Chances are if you’re reading this post then you already know the good news that I’m about to share, but just in case you don’t, it’s my great pleasure to announce that Jessica is pregnant with our third (and final) child. At this point she is finishing her first trimester and everything looks good. I’d be lying, however, if I said that it has been easy on her up to this point. It’s probably more fair to say that she has already dealt with more sickness through the first three months of this pregnancy than she did with Ava and Elise combined. No exaggeration.
If I remember correctly, Jessica was hardly ever sick when she was pregnant with Ava, and only slightly more so with Elise. The good news is that she may have finally turned the corner. Today she went all day without any sickness or disruption, and with the first trimester coming to a close chances are the hardest part (other than delivery of course) is behind her. As expected, I feel terrible seeing her sick, as do the girls, but there is nothing any of us can do for her other than be supportive and show concern. She’s been such a champ throughout this whole ordeal though. Never once has she expected any sort of pity or sorrow. Her strength and overall positive attitude throughout the past three months has been a great inspiration for me.
The official due date is February 5th, and based on the medical evaluations she’s had so far the doctor says there is a 95% chance that the pregnancy will run its course without any type of problem. The elephant in the room at this point is whether we’ll be having our third girl, or our first boy. It’s natural for people to wonder, and I truly do understand where they’re coming from, but it annoys me that everyone thinks we’re hoping for a boy. That is not the case at all. As cliche as it may sound, the only thing I’m hoping for is a healthy baby and a healthy wife. To think that we will be even the slightest bit disappointed if we don’t have a boy is absolutely ludicrous. We’ll be finding out the baby’s gender in the next six weeks, and in an effort for maximum preparedness, we don’t want to wait one minute longer than necessary. Thank goodness we bought a four bedroom house 😉
The thing that’s most crazy to me about all this is that Elise and her younger sibling will be even closer in age (19 months) than Ava and Elise are (20 months). This means that we will have had 3 babies in a span of 3 years and 3 months. Apparently 3 really is the magic number. Without getting too far into our personal details, I can assure you that this will be the last baby for us. Although a family of five may have been considered on the small end during our parent’s childhood, it is definitely large for today’s standards. Although we know we have more than our fair share challenges ahead of us, we couldn’t be happier, luckier, or more excited about the family and lives we have created for ourselves.
In other family news, Ava has recently started going to preschool on Mondays. Although she is still only 2 years old, due to her advanced vocabulary and physical size advantage, her teachers have placed her in a class with 3 and 4 year olds. So far she’s doing great. Like her Daddy many years ago, she hates seeing Mommy leave and breaks down for a few minutes, but quickly gets over it and ends up having lots of fun. Her biggest trouble at this point is spilling milk on herself during mealtimes. This past Monday she went through both outfits Jessica brought, and ended up coming home in borrowed clothes provided by the school. I’m sure she’ll get over this very soon, and both Jessica and I couldn’t be more proud of her with how she has adjusted to this new phase of her life.
Elise is also doing quite well. Although she still hasn’t quite ventured out on her own in terms of walking, she is more than capable of getting around the house. She is also getting quite vocal. Not only is she speaking constantly in her own baby language, but she has picked up on several words that Ava normally says. These days if you ask Ava “What does the cow say?” Elise will often beat her to the punch by announcing a prolonged “Mooooo”. It might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. If only she would do it on command. I can tell that the only thing holding her back from walking at this point is confidence, and I expect it will be any time now that she breaks through that barrier.
Last Wednesday I took the day off to celebrate my birthday with my girls. After having breakfast and taking a walk around the neighborhood the four of us went to the swimming pool. This is quickly becoming Ava’s favorite activity and she talks about it constantly. Not sure what we’re going to do once summer is over but I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Watch football maybe? After swimming we went home to clean up, then met my good friend Sean for lunch in Greenlake. This was his first time meeting the girls and he didn’t disappoint. He showed up with a bag full of stuffed animals, as well as quite a few rare silver coins that the girls could start a collection with. He also bought us lunch, which was far too generous. I certainly wasn’t expecting all this but appreciate it so much.
In an effort to increase my skills as a handyman I’ve recently taken on a fairly large project; I’m building a suspension loft in our garage. It’s going to be 20 feet long, four feet deep, and suspended about 8 feet above ground level. This will provide us lots of storage space and will make up at least somewhat for the fact that we are one of only two houses on our street that don’t have a three-car garage. I’ve been doing lots of research on this type of project, as well as getting advice from several trusted sources. Hopefully I’ll have it done in the next couple weeks.
I’ve also recently grown an interest in learning more about engine mechanics, and just today I picked up a gas powered lawn edger from my manager at Amazon. It doesn’t run anymore so it’s a perfect small project for me to get my hands dirty. I bought a Kindle book tonight on how to repair small engines used in outdoor equipment, and can’t wait to get started once I finish building the loft. The ultimate goal for me is to get to a point where I can work on cars, but I figured starting small like this was probably best.
Things are also going really well at work. I’ve been on the same project for the past year-and-a-half, but this is my final month. Starting in September I’m going to be working on a new project, so I’m pretty excited for a change of pace. It won’t be too long before I find out whether or not I’ll be receiving a promotion to a Web Developer II role. I’m not worried about it at all because either way I’m going to come out of the process with a very clear idea of my path moving forward, including which areas I need to focus on the most. If it doesn’t work out in the fall I’m confident that it will in the spring, which is the next time they do promotions. Either way I love my job and still feel extremely fortunate just to be there.
Sorry for not having any new photos to post this week. I’m sure we’ll have some next time. Lots of exciting news coming soon…