Color me shocked.

So I had my first appt on 4/13. All was perfect. We have one healthy baby hanging out in my uterus with a heart beat of 152. All looks great. That was about the highlight of that appt. Yesterday I went for an elective gender ultrasound at the urging of our families and we found out, very unexpectedly, that we are expecting a GIRL! What in the world am I going to do with a daughter? I'm honest to goodness shocked. I really thought I'd be a mom to 2 boys....I'm thrilled and shocked all at the same time. It still hasn't sunk in. I need to go shopping, I think that will help it become real.

Hey guys, everything is good over here except my laptop...2 year olds have a way of breaking things. be back soon!

Post pregnancy body.

My friend Amy wrote a beautiful post today that talks about the pride a woman should have in her body due to the ability to be able to make, grow, and birth a human being. She's right, you know. Women of all shapes and sizes should be so proud of themselves for this. It really is amazing when you think about it. A human being, a breathing, living, growing, human grows in a woman's body. This body nourishes the baby. Gives it all it needs for 9 long months.

I'm not going to lie. This idea is great. The women that really feel this way, amaze me and this is where my honesty is going to shine through. I take zero pride in my body. None. Not an ounce. I'm ashamed of it. In fact, I'm embarrassed that I didn't lose all my pregnancy weight and don a bikini 6 months after D was born. This is comment that I left on Amy's blog:
What pisses me off about the post you quoted is that it wasn't good enough to mention that she carried and birthed two babies. It wasn't good enough to mention that she's single handedly responsible for feeding those babies...no she also had to mention that within one week of giving birth to TWO babies she was back down to prepregnancy weight. It's posts like those that make me so ashamed that I never lost all of my weight from my first pregnancy. Sadly, I'm not proud of my body at all. Even when I was 120lbs and wearing a size 6 loosely, I was ashamed of my body. It doesn't help now that I'm well over the 120lbs I was only months before getting pregnant with D. I never got back down to that. Not even close. I'm covered in stretch marks and now I'm ruining my body even more with another one. I should be proud of myself for making, growing, and birthing a human being. My wonderful son...but I'm not. It's sad really. I think I would be proud of my body if it had done all of that and lost all the weight too...but I didn't. It's my fault and now I'll have even more to lose after this baby. I'm convinced that people look at my body and want to throw up...because that's how I see myself. Covered in ugly stretch marks, 40lbs too heavy, and now I'm in the is she just fat or pregnant stage...it makes me want to crawl under a rock. I hope I can find my confidence again, one day.
 
Now, after putting my feelings in writing, I'm embarrassed that I'm ashamed. I want to be proud of my body just for doing the amazing things it does. I want to have self confidence at 120lbs or 200lbs. I just want to be happy with myself. How does one do this? How does one develop this confidence even after 2 pregnancies and a forever changed body. How do I fix an issue that has plauged me since puberty? I've never been happy with my body, so how in my mid-20's will I be able to find this now?

Holy clinginess, batman.

As most of you know shortly before Christmas, I quit my full time "dream job" to work a couple of days a week and stay home with my little man. It's worked out so far....except for the last couple of weeks, maybe more like 6 Dawson has become incredibly clingy to me. It's pretty bad, honestly. When he was in daycare full time, I dropped him off smiling and happy every morning. I picked him up the same way. Now he goes 2 days a week and he literally starts crying before we leave the house and continues to cry on and off all day long. This breaks my heart. I'm to the point that I don't want to work at all so that he doesn't have to cry for me all day. It doesn't stop here. He never wants to be left with his grandparents any more which he used to love and if I even mention going somewhere without him, he turns on the water works. He acts like I've abandoned him before and he's scared I'll do it again.

This is really taking a toll on me and everyone else around us. He doesn't want to let me out of his sight, he doesn't want to be with the people he's always liked to spend time with, and all of this includes his dad.

What's going on? What can I do? Is this typical of children who stay home with their parent(s)?