Things are chugging along over here.  One day I feel OK, the next I feel nauseous and exhausted again.  The nausea and sluggishness are definitely hanging around longer than I would like (and longer than I expected).  I’ve felt little flutters here and there that I am pretty sure are  baby movements.  The sensations aren’t really consistent yet, though.

We find out the sex pretty soon, which is crazy.  We didn’t find out Holden’s sex in advance, but this time we decided to try something different and find out.  Plus, I thought it would help me feel more bonded to this baby to know the sex, and that Holden would feel more connected to the new baby if he knows the sex ahead of time.  From a practical standpoint, it allows me to have enough time to sort through the millions of boxes of boy baby/toddler clothes that are taking up space in our guest bedroom.  This way, I’ll know whether I need to donate the clothes or simply sort through them to be used by us yet again.  Did I mention we have a million baby boy clothes?

I’ve begun the slow process of getting the baby’s room ready.  It’s going to take me forever.  The baby’s future room is our current office.  We’ve decided to move our office downstairs to share the room with the guest bedroom (the guest bedroom is actually the largest bedroom in the house and is big enough to house an entire bedroom set plus our treadmill, and whatever office stuff/desks/bookcases/books we move down there).  The baby’s room still has our office desks and miscellaneous paperwork sitting around, but I’ve already moved the majority of our books down to their new space in the guest room.  The baby’s room definitely needs to be painted, which is going to be a huge job because of the dark wood trim that needs to be tackled.  But luckily, it’s a tiny bedroom so painting the walls should be a quick job (after the initial prep of fixing all of the holes that the previous owners left behind).  Holden’s current dressers will be moved over into the new baby’s room.  We’ve treated Holden to a brand new dresser, which was a huge splurge, and probably one of the most expensive pieces of furniture we’ve bought to date.  It’s a nice piece, so he’s stuck with it through young adulthood!  We’re still waiting for it to be delivered, so hopefully it will get here before Christmas and will “count” as one of his Christmas presents.  We’re trying to go “light” this Christmas since I won’t be teaching in the spring and won’t have that extra income coming in—not to mention the miscellaneous added expenses that come along with having a baby.  And other random expenses seem to keep cropping up all at once—for example, we need to buy ourselves a new mattress, and probably also a new bed frame.  We got our bed frame used when we first got married 10 years ago….that’s also when we bought our mattress.  Our mattress hasn’t been as comfortable lately, and the bed frame squeaks loudly ever time we shift in bed ever so slightly.  So that is annoying.  The bed came apart completely at one point several years ago, but we managed to re-secure it with a number of nails.  I think the time has finally come to buy a replacement, though.  We had kicked around the idea of a king size bed since we’ll have a nursing newborn soon, but I don’t know that our little bedroom can handle a bed of that size.  So we’ll have to see.  Either way, the mattress for sure needs to be replaced.  True confession—my water broke on our mattress when I went into labor with Holden.  So yeah—it probably should have been replaced a while ago:)

Holden has been enjoying Halloween-related activities and school field trips to apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  He is getting increasingly articulate, is obsessed with random dinosaur trivia, and is so so so excited to be a big brother.  I love that he will be nearly 4 years older than his sibling—he totally and completely “gets” the idea of being a big brother.  I can’t wait for him to meet his little brother or sister.