Very brief update on Thing 3

Reid is officially a big brother! Will post more soon.

Reid Inspired Craftiness

Lots of pictures today. First here are some pics of the ornament I received from Akemi for the Remembering Together Holiday Swap. It's beautiful (and I don't care that it was late, I'm just happy it finally arrived) and I'm glad that I didn't totally screw up Jenni's wonderful swap so badly that I didn't receive an ornament.  Please excuse the pictures without a Christmas tree as ours came down last week. (when it looked like Thing 3 would arrive on the 4th.)

With Thing 3's arrival getting closer and closer, the urge to do (or at least plan) some crafts and projects for them has arrived too. I do plan to post some pictures of the blanket, hat and booties I made while in bedrest although I'm not sure where to post them. (I do know I will wait until after the arrival because they are pretty gender specific and I am enjoying torturing some friends with the suspense). We have also bought the supplies to make wall hangings of both D and Thing 3's names for their rooms. (D is getting a set as a way to help her feel included in all the baby hoopla.) This of course made me want to do Reid's name in some way too. 9" tall letters spelling out his name in the baby room seemed like a bit too much but then I came across an idea while researching how to do the other 2 names.

I love how they turned out. D helped me paint the red background and the the blue argyle pattern is very close to the argyle pattern fabric that I used for his baby blanket. One side is uppercase letters and the opposite side is lower case letters:

This is where the blocks are going to stay for now, on a shelf in the "baby room" where I can see then while while I sit and rock Thing 3. I think they will be a perfect but subtle reminder of Thing 3's big brother.

And now I'm off to have a good cry because while making this made me happy, writing about it has made me really sad.

21 months

In my head I debated on whether or not I would write a 21 months post. Then today happened and I needed to write something, sorry if it's rambling and disjointed.

I know this next little while is going to be filled with reminders of things that I didn't get to do for Reid. (that is if Thing 3 ever comes out and comes to live with us.) I had a huge cry yesterday in the shower just thinking of all the things I wish I would done for Reid after he died. Good thing I didn't get started on all the things I wish I could have done with a living child or I would still be in there crying.

There will still be lots of chances for me to say, ".. and my son would be 21 months old if he had lived." over the next little while too. I plan to take every chance I get so that a least a few people will think of Reid in the middle of the fuss over Thing 3's arrival (at least I hope there will be a baby to make a fuss over).

I really wanted to make the 3rd a less crappy day for myself by making it the day before a really good day but the universe (or whoever is in charge of fetal development) didn't agree with that plan. Not much I can do about it, but I am so fed up with having my plans tossed out the window.

2012

I had plans to write a proper New Year post, but coming down with a nasty cold overnight as the calendar rolled over to 2012 nixed that plan. We actually "celebrated" New Year's this year by having a family potluck and fireworks watching party. Our community sets off the big fireworks display at 8 pm on New Year's Eve and we live close enough to the park where they do it that we can see the big fireworks from our back yard. It sounds quite festive and "normal", but it wasn't an a coincidence that the friends that were invited to joined us only have daughters (or living daughters in one case.)

The waiting for Thing 3's arrival has pretty much taken over our lives the last couple days. The feeling of being stuck in limbo isn't helped by D.G. being off on holidays and all of D's activities being on hold over Christmas. It's hard to go on about our "normal" lives when nothing is normal.(It clearly hasn't been normal since the end of October but at least we had a daily routine to follow.)

I still don't really believe that I am going to get a living baby out of all this, but I just want to be done with it. No more waiting, no more worrying about the delivery or going into labour "early". I also want to be done with all the remembrances of and comparisons to 2 years ago, the last holiday season when I was pregnant. I just want to have this baby and get on with figuring out our new life, whatever that is going to look like.