The Big Ultrasound

Today was the day we have been waiting for, the day we had our 20-week ultrasound scheduled and the day we planned to find out the baby's gender! (If you don't care to read all the details, you can cheat and skip ahead to find out the gender.  I mainly just want to document the day for myself and this is honestly probably the only place I will ever get around to doing so.)

We had been telling Jesse all about today and what was going to happen.  While I don't think he truly grasped it, he did seem pretty excited about it, and we even let him watch his own ultrasound video last night so that he would maybe have a little bit of an idea what was going to happen.

Our day began very early, when Jesse for some reason woke up for the day at 4:30.  I had already been awake since 3:00, so we had a very early start to our day.  Luckily Jesse stayed in his room happily until 5:30, when James decided he might as well go get him since nobody was going back to sleep.  I was fortunately able to go back to sleep until a little after 6:00, though.  I will just pretend that Jesse was so thrilled about seeing his little brother or sister today that he just couldn't put himself back to sleep ;)

All that is to say that Jesse did an awesome job at our appointment, especially considering his lack of sleep.  The ultrasound was scheduled for 11:00, but we waited half an hour in the waiting room before being called back, and then the ultrasound itself took nearly an hour and a half!  Don't get me wrong, it was great to see our baby, but it was a bit uncomfortable lying on my back for so long.  Jesse was interested in the ultrasound for maybe 30 seconds, but he did entertain himself (and everyone else on the same floor) with who knows how many repetitions of Ten in the Bed and a few repetitions of the ABCs.  One of the ultrasound techs said she was going to have Ten in the Bed stuck in her head the rest of the day, and the other one said that he really needed to teach this new baby how to sing like that.  Ha ha...I'm sure he will try.  By the very end he was starting to get upset and looked like he was about to fall asleep on James, so we decided to treat him to a Happy Meal, not only as a reward for his good behavior, but also to keep him awake on the drive home.

We had decided last night that if it were a boy we would go out to dinner at Five Guys (not only because of the obvious connection with "guy", but also because a boy would make "five guys", or five boy grandchildren, on James' side of the family) and if it were a girl we would eat at Leona's (because it's the only nearby restaurant we could think of that was a girl's name).

The main ultrasound tech was still learning the ropes and didn't want to tell us the gender (although she said she had a suspicion), so she waited until the very end when the more experienced tech came in to check her work.  Neither of us had any gut feelings about the gender of this baby, but this made us think it was a girl, since it's usually quite obvious with boys.  Well, we were wrong...baby is definitely another boy!  We are so excited to have two little boys, and I hope and pray that they will be great buddies.  While we were certainly thrilled to find out we were having another boy, we would have been happy either way, and I think I just feel very excited for Jesse to have the experience of having a little brother.

Anyway, here are the pictures we were given at the appointment.  They are labeled on the left side in the black area so you can have an idea what you are looking at.  The experienced tech kept saying how beautiful the spine was...I'm not sure if she just really likes spines or if they are trained to appease mothers by ooing and awwing over their babies.  I mean, we thought it was beautiful, but we are a bit biased, and I kind of feel like a healthy spine is a healthy spine, right?

Our "official" due date that our doctor has been using is October 9th, but we have been saying October 16th.  This ultrasound showed us at exactly 20 weeks today, which would give us an October 11th due date, so I'm not sure if the doctor's date is more accurate or if we just have a big guy.  I'll see what she says at our next appointment.

Just Some More Random Pictures

Here are some more random pictures from our daily life around here.  Nothing too exciting, but still good memories.

Jesse loves playing with my phone, but he is required to stay next to me while he plays with it so that I can make sure he doesn't call everyone in my phone book.  James has been bringing home his smart phone from work on the weekends for Jesse to play with, but Jesse is quite happy just punching the numbers on my dinky little flip phone while belting out all the verses of Ten in the Bed as he types in each number.

Our poor little dude was so worn out one night at dinner that he fell asleep at the table.  We had been at church all morning and then had a community group lunch afterwards, so by the time we got home it was way past naptime and he was so wired that he wouldn't fall asleep. I put him in my lap in hopes of being able to feed him a few bites of food (it was just too much work for him to feed himself while fighting sleep), but he was out before we knew it.  Luckily a big bowl of ice cream was enough to wake him up and make him happy.

Speaking of naptime, we had some pretty rough naptime battles several months ago.  To make a long story short, after putting up a gate in his doorway and removing every single toy/distraction from his room that we could, he finally got back on his regular routine (thank goodness, because I was about to go crazy!).  Of course, he occasionally has his days where he resists and this was one of those days.  He still had a big basket full of quilts and blankets in his room (they are now gone) and he stacked them up to get up on his changing table.  When I found him he did not look like this, but was pretending to sleep on it.  I'm sure the picture was not a wonderful parenting move, but I think I just got to the point that day where I figured I might as well laugh about it.  He hasn't done it since, though, so maybe the attention didn't do any harm this time.

On the weekends, Jesse and James have been making a special tent where Jesse sets up his "grocery store" and sells us various things.

Jesse loves his time with Daddy.  One day when James gone, Jesse went to the table to do a bit of "reading" from James' Biblical Hebrew Syntax book.  He was pretending to do lots of underlining (just like James) as he turned all the pages in this book and told me he was "learning Hebrew".

Final Tot Lot Party

Tonight we had the final Tot Lot party of the year.  We went with a simple outdoor theme, and I think it turned out a success.  There were a few games and activities set up for the kids, but it was mainly just a big party for everyone to have fun at the park and eat pizza.  Today was absolute perfect weather for it...blue skies and warm! 

The sad part is that in the next couple months, many of these friends will be leaving Chicago.  I'm sure that a whole new crew of wonderful families will be coming in, but it sure is going to be sad to say goodbye to so many of the amazing friends we have made over the past two years.  We see many of these friends on an almost daily basis, and I just can't imagine not having them right upstairs for spontaneous play dates.  For now, I am just going to enjoy the last weeks we have with them!

Here's a belly shot of four of the pregnant ladies in the building.  From left to right we are due in October, September, July and June.  Sorry, I guess this is my "official" announcement, since I have totally failed to actually write a post about it.  We are very excited, though, and we will find out the gender next Friday, so I will definitely be updating on that!

I tried to get a good picture of Jesse and Nathan, but Nathan was the only one wanting to cooperate.

Jesse never misses an opportunity to drive the "green car".  A silly side story is that yesterday out of the blue he told me "I really upset about friends".  I thought maybe he was referring to the fact that many of his friends are moving away (although he would have just been copying something I had said, because I know he doesn't truly understand that his friends are leaving), so I asked him why he was so upset about them.  Of course, his response had nothing to do with the fact that they were moving; he told me was upset because "friends get in my car".  Ha! This car has definitely brought out some possessiveness in Jesse, but I suppose it is a good learning tool :)

There were a few pizzas leftover after the party, and Jesse said he wanted another piece after we got home.  This boy can put away a LOT of pizza!

 

 

A Mother's Day Outing

For Mother's Day this year we decided to skip church that morning and take a road trip to one of my favorite places to enjoy some family time outdoors.  It was perfect (well, all except for the cold weather that day).  We drove to the West Beach of the Indiana Dunes and did a couple short trails there.  We ended with some time at the beach.  James and I probably would have opted to just skip the beach and get lunch, but Jesse had been eagerly talking about the beach the entire morning and would have been crushed if he didn't get to play with his beach toys, so we spent half an hour or so there.

The hike ended with a nice, easy walk down one of the big sand dunes.  The view of Lake Michigan was beautiful.

Last time we were here it was a cloudy day and Chicago wasn't nearly this visible.

On the way back home we stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel.  The wait for a table was 45 minutes, but there were plenty of toys in the gift shop to pass the time.

When the toys lost their appeal, we endured the cold so that Jesse could entertain himself with the rocking chairs on the patio.



It was a great day and I was happy to get to spend it with my two boys!

A Rhyme, Some Songs, and a Sermon, Too

Here are some videos of Jesse lately.  The first is a rhyme that he learned from a book of action rhymes that we have.  He gets so quiet in the middle of it that you can hardly hear what he's saying, so here are the words:

A mouse lived in a little hole, 
Lived softly in a little hole, 
When all was quiet, as quiet as can be...
OUT POPPED HE!



This is just some typical Jesse entertainment during lunch. Jesse loves music and singing. The first song is one we've been doing in our music class this spring, and the second one is from one of his favorite YouTube videos. Be forewarned that this video is long...it is entertaining to us, but I realize that we are terribly biased, so feel free to skip over it (and of course any other videos I post) :)


This last one happened today, and I just had to grab the camera.  Jesse got out the New Testament that was given to him at his baby dedication and began walking around the room "reading" from it.  I didn't manage to get all of it on video, but at one point he was flipping through the pages and exclaiming, "This good news...this good news!".  Unless you are familiar with Jesse talk, you may not understand all of what he is saying, but he is basically saying "Thank you God for Jesus, thank you God for Jesus loving me, Thank you God for loving banjo, thank you God for loving crane truck, thank you for loving your (my) books, thank you for Bible study, this says thank you for church, thank you for church verses, this says loving the sink!".  What a silly guy!

Spring Weather and Random Pics

The past two days we have had some amazing weather!  It's about time!  I forgot how much I enjoyed spending the morning and/or afternoon at the park.  Jesse tends to get bored/mischievous when in the same enclosed space for long periods of time, so this weather has been very freeing for all of us! 

For the longest time I kept telling Jesse that very soon it would be springtime.  I told him that springtime is when the flowers come out and it's not cold outside, so for weeks he was telling me "when springtime flowers come out and we go to park".  He could not wait to get outside again.

I also promised him a picnic, so today we took our lunch downstairs and ate at the park. 

 

Jesse's favorite toy at the park is this green car.  Unfortunately it is many kids' favorite, so he is having to work on some patience in waiting his turn ;)  Sometimes he will stand at the window in his room and look down at the park and get upset that someone else is using "his" car.  He has definitely gotten much more possessive in just the past several months, but it's usually worse with younger kids and babies.

This past Sunday while I was getting ready for church, James and Jesse surprised me by getting dressed up in their white shirts and ties.  Jesse's tie did not stay on for church, though.

Jesse sings all the time, and very loudly!  He loves to sing "Happy Birthday" and use his traffic cones as party hats.

 



He's also still into his letters and ABC puzzle.  Usually he just puts random letters together and tells me that they say something (for example, the other day he told me that he had spelled 'Fox in Socks' but it was just a bunch of random letters).  Sometimes he'll get his name (usually the right letters out of order) or something simple like 'on' or 'no' that he sees a lot.  Here he is showing me his name: eeJjss.

Fun with Friends at the Children's Museum

Yesterday morning we went to the Children's Museum with our good friends Andrea, Lilah and Charlotte, so here is another round of pictures from the museum (thanks to Andrea for taking the pictures!).

The fire truck is the closest exhibit to the entrance, so it always makes sense to stop there first.  Lilah and Jesse were pretty serious about getting out to fight the fire, so they weren't really feeling like stopping for a picture.

WaterWays is always lots of fun.  It's nice that they provide rain coats, but Jesse still managed to get himself soaked.

Here's everyone cooking dinner in the log cabin.

And of course playing in the tent...

Lilah and Jesse had fun stacking dominoes.

 

One of Jesse's favorite places is the grocery store in Kid Town.

 

Riding a CTA bus together...

 

We had such a fun morning.  We ended it with the obligatory trip to McDonald's and even enjoyed getting to eat our meal outside on the pier in the beautiful sunshine.