A cute video we took while having some family cuddle time this past weekend:
Mio can’t quite say “Hello” and it sounds more like “Heh-WOH!” right now. We don’t want to correct her just yet, as it’s so cute! 😉
Gender Reveal!
The day after our routine ultrasound, we gathered a bunch of the family members and had a mini gender reveal party on Saturday afternoon, so that everyone could find out whether our second baby is a boy or a girl. (Some of my siblings had ongoing bets since the beginning of the pregnancy on what gender this baby would be, and they were eager to cash in!) We had some delicious cupcakes ordered from Georgetown Cupcake, filled with either blue or pink buttercream to show what the gender of the baby was! Mio was tasked with revealing the inside filling by biting into a cupcake.
Here’s a video of the gender reveal fun!
So there it is! We’re thrilled to announce that we’re having a girl! Mio will have a little sister, who she will grow up to (hopefully) be best friends with. I cherish my own relationship with my younger sister, and so I’ve always hoped that Mio would get to experience the same joys of sisterhood. I’m sure they won’t be without their moments of competition and occasional jealousy, but it will be so beautiful to watch them grow up together. As for me, I’m elated to be a mother of two sweet daughters — I’ve always imagined myself a mother of daughters, and I look forward to the bond we’ll share as the ladies in the family. 🙂 Dan is very happy, too; Mio has been more attached to Dan lately and is growing into a total Daddy’s girl, which melts his heart! He’s very doting and protective over his little girl, and I know he’ll be like that with our second baby girl, too. ♥
20 Week Ultrasound
On Friday, we went in for our routine ultrasound to see how baby’s growing, and to hopefully find out the gender! When I was pregnant with Mio, I had a few ultrasounds early on (I think at 11 weeks, 14 weeks, and then 20 weeks) for dating the due date and nuchal translucency testing, etc. This time around, they’ve only been checking the heartbeat at each appointment and told me they wouldn’t to do an ultrasound until we passed the 20 week mark, unless there were problems that arose (like not being able to detect a heartbeat, etc.). We’ve been waiting so long to actually see the baby, so it was so great to finally be able to “meet” our little one! Baby #2 measured how they should at this time, was moving around a lot, and is very healthy. There was so much movement that it was at first hard to get a good look at those telltale body parts, but we were able to get a very clear reading at the end!
Here are some of the pictures from the ultrasound…
The first half of the pregnancy has been pretty rough, and while the nausea is slightly better these days, it’s still very much there, and I find that I’m still constantly exhausted and needing to nap a lot. I’ve accepted that the remainder of the pregnancy probably won’t be much different. I guess pregnancy is just not meant to be a very enjoyable experience physically for me! At least we have the baby to look forward to at the end of all of this. We can’t wait to meet our precious little one. 🙂
Stay tuned for the gender reveal with our family!
Mio’s First Day of Preschool
Today was Mio’s first day of preschool ever! We had initially not planned on sending her to preschool yet until she turned three, but we saw that a very local preschool had one last opening they were trying to fill for the upcoming school year back in May (when most preschool enrollment has filled up) and I was noticing that she seemed more bored at home lately despite my efforts to take her on playdates and to playgroups, so we decided to go ahead and sign her up! Shortly afterwards, we discovered that we were expecting our second baby, so it all worked out because it will give me a little break from taking care of two kids once the baby arrives early next year. Hopefully getting out and having some independent time away from me, seeing that she’ll be fine without Mama will mitigate her recent clinginess, too. It’s just two days a week, from 9am to 12 noon, so it’s not that long and I think it’s just the right amount of time away while she’s still at this little age.
Last Friday, we went to the preschool’s “sneak peek” so Mio could meet her teachers and see the different classrooms she’ll get to go to:
The “sneak peek” was really helpful because it got Mio used to the classroom environment, and she got to familiarize herself with her teachers (who were all super nice!), and get excited for preschool. All weekend she was repeatedly saying, “Gakkou!” (Japanese for “school”) and “Fun!” so it was reassuring to see that she was looking forward to it.
This morning, we got up bright and early to eat breakfast and get ready for Mio’s first day of school!
Of course, we had to take some obligatory photos in front of the house to remember this milestone!
Each classroom at the preschool has a door that leads outside facing the parking lot, for easy dropoff and pickup for parents. We all gather in front of the door in the morning, and one by one the kids are ushered into the classroom, and parents are encouraged to just stay outside and watch them go in. The teachers help the kids hang their bags and coats up, and get them situated in the classroom.
Mio didn’t cry… probably because she didn’t even realize that we weren’t coming in with her until we had left. I wasn’t feeling that emotional this morning while I was getting her ready and taking pictures of her, but the moment I saw her go off into the classroom, my eyes welled up with tears. It was bittersweet, and I couldn’t help but cry when I got home, too, wondering the whole time what Mio was up to and how she was doing. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wonder for too long. For the 2.5 year old class, because they’re still so little and need time to transition, they start on a graduated schedule, where they are just at school 9am-10:30am (for 1.5 hours) the first week, 9am-11am (2 hours) the following week, getting 30 minutes longer every week until they reach the full 3 hour schedule the last week of the month, which they’ll stay at for the rest of the school year. Even the 1.5 hours today felt unexpectedly long because I’ve gotten so used to being with Mio all the time.
When I went to pick her up at 10:30am, they had already put some photos from the day up on the bulletin board, as well as some updates about what each child did/liked.
For pickup, the parents wait outside the same door we dropped the children off at, and the teacher opens the door and one by one calls each child and hands them off to their respective parent. Even though I was the first mom to arrive, Mio was the last one to get called and come out… apparently because she was showing no signs of wanting to leave! Even when they brought her outside, she kept going back inside to play with the Lego toys inside. I had to practically drag her out of the classroom and into her carseat because she was so reluctant to leave!
Mio kept exclaiming, “Gakkou! It’s so fun!” on the drive home, and she was so excited from the day that she skipped her nap (much to my distress). Tonight, as we were getting her ready for bed, she picked up her school bag and said “Gakkou! Yay!!!” She can’t wait to go back tomorrow! I’d spent the whole summer wondering and worrying about how she’d adjust to starting school, but it turns out it’s proving to be a much easier transition (at least so far) than I expected! We’ll see how the following weeks go, when the novelty starts wearing off… I’m hopeful that she’ll continue to love school, though. After all, it’ll be her “job” for the next twenty years! 😉
National Children’s Museum
One of the greatest things about the Washington, DC area is the wealth of museums and exhibits it offers to the public — not only for adults, but for children, too! Mio is a little too young to appreciate the Smithsonian museums, but there are some children’s museums that we’d been wanting to take her to for a while! The new National Children’s Museum opened in National Harbor last December, so we decided to spend our Sunday afternoon there with Mio! She had so much fun — here are some pictures!
Overall, we really enjoyed the National Children’s Museum. It’s apparently a little small compared to the old National Children’s Museum that used to be on H Street in DC, but it’s very clean and modern, well-staffed with friendly and helpful people, and is well-maintained and a fun place for kids of various ages. We did think admission was a bit pricey — $10 per person, with no discounts for the children (only kids under 12 months are free), so we had to pay $30 — but that’s probably because we’ve been spoiled by the Smithsonian museum’s free admission. I think that the ticket price should be more worth it once the Outdoor Experience opens next spring: it’s supposed to be a year-round museum without a roof that will have a lot of additional great exhibits. Right now only the Indoor half of the museum is open, so perhaps it might feel a little lacking for the price of admission. We’ll definitely be back to check it out again once the museum is complete! At the end of the day, Mio had a really enjoyable time, and that’s what matters! 🙂