Full hands

While standing in line at Target this morning with the infamous double cart--one kid trying to wriggle out, and another sitting in the basket already opening a gift meant for his cousin, I heard a familiar phrase uttered my way.

"Boy, you have your hands full. And oh! Looks like they're about to become even fuller!"

Is this just something people say because they don't know what else to say? Is it something they say because of personal experience? Is the prospect of having three children so foreign to people these days?  Are they saying it with a negative connotation? 

 I always wonder.

And I never know exactly how to answer.

Because sometimes I'd have to agree.. Like when my son was peeing in the toilet before we left the house this morning and hollers at me that his sister has just thrown his skate shoe in the toilet. I walk in to find him fishing his shoe out of the toilet and dumping pee water all over the bathroom rug while Carla goes in to grab toilet paper that hadn't yet flushed (ick, I know!). At those moments, I'd have to agree. My hands are full. 

But then we have moments where everything just clicks. 

And my hands don't feel full at all. They feel ready to tackle another newborn. 

Moments where I'm able to sit back and watch my two kids become playmates. Moments where they're each doing their own thing and out of anybody else's business. Moments where our schedule goes off without a hitch, or even better, when a hitch happens and we get through it on our best behavior. These moments are fleeting, but they do happen. 

                              

     

Life with little kids is busy. I won't lie. 

My floors aren't always clean, and sometimes I forget to change a diaper after naptime. Sometimes my dishwasher sits for a few days before being emptied. Sometimes I forget to pick up my husband's dry cleaning, when it was my only errand for the day. 

That's just life, no matter how many kids you have.

But in the grand scheme of things, my hands are full in a very GOOD way. I wouldn't have it any other way. We are excited to have another baby joining our family. I sometimes want to tell the people who tell me my hands are full (with a look of pity in their eyes) that I like it this way, and that I wish they were fuller. 

I'm not talking Duggar family full, but there's a certain almost six year old daughter I sure would've liked to make my hands one child fuller. 

Sal is 3

Sal turned three on Tuesday the 13th!

       

He's been loving the temperate weather and being able to ride his quad in our backyard anytime he wants. He's finally embracing the outdoors and waits with baited breath for the neighborhood kids to get home from school each afternoon so they can play with him.

                 

He's shed the last of his babyness and is a full fledged little boy. 

A little boy with a mind (and opinions) of his own.

A little boy who loves to tell us " I yuv you" a zillion times a day...balanced with "I don't yike you" a half dozen times a day. 

A little boy who prefers peanuts and strawberries for breakfast for the last two weeks straight. 

He often talks of "Tyna" (China) and refers to places we'd go, or things we did regularly. He's asked if we are going back to our home in China and when asked where he likes living more, America or China, he answers "Tyna". He will come around..if his smiles and laughter are any indication, he is doing quite fine back in America.  

                                

We haven't done his three year old check yet, so I have no clue what he weighs or how tall he is. In my opinion, he's still a small fry. No extra fat to spare. He's wearing 3T clothes now, but loves to run around in nothing but his skivvies. 

Sal enjoys anything and everything with wheels, and this past weekend, he informed me while waiting at a stop light that when he's big he's going to have a pickup truck or a deep (jeep) with two motorcycles in da back. He then added that it would be a white deep..but changed his mind to orange, and then red like our neighbors. I love listening to his big plans.

                    

He's been going to a "teacher and me" class which we refer to as school, once a week and is about to start two days a week this month. He's started playing with kids instead of just beside kids, although sharing is still a social skill in need of work. EVERYTHING is HIS. He's got a little (girl) friend at school that he plays trucks with and today he informed me that she wouldn't hold his hand and it made him sad.  

Is it bad that it gave me a laugh and broke my heart at the same time?

There's a crazy side to our three year old (he's made up a word, "bo-Banga!" which is code for, "I'm about to go apeshit crazy") and he definitely tests my patience on an hourly basis, but those moments when he crawls up on the sofa with his blue blanket and snuggles in next to me are worth their weight in gold. 

Linus blankets

When we had Sal, we tried the pacifier.

 It didn't soothe him.

After a week or so, we stopped trying and were somewhat thankful that he didn't care for them since I've seen friends struggle with breaking the pacifier habit later in their kid's life. 

He saved us a battle.

Carla was much the same. 

I'm guessing the next will follow suit. 

However, my two living kids have developed a soothing crutch. They are real life Linuses! They both carry these 12X12 minky blankets around the house all day, everyday. They get played with, chewed on and hidden, constantly. Taking them away for a weekly wash is a total shitshow. Tear and tears and more tears as they beat my washing machine with their fists. 

Both kids sleep with their blankets during nap and bedtimes and the rule in the house is that the blankets do not leave the house. I'm just not ready for that meltdown in a target parking lot after we realize the blue one has been lost somewhere in the store. 

Anyways, I haven't done much for our next family member. He will be here in about 8 weeks. That's like suuuuuuuper soon. 

Yesterday, I finally sat down at my sewing machine and cranked out a 12x12 of his own. If my older two are any indication, he will be toting one of those blankets around too. 

It turned out pretty cute!

We may not have diapers or a crib for him, but he will have his blanket!

Priorities. 

One and Three

The kids both had birthdays last Tuesday, but on the actual day of, NZ was working, and I was having a come apart due to the fact that our power went out on the outlets that served my washer/dryer, both fridges and my oven and microwave. 

Not good. And no, it wasn't a breaker switch getting tripped. I wish.

Thankfully our neighbor is an electrician and within minutes, he had us up and running again by early evening. By then though, it was dinner, stories and bedtime.

No time to party.

Instead we celebrated with my family in Santa Barbara the following weekend. I took the festivities north since the kids have two great grandmas there, along with grandparents and aunts and uncles that don't see them all that often. I wanted to keep it simple since my kids really have no freaking clue what a birthday is, nor have they been exposed to how crazy American birthday parties have become (as of yet). I'm sure in a year or two, we will get a good dose of those.

But until then...

                            

My sister made each child a cake of their own, as well as a small platter of cookies matching the theme of each cake. I requested an ombré smash cake in peaches and corals for Carla and she knocked it out of the park. Sal wanted a "roadwork" cake (his favorite book is called "Roadwork"), so my sister used the Wilton princess dress pan to make a hill and placed construction vehicles and roadwork cone candles on it for him. 

                        

                           

They thoroughly enjoyed their treats...

                           

Carla was a dainty little thing picking at frosting and never really did get to her cake....so Sal helped her by showing off his knife cutting skills. He got a little carried away and annihilated her cake, but she didn't seem too bummed....she had still had cookies to eat.

After cake came presents. Carla got her first cabbage patch doll and Sal got some vehicles (of course). They played a while in my mom's back yard, and had a blast.

 

We finished up the morning with egg salad sandwiches and veggie chips that Sal had picked out to share with everyone. All in all, it was a beautiful, easy, no fuss celebration of my two little people with loved ones. 

Happy birthday to our wonderful children.

Sneak peek

I was just looking through my posts of the last few months and realized that I never blogged about whether or not we found out the sex of the newest Zentil. Also, I never know how to "name" this one. Most would say it's Zentil number 3, but it's  not.. not even a number 4, technically..so I just keep calling this one the "newest Zentil" baby. 

Seriously, these are the thoughts that keep me up at night. Someone shoot me.

Anyways, yes...we did find out the sex back in early November while Nick was still wrapping things up in China. Sal was my chaperone for a very long and thorough ultrasound, and we were able to FaceTime Nick (at 3 am his time) when the gender was announced. I didn't have a feeling either way of what the baby was, but when I heard BOY, I do admit, I was more surprised than I thought I'd be. I guess maybe I did have a little hankering it might be another girl. 

But anyways, yeah--another little boy! 

We don't care either way, and never have...above and beyond anything else, we always wish for a healthy, developing baby. 

This week, Nick was able to join me at my appointment with my perinatologist--kid free--thanks to my sister using her day off to babysit. After my scary appointment at the OB last week, I had this feeling of doom and knew I needed him by my side in case my visit last week was a premonition or things to come. Thankfully, there was no need to get my panties in a bunch or lose sleep over anything. Chalk it up to poor communication and an OB that may not understand the fragility of a mama who has had a late term loss before. 

Baby boy weighed in between two and a half to three pounds at our visit. He's got all his parts, and everything is in working order. He had the hiccups during part of my ultrasound, and was none too thrilled to have us trying to catch a glimpse of his face or man parts. He kept covering his face with his arms, and crossing his legs every time the tech attempted to get a good shot. 

We did walk away with this memento after about five minutes of pestering him.

 That's a real live baby in there!

Countdown is on...only 10ish weeks to go!

28 weeks pregnant

Weight gain: 16 lbs since the start. 2 of those in the last four weeks. Pretty proud of myself for not having a repeat 7lb gain month like I did in November. 

Maternity clothes? Yes. Sadly, my "end of pregnancy clothes" are already being maxed out so I'm pretty sure anyone who sees me the next two months will find me in leggings. They're pretty much all that fit comfortably. 

Stretch marks? None that I can see, but I can't see past my belly button anymore--so.......

Sleep: Aweful. I had dental pain that lent to sleepless nights up until last week (will have a root canal this week) and then a routine OB visit turned shitstorm at the end of last week that has had me obsessively performing kick counts in the wee hours of the morning. 

Best moment this week: Spent the weekend with NZ and the kids, running errands and getting our house ready to move back in to. It feels good to get back into American life with my family. 

       Patiently(?!) waiting for mama

Miss anything?: not that I ever get confident in my pregnancies making it to term, but I had been smooth sailing through my weeks up until my most recent visit and was actually enjoying this pregnancy more than my previous...having a scare last Thursday has definitely rattled me, although I think it was more than likely inexperience of the physician (baby was high and sideways and she couldn't find his heartbeat by Doppler, but had the audacity to say, " don't worry, your baby is fine. I just can't find a heartbeat")  Whaaaaaaaaat?! I ended up having an unscheduled ultrasound, to which she used words like "poor movement" and ultimately ended up going through back to back NSTs with my two kids bouncing off the walls and opening exam room garbage cans while I clicked away his little kicks and they monitored his heart rate. I passed the second NST with flying colors but still couldn't help but take home a lump in my throat with a feeling like something bad is about to happen. 

Movement: Yes. 

Food cravings: orange juice and chocolate milk

Anything making you queasy or sick: no

Gender: Boy

Happy or Moody?: Anxious. Hopefully my MFM visit will put my mind at ease this week. 

Looking forward to: moving back into our house midweek, and then getting through a root canal and MFM visit this Thursday! Big week!