(Our Best Attempt In) Getting Ready For Baby Sister

Week 36

We are doing our best to get ready for Baby Sister. (That is all she is called for now!)

Things that are going well:

• Colin very excited! He makes sure that my shirt is lifted up whenever I read a book so that "Baby Sister can hear." He also loves to give her kisses and lots of hugs. All requiring me to expose my belly.
• Kevin is very excited! He now includes Baby Sister in conversations. (For example, the other day he told me "There are more boys here than girls. There are 3 boys. Me, Colin and Daddy. There are only two girls. Mommy and sister.") And Kevin has already made sure that she has artwork in her room. "Not just a couple. She needs a lot!" There are pictures that he moved from his room so she can see the farm animals. There are also a couple pictures with the alphabet on them so "she can learn her letters."
  

• Kevin saving up vacation time. (He thought this was worth mentioning.)
  
• The pregnancy has gone pretty good. My overall health has been great. I have gained a good amount of weight (Until January I hadn't gained enough.), my blood pressure has been typically low, and I was feeling wonderful until 2 weeks ago. (Continued in next section.)
  
• They are ready to share with her. Here is a picture of her crib. They know that when she is here, they can not put toys and blankets in her bed, but for now they like to "share with her." Here is a picture of the crib with most of the things they want to share. Overall, they are very excited to meet her!
  

Things not going so well:

• Cleaning the house. Not so easy to do. We have A LOT of stuff that we just need to get rid of or organize. We have been slowly working on it, but projects take much longer when there are two boys "helping" as much as possible. It doesn't help that we need to organize our basement and that we just redid the boys room, and cleaned it out too.
  
• Selecting a name. It took a lot longer than we thought it would, but we finally agree. (Mostly.)
  
• How I feel in the past two weeks has dropped dramatically! My hips are hurting again (They did with Colin.) and my tendons are stretching so much that it brings tears to my eyes several times a day. I am carrying her differently, and stretching differently. I don't remember being this uncomfortable carrying the boys. It is not even comfortable to sit. I am not excited about this last month. Luckily, Spring Break is coming up so I have a week off work to relax.
• Neither of us has packed anything. I guess we should get on that...

Overall, our family is very excited, but no one is more excited than the boys. We have told them that they will be the first to hold her and meet her (after Mommy and Daddy) since they will be her favorite people for a very long time. How could they not be?