WE'RE HAVING A.....

GIRL!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, Jack, Todd and I happily introduce:

Nina Josephine Eckert

You all were almost gravely disappointed. This sweet modest little girl kept her legs closed and her feet over her lady bits. Maybe this means that Todd won't have to buy a shotgun??? :) I almost left the doctor's office in tears today. Thankfully, we had a persistent tech and she tried rolling me around in several directions to get miss Nina to move her feet and legs. In about a 2 second money shot, we were able to see a lack of penis. I don't know how else to describe it. No rocket ship. Three little lines indicating girl parts instead of boy parts.

So, 20 weeks. It took 1/2 the pregnancy, but I'm finally starting to feel good for more than a few consecutive days. I didn't have a single bout of gas, round ligament pain, migraine, or nausea on our trip. WOOT! I did throw up once, but that was more from some sinus issues than the pregnancy. I will not blame you, sweet little baby who now moves so much that I feel like I'm seizing from the inside. I get that you don't like underbelly waist bands, but it's summer and I'm not wearing full panel shorts. I'm sorry for that and hope we can compromise until fall when full panel pants will be much more comfortable for the both of us. In the meantime, I don't blame you for attacking my full bladder like a bunny on a trampoline. Enjoy. Once you come out, your big brother will thoroughly enjoy beating you with foam swords, so I imagine we'll be even. MOMMY LOVES YOU!

It appears as though I'm documenting the second pregnancy better than Jack's pregnancy. This is true. With Jack's pregnancy, I wasn't terribly comfortable with how my body adjusted to being pregnant. Which is a bit silly, because my hair, skin, and nails were gorgeous. It wasn't until I was HUGELY pregnant that I a) accepted that I was actually pregnant and a baby was coming, b) fell in love with my huge pregnant belly, and c) which has nothing to do with the actual pregnancy, but I have a blog this time around. With the second baby, I understand the reality of having two children and I know that this kid won't have a minute by minute detailing of life like Jack did. Or, perhaps I'll make the effort to ignore my children for 15 minutes a day and start updating to Facebook several times a day again. Who knows? Right now, I'm preparing for the worst.

Our trip to Disney World was a blast. It was a bit frustrating not knowing what the baby's sex was. By a "bit" I mean it drove me absolutely nuts. Every employee asked what the baby is, commented on how I was carrying, and every person I spoke with declared I was having a girl. When we stopped to take belly ear pictures, the cashier politely giggled when we explained we had didn't know what the baby's sex was. She was sweet and reminded us that we were welcome to purchase a personalized set of ears via the website once we found out.

Jack really enjoyed himself. When we booked the trip, we were undoubtedly concerned with him being only 2. But, he was free, so we decided to risk it. I must say, we have an awesome 2 year old. He was well behaved, surprisingly patient, and an absolute joy to see interact with the characters. With his favorites, like Mickey, Buzz and Woody, and Jake from Jake and the Never Land Pirates, he would shy up. He was excited to see them, but was nervous to be in the presence of the biggest stars he knew. Compared to some kids we saw, our occasionally whiny munchkin was an angel. We did have one day (the hottest day we were there) where everyone was a tiny bit miserable. Jack took a 4 hour nap that day and the next day we were all pleasant once again.



During Easter weekend, we took Jack to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. We attempted to take him onto the carousel and he hated it. I don't know why. Could have been that Todd wasn't with us, but he screamed and was absolutely terrified through the whole ride. We were worried that he would react in a similar fashion while at Disney World. It's amazing what three months of growing and exploring does to a toddler. Jack not only enjoyed the rides, but as the week went on, he was so excited to get on rides that we had a hard time with a toddler's patience span and we were constantly reminding him that he had to wait for the person in front of him to move first. His favorite rides were Spaceship Earth in the EPCOT ball and the Studio Tour at Hollywood Studios. We're not sure why Spaceship Earth was a favorite, but with the Studio Tour his love of all things going "BOOM!" was the reason.

We hit Animal Kingdom thinking there weren't many rides for kids. He went on the TriceraTop Spin and the Kilimanjaro Safari and walked the different trails with us. Surprisingly, the animals held little interest for him and he spent the whole ride pointing out the different plants and rocks to us. Perhaps he'll grow up to be a botanist. We also saw the bird show; during which Jack fell asleep. The best part of our Animal Kingdom outing was Jack yelling at monkeys that were HIGH UP in their tree to "GET DOWN!"...obviously this phrase is used a lot at home. Jack's vocabulary increased to include "duck, car, truck, get down, I don't know (which he said before, but now is very clear), and okay (which sounds like aye aye; perfect for a pirate!)"

Everyday we made sure to go back to the hotel for Jack's nap. He wasn't on any sort of reliable schedule, so we went back during the hottest part of the day. The first two days or so, we didn't make it to the pool. We should have. After the 3rd day or so, everyday we went swimming. Do you have any idea how much energy a 1/2 hour of swimming takes out of a kid? Enough to get loooooong naps from a certain 2 year old. He LOVED the pool. We were sure he would hate the water like he hated swim lessons. We were absolutely amazed at how much Jack enjoyed the water. He was very good about getting out of the pool, too. No tantrums. It is starting to sound redundant, but we are constantly amazed at how well behaved our "terrible" two year old son is. The Disney pools have a little ledge all around the rim of the pool that sits under about an inch of water. This ledge made the perfect diving board for curious toddlers. Jack loves jumping off the side of the pool. He also loves being tossed through the air from me to Todd.

Jack's appetite sucked on this trip. He ate a few bites of eggs and 1/2 a banana for breakfast, possibly some sort of rice at dinner, and in between we tried to shove as many sugar free fruit snacks, whole grain goldfish and Scooby Snacks, and juice in him as possible because lunch? Yeah, that wasn't happening. He would not drink water if it was warm. Considering every day started off humid and peaked over 90*, we struggled with keeping things cold. We let this kid drink so much juice this week to ensure he stayed hydrated that I'm surprised he's not an apple by now. He did mix it up a bit and partook in some frozen lemonade. The best night he ate was at the Tusker House restaurant at AK. They not only had rice, which is one of Jack's staples, but they smartly had big bowls of peanut butter and jelly with slices of bread. Man, we were happy to be able to make a normal PB&J for our son.

Note to future Todd and Molly, Uncrustables are NOT a good alternative to a regular PB&J. You are both idiots for not realizing this after 3 $5 kids meals resulted in the round abomination promptly being shoved to the side. WTF is wrong with you? Also, your kid likes the idea of chocolate pudding, but won't actually eat it. Learn this, morons.


We caught the firework show the last night we were at the resort. Jack absolutely adored them. He made buddies with a little girl and her family while we watched the show. After every firework, Jack would sign "more" and scream "Adin!" over and over. He really loved them. We tried to make it back to Massachusetts early enough to catch some local 4th of July fireworks, but by the time we were able to get unloaded, run to the grocery store, and eat dinner, it was nearly 9 o'clock and Todd and I were beat. There's always New Year's! While we're very happy to be home, as we always are when we're away, it will be hard to adjust to messy beds and empty toilet paper rolls. Sigh. I love maid service...