Pregnancy Update: 26 weeks

And another 4 weeks of pregnancy have passed! I will say this pregnancy is going pretty quickly. When I was pregnant with Paul I remember people commenting on how fast the pregnancy was going and I wanted to say, "FOR WHO???' Ha. But this time around, I can say it is going by pretty quickly! 

Baby size:  the baby is compared to the size of a bunch of scallions - guessing that's the length comparison because last week it was the size of a rutabaga. The vegetable comparison are so weird! He's close to 2 pounds and 14" long. 

Here are a couple of bump pics. I'm sooo much bigger than I was with Paul! I carried small with him, and I'm probably still smaller than the average woman thanks to my height/long torso, but I feel HUGE. Excuse the hair in the photos below. I tend to take these bump pics before showering so my hair is always a mess!

24 weeks

26 weeks, although I look smaller than 24 weeks in this photo, probably because I'm not wearing a maternity shirt?

Sex of the baby: boy! 

Name progress:  We have 3 potential names but are leaning towards one. We haven't made a decision and probably won't until closer to the birth. But I'm glad we at least have some options we both like. There have been a lot of vetoes in this process! I really wanted Samuel (shortened to Sam) but Phil hated the alliteration (our last name starts with an S)! Oddly, I really liked the alliteration! And Phil really wanted Peter but I said no way, Jose. Peter and Paul is just too cutesy. I mean there is a children's song about birds named Peter and Paul. Plus it's just a bit too biblical for my liking, and I can't handle another P name! I already will say Phil instead of Paul and vice versa so I was a hard no on another P name! We won't be sharing the name until the baby is born to avoid people's strong and at times rude opinions!

Symptoms/RA management: My RA has been OK. I've had a few flares but upping my prednisone dose and icing takes care of them. I've also been having some back pain so have been seeing a chiropractor who specializes in prenatal care. Some of my low back pain is related to weakness in my left hip/glute. I wasn't surprised to hear about that weakness because that is the hip that I had surgery on in 2016 to repair a labral tear.

Recent/upcoming appointments: I had my 24 week appointment 2 weeks ago and all went well at that. We talked about the plan for my c-section. She's recommending we take Paul out of daycare and isolate for 7-10 days before delivery, and have anyone who is caring for Paul isolate during that time as well. It's good to know this ahead of time so we can plan and make sure my parents (they will take care of Paul while we are in the hospital) also isolate. They could spend Thanksgiving with us, though, but we'll see what plan we come up with. I also have a back-up plan in case the baby comes early - one of my best friends whose kids go to the same daycare said they'd love to be our back-up option!

My next appointment is at 28 when I enter the 3rd tri. I'll have the glucose test which I KNOW I'm going to fail since I'm on prednisone (it raises your blood sugar). I'll also have a growth ultrasound to make sure the umbilical cord attachment issue that was detected at 20 weeks isn't impacting his growth. I doubt it is since my stomach sure is growing!

Sleep:  I continue to deal with intermittent insomnia. I probably get up during the night to read about 3-4 nights/week. It's annoying but insomnia is super common in pregnancy. Usually I can fall asleep after 10-15 minutes of reading but sometimes I'm up for over an hour which is very annoying. Weekend naps are a life saver!!

Cravings/favorite foods and aversions: I don't really have any cravings but I have been enjoying more sweets than usual knowing that I'll be on a strict gestational diabetes diet come mid-September. I'm not going overboard, I'm just letting myself have ice cream, GF muffins from my favorite coffee shop, PSLs, the occasional mocha from Caribou, etc. The GD diet is very restrictive - I will basically eat no sweets and have to watch my carb intake super closely, including things like fruit. So I feel I earned some care-free weeks leading up the third tri!

Exercise:  I still haven't fit strength training into my routine yet but I still hope to do that. I think when the weather cools down I will do some strength training in the basement while Paul plays with his toys down there after school. Right now we try to be outdoors if it's not beastly hot out! I'm also counting all the acorn sweeping/pick-up/raking I've done as a workout. Oak trees are pretty but dang they are a mess! I try to take a walk 5 days/week and those feel great and really get my heart rate up. It doesn't take much to get your heart rate up when you are pregnant! For example, my resting heart rate is about 72 right now but normally it's around 58-60 when I'm not pregnant!

Recent baby prep/decisions:  The baby's room was painted while we were at the lake but that's all we've done with that room. We'll wait until January or later to move furniture around because for now Phil likes to use it as his office on the days he works from home. Eventually, we'll move Paul's changing table into that room, and move the dresser that is in the office/baby room into Paul's room. And then we'll wait and see if we need to buy a crib. I'm going to guess we'll need to because Paul shows no signs of being done with his crib. He's never attempted to crawl out of it and loves his crib so we'll keep him in there as long as we can!

Mood: Pretty good except I was feeling so OVER SUMMER last week when it was so hot and humid. Sorry to all the summer lovers out there! I'm just ready for cooler fall temps but drier air has arrived and it's been beautiful lately! 

3 Things Thursday

Happy almost Friday.It's been a hot, steamy week here but we have cooler temps in the forecast and I am here for that!!! Here are 3 things on my mind today!

1. When I was up at my parents lake home, my mom showed me some papers she found when she was cleaning out a desk. One thing she found was a collection of questions that must have been for a Mother's Day project. There wasn't a date on it, but I am going to guess I did this around 4th or 5th grade. This answer about gift giving really struck me!

In case you can't read my cursive (my handwriting has always been pretty bad!), my answer to "If I could give my mother something special just from me it would be... was "not something that would (be) material. I think I would give her a kiss or a hug."

Those who know me well know that gifts are NOT my thing (gifts is the dead last love language for both Phil and me). I guess I was a little surprised to read that gifts were not my love language/something I was super interested in from a young age. Don't get me wrong - I loved receiving gifts as a child! Christmas was such an exciting time with the piles of presents under the tree and I have great memories of my dad going to work later on the morning of my birthday so he could be there with my mom in the morning to greet me, sing happy birthday, and give me my gifts. But clearly from a young age I favored non-material gifts. I wonder how Paul will turn out? I'm guessing as he gets older, gifts won't be his thing either since both parents aren't big into gifts.

2. My garden has been growing like crazy lately thanks to the heat we've had! I planted fewer vegetables this year but what I planted has done very well. This was my garden haul from Tuesday. Sooo many cucumbers!

I used 4 of the cucumbers to make "creamy cucumbers" which is a dish my mom made lots when I was growing up. The dressing is made from mayo, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. Phil and Paul won't eat this so I will work through this over the next several days! I know it doesn't look super appetizing but trust me, it's so good and screams summer to me!

3. How funny is this picture of Paul sleeping from Monday night? He looks like he's practicing for a future role as Joseph in the Christmas story. Ha. I tried to take it off his head because he looked pretty hot but he was so wrapped up in it that I figured I would wake him if I tried to get it off so I just ave up and let him be. Every night before I go to bed, I go in and check on him and about half the time I end up taking a picture of him. There is just nothing sweeter than a sleeping child. Paul's at a stage where he can really, really try our patience as he's in the boundary-testing phase of toddlerhood. But then I go in and look at him sleeping and think, "he's such a little angel!"

What are 3 thoughts on your mind today? 

Weekend Recap

It was another hot, steamy weekend here in Minneapolis. I don't know how I went from living in the Midwest to living in Florida??? Seriously, it's been so hot and humid here this summer - the hottest, most humid summer I can recall, and of course that coincides with me being pregnant. So I am definitely dreaming about cooler fall temps!! I mean I usually love summer, but it's been too hot many days for us to go outside after nap time due to the heat index! But despite all that, we still had a good weekend.

Friday afternoon got off to a rough start as Paul got sent home from daycare for constipation. They would normally keep him for an issue like that, but he was crying and screaming. He's always struggled w/ constipation since getting off breast milk, but we thought it was getting better so hadn't been giving him miralax daily (which is what his doctor recommended we do). So Phil picked him up after lunch. Luckily he napped for over 2 hours so we were both able to work. And the constipation resolved after nap time (TMI? Sorry!), but not without a lot of tears and screaming from Paul. :( Poor little guy.

On Friday night, I finally got around to opening a package that came in the mail earlier this week from my friend Erin in PA. We've been very lucky to be on the receiving end of some awesome hand-me-downs. She sent me 2 pairs of swishy track pants and a really cute fleece vest. The vest will fit this fall and maybe Paul will grow into the 2T pants by the spring? We'll see (he's currently mostly in 18m bottoms). She also sent him an "indestructible" book called "Things That Go" which was of course a HUGE hit for Paul since he's obsessed with anything with wheels. The book ended up having to go on "time-out" on Saturday afternoon, though (that's what we do with toys he isn't playing nicely with). When we facetimed my parents on Saturday morning, I explained how the book was indestructible. Apparently, Paul figured out what that meant so was trying to fold it or roll it up to look through it, etc. Whoops. Phil said I should not have went on about how cool this indestructible book was (it's also washable) as Paul doesn't need to know that! Lesson learned. But seriously, the book is really cool and I will add more to our collection when the baby starts getting into books. And yes, Paul is not wearing pants in the photos below. Pants are pretty optional for him at home.

That night we grilled turkey burgers and had corn on the cob and green beans from my garden. Yum!

On Saturday morning, I headed over to my friend Courtney's house for a play date. Phil's cousin was coming over to work on projects with Phil so I knew it would be best for us to be out of the house. We were over there for 3 hours. Some other kids from daycare were there so there were 6 kids total. I will say that Paul does not play super well with the other kids at these play dates. There are 2 sets of siblings who live 1 house apart so they play together a ton, and then the other little boy who came over is in the same class at one of the kids. So Paul doesn't know any of them super well since they aren't in his same class. And they are a little more rambunctious/adventurous that Paul so he likes to watch them play. Paul is extremely cautious so things like a bouncy house scare him. But he still has a great time playing with different toys and it's so good for me to get some adult conversation in while watching him. In the next month or so, Paul will be in the same classroom as 2 of the 5 kids that were there on Saturday so maybe at that point he'll play better? We'll see. He is a very very social kid at school so I'm telling myself not to worry about him being more of a loner at these play dates.

It got hotter as the day progressed on Saturday so we did not go outside after nap. Womp womp. So I was very happy when bedtime rolled around! Despite the heat and humidity, I made turkey wild rice soup with the leftover turkey from the weekend before. It was so good - I just needed a fan blowing on me while I ate it. ;)

On Sunday morning, we met a friend and her son at a local park for a play date. Our boys are 3 days apart, but you'd never guess it by looking at them as her son is 40 lbs and probably has 4-5" on Paul! It was kind of comical to see them together as her son looks like a kindergartner! The park was a little busier than I'd like and I feel like the parents were not watching their kids well, which was annoying. Like Paul start to go down a slide and another kid would start to climb up the slide, so I'd have to tell the older kid to give Paul a chance to come down first. So I tried to steer Paul towards quieter areas of the park. He loved the park so was very sad when we left, but we'd been there for over 1.5 hours and it was so hot/humid.

When we got home, we had a egg bake that I'd assembled that morning that had broccoli, ground sausage and red peppers from my garden. It was really good! Paul went down for a nap and I took a solid nap, too, as I had been up for about 2 hours during the night thanks to pregnancy insomnia! While I napped, Phil raked up acorns and mowed our lawn. I was not envious of his outdoor work in the heat!!

It was too hot to go outside after nap so we stayed inside for the rest of the day. I'm really glad we have a finished basement - we have a basketball hoop and train table down there. On days when we are cooped up inside, we end up spending a lot of time down there!

So all in all, it was a good weekend. I had a lot of solo time with Paul since Phil was busy with house projects on Saturday and grocery shopped and swam while we were at the park on Sunday. I told him at the end of the weekend that I was mentally fatigued but knew he was physically fatigued. Hopefully next weekend I'll have less solo time with Paul as it can really wear me out since he has soooo much energy!

How was your weekend? Is it hot and humid where you are? Are you dreaming of fall like I am?

TGIF!

Happy Friday! I'm almost through my first week back at work after having 6 days off. It wasn't hard for me to get back into the work groove, though. I love vacations, but I also love to get back on a normal schedule. here is how our week shaped up!

The book I'm reading is Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman. I have no idea what prompted me to add this book to my library hold list. I usually add a tag saying where I got the recommendation (it's usually from Modern Mrs. Darcy, From the Front Porch podcast or Indiebound.org) but I didn't in this case. But I decided to still read it even though there were mixed reviews. I just started it last night and only lasted for 20 minutes before turning off my light as I was extra tired but so far the writing style is engaging!

The high of my week was enjoying a salad from my favorite place in downtown Minneapolis (The Green and the Grain). Phil brought it home for me on Wednesday. I get so burned out on eating at home so I usually have him buy a salad from this place once a week. It's such a treat as their salads are soooo good!

The low of my week was dealing with the bureaucracy of our medical system. I'm on hydroxycloroquin (you know, Trump's COVID wonder drug that has not evidence of being helpful - eye roll) for RA and it requires a special vision test once a year. Last year I had it done at my eye doctor's but then it wasn't covered by insurance as it was considered out-of-network on my medical insurance. So my doctor said to just go to the ophthalmology department of the system she works for. But when I called to schedule it, they said they couldn't order this test unless I have a baseline eye exam first - which is unnecessary since I get that done by the optometrist I see. But I was like - whatever it takes to get this special test done. So I had that appointment this week but when the doctor came in, she said it really wasn't necessary to have me come in for a baseline eye exam. She apologized for me having to come in for an extra appointment that wasn't necessary. I'm just burned out on medical appointments, and it's just going to get worse if I get diagnosed with gestational diabetes because then I will have to see an endocrinologist, which feels like a total waste of time since I technically don't have GD - it just appears like I do since I'm on prednisone. Anyways, I know all these appointments will be fully paid for by insurance since I already met my out-of-pocket maximum. It just gets tiring to go to all these appointments. Luckily my boss and colleagues are very understanding and don't mind that I have so dang many appointments!

A recipe I made was roasted turkey breast with mashed potatoes and gravy. We got a turkey breast on sale this summer and while I wanted to wait until it was cooler to make it since having your oven on for 1.5-2 hours in the summer is not ideal. But Phil wanted to lighten up our freezer inventory, so we had this on Sunday. Usually Paul loves turkey breast but he wouldn't eat it! Oh well - his loss! We'll use the leftovers to make wild rice soup this weekend - which is not at all a summer meal but we eat soup year round! 

A show we are watching is Brooklyn 9-9. We are on the last season and I will say it's kind of limping to the finish line. The shows in the last several seasons have been so hit or miss. But we don't have any other show we want to watch together so we decided to finish this show. 

The best money spent was on this "Little Orchard" board game for Paul. I ordered it after my friend Amber recommended it on Instagram. Her daughter, who is only 3 months older than Paul, loved it so I figured Paul would enjoy it, too. We don't have any kid board games so I want to start to build a collection of them for Paul. Hopefully he likes this one as I need lots of ideas for indoor activities when the weather turns colder!

My plans this weekend include staying in tonight. We'll make turkey burgers (the greek ones I posted recently), corn on the cob and green beans from my garden. Tomorrow we don't have any plans but Phil's cousin is coming over to help with a list of little house projects, like getting our closet doors properly hung. Seriously not a single closet door works in this house - they are all off-track/missing some hardware! So I will entertain Paul while daddy and cousin Brian work on house stuff. On Sunday morning, Paul and I have a play date with my friend and her 2 kids at a local park. I haven't seen this friend since January! She's an OB so I tend to pick her brain about things as she's always willing to talk pregnancy stuff with me. And our boys are only 3 days apart so hopefully they will play together. That's about it for plans, though!

Bonus Paul photos!

We've had some rough mornings with Paul. He is so not a morning person and even though he's usually awake when we go in to get him ready for school, he is in the absolute worst mood and has struggled with the transition back to school after being with us on vacation. And we've had some tough meal-times, too. So the frustration level has been higher in our house this week. But then I go in and check on him before I go to bed and he looks like such an angel in his sleep and I'm like 'awwww, look at my baby!' 

We have an oak tree in our backyard and man is it a messy tree to have! In the spring it drops this sticky moss-like substance and now it's dropping acorns. A bunch fell off during strong storms last weekend (the storm that knocked out our power for 18 hours!) but there are still acorns dropping all the dang time. One night last week, I convinced Paul that the shovel was an excavator (he's super into construction equipment) so he helped scoop up the pile of acorns I had swept. It worked well for awhile until he decided it was more fun to destroy mom's piles of acorns! Womp womp.

How was your week? What was your high? 

Our August Lake Vacation

Happy Monday! I'm back from our relaxing week at my parents lake home in Battle Lake, MN. I had been looking forward to this trip for so long but it sure went by in a flash. We hadn't been to the lake since early November. Usually I'm up there about once a month during the summer months, but COVID has prevented that from happening. Case counts in their area are low, but between Paul being in daycare and potentially being an asymptomatic carrier and me being pregnant/immune compromised due to my RA meds, we've been very cautious. This is the only time we'll be up the the lake until sometime in 2021. But I am glad we were able to go up there for 5 days of relaxation.

Here's a photo-heavy recap of our time at the lake!

Water play:

Paul was not as into the water as I hoped/thought he would be. He enjoyed swimming in the lake with me earlier this summer but for the last month he has not been interested. We did get him in the lake a couple of times but he was "all done" sooner than we hoped he would be. But oh well - hopefully he embraces the water more as he gets older. It will help when we can get him back in swimming lessons. He did enjoy going in the kayak with us a couple of times.

Speaking of water, Phil did his 2nd annual swim across the lake.We estimate that it's over 1.5 miles across. The picture below was taken at he start of his swim. I kayaked alongside him. It took him 1 hour 8 minutes to swim across. Then the wind came up on our way back and it took us 40 minutes to kayak back! I ended up getting braxton hicks contractions (which are totally safe/not a big deal - just surprising to already feel them at 23 weeks) as it was pretty strenuous to paddle into the wind!

We went on one pontoon ride. I had Paul wear his infant life jacket and he HATED it. It's so bulky on him. In hindsight, I should have put him in his puddle jumper which is less restrictive. We had him drive the boat for a while with daddy but he was not impressed as you can tell from his expression!

Paul's favorite thing to do by the water was feeding crackers to the fishies. He also go to see a huge muskie that tends to hind under my parents dock. After he saw that, every fish he saw was a muskie in his eyes.

Another thing he enjoyed was playing with this splash pad I bought this spring. We had tried to use it at home but he hated it - I think because the water from our hydrant is freezing cold. My parents have a pump that uses water from the lake which is pretty warm so we hooked the splash pad up to that and he had a blast. 

New-to-Paul toys:

Paul played really well during our time up at the lake since there were so many "new" toys to discover. They are new to him but quite old as most are toys that me and my siblings played with. His favorite thing to play with was this tackle box full of cars and trucks. He had fun lining them up.

He also played with the golf set my parents had bought for my older nephews. Usually he will not take direction from Phil but he actually let Phil show him how to hit the ball.

2 of the 5 days at the lake were rainy but he didn't mind too much as he enjoyed playing indoors with puzzles and kitchen stuff from my youth. I think we might need to get him a small kitchen set at some point. He loved playing with the washer/dryer and all the different kitchen accessories. I have good memories of playing with these toys when I was young so it was fun to watch him get excited about them!

Grandparent time:

I did a terrible job of taking pictures of Paul with my parents. This is the only one I took all week! Parent fail! My mom got to read him lots of books and she got some alone time with him on the afternoon that Phil swam across the lake as he woke up early from his nap. During the week Paul kept saying he didn't want to go home and wanted to stay at papa-nana's house.

Other highlights:

Other highlights from the week included delicious meals, our nightly card games, Paul sleeping incredibly well (he slept past 8 some mornings!), happy hours on the patio (I brought my N/A Prosecco), and getting to celebrate my mom's 72nd birthday on Friday!

We ended up heading back on Friday afternoon as it was a really crappy day (I think they got over 3" of rain and it was super windy/nasty outside). It was nice to be able to get out house back in order on Friday night. The painters had left earlier just before we got home so we had a lot to do. Then we got hit with a big storm that night and lost power from 8pm on Friday until 3:30pm on Saturday... So we ended up going to Phil's mom's on Saturday morning and then to Phil's high school friend's house on a lake. I was relieved it was restored on Saturday afternoon! So not the best/smoothest return home but we got back on track on Sunday.

How was your week last week? Do you have any vacation plans for 2020? 

Pregnancy Update: 22 weeks

It feels like I JUST wrote my 18 week update - somehow 4 weeks have already gone by! Times flies when you are keeping up with a toddler. This pregnancy is going WAY faster than my one with Paul! Here's the latest! 

Baby size:  the baby is the length of a summer squash and weighs almost a pound. I swear the ultrasound tech told us he weighed 2 pounds at our 20 week ultrasound. I asked Phil and he also remembered her saying 2 pounds but we think that couldn't have been right! She must have meant 1 pound? I know he was measuring ahead but I doubt he was twice the size of the average baby at 22 weeks! 

I haven't been good about taking bump photos but here is one from around 22 weeks. With my dark shirt and the fireplace behind me, it's a little hard to see how big I am, but it gives you an idea. After losing weight during the first trimester, I had quite a jump between 16 and 20 weeks but my overall weight gain is fine and my doctor said it's normal to have a decent jump after losing weight in the first tri. Overall, I've gained 8 pounds so not too much in total. I only gained about 20 with Paul so that's my target for this pregnancy but if I gain more, so be it. 

Sex of the baby: boy! 

Symptoms/RA management: My RA had been better and I was just starting to taper down to a really low dose this week - and then I got a flare on Monday morning and another one last night. Womp womp. I think I need to give up on getting off prednisone. I was trying to get off it before my glucose test at 28 weeks as being on pred means I will for sure fail the test and end up with gestational diabetes. That's what happened last time so at least I know how to manage it. It's just a pain as it requires seeing a endocrinologist, non-stress tests and extra ultrasounds, not to mention watching my diet extremely close and pricking my finger 4 times/day. But I think all of that is better than painful flares so I'm just going to stay on prednisone and suck it up. It helps knowing this is my last pregnancy and I won't have to go through this again! 

Recent/upcoming appointments: I had my 20 week appointment shortly after the ultrasound and it was super reassuring. I was nervous about the umbilical cord issue but my OB made me feel much better about things and assured me that it really isn't a problem and that we'll just keep an eye on Pedro's growth (Pedro is my nickname for the baby - that WILL NOT be his name!!). I love my OB so much! 

Sleep:  I have insomnia about 2 nights/week and end up having to get up to read - sometimes multiple times/night. It's super annoying but so be it. 

Cravings/favorite foods and aversions: Nothing new to report here. Yogurt still is unappealing to me which is odd as it used to be something I ate every single day. I hope this goes away before I start the gestational diabetes diet because yogurt is a great snack since it's high in protein. 

Exercise:  My OB cleared me for some light weight lifting at my 20 week appointment but I have yet to start that... So I am just doing walks so far which is still a great form of exercise, especially when pregnant. I actually get into the cardio zone just going on walks since being pregnant raises my heart rate so dang easily!! One day when I was sleeping in the basement, I walked up the 2 flights of stairs to Paul's bedroom to help get him ready and Phil said, "did you just sprint up the stairs? You didn't need to do that!" since I was breathing so heavily. I was like, nope just walked up 2 flights of stairs while pregnant! 

Recent baby prep/decisions:  We are getting the interior walls of our main/upper levels plus the nursery painted while we are at the lake. Woo hoo! I am so excited about this as I've had paint swatches on lots of walls since February. Our main/upper walls will be Edgecomb gray which is a very neutral color. The baby's room will be Stonington Gray which has a blueish hue to it. It will be great to get this done! 

Mood: My mood continues to be pretty good. I'm annoyed with my RA but overall I remind myself things could be so much worse. The baby is healthy and I feel pretty good all in all. And again, I keep reminding myself that I don't have to go through this ever again!!! Also having an active 2yo really helps to take my mind off the pregnancy!

I'll be taking next week off from blogging/reading blogs while we are up at the lake as I want to unplug from technology as much as possible! My vacation actually starts tomorrow! We took Friday off so we can all get tested for COVID first thing in the morning and then we'll isolate and head to the lake as soon as we get our results back - hopefully by Sunday! 

What We Read in July

July was quite the reading month for me. I was shocked to add it up and realize I had read 11 books! This is not typical for me! But I read a lot of lighter, page-turners - hence the higher book count for the month. That brings my 2020 total of books read to 55! I am sure my pace will slow down, especially in December when the baby arrives, but I am guessing I'll end up reading around 80 books this year. Not bad!

I figured I'd break my books read into categories and a select a favorite from each since I didn't have any duds this month! 

Lighter Reads

I enjoyed all 5 of these books, but "The School of Essential Ingredients" was probably my favorite. It's about a cooking class that meets at a restaurant each week. We meet a different student in each chapter, but the various characters are weaved together throughout each chapter. It was a short, fast read! 

Fiction with some heft

These fiction reads had enough heft to not quite classify them as light reads. I loved both of them, but "The Boston Girl" was my favorite of the two. It's about a woman growing up in Boston in the 1900s. In this book, she's telling the story of her life to her granddaughter so it reads like an oral history. It's a page turner! I had a hard time putting it down each night!

Nonfiction reads

All of these were great, but "So You Want to Talk About Race" was my favorite, followed by "We're Going to Need More Wine." So You Want to Talk About Race is probably the best antiracist book I've read so far. In each chapter, she tackles a topic such as police brutality, affirmative action, etc. She weaves in her personal experiences and helps you talk about these controversial issues. We're Going to Need More Wine is a memoir by Gabriella Union. She was raped while working at Payless Shoes when she was young, so she talks about her experience with that and how it's impacted her life. She's extremely vulnerable and real in this memoir. 

Paul's reads

Paul has sort of 'graduated' from board books. We still read them but he can now read longer picture books which is exciting for me as they tend to have more of a story.

But first - what  is probably an unpopular opinion: I don't really like most of the Dr. Seuss books. I know they are meant to teach kids rhyming but they are so nonsensical with made-up words and choppy story lines. Like One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish stands out as one we don't like. Plus it's like 60 pages long! But Paul loves it so we continue to read it, but definitely NOT at bedtime!

Now that he's into longer books, I pulled out my favorite book from when I was young - "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." My mom gave me my copy at my baby shower. Gotta love my preschool handwriting. Also, you can see that some of the phone numbers I was practicing only had 5 digits - back in the 1980s, we only had to dial the last 5 digits for local numbers. I told Phil about this and he said that was NOT the case here in the Twin Cities area so I guess it was a rural America thing! Anyways, Paul loves this book! 

Another book he loves is "The Best Nest" by P.D. Eastman. We read this book in the hospital when Paul was getting his tubes back in November of 2018. It's about a bird couple who is looking for a house because Mrs. Bird hates their current house. At that point we were over a year into house search and Phil thought the book was hilarious (Mrs. Bird is kind of bossy and not so nice to Mr. Bird - that is NOT how I am, but I was definitely the one pushing us to buy a different house). So Phil tracked the book down - he had to order a used copy from Amazon as it's out of print. This is one of Paul's favorite books so now we get to relive the process of house hunting from a bird's perspective every day!

He also loves the Laura Numeroff books (If you give a cat a cupcake/moose a muffin/etc). They are cute and a fast read so we always read one at bedtime (he gets 4 books at bedtime so we try to pick shortish books). And lastly, he loves this 8 Little Planets book that my parents got him for Christmas 2 years ago. Phil reads this to him nearly every night and now he can ask Paul which planet we live on/which is red/which is the fastest/which one has rings, and Paul knows the answer. So he knows more about the planets than I do - for real. Science is really not my forte so Phil will be the one teaching him that kind of stuff!

What have you been reading lately? If you have kids, what books are they loving these days?