The Loftis Family

I always tell Amelia that’s she’s my favorite and she says “no, no I’m not” or something silly in response.  It’s a bit of a running joke with us.

She earned the title favorite again this evening.  We were tucking her into bed laying with her and she accidentally bounced into my stomach.  She knows to be gentle so she immediately lifted up my shirt and kissed my belly, said sorry to the baby and said “good night baby jelly bean” (she calls the baby “baby jelly bean”).  She then pulled down my shirt and smoothed it out.  I giggled and said “are you making it nice and dark for baby jelly bean” and she said “yes, she (she doesn’t know the difference between he/she usage so everyone is a she) doesn’t have curtains.”

Isn’t she the cutest?  It’s clear why she’s my favorite.

Not much new this week, just needed/wanted to ramble about pregnancy, motherhood and becoming a mother of two. I’m feeling great today, tired as always…sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, contractions and late pregnancy do that to you.  Today I feel good mentally, I am clear and happy.

Amelia gives me joy…

She’s just so stinking funny.  She’s watching Little Bear (a kid cartoon) and they’re playing a flute and she said she can too so she picked up her imaginary flute and held it to her mouth and started to toot it.  She just makes a bunch of high pitch noises, but it’s the best sounding flute I’ve ever heard.  Moments like that make me giggle and beam with pride.  She’s so smart and so creative.  The fact that I get to do this awesome parenting gig with another child just fills me with more joy.

I get asked at least 2-3 times a week if I want another girl or if I want a boy.  My answer is now and always will be, I want another baby.  I have never cared what sex our children were and neither has Dustin.  I hope and pray for healthy children, for happy children and their sex has nothing to do with health or happiness.

We also get asked “are you going to have another if this one is a girl.”  I take that to mean that people think you should have one of each or you can’t be happy and for us that’s simply not true.  That answer is the same regardless of this little one’s sex.  We’ll have a third kiddo if we (get all crazy and decide that we) want a third kiddo, but we won’t “try” for a specific sex.

I’m a firm believer in receiving the blessings that are coming to me with grace and joy.  I simply cannot imagine life without Amelia.  She’s crazy, silly, giggly, affectionate, a little manic at times, but she’s the greatest joy I’ve ever known and I wouldn’t trade her for anything. I can say with absolute certainty that I will feel exactly the same about the Bean.

Something happened over night.  I went from scared and anxious about being a mother of two to being overjoyed, excited and antsy.  I am so thrilled that I have the opportunity to give birth again.  I am so thankful that this child has been given to us and that we’ll be meeting the bean in about 6ish weeks.

I cannot wait to hold my sweet new baby; to see who the Bean looks like, to kiss the Bean’s face, to nurse my new baby and share those same joys that I’ve experienced with Amelia for the last 2.5 years.  I am so blessed and so joyful.

I had my 32 week appointment yesterday and everything went well.  I’m measuring right on track and gaining weight at warp speed…ok, not warp speed, but it feels so fast I’m up 25lbs.  The baby is head down with its bum on my left side and legs kicking my right side and ribs.  The heart rate was 148bpm.

I got to ask my doctor a lot of questions with regard to how my L&D experience will go this time.  We’re looking at inducing when I’m 39ish weeks and at the moment we’re thinking that will be either July 8 or July 12 to start the induction.  Being that it’s an induction it’s all subject to change depending on availability of a hospital room and if the Bean stays put until then.  We’ll likely do Cytotec/Cervadil and then she’ll break my water after 4-5 hours on the other meds and I should progress quickly from there.  I told her I’d do my best to make sure I was ready to deliver before she left work and she said, “I work long days…no worries.”  She said she wouldn’t be surprised if I delivered before she even left the hospital to go back to her office after breaking my water…yes, she expects I’ll progress that quickly again.

Decisions, decisions…I need to decide if I want meds or not.  Dustin has offered to take the epidural if I don’t want it, ha!  I dilated without it last time and have a feeling that I’ll go too quickly this time to really take advantage of it (have to wait until 3-4cm to get it).  The main benefits for me in foregoing the epidural would be not needing a catheter and being able to get up and move around shortly after the baby is born. I don’t like being stuck in a bed and wasn’t confined last time, but still felt I was in it too long due to belly/baby monitoring.  I think I’m going to remain open to it and see how things go.

My contractions have slowed down during the day quite a bit, but I have them every night. I wake up every 2 hours or so to a contraction because my bladder gets too full.  I had no idea that this issue is as common as it is.  It’s all thanks to a very low lying baby and having to drink 80 ounces of fluids a day…the Bean’s head is on my bladder/cervix.  It’s good that the baby is already in position for delivery, but it makes sleeping very challenging in the interim.

I go back in 2 weeks for another appointment, then 2 weeks later I go and then start my weekly appointments.  I can’t believe that we’re so close…that we’re having a baby in 7-8 weeks, YAY!  Can’t wait to meet the Bean!

We’re getting things ready, I’m washing all of our little baby onesies/t-shirts, receiving blankets and burp cloths.  Nesting is in full gear, now if only I had enough energy to do it!

This was my dream last night…

Dustin decided to sell 1/2 of our house without telling me. Our house isn’t big, so this is strange enough. Two Asian people moved in…a man and a really decrepit looking woman (like insanely wrinkled and very, very thin). She was young, but looked really old. They took over my office and the baby’s room…even knocked out the wall between. Then they painted the family room and dining room a dark blue and painted Asian flowers and drawings all over the walls like a border 1/2 way up the wall. It was so dark and creepy!

I got really angry with Dustin for selling 1/2 of the house and told him I was leaving, that I wanted a divorce and he could stay and live with them. I took Amelia from her bed and was leaving to go to my mom’s house when my Dustin realized that he messed up. He tried to tell the people that they had to leave, but they said they wouldn’t. I told Dustin that we should just furniture and stuff from the house and let them have it. The lady said no, I own half so your furniture is mine too…crazy.

I went ape and tried choking her then I started crying because that kind of behavior is against my beliefs and the lady said “ok, we’ll leave” and they packed all of their stuff and moved out.

I told Dustin he had to repaint everything and that I wasn’t helping.

I am a seriously crazy pregnant person (at least in my dreams).

My poor child has the worst allergies and reactions to bug bites (thanks daddy!).  We dealt with this a year or so ago and it happened again yesterday.  Amelia was bitten close to her eye by a bug (likely a mosquito) and her eye(s) swelled.

Here’s a quick snapshot I took with my iphone this morning.  Poor little cyclops kid…

I am a dork because I get really excited when I save money.  Tonight I informed Dustin that I needed to go to CVS (TCB as Amelia refers to it) to pick up a few things.  His first question wasn’t “what are we getting” it was “how many transactions are you going to do.”  Stinker…he knows I am a crazy woman and will do multiple transactions if it saves me money and gives me more Extra Care Bucks. Here’s how our shopping trip broke down tonight…

First transaction:

(1) Children’s Claritin – $9.99 (-$3.00 coupon)

(1) oak farms milk – $2.99

(1) huggies supreme diapers – $8.49 (-$3.00 coupon)

-$3 extra bucks I had from a previous purchase and -$4 off a purchase of $20 or more (didn’t know you can combine those discounts, but I learned tonight that you can)

Total after discounts – $8.72

Second transaction:

I earned $6 extra bucks from the first transaction ($3 for the Claritin, $1 for the milk and $2 for the diapers)

(2) Children’s Benadryl – $4.99 each (-$2 coupon each, -$5 coupon for buying 2 Benadryl products)

(1) Disney sunglasses (Amelia had to have them since Lila ate her cute Gap ones) – $6.99

Total after discounts – $1.97

I guess i would have gotten money back if we didn’t buy the sunglasses….not sure how that works.  So, in total I got $47.89 worth of stuff for $10.69 (78% savings).  That rocks and I’ll accept my dork status for the sake of saving that money.

This is what happens when daddy dresses Amelia for bed.  I must admit that those were some of his best options because I hadn’t put Amelia’s clean clothes away.

Last Thursday on our way home from school Amelia asked me to paint her toes.  I asked her what color she wanted and she said brown…I said try again (brown should never be on toe nails in my opinion).  She then picked purple.  I agreed to do it and said we’d buy some nail polish soon.

I have to admit that I thought Amelia was far too young to ask for her toes to be painted, but I’m hesitantly accepting the fact that she’s growing up.  We bought the nail polish yesterday, a nice light shade of purple…perfect for a little princess.  Amelia asked this morning if we could paint her toes and I said yes, let’s do it.  She sat in a kitchen chair and I sat on our cold, hard tile floor (at 30 weeks pregnant mind you).  She sat mostly still…I only had to repaint her big toes 3 times each.  I blew her nails dry and before she got down out of the chair she said “I don’t like this purple, I want another purple.”  When I explained that it’s the only purple we have she then said “I don’t want this purple on, take it off” so Amelia’s first pedicure officially lasted 5 minutes.

It was good while it lasted…

I am 30 weeks (and 1 day technically).  I can’t believe it, where has the time gone?

I’m feeling pretty good these days, a little achy/crampy/big, but not bad overall.  We made a little visit to L&D last week (at 29 weeks) due to some pretty painful, but thankfully inconsistent Braxton Hicks contractions.  I drank a LOT of water and rested most of the day and by the time we got to the hospital things were simmering down.  I rested through the weekend to ensure that they didn’t come back.  I’ve only had a handful since and I think they’ve all be associated with needing more water.  Lesson of the day, drink, drink and when I think I’ve hand plenty of glasses of water I need to drink more.  I am apparently supposed to have 80 ounces of water a day, up from the recommended 64 ounces most people need to drink.

Heartburn is no fun, but anybody who has ever had it knows it’s the pits.  Carrying a baby on top of your bladder who you know is going to double in size over the next 7-10 weeks is just a daunting thing.  I REALLY wish I had the ‘Iron Lane Bladder’ now instead of the wimpy Holley one, oh well.  As always I prepare myself for things to be tough so that I’ll be pleasantly surprised when it’s not that bad.

I am starting to nest or I’m at least feeling the pressure to nest.  I have nothing done in the baby’s room, I haven’t even picked out bedding options.  I’m starting to browse and will hopefully have some options lined up soon.  At the moment the nursery looks exactly like it did the day we moved Amelia to her big girl room.

I’m also starting to shop for baby necessities.  I created a registry at Babies ‘R Us as a go by so I can keep up with what we need/would like to have on hand when the baby comes.  There are just so many options out there and it’s hard to keep up without having a good list.  We got rid of all of our bottles due to the BPA recall, so I’ve been researching options and trying to figure out what type and how many we’ll need.  We never ‘did’ bottles with Amelia so we’re hoping and praying this kiddo is slightly more open-minded about where his/her food comes from.

I’m enjoying feeling the baby and sharing those kicks with Amelia and Dustin.  Pregnancy is truly magical and I am so blessed to be able to experience it again and share it with the people I love.  Last night while putting Amelia to bed Amelia decided to lay on my tummy.  The baby kicked her in the head over and over again and Amelia giggled hysterically and knew it was the baby kicking her.  That is by far the best moment of this pregnancy.

Amelia is getting so excited about being a big sister and asks if the baby is coming home tomorrow or if the baby can sit in her high chair tomorrow.  I keep telling her that the baby will be here in July and for some reason she keeps responding “ok, the baby will be here in August”…ummm, no we’re not adding months to pregnancy, 10ish is enough.  We’re hoping and praying that the excitement continues to build and that she’s receptive of the baby when the time comes.  Fingers crossed!

Grandma treated Amelia, Taryn and Keira to a fun day at the Houston Zoo and a ride on the train that surrounds Herman Park.  We have an awesome time enjoying the fish, the food and the fun train ride.  Here are a few snapshots from our day…