Man! This has been a heck of a year already.

We spent the first half of the month still sick. The flu really kicked us hard. It took almost 3 weeks for us to start feeling somewhat normal.

Then the weather came for us. One day, it was 60° and rained hard all day/night. So much rain that the river was out of its banks and almost to the road. The next morning, we woke up to snow, followed by bitter cold. Needless to say, it was a huge mess.

Little Man missed some school and speech…which he definitely needed as his allergies reared up and he was a miserable, sneezing mess. He did get to enjoy some sledding though.

I had a quick OB appointment which took longer to drive to than actually be at…but at least I got to have lunch with the Mister.

We skipped the Lunar/Chinese New Year celebration this year since none of us were feeling up to it yet. We did manage to celebrate Valentine’s Day with dinner out, but we waited until a couple of days later.

Little Man got to celebrate Valentine’s Day at school and even got to make his own box (mommy covered it with his choice of construction paper and helped cut the letters, he decorated with stickers).

That weekend, Little Man went to a classmate’s mermaid birthday party. Boy, it was quite the setup! I thought I was over the top in decorating for birthdays, but no way. It was a beautiful time!

I finally got around to posting about Baby Girl on social media for those who were interested. It wasn’t my best effort, but putting it off wasn’t going to get the word out to those we had waited to tell.

The rest of the month was fairly quiet, with only the monthly growth scan at the high-risk office.

Baby Girl is up to 2.3lbs and is measuring in the 51st percentile. We go back to high-risk in 4 weeks then start weekly visits 2 weeks after at 30w.

We rounded out the month with a few days of gorgeous weather so we spent a lot of time in the backyard and opened the windows.

March will bring a school field trip, spring photos, and a dentist appointment for Little Man and a handful of OB/high-risk appointments for me. The Holi celebration at Cheekwood is coming up as well, though I’m not sure if we’ll attend this year. We’ll see as we get closer to time. I’m finding that this pregnancy is rougher on my body than before, so our constant running has started to wear me down. Definitely Baby Girl’s way of telling me I need to take more breaks. Luckily, I have very little planned for the next couple of months.

Until then,

What a beginning to the new year.

I feel like this month simultaneously sped by and dragged on. It’s a weird sense of dejá vu.

We kicked off with our usual Home Depot workshop and Little Man started back to preschool.

We had our first snow day of the year and the Mister got to spend it sledding with Little Man.

I spent most of the month running between doctor visits and the pharmacy. We had our first high-risk appointment and got the anatomy scan of Baby 2.

It was such a comfort being able to see her (yes, we got confirmation she’s a little girl!) and know she is doing well. She was very active and weighed in about 8oz at 19w3d.

We also got to see her at the end of the month for a growth scan (she’s still right on track at 1lb3oz at 22w3d and is in the 65-66th percentile) will continue to go for those every 3-4 weeks until delivery.

In between, I met with my regular OB on post and between the two clinics, we opted to up my blood pressure medication a little bit as well as increase my baby aspirin and add magnesium oxide for my ongoing headaches. So far, the changes seem to be helpful.

Little Man had his Lowes workshop and received a new hard hat with a special badge for his apron. We will definitely need a new apron for this year’s workshops.

Preschool and speech have been keeping us busy. We’re seeing lots of progress with pronunciation and intelligibility, and Little Man has started to memorize his phone number, address, and birthday.

Unfortunately, we finished out the month with the whole family testing positive with the flu! Despite having gotten the flu shot, we have all felt awful for about a week plus now. I am ready for it to take a hike! It’s been so miserable.

The cough has been far and away the worst of it. My ribs and abs are so sore from all the coughing and nose blowing. Nothing has helped, though I’m hopeful we’re on the downhill. Thankfully, Little Man seems to have gotten the least of it, though he sounds awful. We’re anxiously awaiting better days.

February will hopefully bring some relief. We don’t have much planned. If the weather is nice enough (and if we feel better), we have tickets for the Lunar/Chinese New Year festival in Nashville, and that’s it. Nothing else is planned apart from OB appointments, speech, and preschool. We will maybe go out for Valentine’s Day (honestly, it’s hard to plan for anything when we feel this crumby!). We’ll see!

Until then,