Half-way there!

In preparation for being a big brother, Nico has decided to start working on his swaddling skills. He takes his adored bunny, bundles him in this green blanket, and walks around the house carrying Bunny like a baby and making cooing noises. It is adorable and he melts my heart every time. And then last week, he asked (for the first time ever) if he could hold our friends' two-month old daughter (baby Evy). So we sat him down on the couch, taught him how to put his arms out to hold her, and placed her on his lap. When he realized what was actually going on  he became very concerned and wanted to be very careful, and then he was done. Of course I realize that the moment baby brother/sister arrives, all this care and attention will probably go out the window and he'll want nothing to do with baby, but for now, I'll take it as a good sign.

Chillin' with Bunny

Another good sign: last week (at least I think it was last week), we were watching his friend Kara who really wanted to ride the tricycle. After Nico took a turn, he very politely (I was surprised), got off the bike and invited Kara to take a seat, which she did promptly, and then couldn't figure out how to scoot in it. So Nico decided to help her:

Helping Kara

And then he had to take a little break in between trips :)

Taking a break

It was cute. And it struck me as very big-brotherly... I don't know... Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but lately he seems to be very careful and caring of others which is great. 

So, about this new baby that's on the way... I am 20-weeks into this pregnancy, and I can't believe this is the first I'm posting anything about it (I'm really not good at this game). As with Nico, I have been extremely lucky with this pregnancy: no morning sickness! The first trimester I was super tired - I lost track of the number of times I fell asleep on Nico's bedroom floor after we got home from work with him using me as a car/train/bus track (after covering me with one of his blankies, of course), but I'm definitely getting some of my energy back now that I'm in the second trimester. 

So generally I've been feeling pretty good. Though I had a realization about this the other day. With Nico, I never felt sick or anything like that, and when anyone asked how I was doing I would tell them that I was feeling pretty good, and now when I think back on my first pregnancy I mostly think that it was "pretty good." However, it had it's moments... I had some pretty bad lower back pain (thank goodness for acupuncture) and general hip pain (you know, so that they could be ready to birth a baby and all). I had a strong aversion to meat (red meat in particular, which made me very sad) and spinach, and I had to snack constantly or I would get light-headed and dizzy. I also had some pretty bad sinus congestion during the second trimester (again, thank goodness for acupuncture! I felt air rush back to my head after some of those sessions), and some minor headaches. I know it's still pretty good compared to many other pregnancies, but it was a good reminder that things weren't perfect.

In any case, I don't think it's a bad thing - I like mostly just remembering the good parts, but I also want to make sure that I remember those silly little details about this time in my life. So, with that in mind, here are some things about this pregnancy so far:

• Super tired during the first trimester (which of course was harder to navigate with an almost-2-year-old running around the house.
• Lower back pain.
• Beer cravings (which is just mean).
• No food aversions, but a lot of the time nothing sounds particularly good.
• Started to feel baby move around a few weeks ago, and Matt felt the first kick last week.
• Stabbing round ligament pain at the weirdest of times (like when I'm getting out of the car).
• Very dry, itchy skin.
• And also acne (which seems like such a weird combination after the dry skin) in the weirdest of places - like my ear lobe (?!).

And yesterday we had our 20-week ultrasound. Everything looked great (baby was measuring just 3 days smaller than the due date, which is not surprising considering Nico was pretty small), which is always reassuring. We brought Nico with us, in an effort to keep him involved and interested in baby. We asked him if he could see baby in the monitor, to which he answered with an enthusiastic "yeah!" but mostly he was interested in driving the little race car he found in the waiting room around the table that mama was laying on. And now we have a sealed envelope that will tell us the gender of the baby - part of the whole "I want to know" but "Matt doesn't want to know" debate. We'll probably do what we did with Nico - open it at a later date, just us, and then share the news with friends & family... though we haven't really figured out the details of when that'll all happen. Stay tuned :)

19-week belly shot