This Time, It’s a BOY!

I went to the doctor a week and a half ago (when I was 17.5 weeks pregnant) and the doctor confirmed that we are in fact STILL having a boy.  Nate was certain after the last appointment but the only thing I was certain about was that there’s was a pretty good chance that we’d find out we were having a second girl at this visit.  Baby Boy looks very healthy, no signs of down syndrome or spina bifida which is of course far more important then what’s going on between the legs.  I’m already a bit concerned since his head measures in the 97th percentile, an entire week larger than the rest of his body, but the doctor didn’t seem as concerned as I was (probably because nothing on him has to stretch to get that gynormous melon out).  I had been having some kidney, back and abdominal pain which concerned him but all the tests say I’m fine so he has cleared me to continue to do as I please.  We’re hoping the rest of this pregnancy goes smoothly and of course that when we go back in a few weeks we won’t be told that the third leg fell off.  Now it’s on to more important things like picking names and getting the bedroom ready, though I’m not holding my breath that either one of those things will come about quickly since Nate only likes stupid names instead of the amazingly perfect names that I’ve come up with.  Why is it that last time we had a boy’s name picked out and had a hard time deciding on a girl’s name while this time we had a few girls names picked out but are far from having a boy’s name.   

Being the proud mother that I am, I had to include his first 3D photo (I already think he’s quite a handsome little guy) and a photo of his man parts.

Jodi Came to Visit!!

We always love when people come out to visit us, it’s a nice excuse to abandon all responsibility and have a fun time traveling around Europe.  This time one of my best friends from high school came out to spend a week with us and I really wanted to do something that Nate and I hadn’t done before so we decided to head to Oktoberfest 2010.  Jodi came in on a Thursday and it worked out perfectly that I was able to drop Reese off at school and head straight to the airport and I would’ve been there right as she walked out of customs if it hadn’t been for my ridiculously far away parking spot and the fact that there’s no way I was going to walk that extreme distance without using the bathroom first (gotta love pregnancy).  We had a nice car ride home and since we only had a week with her we didn’t allow her any rest time when we got back to our house.  Nate was able to get off work early so after some food we headed to Trier to show her one of the oldest cities in Germany.  We had a great night and even got to go to our favorite sushi place for dinner.

The next morning we got an early start on our trip down to Munich.  Jodi had told me the only things she cared about doing were eating German  food and going to a concentration camp so our first stop was Dachau concentration camp which is just outside of Munich.  This was Nate and I’s third trip to Dachau which worked nicely because I was able to play tour guide and give her a little information that I’d remembered from previous trips.  After Dachau we drove an hour and a half south to Garmisch where we’d be staying for our weekend.  I had decided to stay further south at the nice military resort there instead of trying to stay in and navigate Munich during the festival.  By the time we got to Garmisch we’d been in the car so long that we were all tired and ready to relax.  We ate dinner at the hotel and made our plans for our trip in to Oktoberfest the next day.

Saturday morning  was the official opening of Oktoberfest so we took the train from Garmisch to Munich, which was actually a great deal with special weekend pass they offered, and headed over to the festival grounds.  We hadn’t left as early as had been suggested to us but we ended up getting to a spot right as the parade started going by.  There were lots of marching bands and then the horses pulling the carts with all the kegs of beer to the beer tents.  Reese enjoyed the parade at first but then the horses began to lose her interest, unfortunately there was no place to go so we were stuck until it ended.  When it finally did we just followed the floats and too many other people over to the festival.  When we walked in it was crazy with people, we could hardly move there were so many people filtering in to the area.  The beer tents hadn’t opened yet and we were starving so we happened upon this restaurant that was set up like the beer tents but we were able to get in so we went in and enjoyed our “beer tent” experience.  Reese enjoyed munching on the little pretzels and the waitress even gave her one of those cookie necklaces so we had a very happy little girl on our hands.  

 

After our lunch  the beer tents had opened up so people had filtered in there and the area was easier to move aro und in.  We decided to let Reese pick a few rides to go on so she went on a little flying ride and then she got to ride the ponies, she loves horses so I thi nk the pony ride was the highlight of the day for her.  The rest of the time we spent wandering around, getting snacks and watching Reese devour her cookie.  Towards the end I finally found the giant pretzels I was hoping for, in my opinion nothing says Oktoberfest like a pretzel that’s larger than your head.  After we’d had our fill of Oktoberfest we went in to the old part of Munich and wandered around for a little bit and then caught the train back down to Garmisch.  All in all it was a very enjoyable time at Oktoberfest and I’m glad that Nate and I were able to make it to Oktoberfest during our time here in Germany.

On Sunday it was time for us to head out so we took a leisurely morning at the hotel.   Jodi and I went for massages (prenatal massage = ahhhhhhhhh) while Nate and Reese rode the little carousel in the basement far too many times to count.  Our plan had been to stop by Neuschwanstein Castle on our way home so we headed that direction but somehow the GPS sent us through Austria and I, having not planned to drive in Austria, didn’t bring my International drivers license or our passports and I usually wouldn’t have worried but we were stuck in a major traffic jam that I did not want to end with some time of police check so we turned around and decided to head the other way and go straight home.  We stopped at some restaurant for lunch and I ended up ordering what we can only guess was boiled bacon encased in some kind of gelatin, it was cold and it looked like fake vomit.  Luckily Nate stepped up to the plate and Nate nearly all of the disgusting pile he saw in front of him, I was quite proud to be his wife in that moment.  After lunch we began a different route home which ended up taking us by Neuschwanstein so we stopped and wandered around the town for awhile and ate delicious desserts before we began the rest of the long ride home.  Despite the traffic and construction we made descent time on the way home, which means we got to City Grill just before they closed so we were still able to get some Doners for a late night snack. 

On Monday my baby carrying body was pretty tired out from the weekend so we took it a little slower and just did some shopping and wandered around our town.  I was glad Jodi was up for a down day because I don’t think I could’ve kept going at the pace we had been.  On Tuesday we dropped Reese off at school and went to see some local places.  We stopped at Abtei Himmerod and then went to Manderscheid castle before we picked her up and headed to Marksburg Castle which is near Koblenz.  Marksburg is one of my favorite castles to take people to because to me it’s exactly what I would’ve imagined a medieval castle to be.  Jodi agreed with me that the castle was amazing and I was glad that she enjoyed her final sightseeing day.  For dinner we had some traditional German schnitzel and then came back to our place to play Rock Band until it was time to call it a night.  Sadly, the next day I had to drive Jodi to the airport.  Reese was sad to see Auntie go bye bye but we were all glad that she made the time to come out and spend a week with us.  

Who’s pregnant?

Reese stuffed herself full of baked ziti tonight and when she got down from the table I couldn’t resist taking a few belly comparison shots.

Reese’s First Day of School

Last week I was able to get Reese signed up for the part day enrichment program for two year olds on base, it’s basically preschool for 2 year olds.  I was so excited to have her signed up because she’s such a social little girl and I don’t want to stunt that by keeping her home with me all the time, granted we were always doing playgroups and other activities with kids but I was still eager for her to be in a social setting without me.  She was so excited for her first day of school, ever since we went to sign her up and she'd played in the classroom she'd been eager to go back.  Today ended up being a very rainy day so I took a few of her school photos inside the house but still forced her to the porch for the obligatory first day of school photo.  She looked so big in her backpack with that excited smile on her face.  When we went in her classroom we put her stuff in her cubby and then ran over to sit at the computer, I kissed her goodbye and she was not the least bit sad to see me go, I even peeked back in through the window a few minutes later to find her happy and content.  When I got home the house was quiet and I was all alone for the first time in a very very long time, it was quite enjoyable.  I sat there eating Cheez Its wondering when the last time that I was able to eat food without sharing it with someone else was.  When I returned to get her 3 hours later she was too busy picking up the toys to even notice that I had come in and then when she did notice me she was excited to see me but in no hurry to leave despite the fact that all the other children were leaving as well.  When we were walking out to the car she asked if she was going to school tomorrow, I'd say that's a good sign.  All in all I’m so excited that I made the decision to enroll her, she had fun and is excited to go back and adding the structure to our day was really nice.  I hate to sound mean but I’m eager for her to go back as well, it was so nice to have some quiet time to myself and I found myself being far more patient throughout the rest of the day because of it.  She starts gymnastics tomorrow and then back to school on Thursday, it’s going to make for a more hectic schedule but I’m excited for her to get out and start doing more.     (nevermind the zoned out look on the last photo, she was totally preoccupied and wanted me to go away)

Dr. Franz-Rudolph Jerono

The question isn’t why would I post the hospital websites photo of my doctor on my blog, but why WOULDN’T I?  Don’t you all feel like you’re missing out by not getting to have this man as your doctor?  I’ll have to get a recording of him someday but he sounds like Mr.Bean with a German accent.  I guess Nate and I will have to be done having kids after this one unless we somehow end up back in Germany, because I just can’t picture myself going to any other doctor for my pre and post natal needs.

Deja Vu

I had my third check up for baby #2 last week at 13.5 weeks along.  They were trying to do an ultrasound to check for signs of down syndrome but the baby was moving so much that they couldn’t get it to sit still long enough to look, she did however tell us that baby #2 looked like a boy.  If you’re wondering how much I believe this you can look back in the blog archive to see how I was burned the first time around when they told us at 11.5 weeks that Reese looked like a boy.  Since they couldn’t get baby to sit still long enough to measure they sent us to lunch and had us come back an hour later hoping baby would be quieter.  When we came back my doctor was out of surgery so he did the ultrasound and was able to get the measurements he needed, baby looks healthy with nothing to worry about, and once again told us it looked like a boy.  Please see the above statement about me lacking confidence in a gender guess at this point in time.  The following is a photo of something in between our child’s legs.  Now we would enjoy having a little boy join our family, but I know from experience that my little girls like to tease Mommy so I’m holding off judgment until my next appt when I may or may not believe what the doctor says.

(the arrow is pointing to what the doctor labeled “the mark of a boy”)

Phantasia Land

We had planned to do something Labor day weekend months ago, but our plans to go to Prague for the long weekend slowly fell through as the prospect of a 7 hour drive two weeks after our trip to Spain and two weeks before the arrival of a guest seemed a little too much for even us to handle.  We were still trying to figure out what we wanted to do right up until the last minute when we decided to take Reese to Phantasia Land for the day.  Phantasia Land is a theme park just outside Cologne and only ended up being an hour and fifteen minute drive from our house which was exactly the length of time we were willing to sit in the car.  We had looked online and it looked like Reese would be tall enough to ride the majority of the rides and we were pleased when we got there to find out that despite the fact that she was 1cm too short for the majority of them, they only measured her at one ride so she was able to go on all the rest.

   

Right as we walked in Reese saw this red dragon and was very excited.  She was a little wary of getting close to it at first but ended up going over with Nate to shake his hand.

 

Reese’s favorite ride was, as always, the carousel.  She loves riding on the horses so we probably rode the carousel 10 different times throughout the day

 

Nate got the luxury of squeezing in to this tiny little plane with her, she had so much fun riding rides with Daddy all day long.

 

Reese told me that this mini ferris wheel, went fast and I laughed.

More carousel photos, I told you we went on it a ridiculous number of times.

 

This ride scared me the most because she had to go all by herself, but she was so happy to get to ride with all the other kids (I was scared for nothing as it was the least scary ride that every existed)

 

We ended the day by all going on a log ride, we had gotten fast passes to any ride in the park earlier when a ride we were waiting in line for broke down so we walked right past the long line and jumped on.  By the end of the day Reese was ready to pass out, she’d stayed awake the entire day and she’s definitely a nap girl.  The second we got in the car she fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we were turning on our street. 

Barcelona Spain

       I'm kind of a jerk because we've been back from Spain for a week and a half and I still haven't posted anything about it. I'd like to chalk my lack of blogging up to a busy schedule or pregnancy woes, but I can't it's just laziness. Anyways, so here's the story of Spain:

Nate went TDY to Spain in May and Reese and I were supposed to fly out and see him while he was there but between appointments that we had and the trouble of getting to his exact location it just didn't make any sense for us to go, so Nate suggested that we instead take a week in August and go to Barcelona. We asked some friends if they wanted to go as well and it turned out to be a lot of fun to take a relaxing trip with other English speakers :) We had a wicked early flight on Monday, and by wicked early I mean we had to leave for the airport at 4am. We flew into Girona and had to take an hour bus ride to Barcelona. Reese was such a champ for the entire journey, we'd been potty training and while we were on the bus she said she had to go and despite the fact that it took us 20 minutes before we could get to a bathroom she didn't have an accident. We had a nice hotel just outside the main districts so it was nice and quiet and our first order of business was to get to the beach. Reese LOVED the beach! I was wondering how she would react to it but she went down to the water and was having fun collecting rocks and then I took her out in the water to ride the waves and she thought that part was awesome too. I was so excited to see her enjoying the beach, she even let Nate bury her in the sand...well to tell the truth he dug a hole and then she climbed inside and started pulling the sand on herself so he helped push the rest of the sand in. That night we called it quits early and got some much needed sleep after our very long day.

On Tuesday we went to La Sagrada Familia and it was pretty amazing. Most churches are the extremely similar inside and out but this one was so different and I was really glad that we went. After that we wandered over to some other buildings that Gaudi had designed and then went back to the beach for the afternoon. The day before we had noticed that a little ways down the beach it was less crowded so we decided to head down that way, BIG MISTAKE! That part of the beach was less populated because everyone was nude and though it doesn't matter either way may I please just say Why is it that only old people go nude on the beach? Anyways, we headed back down to the crowded part of the beach and found a place amongst the merely topless women to toss our towels. After awhile on the beach we were all laying out and a huge wave came out of nowhere and tried to take our stuff out to sea. Luckily the only thing we lost to the wave was a toy rake, but our towels were soaked since I'd had to chase them down so it effectively ended our beach day that day. That night we wandered Las Ramblas which is a busy pedestrian zone with street performers and shops, but after dinner Nate, Reese and I called it a night because I was having some contractions and figured it was a sign that I needed to take it easy.

On Wednesday we hopped on the train a little ways out of Barcelona to the monastery at Montserrat. It's high up on a mountain so we had take a cablecar to the top which was fun. We went to the Basilica there and then Nate and I just relaxed while our friends hiked down to see where they'd found a statue of Mary, after the contractions the night before I was trying to take it easy. When they finished with that we took a funicular higher up the mountain for some nice views and by then it was getting late so we took our train back to Barcelona.

On Thursday we went back to Las Ramblas to do some souvenir shopping and find churros con chocolate. The churros were good but I would have preferred a sweeter chocolate, still delicious none the less. After some shopping we were going to head back to the hotel and go to the beach but while on the metro someone stole my wallet, burn on them that they only got 10 euro, but burn on me that they got our only credit cards (long story short Nate and I each had one but I'd taken his when went to the beach and forgot to give it back) and my ID cards. We went back to the hotel and cancelled everything and then wallowed for a bit in the fact that we had a day and half left on vacation and absolutely no money, luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to loan us some money for the rest of the time but by the time we had done all that some bad weather had set in so the beach was a no go for the day. That night after dinner we went and saw the Magic Fountain show complete with lights and dancing water, Reese really enjoyed it.

Friday was our last day and since we had to check out of the hotel in the morning we decided not to go to the beach and be covered in sand until we finally got home at midnight, which ended up really sucking because it was by far the hottest day there. We went to Parc Guell and it was a massive hike up to the top, I felt bad for poor Nate pushing a sleeping Reese in her stroller to the top and then when we get there and Nate is pouring sweat Reese wakes up and tells him that it's hot, it was really funny. It was pretty cool but it was so sweltering hot outside that we just skimmed through it and headed back to some air conditioning. That evening we caught our bus back to the airport and flew home. Despite the whole stolen wallet thing it was a really fun trip, perhaps the best part was where Reese finished potty training while we were there. She'd been good on peeing in the toilet for awhile but was fighting me on pooping in it but she pooped in the toilet everyday we were in Spain, I had been worried about it but somehow it just clicked and I was immediately de-stressed.

The Saturday Morning Surgeon

Reese has a habit of waking up earlier than Nate and I would like on a Saturday morning. This morning she woke us up with her everyday call of "Momma, gotta go poopoo," so Nate took her to the bathroom and then tossed her in bed with us in the hopes that she would fall back asleep. Now as soon as Nate tossed her in bed he rolled over and fell right back asleep while I was left to deal with a very awake and very not tired little girl. This morning he didn't just toss a little girl into bed, apparently he tossed a mini surgeon in. She crawled out of bed and ran to get what I thought was a bag of plastic animals but apparently plastic animals are here surgical tool of choice. She climbed back into bed next to me and as I naively thought she was going to entertain herself with animals, she began operating on me. First I received a facelift with the hoofs of a plastic horse. For those who have not experienced this procedure, it is extremely painful and I'm pretty sure my surgeon should've brought in an anesthesologist before she began. I found this procedure a bit offensive since I still view myself to be young enough to forgo a facelift for a few more years. I explained this to my surgeon, and the fact that I was in a lot of pain, and she agreed to move on to more pressing surgical concerns. I next had my arm sliced open with a cow, I don't remember my arm hurting prior to the procedure but I just assumed that my little Doogie Howser knew what she was doing. After a little more work on my arms and hands she decided that her work with me was done and thought she might dabble in veterinary medicine, luckily for Jaeger she jumped away from Dr. Kevorkian before she could start in on her. I'm not sure if I should be pleased that my little girl is showing such an aptitude for medicine or afraid to close my eyes. I am sure that this is one more thing that makes me fear for the spawn growing inside me. The first hint that I should be afraid was:

I just don't think that baby is big enough to be giving her a horsie ride. Please tell me you see the same visions of tummy time going terribly wrong.

UH

I'm having a hard time trying to remember why I wanted to have another baby. When I was pregnant with Reese my only first trimester symptom was extreme exhaustion which was easily cured by a nap when I got home from work. This go around I'm sick with a capitol ICK! I've had at least some degree of nausea every single day, most days I can't even stand up without feeling like I'm going to puke. Oh and speaking of puking, I do it all the time, it's become my evening ritual and no I don't feel any better after I do. The newest joy in my life is the kidney pain that started last night and has yet to subside, it's not that it hurts terribly it's the fact that I know how bad it can get and that's enough to make me want to cry. Other than that it's just the usual joys of having your hormones messed with, I'm mean to just flat out call it what it is. I roll my eyes constantly at what I deem to be the stupidity of others and have labeled innocent bystanders my arch nemesis. I feel bad for poor little Reese because my fuse isn't as long as it used to be and despite my best efforts to fight against it, I fear she may be getting the short end of the stick.
Did I mention we're potty training? Well we are, and that's enough to make anyone rethinking having more children. We started a week ago and Reese is doing really well with peeing in the toilet but we're still having trouble trying to get her to poop in it.
I'm 8 weeks along today so hopefully the first trimester woes will end soon, if not expect to read more blogs about the stupidity of those I encounter.

#2

There's another little Crandall on the way. I have my first doctor's appt. in a week but by my calculations I'm 5 weeks along and will be due March 5th. Which means that in 35 ridiculously long and tiring weeks Reese will undergo the transformation from only child to Super Big Sister.