So. Lots of news, if I really think about it. Perhaps I should warn you right off the bat... this one is likely to be long. Pop some popcorn or something.
Tomorrow is our third wedding anniversary! Kind of. Next Wednesday is also our third wedding anniversary. We got married the day before Easter in 2011, which was April 23rd. I gave James permission to remember "the day before Easter" as our anniversary. So... this has resulted in his near-inability to remember that April 23rd is special. Oh well. I personally think "April 23rd" is easier to remember than "the day before Easter" (fewer syllables!), but I'm not super impressed with James' memory for names and dates and such, so I'll let him get away with it.
Just this Monday, I gave him a pop quiz: Name all your nieces and nephews, James. Go. He performed... poorly. [Don't worry, the following embarrassing conversation has been posted with James' permission.]
"Okay, James. Danny's kids. Go."
"Uhhh... [thirty second pause]... Nathaniel!"
"Yes, okay, next kid?"
"...[long pause]..."
"Seriously, James?"
"James!"
"Good. Next?"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Oh, um... Lizzy. Elizabeth."
"Good. Next?"
"...[deer-in-the-headlights face]... I honestly don't remember."
"What is wrong with your memory, boy? You should totally remember her name after this last month!"
"I should, I suppose, but I forgot."
"AUGH! Katya."
"Oh yeeeeah!"
"Okay, Jesse's kids."
"...[another pathetically long pause]... Urban?"
"And?"
"... Uhhh..."
"James. You seriously have no excuse. We basically spent four months living right next to them!"
"Uhhh... Oh, Ayla!"
"Okay, good. Next?"
An entire minute goes by. "Um..."
"!!!!"
"Um..."
"Do you even remember which vowel it starts with?"
"...No?"
"O."
"Oh, Oak!"
"Now. Their newest baby?"
Another two minutes. "I have no idea."
"Hint. Think math."
"That didn't help at all."
"Seriously? Eigenvalues?"
"Ohhh! Yes! Eigan!"
"Ben's kids."
"Oh no."
"How long did you babysit for this boy?"
"A lot. Ian?"
"That's number two."
"Oh."
"What is number one's name?"
"... Uhh... uhh... Puma! Wait..."
"They're all Puma." [All of Ben's kids have Puma as their middle name.]
"Oh! Sean!"
"Good, good... Now, the newest baby...?"
"... ... ... ... ... ..."
"Oh, come onnn!"
"I have no idea."
"Uhh... Think Discworld?"
"How the heck is that supposed to help?"
"What is wrong with you, boy?"
"Yeah, I don't know."
"It's Terry, James. Terry."
"What does that have to do with Discworld?"
"Terry Pratchett? [facepalm] You do remember your siblings' names? And your parents' names?"
He did fantastically on those, at least. I'm not going to embarrass him with his attempts to remember his grandparents' names. One of these days I'm going to have to make him niece-'n'-nephew flashcards. With pictures.
Anyway... James is doing all right. This newest term has bestowed him with a schedule that makes me want to wail and gnash my teeth. Or at least it did at the beginning. I suppose it isn't so bad now... (James, you did not see the previous two sentences. My life is horrible, mmk? And it's all your fault! ;) Just kidding...)
James teaches Monday through Thursday during the 5 o'clock hour, which means he doesn't get home until after 6pm. (The doom!) It is worse on Tuesdays when he often just barely has time to eat something before heading out to do missionary stuff, as well as on Wednesdays when he stays on campus until maybe 7:30 so he can climb. (Ugh! Exercise? Service? The dooooom! Poor, poor wife! ;) I am cursed to have a wonderful husband. Cursed.)
Theoretically, James is going to finish his Ph.D. (often pronounced "fudd" in our house) sometime this next year. Which means that sometime in the summer of 2015, we will be moving somewhere new and mysterious. And we will stay there for a year or two before moving somewhere newer and mysterious...er. Possibly permanently.
One very possible possibility (hmm... I should expand my vocabulary) is San Diego, California. The postdoc salary (minus rent, minus taxes) is about twice what James is making now (minus rent, minus taxes), so this is a fabulous thing. He might actually be able to support a family! Huzzah!
Amelia. Amelia, Amelia, Amelia... Um, well, she's alive. Doing well, mostly.
She has suddenly shown an interest in the potty again. She completely abandoned the idea of using the potty in favor of "being too busy playing". Seriously. ("No! Not the potty! I'M BUSY DESTROYING THE HOUSE! I can't cause chaos whilst stuck on a TOILET!")
She's obsessed with walks outside. Um... what else. Let's see. Oh, she likes to give her stuffed animals food and drink, as well as tuck them into blankets for naps. And she "reads" to them. It is cute.
She continues to expand the number of things she can reach. I have had to clear off the top of the piano, because anything I put there is going to get... gone. Like my keys. I foolishly left my keys up there. Amelia found them, and expertly hid them. It took me an entire hour and a half to find them. I seriously looked everywhere I could think of. Every cupboard and drawer. In the dryer. Inside the printer. Inside the computer (not kidding). Inside the couch. Under the couch. Under the oven. Under the refrigerator. In the dishwasher. In the oven. Inside the baseboard heaters. In the piano. In each shoe. Etc. I finally found them inside her stroller... which has not been unfolded for ages. I only found them because I prayed and because I looked in the stroller a second time, only this time with a flashlight. Glinty, glint. Oooh, keys. Shiny.
She's still obsessed with ponies. (My Little Pony ponies, specifically.)
Cheese is her favorite food. (Darn it.) Also popular: bananas, pineapple, yogurt, fruit snacks, mozzarella/spinach ravioli, spaghetti noodles, dry cereal, anything I'm eating, popcorn, anything James is eating...
She gives lots of hugs and lots of kisses.
Bedtime is the devil. (But naptime is her favorite thing...?)
She was resisting toothbrushing as if it were torture... until I got Pinkie Pie toothpaste. Seriously, smalls? All we had to do was put a picture from My Little Pony on the toothpaste tube, and you're good? Whatever. Now, sometimes (like right now), she wants to brush her teeth in the middle of the day. Again... and again... and again...
Amelia is nursing much less, though I suspect this is more my fault than hers. Or rather, if we want to be technical, Microraptor's fault. Pregnancy seems to do different things to different nursing women. What has it done to me? Well...
Oh, I am so sore. Pregnant boobs are sore boobs, as many of you know. Amelia is a ravenous beast, and sometimes, I just don't want to deal with the initial spike of intense discomfort when she latches on. (After the initial latch-on, it's quite tolerable, but still kind of uncomfortable.) So our nursing sessions are shorter and farther in between.
And I'm not making a ton of milk anymore. I haven't "dried up" or anything, but the toddler milk has definitely turned into colostrum. Thick, sticky, yellow colostrum. Amelia likes it just fine (more than regular ol' milk, I sometimes suspect), so I don't think she'll completely wean during this pregnancy. I know it sometimes happens that toddlers wean themselves while mom is pregnant, but it seems Amelia is not going to be one of these. I have sometimes thought she'd nurse if I was making motor oil for milk. (Yuck!)
Yay, bodily functions!
Sigh. So yeah, pregnancy. Microraptor is alive and kicking. I can't really tell you much else. I'm exactly 16 weeks pregnant today, so if you really want to know more besides the whole "baby is approximately the size of an avocado", just Google 16 weeks pregnant and you'll find out all sorts of stuff. This stuff was way more exciting during pregnancy one. Pregnancy two isn't nearly as exciting, except when something is noticeably different.
Like, for example... nearly absent nausea! It isn't completely gone yet, but I'm beginning to suspect it actually will be. I get ill maybe once or twice a week. I get lightheaded a surprising amount, sometimes even when I'm well watered and fed. It's kind of weird.
Still very tired. Remember how last blog post I was like, "I'm so tired, and I'm sleeping like 12-18 hours every day, but I couldn't possibly be hypothyroid... If anything, I feel hyperthyroid..." After I had my blood drawn for thyroid function tests, I skipped a few days of thyroid meds to see if the "hyperthyroid" symptoms went away. Sometimes that's the only way to know if it's just plain old pregnancy being evil, or actually thyroid problems. Well, skipping my thyroid meds did absolutely nothing. And then the lab results came back to confirm my conclusion that I was not hyperthyroid. In fact, it told me I still wasn't getting enough thyroid medication. I was wrong, I guess. So my thyroid dose has been increased yet again, and I feel better. I am now only sleeping twelve hours a day. And, as significant, when I'm awake, I'm not completely wiped out. Huzzah!
I'm surprised to discover that my pubic bone has been quite sore... already. This surprises me because even if my uterus is theoretically big enough to house an avocado-sized baby, I still appear normal-sized. (Except when I have to pee. Then I look pregnant. Once I've emptied myself, all of a sudden I'm tiny again.) It turns out that a pregnancy hormone is responsible. Now, relaxin is a wonderful thing... making ligaments and such stretchier so that the baby will have an easier time coming out... But apparently it's doing its job a little too well this time. Poo. Walking, standing, and rolling over in bed all actually hurt a bit. Doom.
Even if I look normal-sized most of the time, I definitely believe things are getting more crowded in there. Wiggly Amelia bumps me in the belly often enough that I am definitely starting to tell there isn't any "give" left in my belly. So when a stray foot bumps me in the belly (even somewhat gently), I want to toss her across the room and roar, "DON'T TOUCH MY BELLY! OUCH! GET BACK, YE FIEND!"
In maybe a month or so we will have another ultrasound and will likely find out the baby's gender if all goes well.
Love and fiends,
Jenna and Co.
