Joel and Jaime: Lately

Well, baby sister is almost here. I've got two weeks left until my due date. This summer has sure been an interesting one. We had a few fun trips (Sunriver with the Starrs, Lincoln City with the Smiths and Baileys, and Joel's golf trip with his friends), but other than that, Joel has been working so hard on school work. He's had class three days per week until 10PM, so the last time I would see him would be Monday evening and I wouldn't see him again until Friday after work. He's a way better person than I am. If I had to do as much work as him on so little sleep, I would be a whining, crying mess. The weekday evenings are just Ben and I. With my being very pregnant and the weather being so hot, Ben and I haven't done too much fun stuff. But Ben has been suuuuch a pal to me this summer! For the most part, when I pick him up after work, he has been so cooperative and sweet to me. I try to plan errands to run after work to give me a chance to walk as much as possible inside air conditioned buildings. He just hangs out with me and happily chatters along the whole time.

My pregnancy is still going really well. Right now I'm just feeling big and sleeping is a little uncomfortable because my ribs are all crunched up and various parts of my body get all tingly no matter what position I'm in. But! I still say that I have nothing to complain about. Those minor annoyances are totally manageable! AND I get a weekly massage and weekly chiropractic adjustments. Those make a world of a difference!! People ask me if I have any weird cravings or if there's anything funny about this pregnancy. And really, if I wasn't feeling so big with the occasional ache and pain, I would feel totally normal. I'm not craving anything or feeling extra hungry. I'm not emotional or extra tired...I just feel normal! I'm so thankful for that!! We had an ultrasound to measure her a few weeks ago and she was measuring in the 81st percentile, so fingers crossed she'll be smaller than Ben was! We still have absolutely no idea what we're going to name her. Our list has about 10 names on it. Some days I feel confident that she'll be one name, but three days later I've moved on to another name. My problem is that I like how many of the names look on paper, but they don't sound good to my ears.

I wanted to write down a few things about Ben lately. First of all, his humor and his laugh have suddenly taken a step up the maturity scale. His laugh has become heartier and more mature. He's also been laughing so much more than he ever used to (not that he used to laugh infrequently...but he's just laughing a ton lately!). I love it!

He's been having lots of fun with ninja turtles lately. He even watched his first Ninja turtles episode. It's so fun to watch Ben and Joel play NT together. They put headbands on and run around the house doing ninja moves, listening to the Ninja turtle theme song over and over and over. Ben is super serious about those ninja moves! The other day I took some pictures of him being a ninja turtle...then the next moment, he had fallen and hurt himself and was crying huge ninja turtle tears. My sweet boy. Speaking of JOel and Ben playing together....it's my favorite thing to watch!! How are dads so good at playing?? Joel can play hard with Ben for hours and hours and not get bored or tired or want to do anything else. Me on the other hand...I don't exactly "play". I like to read with Ben, go for walks, cook, chat, or have a tickling fight...but 'playing' does not come naturally to me! When Joel and Ben play, they run and run and get so sweaty. They play all sorts of make believe. Most of the time it involves looking for bad guys or tigers or something. They set up obstacle courses and develop their story as they go along. I love hearing them interact so perfectly together!!! Last night was particularly fun. Ben decided that he needed to keep giving us "kiss and hug power", so every lap around the house, he would cover Joel and I with kisses! That's a rare treat! And then Joel and Ben were chasing Emma around the house and Ben was just dying of giggles and laughter! I was cleaning the kitchen while they did this. Those types of evening are the best!!!

One nice thing that's changing a bit is the fact that Ben doesn't NEED a nap every day. It's nice because it allows us some flexibility if we want to do something. Also, on the days he doesn't take a nap, he goes to bed so fast and easy! But, I'm still not ready to give up nap time....especially with baby sister on the way. Even on nap days, bed time has gotten so much easier. We've started giving him a flashlight at bedtime and he reads books until he's tired and then just turns off his flashlight and goes to sleep. Aaaahhhh! The 1,000 questions each night and an hour of yelling down the stairs to us was getting SO Frustrating! He still wears a diaper at night, but occasionally he shows signs that he might be getting ready to ditch those. The other night, he yelled for me in the middle of the night. He was sitting on the toilet, but nothing was in there. He said that he went potty in his diaper and wanted a new one. So I got him all changed and back into bed. When Joel woke up the next morning, he found Ben sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor, wearing new basketball shorts and no diaper. Ben said that he had "leaked", so he had changed his own clothes and made himself a bed on the floor. But, he hadn't actually leaked anywhere. I think he had just gone potty in his diaper and didn't like it! My favorite part of that whole story is that he took care of changing himself and making a bed for himself on the floor without waking us up!!

One last cute thing that Ben did recently. The other day at Mrs Taylor's, she was watching two kids: age 6 and 3.5. They called me on their way home and the very first thing Ben told me on the phone was "Mommy! I wasn't a little bit shy, I wasn't a lot shy, I wasn't shy at all!". Then he told me about the two kids and what they'd done that day. When I talked to Mrs. Taylor about how he did with the 2 kids, she said that he just hung back and watched them all day. When they were playing outside, he stayed inside and just watched! But, the next day, Ben warmed up to them more and played with them. It's interesting that he's so aware of his shyness. We never say anything about his shyness to him! When he talks about it, we let him know it's totally ok to be shy as long as he's still polite. Another cute example of his awareness of his shyness is with Kyler. He's gotten totally comfortable going to Kyler's house by himself now. But, everytime he goes over there, he explains that he wants to bring Tucker because Tucker makes him feel not as shy or scared...but that if he doesn't have Tucker, sometimes he feels a "little" scared. He still remembers the time several months ago that he went to Kyler's without me and got REALLY scared and cried and cried and cried.

So, that's all for now. This weekend is the first weekend of the summer that Joel hasn't had to do 40,000 hours of homework. It could also very well be the last weekend as a family of three!! EEK!! My to-do list is a mile long and I'm feeling a frantic drive to get it all done (writing a blog post was part of that to-do list). But we also have our brand new, sweet nephew, Owen to go see!!! I need more weekend!!

The Jorgenen's had extra tickets to a Tacoma Rainier's game. The boys LOVED it. We stayed through the 8th inning and their excitement was high the entire time!

Ben's faces just kill me!!

Ben helping me make some decorations for baby sister's room

Ben and I went to Wildwood park. My thought was that he would want to play in the little creek. But, what he really wanted to do was hike around and hunt for bad guys. Well, all the trails are really steep and tons of spider webs! So, nine-month pregnant me was hauling up and down steep trails, trying to avoid spider webs in the face and helping Ben up and down. Phew!

Steve organized a very nice birthday celebration for my mom. Joel and Ben missed this photo cuz they had taken off to the park. We ate at Mediterranean Kitchen in Bellevue. OMG! Amazing food!! It was just our immediate family, but there were still 17 people there (well, 19 including the two babies in bellies) :)

Chauncy, Alan, Joel and I went to the Of Monsters and Men concert at Marymoor park 2 weeks ago (exactly 1 week before she gave birth!). We love concerts at Marymoor!! The setting is so beautiful and relaxed and we just stood up at the front and danced the whole night!