Napping with dad...

Life around here is a bit chaotic...our normal routines are messed up due to the end of the school year, a constant stream of doctor's appointments (at least it feels that way), and a tired mom. Henry needs routine, and as much as we still try to provide it, our current reality is that our routine is about to be completely flipped upside down pretty soon here. So...yesterday, after church, due to a horrible night of sleeping for all 3 of us, we took naps. I slept with Henry for about 1 1/2 hours and then when I woke up, John slept with him for another 2 hours. That's a 3 1/2 hour nap for Henry! (If you've read my blog for any length of time, you've probably gathered that Henry doesn't really do long naps). I just couldn't resist this picture...


And, obviously, no baby yet. My womb must be a pretty fantastic place to be since both Henry and baby #2 have stayed put past their due dates. Maybe tonight? Tomorrow? Sometime soon? Hopefully.

I'm still pregnant...

My doctor was on call today and had me come in to the hospital for an NST (non-stress test). She couldn't do this at my last appointment because apparently insurance only covers NST's after 40 weeks or if there is cause for concern (of which there is none). My doctor is pushing for an induction (for which there is no medical reason...only convenience), I think she thought that by getting me into the birth center today that I'd give in. I didn't. She tells me that induction would be so smooth since I am already 5cm dilated. (I was 5cm dilated when I went in to be induced with Henry too...and my labor and delivery went pretty much the opposite of smoothly). An induction may be on my horizon, but I just don't think that we should make that decision when I am a mere 1 day overdue. So...we continue to wait.

40 weeks...

Happy due date to us!

Henry wanted to take a picture by the door today too...

I'm 4-5cm dilated and my doctor said she can stretch me to a 6, but I still haven't had any intense/regular contractions. Hopefully they will start soon though! I have kept up with my twice weekly aerobics class throughout the duration of this pregnancy, and I even went today! I was hoping it would cause my water to break, but no such luck. Sharon went to aerobics on her due date with Jill, and gave birth the next day, maybe that's how things will work out for me too. We'll see.

Dr. Seuss quilt...

Last week I decided I needed to stop with the house projects. House projects tend to involve John, and after he installed a ceiling fan in Henry's new room (which turned into a huge ordeal thanks to a faulty electrical box and some poorly worded directions) I decided that nothing else needed to be done. Without having house projects to focus on, I knew I needed something to keep myself occupied...something that didn't involve anyone else. That something was this Dr. Seuss quilt...


I've had the fabric for awhile now and decided it was time to turn it into a playmat for Henry and the baby. I used the Dr. Seuss fabric along with leftover solids from Henry's quilt and any dot fabric that I had on hand that matched. I just finished quilting it today, and if the baby doesn't come in the next day or two, I will probably finish it. If I finish this quilt and the baby still hasn't arrived I may just start another one. I'm not one to go very long without a project...hopefully my next project won't be another quilt, but rather the birth of our baby. We'll see.

Our nursery...

This is what our nursery looks like for baby #2. Everything is pretty much the same as it was when we used it for Henry, it functioned so well for us that I just didn't feel the need to change anything. Here's the tour...

View from the door...

Billy bookcase and brown chair (although the brown chair may be relocated to the family room since we won't really need it in the nursery until the baby is actually sleeping in there)...

Dresser that our friend Mark helped me sand and repaint for John while in college (I think this was 8 years ago!)...

Crib with special blankets draped over. The yellow and white one is handmade by Stephanie and the blue one was made by my Grandma Net...

Changing station. This area has worked out perfectly for us! I use the 2 top drawers in the cabinet for Henry's clothes (although I will move his out and the baby's in once he/she arrives) . The drawer on the left stores shorts/pants and the one on the right stores shirts. I try not to have any more clothes for him than will fit in these 2 drawers (although his church clothes hang in the closet). In the cupboard below I store out of season clothes & clothes that he either needs to grow into or that he's outgrown and need to be packed away. The 3 tiered piece of furniture to the right of the cabinet has been the perfect diaper solution for us. I use the top section to store our cloth diapers, the middle section to store disposable diapers and burp rags, and the bottom section to store my sling & carrier along with extra wipes or other miscellaneous items. This set-up has been great!...

View out the door from the brown chair. Closet on the left, Henry's room in the middle, and the bathroom on the right...

We are looking forward to meeting the nursery's newest inhabitant soon!

Random stuff...

I'm trying to capture some of Henry's sweetness before the new baby comes. He likes to give me kisses, so here are a few photos of that. Neither of them are flattering in any way, but that doesn't matter to me. All that matters is that I can look back at these and savor them when Henry is in Jr. High and way too cool to give his mother kisses :)



Thoughts on Baby #2:

• While we are curious about the baby's gender, we truly don't care if we have a boy or a girl. I love the idea of having another boy because it would mean the potential for a special brotherly bond between he and Henry. But...having a girl would be great too, of course. I would love to teach her to sew and it would be great to have even gender distribution in the house.
• This baby will be the first person in our family to NOT be a firstborn. I think this will bring an interesting dynamic to our house.
• I'm curious to see how Henry reacts to the baby once he/she arrives. He is very aware of the fact that our baby is coming to live at our house soon and he is very gentle and sweet to everything baby related. He constantly gives my belly kisses and he likes to talk to me about how mom & dad will go to the doctor to get the baby. He also knows that mom will have ouchies after the baby is born and that the baby will drink mom's milk. He likes to hold his arms across his chest in a rocking motion to show us how he will hold the baby.
  
• I always pray with Henry before he goes to bed at night. Before we pray, I always ask him what he wants to talk to God about. Every single time he says, "Baby." So every night we pray for the baby, which is incredibly sweet. I wonder what he will want to pray for after the baby actually arrives?

Thoughts on Henry big boy bed transition:

• This transition was (is?) MUCH more difficult than we thought it was going to be. I purposely had Henry nap in his bed for over a week before we even approached the idea of moving him to it for night time. I thought this would make things seamless...not so much.
• We kept Henry's bedtime routine EXACTLY the same, only instead of using the crib, we put him in his bed. This didn't seem to help Henry.
• For the first week or so, putting Henry in his big boy bed was like giving him a huge candy bar. It totally wound him up and made it almost impossible to get him to sleep. Horrible. I guess it was the change of location and the fact that he could actually get out of his bed on his own that made everything so exciting. Either way, we would start our bedtime routine around 7:30ish with a bath, and it would be at least 10:00 before we could get him to sleep. Talk about exhausting.
• We were reminded again that Henry just isn't a very great sleeper and that change in routine is somewhat difficult for him.
  
• There is good news though! Henry is now falling asleep on his own in his big boy bed! Woohoo! John gives him his bath, brushes his teeth, and reads with him, and then I lay in his bed with him for 12 minutes while we sing & pray together. This helps calm him down and then he knows that when the timer goes off I will leave (always leaving the door open with the bathroom light on, of course) and he will fall asleep on his own. This routine is working for us, which is absolutely fantastic!
  
• So anyways, the big boy bed transition has seen its share of difficult moments, but at least we are making big improvements. Now we are working on getting Henry to sleep through the night and stay in his bed the whole time. Usually between 3:00 & 4:00 he ends up either wandering into our room, or calling to us from his bedroom. All things considered though, we are still pretty proud of how far we've come.

That's it for the randomness...I just wanted to remember these things before baby #2 comes along.

Growing...

We have a few things really growing around here...

the baby:


the garden:

I think we are about ready to harvest both!

The baby's quilt...finished!

Did I ever mention the fact that I was working on a quilt for the baby? I don't remember...

I finished this Little Owl quilt top before I even became pregnant. I had no plans for it, I just made it for fun. After starting Henry's birthday quilt I was starting to feel the urge to make a quilt for this baby, instead of having all of my babies share this one. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized that this owl quilt would be the perfect quilt for baby #2 since it used many of the leftover fabrics from Henry's crib quilt...plus the top was already done :) Since I didn't actually make the quilt top while pregnant I decided that I wanted to do a bit of hand quilting to make it that much more special. Part of the quilting process for me is really thinking about & praying for the child who will be gifted the quilt so the hand quilting was a perfect addition! I love the way it turned out. I used brown purl cotton to stitch around each owl and then stitched 2 squares into each blank space. The hand stitching is pretty imperfect, but I think it looks cute with the owls.

I think I will use this quilt for the baby's weekly update posts. It will be a great size for that.

15 weeks...

I guess I better start posting some pictures...


Since we (and by we, I mean John) plan on making a first birthday video for this baby when the time comes, we figure we had better make sure that we are committed to taking weekly growth pictures both before and after the baby is born. So, with that goal in mind, you will once again be subjected to these weekly posts for the next year and half or so. Scroll by them if you'd like, but quite frankly it's nice having them on the blog since my picture organization is slightly less than stellar :)

Two...

Baby Wiebe #2 is due June 10, 2011!

And, much to the chagrin of a few of our friends & family members...we will not be finding out the gender of this baby either. And for the record, John and I really don't care if it's a boy or girl. We are praying for a healthy baby.