11wk update

So it’s been a long and rough couple of weeks. My morning sickness finally subsided a few weeks ago and I felt pretty good for about ½ a week. Then one day I started feeling really dizzy and as a result I was feeling motion sick- like being stuck on a boat on rough waters. The only thing I could think of was maybe a problem with my blood pressure. Normal for me is about 90/60, which is considered borderline low. Sure enough my blood pressure was down and was averaging 75/55 over several days. My doctor has assured me that it is normal for blood pressure to drop during pregnancy and that I should just be careful so that I don’t fall and hurt myself or the baby.

I went in for my routine prenatal checkup a week later and my BP was down to 74/48. After consulting with the Dr. my midwife assured me that I have nothing to worry about, but she did run some extra blood tests to see if there is an underlying cause. She also wants to see me in 2wks rather than the normal 4wks, because she is concerned that I have been continually dizzy for so long (even when I’m laying down). The good news is that at that appt (11wks) we were able to hear a nice strong heart beat, so the baby appears to be doing well. I just have to ride this out and hope my blood pressure goes back up soon.



Here is the latest sequence of pregnancy pictures. The one on the left is at 4wks, so basically the before picture. The others from left are 8wks, 9wks, and 11wks. I was too sick to take a picture wk 10. :( Believe it or not, I lost 5lbs between the 4wk and 8wk pictures and then lost 2 more lbs. after that, but I have yet to put a single pound back on. But that hasn’t stopped my belly from growing.







Here I am at 11wks and I am the same size that I was with Carter at 19wks.



















And of course Carter still loves to give the baby some love.

Baby Talk

So I was lying on the couch this morning and my belly was poking out a little from my shirt. Carter came up to it and said "there you are!" and preceeded to say goodmorning to the baby and give my belly hugs and kisses. He later came back up to me, when my belly was fully covered and he said "where did it go?" So he had to pull my shirt up and find my belly again to talk to the baby some more. I think he's getting excited about being a big brother. I asked him if he wanted the baby to sleep in his room when it came out of mommy's belly, to which he excitedly replied "yes!" (If it's a boy they'll share a room). It was the sweetest thing and I just had to share it.

Pregnancy Update (8 1/2 weeks)

So we’re 8 ½ weeks into this pregnancy and I am feeling slightly better with the help of some anti-nausea medicine from my midwife, but there are still many bad days (they’re just not as bad as they were).

We finally got around to taking a belly picture today after we took down the Christmas tree that was blocking the “photo” wall. Here’s a look at the “before” picture (3 ½ wks) compared to now. I’ve done a lot of growing in just 5 weeks.














Clearly what they say about you showing sooner with your second is true. Here’s a look at my first pregnancy at 15wks compared to this one at only 8 1/2wks.















Carter already loves being a big brother and loves to give my belly hugs and kisses and talk and sing to the baby. He tells the baby “morning” when he wakes up and tells it “night-night” before he goes to bed. (Of course if the flutters I’m feeling already are an indication, the baby is actually waking up about the time he says night-night)




We got our first ultrasound picture last week.







Here's a little diagram I made up to show you what you're looking at. It's harder to distinguish on a still picture than it is while they're doing the ultrasound and you can see things moving, so I figured I'd offer some help.










And here's just a fun little thing I did in Photoshop. Nothing genius, but seeing as out last name is Herman, I always remember the character of Baby Herman from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He's the cute little baby that's really a cigar smoking man off camera.




And just because no blog is complete without a Carter update- this week we're working on shapes. So far he knows: oval, triangle, diamond, moon, star, and circle. (He has one of those cubes with holes in it that you put different shapes through.) He had square down, but he just learned diamond and now he gets them confused (along with rectangles). He also occasionally confuses a circle for an oval, since he just learned oval too, but he's getting better.

So that's everything for now. Only 4 1/2 weeks left in the first trimester, so hopefully all the nausea will subside soon. In the mean time I'll keep eating whatever cravings hit me that don't make me want to vomit. :)

Announcement and Update

So for those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, our family is growing. Carter is going to be a big brother come August. The official due date is August 25, but since Carter was so big (9lb 3oz), we will likely have a planned c-section about a week early. We’re considering the 20th, because that’s Ryan’s birthday, but we still have plenty of time to decide.

Carter is already talking to the baby. He likes to lift mommy’s shirt and kiss and hug her belly and tell the baby good morning or night-night. He also likes to sing to the baby. He’s going to be a great big brother.

As mentioned, Carter likes to sing. His favorite song by far is Twinkle, Twinkle. He also likes to sing the ABC’s, jingle bells, and several of the songs from his Sabbath School class. He has a hard time remembering all the words, but he’s pretty good with the tunes.

He’s still growing like a weed. He’s 36” and 28lbs now. That keeps him right at 95% for height and about 65% for weight, which is pretty much where he’s always been on the growth chart. Based on that he’ll likely reach 6’2” by the time he’s done growing.

He’s still learning things like crazy. He knows all his letters, though still not in alphabetical order, and he can count to 13. He can say any word he hears and is talking in full complete sentences now. He loves to read books and will sit and recite his favorite ones out loud to himself when we’re too busy to read to him. He’s heard many of them so many times, that he really can tell the stories himself as he turns the pages. A couple of his favorites are The Pokey Little Puppy and his Sabbath School Quarterly.

He also loves to cook. We get a step stool out for him when we’re making a meal and he’ll be right there helping measure things out and dumping them in and stirring. We even got him a little apron and chef’s hat for Christmas.

He still eats a lot and isn’t very picky, but he is showing preferences, asking for certain things a lot. As a Herman, his favorite food is of course tacos. He LOVES vegetables, especially beans (any type). There really isn’t too much he doesn’t like, but the few things he doesn’t we don’t push too hard, since he does like so many things that are good for him.

Vacation!!

As promised here is the recap of our vacation to the Bahamas.

Just leaving was tiring enough to warrant a vacation. Ryan was in Dallas for a conference the week before our cruise. He flew into Chattanooga Friday morning and by the time we got home it was about time to go trick-or-treating, which we wanted to stick around for, for Carter. After that we made the trip over to Ryan’s parents in North Carolina, arriving there around 11pm. Poor Ryan was exhausted. We spent Saturday with Ryan’s parents and left for Florida that night after Carter fell asleep.

Fortunately the time changed that night, so when we stopped to sleep at 2a, we got 6 hrs of sleep before we woke up at 7a. As it turned out, I had packed 2 different black shoes for formal night on the cruise so we had to keep an eye out for a walmart that morning so I could get some matching shoes. (We figured a walmart would be the only thing open that early on a Sunday, which it was).

We got to port about 11 and were able to board at 11:30a. Our room wasn’t ready until 1:30, so we roamed around the ship and ate some lunch, while we waited around for a place to take a nap. :P After getting to the room we unpacked and relaxed until the safety drill, which was nice and short- they didn’t make us go out to the lifeboats because it was raining. We then finally got a nap. By the time we woke up we were out to sea and it was still raining. On top of it, by supper time, many people were complaining of sea sickness, myself included. Our dinner table passed around some sea sick pills, but I unfortunately had to leave early, because my stomach never settled.

The next day was much nicer- we were in Freeport by the time we woke up. There wasn’t much to that island, just some open air shops. Apparently there was a well hidden beach close by, so well hidden that there were only about 25 people there. (Someone at our dinner table discovered it). We, like many other people, ventured off to look at the shops and then spent the remainder of the day lounging around the ship. Ryan seemed happy to watch the huge barges being pushed into dock by the tugboats to load/unload their massive loads of cargo.

We left port that evening and the water was fortunately much calmer. The next morning we awoke in Nassau. After breakfast we ventured out to do some shopping and found a few things for Carter. We returned to the ship for lunch (why pay on shore when it’s all you can eat for free onboard!?) On the advice on a friend who’d been there before, we took a taxi over to Atlantis, a beautiful resort island with water parks and a sprawling aquarium that you can view from above and below. We wandered around the hotels and watched people scream their heads off as they went down the vertical waterslide. We didn’t venture into the water, because it was a nice mild temperature that day- perfect for walking around, but not warm enough by my standards to get wet.

The next day was our day at sea- the day I’d been dreading after the first night’s rough seas. Fortunately it was calm waters, but VERY windy. Ryan and I played a very interesting game of miniature golf. We’d hit the ball and the wind would blow it all the way back to us. Neither of us came anywhere near par on the course. :) By supper that night we were able to feel the ship swaying again. Fortunately it didn’t start getting really bad until after supper and we were ready to go to bed anyway. We found out the next morning from our cabin steward that the days going in and out of Florida are usually rougher. Apparently it’s something with leaving on the eastern side of FL, because we never felt a thing on our last cruise that left on the gulf side of the state.

All in all, we had a great time. Good shows, good food, good naps. It was very relaxing. And as for Carter, he didn’t want to leave Nana and Papa’s house. We asked him if Nana and Papa had spoiled him and he quickly replied “No”. We don’t buy it. :)

ABC's, football, and the Bahamas

Wow! It’s been 2 months! My bad. I guess there just hasn’t been a lot to update on. Not a lot of new things going on in the lives of the Hermans. As mentioned before, Carter is potty trained. He’s been wearing real underwear ever since that last post. He still wears a diaper at night, but he’s starting to have more mornings where he’s still dry.

The only new developments I can think of are that he’s learning more letters and colors. He knows more than half of the alphabet, but he’s learning them in his own completely random order. He seems to really pick up on the “letter of the day” on Sesame Street. He also loves to sing twinkle, twinkle and the ABC song. He’s got the tune down (it’s the same for both songs), but he doesn’t have all the words of course. It’s mostly “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle….” or random letters for the alphabet.

Oh, and of course it’s football season now and Ryan has gotten Carter to completely fall in love with the game. He asks for “foobah” daily. And of course he’s a Panthers fan (he’ll say panther whenever he sees the team logo). He has his own little jersey with matching pants that he wears on game days. Ryan has also taught him how to hike a football, put his arms up and yell touchdown, and he’s getting better and throwing and catching his little football.

For Halloween I made a Spongebob Squarepants costume for our neighbor boy Tyler, and a smaller version for Carter just for the fun of it. But I don’t let Carter watch spongebob, so he has no idea who he is. So Carter is going to be Elmo (he LOVES elmo!), and his big stuffed elmo will wear the little spongebob costume to match Tyler.

As for the adults in this house, we are testing our building skills. I, Mindy, designed a twin bed and we are now in the process of building it. Assuming it holds up, it will go in our little back room that until now has served our storage needs. We’re going to turn it into a small guest room/playroom for Carter.

What we’re currently looking forward to is our cruise to the Bahamas, coming up in less than 2 weeks! Unfortunately, Ryan will be away in Texas next week for a conference, so after a week away, he’ll only get to see Carter for 1 day before we leave him with his Nana and Papa for a week. For my part, I haven’t had a night away from my baby since he was born, so I’m extremely excited about getting away, but of course a little apprehensive about being away from him for so long.

So that’s pretty much it. I’ll post another blog after we get back from our cruise to let you know how things went.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!

In just under a month we have gone from starting potty training to POTTY TRAINED!!! (at only 17 months old!!) It just sort of clicked the last couple days and he’s now telling us when he needs to go. The big success was yesterday- he had diarrhea all day and still told us EVERY TIME he needed to go! (yes, it's exhausting to take a toddler potty every 15-30 minutes with diarrhea, but still exciting.)

Today we were at a friend’s house and he would still stop playing and come tell me that he needed to go. We’ve moved on to pull ups, because diapers, even when they stay dry, can’t handle being taken on and off so many times. This is day 2 in a row that he has stayed completely dry all day. He’s still wet in the mornings, but we’ll work on that. We’re just excited that he’s going during the day! We plan to start regular underwear next week if he keeps up the good work of staying dry throughout the day.

Anyway, that’s the update. Gotta go for now. Little man is starting to wake up from his nap. Love to all!