She Says… Babies

Thank you all for the happy thoughts you sent my way after last week’s whiny post. A weekend of sunshine did me good and I’m feeling like myself again.

On top of that, Owen’s little fever turned out to be nothing and he seems to have emerged from whatever it was that was causing him to act like a little monster last week. I don’t know if it was a bug he was fighting or lack of sleep due to being excited about his bed or what, but I’m just thankful it is over now. And, in its wake, it seems to have left an exceptionally sweet child whose capacity for playing by himself has doubled and whose behavior could not be better. Phew. I guess those kinds of developmental jumps are worth the painful week? I guess? I’m still not sure why they seem to be so pronounced with Owen, and only in retrospect do I see what caused all of that ridiculous fussing and terrible behavior.

Owen is super excited to be a big brother. He’ll often bring up things like, “I’m going to teach my baby brother to eat” or “I want to touch my baby brother’s toes” or “I’m going to bring him toys to hold” out of the blue. Recently this excitement has manifested itself as an obsession with babies.

He LOVES babies.

At school a few weeks ago, when the kids were still in their snowsuits, there was a little girl standing, stuck, crying on the playground. Owen’s teachers tell me they turned around and he was over next to her, patting her on the back and saying, “It’s ok. It’s ok.”. Sob.

And he’s always had a thing for hugging our friends’ babies (whether they liked it or not!).

When I arrived at school to pick Owen up on Friday, the mom of one of his friends was there with her newborn. The baby was crying in his stroller and as soon as he heard that little cry, Owen dropped his toy and came running from across the playground. He climbed up onto the stroller and started patting his foot, crooning, “S’ok. Why are you crying?” in this little sing-songy voice. He patted the baby’s head SO GENTLY (like, for real gently… which both amazed me and terrified me, because one can never tell when that gentle touch is going to turn not-so-gentle…) and dug the baby’s pacifier out of his blankets. Owen stuffed the paci in his mouth (backwards, but it didn’t seem to matter) while asking, “You want this?” over and over again.

I nearly cried. It was just about the sweetest thing. Thankfully the mother didn’t mind Owen’s little hands all over her baby (I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did!) and she praised him for being so gentle. I could barely tear Owen away to go home. He was in love.

Then, over the weekend we hung out with our friends who have a little guy who is about 15 months old. He toddled towards the parking lot (nowhere near the cars, but in that general direction) and Owen ran up to him and shouted, “Don’t walk! Cars won’t see you!” in an effort to keep him safe. Owen walked next to his little friend and put his arm around his shoulders. Buddies. Oh so sweet, until that arm-around-the-shoulders move made them both fall down, and Owen tried to pick him up by his head/neck. Clearly it came from a place of love and trying to help the kid up, but we have some lessons to learn about how to handle other kids. Gulp.

I’m beginning to see what kind of big brother Owen may be. Head over heels in love. Overly affectionate. Super gentle until he’s super NOT gentle. Protective.

We’ll have to watch him like a hawk.

Still, it makes my heart swell to watch him love on babies. I’ll have to remember this the next time I have to sign an incident report for him beating up a friend at school.

She Says… It’s a…

Owen may be disappointed at first, since his little heart was set on a sister. But I must say, thinking of Owen and his little BROTHER growing up together makes my heart swell.

A little brother. Another baby boy.

We couldn’t be happier.

She Says… You! You’re there!

My little acrobat,

I felt you today! Whatever it was that I felt a few weeks ago was not really you, or, at least, it wasn’t as clearly you as this was. This morning, after wolfing down a bagel with cream cheese and some fruit (free breakfast on Fridays at work!), I was sitting at my computer going through my emails and it happened. It was just one, single tap. I froze, fingers hovering over the keyboard, and before I knew it I was smiling. Immediately I recognized what that feeling was.

It was you. Saying hi.

A few minutes later, there was another tap, deep down in my pelvis. And after that, one more, before you fell asleep or changed positions. And I have to tell you something. Something that I didn’t want to admit. I was worried that since you are the second beautiful little person that has grown inside my body that things wouldn’t be as exciting or as new or as special as they were the first time around. But you want to know something? I can assure you that is not the case. I am cherishing every move you make inside my belly and every breath you will take once you “pop out”, as Owen says you will “when you are bigger”. It is no less amazing simply because it has happened before. It’s always a miracle. I remember my mom, your Rah Rah, telling me that over and over again, but I feel it now, more than ever. Feeling you move today was just as awe-inspiring as it was with Owen, and perhaps even more so, because I knew exactly what I was feeling. I knew it was you.

Right now you are about the size of an avocado, which is ironic, because that has been all I want to eat recently. Well, not all, exactly, but I’d be happy to eat a whole one at every meal if I could. Straight up, a little salt, with a spoon. (When will you be the size of a jar of peanut butter? That’s my other guilty pleasure…). So far you have made this pregnancy incredibly easy on my body. Little to no sickness, and, as of yet, very little weight gain (unlike your brother, who had me packing on the pounds from the very start, despite the fact that my starting weight for both pregnancies was the same). The only way I remember I’m pregnant some days is my rapidly expanding baby bump! I’ve already grown out of some of the clothes I remember wearing until spring when I was pregnant with Owen.

Your blood is pumping, your arms and legs are growing to put you in the proper proportions, and you even have fingernails and toenails already. I’m looking forward to our growth spurt over the next few weeks!

I love you so, so much. And I’m so thrilled that you decided to make today the day you said hi from the inside.

Love,
Mommy

 

She Says… Hello, Little One

Hello, Little One.

I know it’s taken me a long time to write to you. You have been growing inside me for 14 weeks! It wasn’t that I didn’t know you were in there or that I was surprised by you. No, quite the contrary. Daddy and I hoped for you since before you even existed. I knew you were in there even before I got the positive pregnancy test. I just knew.

It’s taken me so long to write to you for two reasons. First, I have become deeply aware that things don’t always work out as planned with babies. There are so many things that can go wrong in the process, and I’ve learned once again, as I did with your big brother Owen, that I am definitely not in control of how/when the miracle of making a baby will happen. So for the first few weeks while I was in shock and awe that you were really in there, growing, I was also scared out of my mind that something was going to go wrong. I hope, when you are older, that you do not have to keep learning this lesson as I have. However, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I feel so lucky to have you and your brother (and any future babies, should they come along!), no matter what heartache brought you here.

The other reason it took me so long to write to you is that life is busy. Owen is a hilarious, curious, verbose, rambunctious, 2 1/2 year old ball of energy. He never stops moving, asking questions, demanding attention or cracking us up. Work is busy and Daddy’s work forces him to travel a lot. In short, you’re already a part of a crazy whirlwind of a family and it’s only going to get crazier once you arrive. I have no doubt you will grow to love our loud, silly, funny family and you will quickly find that although you’ve just arrived, it’s like you were always a part of it.

But don’t let that make you think, for a second, that you’re being forgotten. You’re not. In fact, you’re more like my best kept secret right now. Of course people can tell that I’m pregnant (boy, can they ever… you sure made yourself known very early on!), but there’s often so much going on that the only one thinking about you daily is me. I was stuck in bed last week with the flu (ugh, it was beyond awful) and though it felt kind of lonely when I couldn’t play with Owen or talk with Daddy, I knew you were there keeping me company. I even think I felt you move around in my belly for the first time when I was laying still in my bed. It’s like you were saying, “Hey, Mommy! I’m here!”.

You are no bigger than a lemon and I already love everything about you.

Owen is totally, completely, head-over-heels in love with you too. He talks about you all the time and often says he wants you to sit next to him when I strap him into his carseat in the car. He is also 100% convinced that you are a girl. A sister. Oh, how it melts me to hear him say that word with such love! I keep trying to tell him that you could be a boy or a girl, but he has stuck to his guns for the last month or more that you are a girl (which, if you know anything about two year olds, you will know is a miracle that he hasn’t changed his mind).

I keep going back and forth between dreaming of you as a boy and as a girl. If you are a boy, I can’t help but laugh thinking of all the wild and crazy shenanigans you are going to get into with your brother. There has been something so special about the mother/son bond that I have with Owen, that would be thrilled to be outnumbered by yet another little guy. And yet, the idea that you are a girl flutters my stomach and makes me dream of the things that only a mother and daughter share. And, as I said, the way that Owen says the word sister makes my heart break into a million little pieces. I am certain we will adore you, whatever you are!

I’m not one to have premonitions about things like this, but I’m kind of thinking you are a boy. Sorry, Owen. We will find out in a few weeks!

We love you, Little One. More than you may ever know. Don’t you ever forget it.

Love,
Mommy

She Says… On to Next Year

Phew, friends. This has been a busy illness-ridden and family-filled holiday week. For many of you, too, I’m sure. If you missed our annual holiday video I posted earlier this week, you can watch it here!

After I posted the video, I got a lot of questions like “How did you get Owen to do that?” or “How long did that take?” or “How do you get it to look so good?”. My response to the last question is that it doesn’t hurt to be married to a professional videographer! Benjamin and I love working on this project together every year, and he even sends it out to clients as a holiday greeting, so yes, we go a bit “over the top”.

As for the first question, I gotta say, despite shooting the day between Owen’s stomach bug and respiratory illness, he was a total star. We always knew he had a flare for the dramatic, but he went far above and beyond our expectations this year. In preparation, we talked a lot about what each scene would entail and made “rehearsing” into a game. He didn’t really care for rehearsing at all, but when those cameras switched on, he did exactly what we asked… and more. So the answer to “how did we get him to do that” is mostly that he is a natural in front of the camera (though I like to say it’s because of my mad directing skillz).

Well. Yeah. That and the promise of M&Ms. At first I hesitated to turn this into a bribery situation, but after a few takes, Benjamin gave me that look that I know from experience means, “Kate, you’re nuts. Just give him a freaking M&M.”. He was so right. We were asking a lot of Owen, and he was easily satisfied with one M&M per request from us. As I said before, they are powerful motivators in our house!

For those who’d like to see a more behind-the-scenes look, we put together a quick collection of the funniest outtakes from our day of shooting.

This year’s video is such a gem that we’re already thinking about how to top it next year.

Thankfully we have a secret weapon in the works.

WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A NEW CAST MEMBER!

Wanna see?

Uh huh. I’m 11.5 weeks (and counting somewhat nervously until I get past the point where I miscarried back in July) and due July 16th, a week prior to Owen’s 3rd birthday. I’ve been totally rocked by exhaustion, hence the sporadic blog posts, but aside from feeling particularly emotional (have you noticed how many times I’ve mentioned sentimental crying over the last 9 weeks, even though I’m generally not a crier?), I have felt pretty great.

We feel so, so fortunate that I got pregnant again so quickly and naturally.

This was a very merry Christmas for us indeed!