2

2…it may not seem like a monumental number to most but in 2 weeks my sweet girl will be 2 years old. And in less than 2 months I'll have 2 babies to love on, care for and worry about/obsess over.

First, let's start with little Nicolette turning 2. 

This hardly seems possible or even fair. The past year has gone by at least twice as quickly as her first year. Every day she is learning more, talking more and making me laugh more. She is such a treasure and really is such a sweet, sweet child. She's an absolute sponge…soaking in EVERYTHING that everyone around her says and does (so please watch your language if you're spending any time around Nicolette)!

The Italian marvels at the fact that she and I can sit at the dinner table and talk back and forth for a good 30-45 minutes. She is my best little buddy.

I can't bring myself to correct her when she walks up to me with her arms up and says, "Mommy? Hold you?" My heart will ache when she says it correctly and will very likely break when she no longer asks me to hold her at all. She loves to curl up in my lap and say, "Mommy, make me cozy?" which means she wants me to cradle her and hold her like a little baby. She'll do the same thing with her dollies and either ask me to make them cozy or cradle them in her little arms herself and beam with pride as she boasts about how she's making her baby cozy. She is obsessed with her baby dolls and could spend the entire day taking care of them. Sometimes she "nurses" them, sometimes feeds them bottles, changes their diapers, always careful to put diaper cream on, pushes them in her shopping cart or "strolder" (which she pronounces like I imagine a German would…she almost rolls the "s" and emphasizes the "d" in strolder"). And speaking of strollers, she still loves the stroller and has no problem hanging out in the stroller for an hour or more at dr.'s appointments or whatnot. She LOOOOOOVES shoes and loves looking at her shoe collection and picking out which shoes she's going to wear for the day. Sadly she also loves hair and hair accessories. The hair is finally coming in but not enough for ponytails and Nicolette asks for mommy to "do ponytails" almost daily…soon enough baby, soon enough.

Exhibit A - hanging out in the stroller happily while
mommy enjoys a pedicure she was given for her birthday! 

Then as soon as we got come, she wanted to
give Daddy his own pedicure!

Nursing her bunny

Obsessed with mommy's shoes

Obsessed with mommy's shoes

"Mommy do ponytails?"

She loves when I make silly faces at her, can say her first and last name and can also tell you that she turns 2 in July. She has started reciting entire pages of some of her favorite books. Her favorite book right now is an old Golden Book from the 60's titled "Little Mommy".  She'll ask to read that one and randomly recite "Billy is Daddy, he works in the city. He's got a new car, isn't it pretty?" or many of the other pages from the book in her sweet little sing song voice throughout the day. She still loves to "read" and look at books. 9 times out of 10 when I lay her down for nap or bedtime she'll look up at me and say "Book?" I'll hand her a book and she'll flip through the pages until she falls asleep. I hope her love for reading continues as she grows up!

We've made a few feeble attempts at potty training. Had a couple of instances where she asked to go peepee or poopoo on the potty and actually did it. Also had a successful afternoon in big girl underpants and then had 3 accidents in big girl underpants the next morning so I'm not sure where we stand on the potty. I want to take the time to do the intensive 3 day potty training "boot camp" but we honestly have not had 3 consecutive days at home without traveling, dr.'s appointments, mommy's meetings or classes for work or what not. Oh well, we'll get there eventually right?

Our first peepee…I have more photos but refuse to post
nudie pics on my blog. 

We spent a few days with Gram & Papa in Connecticut over Father's Day weekend. Gram was so impressed at what a good eater Nicolette was. We're still 80/90% organic with what we feed her. Right now her favorite food would probably have to be cucumbers with red wine vinegar and a little seasoning salt (this was my FAVORITE snack as a kid, teenager and even now). She'll eat a full cucumber in one sitting and ask for more. She also gobbles up wild alaskan salmon…she can eat a 6-8oz filet with no problem. She loves the oatmeal I make for her in the mornings with old fashioned oats, hemp seeds, chia seeds, ground flaxseed meal and wild organic blueberries. She's always asking for more "booblerries". Avocados are still a go to for us as well. And of course we're still nursing 2-3 times a day. I've tried to get her to drink organic, grass fed milk out of  a sippy cup and she really had no interest and would take a little sip and then hand it back to me with a look of disgust on her face and say "no…no muhlk." She does love cheese though! Don't think she's totally deprived though…she has eaten take out pizza two or three times and even had the grilled chicken bites at Chick fil A once. She's only had cake once, on her first birthday but we'll have cake again this year on her birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, I had so much fun planning her 1st birthday celebration but this year I was really torn over what to do. I finally decided (last week) that what I'd really like more than anything is just to celebrate with our little family. I plan to bake a cake from scratch with Nicolette and we'll have her favorite dinner and just celebrate with the three of us. Simple and sweet. Part of me still wants to have "a party" but I think this will be a better memory for our family. I know she probably won't remember it, but I always will.

And now it's Baby Walker's turn

In less than 2 months, we'll be a family of 4 and I can hardly believe it! This pregnancy dragged on in the beginning. When I was so nauseous it felt like summer would never get here but now everything is in fast forward. My second trimester was very similar to my second trimester with Nicolette but the third trimester is definitely more exhausting this time around. I'm sure that's because I'm chasing a very active nearly two year old for most of my waking hours. Carrying Nicolette around and bending down and picking her up and putting her down is definitely harder on my body than my old job. I've been having tons of Braxton Hicks contractions which I really didn't have with Nicolette but my OB assured me that this is normal, especially for a second pregnancy. He just keeps reminding me to rest while I can and not do too much. Ha! Easy for him to say…he's never experienced the "nesting" instinct that we mommies to be go through. I'll settle down to take a bath and instead spend 4 hours cleaning our bathroom and then decide to spend the next 2 days totally reorganizing the bathroom and linen closet. Go to the kitchen for a snack and spend 4-5 hours emptying all cabinets, drawers and both pantries and deep cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen. Sit down to watch tv and spend hours painting and upholstering Nicolette's tiny table and chairs that go in her playroom. I'm a crazy person. And yet Walker's room is at a stand still.

The Italian spent a weekend priming and painting the room and is insisting on installing crown moulding but that isn't up yet. He's been traveling a LOT for work including some international travel so finding time to complete this is a challenge. AND we're having all of the carpet replaced in our house at the end of the month so we have to work around that too. Poor Walker's dresser and crib are still boxed up in our foyer…no sense getting them out until the new carpet is in. And I've got some really cool vintage golf artwork that's just chilling in the hallway…can't really decide where to hang them until the furniture is in and we've already established that that isn't happening anytime soon, soooooo….just twiddling my thumbs on this project.

Since I can't "nest" in the nursery I started focusing on the playroom. I've started making cornice boards for the windows (a super cheap and easy DIY project) and painted her table and chairs and padded and upholstered the seat cushions. Got some cheap, bright throw pillows for the sofa and am hoping to have enough fabric left over from the cornice boards and upholstery project to be able to make a couple of throw pillows for the sofa. We'll eventually paint the playroom…probably a neutral/tan color. Nicolette's play kitchen is up there and it is red so I wanted to find something fun but not to girly to go with the red kitchen. Hopefully this will all look nice once it's all finished (if that ever happens).

Table & Chairs "Before"

Table & Chairs "After" - I think I'm going to stencil the top
with some sort of pattern

First cornice board - don't have the hardware to hang it yet

PILLOWS!

I don't remember feeling tired as easily when I was pregnant with Nicolette. I get worn out so quickly now with Walker. And not in a "I want to take a nap" sort of way. More of a "I feel like I just did 20 burpees or mountain climbers and now I can't breath and need to sit down ASAP" kind of way. Speaking of burpees and mountain climbers I have only worked out a couple of times during this pregnancy and now that I'm getting the "I'm going to black out and faint if I don't sit down every 15 minutes" feeling I'm afraid to even try. Sometimes I feel like we can go for a walk without fear of me fainting in the middle of the street but not very often. It was scary enough when it was just me while I was pregnant with Nicolette but now that I have her with me and I'm pregnant and could easily black out in the middle of our neighborhood I think I'll pass on the walks (unless we have friends with us).

I had a lengthy prenatal consult with my lactation consultant yesterday and I think we have a good plan moving forward to help breastfeeding with Walker get off to a better start than we did with Nicolette…fingers crossed and lots of prayers that I don't have to go through the rigorous schedule (see here) that I kept up for the early months with Nicolette.

Today I scheduled all of my remaining prenatal OB appointments, pre-registered at the hospital and registered Nicolette for a "sibling class" at the hospital for next month. We had a good OB appointment this morning, he was super active so the nurse had to chase him around with the monitor but his heartbeat was strong at 154 bpm. (My blood pressure is still on the low side at 90/54). I also moved the pack n play and glider into our room so that when Nicolette sees everything we can talk about where Walker is going to sleep and how things are going to change in a couple of months. She already knows where his room is and talks about it a lot. She also knows that Walker is in mommy's tummy, that she's going to be a big sister and that her brother's name is Walker. Nicolette and I went shopping today and picked out a special gift for her to bring to the hospital to give to Walker when he gets here. It's a little puppy dog lovie with his name embroidered on it. She loved carrying it around the store and seemed to understand when I told her that it was a present for her to give to her brother.

Walker is craving many of the same foods that I craved with Nicolette at this point…lots of salad and TONS OF FRUIT! Berries are my obsession…especially raspberries, but pretty much all fruit is fair game at this point…watermelon, mangos, grapes, berries, apples and I'm addicted to lemonade mixed with sparkling water to make it nice a fizzy.

Overall at nearly 33 weeks pregnant I'm feeling good but also a little nervous. Nervous about being away from Nicolette for the first time ever, nervous that this labor and delivery will likely be entirely different than my first so not knowing what to expect, nervous that I'll go to the hospital too early or even worse wait until it's too late (since last time I delivered 40 minutes after checking in I can't say that I'm the best at gauging how far along I am into my labor), nervous that Nicolette will feel neglected once Walker does arrive, nervous, nervous, nervous. But also excited. I can't wait to meet this little guy and have another baby to snuggle and love. And definitely excited about watching Nicolette love him too! We are truly, truly blessed and I thank God daily for trusting not one but two precious babies to our care. He has more faith in me than I have in myself.