Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Summer in review.

This has been a fun and summer with tons of travel. We've been to Ft. Lauderdale,Fl for a Tom work conference, San Francisco and Wine Country for Ray(Tom's older brother)'s wedding, two weeks later to New Orleans/Lacombe, La for my 10 year High School reunion, San Diego, Ca for a week for a Tom conference (in Long Beach) and some Tom NEI (National Eye Institute) work in SD, then a few days later to Houston, Tx to see my brother and family, to New Orleans again for a wedding out in "northern" Louisiana (Bunkie) and finally to Nashville for a baby shower of my dear friend, Maria.

Summer travel is now over.

I've been babysitting Bernadette in between travel assignments and will continue to watch her for a few more months. I'm hoping I can watch her until the Christmas holiday time, when I'll be about 38 weeks pregnant.

This pregnancy is going very well. I am amazed at the difference between my pregnancy with "Joy" and my pregnancy with "Gumbo". I think a huge part of the difference is the work situation. I love staying home with Clark, teaching the Bradley Method, and babysitting a few days a wekk. I am doing things I love with people I care about. Chemonics was not the same story. I was constantly stressed at work, and took it out on the pregnancy. I guess it makes sense because people always ask, "how are you feeling" and I said, "overwhelmed, emotional, stressed, exhausted." but it wasn't because of Gumbo, it was because of Chemonics. I'm staying a lot healthier this time around too. I'm eating very well and am 23 pounds lighter right now than I was when I was 20 weeks along with Gumbo. I feel like I have lots of energy most days. I exercise, and feel good doing it.

It is amazing. If this pregnancy was like Gumbo's it might have been the last, but so far its not, and I am thankful!

We had our 20 week ultrasound last Friday and the baby is in there, just one, and baby looks great. We don't know the sex because baby's legs were close together and then crossed. So, this is an unknown baby. I'm a fan of suprises, but would have liked to be suprised last Friday - not 22 weeks from now. Alas, Tom and I will learn the wonder of being suprised.

Clark is a wonder of a child. He learns a new word or thing about every other day. Today's discovery is "boo-boo". I hit my knee on the baby gate and have a gash and a bruise. He has been inspecting it, and comparing it to his own boo-boo, one he got while running on the sidewalk, and then falling. Two days ago he learned the sign for "diaper change"

He really pays attention to things and is interested in checking everything out. He was carefully watching the midwife take my blood pressure today, and even squatted down, and leaned in to get a closer look. This morning we took a walk in Rock Creek Park. There is a grated bridge over the creek. Clark spent 10-15 minutes walking back and forth over it, hitting it with a stick to make noise and watching the water move. I think he's got a lot of engineer in him. =)

His biggest thing lately is climbing. We'll find that he's climbed onto kitchen chairs (we've gotten him to stop and not climb on the table), a weight bench, or into the stroller. He is using his baby toys as steps and we might walk into the computer room to see him standing on his piano and clinging to the bookshelf. It is a pretty scary time, but he is surving falls, and his long bones know how to make fresh blood if any leaks out of his face or knees. =)

We are cleaning out our guest room to make it a guest/office room. Its incredible the stuff we have accumulated. Sometimes we wonder, "are we horders? why do we have so many things?" Freecycle has people begging for our stuff, and some things are leaving via Craigslist or the trash. We almost cleaned that room out and are a month away from moving the office stuff into the guest room. It will take us about a month to do that, then I guess we'll make the blue office into Clark's new room. I'm not really ready for him to move downstairs, so maybe it will be a playroom for a little while. I'll be happy to get his toys out of the living room and confined into their own special downstairs place (especially as it gets colder and the porch gets less usable).

Tom is pretty good. He thought he might be getting c-diff again, but it was some other bug that he fought well and defeated. He is doing his best to stay healthy and as part of it we have hired some people to come clean our house - dusting and de-molding and finding things we didn't know existed to clean. It is a luxury and a health issue, but we are so glad. They have come once already and will be back in a few weeks.

Tom really enjoys his job and the difference between his current situation and where he was when Clark was born is incredible. It is much better. He just got promoted, which helps pay for the cleaning people and for our new baby expenses. =)

We are pretty happy and having a good life. We're doing our best to be loving people to each other and to the world. It was lovely to see all of our immediate families this summer and feel it will be a while before we can make that sort of mega tripping again.

We hope you are doing well!
Love, V

1 comment:

  1. I must admit I was behind on your blog. I didn't know you were pregnant again! Yay! You're such a cool mom. Un beso!!

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