T minus 6 months

For the less vigilant readers among you, you may want to catch up on my last blog post before proceeding on to this and any future blog posts. My Sugar House life may have just become a pregnancy blog for the next six months. If that bores you, I apologize. I'm sure I'll get bored of talking about pregnancy at some point, but for now it's all I can think about. Except for data management strategies, and I'm SURE you don't want to hear about those.

ANYWAY... if you're all caught up and read the last blog post you know that Robert and I are expecting a baby. Due date, October 7th; gender yet to be determined. Well, I guess it's been determined, but I don't know what it is yet.

Before I go any further, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who liked and commented on my Facebook pregnancy announcement. It was my most fun day of Facebook ever. I felt such an outpouring of love from my people that it makes me want to have ten more babies. Except I imagine the Facebook enthusiasm might wane with each one. So maybe I'll stick with two. Time will tell.

There are so many things that I am eagerly anticipating with this baby. There's nervousness too, of course, especially every time I read an article on having a baby at 35. Apparently my eggs are a genetic mutation just waiting to happen. But there's lots to be excited about as well. Here's five in no particular order...

1. Seeing Aidan as a big brother - The greatest gift a parent can give a child is a sibling, and I finally get to do that for Aidan. I know that he will probably never get to have the relationship with Ziggy that I have with Amy since we grew up side-by side in a typical hair-pulling, teasing, sisterly way. But I'm hoping Aidan will have the relationship with this baby that I had with Bobby and Johnny, my brothers who are seven and ten years older than me. I worshipped my brothers and they in turn protected me. They taught me loads of useful things and made me tougher than I would have been otherwise. I sincerely hope Aidan takes his job as big brother as seriously as they did.

At three years apart, Amy and I have similar childhood memories, but Bobby and Johnny sometimes seemed to have grown up in a different world with different parents. They were still Bob and Wendy, of course, and all the awesomeness that entails, but my parents were ten years older, wiser, and mellower by the time I came around. My parents always had a cleaning crew and a gardner. Bobby and Johnny apparently spent their weekends cleaning toilets, mowing lawns, and pulling weeds (if you ask them). My parents saw everything I did but let a few things slide. My brother's parents were stricter. My brothers had dogs. By the time I came around, my parents came to the conclusion that pets were too much trouble. The parents I grew up with could afford family trips to Florida, Hawaii, and Lake Powell, while Bob and John mostly camped around California. Ten years is a long time, and I wonder how I will be different for this baby than I was for Aidan. Aidan even said to me that he thinks it's sad that this baby will know me ten years less than he will. What a crazy observation.

I'll be 45 when Ziggy is ten. I better start eating right and working out more.

Whatever the difference, I cannot wait to see Aidan assume the big brother role.

2. Seeing Robert as a father to a baby - I've now seen Robert raise a kid from five to nine, but I can't wait to see him with a baby. I feel badly sometimes that he had to learn to parent in reverse, but in other ways, he's at an advantage raising a boy before a baby. Unlike when I had Aidan, he knows how awesome it will be in just a few short years. I jokingly say that this baby is just payback, that no one gets away with skipping diapers and sleepless nights. In reality, I just can't wait to see how this little nugget affects my already amazing husband. And for me? I finally get to have a partner excited to embark on the baby journey with me, and I can't wait to do it together.

Aidan's birthday party, July 2014

January 2011

3. Nursing - I know some people think this is crazy, but I LOVED nursing. Pregnancy did not make me feel amazing or miraculous the first time around, but nursing Aidan totally did. I couldn't believe that all the nutrition Aidan needed to grow could come directly from me. I loved the quiet times with Aidan staring at his perfected contented face. Nursing bonded us, marked me as his mother, and gave me confidence in my ability to meet his needs. Considering where I was when I had him, it was a gift. Plus, it's free, convenient, and calorie-burning. Win-win-win.

4. Buying baby clothes - Baby clothes are ridiculous. I love them so much. I have an entire Pinterest board of clothes that I want this baby to wear. Aidan now mostly dresses himself now, usually in dubious choices. He thinks stripe shirts and stripe shorts of different widths and colors "go together" and nothing makes him happier than his red shirt/red pant combination. He still looks adorable, but I cannot wait to exert my fashion control over this baby while s/he still lets me. Here are some of the outfits I have planned for my future offspring:

I want this little girl.

This is how I picture Ziggy at Aidan's soccer games

Who will knit this for me? 

French bebe

Snuggly!! 

Wild Things onesie

Harry Potter onesie

The cuteness!! 

Unfortunately I can't buy anything until I find out the gender, which will happen in two weeks. Stay tuned...

5. Doing things in the right order - FINALLY! Things progressing in the right order: meet, fall in love, get married, build a life, and welcome a baby into it. When I got pregnant with Aidan, I didn't know how to boil an egg. I lived at home with my mom and dad (it was a stint after my Mammoth years). I wasn't married. I didn't have a 401K, and I had only recently sold a moped. I was barely a grown-up. Aidan was and is the biggest blessing in my life, but that doesn't change the fact that I had to grow up quickly to get ready to be a mom. Luckily, babies are remarkably non-judgmental when it comes to our perceived shortcomings, and Aidan never seemed to care. This time feels different for me though because I'm ready. My life will change, but not as drastically as it did before. I have a husband, a house, domestic skills, and a five seater car with an excellent safety rating. These things won't make me a better mom, but having them is going to make me infinitely less stressed as evidenced already, I think, by this easier pregnancy. I'm so excited to have some crucial pieces of the puzzle in place before doing this again.

Still wouldn't change a thing though.