End of Year Baby Prep Ramblings

As usual, I cannot believe that it's almost Christmas and almost a new year! And that means... it's almost baby time!!!!!!!! When I first found out I was pregnant, I kept thinking how far away it was. But as with my last two pregnancies, any time the holidays are involved, it goes SO FAST. The end of the year is over in a flash, and all of a sudden it's prep time. I'll have about 2.5 months to do what needs to be done. And since I'm proclaiming a minimalist baby :), it's not a ton. There will be no nursery for this little one since history shows our babies like to spend the first 10-12 months in our room anyway. Or rather, mommy likes it because it's easier! The AAP recommends 6 months I think, for SIDS prevention, and I tack on a few extra for "mommy's going insane" prevention :). All we need to do in our room is set up the pack n play, and get the baby's clothes, diapers, wipes, other little accessories organized in an empty shoe organizer in our closet. The pack n play has a diaper changing section, so we didn't bother with a changing table in our room this time. My other goal is to get the freezer stocked. I, like most other moms probably, find meal prep to be very overwhelming for the first 2 months or so. Friends and family usually take care of us for the first 2 or so weeks, but I like to be well stocked after that. It'll be a combination of frozen pizzas, premade frozen lasagnas, chicken nuggets, and freezer meals I've put together, mostly for the crockpot but some casseroles, too. I want to not think about dinner for as long as possible! I told Steven yesterday that I also want to get some of those meal prep containers that are really cheap on Amazon, and get the girls lunches made for the week each week on one day that he's off. They tend to like "snack style" lunches... pepperoni, lunch meat, cheese, veggies and ranch, fruit, some type of cracker. So I can put everything in there, one of the girls can grab two out, and Felicity can grab them a few crackers if I'm tied up with the baby. The name of the game is going to be making everything as easy as possible! The great thing about an early spring baby is we can spend a lot of time outside before it gets blazingly hot. I think that will help the girls' adjustment a LOT since they're already used to outside time. I can nurse, rock, shush- whatever I need to do- just as easily outside in the 70 degree weather as I can inside, and they can play on their scooters, run, dig etc. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about transitioning from 2 to 3 children, mostly because I know the noise level and reduction of snuggles will be really hard for Clare, but I also know that I can only do what I can do, and the rest is a game of survival :). Anyway, as much as I love the holidays, and I'm soooo excited for Christmas morning with hubby and the girls, I am also excited about starting the new year and getting ready for our baby boy!

Baby Names

Well, we announced our baby's name to the girls so I guess it's pretty official! It's so weird to me saying and using the name before birth. We knew our girl and boy names for the girls, but since we didn't know what we were having, they never got used until they were born. We referred to Felicity as Penny (small form of Cash, our last name), and Clare as Jellybean. We had dubbed this baby Mimi3, as Clare has long called all babies or small things "Mimi" and he's our 3rd child, but now we go between using that and his name, Jacob. I wouldn't let Steven or I use it at all for a few months because I'm so afraid I'll get tired of it before he's born! But I felt like knowing it would probably be good for the girls, and they both talk about him, so I think it was a good choice. We haven't totally solidified a middle name, but we are leaning towards Theodore. That was our boy name when we were pregnant with Felicity, but by the time I was pregnant again, it was way too popular for me to consider. This time I knew I didn't want it as a first name, but wasn't sure whether I'd want to use it as a middle name. Often through this pregnancy, when I get overwhelmed, I remember how much God wanted this baby here. If you need a slightly TMI recap, this baby was a one shot wonder 😂😂😂, which was shocking considering Felicity took many months and fertility treatments, and Clare took many months. This time, we were afraid but open to the thoughts of a 3rd, and then later I said a prayer to God, essentially "God, I don't know if we'll be that open again, so if you want us to have a 3rd child, make it happen". And here we are. So anyway, I was up with pregnancy insomnia the other night and googled names that mean "God's will" or "God's gift", and up popped Theodore among many other names that were from other cultures and not something we'd choose. It just felt meant to be. Like "oh, there you were all along!".

Did I ever share the story on Jacob? I don't think I did. The day we found out we were having a boy (maybe 13 or so weeks with an early blood test my mom sent us from Amazon), we were pretty stressed. Honestly, we both expected it to be a girl and we *know* girls, so it shocked us! We sat on the porch that afternoon for quite some time, chatting and getting used to the idea. We began chatting names, which we had already done SO many times before, and had never even come close to agreeing on one. Even previous pregnancies, the girl names were easy and the boy names were so tough for us! I went into the hospital with Clare knowing that, if she was a boy, I didn't want to use the boy name we'd picked lol. And all of a sudden one of us mentioned Jacob, which had someone never come up on a saint list before, and we both lit up. We both liked it! I quickly googled and yes, he's a saint! He was a martyr in Korea.

So, barring any random decisions that I totally have the prerogative for, our baby is Jacob Theodore!

Life Happens

As you can see, life gets in the way of my very lofty plans to journal daily. But it's mostly for good reasons! I've had some very wonderful days with my girls. I'm the worst about letting a bad hour ruin an otherwise good day, so I've continued to work hard to shift my perspective and not do that. Yesterday was about as perfect as perfect can be. Any time there's winter weather, Steven has to stay overnight at a hotel. He had to stay two nights this time. So any "break" I get when he gets home is obviously gone during that time. I was prepared for yesterday to be tough, both because it was mostly an indoors/can't-go-anywhere day AND because he was gone for 48 hours. But the girls and I had such a great day! We watched some extra shows and The Star movie, snuggled and read books, they played makeup, really just every day stuff but I didn't let a tough 5 minutes here or there spoil the day. And bed time was EASY which is not often the case. It was exactly what my mama heart needed. Today Steven is still at work, it's still super gross outside and below freezing, and we're stuck inside again but.... so far, so good! We got our school done, our advent things done, and the girls are snuggled up with a Curious George Christmas movie. I've relaxed my rules around screen time a lot the past few days, which is fun for ALL of us. It makes me glad for my regular screen time rules, because this feels so out of ordinary and special. I'm working hard still on slowing down this advent and it's helped a lot. I still think about running out for a tree... but I remind myself how much they've loved playing with their Charlie Brown tree, and how much I've loved removing a situation where I'd need to redirect constantly. I'm enjoying simplifying gift getting, and focusing more on reading lots of great Christmas books with the girls, doing our advent wreath prayers, praying our new baby's rosary, and doing crafts together. The Jesse tree did not happen again this year, and I'm not even stressing it. Maybe next year! I hope your advent is as peaceful as ours is going so far!