5 weeks with Baby Chafin #2

Week of February 7th, 2013

How Far Along? 5 Weeks 2 days

February 7th, 2013
5 Weeks 2 Days

Due Date: According to my calculations, I will be due on Lincoln's second birthday Oct 8, 2013!

Total weight gain/loss: 0 right now, I still have 20 lbs to loose from Lincoln!!!

Maternity clothes? Was I supposed to have been in "normal" clothes since having Lincoln?

Stretch Marks? I'm forever going to be scared!

Sleep: There are not enough hours in the week for me to sleep. I guess now I know why

Best moment this week: Finding out Lincoln is going to be a big brother

Movement: I can't wait for this!!! Come on MAY!

Food cravings: none really this week, I'm too tired

Food aversions: None yet

Gender: I think we Will keep it a surprise again...sorry ya'll

yes I know I'm fat!
**read weight gain section**

Labor Signs: none yet thank goodness

Belly Button in or out? never went out with little man...so still in!

What I miss: Not feeling nauseous!

What I am looking forward to: Adam coming home so I can share the news with him. He convinced me to take the test even though he wasn't home...so now I just want to hug him and share our news together. One huge downfall to him being out of town all the time. :(

Size of the Baby:

Baby's now the size of an appleseed!Your embryo, which doesn't look like much more than a tadpole right now, is actually starting to form major organs (heart, kidney, liver, stomach) and systems (nervous, circulatory, digestive). Baby's presence in your uterus triggers production of HCG (the hormone detected by pregnancy tests), which triggers the production of other hormones like estrogen and progesterone, which triggers all those great symptoms you've probably been noticing!

A picture is worth a thousand...gigabytes?

If you know me at all you know how much I love to take pictures. It sort of goes along with my desire to capture EVERYTHING!!!

For my birthday/nursing school graduation 2 years ago Adam bought me a new camera! I even did a post about it here. I'm slightly obsessed with it. I take it with us everywhere and thanks to its multi shot mode I can capture some really great pictures of Lincoln as he is oh so quick to move when I am taking pictures. The downside is that for an ammeture like me there are a lot of not so great pictures. Also My husband like's to just snap away when taking pictures. One time he took nearly 150 pictures in a 20 minute period trying to get a good one.

Anyways, even before my new camera I was like this. My friends would often "make fun" of me for how I always had a camera with me. But then again they relied on me to take the pictures at parties and post to facebook so they could have copies.

All of this picture taking has lead me to an unfortunate event. I am out of room on my computer....I seriously have NO MORE ROOM to take my pictures from my camera to my computer. Also my phone is now full so I can't even take more pictures on it!

I'm not someone one who can just take a picture, post to facebook, delete it and call it a day. No I have to take the picture, post to facebook, upload to my computer, and back it up to my hardrive and then pick my favorites to print and put into albums. This being said I don't delete any of my pictures... which has lead me to my predicament.

I want to have my pictures stored one more place before I start deleting them from my computer. I have started to upload them to shutterfly which I like because I can also upload my pictures from my phone directly to there. But I've been told I can't get them off of there once I do. So I'm at  loss of what to do next...

I have been documenting this pregnancy with my blog posts as well as my weekly pictures, but have been taking the pictures with my camera, so therefore I haven't published my posts yet because I can't add my picture to them...

Anyone else ever run into this problem and have a way I can fix it? Any suggestions are appreciated!!

thanks stephanie

Perfect day!

Yesterday was by far the perfect day. Rarely do Adam Lincoln and I get a day just to ourselves. We usually are with family in some aspect. But this weekend was a bit different. We had no family commitment and rather than make plans with friends we decided to make a weekend of just our little family of 3.

Saturday Adam had to work so Lincoln and I just hung out while we waited for him to get off. Then the 3 of us went to church and dinner. We went to Abuelo's, it's one of Adam and my favorite Mexican places and Lincoln love dipping his chips in the salsa and queso (the kid actually likes spicy food) we then just had a relaxing 20 min movie night watching Finding Nemo (20 min was all Lincoln would last).

throwing rocks in the "river"

Sunday (yesterday) Adam got up early and went to play 9 holes of golf while Linc and I slept. When he got up Adam came home and we decided to take Lincoln to the park. Adam found one that was close to our house so we headed there...
Well lets just say it wasn't a very nice park and had one trail and a creek that was so full of algae it was gross! But we let Lincoln throw rocks in the creek and he loved it.

We decided to take our picnic lunch of fried chicken from marsh, chips and sandwiches to a park we knew was nice so we headed to cool creek park which is close to my parents house and park I went to a lot while I was in high school. They have a nice grassy area and some trails with a creek.

We ate our picnic lunch on the grass and Lincoln loved it. He has so much fun eating chips and chicken and cheese.

Lunch at Cool Creek Park

After lunch we hit the trails. Adam had Lincoln on his shoulders and we had fun time just walking the trails. They have a really nice clean creek that runs through it and we let Lincoln put his toes in the water. He just loved that. It was still a bit chilly so he didn't last long but it was still fun.

baby toes in the water...butt almost in the dirt...

After the park we went to Adams brothers house to help them with some stuff and on our way home about 5 pm Lincoln fell asleep, he'd done so well all day without a nap, but he finally succumbed. We decided to let him sleep for about an hr while I made dinner. When Adam woke him up it was the worst idea he'd ever had. Lincoln has never been so fussy! EVER!! It took him about 45 min to become our loving little one once again!

But we had a lovely dinner of grilled chicken with yummy salad with home made balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

It was the perfect end to the perfect day. So much so that Adam I decided that once a week we plan to do something like this just us. With Adam gone a lot and me wanting to sleep my life away working nights, it's important to keep focus on what's important and why we are working ourselves so hard....OUR LITTLE FAMILY :)

I hope everyone's weekend was as great as ours!! :)

Happy 18 months to our beautiful big brother to be! we love you so much and you enlighten our life in so many ways!!! :)

So Blessed

I am writing this on February 7, 2013. I wanted to get all my feelings down on paper even though I know I won't be posting this for a few weeks.

For the past few days I've felt sort of weird. I've been extra emotional, I've felt queazy, tired and had a lot of joint and hip pain. And to top it off I'm about 8 days late. I was talking to girls at work and they were convinced I was pregnant. I still wasn't too sure but then again I don't like to get my hopes up for things that may not happen. After all we've been trying for almost 8 months even though I was breastfeeding for 6 of those.

But after a lot of prompting by Adam, Lincoln and I went for a little car ride today. We first went to chic-fil-a because honestly I'm so tired that I don't feel like cooking yet another grilled cheese and I wanted something different. I taught Lincoln to use the dipping Ketchup and that was priceless!! Love it!

After that we went to Meijer because he needed some more milk and I decided to buy a pregnancy test. I bought the same one that I took when I found out I was pregnant with Lincoln. I called Adam and he told me to take it even though he is out of town and can't be here with me.

I got home and took the test and while the hour glass was going, I went outside and shut the door to call adam. He told me I needed to look at it and take a picture to tell him. Well I decided to take a video of Lincoln and I finding it out.

Honestly I was SHOCKED that it truly said PREGNANT. Even though deep down I really knew I was, I was afraid to truly believe it because what if I was wrong and my hopes were up and it wasn't true? But to our delight we are pregnant with Baby Chafin #2!!! Funnily enough, according to my ovulation schedule I'm actually due on Lincoln's second birthday!!! Apparently January is a good month for us!!

So now begins my weekly pregnancy updates!!! :) I hope I can keep up like I did when I was pregnant with Lincoln!!

We are so excited to make Lincoln a big brother!!! I've already been thinking of ways to let our families know!! AHHH I don't know when or how I'm going to tell them or keep this to myself for much longer!!!

**Update 3/23/13
As it turned out I decided to buy a tshirt on etsy that said Cutest Big Brother to be on it. I ordered it on a sunday, knowing that my ultrasound was on Thursday. Thinking we would have it by the weekend so we could tell my parents. I contacted the seller and she ensured me that she would mail it in enough time....well she lied. She didn't mail it until friday...the day we were going to tell my parents. RUDE

So instead I decided not to wait any longer and I had Lincoln "hand" them the ultrasound picture telling them that we had to go to the doctor the day before and they found something they should see...They were Thrilled!!! and a bit shocked! but are over the moon to be grandparents again.

We wanted to tell Adam's parents in person so they were to come visit for his birthday yesterday and we had Lincoln wear his shirt (which didn't arrive until the monday after the seller told me...uggg) and after being here for about 20 minutes and not noticing, partly because Linc was a bit shy, I told them Lincoln wanted to show them his shirt...I swear Adam's mom almost cried. (God I love her for that, her pure enjoyment about being a Grandma again is so incredibly moving).

After telling them we decided to take the news public by posting on facebook so extended family and such could share in our joy. I have to say I am completely overwhelmed by the love and support we have received with our news. It's truly humbling! Thank you to everyone who has supported us. We love you all for it.

Stephanie

The Kite Runner :)

Last night was once again our monthly LBC meeting! We discussed the Kite Runner, which suprisingly enough was our 30th book!!! :) Go us!! But before I get into my review of that book I must review the previous book...atleast I'm only behind by one book...

In February we read The Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult. Honestly this was a difficult book to read. The book is about an amish teen who gets pregnant and somehow her baby dies. The state police come to scene and charge her with the murder of her infant premature son. Being a mother myself it was difficult to read at times. I just couldn't fathom how a mother could not want her child. Then again I have always wanted children. Ever since I was young. It killed me to have to wait until 25 to get pregnant instead of 22! But in the end you really end up feeling for the young girl even though she frustrates you and you want to smack her throughout. It also was very well written and really makes you appreciate the amish life so much more. In fact I sometimes wondered if the Amish weren't in fact dead on when it comes to how they live. Sometimes the simpler life is so much better than the life we lead now. Often times our lives are complicated by so many things around us and we often lose focus on the things that really matter, such as God and family. Maybe the Amish really do have it right in how they work hard for everything they have and they work as a community and according to God's will instead of their own. It really is a refreshing way to live.
Rating 8/10 only because of the ending...

For the month of March (we had to meet early because of peoples work and travel schedules) we read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It is about a young boy's life as he grows up in Afghanistan and eventually leaves and moves to the US. It is sad, depressing at times, hard to read but ultimately a story about what a young boy will do for the approval of his father and how he copes with his short comings and how he redeems himself in the end. What I've truly loved about these last few books is that they've opened my eyes to a life I never knew about. In this book we learn so much about the Afghan life. So much of what I thought I knew wasn't true. How many of the Afghan people are much life us and being repressed by the Taliban. The pure horror of what they must go through on a daily basis of whether or not they will be killed on the spot for their beards being out of place. I mean they have people who go around and do beard checks...really???? The people of Kabul live with sounds of gunfire and bombs daily and almost become immune to it. It's so depressing and makes me think of what a sad and scared life many of these people must have lived. It's sad  to me that a few bad eggs have made these people out to be the enemy. Not that I'm surprised, I often feel that way as a Catholic. But it really made me appreciate everything they've gone through and all the obstacles they must go through on a daily basis those that still live there and those that live here. It's sad to think that many of the killings were a lot like what Hitler did to the Jews. How do people have so much hate in their hearts for people whom they don't know, and are judging them soley on the way the look or their religious beliefs. The God I know isn't like that, and it saddens me to think that there are people out there in the world like that. But the book is so much more than just learning about the Afghan people and I truly recommend it.
Rating 9/10

Happy Reading...

Every Time You Go...

Ok I'm sure it's rather obvious that I'm a HUGE beyond HUGE 3 Doors Down fan. I seriously think I listen to them daily! Well lately I've been listening to this song on repeat because Adam has been gone so much. It makes me so sad when he's gone, I feel like all I want to do is lie in bed and cry but I have a beautiful child to play with and job to go to so I can't. This song helps me get through...even if by the narrowest of margins. 

Adam left yesterday for the week and I'm beyond sad about it. It was his 32nd (yes he's old) birthday and it just killed me that Lincoln and I weren't able to be there with him. I seriously feel so very bad about that! But he understood and we celebrated a little over the weekend and will even more when his parents come up this coming weekend. 

But here's to my babe whom I love more than words can ever express. I miss him every time he leaves and a part of me is always taken away with him. My life truly misses something when he's not here...

"Every Time You Go"

I savor every minute that you're here

That you're here with me

Close my eyes and remember every breath

Every memory

Through all these sleepless nights alone

I still feel you

Across these miles away from home

That I'll never get used to

Every time you go, you take a part of me

A part of me with you

Every time you go

I feel it in my soul

Every, every

Every time you go, I'm half what I used to be,

When you were in my arms

Every time you go

You take a part of me, a part of me with you

Every time you go

I count the days until you're back again

Back here by my side

When we're apart it feels like, something in me

Something in me dies

I hear your voice over the phone

And God I miss you

Still all these miles away from home

That I'll never get used to

Every time you go, you take a part of me

A part of me with you

Every time you go

I feel it in my soul

Every, every

Every time you go, I'm half what I used to be,

When you were in my arms

Every time you go

You take a part of me, a part of me with you

Oh I'm there with you in your heart

No matter how far apart we are,

Go with me, everywhere you go

Every time you go, you take a part of me

A part of me with you

Every time you go

I feel it in my soul

Every time you go, you take a part of me

A part of me with you

Every time you go

I feel it in my soul

Every, every

Every time you go, I'm half what I used to be,

When you were in my arms

Every time you go

You take a part of me, a part of me with you

Every time you go

Every, every

Every time you go, I'm half what I used to be,

You were in my arms

Every time you go

You take a part of me, a part of me with you

what now...

Lately I feel like I've been slacking on my mommy responsiblities. Luckily for me Lincoln is an angel and is super easy. He really requires little from me, but cooking his meals and changing his diapers.

When he was a baby I felt like I was doing a GREAT job "raising" him. I knew what he needed and I was really good at making him happy. I mean in all honesty there wasn't really much to it. Eat, sleep, play, poop. All in a days work.

Well now he's mobile and has a real mind of his own. He knows what he likes, doesn't like and the only downfall is he doesn't know how to express to me what it is he really wants, other than screaming at what he doesn't like and laughing at something he does like. And sometimes all he does is scream and point but I can't quite figure out what it is he wants. This is where I feel like I'm failing him.

He's not super talkative when it comes to actual words. He says mama, dada, uh oh, sit and sometimes doggie, and my dad says he says papa, though I haven't heard it :) But either way he's not overly vocal, but he does babble and baby talk all the time. I'm looking forward to him talking more and being able to truly tell me what he actually wants.

Anyways, I feel like I'm not quite sure what to do with him now. He has a bunch of toys and stuff and he plays with all day but is there more that I should be doing? I'm not real good at "teaching" him things mainly because he doesn't have the attention span. He'd rather just run and go down is slide. I know he's still young so is it ok that I don't sit down with him and teach him things? I mean after all he doesn't go to daycare so I don't know what they do with children on a daily basis other than let them play. Does anyone have any ideas?

Lastly when it comes to feeding him I'm at a loss. When he first started eating baby foods it was super easy. All I did was steam a bunch of veggies and mash them up and feed them to him. Now I honestly find it significantly harder. He loves banana's and eats at least one a day, but other than that I don't know what to give him. I don't want him to eat a lot of processed foods so I don't buy mac n cheese, spagetti o's or ravioli or things like that. I don't find a lot of nutritional value in those things and so have chosen not to give them to him. Most days I can give him a grilled cheese sandwich and he's happy, other days not so much. And when it comes to most meats, they are hard for him to chew if they aren't is super small pieces and even then he struggles with them.

Adam and I aren't really good at eating veggies. So therefore we aren't really good at giving them to Lincoln. Lately adam has been making a lot of beans and rice with not much else. Lincoln LOVES beans and will pick out all the beans and leave the meat and rice. I know we need to get better at adding these into our daily diets but I just don't know how. I eat a salad every day but Lincoln can't exactly eat salad, or peppers or carrots (not steamed) and apples because he doesn't have molars to chew so I'm at a loss of what to do...any suggestions?

Overall Lincoln is a happy, healthy and perfect angel. I just feel like I'm letting him down somehow and I don't know what to do now...or is there even something I should be doing? I want him to be independent and strong so I try to let him figure things out for himself, but like I said should I be "teaching" him things or is he still too young for that?

I'm one confused mama!