It's a Boy!

This is a picture of his face, looking right at you. It's pretty creepy looking - I think it looks like he has some weird Halloween mask on. But that's what you get with a half-cooked babe and a 2D ultrasound. :)

No question about it - boy!

Today I had my 20 week ultrasound. We found out it's a boy! As far as we can tell, everything is well and baby boy Helm is all healthy. I paid special attention to his kidneys, since Tenley had an issue there, and they look very good. He's measuring almost a week ahead of schedule. I'm hoping that means we were about a week off with the due date, rather than being on the track to having a huge baby at the end of this. I think it's a good chance we had the date slightly wrong. Today he was head down, with his back to my back. Hoping this child does a 180, but very glad he's head down. I know he's got a long time to move all kinds of crazy ways, but Tenley never moved from her favorite position - head down, back to my belly. We had a ton of ultrasounds with her and she was always like that from the beginning.

We haven't chosen a name yet, but Stephen and I are having fun looking through them. We're both pretty picky, so it might be awhile yet. We're very excited to add a little boy to the mix and looking forward to seeing Tenley grow up with her little brother!

Overall, I feel great. I'm well past the tired/sick phase, and haven't made it into the "I'm so big I can't breathe" phase. I've had trouble with my SI joint again this time around, but with weekly/biweekly adjustments and massages (aka "muscle work") with a chiropractor, I'm much more comfortable. Everything with this pregnancy seems to be exactly as it was with Tenley. The only difference is that I started feeling him move around about 1 week earlier, felt a real kick about 4 weeks earlier, and started feeling light braxton hicks about 4 weeks earlier than last time - but I think that just comes with a 2nd pregnancy.

Baby Room #2

Tenley loves her new room. During her first time in her new crib, she pulled up onto her feet by herself for the very first time.

Today, we (okay, my Dad :) ) painted our 3rd bedroom in preparation for baby #2. We have another 5 months to go, but I have a lot of fun preparing things like this. We had Tenley's room all done around this time during the last pregnancy too. The room we redid today will be Tenley's new room when baby #2 arrives, around late December/early January.

Yesterday my Mom found a great bedding set at a garage sale with crib skirt, bumper, pillow, memory board, rug, and 12 basket liners -- ALL handmade by the seller's mom. They are made from excellent fabrics, have great finishing touches, and don't look handmade at all - in a good way. :) The whole set was $25 and also included a mobile that I don't really like so I won't use.

A few weeks ago we picked up a crib and matching changing table for $30 - what a good deal. I put the bedding on the crib last night and the blue clashed terribly with the blue cloud walls. Yay! I finally get to paint these walls and get rid of these clashing curtains! Why didn't I get rid of the clashing curtains earlier? I don't know - I guess I didn't like the look of the room enough to put much work into it until I got to really change it with paint.

Before: the walls and clashing curtains before we painted. The furniture was different, but you get the idea.

After asking some advice, I decided to go with gray. I was nervous, and as the paint started to go on I thought I had gotten a color that was too dark. Darn. But the more we covered up that blue, the better it looked. I love the way it has turned out.

Paint was $20. Add to that a great wall picture frame from Target still in the packaging that I got from a garage sale this morning for $1, and a whole "new" room cost just $76. I'm sure I'll add in a couple things here and there in the next few months to finish it off, but it looks like we're going to have this baby room put together from scratch for a very good price.

Also in this new room is our piano, a bookshelf with baskets, and some storage bins, because we have very limited storage space...or we have way too much stuff. The room is very small, but I think we've done the best we can with the space we have.

Messy bookshelf will be organized with wicker baskets and liners like the ones you see on the floor.

Crawling

Yesterday Tenley crawled (for real) for the first time! Stephen, Tenley, and I had gone over to Jonathan and Rebecca's house to watch a movie and play with Navy. Tenley sat down on the blanket, eyed a toy she wanted, and just crawled to it! I was so surprised. She did it twice, I got out the camera, and then she refused to crawl again. Oh, well. She still had a lot of fun playing with Navy and the toys she wasn't used to.

Today I took Tenley to my parent's house to show off her new "trick." She crawled a lot over there! I finally got a short video. Another little new thing is that Tenley has finally realized that she needs to chew food before swallowing it. She was so used to liquid or very thin foods that chunks are a big change for her. She would even choke on puffs if I broke them in to fourths. They dissolve very easily, so I just let her pick them up and eat them and "choke" slightly each day until she finally figured out what to do. Now puffs (whole ones :) ) are her favorite snack.

Here is the video I got of her crawling today! Yay, Tenley!! Good job! It is still not her favorite thing to do, but I think once she realizes she can get around and gets more used to it, she will be crawling all over the place.

9 months old

Tenley's 9 month appointment was today. She turned 9 months on June 27, so it's a few days late. Today she was 20 lbs and 27 inches. In weight, she's thinning out, which was to be expected. The doctor says breastfed babies tend to be a little chunkier 0-6 months and then start to thin. She was always in the 95th percentile, but now she's in the 65th. She's a little on the short side, but we've got some pretty short girls on both sides of this family, so that's to be expected as well. Overall, she's a super healthy baby girl! She had 2 shots today (boo!), but after a short cry, she was fine. She's such a trooper.

9 months old has been so much fun so far! She's learning new things every day. She can get almost anywhere she wants, but not by crawling forward. She crawls backward, rolls, scoots on her booty - anything but crawling forward. She also loves trying new food, especially if Mommy and Daddy are eating. She loved celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks. She watched them on 3 nights. We've also been trying to have some good outdoor time, when it's not too hot. She loves being outside. She loves to swim, swing, play with bubbles, and go on walks.

watching the fireworks downtown

on a walk at Wesselman Woods

The Zoo

Yesterday, Tenley, Annie, and I went to the zoo. We had a lot of fun. I took a few pictures of Tenley's favorite animals to look at. We went in the morning when it was cooler, which I think was the best time to go because the animals seemed very active. We even got "chased" by a peacock. That was funny. He really didn't want us in his territory.








Also yesterday, Tenley ate the first fruit that she enjoyed! She ate a whole jar of mango. We had tried almost everything else - I even tried mashing up my own fruit to give to her. I think the texture of the mashed fruit was a little too much for her at this point, though. Today she ate prunes, and loved those as well. And she is still eating her veggies like a champ. Good job, little girl!

Ice Cream, A Tooth, and Laundry Soap

Tenley has been doing SO much better eating her "real" food. It took a couple of rough days of her screaming and me making her eat anyway, but we made it through. She still doesn't eat full servings of anything, but that's okay with me. Slow and steady does it. I'm just happy she's eating it at all. I give her oatmeal (she likes it runny still) and veggies once a day. It takes her a pretty long time to get used to a different flavor, so we stay on the same veggie for almost a week before starting something new. Oh - there is one food it didn't take her much time at all to get used to though...ice cream! Sunday we were at Easton's 1/2 birthday party and we had homemade strawberry and chocolate ice cream. I wasn't going to give Tenley any, but I wanted to, so I did. :) I gave her a VERY small bite, and she just kept crawling on me for more! She didn't get very much, but the little she got, she loved. This girl has a sweet tooth like her Mama!

Speaking of teeth, Tenley just got her first tooth! This could explain why we had a very rough Sunday night and she didn't nap at all on Monday. When we went swimming Monday afternoon, Aunt Jessica discovered her first tooth - it's a bottom one. I was a little worried it would continue to bother her, but last night she slept 13 hours straight, and she's already down for her first nap, so I think we're good. Yay!

Another fun thing Tenley and I have been able to do this summer is spend a lot of time with my niece, Annie. We get to hang out with her while my sister works a couple of days a week for a few hours at a time. We do crafts, play games, read books, run errands, take walks, go swimming, etc. Yesterday Annie helped me with something new for her, and I think she had some fun with it. We made laundry soap! The last time I made laundry detergent, it was early February. So 1 batch lasts me a little over 4 months. I didn't have to buy any more ingredients either, so that was nice. I spent under $10 the first time, so, so far $10 has bought me 8+ months of cloth diaper safe laundry detergent, which I use on everything. Annie did such a good job helping grate, stir (making some wild whirlpools :) ), and measure. There are some pictures below of our adventure.

A Food Success...Almost

So yesterday I decided to try food again with Tenley. She's about 8 1/2 months old. Since she didn't like rice cereal before, I tried oatmeal instead. I know I'd rather have oatmeal than mushy rice. I was preparing for funny faces and pursed lips, but she loved it! I was so excited. "Stephen, get the camera!!!! She actually LIKES food!" She opened wide every time I put the spoon to her mouth and would even get a little impatient if I didn't feed her fast enough. This was exciting for me, since we ended our 2-3 week food trial with lots of tears and screaming and definitely no eating.


Since she loved the oatmeal for lunch, I tried it again for dinner. Totally different story. Closed mouth, funny faces, and fussing. Well, maybe that was just too much to ask for one day. We'll try again tomorrow...

So it's tomorrow, and we just tried more cereal, and this time there was crying, pursed lips, and not a whole lot of eating. Sigh. I will probably try again tomorrow. If she doesn't like it at lunch, I may try a tolerable veggie for dinner to see if she likes that. If not, we may take another break. I'm not quite sure. Stephen and I were planning on taking a little trip by ourselves in late June, and I was hoping we could supplement her well by then with table foods, because I have just been too tired/lazy to stay up and pump at night. Oh well, such is life. Maybe she's just not ready yet. Silly, beautiful, fun, crazy girl!