8 months old

I cannot believe how time is flying by. Evan looks like a big boy already, he's growing so fast!

- Evan loves creeping around. Occasionally, he'll use his knees, but mostly he has the hang of creeping and he's very fast at it. Especially when you say no. He smiles and speeds up in the direction he shouldn't go.

- He loves exploring around. We've been giving him more freedom to go anywhere. He loves going to the window, and to the bookcase. Also favorites are the vacuum and the dog beds, particularly Fiona's nastiest bed. He really speeds up for that one.

- He no longer fits in his infant bath tubs, so he takes big boy baths now. He loves splashing water around. He still does it because it's new, not particularly because it's funny.

- He loves playing "Where is Evan?" with daddy and mommy. Daddy puts him over his shoulder, facing back, and daddy turns around asking me "Where is Evan?" When daddy is facing me, I act as if I don't know, when Evan is facing me, I'm making faces. He cracks up every time!

- He enjoys three meals a day now. He really loves feeding himself, which means he's starting to resist pureed food.

- His favorite pureed food right now is pumpkin apple, the perfect fall meal. His favorite fruit is still cantaloupe.

- He's very interested in the dogs, though he hasn't learned the art of petting. He likes grabbing and patting. He particularly likes pulling hair and grabbing noses.

- He can get himself sitting in his crib. We still haven't seen him do it though, he's just sitting when we go get him.

- He can out of his Bumbo seat. Silly us, we would sit him there while having dinner so we wouldn't have to chase him around, but he figured out how to get out of it. We're back to chasing him.

- This month we added story time to his bedtime routine, and he loves it. He loves books, especially chewing on them.

- We are down to one night waking! And he doesn't need to be fed, so we're definitely calling it progress.

- He has one beautiful tooth! We're still waiting for the second, as they're supposed to come in pairs.

- Finally, he's very excited to go visit Grandpa and Grandpa in San Diego! See you in 3 weeks!

So, now you know

We're pregnant! We're very happy and very excited, and can't believe how blessed we are.

Last Tuesday, when I realized I was late, I told Josh if we were still waiting in the morning, we would go get a pregnancy test. I'm very regular, but we were still playing it cool, though we pretty much knew the likelihood of a positive test was good.

I took the test, we danced to our wedding song while waiting for the result, and then looked at it. Lo and behold, we're pregnant. And it's awesome!

We have a doctor's appointment in 3.5 weeks. Symptoms are there, the same ones as with Evan so far. And you know what? We're being bold (or stupid) and we're saying it's twins!

Don't judge us, we're thinking things will seem a lot easier if it's just one, but just in case, we're mentally preparing for complete and absolutely fun filled chaos!

So now we have more to share. Not only is Evan becoming a big boy, but he's also becoming a big brother! And I'll tell you as much as find time to about Evan and Baby #2!

Waiting, again

Me and words, sometimes we just can't get it together.

Yesterday we had a Messenger date with my dad. We were going to get the webcam going so his family and my brother's family could see Evan. We waited for 20 minutes and nothing. So I got offline to have dinner, and got online afterward.

The Messenger has a status line, sort of Facebook does, and I wrote: "Waiting, again", in Spanish. Suddenly, both my mom and my cousin Marcela were messaging me, from different homes and different computers, asking if I had news to share. Mom was wondering why it was that she wasn't informed before. I was puzzled.

And then it hit me. "Esperando", which is "waiting", is also "expecting". So they read "Expecting, again". I was laughing out loud, I didn't even think of it that way!

In an effort to clarify and avoid further confusion, I said: "No, not expecting, waiting! I'm waiting for my dad". And both of them asked the same question again: "Oh, so your dad is visiting you?"

I give. Me and words, we're not communicating well...

Top 5

I've been meaning to write this for 7 months now, and I can't get it out of my head now, so here goes. I know this is useless for most of you, but maybe you know someone. feel free to pass it along.

My top 5 things to think about before you deliver:

1. Make sure you trust your OBGYN or midwife. I cannot stress this enough. You need to know your doctor is making all the right decisions, based on what you want and on what's best for your baby. When things started going south and our OBGYN said we might have to do a c-section, we had no problems with it whatsoever because we absolutely trusted our doctor. This is a big thing, choose your doctor/midwife carefully.

2. Even if you plan a home childbirth in a birthing pool, read about all the other possibilities. I refused to read about c-sections because that was not going to happen, I was going to have a vaginal delivery, period. Well, we know how that turned out. On top of the traumatic experience of an emergency c-section, I was completely unprepared for what the recovery process entailed, and the pain of the surgical procedure (my first surgery ever). It wasn't too bad until day 2, when I was so overwhelmed by everything that I just started crying. And crying with shoulder gas pain is the worst.

3. Speak up. If for any circumstance you don't like one of your nurses or any other staff, don't hesitate to fire them. The supervisor will more than likely give you a new nurse, no questions asked. We fired one of my nurses because she was being rude and snappy, and the nurse I got instead was a gift from God Himself. Katie was awesome. Not only did she do her job well, helped me with burping Evan and explained the whole shoulder gas pain to me, but she came back the next day (though she wasn't my nurse anymore) and gave me the best gift a breastfeeding mother can have: Soothies. OMG, I loved her! Her and my night time nurse, Pamela. They rocked.

4. Pack comfy clothes. I know this sounds obvious, but reconsider what you have. I had my maternity jeans, yoga pants, and a dress that I meant to use as a nightgown. It was cold and snowy outside, I didn't intent on wearing the dress. However, that was the only thing I could wear. So there I went, pretty dress, unshaven legs, and hiking shoes. And still cold. Think yoga pants with a drawstring that you need to secure or your pants will fall. You need that comfy.

5. If you plan on breastfeeding, buy nursing tanks, but don't think about nursing bras until at least a week after delivery. Your boobs will grow and your torso will shrink a bit once you stop retaining liquids. If you wait a bit, you have a better shot at getting the size right. Unlike me, who ended up with a bra that's too big in the torso and it shifts in the middle of the night, which caused some uncomfortable wet spots. And either way, there are few things worse that an ill fitting bra. And go get those Soothies, they are really fabulous and giving sore and cracked nipples an refreshing break.

Sharp surprise

Evan was quite cranky yesterday, and rubbing his gums like there was no tomorrow. I figured I would give him some Ora.jel to give him some relief. I was surprised when I rubbed it in and felt the sharpness of a tiny tooth. Yay!

It's the bottom left front tooth. I'm not quite sure that it's all out because Evan won't let me see, but from the way it feels, I would guess it is. However, he's still cranky and in pain, and I thought that was supposed to stop as soon as the tooth cut through.

Maybe the other one is on its way? I don't know, that's just a wild guess.

Yay for teeth!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

We seem to be having a bit more progress on the sleeping front. Evan is still waking up twice, but he now wakes up between 1-3 am, and again between 6-6:30 am. Hopefully those will keep moving a bit, until his second wake up is around 7:30 am, which is really when I'd like him to wake up for the day. It we get there, we'll only have one night waking (yay!), working it's way out.

Also, turns out he does like avocado! He just doesn't like it pureed, but if it's a chunk he'll eat it. And he's the best at letting me know he doesn't like something. He tries it, puts it down, and looks at me with a "No, not really. What else do you have, mom?" expression. Better than screaming and spitting!

The Bad:

His attention span is so short, and he gets over toys so quickly, I have trouble keeping him entertained. And he's set on getting to the dogs and/or their dog beds. He probably tries about 15-20 times a day. Let's not go into details of why I don't trust our dogs to just be cool if Evan reaches out to them or is in their way. The dog beds are NASTY. Evan eats enough dog hair from the carpet and the dog hair laying around, I don't even want to think about him getting to those beds... And those beds will never see the inside of my still brand new washer, where I wash diapers. Hell to the no!

Also, he doesn't like broccoli. But like I said, he was very cool about it.

The Ugly:

I've given up faith. It's time to admit defeat, and let go of my silly dreams. I must admit, here and now, that I was wrong. I don't think Evan is left handed. Sigh... Oh well, nobody is perfect ;)

Slight improvement

Just a quick update on the sleeping front. We moved Evan's bedtime to half hour earlier, and it seems to be helping. Most nights he has been waking up only twice, about every 4 hours. Let me tell you that alone is huge, because I seem to function better with 4 hour intervals of sleep than with 3 hour intervals. I feel more rested and less cranky.

And Evan is more calm when he wakes up at night. Instead of starting to cry, he talks and whines, but it takes a while for him to cry, and once or twice he has been able to go back to sleep on his own, albeit only for about half hour more. After some more reading we'll probably start doing a few more things to help him sleep through the night.

I'm feeling positive, people!