blogging is hard sometimes

Most people say that your second child is not quite as "documented" as your first. Meaning baby books, pictures, videos, journals, and so on.

I know this is somewhat true for me and my brother. My childhood photo album is a bit more crowded. Haha.

I saw a blog before I became pregnant this time. It was a mom writing an apology to her second child about how their baby book was often neglected and they didn't have as many photos and videos. Because this time around the mom was busy loving both kids. And chasing the older brother around.

I think I can understand that.

I blogged about every single week after the first trimester of my pregnancy with Graeme. This goal with Baby 2 is already seeming incredibly insurmountable. I was telling a friend that as much as I love writing on this blog, lately, it's been way down on my list of things to do. With Graeme only taking one nap (and needing constant supervision when he's awake), working part-time, and then barely having energy to take a shower and stay awake past 8:30pm in the evenings, blogging and many other things are falling to the wayside.

So, I will try my best to document Baby 2 during pregnancy and life. But I think I surrender to the truth that having two kids is way different than having one. And some things will just have to be more important than others. Sanity and rest will win!

But, today, I do have some time and some brain power to put some words onto the screen.

So, hi.


I am 15 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. Baby 2 is the size of an orange. I feel more pregnant this time around. For example, I already feel like it's uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach. And every once in awhile I perhaps maybe think I already feel the baby. I can't be 100% certain on that though.

Just like my pregnancy with Graeme, there is a magical switch that got flipped right around 14 weeks that made me feel a bazillion times better. No more nausea or throwing up. Most food sounds good to me again. I think Aaron is especially glad of this. Our restaurant and dinner choices were quite narrow for awhile.

So now, my only problem is being tired all of the time. This is most likely caused by pregnancy plus running after a very, very busy toddler all day long.

I had a routine appointment last Friday with my OB. When we made the appointment I wanted it to be with my favorite doctor. We were looking at dates a month out, and the receptionist said our doctor was going to be out of town but could do the Friday before. This happened to be a day that Aaron was at camp with the kiddos from church, but he graciously said I should go anyway and take my mom with me instead.

Before he left for camp, I jokingly said, "You know, if he can't find the heartbeat right away they will do an ultrasound. What do I do if he can see the gender?!"

Well, I should have kept my mouth shut because sure enough, my prediction came true. When he listened with the doppler, we kept hearing little jabs. He said the baby was kicking. He moved it around for a couple of minutes with no luck in finding that steady little beat. At one point, I heard one and said "Oh!" And the doctor said, "That's yours." 

"Oh."

After two or three minutes he said he wasn't going to chase the baby around all morning and we should just go next door and take a look. Even though hearing the baby's heartbeat is absolutely amazing, seeing the baby on the screen is extra reassuring and exciting.

Our little sweet baby had grown so much since Aaron and I had last seen them seven weeks before. The heart rate was strong and steady at 161bpm. The doctor moved around a bit.

"There's his head. There's his face. There's his stomach. There's his arm."

"Wow, that's awesome," I said. Because I still can't get over how amazing growing a baby is. "Wait, you're just saying 'his' like neutral 'his,' right?!"

He and my mom laughed. "Yes, neutral. I don't know that I could tell yet."

He moved the wand so we could see in-between the baby's legs. I of course have no clue what I'm looking at really and he moved it away quickly, so I didn't see much of anything.

"Well don't say it if you know!" I quickly added. "Aaron might kill me!"

"It's still pretty early to be sure," he said as he shut it down and pulled off a few pictures for me to take.

I sat up and we stood to leave. "Thanks so much. We will see you next time," I said as we walked out of the exam room.

"Yep. See you. And I think I know what it is."

"What?!" my mom and I both said loudly.

"I think I'm right, but you'll have a better look at it next month. And I will be curious to see if I'm right!"

This, of course, made it very hard not to just ask him. But, I knew I wanted Aaron to be there and I would never find out without him. Plus, if the doctor was wrong, I would hate to get my heart set on something that might change. The receptionist reassured us that he was definitely not able to tell that for sure at this point. Although I guess the only "for sure" is when you see the baby for the first time!

We left with the date for our anatomy ultrasound (August 17!!) and some sweet pictures of Baby 2's profile. That was more than good enough for me.

Graeme will be 16 months old tomorrow! Oh my!

He's very busy. He's very opinionated. He's very talkative. And he's very persuasive.

I know every parent thinks their kid is cute and funny. We are no exception. We think our little kid is so stinking cute and he's hilarious.

I love to just watch him play with things because it is fascinating to watch his little brain computing.

He is still very tall for his age. At his 15 month check-up he was 33.5 inches (over the 95%) and 25 pounds, 13 ounces. The doctor said he should be saying six-nine words. He's got about one hundred. Again, I'm not sure how he's so smart. God made him!

He knows a lot of his shapes, especially circles and stars. And bats. Because of course he knows what a bat is. He all of a sudden could say his opposites last week. We have an Eric Carle Opposites book that we read maybe every couple of days. When Aaron was at camp, he and I were reading it, and he just started saying the opposites. I was blown away. He can say almost all of the rainbow colors, but the one he is consistently right about is blue. He goes around the house and finds thing that are blue and will shout "Blue!" over and over until you acknowledge that "Yes, that is 'blue,' and you are very smart." Aaron Bauer's son for sure.

He loves to look for airplanes. Our house is right under some sort of flight path so we see quite a few planes. Some are fairly low to the ground and he gets so excited. When he can't see it anymore he will say "Where'd it go?!" and then wave "Bye-bye." Last week we were in the mall parking lot and the ABC11 helicopter flew over. He screamed "Airplane!"

"Yes, buddy, that's kind of like an airplane but it's called a helicopter. Helicopter."

He stared after it and then spouted off "helicopter" in his own little language. He then talked about the helicopter going bye-bye all the way home and when we got home he immediately looked up in the sky and asked about it.

"Well, unfortunately, I don't think we'll see another helicopter today. They don't come around very often."

I should have known better again. After dinner that night, we happened to be outside when a giant military helicopter flew over. Graeme was ecstatic. And so was I. Because how often do you see two helicopters in one day?

Graeme's hair grows like a weed and is already back in his eyes and on his ears. When he starts constantly rubbing his eyes to get it out of his way, it's definitely time for another haircut. He has an appointment on Friday.




Well, that's what's been going on around here with us and our two little ones. Until next time, friends.