Bradley update

Well, it's about that time! We are scheduled to be induced Thursday morning, bright and early at 5:30 am, woo hoo! My appointment last week went really well. He is measuring about 2 weeks ahead as an average (Ryan was measuring 4 weeks ahead at this point). His head was in the 68% and tummy in the 98% (the size of a 40 week baby)- nice. I am pretty sure Ryan's head was well over the 100% range when born, so I am very interested to see how different Bradley might be. He also was only measuring 8lb 1oz as of last Thursday, so he could definitely be under 9lbs (unlike his chubby 9lb 9 oz big brother) and I am pumped!

I have been progressing really well over the past month, so my doctor isn't too concerned with inducing. I'll be 38 weeks 1 day when it all goes down (Hopefully. unlike last time when there weren't enough beds for me and we got delayed by a day).

Ryan seems really excited. Some of our best friends have had babies over the past few weeks, so he is really getting to see what newborns are like at this age. He keeps saying that there are "too many babies" and then lists them off "Baby Henry, Lucia, Bradley, and CJ (who is not born yet, but we just had a baby shower for him)." It is pretty cute. Sarah brought her lil cutie over this past weekend while they were visiting from Dallas. Ryan at first had told me that he did not want him there, but by the end, was pretty obsessed. He kept asking if Henry could come play in his room, or if he would talk, or why he wasn't walking. There is definitely going to be a lot to learn over the coming months. I am sure part of my nervousness was that it wasn't my kid, but I swear I was on the edge of my seat the entire time they were here, thinking Ryan would either step on him, hit him in the head (which he did ram one of his cars into him), or just knock him over. One funny thing was that Sarah had me hold him once she finished feeding and I totally don't even remember how to burp a newborn. I was so awkward, it was pretty hilarious! Once he was awake and fed, Sarah laid him on a blanket on the floor and Ryan followed suit by laying down his blanket to lie right next to him. It was so sweet and made me even more excited for lil brother :)

 

I think Ryan is pretty aware the Bradley is on his way. I packed a few things this weekend for the hospital and Ryan was asking if we were going to the hospital to pick him up. Something like that :) He keeps talking about he is going to share his toys with him and will have to be quiet once he is here so that he doesn't get a headache, haha. We've been drilling these rules into his head for months now! He also likes to pretend he is carrying his own baby, which is his puppy.

We are all pretty excited around here and have no idea what we are about to get ourselves into, but guess we will figure it out as we go! Next time I blog, we should have another lil one to report on :)

Christmas or BUST

Well in our family this year, Christmas activities have been somewhat of a bust. I had the intentions of trying to do as much fun, Christmas type of activities with Ryan as I could before Bradley came since we won't be celebrating Christmas in our normal fashion this year, but nothing has gone according to plan.

We first started with trying to meet Santa Claus. His school has a neat bookfair where Santa comes and you can schedule an appointment with him (and pay an arm and a leg for it, too) so that you don't have to wait in the long lines, watching every other kid have an emotional breakdown all the while scaring every other kid in line. So I put him in his cute shirt and off we went. I have never seen him so scared in his life. It was worse than watching a kid scream and cry and turn beat red. He did none of that. He jumped in my arms, squeezed my neck so tight, and just shook convulsively, begging not to have to see him. He was petrified. What made me feel worse was that we stayed for about 30 minutes trying, and he was trying to rationalize the whole ordeal and work up the courage, but just couldn't do it. He didn't want the candycane, any promise of treats, nothing could even get him close. So we saved the $40 and headed home. For whatever reason, I don't think I would have felt as bad if he just sat on his lap and cried, but I couldn't bear making him do it when he was so in tune with what was happening and knew what was going on.

Fast forward a few days, we headed to Matt and Jill's new house in Katy for a breakfast with Santa party. We talked up how it was going to be a fun party the whole way there, thinking if he was in a more familiar place, he would be okay with the whole Santa thing. Nope. Not the case. He didn't even want to be inside the house while Santa was there. So needless to say, fail #2. He did go in toward the very end while Santa was reading and singing with all of the kids and admired him from a distance.

Now, all he can talk about his how he does not want Santa coming to his house. If you ask him what he wants for Christmas, he says, "I don't want ANYTHING" (in a really rude tone). He begs me all the time to promise that Santa will not come into his room at night. Today he actually asked if he would be coming in the back door. We have tried the Elf on a Shelf as well and he is a little skeptical of him. He doesn't understand why you can't touch him and why he doesn't talk back to you (I don't blame him, it is a little strange). He has now decided that he wants a Blue Fire Truck and a Castle for Christmas. Not sure what we can really do about the first item. He does however LOVE to sing Christmas Carols and look at the lights, so that is fun.

The following weekend, our neighborhood has a fun snow day at the park down the street. We have gone the past two years and I was really looking forward to attending this year. Well, I woke up extremely nauseous and majorly swollen, so I was out. Wes finally talked him in to the two of them going in the 80 degree and 100% humidity weather. He wasn't interested in really anything to do with the Christmas events that were planned and mainly just played at the park. I think he may have spent a few minutes in the "snow" they brought in, but that was it.

That afternoon, we decided to head to College Station to go to Santa's Wonderland to drive through and look at all of the lights. We drove up through his nap so that we could head to campus for a bit first. In his 2.5+ years of his life, we have never taken him to A&M, oops! So, we met Allie, Wes' sister up there to walk around and check out the newly remodeled MSC. It was really neat. Ryan had so much fun running around outside and playing in the leaves.

Throwing money in Rudder Fountain

 He would run as far away as he could, gather a few leaves, and bring them back to us.

 Then, he proceeded to start stuffing them in his pocket one by one.

 The next Johnny Manziel

After running around campus, we went to our favorite spot, Wings N More to meet up with the Williams' and chowed down on tons of chicken tenders and fries (the meal alone was worth the trip!). So we headed toward Santa's Wonderland right a 6pm when it opened and proceeded to wait almost 45 minutes in traffic to travel 1 mile to get to the parking lot. As soon as we do get to the lot, we realize that we missed the cut off before the parking lot became full by about 10 cars. Awesome. So we had two options. One - was to drive about .50-.75 miles down the road and park on the side of the road and walk. Or, two - cross back over the freeway, park in a different lot to be shuttled over, but still having to wait in the traffic all over again. Well,  I can tell you that Wes had absolutely no interest in option 2 and we all knew that I really couldn't do the walk both ways, so we gave up (leaving the Williams' behind). We definitely know more for next year and to go during the week. Luckily, we hadn't talked it up too much, so he was content with a blizzard from Dairy Queen in Navasota.

Last week was his MDO Christmas party. I didn't have my camera but snapped a few cute pics with my phone.

 Here is my sweet boy in his Christmas PJs!

Oh well, we've tried. I know he won't remember any of this anyway so it's just me being a crazy mom thinking everything should go according to plan, ha! Merry Christmas everyone!