Summer is over and oh boy, was it a summer for the record book.
We kicked off the summer with a nice long vacation in Puerto Vallarta. Three weeks after our trip, we found out I'm pregnant! There's definitely something magical about Mexico for us.
Katy the day she came home from the hospital. She too was made in Mexico.
Here's a video of me telling Chris about the pregnancy via his father's day gift, which included the onesie pictured above. Folded inside the onesie were the results from my blood test confirming the pregnancy. In hindsight, a paper containing a bunch of lab numbers was not the best way to tell Chris the big news, but eventually he figured it out.
Shortly after we learned about the pregnancy, Chris became a partner at the firm where he has been working for the past couple of years. I'm super excited for Chris' new position. For the first seven years of our marriage, Chris sacrificed his career to follow me around. It feels good to prioritize his career now, watch him achieve one of his goals, and know for the first time in our marriage that we will live somewhere long term.
Two days after Chris became a partner, Chris and I went to our first sonogram. As soon as the doctor scanned across my uterus, before he uttered any words, I saw two blobs flit in and out of the screen. I immediately knew we were in for the biggest surprise yet.
That's right - those are twins!
Chris was so excited when the doctor confirmed that we have twins. I was...much more reserved. It took me a little longer to be excited about having two babies at once, which our doctor attributed to the fact that Chris doesn't have to carry and deliver them.
Within a week of learning about the twins, Chris and I decided to move to a town 45 minutes away, the town where Chris' office is located. By the end of the summer, we were closing on a new house and moving. Katy loved every single minute of the moving process. She was definitely the most enthusiastic mover I've ever seen.
One Sunday morning I left the house in order. I came home two hours later to a moving truck and a house being packed.
This girl LOVED playing in the middle of all the packing and with various packing supplies.
Katy was also VERY excited to load, unload, and ride in the moving truck.
As much as we complained about the big trees at our last home, here we are with even bigger trees.
Come visit us and I'll put the welcoming crew at the front door for you.
The only room in the house that looks somewhat "moved into." Check out the jungle in our back yard.
But let's talk about the twins. I know that's what you're dying to hear about. Telling people about the twins has been a blast. Katy spilled the beans to my mom at Target. My mom was so confused at first that it was almost comical.
Katy, it turns out, is a terrible secret keeper. She also tried to spill the beans to my grandma, my friend Rachella, and Katy's four-year-old friend Mattias. The latter was the most amusing. The conversation went something like this:
Katy: "We are going to have two babies."
Mattias, after thinking a minute: "We already have two babies in my house"
Mattias has two younger siblings, so the news of two babies was completely normal to him.
We announced the news to my brother-in-law and his family when they visited for a few days, at a restaurant appropriately named Los Cautes (Spanish for twins). When we told my brother Dennis I'm pregnant, he started asking questions about the pregnancy before I had time to add the twin detail. I answered all his questions in the plural: "they are due February 15," "we won't know the genders until they are born," and, "we haven't decided their names yet." He finally paused and asked, "Wait, are you having more than one baby?"
There have also been amusing video calls and text messages, an impromptu conference in a cramped pantry, and a group chat where someone responded with, "You shouldn't joke about something like that." Once we finally told all of our family, we had a potluck with some local friends and announced the twins as I was taking a group photo. I love Rachella's enthusiasm at the news.
It's Twins!
My sister-in-law recently sent me our first twin outfit. The tiny onesies made having twins feel like something tangible and real for the first time.
Although several big things happened this summer, most of the summer felt a little slow. My teaching duties ended in May, leaving a huge void in my time commitments. Due to pregnancy fatigue, I dropped several other commitments on my plate and spent most of the summer finding time to nap or rest. Unlike last summer, there were no trips to the museum and there were very few play dates. Katy and I made it to two library events all summer, we never made it to the local aquatic center, and I took Katy to the splash park for the first time after most of the older kids had already returned to school.
Furthermore, for most of the summer I didn't talk to anyone about the big things unfolding. We didn't reach the end of the first trimester until August, which is when we finally started telling people about the pregnancy. We decided not to tell people about the house until we announced the twins, because the twins were a factor in our decision to move. So, while all these bigs things were happening, and while I had a big void in my day-to-day routine due to a lack of commitments, I had lots of big news to just keep to myself. It made for a summer that felt as if it was dragging at times.
But now the cat is out of the bag. Chris became a partner, I'm pregnant with twins, and we moved. I didn't do much else this summer, but I think that's okay given all that's going on.
Katy bounced into the kitchen one hot afternoon in late August and exclaimed, "I want to make lemonade! I want to make lemonade! I know how!" I had several freshly picked lemons on hand, so I told her we could certainly make lemonade. But first I asked her, "Where did you learn to make lemonade?" Katy told me she learned on Daniel Tiger and proceeded to tell me how to make lemonade: squeeze some lemons, mix the lemon juice with water and sugar, and then pour the lemonade over ice.
All of this conversation took place in Spanish because this is the primary language I speak with Katy in the house. However, Katy watches Daniel Tiger in English because the Spanish episodes are very difficult to find in the United States.
Katy patiently watched me squeeze the lemons, all the while conversing with me in Spanish about how lemonade will cool you on a hot day, about the hot weather outside, and about how many lemons were left. After juicing all the lemons, I told Katy (in Spanish) that we needed to boil some water to dissolve the sugar. Katy looked at me very confused. I explained (still in Spanish) that if we combine the sugar with cold water, it won't mix well and will fall to the bottom of our pitcher. Katy paused as if she was thinking and then replied (in Spanish), "When you make lemonade in English, you don't have to do mix the sugar with hot water."
Katy's observation about how to make lemonade in English and Spanish was based on the fact that in Daniel Tiger, which she watches in English, Daniel Tiger does not dissolve his sugar in a small amount of hot water. When we made lemonade while conversing in Spanish, however, we did dissolve our sugar in hot water. Thus, her conclusion was that the recipe for lemonade was different in English and Spanish.
Everyone told me young, bilingual children will confuse their two languages, but confusion about how to complete tasks in different languages was certainly not what I expected.
It's that time of year again - another birthday! This year we celebrated a little earlier with dinner the day before my birthday.
I attended a meeting the evening of my birthday. When I arrived home, Katy ran/bounced to greet me at the door. She was exploding with excitement and a giant smile, and she was saying, "I have a gift for you, I have a gift for you!" She then ran to her room to retrieve the gift from its hiding spot under her bed and behind her cash register. As she carried the wrapped gift to me and placed it in my hands she asked, "Is it the camera you want?" Chris immediately cried out, "Katy!" I couldn't do anything but laugh and give Katy a big hug. Katy, however, was completely unaware of the impact of her prior words. She just looked at me very calmly and stated, "it's a camera," and then offered to open it for me.
Thank you Chris and Katy for a lovely birthday! I can't wait to use my new camera. And yes, it was the one I wanted.
Back in March, Katy moved out of her crib and into a new bed Chris built just for her. She calls her bed "Casa Cama" (house bed). Chris designed the bed with space for her play kitchen below and plenty of safety rails above, which are spaced according to building code (he is an architect, after all).
Disassembling the crib.
The new bed, ready to be used!
Shortly after installing the new bed, Katy discovered the hope chest my dad built for me. The chest is filled to the brim with blankets. After lying down on the cozy blankets inside the chest, Katy claimed the chest as her bed. Her disinterest in her casa cama, which was still fairly new, made Chris a little sad.
Discovering the chest and playing in it.
No more playing, just sleeping.
A week or two after Katy began sleeping in the chest, we took a trip to North Texas to visit family. During this trip, I showed my grandma a picture of Katy sleeping in the chest. I joked that my child was a vampire. My grandma was not amused. The next day, after a sleepless night of worry, my grandma urged me to make Katy sleep elsewhere for fear Katy's new bed should cause her serious injuries.
As luck would have it, or more likely as an answer my grandma's prayers, Katy had no interest in sleeping in the chest when we returned from our trip to north Texas. She was ready to return to her casa cama. I immediately informed my grandma that Katy was no longer sleeping in the chest. I did not, however, send my grandma a picture of Katy's casa cama. I'm not sure how she would react to the ladder and elevated sleeping platform, even if the safety rails meet building code.
