Are we there yet?

South Bend has received an astonishing 92 inches of snow this season.  And don't look now, but it's currently snowing!  Sigh.  Ready for this winter to be over. 

As you can tell from this picture, however, a certain member of our family is enjoying the weather.  We happened upon a super-cheap pair of snow pants on a clearance rack in his size (miracle!) and suited him up last week to go explore the frozen tundra that is our backyard.  The snow was so deep that he had a really hard time walking it in, but he had a fantastic time.  And when he saw his swing dangling from the tree, he insisted on swinging in it.  As you can imagine looking at this picture, he was squealing with excitement.  He also tried to eat a snowball, but was a little less enthusiastic about the results. 

In other ready-for-it-to-be-over news, I have 5 weeks left until little Kern #2 is due to show up.  Which means she could show up (early) any time soon.  I've definitely gotten to that stage of pregnancy where all the shine has come off - my hip joints hurt, I feel slow and out of breath alot, I'm always tired regardless of how many hours I sleep (when I can comfortably sleep) and I'm just ready for this to be over.  Seriously, are we there yet?  Medically, everything is going quite well - blood pressure, blood sugar, weight gain, belly measurement, all on track.  And thank God, no ridiculous itchy rash on my arms and legs like I had with Leo.   Just a weariness undoubtedly augmented by the daily demands of a toddler.....

Ride 'em, little doggie

An amusing video for you from our Christmastime visit with Byron's family, wherein Leo rides, pets, pokes, pushes, smacks, and hugs Monty, Uncle Scott & Aunt Adee's dog. I don't think Monty is even aware that Leo is in the same room.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

Christmas break is (finally) officially over - Byron started back at school today. It was great having time of for us all to travel and play together, but it's honestly nice to be back into our normal lives. Other friends (and their kids) are back in town now, playgroups are scheduled again, and our spring student loan payout has finally dispersed (big hooray!).

As for Christmas, we spent a week at my mom's in Missouri, then a week and a half at Byron's folks in Chicago. Leo got to see (and play with) a ton of family members, and came home with a ton of really cool new toys. He got to go 4-wheeling (that's riding an ATV for you non-country folks), make snowballs, play with a dog, show off his dancing skills, drag both of his great-grandmothers around, and help 'decorate' the Christmas tree with his Legos. Considering all the travel, new people, and unfamiliar sleeping places, he was a champ. You can see more pictures of our travels on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clickclickchic/sets/72157625704619577/

But the most exciting part of the time (for us anyway) was hearing his sudden language explosion. The pediatrician said it would happen around 18 months, and we've really seen it over the last 3 weeks. He now repeats everything, and says words without prompting. While most people wouldn't understand most of the words he says, we can really understand quite alot. And he loves letters and numbers - he loves to watch Wheel of Fortune and repeat all the letters as they come up. We're pretty excited about this development, mainly because it means an a near end to all of the moaning and pointing he's been doing! He has also developed an absolute love of clementines (up to 3 a day, sometimes 2 in a row) and is getting pretty good at peeling them and separating segments without much help.

So our little boy is growing up fast. Which is good, considering he's going to be a big brother in about two months. Guess that means I should enjoy this relative calm while I can?

Still Here

So I've been meaning to do a new post for weeks now, but every time I think about it I've got my hands full with something else. Then of course I forget. Oh well.

Leo has been something of a fussy-britches as of late, partially from feeling a little cabin fever and partially from less than ideal sleep. We think he's been going through a growth spurt the last few weeks, because he's been waking up early (anywhere from a hour to two hours early.....grrr) and eating voraciously once he wakes. We try to stuff him as full of dinner as we can, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

And he's started waking up at some point almost every night and crying until one of us goes in to give him a little comforting and tuck him back in. He goes right back to sleep at that point, but if we don't go in he just cries louder and harder....Not sure what's at play there, guess he just needs some sort of reassurance that we are still here. Regardless, all of this adds up to him getting less than the ideal 11-12 hours of sleep each night.
And in the cabin fever department, it's finally gotten cold and snowy here, so we don't get out of the house all that much. I joined a local mom's group on Meetup, so that helps us get to some more playdates, but I think he's still getting antsy. Probably doesn't help that he hasn't gotten any new toys in months - why buy a kid new toys right before Christmas? So I think he's a bit bored with all his stuff. He's about to get plenty of new stimulation though - a road trip down to my mom's for a week, then a week at Byron's parents place with all his family. Plus all the goodies that Christmas entails for a kid.

In preggo news, I've been feeling pretty good. Starting to feel bigger, but mostly just notice that when I'm trying to get stuff done. Bending over to pick up toys is starting to get fun. On the plus side, I'm still comfortable laying on my back at night, which got uncomfortable very quickly with Leo. Hopefully that means that Baby Girl is smaller than he was (though really, he was huge at 9 pounds 5 ounces, so she has to be smaller, right?)

The nurse practitioner said everything looks good so far - all my vitals are good and my weight gain has been pretty minimal so far. Here's hoping the rest of this continues to cruise along well.
Speaking of Baby Girl, she is super active like Leo was. Though while he had a tendency to poke outward, she seems more interested in attacking my internal organs and pushing straight down. Not exactly what I would call comfortable, but it's pretty minor. She also gets the hiccups pretty frequently like he did.

Just about 3 months to go until we become a family of four! Maybe I should get around to taking a belly pic sometime soon to share. Funny how entertaining a toddler all day can distract you from doing things like that....

Leo becomes a man... sort of.

As some of you now know, Leo underwent surgery last week at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for an undescended testes that he's had since birth. I know, I never mentioned it before, it just seemed kinda weird to be like 'Oh yeah by the way, Leo's got one ball in hiding...' It's apparently quite common (I think I read about 1 in 100 baby boys these days) and the surgery is considered pretty routine. It was outpatient surgery, just over an hour long, and everything went perfectly smoothly.
And I managed to not freak out, burst into tears, or chew my fingernails off. Impressive, I know. I wasn't really worried about the surgery itself, mostly just the general anesthesia (because you can't give a baby local anesthesia and hope for them to stay still...) Most people handle general anesthesia without problem, but it still carries a risk.
Anyway, he was fine, was disoriented and wailing for the first half hour after waking up (which they said was very normal due to the disorientation and confusion). He gradually came back to normal over the next half hour, then was his normal self the rest of the day. Of course, Tylenol with Codeine might have helped in that arena. Good stuff. And he's been doing swell ever since, just two small incisions to keep clean and a little bruising.

In more fun news, we were in New York City about two weeks ago for Byron's brother Scott's wedding to the lovely Adee, which was very fun. It was an intimate event in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, mostly just close family. Leo of course wore his finest, and was quite popular. More photos of the lovely event can be see here.

Next on the docket - my ultrasound is scheduled for Thursday, at which time we'll hopefully be able to tell if #2 is a boy or girl! Speaking of him/her, they're pretty active already. I'm getting lots of pokes and bumps from them, which is fun. Believe it or not, we're already over halfway thru this pregnancy.... whoopie!

The Next Kern Baby!

Yes, as many of you know, we are expecting Kern baby #2! Mr. Leo is going to be a big brother around March 15th. We'll be finding out whether it's a boy or girl at the end of October. whee!

I'm sure many of you are a bit surprised at this news coming so soon. If we weren't planning to move after Byron graduates in May (to a location/job yet to be determined) then we would have waited a little longer, but I didn't want to deal with switching midwives mid pregnancy. So we gave ourselves a 4 month window to try, after which we would wait entirely until after Byron was done with school to try again.

So here we are - yours truly seems to be quite fertile. :)

We're definitely excited, though it's very different from the excitement of finding out I was pregnant with Leo. It's much more tempered now by the thought of two kids in diapers and the uncertainty of where we'll be headed to after graduation. Also the uncertainty of how Leo will handle having a sibling. But the upside is that there are alot of things I'm not worrying about (since I've already got 'em figured out), like breastfeeding and basic newborn care.

Happily, I've been feeling pretty good so far - a tiny bit of nausea and a little bit of shortness of breath, but that's it. Then again, almost all of my pregnancy discomforts with Leo came at the very end - please God let me not develop that super itchiness again......

In Leo cuteness news, we're headed to NYC next weekend for Byron's brother Scott's wedding to the lovely Miss Adee, and Leo's got himself a fancy new suit for the occasion. We had a little fashion show of the new duds, and he looks just adorable. We'll definitely be posting pictures of that once we get home!

Dizzy Day

Just a little video I had to share: Leo repeatedly spinning himself dizzy.



Other fun recent tidbits - Leo has suddenly figured out how to drink out of a straw. He showed no interest in them until I was drinking one of the new McDonalds fruit smoothies (which are yummy, by the way), then he pulled the straw into his mouth and drank almost half of it! It's a random little skill, but it's cool . Now he's using a sippy cup with a straw and loving it.

He's also starting to get the hang of using a fork - we picked him up a set of toddler silverware and he loves to (occasionally somewhat effectively) use it to stab his food and feed himself.
Looks like we're now the parents of an I-do-it-myself toddler!