naps

End of second trimester blues

catherinemryan

Woodburn Tulip Festival - Ten Thousand Hour MamaTaking Peeper to the Tulip Fest outside Woodburn earlier this week was wonderful (more on that later!), but it carried a very unwelcome realization: I’m getting too pregnant to continue doing everything I want to.

When lifting my 20-some-pound toddler off a swing at the festival, I pulled some of the round ligaments in my belly, the muscles that stretch to accommodate my soccer ball-sized uterus. On top of that discomfort, I felt crummy and overextended the rest of the day—a condition not helped by Peeper’s skipped nap. (Ugh, why won’t this child sleep in the car like a normal kid?)

I was utterly spent. The exhaustion I felt by the end of the day plus recalling that I’m mere weeks away from my third trimester overwhelmed me. What’s more, a good friend was recently put on bed rest when her baby tried to make a very early appearance, which pushed me to consider the possibility we could have an early bird, too.

So though I’m still rocking the ease of the second trimester, I need to scale back a bit. That is not easy. Read more →

Banana boobs

catherinemryan

Sometimes Peeper wakes from a nap completely sweet: You can hear her babbling to herself or spot her playing with her toes when you peek at the monitor. Other times she gets up on the wrong side of the crib. She fusses and clings like a monkey.

I was carrying her around the apartment on one hip when she was like this a few days ago. She was holding her stuffed bunny and lay her head on my shoulder.

Ten Thousand Hour Mama

I made her a snack, and we traded bites of toast and banana. She was starting to perk up a bit but still was a sweet bundle of snuggles. The more she runs around, the fewer chances I get for quiet cuddles, so I relished the moment.

Then Peeper dropped her half-chewed banana down my shirt.

Precious cuddles followed by mooshed banana-y boobs—that, in a nutshell, is motherhood.