Whose bed is it anyway?

The whole time we were in Utah Benjamin didn't climb into bed with us once. It was amazing.

Of course, he slept in a makeshift bed on the floor right beside our bed the entire time, but still...we thought he was cured!

When we came home he slept in his own bed for two nights, so we really thought he was cured...but there's this saying about not counting chickens before they're hatched and, uh, let's just say that only lasted two nights before he started waking up and climbing into bed with us again.

I wouldn't mind so much if he would sleep between us with his feet where feet are supposed to go and his head where heads are supposed to go, but he won't. His preferred sleeping position is the H position—the one where baby sleeps perpendicular between the parents—and he's getting a tad too big for such shenanigans.

On the positive side of things, this is irrefutable evidence that he's growing because the H position used to be tolerable.

On the negative side of things, I've been spending most of my nights trying to keep him from head-butting me in his sleep while Andrew's been dealing with constant kicking.

It doesn't matter how many times we walk him back to his own bed or how many times we reposition him in our bed. He always finds a way to reclaim his favourite sleeping spot.

Before we left to Utah I set up a makeshift bed beside our bed and started making Benjamin sleep there when he'd come padding into our room in the middle of the night, but Andrew cleaned that up when he did his grand sweep of the house after we were gone. I set it back up last night and when, quite predictably, I woke up with his face staring into my face, I told him exactly where he could park it for the night.

The Great Task

I didn't go to primary today, and I won't for a while. We met with the bishop before we left and explained our situation: that I'm pregnant, that it's a high risk pregnancy, that I'm not supposed to lift anything, and that I get weekly injections in my hip that feel less than lovely.

He said I'd probably be released, so we left thinking he'd resolve things.

But then I got an email from the primary presidency informing me that I'd been assigned to teach...Sunbeams?

The Sunbeams are the in-coming primary children. They've turned three within the past year and are leaving nursery to join the big kids. They're adorable, but the transition isn't always smooth (I've taught Sunbeams a few times before so I say this with confidence) and they require a lot of attention the first couple months while they're getting into the groove of primary. They get upset and miss their mommies and want to be held. They need lots of help in the bathroom—they're all too short to wash their hands. They're also too short for the drinking fountain and want a boost up. Sometimes they escape the classroom and race through the hallways.

And they all weigh more than 20 lbs. so I can't do much to help with all that...

I thought the presidency knew I was expecting and that it was complicated, and I thought the bishop was planning on talking to them about releasing me, but...I guess that they didn't and that that didn't happen. So I emailed the presidency and told them what was going on. I even offered to stay in primary (as long as they moved me to senior primary which requires less babysitting and more plain ordinary teaching), but the president called me and said to not worry about a thing—except myself and my baby—and she'd find someone else for my class.

So I'm not in primary anymore, which is kind of weird because I've been in primary forever. And I felt kind of silly being like, "I can't work in primary because I'm pregnant..." because I know that you can work in primary while pregnant (or with a brand new baby or with a screaming toddler). Because I've done it.

It's a...

I had the ultrasound first thing in the morning yesterday. Everything looks good so far: all body parts were accounted for and are functioning and baby is much more active than I can feel, which I'm grateful for at this point.

The only potential problem is that my fluid is measuring "on the low end of normal," so I'm supposed to keep track of how much water I'm drinking. I'm pretty sure if my doctors had their way I'd just be eating and drinking ALL. THE. TIME.

I already feel like that's what I do but evidently my fluids are low and my weight gain is slow. So I'm supposed to eat more, drink more, and conserve energy. Doctor's orders. I was trying to do that before but apparently I'm not doing a good enough job. Whatever I manage to do will likely never be enough. But whatever.

After taking all the initial measurements we flipped over to the 4D ultrasound and snagged a few pictures of our baby's face. Regular 2D ultrasound pictures don't really bother me (though I know my mom thinks they're kind of strange to share) but the 4D ones kind of creep me out.

(4D is 3D + "real time" (regular 3D can be delayed, I guess, so what you see on the screen isn't necessarily what's happening right now).

I think it's because with the 2D image the baby is still mostly an idea. You have to kind of imagine what it looks like. When my sister was expecting Olivia and Sabrina, "the twins," my nephew Andrew looked at the ultrasound picture and said, "Oh, I know why they're taking so long to get here! God's still putting together all the pieces!"

It's really like a puzzle that you're trying to figure out. Like, sure, that's their head...and that might be an arm. But you really have no idea what they look like.

Enter the 4D ultrasound and all the mystery is stripped away.

That's definitely a head. And that head is definitely coming out in T minus 20 weeks. And won't that just be fun? But look at that cute little face!

Christmas at Home (January 8)

Thursday ended up being a much busier day than we'd intended. Our plan was to come home and relax for a few days before starting up real life. Instead, Miriam had preschool, I had an ultrasound, and Andrew started classes (he got into a class that he wanted to take but didn't think he'd get into).

Andrew volunteered to wake up and take Miriam to preschool and I was very grateful...until I woke up at 8:55 AM and he was still in bed beside me.

Miriam was a tad late for preschool but I made it to the doctor's office on time and had a good appointment (which I'll write about later). Andrew dropped me off, took Rachel and Benjamin home for a while, and then picked me up before picking Miriam up from preschool (we weren't sure who would finish first—me or Miriam—so Andrew took the van in case he had to pick up Miriam before I was finished with my appointment).

When we got home we opened the presents that were waiting under our tree. Benjamin didn't get anything fabulous, but he's two and was happy with everything. I did give him the baby book I made. Now I'm all caught up to the first year of my first three children. I've got this baby book thing down. Kind of.

Flying home (January 7)

When I checked in my flight I was relieved to see that my itinerary had been completely changed around. I'd be flying through Dallas-Fortworth rather than Chicago, for one thing. My total travel time would be one hour less than it was before. And the plane we'd be on had three seats on one side of the plane (the other one was two and two so I had booked two seats together for Benjamin and me and one across the aisle for Miriam). I was glad we'd all be sitting on the same row!

Grandma dropped us off at the airport and when we got to our gate it was a frenetic mess! A plane had broken down in the middle of the tarmac and hadn't been fixed yet, so all the people who were supposed to make the 8:00 flight to Dallas were still milling around when our 12:00 flight was called.

I'm so glad we weren't on that plane, even though the next leg of our flight was delayed by an hour at least we were at Dallas with their nice playground and good weather! And Grandma gave me some cash for food in case we needed it and I'm so glad she did because we didn't end up getting home until around midnight (instead of around ten). It was good to get something besides snacks into our tummies!

The kids were pretty good, although I wish that Benjamin had slept a little more.

He fell asleep as we were landing in Texas and then stayed awake until we were landing in Raleigh.

Why do kids always fall asleep as the plane is landing? That's the worst possible time to fall asleep because it means (a) that I don't get to sleep and (b) that if they won't wake up (as was the case when we landed in Raleigh—I was patting his cheeks and calling his name and shaking his shoulders but he was out) that I have to carry them and all our hud off the plane.

I was grateful for the flight attendant (or the "plane-mom" as Benjamin likes to say) who offered to carry the diaper bag so that I could waddle through the aisle with my 20-week belly, my 20-pound-boy, and a backpack on my back, while dragging along a tired five-year-old with a backpack of her own.

We were quite the frazzled sight!

The airport was absolutely quiet by the time we hobbled off the plane and by the time we went to the bathroom and got out to the meeting area it was quite easy for us to find Rachel and Andrew—they'd even grabbed our suitcase from the luggage carousel for us (we took so long getting off the plane, Andrew said, that he was afraid if he didn't find our suitcase the TSA would assume it was abandoned and would blow it up or something).

We didn't mean to take that long. It's just that after such a long day of traveling no one in our party was moving very fast.

It's so good to be home!

More Goodbyes (January 6)

Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent packing and playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We didn't do anything much at all—and after all the craziness of the past three weeks we were happy for a little reprieve!

On Tuesday evening, however, Uncle David (or Una Daze as Benjamin says) stopped by after work so he could say goodbye. He had a date that night so couldn't stay for dinner.

Last Sunday in Utah (January 4)

I wasn't feeling well...still...on Sunday so although I woke up and got dressed I didn't even bother to shower. We got in a nice visit with Uncle Patrick, who'd just returned from some winter camping, before we left to go to church with Grandma and Grandpa (I only went to sacrament meeting and then walked home to sleep, leaving my children in the care of the other adults around).

Anyway, it was fun to get some last minute goofing off in! Here's Patrick making faces at the kids:

Old Friends and Matthew's 16th Birthday (January 2nd)

We came back down to Orem for the weekend to spend some time with my side of the family. We also got to visit with the Tessems, which was fun. Rachel and Grace became good friends when we moved out to North Carolina and even though they hadn't seen each other in a year and a half they were able to settle in with each other quite quickly. They're two similar souls.

New Year's Day and Gavin's 1st Birthday

We had another family party on New Year's Day, this time with some of the extended Heiss family so they could get the chance to see Emily, Morgan, and Gavin. This vacation was filled with family gatherings. I guess that's what you get when you don't come "home" for 2.5 years.

Here's Auntie Sarah with Gavin:

New Year's Eve (December 31st, obviously)

Our first line of business for the day was the Noon Year's Eve party Grandma and Grandpa's neighbourhood puts on for the kids. They have crafts and food and carnival games, a dance floor with crazy neon lights, and at noon they do a countdown with a balloon drop and everything.

It looked like a lot of fun, but I wasn't feeling it. What I was feeling was headachy and everything achy and the smell of the food wafting around the room was making my stomach queasy and there wasn't anywhere to sit down and I was going to die.