Miles is Walking Well

I'm about a week behind on this one, but Miles is now walking very well.  He walks over 90% of the time.  He still has his hands up in the air most of the time - kind of a Godzilla impression - but it's very cute.  Now that he has this new skill, he likes to use it often.  When I take him to playgrounds, instead of playing on the equipment, he just wants to go for a walk... a LONG walk.  We were across the street at a playground, and Miles walked with Jason all the way to the church (probably 1/6 to 1/5 of a mile).  And, OF COURSE, we have to measure Miles' walking in miles.  =)  I can't wait until he walks his first mile.

Toddler A, here we come!  (Toddler A is the room at church that he needs to be "walking well" to graduate up to.  His sister has been in there for a month or two already.)

Go, Miles!

NOT Running Through the Morning Sickness

Ok, so I just noticed that my last archived pregnancy post was entitled "Running Through the Morning Sickness."  Yeah... about that...

So the morning sickness got considerably worse just after Thanksgiving.  I think I wrote about running through the sickness on one of my last days of running.  At this point, I have not run (not a single mile) in about 3 weeks.  It's pretty much driving me crazy, but I don't have the energy to run and I have felt like I'm going to vomit about 80% of the time most days.  Pushing a double stroller while running has not been at the top of my list of things to do.

Luckily, I have been able to do some walking - walking up to 4 miles some days when I'm not feeling too bad.  Over the past 5 days, I have started to feel considerably better (a nice Christmas present!), so I'm hopeful that I'm on the road to recovery and will soon be on the road with my sneakers again.

Good Thing We Got That Minivan

I have so many things to write about and catch up on.  It has been harder for me to blog lately because I've been feeling a bit under the weather and I have been extremely exhausted at night.  Having twins will do that to you.  And having twins and BEING PREGNANT will really do that to you, too.  =)

We are thrilled to announce that Jason, Miles, Vivienne and I are expecting Baby C to join our family in July of 2012.  My official due date is July 27th.  Miles and Vivienne were born on July 18th, so they will be turning two very near the new baby's birthday.  Maybe they will all share the same birthday?  We would have to throw a HUGE party every year for that!

I am only 10 weeks along, but so far everything looks great.  I was going to wait until later toward the second trimester to blog about this, but I decided that I wanted to go ahead and share our wonderful news with family and friends.  I would still prefer to keep this off of Facebook for the time being, so if you can remember not to post about it over there, I would appreciate it.  =)

Here is what Baby C looked like on December 9th - my confirmation appointment at the OB.  They have a confirmation appointment to confirm that you're actually pregnant, asking questions like "When was your last cycle?" and "Have you taken a pregnancy test?".  I wanted to say, "Hey, I have twins.  I either have a baby in here or I have some sort of terminal illness that greatly resembles morning sickness."  (The morning sickness has been pretty bad again with this one.  Luckily, it's easing up now.  More on that later.)

December 9, 2012

The baby really just looks like a little peanut in this picture.

Here is what Baby C looked like on December 22, my first official regular OB appointment:

In this picture, the baby looks like he's (I have to pick a pronoun here, so I'll use "he"?) rock climbing up the left side of my uterus.  You can make out the leg bud in the lower left-hand corner of the fetus.

As we started through this process, I began to blog about it every now and then.  I saved them all as drafts.  I will post those now, so please bear with me as I sort of "machine gun" out some early pregnancy posts.

I'm SO glad that I have my minivan now.  We're going to need it.

Puzzles

Last week, I pulled out one of our animal puzzles to play with the kids.  They have never showed an ability to put any of the pieces in their place.  To my surprise, Vivienne was able to match all of the animals!  She would put them in the correct spot, but I would have to rotate them to actually fit into the hole.  (Each piece is very irregularly shaped and has to be placed perfectly to fit.)  Miles still prefers to throw the pieces across the room instead of solving the puzzle.  ;-)

Miles Walking

Miles continues to walk more and more each day.  He walks with his arms up in the air to help him balance, but he is gradually improving and gaining more confidence in his walking.  I would say that he probably crawls just over 50% of the time, but this is still a huge improvement from a month ago, when he crawled about 90% of the time.  We're going to have him switched to the "well walking" toddler room tomorrow at church.  He'll finally be back with his sister again on Sunday mornings.  (She switched to this room a couple months ago.)

First Santa Encounter

Miles and Vivienne had their first encounter with Santa last night.  We went to the Holiday Express at Pullen Park.  They had lights set up for the train, and we were able to kick off the Christmas season with some friends.

Here is a rare photo of the four of us getting ready to ride the Holiday Express:

After riding the train, we rode the carousel.  Carousels are beautiful, but I have to say that I always feel a bit motion sick after I get off of them.  Last night was no exception.

Before we left, we stopped by to see Santa.  This was the kids' first time seeing Santa, but they did fairly well.  Miles at least sat in his lap without crying, and Vivienne let me hold her within the general vicinity of Santa (though she was NOT going to sit on his lap without melting down).  =)  Thanks for taking the photos, Mary!

Running Through the Morning Sickness

(from December 4, 2011)

Well, I have managed to run through the morning sickness so far.  Surprisingly, I don't seem to feel nauseated while I'm running.  I think that the fresh air and blood pumping helps me to clear my head.  I do worry about pushing it too much, though.  I already feel like I'm at an energy deficit.  I could sleep 10 hours at night and still want to take a 2-hour nap each day.

I ran 6 miles on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week and then ran 7 miles on Saturday.  Today, I had a head cold, so I just took it easy and we took the babies to the playground.

One Lump or Two

(from December 3, 2011)

Next Friday, six days from now, we will have out first ultrasound of this baby.  We have joked about what would happen if we had twins again.  It is interesting to think about.  On the one hand, it sounds really neat to me.  We only know what it is like to have two babies at a time.  It almost seems sad to me that a baby wouldn't have a little twin partner.  I have had twins before, so it wouldn't be completely foreign.

On the other hand, I have NOT had twins and TWO TWO-YEAR-OLDS AT THE SAME TIME.  OH MY WORD, WHAT WAS I THINKING???  How in the world would I manage that?  There isn't enough caffeine in the world!! 

So, I'm going to try not to think about it much until we find out next Friday.  We'll take whatever gifts God has brought to us and be thankful for them.  We are just blessed to have this(ese) baby(ies).

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...

"Morning" Sickness

(from December 3, 2011)

With Baby C, I'm already starting to have some pretty bad "morning" sickness, except that it happens all the time, not just in the morning.  I feel pretty nauseated almost all of the time.  My mouth waters.  I burp like crazy.  I don't feel like eating, but the less I eat the worse I feel.  And the worse I feel, the less I want to eat.  It's a frustrating cycle.  The key is to eat small meals, but I have never been good at that.  I'm more like an "eat your entire plate of food" kinda girl.  I'm trying to adjust.  Jason has been great at picking up a lot of slack around here for me, especially on the weekends.  Today, he fed the kids all three of their meals, cleaned up the house and watched them while I napped and ran.  He's earning major bonus points.  I love you, sweetie.

Nooooo!!!  Vivienne seems to have learned a new word (or at least concept).  Quite a few times today, she shook her head "no" at me.  I have never seen her do this before.  I guess we don't do it to them very often.  But somehow she has picked up on this.  I see a lot of "NO!" in my future.

Sharing is Caring

Miles and Vivienne are pretty good at sharing already.  I'm glad to see that.  I think that being a twin forces children to learn to share at an earlier age.  They have to learn to share their toys, their drinks and food, their mommy... it's a LOT of sharing.

Vivienne is super sweet about bringing Miles his lovey.  She will go and pick up her lovey, then go and find Miles' lovey.  Then she will take it to him and outstretch her arm so that he can snuggle up with it.  It's ridiculously adorable.  She does this at least a few times a day.

She will also get his shoes for him.  I think this might actually be a selfish move - because she knows that we can't go outside until everyone has their shoes on.  But, I'll take it.

A couple days ago, however, I saw her running from Miles with his lovey in her hands.  She was giggling and he was whining.  Let's hope that this doesn't become a regular occurrence.  So much for sharing...