Our Newest Edition

In case you didn’t notice the surprise in a previous blog post, Bryson is going to be a big brother!!  We like to think that he is super excited about the news, but he’s probably just wondering why Mommy is getting bigger.  Sometimes I think he is boycotting the idea, because he will jump on my belly when he’s playing and try to crush the baby.  But for the most part, he’s pretty indifferent.  We know he will be excited when the baby arrives, because it will give him someone to play with other than Mike and I – and Aspen, of course. 



He found her first toy

I am officially 21 weeks pregnant, and wow am I bigger than last time!  Maybe not by a huge stretch, but I can certainly tell a difference.  I even had a few brave souls ask me if I was pregnant in the FIRST trimester!  I blame the shirts on those days, but still.  That will teach me not to gain ANY weight around my co-workers.  If they asked me if I was pregnant while I wasn’t, that would be a hard blow to take.  I have had a really great pregnancy for the most part.  Granted, my immune system is normally stellar, and it has severely tanked the past few months.  I think I’ve caught anything I’ve been around, which has made for a yucky few days at a time, but I know it could always be worse...like never-ending morning sickness.  The first 9 weeks were rough, because I was constantly nauseous.  But once I conquered that hurdle, it has been smooth sailing.

If you’re wondering if this was planned, it was.  We wanted to give Bryson a sibling that he could be close in age with so they could grow up together.  If you do the math, they will be 20 months apart, which is just 4 months shy of our goal of 2 years.  When we first suspected I was pregnant, I had mixed feeling.  I really wanted another little one, because Bryson has been such an amazing blessing and such a wonderful little guy.  On the other hand, I felt like my attention would be taken from Bryson since I had to tend to the baby.  This was the part that I couldn’t quite get around.  It broke my heart to think that when Bryson wanted me, I may not be able to give him the full attention he wanted/needed if I was taking care of the baby.  That didn’t seem fair to Bryson, and I immediately felt like a horrible, selfish Mommy for trying to get pregnant.  That feeling still comes and goes, but I know it will be completely different once we have our new arrival with us.

So…I took the test and Mike wanted to be the first to know since I read it the last time for Bryson.  Mike and I were going through role reversal, because he was on cloud 9 to read the test.  I, on the other hand, was unsure.  With Bryson, Mike’s reaction was joyous mixed with complete and utter terror.  That’s sort of how I felt when he went to read the test.   As you can assume, Mike told me the test was positive.  I was happy and scared, all at the same time.  But not to jump to conclusions, I decided to take another test just to be sure.  So I drank LOTS of water, and within the  longest 30 minutes ever, I was able to take another test.  When Mike went in for the results to tell me it was positive, he came back out and said it was negative.  Negative!  What?!  That can’t be right!  I suddenly remembered reading on the instructions NOT to drink lots of fluids before taking the test since it can dilute the results (whoops!), so I decided to wait until the morning and take yet another test.  Odd how it took exactly 3 tests with Bryson also.  Once I knew there was a possibility that I was not pregnant, it made me wish that the first results were right.  That’s when I knew I was ready for Mommyhood again.  It reminded me of the Friends episode when Phoebe told Rachel she wasn’t pregnant, so Rachel thought she would be relieved, but instead she was really said.  Then Phoebe said – well that’s good, because I lied, it’s positive!  That episode always makes me tear up, because it was such a happy moment.  That seemed similar to what we went through – Yes, then No, then...

Now on to Test 3.  I took it the following morning after a fabulous night’s sleep (NOT!), and this time, I read the results myself since Mike was asleep.  It was positive, and I was elated!  I went in to tell Mike the good news.  I almost brought him the test to show him the results, but then I remembered how I took it and decided against it, because, well, ewww.  Either way, it was positive and we are going to be parents again.

Oh yeah, did I mention it was a GIRL!!!!  Please allow me to introduce you to our newest family member, Kylie Addison!!  Please pray for her healthy development.  She can’t wait to meet you!

Waving

Windows down!

We have learned the secret to keeping Bryson happy in his car seat when he gets fussy...roll all the windows down at full speed.  He LOVES it!!  He tries to catch the air with his hands, and he'll open his mouth really wide to try to eat the wind.  It's hilarious.  He laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world.  In his pictures, he looks like he's on a ride at Disney Land.  Hands up! 

I love this little guy!!

All about Bryson

A lot has happened since our little guy turned one.  He is learning so many new things, and it seems like each day I think “I didn’t know he could do/say that!”  It’s always a fun surprise.  He has grown to have a fascination with dogs.  Whenever he sees ones, he points to it and shouts “doggie!”.  It’s really cute to see how excited he gets.  On the flip side, I’m pretty sure he is certain that Aspen is not a dog.  He never says it to her directly.  Maybe he thinks Aspen is a cat?   And really, most small dogs he sees don’t get much of a reaction.  The bigger the dog, the louder he shouts.  He absolutely loves our neighbor's husky.  Not that I blame him, because it’s a beautiful dog.  His name is Khan, and he loves to lick Bryson in the face.  How nice.  Aspen hates Khan, but I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.  Ideally, I would insert a picture of Khan here so you can see the reference.  But I don’t have a picture, so we’ll move on.

In addition to saying doggie, Bryson has learned to say other words too.  They include uh oh (yes, that’s a word when you’re a mother of a toddler), hi, down, shoe, no (compliments of the demon child in his daycare class), turtle (said once but still totally counts), Mama, Dada, and his new word – Daddy.  He doesn’t say it like you would assume, though.  It sounds more like Da-deeeee, and he says it to me in lieu of Mama.  He literally points at me, smiles, and says Da-Deeee.  It seems no matter how many times I say Mama directly after he calls me this strange word, he keeps calling me that.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take what I can get, but geez, that’s not even close!

Speed has become Bryson’s middle name when it comes to walking – and home destruction.  He can take down EVERY toy he has, which as you can imagine is a lot, and scatter them in the floor in 0.7 seconds flat.  It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  His favorite activity is going to where his books are and pulling down every single one without a second glance at them.  Sometimes he acts like it’s a race to see if he can beat his last destruction time.  He’s usually successful, because before I can get to him to put a stop to the book pulling, it’s too late.  The damage has been done.  He is surrounded by 30 books that he has no interest in looking at.  Then he’s off to the next section of toys.  Occasionally he will help put things back where they belong only to dump everything out again seconds later.  But I figure as long as he’s having fun and playing with his toys, it’s better than being mischievous elsewhere.  Keep it up, Bryson!

When he stands in his chair, we tell him "down" and make him sit.  Now, when he stands, he immediately smilees at us and says down!...then continues to stand.  We'll get there.  Baby steps.



Please ignore the outfit - Mike thought stripes and plaid match.  Not so much.

On to the speed walking…did I mention he’s fast now?  It seems like he just started to master walking only a few months ago – because that’s true – and he’s taken it to a whole new level.  He speed walks everywhere.  He loves to look back at you to see if you’re going to chase him.  He’ll look, grin, then speed walk while he squeals because he thinks he’s going to get chased.  So how do you resist getting up and running after him?  You don’t.  You chase him, and he giggles like crazy.  Aspen is great at this game.  He will get one of her favorite toys, show it to her to get her attention, then when she jumps at him to get it, he gives her the backwards grin and takes off.  She chases him for at least 10 minutes, so it’s fun for them both. 

Our neighborhood pool has now been opened for an entire month.  We’ve had 4 full weekends to enjoy it.  Guess how many times we’ve been…Zero!  Zilch!  Nada!  Ugh.  I blame my fabulous immune system for two of those weekends.  I got strep throat one weekend and the stomach bug the other.  Since I had to quarantine myself to the bedroom for both occurrences, that meant no pool time.  Not cool.  Then one of the weekends Bryson was sick, so we weren’t able to take him.  Then, believe it or not, we were all set to go one time, and the stupid pool was closed for health reasons!  Seriously?!  I’m assuming that meant poop in the pool, but I’m not certain.  Either way, we were NOT going.  So that weekend we blew up Bryson’s pool (plan B) and he had a blast.  Maybe this weekend we will have a chance to go to the actual pool.  Fingers crossed!



Playing with his girlfriend, Julia.



They match!