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My baby dude Tycho turns three tomorrow. Kind of incredible. I'm normally not a pinterest-mom, but sometimes you just want your kid to wake up in the morning to something special.

Survived

We're back in town. Well, we've been back in town, but I haven't posted anything because I am lazy and no good. And now I'm back to work and life is boring again. But I should tell you about our trip!

IT WAS GREAT. I mean, an international trip with a three year old (almost!) while seven months pregnant sounds like any sane woman's nightmare, but it went really awesome. First of all, Tycho. He is just the best thing ever in the entire world ever. Period. He was 100% perfect amazing. For a toddler, at least.

It probably helped that I was PREPARED AS FUCK. I had been exploring the (completely insane and delightful LET ME TELL YOU) world of woven wraps for baby number two, and ordered my first a couple weeks before we left. And so had to try it out with Tycho. Now, I won't claim that it is easy to carry a 41lb kid on your back while you are pregnant, but I liked it enough that I brought it along.  And thank god for that. We literally would not have made it there and back without. And I was exhausted, but I felt like a goddamned super mom.

Carrying him was not an option, and we had too much luggage to really keep track of him on foot, so thank goodness I could wear him. It was hard, and it was exhausting, but it was awesome.

And then he did amazing on our flight. (Both ways, actually.) I was DREADING ten hours in the air with nowhere to run around with this kid. It sounded like a recipe for disaster. DISASTER. But I packed him exciting presents to unwrap and unlimited peanut butter sandwiches and his seat had its own easily navigable tv screen, so he was happy as a clam for the entire freaking flight. Both ways. OMG. And then he was good for the subsequent subway (two lines), train (another 2.5 hours), and car ride (35 minutes) to get to our destination.

The manor house we were staying in was incredible. Most of my trips to Europe (god, I'm such a snob) have been to large cities, and we were out in the tiniest ever town of Sassetot-le-Manconduit, in the Normandy country side, a billion years away from anything. With the cows and the goats. In a nine hundred year old manor. That was gorgeous but also had running water and plenty of electrical outlets and a modern kitchen and wifi internet. So basically perfection.

It was so good to see my sister again after almost a year. We do a good job of regular video chats, but nothing is the same as seeing someone in person. She was stressed out from wedding planning and getting on my last nerve, but as soon as we were in the same space all the annoyance was gone and I was so happy to be with my sister! (And yes, we did have a 4th of July party in France, of course!)

Tycho also recognized her right away, even though a year in toddler time is actually forever, and that was amazing. And since my parents and my aunt and uncle were also there, he got really comfortable really fast, and everyone else staying in the manor seemed to be okay with him by association. We pretty much let him run amok in the manor the whole trip and he got lots of quality time with various and sundry family members.

The wedding itself... needs it's own post, which I will eventually get to. It was one of those days where every last little thing goes wrong. A comedy of errors, if you will. But one that all came together beautifully in the end, thank goodness.

And after we got through wedding festivities, we had a few days to actually do a little low-key sight seeing. 

The way home was slightly more complicated than the trip there, simply because we didn't have as much time to get between our train stopping in Paris and the airport, and CDG is a mess of checkpoints and security lines, and Kyle is pretty much the world's grumpiest traveller, but we did in fact make it back to Seattle, so I think we did all right. 

And then I had an additional three days off work, so I didn't feel like I was going to die. That was nice too. 

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I'm in France with my family and my sister got married yesterday and there is so much to tell, but for now I just have one thing to show you.

The usual disasters.

Oh hey. It's been a month since I've written, so I should perhaps update before we leave the country for two weeks.

Oh right, that. We leave on Tuesday for France for my sister's wedding! Apparently I like going to France while I'm pregnant. I'm more excited to be there at 27 weeks than at 12 though. I was still so sick last time that I didn't feel like I got to enjoy anything.

Although I've barely been able to get myself excited about this trip either. Besides it being an incredible expense for us (international plane tickets for three people; please kill me), I've been so busy in the months leading up to it, what with the whole being pregnant thing and Tycho's EI adventure and my Grandpa's funeral and the subsequent sale of his house (saaaaaaaaad) and my in laws (Kyle's parents and all the BILs) visiting earlier this month, I've barely put any thought or planning into this trip beyond getting my vacation time approved.

And then everything went all to hell when I went to pick up my bridesmaid dress from the salon. I was afraid I would be swimming it in, because the consultants talked me into ordering it 3 sizes larger than I measured. And then it was three inches too small. Oh. But okay, don't panic, get someone to put a corset back in that sucker and it will be all good. Thank Maude we ordered extra fabric.

Went to my final fitting on Friday. We were hoping I could take it home that day, but there might be a couple tweaks that needed to be done over the weekend. I go to try it on and... it's a mess. I terrible terrible no good unwearable mess. So we discuss ripping out two weeks of alterations and starting from scratch. Four days before I have to leave. With plans to spend my entire Monday afternoon the day before we leave hanging around the shop. Like I need that stress.

By the time I got to Ashley's to pick up Tycho I was thisclose to hyperventilating, and planning to take Tycho to the mall with me at 7pm for emergency backup formalwear because OMG. But Ashley is a delightful human being, and told me to leave Tycho with her husband, and she would come with me. Thank god. I needed the moral support.

Do you know how scary it is to try to find a black tie appropriate purple gown that fits off the rack with no notice at 27 weeks pregnant? I was sweating. And so we went to Nordstrom. And found not one, but two dresses that fit the bill and looked awesome to choose from. That I actually loved and weren't just a sad substitute. Say what?

So. New bridesmaid dress, whatever. More money dumped into this trip, but at this point another $200 is just a drop in the bucket and well worth minimizing my stress level. Originally I was planning on returning whatever backup I had purchased in the event that we somehow magically got my first dress working by go time, but I like new one so much I called my alterations lady and told her not to kill herself trying to fix it. Because I need to stop worrying about it. So. Yeah. It all works out in the end I suppose. Unless I grow another five inches in the next six days. Please no.

At the very least I had the foresight to take off two buffer days on either side of our trip. I'm 95% packed for Tycho and I, so today is simply getting Tycho's haircut and buying airplane snacks, and tomorrow all I have to do it get my hair/nails/etc. taken care of. I'm actually... relaxing on my vacation? It's kind of awesome. Especially considering how NOT relaxing the last several months have been. We leave in less than 48 hours, and I'm FINALLY excited about this trip. Phew.




Catch you on the flip side, blog. With lots of photos, of course.

Good and Bad

The good: Wednesday afternoon brought us Tycho's very first ever IEP meeting. It was great! We are now just waiting for school placement, but starting this fall he'll be going to developmental preschool for a three hour session Monday-Thursday, with DOOR TO DOOR BUS SERVICE  OMG. It's official and I feel like I can breathe a little bit better for the first time since I started worrying about this in, oh, I don't know, February?

Anyway, the team met and we have official goals for Tycho for next year, and I find them to be laughably optimistic, but that's okay, because professionals are going to help us work on them. And if at the end of next school year I have a potty-trained kid who can dress himself and transition between activities without having a meltdown I will probably die of happiness.

In other news, the bad: I am sick as fuck. Ended up in the ER on Monday afternoon. I spent several hours considering if it was really worth it to brave the emergency room on a fucking holiday, but in the end I was puking all the time and couldn't even keep down water and was getting totally dehydrated and therefore hysterical and weepy. And then I realized I hadn't felt the babe move since that morning and I made Kyle pack up Tycho and take us in. Zofran and IV fluids and fetal heart tones, oh my!

We explained to Tycho that I was too sick to drink water with my mouth so I was going to drink it through my arm instead and he miraculously didn't freak the fuck out and was actually pretty well behaved considering he spent five hours in a hospital room with me.

My midwife told me I was okay to tough it out, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm still not well, and now I'm going on a week of being sick. I'm better than I was on Monday, but I'm still on the BRAT diet and taking Zofran around the clock and probably mildly dehydrated and exhausted and uncomfortable and let's throw in some round ligament pain and debilitating heartburn for good measure. I'm at that point in my illness where I don't remember not being sick, and I've given up the possibility of ever feeling well again, thinking about how I'm going to manage feeling this bad at my sister's wedding which is OVER A MONTH AWAY.  Hopefully this passes.

Him

Also in big news, we found out about a week and a half ago that we are having another son! Tycho went form always answering that he wanted a sister, to being adamantly pro-brother about three days before our ultrasound. Not that he really understands what either of those words means, but oh well.

I'm so excited! I really and truly did not have a preference, even though literally no one actually believed me on that. People told me they were hoping for a girl for me, like that would be some sort of extra gift. I don't understand. The only thing I'm bummed about is no getting to use our girl name, because I really loved it. But after a couple days of discussion we picked a named for this baby (to be announced) and I am in love with it.

Funny, now the he is in fact a he and has pronouns and a name and all that and that things feel more definite and real and he kicks me all the time and makes his presence known... I am just so impatient to meet him. Until a week ago I was pretty contentedly plodding along in the pregnancy and then all of the sudden I have no more patience, I do not want to wait any longer, I just want to fast forward to September and meet this little dude. I never felt the way with Tycho, even when I was tired of being pregnant I was also facing a complete unknown and I felt less than prepared for parenting and I wasn't going to be ready for him until he was thrust upon me, but this time I have all the confidence in the world that I can mother a newborn and I don't want to wait any longer to get there.

IEP time!

Too many things to share! Let's start here.


Tycho is IN! He's in!!!! He will be enrolling the school district's developmental preschool in the fall. Four half days a week, transportation provided (omg the short bus!!), amazing. I'm so relieved and happy and nervous and emotionssssss! We have his very first IEP meeting next week, but I was finally able to actually talk to his social worker person on the phone instead of the series of voicemails we had been leaving each other, and it looks like that meeting is mostly going to be details, and the big stuff that I was worried about is all going to be fine and it's going to be so good for him and he is going to thrive. My goal for him to be on target and mainstreamed by kindergarten feels reachable and everything is awesome. I think he's going to love it.