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We’ve been asking lots of people if they think we’re having a boy or a girl (we aren’t finding out ahead of birth), and so we ask Ella every so often too.

“Do you think your new baby might be a girl?”

“No! she’s a boy!”

She refers to the baby in the feminine, but insists that it’s going to be a boy, and that she’s the only girl.

Oh, and she’s calling it Milo.

time to take stock:

hair: intact
belly: a little soft
pant size: no change in 5 years
job: still interesting after 4 years
wife: awesome, and radiantly pregnant
daughter: darling, genius, very very toddler

To do a little quick math, i was mostly done with grade school when my parents were both 35. We had already moved 4 times since i was born, at least one of those houses we’d built. I’ll be teaching Ella to drive when i’m 49, and i’m sure i’ll be patching up our first house until we sell it. A different life than then; growing up, we lived in the country, or in small towns. Now i’m living in the city and buying food from a farm, trying to pretend the suburbs don’t exist. It’ll be different for Ella, but hopefully just as good a way to grow up.

No complaints though; 35 is looking alright. It’s a busy year for sure, lots of goings on. Adult goings on, like buying a twin bed for our little girl; refinancing the house (5.25%!); moving my shop out to the garage to make space for a future play room in the basement. It’s soon going to look like a family’s house rather than a house with a young couple and one small kid. I still have bruises on my thighs from carrying the radial arm saw through the back yard while wearing shorts. Some things i don’t learn so well in 35 years.

We made the big switch on this past Sunday: the office is now Ella’s bedroom, and vice-versa. We also set up Autumn’s old canopy bed, bought a new twin size mattress set, and Ella now has moved up to a big girl bed.

Things are still in disarray, both in room organization and in sleep routines. The office is surprisingly well setup, considering (or maybe because) it’s in a room 1/2 the size it was in. Ella’s room is slowly coming together; i got her shelf up on the wall on monday, and that helped get a lot of books off the floor. Ella is also slowly getting more used to the room, the bed, and the new routine.

The first nap time on Sunday was really hard. Long, long wind down time. Lots of stall tactics and hollering. Bed time at night has been much easier in comparison.

It’s been a little easier every day, hopefully that’s the trend. We have 7 weeks until Autumn’s full term, so hopefully that’s enough time for Ella to get comfortable and back in the routine.

Big plusses to the new bed: sitting on the bed next to her and reading books, Autumn curling up and napping with her.

Ella has never seen Bob the Builder, but her 3rd-favorite phrase lately is “You can do it!”

“that’s MY {insert item name here}” and “I can do it” are #1 and 2, respectively.

Whenever Ella wants to do something, like put on a t-shirt or fry an egg, she says “I can do it!”, and darn it, most of the time she does. When she gives up, she says “You can do it!” with equal enthusiasm.

She doesn’t get to fry (or break, for that matter) any eggs, since there’s fire involved. She has been doing a lot of dressing and undressing though, and she’s getting quite good at pulling down her pants, peeing in her little potty, putting her pants back on, and carrying the full potty to mama to empty. And she hasn’t spilled once.

hard to believe we’re in the home stretch. we had our 28 week appointment and everything looks great. even though i’ve only gained 3 lbs in 6 weeks, i’m measuring 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule. the midwives are concerned we’ll have another big one, like ella was (um, big shock - look at their papa!).

i had my 1 hour glucose test (which checks for gestational diabetes) and passed. i was thrilled, since with ella, i had to go and take the torturous 3 hour test (passed that too, but wasn’t thrilled about the idea of doing it again. heartbeat was around 140. the normal range is 140-160. ella was usually closer to 160…which some say indicates a girl. a slower rate can mean boy, but who knows.

we’re finally taking the time to work on our birth plan and talk about baby names. i pulled out the database of names i kept when we were pregnant with ella. hard to believe i had that much time on my hands back then! we’ve narrowed our list down, with ella’s help, to a few possibilities. her favorites are: milo, isaac, and owen; fiona, pheobe, and maura. bill and i, of course, are still debating this great issue

oh, and we hired a doula. my good friend sarah biermeier, who has been a doula for a couple years now, will be at our birth. she’s already attended a few births where the mother had previously been induced, and was successful in helping the mother achieve a natural birth the second time around. ella knows sarah from playgroups and attachment parenting international (which sarah and i co-lead together here in st. paul), but she also has two daughters, who ella adores. we think this will be a comfortable situation for our whole family.

i’m spending as much time as i can on the birth ball and also taking walks with ella, sara bogie, and her son ben. there are no hints that i’ll have the blood pressure issues i had with ella, but just in case, i’m walking as much as i can to get my body ready for labor. the midwives don’t think i’ll have to be induced this time around, but again, we’re trying to do what we can now to be as ready as we can for whatever happens. hard to believe we’ll be full term in just a couple months!