29 weeks!

Here's a picture from earlier this week:

Nothing too new to report, except on behalf of the toddler -- who has not worn diapers during the day for a full week now!! She is far from being potty trained, but outside of naps and nighttime we are able to keep her from having accidents as long as we stay on top of things and sit her on the potty often enough. We actually set an alarm to remind ourselves, and we may have unintentionally conditioned the alarm sound to be a potty trigger... the other day it went off and we ignored it because we were doing something and she had just gone about 30 min earlier, and she had an accident! But for not really doing much intentional potty training, I am surprised at how few accidents we have had (less than one a day). We have even had some successful poops on the potty.
I don't really have time for more update right now, but hopefully I'll think of doing it more now that I am having appointments every two weeks. 

28 Weeks already!

I can't believe it is only about 12 weeks until the second baby beaver is born! I feel like this pregnancy has just flown by, and before I know it October will be here. I am pretty similar to last pregnancy, I never really had cravings or many symptoms...and a lot of movement as time goes on! I think I am ahead a little bit on weight gain this time, but only a few pounds. I had my appointment with the midwives this week and had gained 4 lbs, and when they measured me I was up 5 cm from the previous appointment!! The midwife did think she was measuring a little foot stretching up a little bit, though, but she couldn't push it down. So things seem to be going right on track!

I am wearing mostly pre-pregnancy dresses that are not fitted around the waist, because all of my maternity clothes from last time were winter clothes. The dresses seem to be working out; luckily I've got a lot of them. I bought one pair of maternity shorts and the fit is horrible (and they are majorly mom-jeans style), so I may try to avoid buying any more clothes and just survive on pre-pregnancy dresses and tops with maternity jeans, plus the few stretch pair that still button.  If only the heat waves would stop!! I love hot weather, but I definitely feel a lot hotter pregnant! Plus, it makes it harder to stay active and walk... but lately I've been doing a lot better. I do a prenatal yoga video almost every day, and we try to take walks through the park (or at least to get ice cream down the hill ;).

I still have no feelings toward either gender, although Riley has been saying she thinks it is a sister now for a while... I think that is what she is hoping for! I really think she will be happy with either gender though, she is just so excited about being a big sister! She loves coming to my appointments with me and hearing the baby's heartbeat, and she likes helping pump the bp cuff and to take my blood pressure.

In general riley updates, she is doing fantastic, and I while I know it will be a big adjustment for her when the baby comes, I think she will do pretty well! She is doing really well with potty training, even though we aren't really working on it a whole lot. At school they said she is ready to go diaper-free outside of naps, and that is what we've been doing at home too, and so far there haven't been many accidents. We aren't brave enough to try diaper-free away from home, though, so she still wears diapers a lot-  and night/naps will probably take a while still. But for us never really doing any potty training, we are pretty happy with her progress! I think I am not in a huge rush, because from everything I've heard even if she is potty trained she will regress back to diapers when the baby comes :)

Besides being excited about the baby, her favorite things lately are jumping (randomly and for no reason), singing and doing ring-around-the-rosy, playing with water outside, and loving on "her puppy" (Lili). She and Lili have become best-buds, meaning that riley is constantly hugging and kissing her, and Lili stays for it instead of walking away, or even seeks out riley's attention. Riley talks up a storm and can sing all the words to several songs now, but is still silent almost anywhere we go or when new people are around. She will talk to her friends at school, but doesn't really talk to teachers or other adults. They are working on getting her to be more talkative, but I don't think it's a big deal- I know she can communicate exceptionally well when she wants to. I love how she communicates about emotions so much too, and always is concerned if she thinks we are not happy (which will get us a hug, kiss, and the question- "Did I make you so happy? Are you happy now?") And it was quite amusing a few weeks ago when she told me she needed to "go cool off" for a few minutes, returning to say she was better now!

She is also learning incredibly fast- She has known her alphabet, counting 1-10, and colors for quite a while now, but she is starting to recognize a lot of letters and know what letters different words start with, she can count to 20 (though still missing numbers, and sometimes counts over 20!), and she actually counts objects now and can tell me how many objects are in a small set. She seems to be finally getting the one-to-one correspondence of counting, which is exciting! She is also amazing at puzzles (for her age, of course!). She has no trouble rotating puzzle pieces to figure out how they fit, and often does it by looking at the pieces rather than trial/error. She can build a 3x7 floor puzzle almost completely independently already! She needs some help on bigger ones, but can still fit many pieces together in small clusters on her own.

Riley is also incredibly interactive when reading books. I just recently noticed this, and it is so interesting! She will point out emotions of the different characters in the book, and talk about how their emotions change in the story. She points out when things are silly, and asks if she doesn't know what something is. She recognizes letters while we are reading, and while she obviously doesn't read or anything yet, she likes to point to the words and pretend to follow along, and likes to pretend to read books to me like a teacher, while pointing to words as she talks. We are actually not great about reading to her- we mostly only read to her at bedtime when she gets anywhere from 3-6 books depending on their length and the time. I do know she spends time on her own in the "library" corner at school, and they are read to a lot, so I guess that helps!

Okay I guess this was enough rambling- I feel so sad I don't write here much, and then feel like I need to try to think of everything I might want to remember in a few years when I do! I already feel like I left stuff out of my old posts when I go back and read them. Oh well... I'm sure there will be many memories that do stick! My goal now is to just try and take a lot more pictures than I have, starting with a new belly pic- hopefully to be posted soon :)

A couple quick pictures!

Recent pictures of the belly and baby beaver:

Some belly pics!

I don't know why it's so hard for me to update here with pictures, but it is. So here are a bunch of belly pics, some that I unfortunately took by myself while Mr. Beaver has been out of town.

May 22: 19 weeks

May 31: Almost 22 weeks

June 7:  21.5

June 8:  Almost 22 weeks...

(trying on a dress for a wedding- don't know if I actually got any pictures of me at the wedding??)

I'll try to remember to take one today and post it! The pictures are pretty kind- in person the belly is huge enough to get daily comments from coworkers about how much I'm showing already, and two people have made references to me carrying twins...

As a general pregnancy update: I am feeling fine other than feeling big and sad that I'm not working out at all. I found my yoga video from last time and am hoping to make that a nightly habit! Riley is very aware of the pregnancy and is constantly hugging and kissing the baby (aka my belly), and she agrees with me about exercise I guess... she told my family over dinner one night that "Mommy needs to exercise for the baby." But she is always saying silly things :)  Sleep has been rough because I am very congested, so I am pretty tired, but not to the point that I go to bed any earlier! I have not been eating any different or more than usual, no cravings just like last time. I am feeling plenty of movement now, which is great! Mr. Beaver even got to feel some hiccups last night which was fun. I haven't tried letting Riley feel yet, because I don't want her to get frustrated if she doesn't feel anything...I'm planning to wait until it's really obvious and more frequent. As you can see in the pictures, my belly button is super-out which is not much different from pre-pregnancy, thanks to the umbilical hernia that opened up when I was pregnant with Riley. I go back and forth about getting hers fixed when I see mine every day...

I am wearing maternity jeans, I don't really have much else besides long sleeves which aren't going to get any use this summer! Mostly I stick to my numerous sun dresses. Those are getting pretty short stretched over the bump, though, so I went out and got some capri-length leggings this week. I think I can make it through the summer with dresses, so hopefully won't really need maternity clothes! Luckily the maternity jeans still fit, even though my thighs and butt are much bigger this time around.

We had our "big" ultrasound a few weeks ago, and decided to be surprised by the gender again! I don't think we could've found out anyway- baby was very uncooperative, facing in and scrunching up the whole time. Luckily we were able to get all the necessary pictures and measurements for the doctor, though it was really, really painful at times when she was shoving the ultrasound wand deep into my sides and lower abdomen. Such a relief to hear the good news that everything looks great though!

Little Beaver update!

I don't think we can call her a baby anymore...

Riley is now a "big girl". I still call her baby all the time, and she doesn't mind it, but she is no longer a baby at all. Well, except during tantrums I guess, but that isn't often. She has full conversations with us, and I can't recall the last time that we had trouble figuring out what was wrong or what she was trying to ask or tell us. Her speech isn't the clearest still, but other people don't seem to have too much trouble understanding her, and we don't have much trouble at all. Her memory is also developing really fast these days! She learns paired associations so fast, and remembers them for quite a while. For example- she can now look at the book cover of "brown bear, brown bear" and recall the animal that goes with each color! She remembers where she puts things later in the day, and she holds us to every promise/bribe we give no matter how much time passes (e.g., I will negotiate, "we have to eat dinner and clean up, and then take a bath. We can read big sister after bath time." and the second she gets out of bath- "mommy, read big sister now!")

She is getting really good at playing with big kid toys now too- we've started putting together real puzzles, and she is great at finding pieces to go together and rotating them to make them fit. She put together a 24 piece floor puzzle the other day, with only help finding the right pieces! She can stack wooden blocks so high that she finally knocks them down herself because they don't fall on their own, and she likes to build stuff with her jumbo size legos (really they are huge- like 8x4x4"! expensive, but so cool!) Her favorite toy at the moment, though, is a wooden train set. She will put it together three or four times a day, all by herself. Every time, she holds up the box to us and says, "I need more tracks! I need the tunnel! I need the house!" and point to each of the pictures of additional parts you can order. It's funny, because she almost always uses the word want and not need in other situations, but apparently the train accessories are extra important. Luckily, she is still really good at stores and will put things away and leave without throwing a fit about wanting or needing anything (knock on wood I don't jinx it!).

We are just starting to work on potty training, and are being very casual about it- just asking if she wants to sit on the potty when we think of it, and talking about it a lot. She goes on the potty a few times a week, and has told us she needed to go several times (and then actually goes!). I guess we should get on top of it... She also knows when she needs to poop, and we can tell, but she doesn't want to sit on the potty for that yet. She does like to get the diaper off immediately, though. The other day we were too late- and when I came in the room there was an empty diaper in her hand, and poop on the ground. She said she went poop on the ground, but I am thinking she emptied her diaper on the ground. Either way, it was very gross.

Riley is also super excited about becoming a big sister. She talks about it whenever she sees other babies, and she often will come up and say she wants to kiss or hug or tickle the baby, and proceed to kiss/hug/tickle my belly. She also says she is going to help take care of the baby, by changing its diapers, reading it books, and singing it baby songs (when asked what a baby song is, she usually sings rock-a-bye baby, though she says she'll sing ABCs to the baby too). She also said that she will use the potty when the baby comes, so that the baby can have her diapers. She laughed at our silly name suggestions for the baby, and gave her own suggestions- Baby Saturday and Baby Florida :)  Her favorite book right now is "I'm a Big Sister", and she has most of it memorized and insists on reading it at least once a day. It is so sweet to see her happy about the baby!!

My friend wrote about wishing she had included more stories about her toddler, and I think it is a great idea! I have two that made me smile this week. One was this morning- I got up late, and Riley was already eating breakfast when I came out. We talked and got ready together and everything, and then I said, "I'm sad- I didn't get a hug from my Riley this morning!" And she looked at me so serious, and said, "You're sad? Oh no!" and she ran over and gave me a huge hug! She is very affectionate with hugs and kisses these days, and is always giving and asking for them. It is great! Another kinda silly story: I was rushing out with her to get her to school in time for breakfast (#2-she eats so much). I somehow closed the door on my thumb and cried out, and it was obvious I was in pain. Riley said, "Oh no, mommy got a boo boo? Riley will kiss it better!" and kissed it better and gave me a hug. Then I put our stuff in the car and was tightening the belt on her carseat and my thumb still hurt a lot, and I said "Mommy really hurt my thumb!" She said, "Mommy got another boo boo? Mommy hurt her thumb AGAIN?" And she burst out laughing at me,  I guess thinking it was hilarious that I hurt the same finger twice in such a short time. It seems silly now, but at the time I could not get over how funny this was. I guess it was just funny seeing how hilarious she thought the whole situation was. I could go on and on with funny stories about her, and stories about how sweet and caring she is, but I think this post has gotten long enough!!

I need to upload some new videos and pictures from my phone and camera, but here are a couple from a month or so ago:
Visiting the farm (we get to go every week now for our vegetable share!)

Video reading brown bear:

16 weeks tomorrow!

Here's a picture for 15 weeks:

And here's one from about 10 weeks:

15 weeks!

Surprisingly, I can use a lot of the answers copied from last time :) 
I'm going to try and put up some back-dated updates put together from some emails to friends. I even have an old pic to post from about 6 weeks ago. 
(Today's pic to come-- I could only get it to post sideways for some reason!!)

How far along? 15 weeks!
Total weight gain/loss: Just like last time, I fluctuate a good 4-5 lbs throughout each day. Unlike last time- I am gaining a lot faster! According to my scale at home, I am already up almost 10 lbs. My midwife's scale is not as friendly!!
Maternity clothes? I have some, but haven't worn them yet. Wearing the belly bands daily though!
Sleep: Pretty normal, get up once a night to pee most nights, and/or because I'm thirsty.
Best moment this week: Hmmm... I have no idea. Pregnancy-related not much happens, but I guess it was nice to get the prescription for our anatomy scan (ultrasound), so that we can schedule it.
Movement: I have definitely felt movement every now and then over the past week! It's nice this time to know what it feels like. 
Food cravings: Nothing this time either!
Gender: We haven't decide whether or not to find out. There are definitely pros and cons both ways. If it were up to me alone, I'd wait again... but I don't feel as strongly this time, so Mr. Beaver *may* be able to convince me to find out. We'll see. 
Labor signs: n/a
Belly Button in or out? I realized that my childhood umbilica hernia never closed up completely, so last time I was pregnant it actually opened back up... and never closed again. So my belly button has been out since I was first pregnant. 
What I miss: Drinking! It hasn't been that hard, but a drink would be nice now and then. From last pregnancy, I miss being able to nap!!! I can't believe how much I napped last time, and how much it helped! 
What I am looking forward to: Riley understanding more about what is happening! 
Weekly wisdom: Hmm... enjoy the freedom of being pregnant with #1? I feel like I was able to enjoy it so much more! 
Milestones: Not this week, but making it to 2nd tri, telling everyone, etc.