12 Weeks
How far along? 12 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: Officially: 2 lb.
Inches gained: 1 inch
Maternity clothes? just dug out a pair of maternity jeans...much more comfortable :)
Sleep: Still having weird dream and some insomnia if my bladder or child wake me up!
How I'm feeling: Nausea and fatigue letting up slightly. Nerve pain, assorted aches!
Best moment this week: Hearing baby's heartbeat today! Dan and I getting a date night on Friday. Thank you, Aunt Lala :)
Movement: None that I can feel yet.
Food cravings: Lemon Italian ice, olives, mozzarella cheese
Food aversions: pork, broccoli, whole wheat bagels or bread (I usually like these!)...something different daily.
Gender: unknown
Labor Signs: No!
Belly Button in or out? In
What I miss: Not getting cramps every time I eat!
What I am looking forward to: Feeling the baby move, not feeling sick.
Milestones: Hearing the heartbeat today :) A strong 160.

11 Weeks!

How far along? 11 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: Not sure - maybe 2 lbs gained if any yet. (I'm not weighing myself regularly yet - will know for sure at my doctor's appt. next week.)
Inches gained: 1/2 inch
Maternity clothes? Not yet - but starting to get a little uncomfortable in my jeans!
Sleep: Very weird dreams, some insomnia if my bladder or child wake me up!
How I'm feeling: Still frequently nauseous and exhausted but the fatigue is letting up a little. Some sciatic nerve pain already :(
Best moment this week: 2 full nights of sleep in a row! (oh, and Dan taking me out to breakfast to satisfy some cravings without having to fill the house with the cooking smell :))
Movement: None that I can feel yet.
Food cravings: Soup, eggs on toast, bacon, Yoplait thick and creamy yogurt or whips, something different everyday...
Food aversions: pork, broccoli, whole wheat bagels or bread (I usually like these!)...something different daily.
Gender: unknown
Labor Signs: No!
Belly Button in or out? In
What I miss: Not being nauseous.
What I am looking forward to: The part of the pregnancy where I look pregnant and can feel the baby move but am not super uncomfortable yet or nauseous anymore!
Milestones: Ultrasound two weeks ago when we saw our little alien :)

winter blue

Well, it’s begun. Winter is becoming oppressive to me, as I predicted. I wish I could have held out until at least half-way through February. The view out my front window is gorgeous. There’s a tangle of trees, every branch caked with new snow. I like that. But I don’t like the stir crazy that is getting mixed in with my usual crazy. After this long of not being able to just step outside in my bare feet, but instead having to get Liam and myself all bundled and booted up, I’m beginning to feel buried.

This morning I was about to empty the dishwasher, but when I opened it, I found that I had already done so. I muttered, “Oh right. Good job, Angie.”
I’m congratulating myself verbally for remembering to do my housework! I need to get out more. But I don’t want to get out, not until spring! Soon I will be reduced to a muttering puddle of a person who will only leave the house once Dan has shoved boots on my feet, swaddled me in my coat and wound a scarf around my whole head. Oh, and has thrust a steaming cup of coffee in my hand for me to perpetually clutch and sip until I am warm and snug again.

Bright side: Liam’s face when we pull him on his sled. It’s the rosiest, brightest, happiest of faces. How can I stay mad at winter after that?

Baby, it's cold outside :)

So. I have decided that I LOVE having a child at Christmas time! Believe it or not I love having a child at all other times as well, but Christmas is so fun for me this year :) I love seeing the glee on Liam’s face every morning when he gets up and sees the Christmas tree all lit up. He’s delighted that it’s there every morning, as fascinating as it was yesterday! (I’m not worrying yet about how sad it will be when the Christmas tree has to come down…) He enjoys looking at his reflection in the ornaments, making silly faces and laughing at his magnified nose and eyes, and dragging Dan and me over to join him.

I love that he is starting to comprehend doing things for people. He enjoys coloring pictures, covering them with stickers, and giving them to people. The other day we sat down to color and do stickers and he said, “Lala?” I asked if he wanted to give the picture to Aunt Leah ("Lala"), and he said "YA!"
I think he’s going to enjoy giving Christmas gifts, especially if he’s covered the wrapping paper in stickers :)

Liam and I love to look at books together, though he’s a bit controlling with the books at this point. He often has to be the one to hold them (often upside down), turn the pages, point and jabber. I have a feeling that soon he’ll be deciding what the books should say as well.

I might not be a winter person, but I’m not sick of it yet - good sign, right? I love being warm and cozy inside, watching Liam enjoy the Christmas decorations and the snowfall outside, sometimes having a fire lit in the evenings. We’ll see how I’m doing with my winter attitude a month from now!

Heart Carved Tree Trunk, Yankee Bayonet

I am not sure if I have ever been more ready for fall. Not that I haven’t loved this long, glorious summer we’ve been experiencing…it has served to prep me for fully enjoying a cool, spicy autumn that I might otherwise have dreaded (for setting the stage for that frigid beast, winter). I’ve been basking in the pre-autumn winds, and have bought as many fresh school supplies as I could get away with without actually having school age children or going to school myself. You can’t imagine my excitement when I saw that our church was collecting school supplies for Kids Hope - an actual reason plopped in my lap for buying boxes of brand new crayons, pencils (colored AND non!), filler paper, scissors, glue, etc! Dan teased me that I was reaching a state of frenzied enjoyment that would cause me to pluck a child from a crowd and ask if his mother had bought him his school supplies yet, because if she hadn’t, then I would!
Ahem. Anyway, I do love this time of year. It makes me want to read Harry Potter, as it always does. (But then, there are many things that make me want to read Harry Potter…)I love that I can vaguely hear the MHS marching band practicing from our front porch. There’s something about hearing a marching band playing Lady GaGa that makes me smile…
I will miss my younger siblings when school starts, however. I’ve been babysitting my nephew Micah and invariably my brothers and sometimes Leah will want to hang out to “help” with the boys (It is actually helpful, I only use the quotations for those moments when my tiny house resounds with the boisterous din of 4 boys, aged 3 months to 16 years enjoying themselves a bit too loudly for me to hear myself think. But I know that in just a few weeks when it’s just me and the babies I will be missing those boisterous boys!)
We wrapped up the summer by spending rather too long at the fair. It was fun watching Liam with the animals, but he was more timid than he wanted to let on. When I reached out to stroke a horse's nose, he quickly leaned way back, as if to say "you're NOT getting me to touch that thing!" Apparently my disinterest in the available rides wasn't good enough for Joe and Dan (Shannon was an accomplice), who dragged me back later that night and talked me into riding the nausea-inducing "big rides." I won't give in to peer pressure next year.

Liam has decided that the more noise he can make, the more powerful he will become. We’re working on the tone of voice for now, as “shhh” does not register with him and his shrieks can get to be a bit much. He is still an enthusiastic dancer, and has a few moves that he breaks out the moment he hears music, along with a little be-boxing. Besides his VBS and Winnie the Pooh music, he loves Aunt Leah’s Tarzan soundtrack. He’s incredibly rambunctious but still has time to give his “Ma” lots of kisses, at least when there’s nothing too exciting going on! He always has time to kiss and coo at baby Micah, and seems to think that the poor kid would like nothing better than to have his toes tickled by Liam every time he sees him.
Anyway, he is currently waving his arms wildly from his high chair to get my attention, so I should probably wrap-up. Tootle pip!

From G.K. Chesterton

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again...’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

Slainte!

I still love to make soup in the summer!
Just with the air conditioning cranked up, since this is the most humid summer in my memory. But I do love making soup so much, it is my favorite thing to cook. I always make something different, and I don't need a recipe, I just think of what might work together, and it usually works out well...the occasional distasteful surprise, but only occasionally :) My most recent concoction was made with the help of my husband, as we both were inspired to recreate a pureed root vegetable soup that we had in Ireland. It turned out a lot like we remembered and we were very excited. We made a big batch and froze some, and I'm making more this weekend for my sister's birthday on her request :)

I've been reading Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis and Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. I took a Lewis class in college and it was one of the best classes I took, and I read quite a lot of his books. I missed out on the Chesterton class and always regretted it. It's actually unusual for me not to plow through a few fiction books a week, but I've been devoting my nighttime/Liam's naptime reading to these books and I've really loved it. I've never read anyone's writing as insightful as C.S Lewis' and I don't think I ever will. And I love good British wit of course :)

Well I thought I'd have more time to write a leisurely blog post but unfortunately my son is definitely in need of my attention. So I'll wrap up: WenttomallBarnesandNobleIloveyoubutyou'refreezing,wanttobuymumsfallrocksmysocks,needtoedgeourlawn,hadagreatbirthdayworeallorange,alsosweetanniversarywenttoBennigansslainte!