I haven’t been one to share regular pregnancy updates, either this time around or last, but it seems like I should offer some reflections before I get too far long! And at 31 weeks, it seems like it’s about time. Sooooo…

This is literally the first official bump photo I’ve taken this pregnancy… I asked John to take it last night after I realized I didn’t have a photo for this post!

Baby size: A winter squash, a puppy, or a chocolate box. Otherwise known as about 3.3 pounds and 16 inches.

Sleep status: Good! I had one night of hip and knee pain (which hit in earnest around 36 weeks last time) and was worried it would stick around, but so far it hasn’t. I’ve found I’m waking up a bit earlier and it’s easier to get out of bed in the morning, a side effect I remember from last time that I love!

Maternity clothes: Whoever said being pregnant in the summer versus winter is easier, sartorially speaking, is not my friend — I have had to buy WAY more clothing this time around! Maternity shorts, a maternity bathing suit, swing dresses to beat the heat, a dress for a wedding… they all make my life more comfortable, but more expensive than my January baby did! Definitely wearing more workout clothes on days I work from home than I did last time! :)

Gender: Boy!

Movement: Lots! Pretty much constantly, but especially when I get into bed at night, which I love :) Feeling another human move around inside me will always be the weirdest and most wonderful thing about pregnancy, I think.

Cravings: Dessert? Not sure if that’s pregnancy-related, though :) Also ham and cheese sandwiches!!

Symptoms: Occasional Braxton-Hicks contractions.

Favorites: Evening walks. I am convinced that consistent evening walks are what kept me loose and limber up until the very end with June, and I have tried my darnedest to keep up with them this time around, too. Not only are they good exercise, but they are the perfect opportunity to breathe fresh air and chat with John about whatever is on my mind! Which brings us to…

Current preoccupying thoughts: As many of you know, June was breech and delivered by c-section. With baby boy, I have the opportunity to either attempt a VBAC or schedule another c-section. There are risks and benefits to both, and the tricky thing is that while I have always said that my only desired outcome is a healthy baby and a healthy mama (something people often say when they want to express that they are fine with any delivery outcome), I feel like the type of delivery I choose potentially has an impact on how healthy baby and mama will be — and that feels like a crushing amount of pressure sometimes. Throughout the last 31 weeks new bits of information have had me swinging back and forth between the two options, and though we have made at least a tentative decision at this point, I don’t feel particularly settled about it, and am not sure I ever will.

Looking forward to: Our upcoming vacation, of course!! One of my goals in this season is to simply enjoy our family of three before it becomes a family of four, and I am just buoyant at the thought of two mostly-uninterrupted weeks with some of my favorite people in two of my favorite places.

Nursery status: Progress has been made! We made some necessary furniture shifts a few weeks ago between the rooms upstairs, we have a design plan and potential paint colors, and I’ve been in touch with a painter for after we return!

Left to do: It feels like SO many things. Right around 28 weeks I had this moment of not-quite-panic where I realized we hadn’t really done ANYTHING to prepare for brother. I know the same type of preparations aren’t needed for a second child as a first, and I’m all for a relaxed approach, but, you know, at some point we do need to do a FEW things to get ready :)

On my mind: Making arrangements for who will care for June if I go into labor early or unexpectedly.

Maternity photos: Attempting to DIY them this weekend! I am using my old trick of asking my stylist to curl my hair at my thrice-yearly cut, and then we’ll get dressed up as a family for the golden hour and head to a pretty location. I don’t need anything too fancy, but we didn’t have any professional maternity photos taken last time and considering the lack of bump photos so far, I want to intentionally make an effort to capture our family of three!

How June’s doing: Great! We had a funny moment the other night where she saw brother move under my skin for the first time, and the look on her face was pure shock — you could almost hear the cogs in her brain spinning, trying to reconcile the movement with what we’ve been telling her about baby brother being inside mama. “But I can’t see him,” she kept saying :)

Next preparations on the list: Finish organizing clothing, figure out a crib, arrange for newborn photos, buy newborn diapers, pack a hospital bag, and buy a gift for June on behalf of baby brother — among many, many other things.

Name: Chosen. Will remain a secret until birth :)

Love being on this ride with you, friends! Thank you for your kindness and enthusiasm, as always!

P.S. Third trimester update with June

Generally, I don’t feel comfortable handing out parenting advice — after all, I’ve only had one test subject so far, and what worked for her clearly might not be universally-sound advice! (On that note, it will be interesting to see whether any of our successful tactics are reproducible with number two — will keep you posted, I’m sure :))

But, I know that I love learning from the experiences of people I trust, even if I usually adapt their advice for our situation. That’s the heart of where this post is coming from — not offering a prescription to get your toddler to eat well, but offering some insight into what has worked for us!

Because as luck or intention would have it, we have a very good eater on our hands. June is a more adventurous eater than I am, in many ways, and so far we have not encountered more than mild skirmishes over food at the dinner table. While I’m sure this is in part due to her nature, I think we set her (and ourselves) up for success in a few ways. That’s what I wanted to chat about today, so let’s dive into four things that have worked for us!

1. We all eat the same meal at the same time. From about 15 months on, June has been eating the same meal as John and I at the same time, sometimes in a slightly different form (like, we might drain most of the broth out of a soup, or give her all of a salad’s fixings without the lettuce). From about one year to 15 months, she ate some purees, some of our food, and some additions (like Greek yogurt or Cheerios), and would often eat with us but sometimes eat earlier if we couldn’t get dinner on the table fast enough :)

If she refused a food, we would encourage her to try it, but never forced her to. We also never offered her another option if she DID refuse a food (she never refused a dinner entirely). In fact, to this day, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even realize that’s an option, since she’s just never seen it done! I think through the visual of John and I eating the same thing as her day in and day out, she very quickly learned that that’s simply how it works in our house.

2. She has eaten adventurously from the beginning. Indian food, pickled vegetables, asparagus, spinach in pasta, chick pea shawarma, beef stew… these have all been a part of her diet, in some form or another, from the time she started eating solid food. Even in utero, she was exposed to a variety of (spicy!) things through my diet, which probably didn’t hurt! Of course, there are things she doesn’t love and will refuse (chunks of meat can be enemy number one), but for the most part, she is game for a wide variety of textures, flavors, and compositions because it’s all she’s known.

3. We don’t keep things in the house we don’t want her to eat, and we don’t eat things in front of her we won’t let her have. I’m sometimes gently confused by parents who complain about their kiddos eating this or that — after all, aren’t we the ones with the money and car to go to the grocery store? Like screen time, we try to cut off potential disagreements at the source by simply not bringing food we don’t want June eating into our house (juice, for example).

Likewise, if John is eating chips and salsa before dinner while June is playing next to him, I don’t think it’s fair to expect her NOT to want to join in – so it’s on us to either make sure she’ll still be hungry enough to eat dinner if she joins in, or to pack up the bag (despite our own wants) if she won’t be.

On the subject of desserts: you all know I have a sweet tooth :) If John and I want to have a dessert (especially because, you know, #pregnant), we will have it after June goes to bed. She has her fair share of sweet things – when we have guests over, for a special family treat, at a birthday party, etc. – and we’ll never NOT let her partake in a dessert that’s happening in front of her. On a regular basis, though, we keep them out of sight.

4. We encourage snacking while cooking. June is very into helping me cook these days, and often wants to taste ingredients or snack on the raw vegetables she sees me chopping. I am all for this — first of all, because raw things generally have the most nutrients, and second of all, because I think having a hand in the prep (even if limited to taste-testing!) piques her interest in and buy-in for the final version of the meal.

To wrap up, I know our experience is not relevant for everyone — maybe your kiddo has an allergy that precludes her from eating the same meal as you, or maybe you can’t eat dinner all together due to your schedules. Likewise, I’m sure you could do all these things and still end up with a selective eater. Either way, I hope these thoughts at least give you some ideas if you’re a little bit behind us in your parenting journey!

And now, let’s all cross our fingers that baby boy loves food as much as June does :)

P.S. Because I know some of you were curious after I mentioned June eats pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day, here are our go-tos. Breakfast is oatmeal (sometimes with berries or chopped fruit) and water. Lunch at school is milk, either a turkey and cheese quesadilla made on our Griddler or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, plus three of the following: applesauce; berries/chopped fruit; goldfish; carrots, bell pepper sticks, or cherry tomatoes (sometimes with hummus); and plain graham crackers. There are wild cards sometimes, but those are the staples :)

Friends, I am SO EXCITED for June!! As you’ll see below, we will be traveling for two weeks, and our trip promises to be full of some of my most favorite things: family, our dear high school friends, the New England coast, beloved restaurants, beach days, boat rides, evening walks, and so much more. Is it weird that I’m even looking forward to the 10- and 15-hour road trips we have ahead of us?? I just love going on adventures with my people! :)

Despite being gone for half of the month, I’ve got an ambitious list of things I’d like to tackle. Let’s take a look…

On my calendar this month:
— A week in Connecticut for a dear high school friend’s wedding (John is a groomsman!)
— A week in Maine with my family
— Father’s Day
— Blueberry picking at our favorite local farm, hopefully many times!

What I’m loving right now:
— I made this chocolate cream pie for a pool dinner date with neighborhood friends, and it was SO GOOD. The recipe might seem a little intimidating, but I found it to be pretty foolproof!
— I promise we eat lots of healthy things, but over Memorial Day we also had Trader Joe’s chocolate croissants as a special morning treat, and they were delicious! You let them rise overnight, so they seem pretty legit :)
— As a step in this year’s ongoing photo organization project, we purchased this external hard drive (and this case) to be our photo back-up back-up (we also back up all of our phone photos with Amazon Prime). Relieved to cross this step off the list!

What I read in May:
— We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter: I read this for my neighborhood book club, but didn’t love it. If you’re looking for a book that helps you have more effective conversations, I would highly recommend this one instead!

Revisiting my goals for May:
Make a plan for new baby’s nursery (hope to write a post about this soon!)
Purposefully plan for Memorial Day, since we’ll be staying local
Do something nice for June’s teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day (May 8th!)
Fill out the two-year-old section of June’s baby book
Inquire with three more designers/services about e-design (inquired with one, or rather, they actually reached out to me! We shall see what develops…)
Decide which baby book to use for new baby (Not yet! I’m stuck!)
Organize my 2018 personal photos into my new organizational folder system (made progress on my overall photo project but moving this to June!)

June goals:
— Prepare entertainment for our long road trips (my tips for traveling with an infant are here – planning to write the toddler version later this summer!)
— Photograph our backyard to share with y’all! Finally!!
— Attempt to DIY some maternity photos… should be interesting :)
— Make a master list of things to do before baby boy arrives
— Upload all random digital photos/videos and sort them into external hard drive folder system
— Cull and edit all 2018 iPhone photos (thus far) and categorize them in our external hard drive folders
— Decide on a blog series for after baby boy arrives and start working on it
— Finish organizing baby boy clothing
— Film June in June, Volume 3!!

Whew! Again, that is a LOT, but the clock is ticking on baby boy’s arrival and I’m feeling ready to roll my sleeves up and get to work! If you have goals for the month (or something you’re loving right now!), I’d love to hear in the comments!

P.S. Would you be interested in a pregnancy update? Now that I’m in the third trimester, I finally feel like I have a few things to share, ha! I actually only did one official update last time around, too… let me know what you think!

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