Today you are fourteen months old, and I recently read
something where parents wrote reasons why toddlers are awesome, so here
it goes:
Fourteen things I love about you… my crazy, awesome,
14-month-old:
How
you always have to take a new food out of your mouth to examine it before
eating it.
How
you now copy the “ahhhh” sound your Dada makes after taking a drink.
How
you lean forward, stick your head out, and tuck your arms in to run.
How
you turn into a mommy-seeking missile when your Dada says, “I’m gonna get
you…”
How
you use the words “up” and “out” interchangeably until you obtain your
desired outcome.
How
you chase the cats, hunched over, with your lips pursed, saying “mmmmm” to
get a kiss.
How
when I catch you squatted to poop, you run to the nearest wall and splay
your arms out, as if you’re about to be frisked.
How
you laugh, well after everyone else has stopped, and make them all laugh
again.
How
whenever I hear a song on the TV, if I peek into the living room, you will inevitably be standing in front of it dancing.
How
the first time you say a word it is phonetic perfection and slowly
deteriorates until it is hardly recognizable, so that people roll their
eyes at me for being one of ‘those moms’.
How
you let me know you appreciate that you are still being breastfed by
taking the time out during nursing sessions to blow raspberries on my
breasts and give them kisses.
How
you always call out “Mama” whenever Dada gets near the end of your bedtime
story.
How
you do a little, happy feet, tap dance whenever you are really happy.
How you now give me hugs and kisses unexpectedly, just because you want to.
(This was written the day after one of the most exciting days of my life. And now that it has been a year since that amazing day, I couldn't help but share it. So let's go back to 3:00am on 01/25/2012.)
Someday I hope to publish this on my blog, but for now, into
word it goes.
Yesterday was one of
the most exciting days of my life, and hardly anyone knows about it.It is right up there with the moment I
got an email back from Josh when I told him I ‘liked him,’ our first date, our
third date when he kissed me in the park, that lovely Halloween where he got
down on one knee over pizza and wine, and the beautiful March afternoon when I
became Mrs. Kinnaman.Yes,
yesterday certainly ranks with all of those days easily.Yesterday was the day Josh and I found
out that our little family of two was now a family of three.Yep… you heard that right.I am pregnant.
This is a moment I have dreamed about as far back as I can
remember.Of course I had every
intention of creating this amazing moment when I shared the news with my
husband that he would be a father.Didn’t work out quite as well as I imagined… My adoring husband knew I
had just taken the test.There was
no surprise because I am way too open about everything that goes on with my
body with that man.
Many of you won’t know this, but our journey to conceive has
been a frustrating eight months.I
always believed, and was taught in middle school that I would get pregnant
pretty much the moment I thought about it hard enough.Turns out there really is more of a
science to it than that.I learned
that I could get to know my body so much better by tracking my basal body
temperature.Some people know
about this, and others don’t, but basically, doing this allows a woman to get
to know her fertile times, and be able to look at patterns of her cycle.Josh would probably say doing this made
me stressed.I would actually go
as far as to say it was the one thing that really kept me sane.
You see, I knew based on previous patterns that this time
was different.I didn’t want to
admit it to myself because I have had my hopes up a few times only to have them
crushed.But I knew yesterday when
I woke up that if I was pregnant or not, the test would show it for sure.Because of this, I couldn’t bring
myself to take the test.It was
finally my husband’s voice calling from the bedroom that "you may as well
just take it" that brought me back to this world, and convinced me to take the
test.
Immediately, I started seeing something in the area of the
test line, but I had imagined I had seen things before, and I didn’t want to go
through the agony of staring at a tiny stick for the next five minutes, so I
checked my phone and hopped back in bed.Josh asked, “So?” I had to
tell him I couldn’t bear just standing in the bathroom.Little did I know these three minutes
we sat chatting were our last few minutes believing that we were only man and
wife.I went back into the
bathroom, looked at the home pregnancy stick, and it was obvious.Tears in my eyes and test stick in my
hand, I headed into the bedroom, and announced, “there is definitely a
line.”Josh got up and said, “Let me
see that; you’ve been known to imagine things.”But I think we both knew I was right.
We hugged, I kept crying, and it was amazing.The remainder of the two hours we had
before leaving for work consisted of me jumping and skipping around the house
and Josh asking that I try to calm down.
I called my sister through gmail (because she is living in France right now) and shared the news by
telling her I had inadvertently lied to her the day before when she had asked
if I was pregnant.As a smile
spread across her face, the first word out of her mouth was, “Really?”
Calling one of my best friends was definitely the next
step.She and I had been going
through this trying to conceive journey together, and I knew she would be glad
to hear it.She was so happy for
us, and ridiculously supportive.She also admitted that she hadn’t realized until that point how much our
not being pregnant yet was weighing on her.I think deep down she probably still felt some sadness that
she has not yet conceived, but you would never know it.
When I finally headed to work, I cried in the car.I was so excited and filled with
emotion.I knew heading to work
that I would share the news with two co-workers (Andria and Lauren).And I am so glad I did.I needed supportive people to talk to
throughout the day.It was the
most surreal feeling walking down the hallway and thinking… a child is being
created inside of me right now.Realizing that in that moment every physical feature of little baby
Kinnaman had already been decided.I still am wondering right now, are you a little boy or girl?Will recessive traits win over, and
give you blonde hair and blue eyes?Or will you maybe just end up with one of them?Between your daddy’s curly hair and my
dead straight hair, what will yours be?Will you be chubby when you are an infant?Probably… Josh and I both were.
I got a text from Josh after lunch saying his dad now knew
our news.I wished I could’ve been
involved, but he had his moment announcing to someone, and I was glad he was
excited enough to get carried away and share our announcement after saying he
was not going to tell anyone.Now
to decide how to tell my parents…
We wanted them to come to us.We knew that much, so I had to come up with a way to get
them at our house without making a big deal.So I asked my mom over the phone if they would mind coming
over some time to help us work on some training with Liesl.I told her we had been watching too
much Dog Whisperer, and that we really wanted to try a couple things with
someone new coming over.She was
more than happy to oblige, and she and my dad showed up a couple hours later.
I turned on the video camera.I had it sitting on the piano.And Josh opened the door.We did make Liesl sit when they arrived and did our best to
keep her calm… yeah… that worked.You see, she was wearing a shirt I bought months earlier that said,
‘Shhh… Mommy has a secret in her belly!”It took a while for my mom and dad to read the darn thing, but they
figured it out eventually and were thrilled.
So now, it is about 24 hours since I first took the home
pregnancy test, and I can’t sleep.I guess maybe I am just too excited.I can’t help but let my mind wonder as I imagine all of the
new and exciting things that lie ahead of Josh and I on this journey to no
longer just be husband and wife, but to become Daddy and Mommy.
