Moran Family Adventures: musings of a boy mom

I am so ready I have found myself struggling a lot lately. I hate to write about it because it makes me sound ungrateful, makes me sound selfish, and makes me sound weak. But I am so tired. This pregnancy has taken its toll on my body. Perhaps it was spending half of it with a spouse deployed? Perhaps it's having two toddlers that constantly need me? Perhaps it's working? Perhaps it's living in a home that I detest and can't quite feel comfortable in? Perhaps it's because it's my third baby in less than 4 years? Perhaps it's because I'm getting a Master's degree and school is time consuming and cuts into my sleep. Perhaps it's a little bit of everything that's making this one so much more exhausting- emotionally and physically- than I've experienced in the past.  I'm grateful for this blessing, I'm grateful for the gift of pregnancy and will forever acknowledge that it is a gift. That there are enough out there that struggle ...

These feelings are all too familiar  The last few nights I've been getting slightly anxious, slightly sad, and mostly hormonal. I felt this way right before Thomas was born and I was having major anxiety over figuring out how to love two kids with the same ferocity and intensity as I loved my, at the time, just one kid. Ok, well, I figured that part out. Moms have an endless well of love, and while I love my boys differently, I love them with to the same degree. Got it, don't have to worry about making room in my heart for a third kid. Now though, my anxiety lies with Thomas no longer being my YOUNGEST. He's getting bumped to the role of middle child-or as I'm going to try to make myself say- 2nd child to try to remove some of the stigma. Matt usually puts Charles to bed with a book and some cuddles, while I stay in our bed with Thomas until he falls asleep, then we move him over to his bed in the boys' room. Lately, as I've been having these end of day snu...

We Love Pictures  I think one of the things I get the most impatient about when it comes to being pregnant, besides meeting the baby face to face, is gender. It's an agonizing 16 weeks of waiting for me. And I am not a very patient person. Nowadays people can find out the gender of their babies via blood test as soon as they find out they're pregnant, but I can't seem to be part of that crowd, so I have to wait until the 16 week mark, may out of pocket to go to a 3D ultrasound place, and find out there. Paying out of pocket is fine with me, it's just the WAITING....AND WAITING... I know so many people that are choosing to wait until birth to find out. They're either crazy, or just really amazingly patient. I am crazy but not patient.   So, when 16 weeks came along, I went to the same place that told me I was having Thomas those 2 years ago. At that time, I still hadn't decided if I was going to let myself know, or wait until our photo shoot ten days a...

Never Easy... We are currently exploring the world of toddler beds for both boys in the same room. It's a lot of work. We all know that I'm a co-sleeping mom. I don't regret being a co-sleeping mom, not one bit. I'm grateful for the bonding I shared with my boys, and the extra sleep I got because they slept better in my bed. It also made middle of the night nurse sessions so much easier. But, there is a downside. And that is getting that kiddo out of the bed! We had to transition Charles out of his bed much earlier than Thomas since....well Thomas came along when Charles was only 16 months old. But now that little man #3 will be making his appearance soon, my 2 year old Thomas needs to transition out of mom and dad's bed. And it has been a nightmare! At first.   So we started by moving him to the Pack n Play and he did pretty well in there. But when he would cry in the middle of the night, I moved him to bed with me and just let him stay. Mama doesn't h...

It wasn't just the German food... I clearly remember realizing I was pregnant and the series of events that lead up to that realization. We were driving back from Ramstein and I had the biggest craving for Diet Coke (this craving continues to this day). I had Matt pull over at the nearest gas station so I could get Diet Coke. Just a few days ago, literally 5 minutes before dinner, he ran to 7-11 for me to grab some Diet Coke. I'm telling you, this craving is ridiculous ya'll. A few days this, we were walking around a Lidl grocery store and the smells and sights were absolutely abhorrent to me. I was disgusted to a level I had never experienced before. I knew something was off. I told Matt we needed to get out of there before I became an ugly American who through up all over a German grocery store. On our way back to the apartment, I just had a feeling that we needed to stop by the PX and grab a pregnancy test.  I just felt so weird, so off, pregnancy had to be the re...

Speed it up....no slow it down!  With Baby Boy #3 making an appearance in the next month or so, I find myself anxiously waiting to meet this little man and Googling "ways to induce labor." You'd think I'd be a pro at it by now, but nope. And this time around, I feel like I need a refresher in delivery room shenanigans since it's been a whopping 2 years since my last baby was born. The gap between Charles and Thomas is so little that I felt like a pro when it came time to deliver Thomas. I'm really glad I wrote down their birth stories in this forum because re-reading them has been extremely helpful. I also noticed things I completely forgot about and I'm glad that those memories aren't gone forever.   While I impatiently wait for the aches and pains of this last trimester in pregnancy to go away, I also find myself wishing to prolong it just a little longer. As we speak, little man is doing some sort of ninja move in my belly. I'll miss th...

Welcome Back to.....ME!  I guess I'm restarting my blog, for now. We'll see how long this lasts! But, to kick off my new blogging endeavor, I figured this post should be all about my 2 year old. Yes, Thomas is almost a TWO YEAR OLD. The last time I posted on here he was just a few months old. And it really doesn't seem like it was too long ago that I was taking those pictures and planning our fall family adventures. Flash forward a millisecond and here we are, exactly one week from his second birthday. Oh, and I'm pregnant with our third little boy, but maybe I'll play catch up on what's happened between then anod now in some future blog posts. Right now, staying in the present is enough of a task!  Meet my Thomas  My Thomas sure has thrown me a curveball. He is so much like Charles, and so unlike Charles, it's quite remarkable. During his first few months of infancy, I kept waiting for him to chunk up like his big brother did. That never happened. This k...