This was the year of Dd, with pregnancy, birth and his “fourth trimester.”
Friends Family and Pets
Here’s how D and our pets looked at the beginning of 2018:
and here is how the kids looked at the end of 2018:
Before Dd was born I worried quite a bit about the heartbreak some older children are reported to feel when they are no longer only children. Perhaps because of sons’ four year age gap, so far it has not been an issue. Yes, D occasionally wants more attention from us, but he and Dd are always enthralled by each other. Watching them together is a joy I hadn’t really anticipated.
House, Car and Stuff
D went to Disneyland with Jack’s mom and step dad in the spring, but for the first time in the twenty years we’ve known each other Jack and I did not fly anywhere. We only left the state once for a trip to Oregon, but we did get around quite a bit from January through July.
Friends Family and Pets
Here’s how D and our pets looked at the beginning of 2018:
and here is how the kids looked at the end of 2018:
Before Dd was born I worried quite a bit about the heartbreak some older children are reported to feel when they are no longer only children. Perhaps because of sons’ four year age gap, so far it has not been an issue. Yes, D occasionally wants more attention from us, but he and Dd are always enthralled by each other. Watching them together is a joy I hadn’t really anticipated.
- babies born: Beau to P&K, all of Dd’s new PEPs friends Opal, Micah, Max, Jax, Leo, Finn, Weston and Garrett
- Just before Dd was born, we said goodbye to Emo.
- We didn’t have any visits from far away friends or family, except a very quick interview trip by Jessica and Adam.
- I joined a new PEPS group, which has been great for this wintery maternity leave
- My uncle was diagnosed with brain cancer in the spring and is now taking things day by day.
- Our friend from Little Louisa Photography took some family and maternity pictures for us in late August.
House, Car and Stuff
- The biggest project we did on the house was the roof: pavers are done, the roof is ready for summer, roof is wrap.
- We put in a doorbell and a few other smart home things: house technology update
- After much discussion and financial prioritization we decided on the type of blinds we want and ordered them for part of the third floor and part of our bedroom. A few have even been installed… stay tuned. So long faded paper blinds!
- We got a new car, the first one that either of us has bought.
- Two plus years into living in our house, we are drowning in stuff! We’ve gotten rid of over 400 things (so much stuff) but still have a long way to go to feel like the house looks and functions like we want.
- Our original wedding rings are white ceramic, but even when I’m not pregnant, I struggle to wear a ring regularly. This fall we tried out some new flexible silicon rings (also white) and so far they are working out well.
- It’s kind of a silly thing but for the first time ever, I bought an app for my phone. It is a baby tracking app, which has been useful for managing Dd’s sleep.
- Similarly trivial but useful to me, we improved our packing strategy for camping, hiking and snow play. Using a laundry basket for gloves, coats, etc. makes things much better. I get frustrated by having so many insufficiently sized bags and having to paw through all of them to find what I need, so this really makes me feel satisfied.
- Several windows in our house leak(ed?) and for almost 2 months at the beginning of this year we had window repair people doing noisy, messy repairs to every single window in the house, including several weeks of having scaffolding set up. The original problem windows are in the corner of our bedroom and they were "fixed" twice in 2018 (and once so far in 2019). Ugh!
D went to Disneyland with Jack’s mom and step dad in the spring, but for the first time in the twenty years we’ve known each other Jack and I did not fly anywhere. We only left the state once for a trip to Oregon, but we did get around quite a bit from January through July.
- Wenatchee - We played in the snow, visited Leavenworth and stayed with Jack’s aunt and uncle.
- Cape Disappointment - With two other families we stayed in yurts and had some nice Washington winter fun on the beach and short hikes and balance bike rides. Since then all the kids have transitioned to pedal bikes.
- Portland and Anacortes – visiting friends in our March Rounds
- D to Disneyland
- Columbia Hills State Park Camping
- Iron Springs again
- Deception Pass for the fourth time
- Blake Island
- It was D's first season of T-Ball and Jack's first time coaching, which prompted D’s obsession with all things baseball that lasted through the playoffs in September. Thank you to all the grandparents who played “Calvinball” with him.
- I did Fit4Baby HIIT classes once a week, with only one or two weeks missed, for the first 8.5 months of pregnancy. I wasn’t quite doing burpees at the end, but saw some pretty impressive moves by pregnant ladies and was definitely better off for what I was able to do.
- Jack’s baseball team finished fifth….. out of seven. Jack’s season was pretty good personally though. He pitched a few good innings, which is more than he had in the last few years.
- Jack joined the fitness watch crowd with a Garmin watch. It actually makes him get off the bus a bit early or walk at lunch, in addition to running home from work. I’m still enjoying my Apple watch from late 2017.
- D is riding a pedal bike now. Balance bikes are such a cool way of learning and he rode the pedal bike successfully his first time trying it in the week after Dd was born.
- Jack’s bike stolen from our back yard, after someone presumably saw him put it away there, skipping the step of locking it up while our kiddo was loudly melting down.
- It was the best hiking year since D was born, excluding our week in Scotland in 2017. Highlights were on Blake Island and Rattlesnake Ledge.
- D did a few swimming and ballet classes again. In June he was the kid refusing to get in the pool, so it was a relief to work past that, even if he still can’t actually swim.
- Pregnancy had one funny effect on my palate in that I was much less interested in chocolate than I usually am. I didn’t dislike it but was substantially downgraded. At the same time the raspberry jam sold at Trader Joe’s was the best thing ever. Now chocolate has re-ascended and the jam is just very good.
- I’m really grasping at straws here (but they are not made of plastic, Seattleites), but the other innovation of the year was putting pickles in sandwiches we make at home. They add so much pizzazz.
- We used a few types of meal kits this year, which was especially great with a newborn.
- I discovered raspberry leaf tea, which has a really nice flavor and is naturally caffeine free, which can be handy. According to pregnancy lore, it "tones the uterus", whatever that means!
- It was a great reading year, including lots of kindle reading (you can do it with one hand while nursing or trying to get a baby to sleep in the dark), audio books, books read with Jack and books read to D. I read about 30 books, including about 3000 pages from from one author, Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the historical fiction series called Outlander. Happily she has written many more books that I look forward to reading. Having a reliable stream of good books to read is such a treat.
- Jack’s favorite read was the Area X Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.
- We started reading chapter books to D, starting with Roald Dahl, then reading Brambleheart and some books from the Magic Tree House series and The Princess in Black series and The Hobbit (in progress).
- Jack and D had a great time at the Seattle summer teen musical, which was Cinderella this year. I think it will become an annual outing for us.
- Together the best fiction book Jack and I read was Uprooted by Naomi Novik. The best non fiction book we read (via audiobook) was Educated by Tara Westover.
- We spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with another boy name. Our girl name candidate was the same as last time, so that part was easier.
- We spent most of the year thinking we would be getting an au pair in 2019. After a truly obsessive amount of time searching and considering options, we gave up on it in December. Luckily we covered our bases by getting on multiple infant care wait lists for Dd in January 2018, paid a deposit for a spot in May 2018 and will make use of it in March 2019 (part time). Such is the current Seattle childcare scene.
- August felt like the summer that didn’t happen due to the nasty air quality from all the forest fires. Our upstairs was 90 degrees at time with our windows closed and it was not fun to be pregnant through that.
- We’ve both have been at same jobs since the spring of 2012 and have gained more responsibility over the years. 2018 was the first time Jack was salaried and truly full time at his firm. At my job, a few key people left so I had to step up a bit. I worked from home even more than usual during my third trimester. Despite the fact that Dd was our second baby while I was at the same job, figuring out maternity leave details was more complicated and drawn out than expected, but it has worked out for the best, at least so far.
- D finally started drawing recognizably late this summer. Here’s a picture of our house.
No comments:
Post a Comment