We have an ultrasound on May 11th and as long as Alien is cooperative we 'll find out the gender that afternoon. So take a guess in the next few days before we go public with whether we are having another little girl or the first baby boy of this generation for the family. We are super excited either way!
I was thinking Alien was a girl for awhile there but the past few days I am feeling less sure so your guess is as good as mine! With Noelle I was confident from about 12 weeks on that she was a little girl. As I said before, I have been feeling a little different this pregnancy. More tired, a little more nauseous, less faint, and I am certainly bigger with more aches and pains at this point in but I am assured that is just the second pregnancy thing! I also have an aversion to shrimp instead of salmon, still love fruits and veggies (but am not as in to blueberries), and have worse skin than last time. Alien and Amoeba's heartbeats both always measured in the 160's. So there you have it - all the information we have. So guess away!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Easter!
The Saxton's had a really nice Easter weekend. It started off with a rainy (as is typical in these parts) Good Friday. Bryan took the day off so it was a nice family day with a short play date for Noelle in the morning thrown in. Saturday started off rainy too (canceling our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt) but the sun came out and we had a beautiful afternoon. I was able to take Maddie for a really long walk and play a bit outside with Noelle and Bryan grilled us dinner. We also got some much needed work done on the basement - progress is slow but we are definitely still progressing! And the house got cleaned!
Easter Sunday turned out beautiful. Bright blue skies in the morning and afternoon. While mass was a letdown (note to the priest: we expect music at our Easter mass!) it was followed up with a great brunch with our favorite Baltimore area Miami friends, the Hollywoods and Dobuckis. It is crazy that next Easter we'll be adding 2 more little ones to our brunch tradition! We then headed off to an Easter Egg Hunt with our mom's group in the afternoon and Noelle had a great time searching for eggs with her little friends. She also played on the swing and "mowed" our friends' lawn!
All in all it was a great weekend and a great time to remember how blessed we are!
Easter Sunday turned out beautiful. Bright blue skies in the morning and afternoon. While mass was a letdown (note to the priest: we expect music at our Easter mass!) it was followed up with a great brunch with our favorite Baltimore area Miami friends, the Hollywoods and Dobuckis. It is crazy that next Easter we'll be adding 2 more little ones to our brunch tradition! We then headed off to an Easter Egg Hunt with our mom's group in the afternoon and Noelle had a great time searching for eggs with her little friends. She also played on the swing and "mowed" our friends' lawn!
All in all it was a great weekend and a great time to remember how blessed we are!
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Co-op
Bryan and I are cheap. Not about everything - we would never give up our trips to Disney. And we like to eat yummy food which includes meats and fresh produce and not a lot of stuff that comes out of boxes. But we rarely go out to dinner, see about one movie a year in the theater, budget everything each week, and don't spend a lot of unnecessary money. Enter the babysitting co-op. This is the best recent invention of our lives. We've been members for about 8 months or so and it is amazing. For just $5 (for a lifetime) we get babysitting from local families we know and trust. All we have to do is sit for other families in exchange. Since babysitters around here go for about $10 an hour, the idea of going on a date or some child free errands was crazy to us - who can pay that kind of money on top of dinner or a movie? And asking your same best (childless) friend that you can't help in return to babysit all the time isn't great either. Since we don't have family in MD, the co-op fits us perfectly and we love some of the families we've met through the meet and greets and sitting.
We recently watched Noelle's little friend Sarah for most of a Saturday afternoon and evening while her parents went to a wedding. Here's a picture of Noelle sharing her Elmo and Minnie with Sarah!
We recently watched Noelle's little friend Sarah for most of a Saturday afternoon and evening while her parents went to a wedding. Here's a picture of Noelle sharing her Elmo and Minnie with Sarah!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sweet Sixteen
Everyone in MD should already be getting nervous. In just 15 short years, Noelle won't just be pretend driving, but the state will probably give her a real license! Scary stuff!
For now thankfully she just needs to settle for pretend driving in the garage while Daddy adjusts the car seat!
For now thankfully she just needs to settle for pretend driving in the garage while Daddy adjusts the car seat!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Our NC Long Weekend
Noelle, Maddie, and I had a short visit to NC to visit with my parents, brother, and their dog Juneau. It was a tiring but good weekend and thankfully we got some good weather and were able to play some outside and on the beach. Noelle's patience for a windy beach was about 5 minutes (she started to head up the dunes and when I asked her where she was going she said home) but she had a great time playing with her sand toys while it lasted! She also enjoyed walking her baby puppy in the stroller, playing at the house with everyone, and pretending not to like the trundle big girl bed set up she had going for her! It was a nice but short visit.
Unfortunately the drive home wasn't as lovely as the trip and we hit 495 a little later than I wanted and 2 lanes were closed for gravel clean-up from a truck that had spilled. It only took us an extra hour to get home with that and a few other delays on 95, but the real fun came as we were only about 20 miles from Catonsville. Noelle had been really good for the ride (she only napped for about 2 of the 6 hours but sang and chatted happily the majority of the ride). At that point though she began wailing. I thought she was just done with the car and traffic and looked at her in the mirror just in time to see her throw up. And then she threw up again. And of course we were in the middle of a work zone with no where to pull over so there we are with Noelle wailing covered in vomit and mom feeling so guilty for not being able to clean up her little one that I am crying also. So we stopped at the rest area only 15 minutes from our house and did a quick change and clean up before making it the rest of the way home. My little one is such a trooper! Despite the stressful last hour or so of the trip home we were glad to get to visit the family and are excited to come back and play in the pool in August!
Unfortunately the drive home wasn't as lovely as the trip and we hit 495 a little later than I wanted and 2 lanes were closed for gravel clean-up from a truck that had spilled. It only took us an extra hour to get home with that and a few other delays on 95, but the real fun came as we were only about 20 miles from Catonsville. Noelle had been really good for the ride (she only napped for about 2 of the 6 hours but sang and chatted happily the majority of the ride). At that point though she began wailing. I thought she was just done with the car and traffic and looked at her in the mirror just in time to see her throw up. And then she threw up again. And of course we were in the middle of a work zone with no where to pull over so there we are with Noelle wailing covered in vomit and mom feeling so guilty for not being able to clean up her little one that I am crying also. So we stopped at the rest area only 15 minutes from our house and did a quick change and clean up before making it the rest of the way home. My little one is such a trooper! Despite the stressful last hour or so of the trip home we were glad to get to visit the family and are excited to come back and play in the pool in August!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Ultrasound Follow-up
For everyone following along from home, this morning I had my follow-up ultrasound since Baby Alien was uncooperative last week. Alien was much more cooperative today and though I was a bit worried because she/he started out upside down, quickly flipped to the right position. So Alien has a nuchal bone (AKA nose) - phew! Since things were already looking good based on my blood work and last week's measurements, the finding of the nuchal bone lowered Alien's risk of having Down's Syndrome and Trisonomy 18/13 each to under a 1 in 10,000 chance. Pretty favorable odds! Alien's heart was also beating strongly and it was cool to see it beating on the screen. Alien's rate is between 160 and 162 and for those who haven't voted yet, Noelle was a consistent 163 at each appointment. Now some people swear that above 160 means a girl, but I'm pretty sure all of those old wives tails don't have a grain of truth. It's kind of like when people swore last pregnancy that I was heaving a boy because I had no morning sickness. People this is genetic! My mom had no morning sickness with me or my brother. Some of us are just luckier in this regard than others. But if you want to hate me for that one, keep in mind that charlie horse #1 appeared last night at just 13 weeks pregnant. That doesn't bode well for my leg pain over the next 27 weeks (or Bryan's either as I tend to grab his leg or arm when the pain hits!)
Our next ultrasound will be on May 11th at 18 weeks pregnant. We will soon after have our official 20 week ultrasound, and then I'll have 3 more at 24, 30, and 36 weeks. This is because I am participating in the fetal study that I helped briefly with when pregnant with Noelle. They are currently studying mother/baby bonding and how mom's stress levels affect baby. So I'll do the 4 visits before I have Alien where they will do ultrasounds, then 50 minutes of monitoring me during rest, and then 50 minutes of monitoring me under stress situations (like watching a birth movie). Then I'll do a phone call when Alien is an infant and then they'll observe us playing at 6 months old. Besides the 4 sets of extra pictures of Alien in utero, we'll get $100 worth of Target gift cards. Not bad! JHU also just started another program where you get rewarded for taking care of yourself while pregnant (going to the doctors, exercising, doing nurse chats, etc.) For this we get amazon baby gift certificates. My hope is between the two studies/programs we'll have baby Alien completely bought for!
Noelle, Maddie, and I head off to NC for a long weekend visit tonight. We'll post more from what will hopefully be the sunny shore!
Our next ultrasound will be on May 11th at 18 weeks pregnant. We will soon after have our official 20 week ultrasound, and then I'll have 3 more at 24, 30, and 36 weeks. This is because I am participating in the fetal study that I helped briefly with when pregnant with Noelle. They are currently studying mother/baby bonding and how mom's stress levels affect baby. So I'll do the 4 visits before I have Alien where they will do ultrasounds, then 50 minutes of monitoring me during rest, and then 50 minutes of monitoring me under stress situations (like watching a birth movie). Then I'll do a phone call when Alien is an infant and then they'll observe us playing at 6 months old. Besides the 4 sets of extra pictures of Alien in utero, we'll get $100 worth of Target gift cards. Not bad! JHU also just started another program where you get rewarded for taking care of yourself while pregnant (going to the doctors, exercising, doing nurse chats, etc.) For this we get amazon baby gift certificates. My hope is between the two studies/programs we'll have baby Alien completely bought for!
Noelle, Maddie, and I head off to NC for a long weekend visit tonight. We'll post more from what will hopefully be the sunny shore!
Toys: Who Needs Them?
Sometimes I wonder why we buy toys for Noelle. Seriously, if you can have this much fun playing with a half broken card board box, what more do you need?
Monday, April 4, 2011
Nose Breath
I know I am pregnant when nose breath becomes a problem. Last pregnancy, when Bryan got in bed, I made him face away from me so that I didn't have to smell him breathing during the night. Not that his breath is all that bad, even at night or anything, it is just something I can't stand. Ideally I am facing one direction and he is facing the opposite - this eliminates the possibility of any nose breath finding its way in to my personal space. With Alien, I thought maybe the nose breath stuff wouldn't be a problem since it was pretty much an immediate change with Noelle and so far a lot of things have been different. Last week though, nose breath hit me full on and I think it is here to stay for the next 27 weeks.
This should make Bryan feel a bit better though. Apparently night time nose breath isn't just a problem with him. Last night was a weird sleeping night for the Saxton's. The past two nights I have started my late night insomnia depsite still being exhausted so have been up for several hours. Even though Noelle has been sleeping great since we transitioned her to the big girl bed right before the New Year, she also woke up several times last night. After about an hour of crying randomly for a few seconds off and on every 10 minutes or so for an hour I went to make sure she was ok and found her with her eyes wide open looking totally awake. I tried to convince her it was still night and she should go back to sleep. I tried to rock her asleep (as she stared at me wide eyed and bushy tailed). And then I gave in, and asked if she wanted to sleep in the guest bed with mommy. This turned out to be a big joke (as I should have known) as she decided to use the time for climbing over me and telling me I needed to be quiet since daddy was asleep. Hmm, helpful kid. I finally got her to pretend to be sleeping next to me and realized her nose breath was going to be a problem. And every time I turned my head away she wanted to play with my hair or climb so that wasn't going to work. Luckily, Noelle decided she needed to go to the potty (at 3:30 am) so I took that opportunity to let her go, put on a new diaper, and put her back in her bed. There were a few tears but after about 2 minutes instead of crying she was chatting to her baby and her bear. Eventually I guess we all fell back asleep and she was dead to the world when I went to wake her up this morning.
So lessons learned: nose breath can happen to anyone anywhere. Even small children who don't have all their teeth and are super cute. And asking your year and a half old if they want to sleep with you when they are wide awake isn't going to work. In fact asking them if they want to sleep with you (unless they are sick) is never a good idea!
This should make Bryan feel a bit better though. Apparently night time nose breath isn't just a problem with him. Last night was a weird sleeping night for the Saxton's. The past two nights I have started my late night insomnia depsite still being exhausted so have been up for several hours. Even though Noelle has been sleeping great since we transitioned her to the big girl bed right before the New Year, she also woke up several times last night. After about an hour of crying randomly for a few seconds off and on every 10 minutes or so for an hour I went to make sure she was ok and found her with her eyes wide open looking totally awake. I tried to convince her it was still night and she should go back to sleep. I tried to rock her asleep (as she stared at me wide eyed and bushy tailed). And then I gave in, and asked if she wanted to sleep in the guest bed with mommy. This turned out to be a big joke (as I should have known) as she decided to use the time for climbing over me and telling me I needed to be quiet since daddy was asleep. Hmm, helpful kid. I finally got her to pretend to be sleeping next to me and realized her nose breath was going to be a problem. And every time I turned my head away she wanted to play with my hair or climb so that wasn't going to work. Luckily, Noelle decided she needed to go to the potty (at 3:30 am) so I took that opportunity to let her go, put on a new diaper, and put her back in her bed. There were a few tears but after about 2 minutes instead of crying she was chatting to her baby and her bear. Eventually I guess we all fell back asleep and she was dead to the world when I went to wake her up this morning.
So lessons learned: nose breath can happen to anyone anywhere. Even small children who don't have all their teeth and are super cute. And asking your year and a half old if they want to sleep with you when they are wide awake isn't going to work. In fact asking them if they want to sleep with you (unless they are sick) is never a good idea!
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