It's A......

GIRL! Bring on the sundresses, oversized hair bows, and pig tails.

More importantly, our girl is measuring right on track (18 weeks, 1 day) for an August 29th due date. She looks healthy, happy, and active in there. She also looks a great deal like Camden did in his ultrasound pictures.

A quick little story: The ultrasound tech asked right away if we wanted to know the gender and of course I said yes. She headed right down to the baby's legs since they were open.

"Wait!" I said, "I want to try to guess." I stared at the open legs for a few seconds and was sure I knew. "It's a boy!" I said, "I see scrotum." My mom (who came along with Matt and me) agreed with me immediately. Matt later told me that he glanced at the ultrasound tech when I made my prediction and she was shaking her head a little bit. But, the baby quickly closed his (her) legs and so the tech didn't want to make a definite declaration right then.

"I definitely didn't see a penis or scrotum," she said, "So I'm thinking girl but we'll see."

The next 45 minutes were spent scanning the rest of the body and taking measurements. When our steady chatter died down, I heard a song playing softly in the background and laughed to myself but didn't say anything out loud. Matt, it turns out, was on the same page as me.

"What an appropriate song," he said as John Mayer's Daughters played in the background.

"That's got to be a sign," said the ultrasound tech.

Sure enough, she switched to the 3D view just as the baby opened her legs again.

And now, meet our (currently nameless, unless you ask Matt who is calling her "Camdina" right now) little girl:

Life in utero is such hard work!



No more Dum-Dums for us!

There's a running joke in my family about how paranoid my mom is about kids eating "hard" candy. She has an extreme fear of children choking and cringes at the sight of a Jolly Rancher. After my experience today, I think I will be joining her in the Banishing of Hard Candy ranks.

Obviously I've never offered my two year old a Jolly Rancher, but he does get a Dum-Dum lollipop after each speech session as a reward from his therapist. She did ask if it was okay the very first time and I gave her my consent. It seemed like a harmless little lollipop.

Today, we were on the way home from speech, driving on the interstate during rush hour traffic. Camden was happily sucking on his grape Dum-Dum in the back seat when I heard a very casual, "Uh oh." I glanced back to see an empty stick in his hand-- no purple ball to be found. I knew he wasn't finished, as we had only left speech a few minutes before. So, I assumed the ball had fallen in his seat. Then he opened his mouth and my heart began to race. The purple ball, the size of a marble, sat on his tongue. (Keep in mind that I am on the interstate, driving in excess of 60 mph and surrounded by traffic on all sides when I make this realization).

I panicked right away. "Camden, spit it out!" I yelled. Yelling, it turns out, was a big mistake. Camden mistook my fear for anger and, instead of spitting out the candy, he started crying. Hysterically. I thought the situation couldn't be any more dangerous and then suddenly it was. I could feel my car start to weave into the other lane as I desperately reached my hand in the back seat and begged him to spit it into my hand. He cried harder, the purple ball balanced delicately on his tongue.

At this point, we were nowhere near the next exit and I was sure this nightmare was going to end in one of two ways: we were going to get into a car accident or Camden was going to choke. So, I made a split-second decision. Even though there was heavy traffic behind me and very little shoulder space, I swirved off the road and put on my hazards. I climbed into the back seat as quickly as I could and fished the purple marble out of his mouth.

Somehow we made it back onto the interstate without being smashed from behind. This was, hands down, my scariest moment as a parent so far. And, it goes without saying that Dum-Dums are banned from our household for the forseeable future.

Pink or Blue?

Easily the second most popular question I get (following "When are you due?") is "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" As of this very moment, I don't know. My gut feeling is boy, and I'll find out for sure at the end of next week.

When I tell people this, it's usually followed up by something along the lines of, "Well, what do you want it to be?" And my honest answer? Other than healthy, I don't care. I'm not masking any secret hopes with that fairly standard response either.

You see, I'm a boy mama right now. And it's my comfort zone. I'm also the aunt to three nephews, so boys are familiar to me, not intimidating. My boy is active and busy, yes. But he's also low key, even tempered, and mostly drama free. Am I particularly interested in tractors, trains, bulldozers, truck, and cars? Um, no. But I love picking these things out for him and I never walk by the pink aisle at the toy store and long to fill my cart with Barbie and Ken.

Also? I love the relationship with my two oldest nephews have. They're a little over 2 years apart in age and are best friends. They play together all day and don't like to do anything without the other. I see that bond and I want Camden to have it. And yes, I do know that boy-girl siblings can be close and have special bonds too. I'm crazy about my own brother. But I do think there's something unique about the relationship between same gender siblings.

And I already have a little boy name in mind that I love and I am horrid at picking out girl names.

Having said all of that, if we go to the ultrasound next week and find out we are expecting a little girl, I will be thrilled. A girl would be different. It would be a new experience for me as a mom, and while new experiences do require stepping out of my comfort zone a bit, I know how rewarding it could be too. She would be the first granddaughter in our family, which would be neat. And, oh my-- how I love little infant sundresses and those big, ridiculous hair bows. I wouldn't mind painting tiny toes (okay, I'll be honest here: Camden may or may not currently have his toes painted) and watching a pig tailed head run around the house.

So, truly, it's a win-win for us and I am so incredibly thankful to be in this situation again. Now, we just count down the days until I get to see this little one for the first time since he/she was a 6 week old tiny blob!

I feel like I'm emerging from battle.

I had a post half-written in my mind several days ago about how much I love being a parent and how I always felt like I was wandering through life with some kind of void-- something missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on-- before Camden came along. It's funny because there were times when I even questioned what kind of parent I would be in my life pre-Camden. Would I be selfless enough? Would I miss my freedom, or lazy weekend mornings where I could sleep until 10 if I felt like it, or the ability to be spontaneous? Would I have enough patience? Would being a mom come naturally to me?

And then I met him a little over two years ago and every silly doubt I ever had about becoming a mom flew out the window the second I saw his tiny, perfect face. Truly, it was that instantaneous. And rather than dwindling over time, that love has only grown. Parenthood, in so many ways, was that evasive missing link in my life. I'm far from a perfect parent, but I've never for a second doubted that I was meant to be Camden's mom.

So, yes-- that was the post written in my mind when I was attempting to fall asleep several nights ago. And then, as if Camden got a preview of what I was planning to write, he woke up the next morning with a wicked case of the stomach flu. It was like he was saying, Oh yeah? Do you love this part of parenthood too?! 

 Holy wow, it was brutal. You might recall that we did have prior experience with the stomach flu around Christmas time-- in fact, Camden threw up on Christmas morning. But this time around was much more difficult. Camden was extremely lethargic, to the point where he wouldn't move from the couch and if I attempted to get him into a sitting position, his head would slump to the side. Dehydration became a major concern and I launched everyone in my family into panic mode. After a call to the on-call nurse at our pediatrician's office, lots of rest, many episodes of Mickey Mouse, force feeding him Pedialyte, and about 3,000 diaper changes-- Camden seems to have emerged on the other side of this nasty virus. I have never been more thankful to see him running around in high gear as I was today. Good health is not something to be taken for granted.

life is good.

Survey & An Awesome Belly Comment.

How far along? 15 weeks, 3 days
Total weight gain: 5ish pounds
Maternity clothes: Yep. Just went on a maternity clothes shopping spree at Old Navy, courtesy of my mom.
Sleep: I'm doing lots of it, including napping with Camden most days. I figure I better take advantage of this now while I can. It won't last much longer, I know!
Cravings: Subs and sandwiches. I still eat them-- I just heat up the lunch meat.
Best moment this week: Getting out of town for a night with my mom & sister for a girls' weekend. The intent of our trip was to hit up a baby/toddler consignment fair in Wilmington. The "fair" (more like a small store with a few, really old looking items) was a bust, but we still had a great time.
Movement: I think I've felt a few flutters, but nothing strong enough that I've been 100% sure it was courtesy of the baby yet.
Gender: I think boy. We'll find out on March 29th.
Labor signs: No, thank goodness.
Bellybutton in or out: Still in and normal looking for now.
What I miss: Nothing really. Well, maybe a glass of wine sitting on the patio in the evenings.
What I am looking forward to: Anatomy scan in a few weeks!
Milestones: Is there a 15-16 week milestone? Hmm. Not that I'm aware of.

Okay, so I mentioned in my last "survey" post that I felt like I was in the bloated phase where I looked like I had just gone on a Dunkin' Donuts binge instead of baking a human being. I was thinking that phase had passed and that I was looking undeniably pregnant, and then my neighbor confirmed that for me in a not-so-flattering way today. For the record, I've never discussed my pregnancy with him, so he took the risk of "guessing" that I'm pregnant today (a notoriously risky move with women). And here's what he said:

"So you're expecting?" -Neighbor
"Yep! I am." - Me
"Is it twins? Or triplets?"- Neighbor

SERIOUSLY. I've heard countless pregnant women recount stories like these in the past but it had never happened to me until today! Awesome. My response? I told him I was actually having quads.

So, I figured taking this week's picture today, in the very outfit that prompted the twin/triplet question, would be fitting. Without further ado, here is the belly in question:

Finally, there was snow. Kind of.

[I'm just now realizing that I never got around to posting this a couple of weeks back. And for the record, this really was our first & last snow of the season.]

Ladies and gentleman (okay, probably just ladies), we had our first (and most likely last) official snow of the season. To those of you in the north and midwest, this "snow" would be laughable, but hey-- we take what we can get here in North Carolina.

I mentioned a few posts back that we bought Camden some adorable Cars snow boots back in the summer and as of two days ago, they still sat unused in their box on the top shelf of our closet. Not anymore! The snow boots have been broken in and Camden hasn't wanted to take them off since. I'll have to somehow break it to him that snow boots won't be appropriate foot gear when it's 70 degrees later this week.

It started snowing around 8:30 the other night and because we knew that the chances of it amounting to anything or sticking around until the next morning were slim to none, Matt took Camden out back right then and there. No matter that it was almost bedtime-- we weren't about to miss out on our only snow of the season.

Camden absolutely loved it. He shouted "Snoooooooo!" the entire time they were outside and didn't want to come in. The next morning, the first thing he mentioned was his snow boots. There was just enough slushy mess left out back that morning for Matt to build him a six inch snowman and make a few poor excuses for snow balls, but to Camden, it was perfect.

Trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue

Completely content.

A whole (half?) inch of snow! Perfect for table drawing.

A new fashion statement. I told you he won't take off the boots.