The ultrasound went well yesterday! I had never had an early ultrasound before and was amazed by just how formed our little baby already is: heart beating, arms and legs flailing about, and he/she actually had the hiccups. My dates are a little behind, which is what I expected. Instead of the 11.5 weeks the calendar shows, I am measuring more like 10.5 weeks, which is fine. My due date will probably get bumped ahead a bit (boo!) but that’s fine, in the grand scheme of things.

Last night I made The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Spaghetti and it wasn’t as awesome as I had hoped it would be. It was fine, but I guess my expectations are always super high for her recipes since when they’re good, they’re goooooood. I have been really enjoying the return of my appetite and we’ve been having some pretty delicious dinners now that the morning sickness has (mostly) passed: pad thai, lamb stew, chicken with spicy peanut sauce, and apple pie (a la mode, of course) for dessert. BOOM! Food is good.

My new post is up at urbanmoms.ca and if you take a gander, you’ll read about the worst thing anyone has ever said to me while I was pregnant.

Life just keeps rolling along these days. The renovations on our home are coming along beautifully and we are at the mudding and taping stage of things. Once that’s done, it’s on to paint colours and flooring and trim, oh my! It all feels a little surreal, and I am just so used to living in our in-between house (my dear mother-in-law’s beautiful home: the house where Steve and I fell in love, got married on the beach at, and, ahem, just happened to conceive our third child in) that I sometimes forget why we’re here, that we’ll be moving back into our new/old place in a few months’ time. It’s all very exciting, and I’ll post some photos soon.

I am finally feeling better and less nauseated all the time. Things started to improve around the 10-week mark, which initially had me concerned that perhaps something was wrong with the baby, but I am still exhausted and my boobs are still sore and gaining a cup size a week, so I’m hoping all is well. I go for an ultrasound tomorrow to confirm my dates, so if you think of me, feel free to say a little prayer and send some good thoughts that this sweet baby is healthy and thriving.

My newest post is up at urbanmoms.ca and I’d love for you to check it out. You guys have been so great about commenting there and making me feel welcome, and I really appreciate that.

Can I just say that I love The Bachelor? I have never really followed it before since we never had cable, but now Steve and I are both hooked. It’s awful. And delicious. And Vienna is a cow.

That’s all.

The most important lesson I have learned in parenting is this: lower your expectations.

That may sound cynical, but it’s been the key to my not losing it when things don’t go as planned. Take last night, for instance. Steve’s dad and Sue invited us to join them for dinner at a nice restaurant in town. We accepted and met them there, ready to enjoy the evening. I was mentally prepared for the experience to be a gong show, so when things inevitably fell apart, I just laughed about it, instead of running to the bathroom and trying to flush myself head-first down the toilet.

We arrived and I plopped Karenna in a high chair. She looked around and after 1.2 minutes started squawking, “OUT! OUT!” and trying to dive-bomb out of the chair. Then Avelyn spilled her entirely full glass of ice water all over her dress and tights, soaking her to the bone. We stripped off her clothes and had her put on her little trench coat, thus making her look like a junior flasher, ready to expose herself to passers-by. Karenna ran around the restaurant like a rabid badger and Steve and I took turns chasing her. Avelyn, on three occassions, declared loudly, “I have to go POO!” and each time we took her she wouldn’t actually go. Then the meal came and there were about seven minutes of calm while the girls chomped on their chicken fingers. One child was essentially naked, the other trying to run into the kitchen at the back, our own meals cold while we tended to the crazies.

But it was OK. I knew it was going to be a challenge, I kept my cool, and my Penne Primavera was worth the mayhem.

PS: My newest post is up at urbanmoms.ca and it’s all about pregnancy cravings. Stop on by and say hi!

I feel like we’re entering a new phase with Avelyn, a good phase (after about two and a half years of not-so-good phases, some of which included: The Chest-Bumping Phase, The Refusal To Say Hi To People Phase, The Josie-Beating Phase and The Chronic Meltdowns Over Impossibly Tiny Troubles Phase).

She is fun, she is quirky, she is sensitive, she is eager to learn, she is gentle, she is quick to laugh (and still sometimes to cry), she is curious and she is wild.

She runs everywhere and goes full-tilt all day long. She is learning how to be a good friend and sister.

She makes me tired and she makes me laugh and she makes me proud.

Love you, turkey.

If you’re looking for some corners of the internet to scour, I have a few suggestions:

Angella posted some of the CUTEST photos ever of our two little girls. Your heart will burst from the joy they bring, so head on over.

My new post is up at urbanmoms.ca and it’s about how I still feel like chucking my noodles most of every day. Good times.

And finally, a dear friend of mine has a friend in Haiti named Rebecca who works at an orphanage there. They were hit hard by the earthquake and the devastation has been unreal. Her blog is filled with amazing photos of the tragedy, as well as hopeful prayers for recovery. I highly recommend you take a look, and if you feel led to donate to the work she is doing you can check out the Heart to Heart website for more information.

In other news, Karenna is adding new words to her vocabulary and it’s so fun. The first thing she says when she wakes up in the morning is, “Avi? Avi?” as she asks for her sister. They have been playing together more and more, which is adorable. There is still plenty of hair-pulling and hitting and crying, but I guess that’s what sisters are for.

Oh, and in a new all-time low, I dropped Avelyn off at school today and was unshowered, braless, in stanky yoga pants and with yesterday’s mascara smudged under my eyes. Keep it classy, that’s my motto!

This has been a good week. My friend of 18 years, Kristin, is here visiting from Calgary and we’ve been having a great time together. The girls are stuck to her like glue and she willingly obliges their requests for cuddles and unending rounds of hide-and-seek. It’s been a tiny taste of what life with a nanny would be like: an extra pair of hands to help round up the tantruming toddler while I chase the older kid who’s running into oncoming traffic, and I love every minute of her helpful support.

Our life paths have taken very different turns but when it comes right down to it we share a life-long connection and a love of food, and that’s all you really need. So yeah, we’ve just been talking and eating a lot and it is good.

I have been feeling marginally less nauseous lately, which is a relief. I’ve been trying to eat more protein during the day and it does wonders in tiding over the hunger which leads to the barfy feelings. Cheese strings, FTW!

My next post is up at urbanmoms.ca and it’s all about how my doctor thinks I’m fat. Check it out!

I have some exciting news! I have been given the opportunity to write a pregnancy blog at urbanmoms.ca! I will be posting there twice a week and would love for you to check it out! My first post is up today and I’ll be adding the link to my sidebar soon. Thanks!

In the past week I have tried a few times to take a nausea-induced rest upstairs while the girls play quietly, with somewhat limited success.

The first time, I heard them laughing together and initially thought this was a good sign. Then I got the sinking feeling I should check on what they were up to. Lo and behold, they had dumped out an entire box of Rice Krispies all over the couch and floor and were jumping on them, pulverizing them into a fine dust, while they cackled with laughter.

The next time, Karenna came toddling up to my bed, her face covered in chocolate. Turns out Avelyn had found some old pudding in the fridge and had helped herself and her sister to a cocoa delight, meanwhile smearing it on their clothes, the floor, and the dog.

I think it’s clear these two cannot be left unattended.

(Oh, and here she got into my lipstick when I turned my back for 3.2 seconds.)

(This was on a separate occasion when we were hosting a little play-date and thought the girls were upstairs playing nicely. Turns out they hit the Lotion Jackpot and were covering their entire bodies with Vaseline Intensive Care.)

Having been lucky enough to dodge the morning sickness bullet with my first two pregnancies, I used to think that women who suffered from it were kind of just being whiney. Alas, since the morning of my sixth week I have been feeling like a big ol’ bag of stale barf that’s waiting to spill out onto the carpet and it is even more miserable that those whiney women said it was. Trying to keep a household running and two children alive and tended to, when all I feel like doing is sobbing in a heaving, wretching ball of bile on the couch, is actually kind of horrid. Blech. Maybe this means I’m having a boy. Or twins (bite your tongue!).

Most days I wonder how I will possibly cope with one more crazy kid running around, when my hands already feel so full.

And I have been fighting a lot of fear regarding this pregnancy: fear of miscarriage, fear of having a child with special needs, fear of something going wrong with the delivery. I know there’s no use dwelling on those fears, but in my heart I do feel like three healthy kids is just too much to ask for sometimes, you know? Whatever will be, will be, though, and all I can do is be thankful for the moments we’re in, even if they’re exhausting or (literally) nauseating or scary at times.

I have a post up today at Work It Mom about how to connect with your kids. Head on over and take a look-see!