Cheesy toddler smiles, a new (temporary?) edgy haircut, and brothers!
1. Baby stuff
I’m 19 weeks pregnant (I think? Maybe it’s tomorrow, to be honest I don’t remember my due date exactly.) and feeling mostly better. Far less queasy, but I’m still popping the unisom and b6 2-3 times a day.
I haven’t felt the baby moving as much at this stage as I did with my other babies but I can still find its heartbeat (doppler to the rescue, thanks, Jen!), so I’m convinced that I either a) have anterior placenta (which the ultrasound tech did type on one of my images at my 11 week nuchal scan), b) this baby is super chill, or c) something is wrong with the baby and it has no muscles or something.
I’m guessing it’s a, but I sure wouldn’t mind b. We’ll find out next Wednesday at the 20-week ultrasound! (We decided to not find out the gender. I’m 90% sure it’s another boy, because my family seems to make a LOT of same gender siblings*, so it doesn’t even feel like a surprise!)
* My grandma had 7 girls and mom had 4 girls, her sisters have had 6, 4, 4, and 3 boys. See? Same gender siblings! It was fun for me, so I’m guessing it’ll be fun for my boys, too.
2. Work stuff
I made a bunch of ambitious work goals for 2016 before finding out that – surprise! – I was going to spend the first few months curled up on the couch trying not to throw up and letting my kids watch way too much TV.
I need to redo those goals to be a little less “increase my-income by 35%! and a little more “take a maternity leave in the fall!”, but one that I am really excited about is running a mentorship for web designer moms.
The question I get asked about most is how to work from home for yourself as a web designer. How to learn how to do it, how to find clients, how to get better at it, and so on. Learning how to create websites for clients has changed my life – I love how I can have a creative outlet, make money, feel like an expert, and get to see my kids a ton.
I dream of helping other women do the same – so I’m working on a beta mentorship program to launch this spring for a few participants to help me form the program. It’s in the super early stages, but I’m already so excited about the idea of it! It’s like nothing I’ve ever done before. (If that’s something you might be interested in, by the way – contact me!)
3. Housing stuff
Still in agony. I think we’ve decided to rent still, not buy for reasons I don’t want to share publicly. But we still haven’t figured out if we’re willing to be much farther away from Mike’s job in order to live in a desirable-but-much-more-expensive area.
My wish list is simple, but not found here. I don’t ask for much. Just some sidewalks that I can use to walk to a few things I want to use (library, grocery store, coffee shop?) and not fear being broken into. Bonus if it’s a diverse area and is cheaper than our current rent.
It seems like it’s either close to Mike’s work, cheap, and unsafe (not just based on a feeling. Based on multiple friends having their houses broken into). Or farther from Mike’s work and affordable but a suburban oasis without sidewalks. Or even farther and too expensive for us. Heavy sigh.
(Also, we still have to ask landlady if we can, indeed, get out of our lease early. Waiting till the ultrasound goes well to talk to her!)
4. Nice people
Yesterday I met so many nice people that it made New England look good. A woman in a parking lot offered to help me figure out why the meter wouldn’t take my money, THEN a woman at the coffee shop told me my children were beautiful (seems little, but in general, people just seem to talk to strangers less here. Or maybe just me?).
Then we were at a playgroup (a super awesome free preschool) and I needed to go put money in the meter. A man overheard me and offered to do it for me so I wouldn’t have to lug Theo out in the rain. I also exchanged numbers with a nice mom at the playgroup, so all in all it was a very heartwarming people-are-great day (and I texted Mike that we were moving to that area, commute and cost of housing, be damned!).
5. April intentions update
An update on my April goals (aside from my housing non-update) after my first week: getting rid of stuff has been really fun – it’s spurred me to clean out a lot of areas that I haven’t touched in a while (though the nice thing about moving is that nothing is getting too cluttered yet). It’s been pretty painless so far – mostly stuff that’s broken or ruined or we don’t use or need.
I’ve been drinking 60 ounces of a water a day and sticking to all my fitness goals. Walking five times a week has proved more difficult than I expected for April since it snowed twice so far (four inches!!) and has been really cold. Very sad. Very wishing we lived somewhere warmer. Et cetera.
Sometimes meeting just a few nice people can make allll the difference. I try to remember to smile share kindness with strangers when I’m out and about, too. You never know who REALLY needs it.
So true! My toddler can be a little…not quiet sometimes, so I assume I’m annoying everyone around me and they all hate me (very reasonable). If someone smiles or says something nice, it’s such a relief! :)
This April weather has been so frustrating. I know we had a nice winter, but seriously what is this? April is usually pretty nice here I feel like- at least better than this!!
Glad you are finding some nice people and feeling slightly better. Unisom/B6 is such a lifesaver it’s ridiculous.
I hope you can find a place to live that you like! Definitely not an unsafe place with 3 young kiddos! Will Gabe be starting K next year wherever you end up?
Everyone keeps saying they’ll take a mild winter with a cold spring. but…I just wanna feel warm! It’s not like winter was nice enough to go outside nonstop!
You are in such a tricky spot with housing, my sympathies. I live in eastern MA and when my husband and I were house searching I made the mistake of looking up house prices where my parents live (western PA) and then where some other family lives (Iowa). It made me cry, bigger newer houses for less money than we ended up using for our downpayment. Employment options are nonexistent in those areas for our fields, but still hard to know that housing is so cheap other places.
Yes, it’s hard not to compare since we were accustomed to such a different cost of living for so long! It’s been an adjustment!
the same gender sibling thing is interesting b/c its not up to the woman at all – sex is determined by the man. so does your family keep marrying one kind of guy? lol
three boy will be awesome tho, if thats how it works out <3
I know that’s what they say, but they also haven’t really 100% figured out what causes gender – so maybe we all have uteruses that are carbon copiers! (And my aunt with 6 boys had them with 3 different dads, so…I still feel like there’s gotta be SOME where the woman factors in!)
we don’t know what causes gender? lol i thought we did!
women have only X eggs. men make X and Y sperm (although it seems like some men tend to make mostly one or the other, b/c some tend to have only one kind of kid).
but your aunt with 3 different dads feeds into my theory of picking the same kind of guy! lol
have you heard different explanations of sex determination?
So glad to hear you were on the receiving end of kindness recently… it’s such a heart-warming feeling (and so easy to extend that kindness to others!).
Sounds like you have a lot of decisions to make in the next months. I hope the perfect housing situation falls in your lab, so you don’t have to worry about it so much. Fingers crossed.