Oops. I Did It Again.

Sorry for the recent radio silence, friends. I've been wanting to at least post about my Bella turning four (FOUR!) years old and put up the last set of pictures of her in the white chair. The thing is? She will NOT SIT for pictures in the white chair. No way, no how. She is definitively and absolutely DONE with PICTURES IN THE WHITE CHAIR. (Sound out the all caps in a determined four-year-old voice for best effect.)

Hmph.

And the problem with that is? She's totally old enough now to make that call. I won't lie and say it doesn't break my heart into 17 million pieces, because it does it so does it hurts and I cry and I want to grab her and stuff her inside my shirt and not let her exercise that damn freewill and keep her as my baby forever, but that's not very rational or logical now is it?

So instead? I've been spending the last four months or so growing one of these:

Baby2 at 13 weeks.

Baby2 at 13 weeks, 6 days.

AHA! Take that grown-kid-freewill-exercising Bella! You don't want any more chair photos? I will merely create another small human who will have no choice to but to pose for me for at least another 3.5 years. Of course they also won't sleep more than two hours at time, require a great deal of personal attention and will  shit on me a lot. Literally.

*HEART ATTACK*

Anyhoo. That's what's up. I'm in my 16th week now and my due date (for what those are worth) is September 21. Some people will recognize that date because it also happens to be my birthday. FREAKY RIGHT? I KNOW.

 It's pretty exciting stuff but in light of what happened last summer I've been incredibly nervous to share this news on any public forum.  I'm still not sure it's the best move but like most things in this life sometimes you just have to breathe deeply and leap. And given the length and extent of the symptoms I've been experiencing this time around, I'm feeling pretty certain that this kid intends on making a very healthy and happy appearance in around six more months.

Because I risk coming off as a whiny ungrateful loser, I'll spare you the specifics on how sick this pregnancy has been making me. Actually fuck it, it's my pregnancy and I'll whine if I want to.

The day I reached the six week mark (on the dot) I woke up thinking I had the worst stomach flu ever. Then it lasted for eight weeks. WITHOUT GOING AWAY AT ALL. At seven weeks I called my doctor sobbing from my office and begging for relief claiming that I was surely going to die. She prescribed me Diclectin immediately and I ran not walked to her office to collect it. I've been taking it four times a day ever since and though it's allowed me to get up and drag my ass to work (in fact I've only missed one day of work thus far, that very first day when I thought I had the flu, stupid me). It did not curb the nausea and it only mildly reduced the vomiting. I have done some spectacular puking. Highlights include, three times on my street one morning in front of a construction crew. Once in a garbage can at the Dufferin Mall. And once in someone's recycling bin on garbage day. (Sorry neighbour).

Gladly, thankfully, blissfully, miraculously, amazingly, somewhere around 14 weeks the nausea started to subside. It's been getting steadily better, though I continue to throw up usually in the morning but at other random times as well. The puking is not fun, but it's no longer preceded and followed by the relentless, endless, pitiless nausea that I experienced in the first trimester. I'll take random barfing over that special brand of hell any day.

Besides, I've been having some really fun symptoms as well. Ever since I stopped feeling nauseous (a week ago), I'm really enjoying food in that OMGthisisthebestthingI'veevertasted pregnancy kind of way. I still have several aversions, but anything that's on the okay list with my hormones is tasting pretty fucking great. I'm also feeling the baby move all the time now. This is much earlier than I ever felt it with Bella.

And there's this, the funnest of all the symptoms:

Bump at 15 weeks.

And by funnest, I mean fattest. I gained 50lbs with Bella and I'm pretty sure I'm setting, if not surpassing, that pace this time around. I'm definitely showing way more. A friend described second pregnancies as "blowing up a balloon that's already been inflated at some point". Yes. That.

Pretty sure this 15 week bump is the same size as my 20 week bump from last time around. I know I'm going to have a hell of a fight on my hands to get back into shape after this baby is born but you know what? I'll deal with it when the time comes. For now I'm going to stop being hard on myself. Do my best to eat as healthy as possible without denying myself the simple delectable pleasure that pregnant eating can be. My doc has advised that I refrain from working out (I have had some bleeding which has now completely stopped), but I can't and I won't unless I see a return of the bleed. I really need the exercise for my physical and mental well-being. 

This will be my last pregnancy. I'm about 95% sure. Crown is 2179% sure. I refuse to take any of it for granted and want to share it and savour every minute of it. It's given me a hell of a time so far but I'm already so beyond in love with my bump and my wee baby. Beyond, beyond, beyond. 

Lullaby

I think there is no more fitting example of what life is like as a working parent than the fact that it has taken me three full years to produce and publish the movie you'll see below.

I started it just after Bella's first birthday and I set what I thought at the time was a ridiculously generous goal for myself; to have it completed by the time she turned two. I thought it would be a nice, sweet gift to her (and me) and we could snuggle up together and watch it and marvel at just how much she, we, had grown and changed in just one year.

On Monday my baby, the one that you'll watch transform from tiny blob to pretty babe in the movie below, is going to turn four years old.

Four.

I've always said that at four I would stop taking her 'white chair' birthday photos that I took once per month for her first two years and then every six months after that. When I made the decision that four years would be long enough I honestly believed we had an eternity until then.

But I blinked and here we are.

Once we take her final pictures I want to make a movie showing all the chair shots in sequence from first to last and today when I went to source out some of the early photos I came across an unfinished movie from her first year. It was almost done, so close, yet somehow I never found the spare, quiet moments I required to give it the finishing touches.

Until today. Home sick with Bella, laptop with me on the couch, I finally got the chance. It's not perfect and you'll have to forgive my singing at the end, but it's done.

She and I had our moment together this morning, snuggled up and watching it after all. I cried a lot and indeed I marveled at how much she, we, have both grown and changed.


Music Credit: Lullaby; The Dixie Chicks

This weekend Bella and I will shoot her last chair photos. I hope it won't be another four years before I can put together the complete sequence. But I'm not holding myself to any goals this time. Because it all happens. Like it or not, it all just keeps on happening.

PS. The song this video is set to was played at the end of every single prenatal yoga class I went to while I was pregnant with Bella. To this day I can't hear it without being flooded by the memories of what it felt like to lie still in that dark room, holding my growing belly and dreaming about the days to come. Four years of those days have passed already but I'm still dreaming. And I still love this song.

And So This Is (Was) Christmas

I've been describing 2011 as a worthy adversary. Every one of the incredible highs that my family and I experienced this year was met and matched with a difficult low. We were challenged on just about every level in 2011. Emotionally, physically, financially.

I can't say I've ever lived a year that hasn't been a mix of ups and downs. That's just the nature of this life, isn't it? But in 2011 the lows were just a little lower, the tears came from slightly deeper in the soul. Then again the laughs? They came from a little deeper in the belly. Sighs of relief were breathed a little louder. Hugs were held a little longer, a little tighter. Because you know what? For every time I was knocked down, I managed to get up again. Stronger somehow with the knowledge of just how much we can survive, my awesome family and I.

We closed out the year with a month of celebrating. The Christmas season arrived with its fair share of the usual holiday stresses but our home was full of joy. Even the last few days of the year, spent shut in and nursing my beautiful girl through a terrible illness, were warm and lovely and safe. We hunkered down, snuggled in and plowed through it together, all the while reminded again and again just how lucky, how blessed, we really are.

Yes, a worthy adversary indeed, 2011. I believe we'll call it a draw.

Here are the snapshots from Christmas 2011, a fitting celebration to end this wild ride of a year. It was the perfect way to say farewell, to clear the palate and move forward with eyes and hearts open wide, ready to take on whatever may come in 2012.

These two handsome creatures lived on my mantle and made me smile every day.

Also on the mantle, how jolly is this little trio?

Put a berry on it.

Nobody loved our tree this year more than Moet.

Even the doorknobs were in on the festivities. 

Presents!

More presents!

Snuggles!

More snuggles!

Feasting continues on boxing day - our first Christmas dinner in the new house.

Beautiful even after being horribly sick for five straight days. We spent our last day of 2011 hunkered down at the hospital.

But this one's got a fighter's spirit like the rest of us. Bounced back enough to enjoy tacos and giggles on NYE.

Happy New Year from me and mine to all of you and yours. 

Not Our Official Christmas Card

But too hilarious not to share. Snapped at my company Children's Christmas party. Amazing. 

The whole family gets in on the Santa action because otherwise the kid was not having it.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Card Rejects

I'm not quite sure how I managed to rope myself into this put-a-picture-of-your-kid-on-a-Christmas-card thing, but let me just say that this is our fourth Christmas with Bella in our lives and on our cards and I'm in deep.

This picture is a reject but still pretty darn cute.

I'm obsessively compelled to make these cards and get them printed, signed and delivered in time. But it's even worse than all that because since the first card featured her in a cute winter hat, now they all have to involve her in a cute winter hat. Why you ask? Because I am an insane person.

I start panicking about the hat itself sometime around September, as soon as the winter hats start to hit the shelves. All hat options have to be seen, touched, compared and thought about before I can make a choice. Then Bella herself has to pre-approve the selection because Lord knows if she doesn't like the hat, there will be no picture taken. FACT.

The taking of photo haunts me for months until I finally land a day that seems sunny enough coupled with a moment where Bella is happy and willing. Last year she refused to smile at all between early October and mid-December, so the card, while still very cute, was rather on the glum side.

This year I got lucky. I managed to have a semi-free morning on a semi-nice day with a sort of happy kid. I think our card this year totally reflects this perfect storm of coincidences. But I'm not going to lie. We had to take a lot of photos to get the three that ended up on the card. A. Lot. Of. Photos.

Would hate to see these Christmas card rejects, each so funny and adorable in their own way, go to waste. And so, voila! I present you with my favourite selection of this year's unselected.

There's always that moment in the shoot when things get a little bit sad.

Thought we might go artsy this year. Yeah, no. Not quite card material.

There's always that moment in the shoot when she gets crazy eyes.

I wish this was real but full disclosure: a staged picking.

This, however, was real.

Taking the Christmas card photos is serious business.

Mom gets in on the action.

All I want for Christmas is a set of lashes exactly like hers.

Finally, with the photos in the bag, we all deserve a sweet reward. 

The 2011 card is officially in distribution. If you're reading this, you're probably getting one. But if not, we wish you the very merriest of holiday seasons and all the love, joy and belly-laughs you can handle in 2012.