Laughing with Sarah

We went on a family vacation last week. There were many parts to it: driving to Des Moines, where Matt had a conference to attend. Sam and Ellie and I spent a day and half exploring the city. We went to the zoo and to the science center, swam in the hotel pool, and stuffed ourselves silly with good food. From there, we flew to New Jersey to visit Matt's family. The flight to NJ was uneventful and wonderful. Our kids really are great travelers. In New Jersey, we took an overnight trip up to Massachusetts to visit Matt's brother and family, and we took a day trip into New York City. Also great trips. Seriously. Our kids are great travelers. The night before we flew back to Iowa, we gave the kids a bath and changed them in to pajamas before Matt's grandmother ("GG," to the kids) came over for quick goodbye visit and playtime with Sam and Ellie. Earlier in the week, Ellie had received the gift of a superhero cape and crown, which she wore around ...

It hasn't been the best day. So I baked brownies. This morning, Sam and I waged epic battle over what shirt to wear. He insisted short sleeves, I insisted long sleeves. This led to an out and out refusal to wear a shirt at all. After about an hour of pleading, yelling, whispering, drawer slamming, bribery, guilt trips, reverse psychology, love & logic, and every other parenting maneuver (good, bad, and ugly)...he still was wearing no shirt. So I did what any reasonable parent would do. I picked him up, carried my shoeless and shirtless child to the car, and strapped him into the car seat, throwing a pair of shoes and a long-sleeved shirt into the front seat of the car. I put Ellie in her car seat and away we went. I naively believed that Sam would calm down during the drive and feel compelled to put on shoes and shirt when we got to school. Ha. He spent the whole drive demanding that I turn around, go home, and find him a short-sleeved shirt. We got to school and he r...

Otherwise you'd cry. 7:30 a.m.: While snuggling with Ellie in bed and feeling grateful that it is Friday (my day off), I realize that Sam is still quiet, and wonder if I should wake him up or let him keep sleeping. It was a late bedtime last night, and very frustrating, and the boy needs his sleep. Except that Matt is about to leave for work, and if I am going to start the morning routine, it might be better to get Sam up now while there are two of us grown-ups. 7:50 a.m.: Wake Sam up. (This was my first mistake). He wakes up happy, and sleepily jumps out of bed to put on clothes because he is excited to go to Magpie for breakfast, like we do every Friday. He tells me that he is going to order a yogurt parfait. Before getting dressed, Sam asks me to read him a book. So I do. Then he asks me to read another book. So I do. 8:00 a.m.: Realize that I really really have to use the bathroom. Sam asks me to read him a third book, and I tell him that I will do it as soon as I am done...

I've had two doctor appointments since I last showed up 'round these parts! One yesterday, one two weeks ago. Both incredibly uneventful. A nice, normal weight gain two weeks ago, a negligible weight gain between then and yesterday. Blood pressure still low. Belly measuring like it should. Owlet's heartbeat easy to find and normal. My next appointment is in another two weeks, and part of that day will be sitting with Dr. Davis, my surgeon, for a c-section consultation. Also, my next appointment is my last every-two-week appointment. After that, we go every week until Owlet gets here. We are officially on the schedule for a December 27 c-section (provided I make it that long). That is six weeks from yesterday. Yikes! Over this past weekend, I feel like a whole new batch of pregnancy hormones must have kicked in. Despite not really gaining any weight in the last two weeks, I spent the weekend feeling (and looking) like I had gained, like, ten pounds. My belly started to f...

Have I mentioned that Sam is currently in love with the idea of this new baby? :) He is very very sweet. I can tell that Owlet is growing, because the kicks and flails are getting stronger. As for me, I'm feeling like my belly and weight have been holding steady, or at least we are taking a break from exponential belly growth right now. For as quickly as the belly showed up at the beginning of this pregnancy, maybe we've evened out a little bit. 23 weeks (and one day...and one interloper!) - September 3, 2016 24 weeks - September 9, 2016

This is what we posted yesterday on various social media outlets to share our exciting news with the world: Sam gets a promotion! Effective late December. When asked to comment, Sam says, "First will be my birthday [in November]. Then Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. Then the baby comes!"

Welcome, back, family members who have been shut out of this blog for a few weeks! We finally shared the news with both sides of our family this past week, so I can now come out of hiding (not that I managed to write a whole lot during the weeks I kept the blog private or anything). First of all, I realized that I never followed up on my last anxious post! Oops. I went back to the doctor a week later for a quick, off-the-books heartbeat check. I went into the office with high hopes but few expectations, and even fewer emotional back-up plans in the event that we still couldn't hear anything. Dr. Locke asked me how I was feeling, and whether my belly had started feeling any bigger to me yet or not. And then out came the doppler. It took about six seconds before we heard the glorious sound of that teeny heartbeat, galloping away inside my belly. I had scrunched my eyes closed from the moment I got onto the table, and once I heard that sound, I got a little teary, and a huge smil...

Today is Monday. I am currently four days past embryo transfer, and feeling curious about whether I am pregnant, though not anxious. How far we've come in all of this, that I could have such a deep and yet such a loose hold on the outcome of this cycle. More on that in a moment. Probably our best pre-transfer selfie ever! First of all - what? You didn't know that we had started another cycle? Oh right. Because I never mentioned it. Maybe all of this has become routine enough that I haven't felt the need to chronicle it all? Maybe frozen cycles are more of an obnoxious and tedious process rather than the excitement of a fresh cycle? Maybe we've just been busy? Anyway, we started a cycle mid-March. Protocol was birth control pills for a month, then pills and Lupron injections for five days, and then Lupron injections and estrogen pills for a couple weeks, transitioning to just estrogen pills and progesterone up until transfer, and continuing through my pregnancy te...

This morning, Sam asked to lie down on the floor for his diaper change instead of being up on the changing table. He held a truck in each hand and talked to me about them (orange bulldozer! yellow wheels!) while he calmly let me change his diaper, put jeans and a t-shirt on him, socks, and his favorite shoes with rockets on them. This placid episode took place after he had awoken at 5:00 a.m., upset for some reason unknown to me (perhaps he was cold?), and I pulled him into bed with us, where he slept straight from 5:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Both Matt and I were awake before Sam was - this never happens! Sam played with his trucks while I bathed and got dressed. He brushed his teeth (and in doing so, gave up the nook that he sleeps with at night), walked down the stairs with me, agreed to sit in his chair for breakfast (and actually tried to help get his legs into the leg holes!), ate his cereal bar and a whole banana without complaining, let me clean him up and put on him a sweatshirt...

Huh. I'm not so great at these monthly updates anymore. Especially since Sam turns twenty-two months this upcoming Monday. But there are only a couple left before we hit two years, and then I will proclaim myself free to post (or not) whenever (or not) about Sam's milestones! Besides, we are just all having so much fun together - Matt, Sam, and me - that who has time to stop and write a blog post about it all? Let's start with pictures. Four of them. Eighteen months - May 21, 2015 Nineteen months (and three weeks...) - July 14, 2015 Twenty months (and three weeks...) - August 12, 2015 Twenty-one months (and three weeks...I am chronically late...) - September 14, 2015 Sam, I don't even know where to begin. We are two months away from your second birthday, and in the last four months, you have turned a huge corner. You talk to communicate your wishes. You have wishes and ideas. You understand things like being silly and joking around, and that something ...

If you were sitting across the aisle from me at Magpie Coffee right now, you would see a toddler with crazy hair who is sitting quietly next to his mama in a booster seat, eating a piece of toast and playing with a toy train, pausing periodically to flash his mama a smile or give her arm a hug. This is exactly what is happening right now. But that's not what I see. I see a toddler who will only eat his toast, and not any of his sausage. I see a mama who is fretting because he won't drink any of his milk on demand. I see a mama who is trying to figure out how to make sure that her blue-eyed 22-month old eats anything, and I mean anything, other than just carbohydrates. He ate carrots two nights ago, and maybe I can get some applesauce into him at lunch. Right now, I'd be pleased with a few bites or gulps of protein. I know that he likes sausage. I know that he likes milk. I know that he is a good eater. But as long as he has only eaten toast thus far, I will keep...

Fifteen months (or so) - March 11, 2015 Sixteen (almost seventeen!) months - April 14, 2015 Seventeen months (and one day) - April 22, 2015 Sam, life just continues to move faster and faster and faster...and so do you! It's hard to keep up with taking your monthly pictures and writing up your monthly updates! It is springtime, and the weather has finally started to turn warm, and you are growing and growing up as beautifully as the spring shoots and buds that are peeking through the dirt outside. You are so many things these day, little man. You are talkative: You have a pretty decent list of words that you can say! And you babble to yourself and to us in complete sentences, so even when we don't know the words you are trying to say, we know that you are intentionally working to communicate with us in a verbal way. Your favorite words are ball, box, bath, brush teeth (you have a thing for "B" words), and are especially interested in the multi-syl...

Have I mentioned that among all of Sam's words, "Mama" is one of them? Never mind that he hasn't quite figured out how to use it. He calls me "Mama" when he is looking for me. He calls Matt "Mama" when he is looking for him. I think "Mama" is simply his word for whatever adult he wishes were paying attention to him in the moment. And he usually uses the word when he's asking for something. :) Being "Mama" - being a mother - is still all a jumble of things for me. I was thinking about it yesterday. Monday morning felt like Monday morning. It was a little too rushed, we were all a little too tired and sluggish and not quite ready to start the week. There are mornings where Sam's 6:30 a.m. get-up time seems fine, and other mornings when I grumble and wish he could stay asleep until 7:00 a.m. Some mornings, it takes a lot of energy to do all of the things that need to happen to get myself and Sam ready for the day, espec...