Well, I actually made it to maternity leave, still pregnant. I am 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant, and as the ticker over there ---> says, Ducky is "launch ready". Yet, the little lady is still hanging out. Honestly, I didn't expect to still be pregnant at this point. I thought she would be born at the end of May or maybe the first couple days of June. But the second week of June, or later? Did not occur to me in any sort of realistic way. I keep surprising people, at work, at church, Jilly's bus drivers, when I show up with my big belly. I have heard "You're STILL pregnant?! When is that baby going to come out?!" at least 673 times in the past week. I usually respond with "I wish I knew!" or "Any time now!" Last Saturday was my last day of work until August, and it is such a relief to be done! It was getting busier and I cared less and less each day because I knew I'd be out of there soon. I also had that extra little bit of stress in the back of my mind "Can I go into labor tonight? I really don't want to go to work tomorrow. But wait, will I be able to text/call my boss in time for him to call someone else in?" Now I'm off the hook. They aren't planning on me being there anyway. Phew!
Surprisingly, I'm emotionally okay with still being pregnant. I thought I would be a wreck and frustrated and grumpy with everyone, but overall, I'm okay with it. This baby will come when she is ready, and from what my midwives told me, it shouldn't be too long. I was 3 cm dilated at 37 weeks and now at 39, I'm 4-5 cm dilated. When labor finally kicks in, no one's anticipating it taking too long. But then again, you can never be sure. As many people told me in the beginning- the third kid is the wild card! I think the most frustrating part of this, other than physically, is other people's expectations and the implied pressure from them. Everyone is very good-natured about it and it all comes from a place of good intentions, but I still feel it anyway. But overall, especially now that I'm not at work, it's okay and I'm fine with taking some time.
So other that awaiting Ducky's imminent arrival, here is what we are up to:
Jason is turning TWO in just a couple weeks!! He is soooooooo just about two years old. He is constantly busy and talking and playing and messing with stuff and running around like a crazy person. He is a pretty darn happy boy most of the time, but when he is upset, especially angry- watch out! He tends to throw things and lash out and scream at you when he's mad. He's had a cold for over a week now, it's mostly manifested in his eyes, which copious amounts of eye gunk, but after two horrible nights of sleep, I took him to the doctor yesterday, just to make sure he didn't have an ear infection or anything worse. He checked out fine, just a virus that is causing the eye gunk, combined with getting his two year molars, resulting in pain and discomfort for the Goo, and long nights for all of us. But while we were at the doctor, he was nuts. Spent most of the time howling and moaning, trying to run out the front door while I chased him down, throwing anything I handed him onto the floor/my foot, when I did hold him he'd try to hit me or pull out my earrings, and so on. I worked up a sweat in the waiting room alone! His behavior (the crankiness mostly) was a little extreme because he was so tired, but that experience is a good indicator of just how active he is! His verbal skills are really coming along amazingly! He asks for things in sentences often "I need help!" and multiple words a lot "Juice, drink, Daddy! Juice, drink!". He has really bonded with Granny & Grampa lately and LOVES going to their house to see them. He's really developed a penchant for talking on the phone and tries to wrestle it out of my hand every time he sees me on it. ;-) He has shown some interest in the potty lately, so we're thinking later this summer, after the baby is born and his birthday, we'll give him a shot at potty training. If it works, then sweet! If it doesn't then, no big deal.
Jilly is just about to finish preschool for the year and has made amazing progress. Even things she wasn't doing at her IEP meeting a few months ago, she is doing now. Her imagination is exploding! She loves playing with her finger puppets from Granny and sits and narrates stories with them, complete with voices and dialogue, for hours. Her latest obsession is with mermaids. Everyone cool is a mermaid and all her favorite characters are mermaids. She loves Ariel (from The Little Mermaid) and Mariana (from Dora the Explorer) and asks me to draw her a 'mermaid picture' on her MagnaDoodle many times a day. She also loves her Granny & Grampa and has gotten to have a few sleepovers at their house lately. Last weekend when she was there, she spent 45 minutes helping Granny water the flowers and work in the garden! Potty training has mostly been a success. She's had very few accidents in the grand scheme of things. For awhile, she was doing really awesome and would go all by herself (go into the bathroom, use the potty, wipe, flush and wash without any assistance or supervision). Then a couple weeks ago, she regressed a bit. She will sometimes come out of the bathroom, pants around ankles, and start wandering around and need a lot of coaching to go back in a finish the process, step by step. It's frustrating for us, but it's still better than dealing with changing a pull-up. And sometimes she's just fine, so it's kind of odd. But oh well. I'm hoping this summer we'll get her swimming on her own and really be able to enjoy the pool at our apartment. I wanted to do swimming lessons, but now I'm less sure I want to rigidity of the class schedule and spending the money on it. We'll see.
Steve is finishing the 3rd of eight quarters in his MBA program. After next week, he'll have a couple weeks off before starting summer quarter. That will be nice, since it will coincide with Jilly getting out of school and the baby's arrival. School is going well for him and he's enjoying it. Still working on finding a job. He's started creating a website to promote himself and hopefully help with the job-finding. As soon as it's finished, we'll share it and maybe one of you can pass it along and get him hired! Until then, he's a super awesome husband and father and does almost everything around the house. I know that on those days when I am physically in pain or just have no energy, I can depend on him to take care of the kids and let me rest. He is so loving and talks to Ducky all the time, telling her all the awesome things about the outside world and how much we all love her and how much he can't wait to snuggle and hold her. It's really really awesome.
I had been working full-time for most of May and some of April. It was exhausting, but worth it to get as many hours in as possible before maternity leave. My new manager started at the beginning of April (we've been without one since middle of November) and I've been helping get him up to speed, filling him in on all the little things I do that need to be maintained while I'm gone, and training both new agents and other agents to fill in for me. It's been quite the process getting used to a new management style, but it has gone well and he's been very understanding with me and how uncertain my situation is. On my days off, my mom and I would get together and we sewed the quilt tops for both Jason & Ducky's quilts! Next on the list is to re-make Jilly's (fixing the squares that got burned last year and adding a new border). Once her top is finished, we'll tie all three quilts and all my babies will have beautiful, soft and cozy quilts to snuggle with. They are all SO CUTE!! I will get pictures up when they're finished, I promise! We have all the supplies to finish them, it's just a matter of figuring out exactly what to do with Jilly's, then assembling. I've been working on other little projects to get ready for Ducky. We re-arranged our room a bit to make room for a new storage/shelving unit where all of her stuff is going to be. She's pretty much going to be in our room completely, clothes, diapers, shoes, cradle, etc. Even her dresses are hanging up in my closet. There is just no room in the kids' room for her, plus since she'll be co-sleeping, either in our bed or in the cradle right next to me, it makes sense to have her stuff nearby. I have gone to a couple Physical Therapy appts as well, to deal with the awful hip pain I've been having during this pregnancy. The therapist helped me by doing some stretches to balance out my pelvis again and showed me some exercises and other suggestions to help me with the pain. They have helped and now that the baby has moved farther down into the pelvis, the pain has gotten somewhat better. There still are issues, but it's not as bad and hopefully will resolve once she comes out!
So for now, we're just waiting for Ducky to come out. The kids are both very excited to meet her; they love kissing my belly and said Hi to her. We'll all ready to relax and thoroughly enjoy this summer as a family of 5, especially before I go back to work. I can't believe we're going to have three kids, but it is going to happen soon and we really are quite thrilled about it. Hopefully, the next post up here will be about Ducky's birth and will have cute pictures of her. Feel free to guess away on when that blessed date may be, as well as her length & weight. Anyone want to guess her hair color? Remember, even though both our babies had dark hair when they were born, Steve had red hair as a baby, so that may happen here too. ;-)
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