I don\u2019t know why, but I always feel a little misty when I come home from hanging out with girlfriends. Maybe it\u2019s the year that\u2019s passed by in a blink, maybe it\u2019s the lifetime of memories we left behind in Chicago, maybe it\u2019s the thankfulness I feel to be loved and supported by so many wonderful women out there\u2026whatever it is\u2026I\u2019m grateful for the time away to just be myself. That girl\u2026the one that exists apart from motherhood. Ella turns two on Thursday. I wish I could say I have better memories of her birth\u2026sadly, the murkiness of post-partum does a pretty good job of clouding those up. What I do know about birthdays is that I am often reflective \u2013 and this one is kind of major because Charlie turned two about two months before Ella was born \u2013 which would mean I would be about 8 months pregnant right now if we had decided to have a third baby on the same time frame. If you\u2019ve been reading this blog for awhile, you\u2019d know that where a third child is concerned, I am often conflicted. Vann and I have been blessed with an easy road as far as fertility goes. I am completely and totally aware and grateful for this. I came from a family of three siblings, so for me, having a third seems like a very normal progression \u2013 in the sense that someone is still \u201cmissing\u201d from our family. Where I am hung up is in the area of my selfishness. I like my wine. I\u2019ve worked my butt off all summer and finally have a body I am excited to dress for a night out. I love \u201cshopping\u201d in my closet. Seriously, this is a first for me, post-children. Pregnancy is not easy. Your body is not your own. Having a third baby affects the rhythm of our daily life. It affects sleep. It requires a bigger car, the switching of bedrooms, starting over. 12 weeks of morning sickness so bad you lose 10 pounds because you literally can\u2019t eat anything other than Super Pretzels, stretch marks, leaky boobs, less control of your bladder (you all know I\u2019m right). Yikes. Am I really ready to go down this road again?? And yet, I turn 34 in the spring. So \u2013 NOT that 34 is old \u2013 my beautiful and savvy 40 year old friends, this is for you \u2013 I see you having a life again after you drop your kiddos off at \u201creal school\u201d and I\u2019m jealous. Part of me looks forward to that independence \u2013 to having \u201cmy\u201d time back. To nurturing myself again. So there\u2019s the conundrum. And to be honest, I haven\u2019t fully figured it out yet. The jury is still out. For now, I\u2019m going to enjoy this second glass of Pinot Noir and my new jeans and think about it another day. And enjoy and celebrate my baby girl who is turning two. Because she deserves my full attention today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t know why, but I always feel a little misty when I come home from hanging out with girlfriends. Maybe it\u2019s the year that\u2019s passed by in a blink, maybe it\u2019s the lifetime of memories we left behind in Chicago, maybe it\u2019s the thankfulness I feel to be loved and supported by so many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}