The Wahlquist Storybook: A post before baby arrives

Well, since I apparently only blog about once a month, I figured I'd better get one written before Little Miss arrives and it goes to every 2 months. :)

What have we been up to lately? Well, AJ and Tate both got sick the first week of October. Tate's illness morphed and continued through last week. It was a very rough 2 weeks. Daycare was closed 3 days and Tate was home sick an additional 2 days all in a 2 week period. Needless to say, I spent lots of quality time with my kiddo, but he didn't get to enjoy most of it. Tate was officially diagnosed with asthma- boo! I'm not surprised (Gramma, Uncle Todd, and I all have it and AJ has severe allergies), but I wasn't expecting him to be diagnosed at 2. He puked a lot and also got a very bad double ear infection and never once touched his ears or said they hurt. Tate is super tired of antibiotics and breathing treatments and we found out that oral steroids make him a crazy person. Like Jekyll/Hyde crazy. Luckily, he is feeling much better!

Tate fast asleep at Urgent Care. He was throwing up so much! Turns out it was a bad double ear infection and possible pneumonia. Lovely!

Tate and I have officially stopped traveling so people are now coming to us. Our last visit to AJ's family was in August or September and our last trip to KC was a few weeks ago. Gramma has been down several times already to help out while we prepare for Lexi's arrival.

Speaking of which... we are finally almost ready. Her clothes are washed and all but one load is hung up. Her hospital bag is packed, her carseat is all adjusted, and we're digging out the large equipment piece by piece. Just need to get some formula, slow flow nipples, and a new baby bathtub and we'll be good to go!

Tate is almost fully well and will be moving back into his room in the next couple of weeks so that the cosleeper can fit in my room. He is very excited to meet "Baby Yexi" and likes to talk about feeding her bologna- lol! He dies laughing every time he says it. It's hilarious to watch! But really, he knows she gets bottles and binkies and we'll hold her and love her and she'll cry a lot. Luckily, there's a new baby at daycare so he kind of knows what to expect.

My Tatey is really growing up. I'm trying to cherish this last month with just him. His language is even more ridiculously advanced in the last 2 weeks. And yesterday he counted to 15. He can correctly identify green, orange, and now blue most of the time. He speaks in whole paragraphs and will tell you all about anything. He likes to sing whole songs by himself and can read you some of his books.

Tate will be starting "preschool" on October 30th. He is going to be a peer model in a 3 year old classroom at the Special Learning Center a few miles from our house. He will model his awesome language and play skills and will get to receive some great sensory and gross motor play while he's there. Double bonus! He will go Tues/Thurs for 3 hours in the morning, then go to daycare. I'm hoping he'll start getting into the routine of it before Lexi comes and he'll have something special to do that's just for him. I think that first day will be much harder on me than him!!!

Our house is finally getting organized after only a year and a half. :) We moved in when Tate was about 9 months old and we basically just shoved things in places. We are now out of space and having to reorganize to make room for baby. The goal is to get anything that is not essential to our daily living into the basement to be dealt with at a (much) later date. And then to organize all the essentials so that we can function easily and efficiently. My parents came this weekend and we got 3 HUGE boxes of medication sorted and organized, rearranged the linen closet, added some child proofing since Tate will not have quite as much supervision when we have a screaming newborn, cleaned out about half the kitchen cabinets and organized bottles/sippy cups, and did massive amounts of laundry. My brother is coming with my mom the last weekend in October to put together all the storage things I've bought- a writing table for bills, a dresser for linens, and a cube shelf for toys. After that, we just need to clean out the rest of the kitchen and all of the closets and we should basically be good to go. Keeping it organized will be the real challenge!

My mental health declines weekly if not daily. I am so not cut out for all the hormonal/emotional changes that go with pregnancy. I cry hysterically at least every 3 days and it goes on all evening long. It's just ridiculous. No one talks about mental health issues during pregnancy. Well, they're not pretty. My anxiety level is through the roof and I've upped my counseling to weekly at this point just to maintain some sort of sanity to get through these last few weeks. I'm hoping I have only 4 weeks to go and that my doctor will agree to induce on 11/16 (my last appt before my due date of 11/20). I go for my next appt Friday and we will schedule a growth scan for next week. Just ready to meet this little girl and be done!!!

And to end on a fun note, we've been doing lots of fall activities lately! My parents and I took Tate to the pumpkin patch this weekend, he and Gramma did some pumpkin crafts, we've taken a few short walks, and we made our Mr. Potato Head pumpkin tonight. We'll probably take him back to the pumpkin patch this weekend and there's trunk or treating, trick or treating, more crafts, and lots of outside play in the nice weather coming up. I LOVE fall!