Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Vivian Helene is 4 months old!



Vivian Helene is 4 months! New stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 9 oz, 93rd percentile
Length: 26.5 inches, 99th percentile

She is a big girl! She is very visual and tactile and is gaining good control over her hands to grab things now. She is a champ at rolling over and scooting around. It won't be long now before she sits up on her own. Crawling is right around the corner. She can stand comfortably in the exersaucer as well. We on the verge of a new life in Uruguay, so stay posted for updates!










Friday, November 4, 2016

Vivian 3 months - Isa 3 years, 3 months




Vivian Helene is 3 months old! Aaaaand, she began rolling over BEFORE her 3 month mark! She has also consistently been signing 'milk.' She is very visual and loves to look at interesting things. We went to a party the other day and people kept saying, 'come look at this baby! can you believe she's only 3 months old!'  

Friday, September 30, 2016

who is who?



Vivian Helene - 1 month and 2 months; Isa - 3 years!

Vivian! She is an amazing baby. Such a good sleeper. So beautiful. And we are teaching her how to sign milk...and she's learning it! At just over 2 months!

1 Month she was: 12 pounds (99th percentile), 23 inches

2 months she was: 14.1 pounds (99th percentile), 24 inches

Vivian is sleeping well at night, eating and growing well, and working hard at building up those muscles to hold up her head fully, sit and (eventually) stand. She hasn't yet fallen into any napping pattern, but we expect that to come in the next few months. We do notice that she's sleepier in the morning and wants to be awake in the late evening (6-9 pm) and then sleeps well in the dark throughout the night unless she has gas or a bowel movement to take care of.

Not to mention Isa girl, who turned 3 not long before we welcomed Vivian into the world. Isa's 3 year old stats:
34.6 pounds (84th %)
40 inches (96th %)
I knew she'd settle down in weight as she got older, but now she's turning into a little athlete! She's a tall and muscular girl. So unbelievably strong and very into moving her body through dance and sports.
Isa started school at Barbara Vick and will continue to go until we leave the country Dec 7. More on that here. She's also taking park district classes: sports, tumbling, art, soccer and basketball. She loves her park district classes and asks to go to them instead of school (I don't blame her!). We've been watching lots of shows in Spanish to prepare for the move, and she's been attempting to use some Spanish words. We are talking with her a lot about Uruguay, and she is excited to go there -- though she will miss a lot of people when we go.



Wednesday, July 13, 2016

37 weeks baby

Just got back from the midwife and have some heartening news. I am 37 weeks 4 days today. Mary Kay did an exam and said I'm -2 station, 3 cm dilated, and 70 percent effaced! We are packing bags tonight to have them ready.

Monday, February 22, 2016

17 weeks of baby 2 and Isa girl

Okay, of course I am way worse at keeping a blog with baby number 2. I don't have the time to sit down and curate my belly photos and keep updates about it all. But I really do want to keep a written record of how this pregnancy is going and how my Isa girl is growing. So, the scoop is that I am definitely showing. (I will get Pat to take a photo one of these days.) My nausea is basically gone, but it lasted from about 6 weeks to 16 weeks. It started to wane around 12 weeks, but wasn't completely gone until very recently. I took this combo of unisom and vit b6 each night and that definitely helped it. I already feel the baby moving, but it's very weak and only every once in a while. I still feel very little interest in cooking or doing housework, like a sort of general malaise. It's hard to be pregnant with a toddler! Isa is high energy and my energy can accurately be described as very, very low at the moment.

Isa is SO into the new baby. She talks to my belly daily, and tells the little one that she will help him/her walk when he/she comes out, that she will sing him/her lullabies, that she will share her toys (we will see about that). She is so sweet. At the last appointment with the midwife, we listened on the doppler for the baby's heartbeat, and when I laid down to hear the heartbeat, Isa came up next to me and kissed me and comforted me while I lay there on the table! I honestly think she thought the baby was about to come. But either way she was so sweet and so loving. I can't wait to have her around when the baby is actually coming.

The 20 week ultrasound is coming up and we are kind of on the fence about finding out the sex. We feel it is a surprise either way - if you find out at the ultrasound or when the baby is born! It does make picking out a name easier. So we will see what we choose. We will have the baby at Little Company of Mary Hospital, and visited their birth center recently. It is very nice! They have private suites with showers, tubs, a big pull out couch, music, aromatherapy, so much! It'll be just as nice as having it at home, or nicer because no clean up!

Okay, on to take care of this child. It is true that I can pay less attention to the pregnancy with a toddler to care for. I have been keenly aware that these are my last few months one on one with Isa, so I've been giving her extra special attention, because my attention will be divided once the baby comes. I think she feels that extra love and has been reflecting it back onto the baby, so win win!

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Baby 2 and Isa is 2 and a half!

Time for some news. Fitzbaby #2 is on the way and will leave his or her watery home sometime in late July or early August. Woooooo!

So that means I am about 10 weeks along, and have been feeling like absolute garbage. I have been nauseous, tired and lethargic for about 8 of those weeks. Let's hope it lifts soon, because I have plans to teach 3 classes, raise Isa, and write my entire dissertation during this pregnancy. 

In other news, my beautiful Isa is 2 and a half! She is so wonderful, I can't even describe how I feel about her here. She spends a large part of her days signing songs, and especially likes to sing "Once Upon a Dream" from Sleeping Beauty at the moment. She can sing the whole Do, Re, Mi song from The Sound of Music and she's only seen the movie twice! She is very musical, this child. She starts "school" today - which is an hour-long class at Kennedy Park once a week. I think she will really like it. We recently joined this rec center (The Kroc) that has an indoor pool and water park and she loves the water. She never wants to leave!