18 weeks tomorrow

Whoa, it has been a whole month since I have last posted!  Where did life run away with me?  Emma is keeping me very busy for sure, but I think the main culprit is the low temperature in winter, and the snow with its worries.  It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort just to keep the stairs and alley in front of the house clean, and we have had so much snow that we don't know where to put it anymore.  The very cold weather (-22C all the time) makes it difficult even to just get out for a bit: one cannot just put on shoes and go.  It takes a whole snowsuit into which I must coerce my daughter, running after her, pinning her down, etc.  You get the idea.  Then, just as I think I got it all done, she takes off her hat and throws it somewhere, preferably somewhere hard to find and/or reach.  Like behind the bed, where only she can fit!  She can be very naughty-sweet.

She is getting over her third or fourth ear infection of the year.  On top of that, we have decided to stop the night milk bottles, because she was getting up four times a night in the last month, and I was getting very tired and cranky.  She is still throwing a tamper tantrum every night at 3:30 am on the dot, but things are getting better.  Even though she is awake for about 20 min, and us with her, it sure beats waking up four times a night!

Baby-in-the-belly looks good on the ultrasound, and the cervix at 16.5 weeks was 3 cm long.  Not stellar, but also not worrisome.  The placenta was awfully close to the internal os, about 9 mm away from it, but I think that it will move as the pregnancy progresses.  I have another ultrasound scheduled on December 24, and then I am to see the OB on Dec 25 (he is on call so I guess it does not matter to him).  I am getting a little more nervous as we approach the date where I lost Adrian.  I noticed the amniotic leakage on Dec 27, and lost him on Jan 2.  So, as long as I get past these dates, (preferably by two months or more) I will feel better.  I am nervous again because this is a new cerclage, so it was not "tried and tested" with Emma.  But it was well placed, so I don't see why it would not work.

Emma is very cute and bright.  She sings a lot of songs, and likes to dance, and play on the piano (just pressing the keys, but I swear it sounds like music!) and to finger paint.  We are doing a lot of brush painting, but it always ends up with her putting her fingers in it, so I switch to the finger paint because it has been known to end up in her mouth a couple of times.

She is still very picky about food, but is not skinny, rather muscular and well built.  She likes stuffed cabbage leaves so I had to make some today, because I ran out of the frozen stash that I brought over from my mother.  These are not the easiest food to master, because although making them is not hard, making them well is an art form that took my mom many decades to tweak.  I am getting most of her tips, but I still feel like mine today turned out an 8/10.  I would have liked more tanginess, so next time I am putting lemon juice in the water that I am boiling them in.  Anyway, I digress.  Emma liked them a lot, and she will be eating them for lunch for the next week, so we are all happy.

So far I have gained 10 lb.  It is not too bad, but I fear the HOLIDAY WEIGHT MONSTER.  I am very bad at restraining myself in social situations, and most of the Romanian meals are very full of goodies.  Proof of my weakness is that yesterday, when we had our Christmas office party, I gained one pound for sure. Maybe more.  I really have to remember how hard it was to take off 30 lb that I have gained with Emma, and to never never never have to go back to that again.  I am just not ready for that kind of effort again, not with a toddler and a newborn in tow...

Anyway, I will try to post more regularly.  I write posts in my head, usually at 3 am when Emma wakes me up, sometimes chuckle to myself at something funny, and then forget about it when I wake up in the morning.  That is life.

PS.  Emma loves the Christmas tree.  Every morning she points to it and says:" look, mama maked it!"  I pointed out that papa is the one that went through the effort of bringing the tree in and installing it, I just decorated it, and then she says "look, papa maked it!" Such a cute little girl, love love love her.