Seconds, Anyone?

Our family of five on Christmas morning

 

I have to say that the second trimester has been pretty exceptional.  I have felt great, found out the gender of little squirt, felt baby move (A LOT!), and I have had what I like to refer to as "news anchor hair".  It has been full and shiny with little to no styling.  I have, however, begun to experience some pregnancy brain moments.  Exhibits A and B, both of which occurred in November:  got out toaster and plugged it in to blend chocolate milk, and when I finished using the blender, I carried the base to the bedroom instead of returning it to the pantry because I was now distracted by the fact that I needed a pair of socks.  Other moments of absent brain have ensued...but here I am not remembering at the moment (just another side effect of pregnancy brain along with the reduced ability to recall and use words correctly).  "They" say it is temporary.  When really trying, I can focus and get stuff done.  I managed to pull out yet again a 4.0 last semester, and over Christmas break, study for the Praxis examination which I took and passed on February 3rd.  This is a licensing exam which covers all the content of the Communication Sciences and Disorders program  in which I am enrolled.  I don't officially graduate until December, but I wanted to get this exam out of the way before baby comes because I'm sure having an actual baby will take more mental energy than pregnancy brain.

Here is an overview of the belly progression of trimester 2;  I am currently 28 weeks pregnant!

20 Weeks

16 weeks

22 weeks

25 weeks

26 weeks

27 weeks

In other 2nd trimester baby news, we had an ultrasound at week 19 and found out that we are having a little man.  When the ultrasound tech first began the ultrasound, she said "I'm just going to look around a for a second."  My heart started beating rapidly, and I confirmed that she meant the temporal second, not a second baby.  During the ultrasound, he wasn't very cooperative, especially when the tech was trying to get a shot of the face (he covered it with his hands), and of the "down there" area to get a peek at the gender (he crossed his feet and bent his knees).  He was also moving throughout the whole thing, and we discovered he is quiet the little yogi as he was sucking on his foot.  It was really amazing to see.  Lucky for us, the ultrasound tech was training a student, so the student got to look around after the tech got all the shots she needed, and we got to look at him and watch him even longer. 

Introducing Henry Walker Summers:

We unveiled the gender to our families first before sharing the news with the world (i.e. Facebook).  To be ambiguous and clever, we wrapped up an Almond Joy for our parents to open on Christmas Eve/Christmas.  We were banking on the slogan "Almond Joys have nuts and Mounds don't."   Most of our family had a hunch that it was a boy, but it still took them a minute to connect the candy bar to the gender.  We quickly clarified it with a very clear picture illustrating the part that make our little guy,well, a guy.  

This is Sam's mom when she finally put the pieces together:  

That is the major news.  To prepare for the arrival of our little guy, we set up a registry at Babies 'R Us.  Sam came from this experience very pale and in a stupor.  They just have way too much stuff.  I had done some research beforehand and had a pretty good idea of what I needed, so the overall experience wasn't as bad as it could have been.  We decided on a woodland theme for the nursery.  Our colors are going to be a lime/minty green, orange, brown, and aqua/navy blue.  We ordered the crib bedding and some pictures for the nursery off of Etsy.  Our main focus in on foxes.  Super cute!  We also took a partner prenatal yoga class which gave us some pointers on postures we can do to alleviate pain or discomfort before and during labor.  To even further our knowledge, we took the first of a 2 part weekend "Basics" class presented through Mission Hospital that unloaded information on us about such topics as safety, infant CPR, breastfeeding, and caring for baby.  We will be signing up for the second part for a weekend in April.

Christmas came and went quickly after Thanksgiving.  We did our usual.  We celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve.  However, we did make the trek down to Charlotte to celebrate at my brother Scott's house.    We also welcomed a new soon to member to the family, Sarah, who got to join us for a Plemmons style celebration.  Congratulations to them!  They got engaged over Thanksgiving.  On Christmas morning, we awoke and opened presents at our house and enjoyed our traditional breakfast:  homemade cinnamon rolls, strawberries (frozen from the garden), eggs (from our chickadees), and bacon (too bad we don't have a pig, but I guess it is good for the pig). After breakfast we open stockings.   It is always low key and relaxing.  This year our presents were pretty practical. We really soaked it up because we have a feeling that our Christmas mornings are not going to be the same! 

Henry got his dad a present for Christmas:  a onesie that matches a shirt that Sam has for an awesome photo opp. in the future!

Our annual from scratch gingerbread house!

For New Year's Eve, we did manage to stay awake until midnight, but we were in bed staring at the clock.  When the clock struck 12, the lights went out and our head hit the pillow.  We did have an enjoyable evening, though.  We cooked a meal together:  Cornish game hens stuffed with a raisin spiced rice, fried goat cheese over a bed of greens with oranges, and roasted sweet potatoes.  Yum Yum!  

Here is Sam getting his hands dirty stuffing the hens:

Sam also welcomed a birthday:  year 33 is in full swing for him.  He still looks so young and dashing, however.  We celebrated with our family on New Years Day.  He requested homemade hot fudge cake, which he got (and a lot of).  I think we were on a hot fudge cake diet for a week.  It sure was delicious, though!  Henry liked riding the sugar rushes.  

Henry also got his dad a birthday present:  The book - What to Expect the First Year. 

Sam also received his National Boards Certification in November!  He is the bomb dot com!  I am so proud of him and glad that he got to see all of his hard work come to fruition.  To celebrate, we went to Rocky's Chicken Shack with his parents, and I cooked him a celebratory dinner. 

Time has surely flown, as I am sure it will continue to do.  We are trying to be as intentional as possible and soak up any time we have together as well as enjoying the preparation for and movement of Henry, and my changing belly. So far, we have worked four jigsaw puzzles, so the weather has been very conducive to our spending time together!  My spring semester has kicked off.  I am only taking 9 hours as I only had 4 classes left plus clinical hours and a Master's project.  However, only two of the classes I need were offered this semester.  I will take one online this summer and one next fall.  My clinical placement is in a nursing home this semester.  It is going pretty well.  I took over the full caseload this past week.  The main areas I am treating in this setting are swallowing disorders and cognitive language deficits.    I started January 13th and already have over 60 hours!  My goal this semester is to get around 180 hours which will hopefully allow me to have lighter clinical placements in the summer and fall so that I can spend more time with Henry.  I am already a little mournful about having to leave him.  Although, I know this summer he will be in good hands with his daddy around! 

A note from the soon-to-be pops:

Well, I'm sitting here watching the snow fall down.  Knowing I won't have to go to school again tomorrow and can easily stay up to watch the UNC-duke game at 9:00.  Why is any of this remarkable you ask?  Because I'm in my NEW office.  Apparently, when you have a kid, the dad gets to put all of his cool stuff in storage.  I guess in hopes that one day I'll get to share all my cool stuff with my son.  But anyway, I've had to move....I mean gotten to move my desk in with Kellie's.  About five feet away.  More time with my wife!  I hope she doesn't get too tired of me watching "Alaska: The Last Frontier", "Bering Sea Gold", or "Mountain Men" or asking what she's doing every five minutes.  Speaking of which, Kellie likes to call the nursery theme "Woodland theme", but I prefer the theme "Davy Crockett theme."  I was actually trying, for a while, to trap a raccoon to make a coon skip cap for Henry, but no luck yet.  So everything is out of my office, and I feel a little displaced but excited as well.  I can't believe he will be here in 12 weeks.  I've been very aware of how quickly time passes.  The coolest thing about this trimester has been feeling him kick.  I mean he's like a charging bull in there.

The chickens (my other children) have had a hard winter.  They do not like zero degree temperatures and single digits.  I made the unfortunate mistake of letting them out of their coop when in was either single digits or 10 degrees one morning.  Their combs and waddles got a little frost bitten.  Then I made another unfortunate mistake of putting a little Neosporin on the frost bite.  Actually, I just put it on Serena, and just a little dot, because it looked like the Neosporin was wet, and I worried that might make it worse.  So I only put it on Serena, the one who lost a toe.  The next day, the dot where I put the Neosporin was white, which didn't look good to me.  I googled it, and apparently, Neosporin with pain reliever is TOXIC to chickens!  Yeah, the same stuff I put on poor Serena when her toe was cut off!  I felt horrible.  Who knew?!  Anyway, she survived the comb debacle too, with no permanent damage.  Just for future reference, if you are going to put Neosporin on a chicken, get the original kind, not the kind with pain reliever in it.  If this is any sign of things to come, I may be in for it as a dad.  This also begs the question, if Neosporin is toxic for chickens, is it that good for humans?

We are positive this year will be exciting for us and full of new experiences as our family grows!  We wish you and yours a happy 2014!

P.S.  Don't worry about the cats, they are still getting all the attention they demand for n(me)ow!