing in!

the nuk.

bennett LOVES his nuk. he smiles and laughs when he gets ahold of one. he's always loved it, since he was less than a week old. it's always provided him a sense of comfort and helped him sleep.

before we had ben, and even throughout the last year, joe and i always had the intention of taking the nuk away around his first birthday. to be honest, i always kind of turned up my nose at people who let their kids have their nuks well into toddler-hood and thought "just take that thing away!" frankly, i felt like parents whose kids had nuks at older ages were just too lazy to go through the trouble of breaking the habit.

well, it's easy to think that way when you're not a parent or when you haven't gotten to that stage yet. transitions are tough. they're tough on the kids, but even tougher on the parents. i mean, i knew parenting was hard, but now i know parenting is hard. as i said before, bennett has been really crabby lately. between an ear infection, teething and a transition to a new house, stress levels have been high all around. i'm sure bennett is feeling that. i've found myself letting him have his nuk more often during the day (he typically only has it during naps/bedtime and sometimes in the car) when he's inconsolable and miserable. it helps. but then i feel guilty like i'm breaking my own cardinal rule. i hear myself justifying the nuk to anyone and everyone we're around. "he normally doesn't have this during the day," i'll explain. i know i'm just doing this to appease myself- i bet no one else even cares. but for some reason i feel like i'm being a terrible parent by "giving in" and "taking the easy way" (probably because i've been the judgmental person, so i assume other people are thinking what i thought).

i know this might sound crazy, especially to someone who hasn't gone through it first-hand. but honestly, sometimes it's not a battle worth fighting. not to say that it's never going to be, but right now, the nuk is a crutch i'm starting to feel OK with relying on in a pinch. no, bennett doesn't have his nuk all the time. in fact, most days it is only at naptime/bedtime. but, some days it's just a nuk kind of day (or a nuk kind of hour). and i'm getting over that. if it helps him by providing him some comfort, then so be it. if it helps me by keeping my stress level low, then i'm probably a better mom for it. the nuk battle will be one we'll fight at some point. he's not going to have it 'til he's 3. but now isn't the time. and that's just fine.

the moral of the story is that most parents are just doing the best they can. we need to be gracious with each other and gracious with ourselves.

i got this picture from bennett's teacher at daycare with the caption "we have a nuk thief on the loose."
apparently he'd stolen this out of another kid's mouth. awesome.

someone is praying for what you have.

k, i know it's been a long time since my last post! things have been crazy...

we finally moved into our new house and i couldn't be happier to finally just be IN. almost all of the rooms have been painted and lots of little projects have been checked off the list. joe has sanded his life away (cabinets, paneling, etc.) for the last 3 weeks and finally has one coat of paint on all the cabinet doors! 1-2 more coats to go, then he'll have to install the new hidden hinges, hang the cabinets, and put on the new hardware. that sounds like a lot, but honestly i think the worst is over at this point. i haven't taken many "after" pictures... things are just still such a mess in much of the house. things are getting there slowly but surely, and i promise to post more before and after pictures soon!

new couch and pillows

new chairs

dining room

new light over the stairway

on top of the house stuff, bennett has [intermittently] been really crabby still. we finished his amoxicillan for his ear infection so i'm fairly confident that's all cleared up. but he's cutting his top two front teeth (one's through, the other is close) so i'm sure that's the culprit. it's been really challenging to feel like there's nothing i can do for him. plus, listening to lots of crying for days on end really wares on you (well, me at least). i'm trying to use those moments of frustration to pray for patience for me and relief for him. also, i recently heard something on KTIS (a local christian radio station) that has helped me in these tough moments...

"while you're busy complaining about what you have, someone is praying for what you have."

how true is that? as frustrating and exhausting as dealing with a crying baby (or tedious house projects, for that matter) can be, there are plenty of people who would do just about anything to have a crying baby (or a house) of their own. i think it's such a great reminder to just be grateful for the things i have instead of complaining about the things that are challenging. not to say that it's not OK to be stressed, frustrated, etc., but rather that i shouldn't just dwell on it.

deep thinking for a monday morning, huh?

last night, joe was golfing so ben and i went and grabbed dinner and went to a park with meghan and landon. bennett got sooo excited when he saw landon, smiling, clapping and giggling. and then he was in a great mood all evening. apparently hanging out with a buddy (and chewing on sidewalk chalk) is the best medicine.