Meredith and I were lying in bed together this morning and the baby was rolling and kicking quite vigorously. I asked Meredith if she wants to feel the baby and she nodded so I put her hand on my belly. It took a couple of tries, but eventually the baby did kick right where her hand was. She sort of gasped and pulled her hand off a bit, and I told her it was the baby kicking and saying hi. She smiled and waved at my belly and said “hi baby!”. I wonder how much she really understands. She knows what babies are; in fact she adores babies. She’s always pointing out babies everywhere we go, and she loves to touch my friend’s baby. She calls her doll her baby and will tuck her in and take her pee and nurse her. But I don’t think she gets that there is a real baby inside of me (I barely get that, and I’ve done it once before haha), and that in a few months it will be here to stay. But she does talk about (and to) the baby in Mama’s tummy (we try to tell her it’s in my uterus, but she’s decided on her own it’s actually in my tummy), and she loves to come and kiss and pet my belly. Today was the first time she actually talked to the baby though.
Things are still moving right along. I occasionally get mild heart burn, but other than that this has still been an extremely uneventful pregnancy. I’m not complaining at all lol. A few more weeks to the third trimester. We’ve pretty much decided on two girl’s names, though we won’t decide which one for sure until the baby’s born probably. Funnily, neither of them were on our list before I got pregnant this time. Boy’s names are once again harder. We have about ten on the “short” list still. That’s better than with Meredith’s pregnancy though, where we could barely get a short list at all that we were both happy with.
I guess I’m nesting. I’m still doing some major decluttering and reorganizing, especially upstairs though over the weekend we reorganized our living room too. It feels much more spacious the way we have it and Meredith’s toys don’t feel so cramped. Her room is starting to actually look fairly empty. I have the change table set up so I can start putting some baby stuff away on it. I need to sand and paint her bed and finish getting rid of the stuff that’s left, but compared to how it looked when I started it’s looking great. I’m not going to post any pictures until it’s done though, the before pictures will be too embarrassing without seeing that I really did get it done. I’m excited about it. We plan to use it as a space where Meredith can keep things she doesn’t want the baby to get into. She can nap/sleep there if she wants but I don’t plan to push her into that at all, I just want her to have the option because she’s such a light sleeper and I’ve read some kids actually prefer their own room with a cosleeping new baby. I may set our crib up there too and if this baby will actually sleep out of arms I have a feeling he/she may end up being put down more often for naps, so that I can spend some one-on-one time with Meredith and won’t have to be constantly asking her to keep her voice down. I haven’t decided about that though, as it would mean when the baby is sleeping she wouldn’t be able to go up there, and I also really loved having Meredith nap in the mei tei on us and didn’t find it too disruptive. But I didn’t have a two year old at the time either. I’m not really a fan of cribs though (we only have it because my mom bought it for us after I told her we didn’t want one), so more likely if baby goes down for naps it will be in our bed like Meredith does now.
I’ll end with a picture from Halloween. My talented friend Kyre made the shirt and it turned out perfectly. (Check out her site to see the gorgeous cake she recently made for a birthday party.) I got a lot of comments on it when we were trick-or-treating and I’m sad I only get to wear it once. Meredith was Nemo, which was perfect for her as she loves the colour orange and she adores fish (it’s her favorite part of the zoo when we go). She loved Halloween and still talks about the candy and balloon she got that day, even though she really doesn’t eat much candy besides Smarties. Kris and I ended up eating most of hers while she chose to eat healthy things like eggs, bananas, and avocadoes, even though we left the candy bucket out. She would open a bag, sometimes have one or two, and then give the rest of it to one of us. I think just the excitement of everything was really neat to her though.
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Sam’s favourite colour is orange (and dark blue) too. People think it is a wierd colour for a girl, or at least some people do.
Sam still barely sleeps on her bed, although she is happy to have her own room. I never really found it to be a problem with her waking up Ant while he was sleeping. Babies can tolerate a lot more noise than we give them credit for, especially if that is the norm. They live in a noisy world before they are born!
Funny, I’d say Meredith’s two favorites are orange and blue. She likes purple too and sometimes pink though, so she’s not picky.
I’ve heard that about babies. I guess Meredith was always a light sleeper even though at first we didn’t try to be quiet around her or anything, so I sort of expect this baby will be too. When the baby’s really small he/she would be wherever I am for naps regardless though. We didn’t even attempt to put Meredith down in another room for a nap until she was 8 months old I think (and she didn’t nap regularly somewhere else until she was about 14 months). This baby will probably be younger just by necessity, but maybe not. I think baby’s are one of those things you can’t really plan ahead for. What worked for Meredith may or may not work for this one. I’m trying to plan for different scenarios but not set my mind on any one thing. As long as everyone’s needs are being met I’m pretty flexible.