baby bump #3 {full term!}

Here it comes...ready or not. Baby number three! From what I've heard, we're about to have our world rocked.

I've noticed the things people say to me when they hear we're expecting our third child so close to the first two can sometimes be less than encouraging. It's usually something along the lines of "You'll never leave the house again!," "Three kids takes parenting to a whole different level," "Three was really hard for us,"  "Get ready to be outnumbered!," "You've definitely got your hands full!," or "Oh wow, good luck." I understand why anyone might think like that, because I'm pretty sure I think those things every day all on my own. But wow, hearing it said out loud has a way of making it worse!

One thing I keep hearing that I cling to is people mentioning their third baby being their best baby, or if they were a third child (which I was), remembering that they were their mom's best baby. Crossing. My. Fingers. Let this baby be an angel!!

But something even better has stood out to me above everything else. Shortly after we first announced the pregnancy to everyone, I received an email from one of Jon's sweet aunts, congratulating us and saying exactly what I needed to hear. Here is my favorite part:

"May I just say, I fell in love with motherhood at baby number 3. All of a sudden, I was no longer trying to fit two little people into my life—they WERE my life! And I loved it! Babies number 1 and 2 had each other, and I got to love and enjoy baby number 3 like I had not been able to before."

When I read her kind words of excitement and encouragement, I felt like my fears and worries let out a big internal sigh of relief, and I was reminded what a wonderful thing this is. A growing family, another little life, another beautiful blessing...our third child.

I don't doubt what everyone else says. We are about to have our world rocked. This is probably taking parenting to whole new level. It will be really hard sometimes. Our hands will be completely full. It may take us a LONG TIME to leave the house again. And we will need all the luck we can get. But at the same time, we are being blessed with the opportunity for these little people—all three of them—to BE our life (not just be squeezed into it). And to love it.

Before we welcome this new little life into our family, Jon was awesome enough to know I would want a photoshoot to document our little family now, and that's exactly what he gave me for our anniversary/Mother's Day (which, by the way, were one day apart this year). Turns out a photoshoot of two kids plus a maternity session is no easy feat, and we spent most of the time chasing our wild children around (and let me tell you, they are FAST. And fearless. And they think it's funny.). But you'd never know, because Jon caught everything on camera perfectly! I love how they turned out!! And you can probably tell, because there are a lot...

Here are the end results. A 3.5 year old, a 22-month old, a babe in utero, and a mother of 2.5. (These were taken less than 2 weeks ago, when I was 37 weeks pregnant).

Babes 1 and 2. Van has been obsessed with his Superman costume lately, and we pretty much love it. If he wants to wear it, we are happy to oblige every time! Even if it's on the way to our photoshoot. :)


Fly Super-van!


1. 2. 3. 












Watching airplanes in the sky.


Our kids have dance moves that you should probably be jealous of. Just sayin'.












Love that face of hers!


This lasted 2 seconds, but Jon snagged it!


Baby bump lovin'.




What most of the photo session really looked like. 


This kid can't get enough of jumping and flying.






I love how this captures a hint of the wildness in their eyes. :) This is SO our kids.




Love these two crazy kids!!

our little lady

Going to the park with our kids has been awesome this year with so much good weather. It's been especially fun to see how much more Lila can do this spring than she could last spring (since she was only 9 months old and crawling then...). She is now a maniac at the park just like her brother, fearlessly climbing jungle gyms, catapulting down slides, jumping off everything imaginable, and gaining me the looks of nearby parents concerned I may not be watching her close enough. Sigh...so reminiscent of Van.

I can't get over the beautiful little girl she's becoming, we love her to pieces!!

under the weather

We've been seeing faces like this a lot around here.



Lila's had a little bit of a rough health year so far. In February she got a terrible cough that kept her up at night, made her grumpy in the day, and stayed for 2 months. We had some scary nights when it was really hard for her to breathe while she was coughing every breath and we had to watch her really closely. Her sickness only started to fade when she got diagnosed with bronchiolitis, started a regular albuterol inhaler at home, and went in for intermittent nebulizer treatments at the doctor's office. We know many kids have it much worse, so we are happy it wasn't more serious, but the poor girl was definitely unimpressed by the inhaler and all the weekly doctor visits (and we were unimpressed by the weekly co-pay and cost of in-office treatments). Just when they were about to start her on a regular steroid nebulizer treatment at home, she seemed to clear up, and we put it on hold.

A couple weeks later she got some sort of nasty flu for 4 days that made her lose her lunch on more than one occasion and stole her appetite for about a week. It was about then that out of nowhere she started wheezing again, without any real implications of a cold (maybe allergies?). But this time it was the worst she's ever been, and for the first time ever the inhaler was doing absolutely nothing.

That night Jon stayed by her bedside trying to get her to sleep, and she finally managed to fall asleep, even though from watching her body you would think she was still wide awake. Her stomach was going up and down so quickly as she tried desperately to get enough air with each breath, she looked tense and uncomfortable, and she was wheezing so loudly that I could hear her from downstairs while she was sleeping upstairs. We were terrified to leave her, fearing that at any moment in the middle of the night she could become so exhausted she would pass out. After calling my sister who's a nurse and going over her condition, at about 11:30pm we decided it was best to take her into the hospital.

In the ER they immediately saw her oxygen levels were too low, put her on oxygen, gave her liquid steroids and antibiotics, gave her several types of medication through a nebulizer, then sent her off to get a chest x-ray. It came back showing a tiny case of pneumonia, and they decided to keep her overnight. One night turned into two, explaining to us that it was vital to treat her very aggressively during her first hospital admittance for (possible) asthma. The doctors were optimistic this would make her body more responsive to treatments in the future, and hopefully less susceptible to needing the treatments, especially avoiding more extreme cases like what had brought her there this time. Aside from hating all the monitors stuck to her little tummy, chest, and foot, and desperately wanting to run and play, Lila did really well for a little 20-month-old baby. Sweet, sweet, baby.

She's doing so much better now, and just has a couple steroid and albuterol treatments every day to keep her in check for the next month or so. All the discharge papers listed her diagnosis as "Asthma and Upper Respiratory Infection," although they never said that exactly to us, because we've learned that technically she can't be diagnosed with asthma until she's five, since chances are high it could go away by then and never develop into lifelong asthma. Asthma is something I had as a kid, and Jon's dealt with it during allergy seasons in the past, so it's not a shock to us, we're just happy there are medications to help her so she can breathe normally. It's so sad to watch her work so hard for breath, so seeing the changes they were able to make on her during those two days in the hospital was so great. She was back at the park climbing ladders and flying down slides just a few hours after getting home from the hospital—you would never know she'd ever been admitted.

Jon was with her when she got released, and he said she ran the entire way out of the hospital all the way to the car. Barefoot. In pajamas. With mangled hair. Yelling, "Home! Home! Go! Mommy! Wan! (Van)" the whole way out. Cutest thing ever.

Thank you for all your love and support while we were in the hospital with her and for all your concern since then. We're all so happy to have her home and healthy!




And this guy continues to be entertaining as ever. He sure missed his sister and he's been super helpful with her nebulizer treatments every day, trying to make her happy while she's strapped down to an oxygen mask, if that's possible :) His expressions kill us.

slow mornings

A lazy Saturday morning, complete with library books, pajamas, and Lila's unkempt mullet...lacking her token pigtails to correct the hair funk she's in. She will someday in the distant future be embarrassed that we didn't jump on a cute bob 'do for her while the top grows in, but in the meantime, those pigtails of hers are pretty irresistible.

not my best idea ever

We've had crazy awesome weather here this year. A cold day here and there, rare bouts of rain, and a very early spring (that groundhog had no idea what he was talking about!). That's my kind of winter!

An early spring meant early cherry blossoms, probably 2 weeks earlier than we've ever seen them in the last 5 years. Almost without thinking I planned on going again this year like we always have, and I waited for a solid forecast for good weather to join the crowds. That ended up coming on an afternoon, so I figured I'd wait until Lila woke up from her nap and then head out to the District. Our evening went as follows...

3:30pm. Lila woke up.

4:00pm. Out the door. Driving into DC during peak blossoming at 4pm could be deemed less than brilliant. Especially with 2 toddlers, an almost-7-months-pregnant belly, and no husband since he was out of town for work. And let's not forget rush-hour traffic. :)

5:15pm. In the heart of the cherry blossom festival. I was confident of where I could find parking, but after driving around for nearly an hour, I started to get frustrated, tried to get creative with finding a new parking area, and conveniently ended up getting spit right onto the freeway going north (directly away from the blossoms, and further into the city). Noooooo! I took the first exit, sending myself right onto Constitution Ave with bumper to bumper traffic leaving DC. Awesome. The two little people in the back were hating life strapped in their carseats and letting me know it at max volume. I weighed my options of trying to get back to the blossom hub, or coming up with another way to get there, and opted to leave the city, park across the Potomac in VA at a place called Gravelly Point, and run in from there.

6:00pm. Park at Gravelly Point, 2 hours after leaving the house. I had worn running clothes just in case something like that happened, but when I got out of the car and eyed the distance, I realized I had seriously underestimated how far it was. Not being one to bail on a plan once I've made one, though, I put the kids in the jogging stroller, and started running on the trail. Oh wow...I must have been a sight. I googled the trail when I got home, and found out it was actually about 2 miles to the Jefferson and 2 miles back. I was DYING pushing 2 kids and carrying a baby in utero. Pretty much the worst idea ever. I think I stopped every 2 minutes to walk.

6:45pm. At the Jefferson, finally, after crossing the-bridge-that-would-not-end. Saddest 2-mile run of my life. I had about 30 mins to let the kids run rampant on the grass by the monument, blow bubbles to make them happy, try to take photos and fail miserably, refuel with snacks, let a stranger watch my children while I used a porta-potty, and head back before the sun started setting. I felt lucky just to have not lost them both—these two see open spaces and everything turns into a version of the game run-away-from-mommy-as-fast-as-you-can. I'm sure I looked completely crazy running after two insanely fast toddlers, pushing an empty double stroller with a camera around my neck that was bumping my baby belly with every step, and climbing under chains to catch my kids before they were loose in the parking lot. Motherhood at its best!

7:15pm. Leave the Jefferson. That's right, we didn't even walk around the Tidal Basin. At all. Cherry blossom cardinal sin. I tried my best to "run" (read: a slow, slow, slow jog) the full 2 miles back to our car even though it felt like my hips were going to dislocate themselves at any given moment, and the kids were good at adding drama by either trying to climb out or screaming like not getting out was the end of the world.

7:45pm. Made it back, loaded up the car, headed straight to a girl friend's birthday party, stayed for the shortest time I've ever stayed at a party but probably much longer than I should have with the babes in tow, then started to head home only to remember we were out of key grocery items that said babes would be less than pleased to not have the next day.

8:45pm. Braved the grocery store. The kids were WIRED.

9:20pm. By the time we got home, I decided we should count all the goldfish crackers, veggie fries, sliced apples, teddy grahams, and water we'd survived on as dinner, and I still didn't get out of the kids' room with the lights out until 10pm.

Jon called from out of town a few minutes later, and after I recounted my genius day trip idea, he told me just hearing about my day exhausted him. I clearly make better decisions when he's here—good thing he doesn't have to travel much!! I had to document this in order to remember not to repeat all my bad ideas next year. The blossoms were so pretty and pink this year, but I dare say they may have been better experienced from afar in our case. Or I could have just waited 18 hours and gone in the morning like someone with better judgment would have done.

But who needs good judgment when you can get a good story out of poor judgment???