We’re interrupting the catch-up posts because we’re too excited to wait. Sean and I are very happy to announce that we are having another kid! My due date is the 29th of January, but of course Maya was born a month early, so we’ll see.

Maya’s checking off her list

Because of our age, we had some extra testing done. From some of those test results, we already know the baby’s gender. Maya’s going to have a little brother.

So far, this pregnancy feels a lot like the last one. I’m mostly past the first trimester nausea and intense fatigue. My body is obviously no longer my own. It neither looks nor behaves as I expect. At least this time, I have the comfort of knowing that it all goes back to normal eventually.

Excited to be a big sister!

Since Maya was born so early, we’re handling things a little differently this time around. Here in a few weeks, we’ll start weekly progesterone shots to try and stave off preterm labor. Odds are good that I’ll have to put up with gestational diabetes again (the increased progesterone will increase my risk). There’s some other testing later on that we’ll deal with when the time comes. In short, we’ll do what we can and see what happens.

Mothers Day came and went a couple months ago. At this point, the details of the day are little hazy. I’m sure Sean tried to let me sleep in, and I’m guessing I wasn’t able to. I’d bet he tried to do a few extra things around the house so I wouldn’t feel like I had to.

Mothers Day 2014

We did get cleaned up and headed out to the Umlauf Sculpture Garden to take photos amongst the greenery and art. It was a hot day, so Maya’s cheeks turned rosy pretty quickly, and we all had a bit of a “dewy” look to us.

Mothers Day 2014

Anyone who has spent time playing with her will not be surprised by this, but Maya’s sole interest at Umlauf was the rocks along the outdoor paths. There were people there with dogs, a variety of accessible sculptures, and lots of other kids running around, but she had eyes only for gravel. One little boy even tried to show her the tiny turtle he had found. No interest.

How much longer do I have to do this?

She also had no interest in standing still for photos. Any shots that Sean managed to capture were a testament to *his* patience, not Maya’s.

2014 Stepping Stone

Sean and Maya also made me another stepping stone. They went to the craft store together and shopped for beads. These were all apparently of Maya’s choosing. I think they did well. We all agree though that next year we’re going to need a larger mold for the concrete. Maya’s feet barely fit as it is.

We’ve been really terrible about keeping up this site lately. We have too many great photos to share to skip to the present date though, so there will be a few catch-up posts over the next little bit to get us back to semi-realtime.

Maya Hunting for Eggs

Last Easter, Maya really couldn’t do much but be propped up and posed with some of the goodies her grandparents sent her. This year since she’s mobile and likes to be outside, we set up a very small egg hunt for her in our front yard.

Three things, two hands

If any of you have watched her play in the yard the past few months, you know that Maya often suffers from the “three things, two hands” problem. She’ll have a rock in one hand and a stick in the other and come across a very tempting acorn (or a leaf or a dead bug or another rock). You can clearly see the indecision on her face. The solution is to put one thing down and pick the new thing up and decide if it’s better. If not, she swaps back. If so, she moves on to the next decision point.

So went the Easter egg hunt.

Chocolate!

Maya was very excited about all the brightly colored eggs in the yard and went barreling after them right away. After getting one in each hand, she just kept finding new eggs and exchanging them for the ones she already had. She could have hunted the eggs indefinitely. I tried to convince her to put them in her basket, but that wasn’t something she was really interested in doing.

Inspecting the haul

The game got even more complex once we showed her there were things inside the eggs. Soon we had candy and opened eggs scattered all over the yard. Luckily, once she realized that what was inside the wrapper was chocolate, the hunting slowed down and she settled in to see how much candy we were going to let her get by with eating.