Snapshot from our neck of the woods

The last several weeks have passed in a blur – not a bad blur, but a blur all the same. I’m tired, and although we’ve been on the go and I’ve been travelling more than usual for work, this is mainly due to my penchant for going to bed at midnight, 1am and sometimes even later. I’d ask Chris to drag me up the stairs to bed but he’s just as bad as me in this department.

I don’t have time revel in this pregnancy as I did the first time around. I still subscribe to the weekly update emails, but I rarely a spare moment or feel compelled to read them. Pregnancy comes with less of the ‘wonder’ element. My main focus is keeping up with an active toddler! Here are some of our updates:

LLC: Dynamic, opinionated, feisty, affectionate with a rapidly expanding vocabulary and love of the ‘repeat after mama’ game. She’s really into dancing, drumming even though we don’t have a drum set (but with real drum sticks – totally dangerous) and singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ Our fab friends from Devon just stayed for the weekend with their little toddler and the two girls managed to play and share together with a moderate amount of violence and paddies. Result!

Pregnancy: I’m now at 19 weeks and my bump is definitely bigger than it was at this point with LLC. Alice at More than Toast aptly says this is because the second time around your “abs are shot to shit,” or something like that and I think she’s on the money. Dressing has become a fun game, since many of my regular clothes no longer fit but my old maternity wear is mostly too baggy. It’s getting harder to flip over in bed from one side to the other without feeling like I might pull something and I’ve regularly felt the baby moving about for the last couple of weeks.

Exercise with Bump: Keeping fit is important to me, and issues aside, I plan to keep running until the weather gets too bad, or my bump obstructs my view of my feet! I’ve also re-started pregnancy yoga, which is some lovely, incense fuelled zen time for me. Having solely used yoga breathing as my method of pain relief for LLC, returning to this class was really important to me.

Halloween: American festivity runs through my veins, so I enjoy that Halloween has become more celebrated in the UK. Aside from retailers totally cashing in, I enjoy carving pumpkins and singing witch songs to LLC.  It's actually a great creative avenue for kids. We dressed her as pumpkin and she went to her first late-night costume party where she sampled an array of normal and spooky food and chased after balloons before crashing out on her nap-mat.

Work: Very busy. I don’t tend to discuss my job here on the blog but I benefit from working part-time for an employer that affords me lots of opportunity. Things are going well for me in this department though a side affect lately has been an aversion of the computer after hours, cutting in to my blog time and making me fall seriously behind on emails. Sigh.

So that’s life right now. Nothing riveting, but very full. Although I’ve been quite quiet on this blog lately I have lots I’d likely to write about here so hopefully I’ll re-find some sort of balance. Watch this space 