31 Weeks

photo by Iz

31 weeks feeling more like 41.

I made the mistake of looking back on previous pregnancies at about this point and now I feel even more ginormous. It really is true that you get bigger every time! I was complaining about this to Morgan and she said something like, “Your body is like I KNOW WHAT TO DO LET ME HELP.” Truth. I really do feel about 36 weeks though and I still have eight more weeks to go. Bending is hard. Shoe buckles are hard. Cleaning the floor is hard. And I am hot all. the. time. Yeah it is 105 outside, and our AC is working hard to keep up, but even just moving around cleaning my house and I’m SO HOT. Feel like a furnace.

Well the number of articles of clothing that currently fit me = dwindling. I’m feeling nesty- although not so much to prepare baby stuff as I am to clean house. I have a list of all these corners in the house I want to go Marie Kondo on and majorly clean out. My closet. The kid’s closets. The hall closet. There’s a theme there. I’m slowly working through them and it’s filling that nesty side of me. Eventually I will get to baby stuff, but we still have time.

I’m still sleeping well. I do not take this for granted, and I sleep as much as I can at night. I have steve the body pillow that literally goes everywhere with me. (Once I accidentally left it at a hotel in san fran and leigh picked it up and rode the bart with it. #friendgoals). My nose feels constantly stuffed, but it’s just a tiny bit swollen (this is a real pregnancy thing, I swear.) The baby moves a lot- I feel like he is my most wiggly baby but also I can’t really remember… Isabelle loves to come and feel him kick and roll around and her eyes light up when she really gets kicked hard. Some braxton hicks, just uncomfortable but not painful.

I’m eating junior mints, which are disgusting in real life. Pizza always tastes good. (Mod!) Cold cereal. No crushed ice this time- remember that with Max? I ate through giant bags of pebble ice. So weird. Literally that craving went away in the hospital post-delivery. I’m trying to keep up with walking a few times a week, in the early hours before Jazz leaves for work. It’s still hot, and my route takes me a LOT longer than it used to. Subconsciously I think it’s just an excuse for me to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack every day.
 
Counting down weeks now..we haven’t scheduled the baby’s birthday yet, we are waiting to see how things look in a few more weeks to see if I can make it to 39 weeks or if we will do it a little sooner. This is my fourth c-section in six years and my OB just wants to be cautious. I love her. Have I mentioned that? Love. her. I’m not sure if this baby will be as big as Max was. Definitely bigger than Linc, I think… I feel like he is sitting right in the middle of my body, not to low and not in my ribs, but wayyyyyyy out to my right side. Always on my right. Linc was low, Max was high.

I think the kids are getting excited. I know Isabelle is. She has all sorts of questions about how to feed the baby and where we are going to put him to sleep. She also said that Lincoln can sleep in her room for awhile if the baby needs his own space. lol. She’s adorable. I was so excited for them to have a sibling with Max, and all those moments have been postponed… I’m so looking forward to watching them interact.

Isabelle’s favorite thing to do lately is to play DJ. She made a playlist on my phone called “Are James” aka “Our Jams.” Full of Disney songs, taylor swift, adele etc. She’s always asking to add another song or turn on music to the TV- she is shockingly good at navigating technology which is both impressive and scary. She loves to play with her cousins and to spend time at Grandma’s house. Ballet on Thursday is still the highlight of her week. Often I can hear the kids wake up in the morning and whisper around for a few minutes before coming in to our room. They are so, so good.

Linc keeps me laughing. He told me the other day that if I let him play with the iPad he would give me “all his freckles and all his kisses and hugs.” I mean, he knows how to work the system. He calls the samples at Costco “examples” and it is my favorite. He would rather be in a swimsuit, or naked, I swear I can’t keep clothes on him. Still the most incredibly soft little human I have ever met. Ears made of velvet. Very stubborn, but his epic tantrums have gotten so much better. I love to watch him eat cold cereal. I don’t know why, but it’s so funny. Milk down his chin, big bites, and suddenly he declares he is finished. Linc always finds the older kids to play with wherever we are- pretty sure he thinks he is six or seven. He is so excited for preschool to start with his bff Ryder.

I would love to have a paragraph here about Max- how much he weighs or what his favorite foods are or how he is being totally adorable. Instead I remember how it felt to be this pregnant with him. I read the few blog entries about his pregnancy (when we thought he was a girl!) and I’m so happy I wrote some things down. Max is equally as special as Izzie and Linc is, I just don’t know him very well yet. But I will! We all will.

Anyway. Things are good. Summer is happy. We are happy. So excited for this baby to join our family in a couple more months.

photo by Linc.