It’s a new year, but there’s not much else new around here. Everyone survived Christmas, more or less, and New Year’s was pretty quiet. I’m now looking forward to our Edmonton getaway, but that’s still a little ways off.

We’ve been trying to explain to Justin about the new baby, but we’re not sure how much he really understands. He gets excited when you tell him he’s going to be a big brother, but he gets equally excited when the street light in front of our house comes on, so who knows. In the last couple days we’ve started asking him where the baby is, and he very gently puts his hand on my belly, so maybe he knows more than we think.

The weather’s been pretty mild (which is good, as I can no longer zip up my coat if I plan to sit down), but I’m still sick of the snow and the ice and the inconvenience of having to get out boots and gloves and hats and things whenever we leave the house. Bring on spring!

At least you can say this Christmas will be memorable. After everyone went to bed Christmas Eve, Dave developed stomach pains and spent most of the night throwing up in a garbage can. Rob came down with the same malady Christmas Day, and this morning Mom woke up feeling queasy. We’d planned on using paper plates for Christmas dinner cause I don’t have enough place settings for everyone; that didn’t end up being a problem, as only six out of eight people were eating anyway. On the up side, Justin is feeling fine and having lots of fun with whoever can still get out of bed. Ho ho ho.

Time to make the rounds with Gravol…

My very favorite holiday of the whole year is only one week away, and that’s cool. My family arrives this Friday for a four-day stay — which means I will have live-in child care for four straight days. That, to me, is a very happy holiday.

One of my brothers just got engaged, so we’ll have to haul Justin and the new baby out to Saskatoon for the wedding sometime next summer. There will actually be two weddings (the bride is from the Philippines and her whole extremely Catholic family is there, so that’s where they’ll do the big church wedding) but no way am I shlepping two kids across the Pacific. It’ll be enough of a nightmare trying to get to Saskatoon with a newborn and a toddler. I’m really looking forward to a family wedding, but I’m just not sure about the logistics.

Merry Christmas everybody!

I got my first look at the new baby when I had my ultrasound today. Chris wasn’t actually there (Justin was napping, so someone had to be home) but he didn’t figure he’d miss much, since we saw next to nothing on Justin’s ultrasound. This time it was much better, though — the technician even managed to get some great views of baby’s face. Actually seeing a little person in there is so amazing! (Check out the Pregnancy Pics photo gallery to see the best picture.)

We’re all over that nasty stomach flu and are getting into the spirit of the holidays. The gifts are bought and wrapped, Chris and I put the tree up this morning and did our decorating, I’m getting my meal planning done…all good.

Chris is off to a conference in Florida this week (lucky stiff!) but my dad is coming out to help me with the toddler, so that should be good. Justin’s always happy to have more minions around.

I had to get out a bigger maternity top this morning. I don’t get the apparel industry: how come maternity clothes almost never have pockets, but the clothes for my one-year-old are full of them?

It’s been a rough few days around the Lee household. Justin started throwing up on Friday, I succumbed on Saturday and Chris had a touch of illness on Sunday. Justin and Chris seemed to be back to normal yesterday, but Justin threw up again early this morning, so I could be in for another long day. Fortunately, Chris took a sick day yesterday and was thus able to chase the little guy around while I lay on the couch wanting to die.

On the up side, baby doesn’t seem to be affected much. I’ve been feeling plenty of kicks and squirms, so at least we know he/she is still active. I seem to have dropped a couple pounds, though, so we’ll see what my doctor says about that at my appointment tomorrow.

Time to try some solid food…

Sometimes people ask me if I miss my job, and to be honest I don’t really think about it. I’m happy to be home with Justin, seeing all the new things he can do and knowing that I’ll never get these years back again. There are always those days when I wish I could just get away from it all for a while, but I’ve never really wished I was sitting in an office somewhere. It’s especially rewarding at home now that Justin has finally started showing some affection (he actually hugs us now!)

We noticed the other day that he’s grown another inch — he’s now 35 inches tall. If you buy into the theory that a person reaches half their adult height at age two (which Justin won’t be until March), it would seem that he’s going to tower over most of his relatives. Unreal.

I too am growing (as you can see by the new Pregnancy Pics photo gallery), but I’m going out, not up. I can’t believe how much bigger I am with this baby than I was with Justin, but I blame him for stretching things out. A friend of mine who’s due a few weeks before me just had her ultrasound and discovered she’s having twins (she already has a two-year-old…God help her). My ultrasound is two weeks away and I’m counting on not getting news like that. Yikes.

Justin was an exceptionally good sleeper right from day one, so it’s been mighty frustrating lately having him throw random screaming fits at odd hours of the night. He’s the happiest guy in the world during the day, but some nights have been a little challenging, and we wish we knew why. I’m hoping it’s just a phase he’ll get through before the next baby arrives.

On that front, things are looking up. The magical energy boost of the second trimester has finally taken effect and I can get through the day without feeling like I need a nap every other hour. I’ve long since grown out of my regular clothes but maternity stuff is still too large, so I try to wear stretchy sweat pants as often as possible — which is pretty often, considering I’m a stay-at-home mom. Last time I managed to commandeer some of Chris’s wardrobe (I even wore one of his T-shirts to the hospital the day we had Justin), which will be even easier this time cause we don’t work in the same office anymore (it just looks bad when you show up at work wearing the same thing your co-worker husband wore a week ago).

Happy Halloween everybody!

Justin had some rough nights last week but seems to have settled down into a routine now, which is good for everybody. He’s been sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but the toddler bed we ordered showed up today, so I’m a little anxious about how he’ll take to that. We wait and see…

I’m going to be 30 in January and wanted to do something special, so we’ve arranged to leave Justin and go to West Edmonton Mall for a weekend. Edmonton is hardly a hot January destination, but I’m looking forward to getting away by ourselves. We’re using points to fly so we splurged on a theme room at the Fantasyland Hotel, which is pretty cool. We love the waterpark at West Ed, but I’ll be pretty large by then, so I bought a maternity swim suit today that strongly resembles a tent. I guess pregnant women can’t be picky about looks.

We have a new, easily updatable photo gallery (see the top link on the right sidebar), so you may want to update your bookmarks. That’s where all the new stuff will go.