17.5 weeks pregnant

I can't believe when I was pregnant with Owen, we were just now telling people. Already, I have had strangers come up to me and ask to touch my belly (weird?)

Things are crazy around here and I'm trying my best to post updates and (if he would sit still for five minutes) pictures of Owen. I'm sorry if they are all grouped together in one bunch of posts. Keep reading! I'll do better!

We've had a busy few months since finding out I'm pregnant. I was so sick in the first trimester and couldn't even manage to get dinner on the table. A few months ago I was offered a job, A JOB! IN MY FIELD! I've been meeting with different people and casually interviewing since we moved here. I've been installing car seats with the Safe Kids coalition to keep up my certification and the trauma department at Children's Hospital has been waiting on money for an evaluation. It finally came through and, as promised, they called me. It is a significant contract doing research and evaluation for infant/toddler injury prevention and we were so blessed to get this financial windfall just when we needed it the most. The hard thing for me is that nothing else about my life has changed. I'm still home with O full-time, I'm still volunteering at the Toy Lending Library twice per month, active in La Leche League, I'm pregnant, Jeremy is back on service so he's not around much and now I need to carve time out of my day to complete these deliverables.

I am also still working as a Contributing Editor and Writer with Kveller. I try to get in at least one post per week, as writing has been a wonderful outlet for me (you can always read my latest posts by clicking the Kveller logo in the sidebar.)

I absolutely love being home with Owen, watching him grow and learn - but there is also something so familiar about working again. I've felt a lot like my pre-baby self, actually flashbacks from when I was pregnant with Owen. Jeremy and I were living apart and I spent much of my first two trimesters teaching cycling, teaching Hebrew and working at the University full-time. I was so proud of myself during that time, sure things were hard, but I was thriving by filling my life with purpose and rocking my own independence.

I'm getting a glimpse of that again even though my days are very different than they were back then. I am happy to contribute to our family both by raising Owen and financially. I have so much purpose in my life right now, I just need to find a way to balance it all without exhausting myself.