Baby Three is a...

It's a...

Oh man, we are going to have three boys running around here! 

My favorite Westin quotes in response to this have been:

"Mama, you are going to have to make so much food for us, huh?" Yes. So much.

"Daddy's a boy. I'm a boy. Bennett is a boy. The baby is a boy. 

Everyone here is a boy except that guy." (Points to me.)

"The baby has a penis, so it's a brother. If it had a ... thing-a-majiggy, then it's a sister."

"Mama, do you know what's more fun than having a baby? Vacations.

Do you know what's more fun than vacations? T-ball."

(He hasn't been to T-ball yet.)

W: "What's the baby wearing in your tummy?"

M: "He's naked, we'll put clothes on him when he's born."

W: "You have a naked baby in you?!?!"

I won't lie, I was shocked to see that blue confetti. I didn't know if this baby was a girl or boy, but the reality of either one is just a big change! And yes, I've read the stats here because, THREE BOYS!

I have one brother and Michael has all sisters. Three boys. Who knew!

Michael:

Started his Trauma ICU rotation, right at the end of being on call on his last rotation, so he's getting through a 15-day stretch of work. Saturdays and Sundays are supposed to be shorter days, but he worked from 6am to 7pm yesterday and who knows when we'll see him today. Oh man, that poor guy. He has Wednesday off and he needs it! He is also a dad of three boys, so, that's crazy. I told him I will fully take advantage of father-son campouts. 

Maddie:

Tried to make our weekend fun and productive but it's hard being in this long work stretch on our end too! We did a Home Depot workshop, in which Bennet melted down multiple times, and got things done around the house. Thursday was so long with those black balloons floating in my kitchen and an envelope at the bottom that I couldn't peek at. I was so ready to wake up the boys when Michael got home around 9:30 to find out our fate! My ultrasound was really fun -- this baby had his hand by his mouth and his other hand on top of his head almost the whole time, and we had a hard time getting any profile shots because he was just staring right in our direction the whole time. Which is semi-creepy when you see those ultrasound alien eyes, but cute in thought. I'm still so, so nauseous. If this was a girl I think I'd submit to thinking I'll be nauseous this whole pregnancy. But it's not! So get out of here, nausea. That's how I feel about that :)

Westin:

I signed this cutie up for T-K (transitional Kindergarten, a thing Fresno does for all kids who turn 5 between Sep. 2 and Dec. 2, which is the same hours as Kindergarten) and for T-ball. That seemed like such big boy stuff and I still don't know how I feel about it! We're currently in a district for an elementary school that is over a mile away, even though there's one just a half-mile walk from our house. So after I finish registering Westin I'm going to submit a transfer application, and if that doesn't go through, I don't know that we'll do T-K. He'd be really sad to not go, though. We'll see!

Bennett:

loves nursery, owns potty training (except for one major part that we won't get into but everyone who has potty trained a child knows which part that is), and copies his brother nonstop. He's convinced he has a baby in his tummy. He shows me his belly all the time and tells me to be soft to the baby. I actually left a message with an office that does early intervention speech therapy to do a home consultation with us. He's to a point where he really knows what he's saying but we still just don't all the time, and he's very frustrated. So even though I know he'll eventually get it and all will be fine, if we can help this current stage then I want to know how to help it. So we'll see where that goes too. 

These sound like big kid things! And we have a baby coming, so I guess my kids are bigger than I even realize. Oh man, that's sad and happy.

Now that we know we're having a boy, I'm ready to know where we're going to be living come next summer. Let's just get these unknowns out of here and start making plans! I love making plans. Speaking of, we have visitors coming in March, April, May, June, July, and August. Plus a trip in March and a trip in April. These are the things that move time along during awful rotations, so I'm grateful!

19 weeks

We watch our friend Mara on Tuesday mornings now and Westin loves playing with her.

This kid-sized corn hole gets so much use around here!

This is the saddest news ever. The city took down all the orange trees by our house that we always pick from!
I am so sad about it! They should have at least waited until the oranges were gone :( :( :(
I wonder what the plan is. Those turned-over trees are such a sorry sight every time we drive by.

Preschool fun

Bennett is constantly asking to hold "meow-meow" and once in a while she's surprisingly patient with him.
Other times she swats him in the face.
He loves both.

The big news! The first two people to know what we were having were the ultrasound tech and...

... the man at Party City who filled up these balloons.

Sometimes Bennett is extra tired when I wake him up to go get Westin from preschool.
Is it time to move him from the pack n play and closet? Probably.
Am I going to keep him in there until my baby is like 3 months old? Probably.
Will I transition him to the crib in Westin's room instead of a real bed at that point? Probably.
Is sleep the biggest priority of all of motherhood to me? Yes. And I mean, kindness and hard work and all that good stuff.
But really it's sleep.

There's just absolutely no question if that's a boy or not... we're just really sure. Very sure.

E for Egg at sunbeam preschool

Westin and Colt have so much fun. He can't wait to play T-Ball with him.

The Home Depot experience. Westin was super patient and helpful.
Bennett wanted to paint with screw drivers and hammer all parts of his project and fingers,
and screamed and cried many times. Our neighbors rolled their eyes at us and I felt so defensive of our,
"this is us making memories even though it's hard and our dad worked 90 hours this week" situation,
BUT I didn't say anything rude to them. I didn't even give them a rude look.
But I judged them inside and wrote this whole big thing, so, in the end it's probably all the same.

We love the red pepper and tomato soup from Trader Joe's, and their sour dough bread. We made turkey/spinach/grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and Westin said, "I don't like this, but I appreciate you making it." And I was like, "I'll take that. I can live with that. Actually, THANK YOU for saying that." And then he took more bites and said, "I actually do like this but I'll just take 10 more bites." And I was fine with that, and then he would finish and asked me, "Do you want me to take 10 more?" And I said yes, and that happened two more times until his whole dinner was gone.

At what point do kids just eat their dinner? I mean, he technically did. But when do they just....eat it?
If you understand, you understand.