Dear Paxton,

I said last time I wrote that I’d write soon on all your big adventures.  Needless to say, it’s been awhile, and a hundred things have changed.  Here’s what’s going on in our little world…

Turns out this pregnancy started much like last pregnancy, with the exception of the fact that we were completely shocked this time around.  I learned to balance the puking, the zofran, the teaching and the mama gig the best I could.  I learned to go to bed right after you go to bed and to eat every 2 minutes to try to keep the pukes away.  I always pictured our family with 2 or 3 kids, and all of them girls.  I don’t know why, that’s just what I pictured.  I didn’t know if the other two would be adopted or if there would even be another two.  The minute I found out I was pregnant, I thought it was a boy.  I knew you were a girl from the minute we saw that plus sign, and while I wasn’t 100% sure with this one, I had a hunch we’d be buying a lot of blue.

In late March, your dad and I flew out to Colorado for a job fair.  I was absolutely sick over this, but it wasn’t pregnancy type of sick…it was leaving you for the first time type of sick.  That’s a much harder job than I imagined.  There was once a day when Jersey was 6 months old and I took her to be spayed.  I had all these elaborate plans of getting the house cleaned and taking a nap, and doing all the things I couldn’t do when she was around.  Want to know what I did?  I sat in her spot on the couch and I cried.  I cried for hours, and then I cried some more.  I saw one of her toys, I cried.  I looked at her food bowl, I cried.  I saw a dog on tv, or one of those stinkin’ ASPCA commercials, and I cried.  The vet recommended that she stay overnight for observation… I picked her up 2 minutes after they called… and considering we lived 8 minutes from the vet, that was pretty impressive.

Leaving you was a million times worse.  Grammy and Pop-Pop were watching you, and I knew without a doubt that you wouldn’t think twice about me, but that didn’t stop me from missing you.  You see, the moment you were born, my heart was complete.  Anytime that you’re not with me…there’s a chunk of my heart that’s missing, that’s walking around somewhere else outside of my body.  Again, just like with Jersey, I had plans.  I thought I’d go out to eat with your dad, Uncle Logan and Aunt Kelsey and enjoy the fact that I wasn’t having food thrown on me or trying to worry about making sure you are eating, then just at the time I get ready for my first bite, you are finished and ready to get up.  I thought I’d sleep peacefully all night long, not waking up to check the monitor ten times an hour, just in case.  I thought we’d take advantage of not worrying about nap times and spend the whole day off on adventures.  Here’s what really happened… I cried.  I cried the whole way down the lane after we dropped you off, I cried the whole way to the airport.  I cried the entire flight… so much so that I wore my sunglasses on the plane.  Once you discover what your heart has been missing, it’s not easy to feel ‘incomplete’ again.  I cried when we went out to eat and the table next to us had a little kid.  I missed eating my food cold.  I missed saying goodnight prayers with you.  I missed being able to look at you all night long and know the rest of my heart was just in the room next door.  You had a great time and didn’t even show much of a reaction when we got home.  In fact, I think Jersey was more excited to see me after her 8 hours at the vet…and she was coming out of anesthesia.

You took your first steps right before we left, but refused to walk for Grammy and Pop-Pop while we were gone.  Right after we got back, Grammy and I loaded up our car and we drove down to Florida to see Gee and Papa.  It was a crazy idea, but I knew if we didn’t do it then, we would never do it.  It was a 16+ hour drive, and we decided to leave early afternoon and drive through the night.  I had a suitcase packed with little sun rompers, 6 swimsuits for you and 5 different sun hats.  I couldn’t wait for you to get your feet in the sand and feel the swimming pool.  Turns out, it was in the mid 60’s the whole trip and overcast.  Despite the weather and a pretty massive headache I had for several days, we had a wonderful trip.  You lit right up when you saw Gee and Papa.  You pushed your walker in circles around their house, and ate about 16 pounds of fish that week.  Being the crazy photographer/mom that I am, we took you to the beach just to get some pictures.   Kind of like the time I shoved you into a pumpkin with just a diaper on and it was 45 degrees and windy.  It was completely worth it.  Just seeing your chubby thighs in a swimsuit again made my heart swell.  Lord, I love those legs, that belly, those cheeks, that smile.

Somewhere around week 14 and 15, the puking slowed down.  I went from 6-8 times a day to just 1 or 2…and then eventually just a couple times a week, which is where I live right now.  I never had stretches like that with you, so I’m thankful each and everyday when I make it to bed and have felt ok for the day.  I never got a rush of energy when I hit the second trimester like some women get, but I did feel like I was no longer a walking pile of exhaustion.  I began to enjoy the little kicks this time around.  I’ve embraced the elastic band at the top of my pants once again and I’ve tried to figure out how to possibly keep you on my lap as long as I can with there only being limited lap space.  I did a vote at school to see if the students thought I was having a boy or a girl.  They voted by picking a color and suggesting what I should name the baby.  One student wrote “Luceou Max” and told me as he hung it up, “By the way, Mrs. Powell, your baby will be Mexican.”  Another student picked “Junior” for a girl, and possibly my all time favorite, a little boy in another class decided it would be a boy and I should name him Dynamite.  Winner.  Teaching is like being a mommy, you absolutely never know what each day will bring.

 At 20 weeks, we found out…

It was the first appointment we took you to, and I can’t believe people take their child(ren) to these appointments all the time!  You didn’t like when they turned the lights off, then you hollered when the lady touched my belly with the special camera.  You thought the stirrups were part of an awesome new jungle gym, and you ended up walking out with the doctor’s tape measurer that she uses to measure all the pregnant ladies’ bellies.  We are sooooo excited to have a little boy and for you to have a little brother.  I still can’t believe it though, especially as I pack up all of these pink clothes!  I should let you know, your daddy and I went gender neutral on… NOTHING!  I swore the entire first pregnancy that I would never do it again, so it was all girl, all the way.  The stroller/carseat combo is purple.  The activity mat is pink, the crib set, all the toys, several of the bottles, your cozy coupe, even the little baby bathtub is pink!  Your handsome little brother might just have to learn to rock the pink.

I’ve spent some nights being pretty nervous about this new baby thing.  I don’t know if I would be like this under normal circumstances, or if it’s the mixture of moving, switching jobs and having a baby that has gotten to me.  You had a really rough week where you cut all 4 molars, had an ear infection (your first one), a sinus infection, and ended up with roseola (104 degree fever for 3 days and then a rash) and on a 10 day dose of amoxicillin.  You would only sleep at night for short periods of time when the fever was down a bit and while I was holding you.  Then you’d wake up soaked with sweat and miserable.  As awful as you felt, I cherished the brief moments where I could hold you in my arms, stare at your closed eyes, and listen to your sweet snore as you held me, and my heart, with those chubby fingers.  One of those nights, it all came together for me.  I spent some time crying (if you haven’t picked up on it, I’ve done a lot of that this pregnancy) and just looking at you.  I panicked.  It was official, I was never going to be able to love another child like I love you.  I had a full blown breakdown where I was screaming from the inside out, but never made a peep, I couldn’t risk waking you up.  My arm was asleep, half of my body was covered in your sweat, the other half was freezing because the covers had been pulled off in the midst of your constant moving.  But somewhere in that beautiful mess, I realized just what we were doing.  I wasn’t taking anything away from you by bringing another chid into this world.  We were giving you the gift of a brother. We were giving him the gift of you… a sister, to teach him, to make him laugh, to grow with. But more than that, we are giving life to a new little miracle.  We are bringing another child into a family that will love him unconditionally, will do anything to protect him and raise him in the best way we know how.  I’m not dividing my love between two kids, I’ll be experiencing a new love…one I didn’t even know my heart was missing.  From that moment on, I’ve been nothing but excited.  Well, maybe still a little exhausted, but much less worried.

Mother’s day was today.  It wasn’t how I would typically picture Mother’s day.  But that’s where we’re at right now.  We spent the morning packing, which consists of me putting things in boxes and you taking them out.  We put pictures of our house on Facebook on a weekend and had an offer by that week.  We close this Friday.  It’s all happened so fast, and I will do what I do best when we leave this house for the final time, I’ll cry.  I didn’t picture forever in this home, but our forever started in this home, and that’s hard to leave.  We are moving in with Grandma and Grandpa Joe until school gets out, and then we’ll head to Colorado at the end of June.  I have a  teaching position lined up, but we don’t have a house and daddy is still looking for a job.  We’ll move in with Grammy and Pop-pop when we get out west.  I don’t know if that will be for 2 weeks, 2 months, or even longer.  I don’t know if your brother will come “home” to their house or if we’ll have our own place.  I don’t know if I’m going to attempt to set up a nursery in a tent by a river somewhere.  There are so many question marks.  I do better with exclamation points and periods… question marks make me nervous.

I’m not much of a help on the packing front, as my big ole belly tends to limit what I can do.  We’ve done what we can while Daddy is at track most nights and some Saturdays.  I’ve continued to take pictures and have probably pushed myself entirely too much, but that’s not a surprise.  So this morning, you and I packed, and we went outside and we played.  You swung in your little pink swing and you carried your broom around “sweeping” off every piece of grass you could find on the patio.  You napped, I showered, and then we went to the grocery store with Daddy before going to Grandma and Grandpa Joe’s for supper. We squeezed in a little ice deli in there- and you loved it, of course, but not as much as I did!  It certainly wasn’t an extravagant day, and yet it was beautifully perfect.  I was with you and daddy, that’s all I wanted.  (That’s a lie, I really wanted PF Changs, but it didn’t work out). 😉

Here’s the deal with becoming a mommy… YOU spend your entire teenage years trying to make YOU look better, be more popular, impress others, etc…  YOU find different guys and YOU want them to tell YOU how beautiful YOU are.  YOU judge relationships on how they make YOU feel.  Eventually YOU find the guy that accepts YOU for YOU.  Then all of the sudden, YOU hold the most precious gift that YOU’VE ever been given…and immediately YOU realize, it’s no longer (and it never really was) about YOU.  I don’t care to impress people anymore, I care that you know I’m completely comfortable being goofy, dancing, reading,  singing… if it’s what makes you happy.  I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m beautiful, it’s written all over you, because I was a part of creating something that is beyond any capacity of beautiful that I could have ever imagined- you.  I don’t really judge a day on how I feel, but on what you’ve learned, how many times you’ve laughed, and those precious moments I’ve felt your hand pat my back when you hug me.

You’re a busy girl right now, walking all over the place, exploring new things.  It’s a busy time in our lives, living out of boxes, soon to be sleeping all in the same room. You have mastered the art of saying “no.”  You don’t just say the word, you shake your entire body and close your eyes to make it more dramatic.  You also have started really flirting… with super old men.  We went out to eat the other day and you spent 25 minutes raising your eyebrows, giggling, and “talking” to a man a couple tables over.  Every time he spoke (not to you, but to his table full of people) you got all excited and bounced up and down. It’s a crazy ride, this whole motherhood thing.  How’d I get so lucky to be able to share it with you?

I love Mother’s Day, because I love being a mother.  I love the challenges, the fits, the sleepless nights, because for those brief moments, there are a million more full of snuggles, giggles, or my favorite… when you stop what you’re doing, walk across the room, and plop down on my lap like you just needed to remind me where you ultimately belong- with me.  

Ps… sorry to not include much about your daddy in this one.  That’s what you get for a mother’s day post!  Daddy is still as amazing as ever… even more so now that you like to let him hide and go find him. 🙂  We love the nights that he doesn’t have track meets and he can be there for bath and bedtime.  You’ve started to “knock him over” which you think is pretty funny.  You typically do this right after bath time, when you are trying to escape the bathroom and run around the house naked.  It’s all good and fun until you start pounding on the front storm door…which is solid glass.  Wonder what the neighbors think?

I love you sweet girl,

Your mom.