At Last...Another Letter to My Wonderful Child!!!

Dear Baby Levis,

Okay, so it’s been more than a month since I’ve written to you last and I really have no good excuse. Things have been crazy, as of late, “yes” but that is still no excuse not to write to you any chance I get. So, Poppa is sorry for the long delay! I will definitely try my hardest to keep up with my journalistic duties as an informative blogger and write to you as often as possible.

So as you can imagine, a lot has happened since my last entry. Let’s look back at some of the things that have taken place in the last month or so…

We were told what you are going to be!!!! Yes…another awesomely proud moment in the Levis’ fresh history tree. Dear old dad had an idea of who and what you were going to be, so it was very exciting when the doctor told us what you are! Both your mom and I felt very proud at that very moment. The doctor almost couldn’t tell because you were so active in there, but you gave him about 3 seconds to take a look and that was just enough time to determine what you are. I must admit (now granted you are my first child), I have never seen such a beautiful baby in all the land! You have really grown up since the last ultrasound. And you were really kicking and punching in there. I think you are going to be a ton of energy for mommy and I, but that’s a good thing, because I definitely like to run around too, so you’ll have daddy always there playing with you!

You and mommy were the Maids of Honor at “Uncle Stebs and Tia Alicia’s” wedding. That was a lot of fun! You probably felt a lot of moving and shaking because mommy was having a blast running from the dance floor to the Photo Booth. Man, that Photo Booth idea…whoever started that trend of having them at weddings is GENIUS! Mommy looked beautiful as always and gave a wonderful speech! She definitely won the crowd over with, well, “glitter.” Another wedding down for the Levis’ and probably about 4 more to go!

There was a lot of celebrating going on during the month of June. Your lil’ cousin Gabe turned 5 years old. We had a good time! There were lots of kids running and playing, it was very nice to watch all the kids having fun. Soon, you’ll be out there running and sliding and swimming! I can’t wait! Another person who celebrated a birthday was mommy! She turned 24 years old (well so she says)! We went to Los Doyers game and ate Doyer Dogs and cotton candy! It was a good time and they won! I think the couple of games that we’ve gone too, they’ve won, so you must be a good luck charm! Speaking of winning, our beloved Lakers won also! Yeah, that makes daddy very happy! During the games, mommy almost went into early labor because it was so exciting and the games were very close, but in the end, we won! Back to mommy’s birthday…we also went to the restaurant at the LAX airport. The place was fun and mommy enjoyed it because we could watch all the jumbo planes come in for landing. You will soon find out that planes are the most interesting things in the world for mommy, so it was a nice treat!

Another celebration that happened was that mommy and daddy, both, got a chance to celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day this year (as actual parents)! Yes! Both days were wonderful and both sets of family’s made those days absolutely spectacular for the both of us! It was an absolute amazing feeling to celebrate Father’s Day. I’ve always appreciated the day when we would celebrate it for your grandpa, but it was a tremendous feeling for me to celebrate it! I felt so grown up and “accomplished.” I know that that probably doesn’t make any sense, but it was just a GREAT, GREAT feeling…like being a member of an exclusive club or something. Most importantly, it reminded me that I was soon going to be a dad to the most wonderful child in the world! I guess I really have you to thank for that! So “thank you”!

Another celebration was Tia Becca’s high school graduation (so if you got scared by a bunch of screaming and yelling and bull horns one Sat. morning, it was the family cheering on your aunt)! That was very exciting for the whole family. She is the last one in the family to graduate from high school, so it was a big celebration. So next in line to graduate from the immediate family is…well…YOU! So keep eating away at those Prenatal pills and I’ll make sure mommy eats lots of “brain food” and maybe you’ll graduate from high school at like age 6 or something? I know, I know…that would be crazy, but we never know!

Well, let me tell you about some exciting news, in regards, to you. I finally felt you move around in there! WOAH! That was absolutely amazing! I have never felt anything so surreal in my life! I think I just froze there, motionless, because it was so amazing, so crazy, and so unbelievable that you are in there! That made things even more exciting because I was now able to feel you. It actually makes me wish that these next 3 months or so would just fly by so that I can hold you and squeeze you and have you in my arms! I know that mommy feels the same way too!

So, that’s pretty much all the major events that you’ve been feeling and hearing for the last couple of weeks. I do have to admit that it has been a wonderful experience and that each day I get more and more excited about having you in this world! You truly are a gift from God and I am so thankful that I get to be apart of this miraculous event! Your mom has been so strong and amazing throughout this entire experience and she truly deserves all the accolades in the world on how well she is doing with this. I can totally understand how difficult it can be, at times, for her and I hope that she knows how much I love her and support her (even if she thinks she acts crazy at times). She has definitely gone through a lot and she has been very tough through it all. You both are the loves of my life and I will never let you forget it!

Love,

Daddy Levis

P.S.

My mom just called me at work to tell me she saw a picture of me from February and that I looked "skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinny, skinny, skinny then!"

Thanks mom. I totally needed to hear that today.

Remember to eat healthy!!

Yes, yes I know. This is my dad's daily adage and it finally hit me this weekend that I'm pretty sure he thinks I look fat. Though, he is kind enough to know that telling a pregnant chick that she's fat = instantaneous death to the sayer of these words at the hands of said pregnant chick. While I'm not eating only chicken and broccoli on a daily basis, I also don't think I'm doing too bad in the weight department either. Well, minus the one day at my cousin's house that shall go down in infamy. Let's just say there was a deep fryer involved and I was definitely tied to a chair and force fed deep fried oreos, taquitos and empanadas. FORCE FED! Oh and my drunk husband was definitely involved in creating the hysteria. Damn Laker game. I will say I took one for the team though, because our beloved Lakers are where they should be right now. All because of my torturous bout with the fryer!

Nevertheless, I apparently am noticeably fat. And I'm not writing this out to garner sympathy from the 4 readers of our blog. There's no "you are NOT fat Sandy! you're beautiful!" necessary, PLEASE! I'm aware from the outside looking in, pregnancy is beautiful. Skinny or fat, a pregnant women is a work of art (gag!). But from the inside looking out, it's kinda reallllly hard to see the beauty in this Monet. From the pregnant's perspective it's kind of like Monet took Opium + Absynth + Crack Cocaine + drank a 40 of Jager and attempted to copy the Mona Lisa "a'la Monet style." Kinda looks like a bad hangover that almost resulted in an overdose. No matter how far back you stand, you can't see the beauty in it.

Having said that, feeling-down-on-herself pregnant chick can absolutely see the beauty in what's going on inside her. I mean, I can see the beauty in what's going on inside me. =) I really can, and because of the amazing experience of feeling our baby moving around inside me every single day, I'll take the gross outer appearance feeling any day of the week. And I'll take the jabs from people too. I may not be Halle Berry, only gaining 5 pounds my entire pregnancy, wearing non maternity True Religion jeans until I'm 9 months pregnant, but I still am equally as cool as her in that I'm creating a real human. So while the container may not be as attractive, the end product is truly the most beautiful thing life has to offer, and I'm fully aware of it and feel incredibly blessed to be able to go through this experience.

Besides, I know I can run better than most (well except Monica apparently!) So once Blank is out of incubation, I'll run til my hips fall off and look like Jillian Michaels before you know it. And/or I know how to properly (and healthily) starve myself to at least look like a normal person. Either A or B will apply! But come wedding season starting in April, I'll be a MILF (excuse my language lol!) for sure! My wonderful Paul suggested I buy a killer "goal" dress and hang it around the house somewhere to keep me motivated. I just may do that. I love goals. Almost as much as I love killer dresses!

AND! I'm allowed one "swollen" pregnancy. Next time, I'll be Halle. Or something. So yes, I will eat cotton candy when I go to Los Doyer games, and yes, I will bake brownies every 3 months, and yes I will eat lots of cheese. Cuz I heart cheese and its gooey wonderfulness! The skinnies can take the hit with their boring meals of baked fish and cauliflower. Next time I'll join you in your misery. This time I'll do my best to eat right, but I won't deny myself the luxury of some pudding here and there.

For those keeping track, by the way, we are finally at the point of monthly fruits and vegetables. So until the end of the 24th week, we're at Papaya! Can I tell you how much I loathe the smell of Papayas? I really do! They smell awful and I don't know how people eat them! But they are big, so I'll take the comparison to show us where Blank is at right now. Oh, also, this week we turn 23 weeks. So thankfully, Papaya only has about 2 weeks left to play.

Well that was my blog for the day. A little bit of 'woe is me' mixed with a lot a bit of 'this is amazing!!' We've continued to feel great and we're continuing to trek on as we get closer and closer to actually meeting beautiful baby Blank!

Thanks again for reading so far. I'll update soon again.

Love,

Paul, Sandy & Papaya

It's all downhill from here...

In a good way though. We're at 21 weeks! YAY! That means that we're further than half way through this pregnancy. So hopefully, from here on out, time will fly. Hopefully!

Wellll!!! We officially know what we're having!! And we're both so excited about it! But I won't mention the sex here, because Abuelo reads this blog and he still doesn't want to know what it is. He wants to wait until the baby is born so he can be surprised. So I'll do my duty and not mention it, though I'm pretty sure the whole wide world knows what we're having by now. Good luck to the person that spills the beans to him!

Aside from finding out if Blank is a boy or a girl, our ultrasound went great. Everything is continuing to grow as it should, all looks healthy, and Blank was swimming around perfectly. We saw it's arms, legs, eyes, mouth, ear (only one ear because Blank apparently felt like leaning up against my uterus on the other ear and wouldn't give us a peak), kidneys, liver, heart, toes, fingers, and it's bits. HA! Good times at the doctors office! We saw little Blank swallow some fluid just like it should be doing, which was way cool. And we saw it be shy for the camera....arm in front of it's face the whole way through. Apparently it doesn't like the paparazzi! All in all, everything looks great so far. We get one more peek on July 30th and then we wait til birth. As of right now, by the way, Blank is the size of a Banana! Awwww! How cute!

I'm still continuing to feel great, though I've caught a little cold. But this cold has been way easier than the last cold I had last month. I think this one is actually dwindling away nicely without the need for meds, phew! Other than that, I'm feeling like my old self again....with the added benefit of a basket ball under my clothes! I tell people that I don't necessarily feel any different that pre pregnancy, but then I walk in front of a mirror and I'm like "WOAH! Where did that come from!" For a split second I think I have to go on a diet...but then I realize, it's Blank doing it's thing!

Speaking of Blank doing it's thing...holy heck it's moving a lot! I feel it swimming and kicking every day. Blank tends to be most active from 6 pm to about bed time. Paul calls it "my time on the throne of laziness" aka our chaise on the couch. While I wish I could sit here and tell you that it's as comfortable as it used to be, it really hasn't been lately. But it does wonders for my swollen feet, so I continue to be lazy on the throne. I think sometimes Paul wants to pull his hair out from all the "relaxing" we're doing, but he's been a good sport about it and has let me be a lazy fat porker on the couch.

We decided to take a walk last night...so we walked about 2.5 miles over to Aunt Bani's house. It was kind of challenging, but it felt great. If only I could get my tush off the couch more often, I'd do it nightly. But if you threw sitting on the throne of laziness vs. walking out to me, chances are thrones would win. =)

Anyway...things continue to progress nicely with this little bundle of joy. I'm hopeful that they will stay that way for at least 19 more weeks! We're both super excited to meet little Blank and we're super excited to get started on the nursery in the coming weeks. I'll post pictures of the progress on the blog once we get started. And yes, I'll actually post pictures, unlike my promise to post belly pictures....which I still promise I'll try to do soon =)

In the meantime, Blank, Paul & I thank you for continuing to read our story!

Love,

Paul, Sandy & Baby Blank...who's actually a boy or a girl now! YAY! I mean Banana, for now!