Oh Canada...Baby!

Well, she's here! On December 21st we welcomed our little dual citizen to the family! "Bella" joined us at 2:24 PM after we patiently waited for her arrival...and she was only 6 days late! As I am sure I will be posting about her as much as her older sister, "Bugga", I'm going to continue with my little blog nicknames to have a little fun with my kiddos' names without putting them out there before they have an opinion on the topic.

Things are going great with us, and I have to say, as much as I didn't want my poor kids to have holiday birthdays, it is definitely nice to have my husband home for some extended time from work so we can navigate these crazy baby and toddler waters together until I can get my Mom act together to get back to doing this on my own during the week.

If Bella had taken much longer I was scheduled to be induced on Christmas Day, which I was NOT excited about! Fortunately she found her way out a few days prior and we were all able to spend our first Christmas in Calgary home in our cozy living room, fireplace going, snow coming down outside, and one exSTATIC 2 year old...it has definitely been a Christmas to remember!

Happy holidays to all, and I wish everyone an exciting and prosperous 2014!

Second Kid Stress

So here I am, trucking along into my 25th week of pregnancy with Baby #2. That puts us into viability range, which of course, is a nice relief of a milestone. In only a few short weeks I will be pushed over into the Third Trimester. I am starting to feel the stress of having two children creeping up on me.

I'm sure all toddler and newborn moments
 look like this, right? RIGHT?!?!

I know very well I won't be the first to do it, but I am spending more and more time lately trying to wrap my preggo-brain around the logistics of the first few days/weeks/months of my newborn's life while intermingled with my toddler's day-to-day needs. Looking back on my experiences with my first born, I think about how easy it was from my perspective now (go back and read some old posts and see how much I am rewriting history here) and if I was going to be a first-time mom again (which is impossible), I'd be SO. READY.

But that's not really the case here. As much as I know all to well how it works to have a baby, I know NOTHING about what it is like to have a baby AND A TODDLER. And my freakouts are getting a little bigger by the day.

Of course, we must plan for the hospital stay, and my toddler will not likely enjoy or understand that experience and is best left at home until the baby has arrived. This requires planning, especially since we have no family nearby, are new to our new country and therefore have a limited social network, and well, Bugga has never been away from both her parents at once for longer than an hour in her life. And though I "lucked out" last time by only being in labor during daylight hours, there's always that chance that I will need to call SOMEONE to high tail it over to the house at 2AM to watch my daughter as we go speeding off to Labor & Delivery.

Once we get home, then at least we will have a couple weeks of man-on-man coverage with both kids since my husband will be home (thanking my uterus for birthing babies during end-of-the-year holidays once again). But once I am left to my own parenting when he goes back to the office, I am trying to wrap my brain around how I will juggle two severely different nap schedules, nursing, and toddler entertainment and activities that will likely require getting out of the house. Did I mention I'll be doing this in the wintertime? In Canada? Yeah, think snow - lots and lots of snow. I'm not even going to entertain my husband's jokes about nursing outside.

What tiny advice I have obtained here and there is that baby #2 (and any baby after that, should we be crazy enough to go for more...uh....forget I typed that) will be required to be much more flexible then we ever gave baby #1 credit for. Gone will be the eerily quiet household when the baby is sleeping. Gone will be the peaceful nursing sessions in the dark in the glider. And a myriad of other things too, I'm sure.

I'm trying to collect more information on how to plan for the changes, but I'm still coming up short for my own comfort. I found an e-book (The ABC's of Baby #2) last night and devoured it at the gym today - helpful but brief. If anyone out there in internet land has any tips, or resources, I am ready!!!

Things People Say

When you are pregnant, you get the full gamut of surprisingly inappropriate comments from strangers, let alone people you work with, are friends with, and are even related to. Especially when you TELL them you are pregnant. I have heard the most infamous from other people, the ever-cringe-worthy "Was this planned?"...I mean really! My response to that would be, "Nope, can I borrow some money for diapers?" or something along those lines. I'll let you know if I hear that one.

My personal winner for what I hate to hear once I announce my pregnancy at the 3 month mark? "Oh, I KNEW IT!" You did? Really? Then I'm so glad I was stressing out for the past few months trying to keep this on the D.L. just in case we had a miscarriage and wouldn't have to tell you the bad news. I'm SO GLAD you watch the little details of my life so closely that every little movement I make is potential gossip fodder for you and your manicurist.

Yes, I have someone in my life who did this to me this time around. And it bothered me to no end because I knew this was going to be the first thing they said way before I even announced, primarily because of the gossip going around behind my back with other mutual acquaintances. So now I'm not thrilled about this person being a part of my good news, when they otherwise should have been. Grr. Yes, this deserves a growl.

What annoying things have you heard from others while pregnant?