Where have all the flowers gone

Well with all of the basement renovations that we have been doing and weekends filled with rain, we didn't quite make it down to the festival portion of the Tulip festival. Needless to say, upon arriving today, we learned that tulips have an incredibly short life. We did manage to find a few beds with colour left on them and from a distance could pass as flowers but for the most part, we just enjoyed the stems, fresh air and a walk with Simon down by the water.

Tractor Obsessed

Well it figures now that construction is wrapping up in our neighbourhood that Simon would suddenly develop a love bordering on obsession for tractors (a.k.a "Dan"). Simon first encountered a tractor (named Dan) in one of his first books and was drawn in by its' flashing lights and loud noise. It wasn't until he started visiting the tractor exhibit at the farm that his obsession took root. Now we can't drive anywhere without being on the lookout for tractors. Walking to daycare has becoming an ordeal and it can take up to 1/2 an hour to walk down three houses because we are too busy watching all of the construction activity. In the past few weeks, they finished the landscaping on the houses in our neighbourhood (yeah, we no longer live next to an abandoned building lot but actually have real live neighbours), watched neighbours dig for a pool and watched while they ripped up the street in preparation for final paving. Needless to say, we have spent a lot of afternoons on the front lawn watching the tractors at work. I must say, this has been perfect for me in my pregnant state. Sitting and watching tractors with a totally engrossed 2 year old is a lot easier than chasing my crazy toddler.

I bought Simon a tractor picture book earlier this week and in three days he can already distinguish about a dozen different tractors. It's so fun listening to his tractor speak - his favourites are "backhoe", "mini excavator", "front-loader", "forklift", "bulldozer". We may just have a future farmer or construction worker on our hands or maybe just a wannabe like every other man who wishes they could dig their flower beds with machinery!



"Me ride it please"



Simon, enjoying a snack and watching the tractor laying the neighbours new grass

More Updates on Pregnancy Number 2

I had my latest appointment and ultrasound this week. Aside from the long wait at the doctor's office, things were pretty uneventful. Baby was measuring fine, blood pressure was okay, heart beat was normal. Apparently, I have a "history" of big babies so I need to go for a fourth ultrasound a few weeks before my due date to get a size estimate but other than that, nothing new.

The ultrasound was scheduled to check the location of the placenta. My earlier ultrasound had shown that the placenta was close to the cervix which would have caused issues for delivery. Well it was all good news. The ultrasound confirmed that this was no longer an issue and she gave us an approximation on the weight - looks like another big baby as he was already measuring in at 4 lbs.

Other than the obvious aches and pains associated with pregnancy, things are going well. This pregnancy is totally different than last though as it seems all of our preparations are centred around Simon versus the new baby. We have decorated his room, settled him in a new bed and come up with a new routine to get him used to his new room. Aside from moving Simon out of the nursery and washing a few clothes, we haven't done anything specific to prepare for the new arrival. Although we do have a list a mile long......