MIA

I'm sure everyone now is well aware of why the long blogging absence... In my free time lately I've been doing a lot of sleeping. Why you ask? You mean everyone doesn't know by now? Well, I'm pregnant again! Woohoo! Ok, that's all I can muster up for now - it's bedtime. I'll do more later.

Ha ha. Just kidding. I'm feeling pretty good tonight, but these past few weeks, I was losing steam in the evenings even before Laura was in bed. Many nights I was fighting staying awake while lying on the couch with her playing around and on me - note to anyone who thinks it may be possible to sleep with a toddler wide awake in the same room - it's not possible. You may rest. You may close your eyes. You may also wake right up out of a stupor when you get smacked with an open hand in your eye. Ouch. You may also have to fight the urge to wring the neck of whichever family member thought it would be a good idea to smack your face. Oh, it was the sweet loving toddler who as soon as you woke up was all smiles and giggly and wanting to kiss every inch of your face? Guess that makes the urge to wring said neck go away - almost.

I'm in my 10th week of pregnancy now so hopefully nearing the end of the exhaustion. I'm glad to be able to say that I do not get morning sickness when I'm pregnant, but my next symptom that I'm waiting for now is headaches. I've had a few so far, but they get worse around 11-13ish weeks - at least they did last time.

So let me answer all the questions everyone is dying to know and get those out of the way:
Were we trying to have another baby? Yep.
Does Laura understand the whole baby concept? Not a bit. She's not even 2 yet, but she loves taking care of her baby dolls so I bet she'll catch on pretty quickly when the baby is actually here.
When am I due? February 17th
Do we know the gender yet? (Yes, I've been asked this a few times already!) No. It's too early. We will find out though and I expect it'll be either end of September or early October when we can.
Have we picked out names yet? No. Haven't even really thought about them yet.

So how did we find out this time that we are expecting...? I had a very strong feeling that May was not going to be our month - my grandmother passed away so we were gone for a few days and Richie ended up with a nasty case of shingles that kept him pretty uncomfortable for 3 weeks. I took a test the earliest day I thought it might test positive and it gave the faintest light pink line. I tried to take a picture of it, but the line didn't even show up in the picture. The next day I tried another test - same thing. Very faint line. The next day I took another test and it was a tad darker. The day of the third test was June 7th - our 6 year anniversary. Richie came out to the kitchen that morning and almost the first words out of his mouth to me were, "Why are their pregnancy tests all over the place?" Whoops - I'd left one by the computer and one in the bathroom. So I didn't have to come up with a fancy way of telling him. He did ask me if I was sure I was pregnant though. I asked him if he could see two lines and he did. I ended up taking two more tests later that week just to see if the lines were darker - and they were. Hey - it's not like the tests broke the bank - those tests from the dollar tree are as good as if not better than any of those EPT or First Response tests!

We decided we didn't want to tell family for a few weeks. When I was pregnant with Laura, I didn't get to tell my parents in person so I wanted to wait until we'd see them. We weren't going to say anything at work either - but Robin and Nicole that I work with figured it out that very week! Robin made a comment about how skinny I was looking and I said thanks - and then she said (I think half jokingly) "It's from morning sickness, isn't it?" - well, anyone who knows me, knows that I can NOT lie - my face won't even let me lie by keeping quiet. So, without me saying anything, Nicole and Robin knew. I called my boss Cathe later that week to ask her if I could have 12 weeks off in the spring. Her response was, "are you trying to tell me something?" We did tell daycare that week too - I sent Laura in with her "I'm a big sister" tshirt and Jenna saw it first thing! I needed to let Lynne know so we can reserve the spot for our new addition.

So, my parents were coming out to our house the weekend of June 27th so they could watch Laura while Richie and I went to Stephanie and Jason's wedding. Laura went down for a late nap that day and when she finally woke up, I put her "I'm a big sister" shirt on her and brought her into the living room where everyone was. I took her over and held her by my dad and he read her shirt out loud - but didn't comment. He just gave Laura a hug and a kiss. I paused... thinking maybe he'd comment. Then I said "Ok, let's go give Grammie a hug and a kiss"... took Laura to her and she read the shirt too but again - no comment. At this point, Richie and I looked at each other in disbelief - he said something like "Wow, a little slow today" and my mom was like "ohhhhhh! Ken, read her shirt again!" and then they got the message. I thought the shirt would have been an easy way to spread the word, but maybe not so much!

We headed off to the wedding and I think the evening would have been a tad easier if a few people had known we were pregnant - I ended up getting a headache part way into the evening and it was taking all I could muster to stay awake, let alone boogie on the dance floor - but everyone kept trying to get me up to dance. I just couldn't with a pounding headache. And once the doors were propped and the cigar smoke was wafting in, whew - I'm glad I didn't have morning sickness on top of the queezyness from that. The wedding itself was beautiful though and we did have a good time!

We had a picnic to say farewell to the bride and groom the next day and although I would have loved to put Laura's shirt on her to make the announcement, we just couldn't - it wasn't our weekend to share news. It was Jason and Stephanie's weekend.

I emailed my sister a copy of the new family picture - but since she was out of town for a family reunion, it took her about a week to see it! And we were going to tell my brother and his wife while they were camping (they were supposed to come visit us at camp for dessert), but their dog ate a fish hook so they ended up at emergent doggy care for the evening and I just had to tell them on the phone the next morning when we checked in on poor Roscoe. By the way - he's fine. I also sent the email picture to a few of my cousins, aunts and uncle - and it took some of them a few days/weeks to "get" the picture too...

So - the next weekend - July 4th is when we told all of Richie's family! We got to his parents house at 1ish for a picnic and just as a few people showed up and we had dished up our food - I called Richie's mom over and said Laura had to show her something. It was a chilly day so we had a sweatshirt over Laura's shirt. I opened and immediately the message was boasted loud and clear :) Everyone there was very excited! ...and the excitement just grew as the day wore on - but more about that once I get the go-ahead from another party to post about it :)

I've had two appointment so far and also had an ultrasound - I'll update on those maybe tomorrow...