Summer Life

So summer has been whirling by.  It has taken a bit of time for Ryan and I to get the hang of being outnumbered by our children but all in all things have been going okay. It's actually been a really lovely few months with a slower pace and lots of family time. I am starting to feel a little panicked about getting back into our regular crazy



Lisa

I never updated on the maternity leave dilemma.  I ended up taking the rest of the year off!  I ended up getting paid for a little more of my leave paid than I initially thought and ended up randomly getting a very flexible part time job that has kept a little cash flow coming in.  It was an exceptionally busy and stressful school year, so I wasn't at all sad to peace out the day before state testing started.



I have tried to tackle a few things while I have been home and one thing is I finally got around to officially changing my name to Stephenson-Horne.  It still needs to be updated in a few places but I have a new driver's license and social security card with the updated info.  So it's official.

I have decided it is time to get serious about health and weight loss, so I ended up trying the 21 Day Fix.  It is a great program for me.   It lets you eat so much food, which is good, so I don't feel deprived.  I love the workouts.  They are challenging but don't feel impossible.  There are lots of modifications. The best part is they are only 30 minutes and I can do them right at home.  I have been throwing in some gym workouts too, I joined an online squats challenge and I even went with a coworker to a glow zumba workout at the mall.  I lost about 10 pounds and then vacations have thrown off my nutrition game so weight loss has sort of stalled.  I have a mini goal to lose 20 pounds so it is time to get my eating back on track so hopefully my work clothes all fit in the fall and I can have the energy to keep with Tyler the way I had energy to keep up with Isaac at that age.



Ryan

Ryan is still on medical leave from work.  To be honest, I don't really understand why.  It is a lot of insurance company red tape and doctors stuff.  He still has a lot of health issues, 2-3 doctors appointments a week and still takes a huge pile of medicines each day.  He also has a lot of restrictions on driving.  I would say overall though he is feeling much better than a few months ago and most days has a lot of energy and feels pretty good.  I worry, of course, about my return to school in a few weeks when he will have so much on his plate with the two little guys, but it makes me feel good to see him feeling more like himself finally.



Ryan took Gabby to her first concert this past weekend for the Mixed Tape Festival (98 Degrees, Dream, Paula Abdul, Boyz II Men, New Kids on the Block).  The tickets were actually a birthday present from me to Ryan and a series of unfortunate events and miscommunications left us without a babysitter. Ryan thought he might just go alone but Gabby ended up taking my ticket and seemed to enjoy herself even though she wasn't familiar with much of the music.



We also had another foiled date night not long before when Tyler spiked a high fever the night we were supposed to go to the Shakespeare Festival in Allentown.  Our doctor was really worried and wanted us to drive out to the Children's Hospital Urgent Care in King of Prussia.  Everything ended up being okay but we did miss the show.



We did manage to make it out for one date though.  There is an upscale local Mexican Restaurant that I have mentioned to Ryan about 920928338 times how much I wanted to eat there.  For Mother's Day he gave me a cute card good for one date there.  I guess he bought a voucher from Groupon.  Well we realized the other day that we only had a few days left until the voucher expired.  We took our chances and took Tyler along (we arrived as soon as the restaurant opened and for most of our meal we were the only people in the whole place!).  He was an angel, the food was amazing and it was fun to have a little time for a fancy quiet dinner.



Isaac

Isaac has really seemed to mature this summer and since Tyler has been born.  Of course we are seeing glimpses of the teenage years with eye rolling and attitude here and there but overall he has just really stepped up and become incredibly helpful.  I know it is so cheesey, but sometimes I just look at him and I am sooo proud.  Summer vacation hasn't opened up his calendar too much.  He has done two basketball camps, and then spent over a week in Utah attending a family reunion with my dad's side of the family.


 He is back in full soccer mode.  He is attending the Philadelphia Union soccer camp.  He had his school physical and the doctor predicted he will grow to be six foot.  She also talked a lot to him about eating healthier and trying new foods and I have been impressed that he has actually tried a few vegetables since then.  He starts sixth(!!!) grade in a few weeks, so he is trying to make the most of what summer is left.



Hannah

Hannah has grown up a lot.  She has really come into her own as a big sister and no longer seems to be on a mission to actually kill Tyler.  She will declare several times a day "Tyler's my baby brudder!  And I-Diss is my big brudder!"



Hannah was officially dismissed from speech in May which is really exciting.  They rescreened her and all of her speech errors were considered to be age appropriate which is so exciting. We have started looking at preschool programs for her either in the fall or in January after she turns three.  I think she would really enjoy and benefit from preschool.  It is hard to make a commitment to a program with Ryan's work stuff being forever up in the air, but I really hope it works out and we are able to get her in somewhere.

In my mind I had three goals to work on with Hannah this summer.  Sleeping in her own room (her bed has been in our room for the past six months or so), giving up the binky and potty training.  She is *just about* potty trained, and for the most part she has done well with her bed being moved to her room.  She still comes in every so often, but she is doing much better than she was in April and May.  Giving up the binky, however, we have not made much progress on.  We have tried to limit it to nap and bedtime only but she is very crafty and seems to always have one on hand.  I am willing to put the binky on the backburner while we make more progress on sleeping in her own room and potty training.



Despite being together at home the majority of the time, Ryan and I can't seem to get on the same page about bedtime routines and potty training and that has been hard.  Sometimes I miss when he used to work nights and I could more or less call the shots in the evening and he could more or less call the shots during the day.   I was a single mom for so long making all of my own parenting decisions that even three years into marriage sometimes it still difficult for me to remember that I have to compromise and it's not just my way or the highway when it comes to decisions.

Anyways, back to Hannah.  She has personality for days.  She still LOVES Doc McStuffins and giving people check ups.  She loves birds and will point them out everywhere we go.  ("Look mommy!!  Buhds!")  She loves church nursery and play dates and will always ask if I can take her to play with her friends.  She is the self-appointed overseer of seat belts and will let me know if anyone is not buckled in a timely manner.



Tyler
I don't want to jinx anything, but Tyler really is a great baby.  He puts himself down to sleep if I lay him down in the crib when he is sleepy.  He sleeps for long stretches 9:30- 4 most nights.  Hannah and Isaac were horrible sleepers so it is great to have a baby who isn't waking up hourly. I just need to start going to bed earlier so I can fully take advantage of his long stretch of sleep. He is starting to bear weight on his legs a bit more and try to reach for things.  He easily rolls himself from back to front but he isn't as great at rolling from front to back.

He is almost always pleasant and smiling.  He tagged along to Isaac's well visit to get a shot he had missed and really put the pressure on Isaac because he didn't even make a peep when he got his injection.  He can work his fingers to his mouth and seems to be able to comfort himself.  Sometimes it is his thumb and pointer finger, sometimes it is the middle three fingers.

 He has the same big, dark eyes as Hannah, but I think besides that he looks more like my side of the family.   He is just such an easy going little guy.  I feel so blessed every day that he ended up joining our family.



Shore Trip
We have managed to have a lot of fun this summer.  When Isaac was in Utah we spent a few days at the shore.  We had a great coupon code for the Best Western.  My expectations were especiallly low for such a cheap hotel room but I was pleasantly surprised.  We even had a big jacuzzi tub that Hannah and I both really enjoyed.  The only let down was the hotel no longer provided a travel crib.  I had been banking on it and had not brought the pack and play.  I ended up making Tyler a little makeshift bed on the floor next to me.  I woke up in the night to him screaming and I was panicked because I couldn't find him.  He had managed to roll/wiggle/scoot himself completely UNDER the bed.

 Even though this was another short trip, we managed to do most of our favorite Ocean City things. We mini-golfed, had Kohr brothers, walked up and down the boardwalk and of course spent lots of time in the sand.  Hannah was still not 100% sold on the ocean, but she loved playing in the sand walking along the boardwalk.  She especially loved Gillian's Pier with the rides and wanted to go on everything.

We also did some new things we had never done before.  We went to see Lucy the Elephant, the world's oldest roadside attraction.  We found another groupon for buy 1 get one tour tickets, so we got to walk all through her.  It was pretty cool.  We also did the Atlantic City Boardwalk, another first for me.  It wasn't some place I would want to return to any time soon, but it was fun none the less.


Disney


We also had a really wonderful trip to visit Ryan's family in Florida.  We went to attend Ross and Tommy's wedding.  Hannah and Tyler had their first plane ride and did great.  We spent the first two days doing some sight seeing in Saint Augustine.  I knew nothing about the town where Ross and Tommy decided to wed, but it was beautiful and I wish we were able to arrange our schedule to stay longer.  The wedding was beautiful.  Then we went back to Orlando and had fun in the parks and visiting with family.  Hannah and Lucas were fast friends.  We love Ryan's brothers and sister so much and we had so much fun there.  Here are some pictures from the trip. 

Life with three

Tyler James Stephenson-Horne is here!  This sweet little boy was born Tuesday, April 12 at 9:56.  

He was screaming like CRAZY.  They could hear him screaming in the recovery room when he was still in the OR.  Fortunately, his insane high pitched screaming doesn't make many appearances.  He is my tiniest baby by far weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz.  I had not bought any newborn size diapers in preparation for Tyler, since Hannah had went straight to size 1 after leaving the hospital.  We have had to exchange two packs of size 1's for newborn diapers since he is so tiny.  He has a full head of hair, but not thick, crazy hair like Hannah did.  It is a softer, finer straight hair that reminds me of Isaac when he was a newborn.

It was such a tender mercy to have such an easy pregnancy with Tyler. So far this sweet boy is easy going.  He sleeps through all kinds of racket.  He doesn't fuss when Hannah aggressively sticks his pacifer in his mouth. He has slept some fairly long stretches considering his age.   Sometimes we just look over at him and he is awake and just quietly looking around.  

My sister-in-law, Katherine, got a great deal on airfare from Orlando and was able to fly in Wednesday afternoon.  She was a huge help with Hannah and kept the household running so that Ryan could spend time with me and Tyler in the hospital.  Hannah adored having her undivided attention and we were all very sad when her visit had to come to an end.  As usual, my mom was also a huge help keeping the kids Monday night while Ryan and I had one last date night at the Movie Tavern and coming back in Thursday to take Isaac to his Little League game.

He looks a little like Uncle Joe here.

 So everyone wants to know how Isaac and Hannah are adjusting.  Isaac is doing fine with it, as expected.  He was cute, he said something to me the other day about how he wants to bond with Tyler sooner than he bonded with Hannah.  He wants to hold Tyler all of the time and is generally extremely helpful with things around the house and with his brother and sister.

Relaxing on Tyler's newborn lounger

As could be expected, Hannah has had a harder time.  She is very interested in Tyler (who she only refers to as "baby") and wants to hold him, feed him and wants him to always have his binky.  Poor Tyler is often sleeping peacefully when Hannah crams his binky in his mouth,  Anytime he makes a sound she is quick to announce "Oh! Mommy!  Baby crying!"   Things have been easier now that Ryan and I have figured out some ways to let her "help" with him.  

 

It's hard to know what is typical two year old sassiness and attitude and what is attributed to feeling displaced as the baby of the family.  Suddenly she has only one volume: screaming. We ask her to do something basic and she throws herself down on the ground and dramatically screams "I can't!!!!" When we try to help her with something and she yells at us to "Hop it!"  She has been up all night, crying and seems to be having nightmares.  Toddler's need predictability and routine and we have not had much of either lately.  That combined with way, way too much screen time and it is no wonder she is falling apart.

Aunt Kathy sent her a new baby doll and carrier and she LOVES it.

 That being said, her behavior is not all bad.  Her speech has improved by leaps and bounds and suddenly it seems like she can tell us anything and everything. Her articulation still needs work, but she is speaking in full sentences which is so exciting.  She loves to talk on the phone and carries on full conversations with both my mom and Ryan's mom on a regular basis.  She is obsessed with Doc McStuffins and will often ask Ryan and I if it is okay for her to watch "my shows".  She seems to be watching me closely and has become a real little mommy to her baby dolls.  I keep finding them in Tyler's crib or in his swing, wrapped up in his blanket.

Things have been easier than expected at home.  I feel much better emotionally than I did when I came home with Hannah.   Also, Ryan's health is improving and he is finally off of the medication that caused dramatic mood swings and terrible insomnia.  It's weird, because even though everything about our lives and routines has been turned upside down, we both really feel like ourselves for the first time in a while.  We're joking and smiling and really working together again instead of competing about who is more tired or more uncomfortable or doing more around the house.  Of course, things are far from settled in our lives.  Our laundry baskets are overflowing, our kitchen floor is sticky and it seems to take us anywhere from 30-90 minutes to leave the house to do anything.  I am so tired all of the time.  Ryan's health and work situation continues to be up in the air.

 But so far life with three is pretty good.

Life at the Moment

I am in the home stretch of pregnancy and I still feel sort of in denial about how soon this baby is coming and how everything is going to be turned upside down.  I put things on the calendar and then realize, oh my goodness, the baby will be here then.  At least I finally feel like I have the essentials for him.  Some of my church friends threw me a little baby shower for baby number 3.  My sister in law Rachel was able to come and so was my mom.  It had a sports theme and was really nice. 

 

Some of my work friends from my old school also had a little get together for baby number 3.  People who have been asking what I need/want have really followed through with my requests for bigger clothes and diapers.  I do feel a bit bad about the idea of a shower for my THIRD baby but it is also nice not to worry this baby will be naked and diaperless like I did a few weeks ago.

Although I am really not ready to wrap my head around a 3rd baby, I am definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore.  This pregnancy has for sure been the easiest of my three.  Overall, for being 37 weeks I am sleeping pretty well, I am not horribly uncomfortable, I have a decent energy level and I am able to stay on top of most of what needs to be done (the dishes are not piled up to the ceiling, everyone has clean clothes and most of our meals do not consist of cold cereal, so that is a win in my book).  I feel bad complaining when I know how much worse I could be by this point, but I am also really, really ready to not be pregnant anymore (or ever again).  Anyways....

While I was enjoying my sports themed baby shower, Hannah and Ryan went to Disney on Ice which Hannah apparently loved.  Her new thing is she was randomly shout out "I HAPPY MOMMY!".  Ryan said she shouted it out several times during the show.

She has shown some flashes of diva two year old behavior, but for the most part she is incredibly happy and loving.  Her latest thing is to declare "I yove dis!".  She will walk through a store declaring "I yove dis!  Mommy, you yove dis?" as she points to random objects.

It feels like she is going through a language explosion suddenly which is great.  She can almost always tell us anything she wants and she is finally at least attempting words that she would never say before like "Isaac" and "grandma".  Her articulation still has a lot of issues and they haven't dismissed her from speech just yet,  but I couldn't be prouder of her.



Her attention span has also grown longer suddenly and she will keep herself busy with a coloring book or with her babies for 25 minute stretches.  She also loves to "help" whenever I am cooking or cleaning in the kitchen.  We took her to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia and were pleasantly surprised by how appropriate it was for her and how much fun she had. 

Isaac continues to be busy, busy, busy.  When you check our family google calendar, he definitely has the most events between school things, soccer, and baseball.  I feel bad because I don't update about him as much in the blog or on social media because it is mostly the same old same old.  He is a good kid though, and tries his best to help me.


Ryan's health is still up and down which continues to be hard on our family.  His doctors recently discovered that he is super anemic, so he has added iron transfusions to the list of regular medical procedures he must endure.  He recently heard back from Google that he is set to work from home for them part time.  Even though he is officially still on paid medical leave from Comcast, this will help bring in more income as I head into maternity leave.


Today is the last day of spring break and as usual I had a whole list of things I hoped to accomplish and tackle and I didn't get to very many of them.

March

Holy Cow!  I am logging into Blogger! 

Ryan is still home from work for the time being.  We don't know what will happen with him being cleared to return to work or what kind of position Comcast may offer him.  His old position really won't work for him anymore, as he has really needs to work in close proximity to a bathroom.  In the mean time, he has been applying for work from home jobs and going on secret shops with Hannah.  They have gone all sorts of places recently - restaurants, stores, even a local trampoline park.  It has been taking it's toll on both of us to have Ryan feel so exhausted all the time, keep opposite hours of me (I am up for the day and out the door by 7:15, he often doesn't even sleep fall asleep until 3:00...), and take a medication with a major side effect of moodiness.  With me getting huger and huger it is hard to avoid the rut of arguing about who is more tired/uncomfortable and who is doing more around the house and feeling resentful of the other for not seeing our own point of view.

 





We just really have to make a conscious effort to remind each other/ourselves that we are on the same side, we want the same things and things are hard now but they will get better.

I am in the home stretch of my pregnancy and everything is still up in the air for my maternity leave, which, you know, makes me feel nice and calm and in control of things. I was excited initially about having the baby at the end of the school year, but it turns out that the timing SUCKS.  Without sounding like I am in a mountain of self pity, it seems that the theme for this chapter of our lives is "If it can go wrong or be difficult, it will".  Since I don't have enough sick days this time around, and my leave falls so close to the end of the school year (pay year) it is a big mess.  If the baby were coming a few weeks earlier or later, things would be much easier, but he is coming at a time when there are still so many unanswered questions.  There are pretty much two scenarios and for my leave and I may not even know which one I am going with until the baby is here.

• Scenario 1: Return to Work After Only Six Weeks - This would ensure that I get paid for (almost) my whole leave, and I would get paid as usual for the remainder of the year/summer.  However, I had in my head that I would be home with the baby until September, so the thought of leaving him at six weeks to return for another 4-5 weeks of school is awful.  Plus with everything being a giant question mark with Ryan's job and health, the childcare situation could be a mess.  I am trying to remind myself that in the grand scheme of life, returning to work for 4 weeks before I am home with the baby all summer is not *really* that big of a deal... but it feels like it is... but I also need to get paid... and on it goes...
• Scenario 2: Stay Out the Rest of the Year/Summer - So if I am out any longer than six weeks the district takes out my health insurance and other costs for the rest of the year all at once and then pays me the rest of my salary in a lump sum in June. So figuring that, it doesn't make any sense to come back after 8 weeks or 10 weeks.  Obviously, I am super nervous to have a paycheck in June that is supposed to last me through until September.  I feel like we will be eating Ramen noodles for dinner for the whole month of August and using flashlights to keep electricity use down. Also, the doctor may or may not clear me to go back to work after six weeks.  Usually a c-section is 8 weeks.  But, I could always teach ESY.  Or get a summer job. 

So one thing that actually has not been too difficult so far (knocking on wood) is this pregnancy.  Granted, I am huge, moody, uncomfortable, etc. as would be expected when sharing your body with a six pound human.  When I go back and look at my blog updates at this point with Hannah I could barely move at the end of the day, I was seeing a chiropractor weekly, all foods and drinks gave me horrible heartburn, I was not sleeping, having painful leg cramps multiple times a night, etc, etc.  So far, I am still fairly comfortable and sleeping fairly well and have the energy to keep up with all my many obligations at home and work, so I am grateful for that.  It does seem like a tender mercy in this stressful time.  It's only a month until we meet our little guy and I oscillate between being totally panicked that we are totally unprepared and sort of feeling confident that at this point, we can just wing it.  We have a crib, and a carseat and some little itty bitty boy clothes and we will just figure the rest of as we go along. 



So Hannah and Isaac are hanging in there.  Hannah has been doing really well with speech. She is definitely speaking in phrases and sentences and is trying hard with words and sounds that are difficult for her.  She still tends to overuse the /h/ sound ("hup" for "cup", etc.).  She has suddenly taken an interest in colors and wants to tell us about them all the time.  ("Hannah have pink shoes"). She also remembers everything people do and will assign them to us.  I brought home a Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate weeks ago and whenever the Dunkin Donuts commercial comes on she announces "That's Mommy's!"  Other things that are mine apparently include the TV show The Little Couple and CVS.  She really is the sweetest little thing and makes us laugh a hundred times a day.  She will often just shout out "I yove you!" or "I happy!". 

Isaac is hanging in like a champ.  He seems to know when he needs to step up and sometimes I will just find him cleaning his room or unloading the dishwasher at the exact moment I am ready to just lose it from feeling overwhelmed.  He also is now in charge of carrying all laundry baskets up and down the three stories of our house since I can no longer carry the large baskets.  He seems excited about the baby coming and even asked if he could and the new baby could get bunkbeds together.  Baseball season has started (ugh.....so torturesome...........) and his team is the Phillies.  His coach is really serious (like he lays on the ground underneath the boys as they as pitching and records them with ipads) but also ridiculously enthusiastic and friendly which I think will be a good combination for Isaac.  Isaac is such a gifted athlete but baseball is a sport that hasn't always come easily to him and that he is not as confident in.  I hope this season will help build up his confidence. 

Anyways, it is 11 o'clock on a school night which is way, way past my bedtime, thank you daylight savings time. 

Birthdays

So Isaac is officially 11. His big present was Beats headphones.  He wanted red, we pre-ordered red and picked up a box marked red from Best Buy only to have him open the box and discover that they were pink (well to be fair, sort of a reddish pink).  I wanted to exchange them but apparently pink is cool now and he was totally fine keeping them.  I was upset that we didn't get what we ordered and kept questioning if he was sure he didn't want us to take them back.  This caused Ryan to make me feel like a bad feminist for making Isaac feel like he couldn't be just as happy with pink. 




Isaac had his birthday party this past weekend at a local family fun center with go karts, bumper cars, laser tag and arcade games.  I was not exactly looking forward to it, but it actually was incredibly painless.  We only had 7 boys which was a manageable number and our party hostess was great and literally took care of everything from corralling the boys through every activity to cutting the cake.   This left Ryan free to entertain Hannah and I just sat at the table, took pictures and relaxed which was great.

You can barely see Hannah as a passenger in the go kart.

Hannah was very excited for Isaac's party, although she kept saying "Come on Mommy!  Let's go my pah-ty!"  She was also a huge fan of the cake, which she also called a "pah-ty" and pulled it down off the counter trying to serve herself another slice.

The saran wrap saved it!

(By the way, Costco is the place to go for cheap sheet cakes, twice as much cake for half as much money as any other bakery I looked at.  As you can see we had tons leftover.) 



We also left Hannah with my mom one night and went to a Sixers game with my dad.  It used to be something we did every year for Isaac's birthday but we haven't gone the past few years.  It was a treat for my dad to join us on a weeknight.



 

The Sixers ended up losing (as usual!), but it was a fun game.  It is very rare that Ryan and I get to do something with just Isaac and not Hannah, so it was fun to sort of remember the way things used to be and really enjoy the game without having to worry about chasing a toddler around.
 

Ryan is still struggling with his health.  At his latest appointment they said they would like him to consider having surgery to remove part of his colon.  This was super scary and not what he wanted to hear but it seems that he has the most severe kind of ulcerative colitis and remission from his symptoms may not be in the cards without surgery.   He is not really responding to any of the treatments that they have tried and he can't keep on taking these high doses of toxic medicines forever.  The prednisone in particular makes him terrifically irritable, keeps him up most of the night and sends his blood sugar dangerously high.  The good news is, once he has the surgery, he should get pretty immediate relief from his symptoms, feel energetic and more like himself and be able to return to life as we knew it before November.  Essentially the surgery is a cure.  Ryan has a few more appointments and then we will look at scheduling the surgery.  I am hoping it doesn't fall too close to the time I am having the baby but making it work seems to be our theme as of late, so we will figure it out one way or another.

 

I haven't been very diligent in documenting this pregnancy.  I made Ryan take a picture of me on Valentine's day before church (hence the pink tights) and Hannah then declared "Me too!" until we took a picture of her in the same spot.  I am still not really prepared for baby #3 and kind of started hyper ventilating when the doctor told me I am ready to start scheduling every two week appointments because that means we are really in the home stretch.  I had some Old Navy cash to spend and did get him a few things for spring.
 

I also picked up some new bottles at Babies R Us.  Part of me wanted to give breastfeeding another go, but I decided that it is going to be hard enough to be outnumbered by our children, I don't think I can handle being the only source of food for a newborn round the clock.  I never hear anyone talk about how overwhelming breastfeeding can be, but I found it took a serious toll on my mental health and well being to literally dread every time Hannah opened her eyes and I had to attempt to painfully latch her on.  When I was trying to do it with Hannah breastfeeding was an all consuming obsession-- literally the only thing I could think or talk about.  I won't have that luxury this time around with Ryan being (hopefully) back to work, a toddler to chase around and activities to shuttle Isaac to four nights a week. So anyways, I am trying not to feel guilty about formula feeding this baby from the get go, but I still sort of do.  That's motherhood for you though.  Always something to feel guilty about.

Hannah is talking up a storm.  She cracks me up because whenever someone makes any sort of comment about smelling a smell, she will proudly say "It's me!" She also gets so excited about everything.  The other day during dinner she excitedly shouted to me "Mommy!  Daddy [gave] Hannah MEAT!" like it was the best thing in the world.  She loves Minnie and Mickey but will only call Donald "Duck". 



 Well we made it through the blizzard including a rather treacherous Sunday drive to get Isaac back from his dad, followed by two snow days and now a two hour delay tomorrow.  I am always a fan of snow days, but especially this year since I will be on maternity leave when it is time to make them up.  BRING ON THE SNOW!  We were a little concerned since Ryan is still so weak and not really in physical shape for removing over 2 feet of snow from our driveway, but we were able to arrange for a teenage boy in our neighborhood to help clear out driveway and sidewalks.  He did a great job, so that was a relief.

In other news, we bought Hannah a toddler bed from someone in our neighborhood and have been working with her on actually sleeping in it, instead of cuddled in between me and Ryan in our bed, where she would sleep if she had her way.  So far she makes it through the night about 50% of the time (and mind you, it is at the foot of our bed).  I would love to have her moved out of our room completely by the time the baby gets here, but I would settle for just consistently making it through the night in the toddler bed. 

We also reached the end of the initial 12 weeks of speech recommended for Hannah.  We have seen so much improvement in her vocabulary and articulation.  They toyed around the idea of dismissing her but we decided to decrease her services from twice a week to once a week for 8 more weeks and then re-evaluating her progress then.  Today she said "pizza" for the first time which was exciting.  She does not label things often, but will say "No this" or "I want that".  I know she is working really hard though and I am proud of how far she has come.

 I am now officially in my third trimester of pregnancy at 27 weeks.  I had the dreaded glucola test and it went well.  I am starting to feel a lot bigger and at the end of the day I am so stiff I can barely move.  I am dreading how much worse it gets over the next 13 weeks.  I am just not someone who enjoys being pregnant.  We still have some major items to purchase for baby #3 (car seat and double stroller) but we still have some time.

Ryan is continuing with his Remicaid treatments.  He had a bad reaction to his first treatment, so they took some precautions to try to avoid those this time around.  The treatments totally compromise his immune system, and  he now has an upper respitory infection in addition to everything else.  He is always exhausted and wiped out during the day, but one of the medicines he is on keeps him up during the night which is frustrating for him.

Living with someone who is chronically ill can be challenging.  I feel bad feeling that way since I am the healthy one but it's true.  It just feels like such hard timing with the baby coming.  I know I am being unfair when I feel resentful that Ryan is napping on the couch and I am running the kids around after a long day at school.  Other times I am just scared. My mind always races to the worst case scenario-- that Ryan will never be able to return to work and we will never be able to afford a bigger place or to live more comfortably.  That I will never be able to leave my job that I hate because I carry the health insurance.  I am scared Ryan may get much sicker and I will end up raising three kids alone. Sometimes I wonder if we will just ever get a break.