If you read these blogs, you know that 2009 has not been a very good year for me. I’ve seen the lives of friends shatter and crumble around me – divorce, miscarriage and death. My own life has been beset by difficultly – my job being eliminated, emergency room visits. In general, 2009 has been tough to muddle through.

But I have something waiting for me in December that I think is going to make everything worth while…

Cami and I are expecting our second child.

As you can see from the date on the sonogram – July 23 – I’ve been sitting on this information for a while. Not for any particular reason. Except sometimes it’s hard to wrap my mind around the thought that we’re having another baby. I mean, Henry keeps us so occupied already, the fact that Cami’s pregnant sometimes slips my mind.

I would feel bad, but I’ve talked to friends who are also in the middle of their second pregnancies, and they admit to the same thing. You’re so busy trying to keep the first one from stabbing his eye out with a fork, you kind of forget the second one is on the way.

Well, there is no avoiding it now. Cami is showing beautifully and thoughts of the pregnancy consume my thoughts every day. Sometimes those thoughts are “Holy crap, I don’t have a job. How are we going to afford two kids in day care?” But most of the time, they are less panicked.

At any rate, for those of you wondering: Yes, we do know the sex of the baby and; Yes, we are sharing that information…

It’s a girl.

As for the name? We’re keeping that one close to the vest.

Having a girl let alone having a sibling for Henry to interact with is new territory for me. I’m not worried about the burping / feeding / rocking phase of development. I feel like I have those skills finely tuned. What freaks me out is what will happen when the kids are older and start bouncing off each other.

I never had a brother or a sister, so I understand very little about family dynamics. Cami has a younger sister, so she brings some experience to the table. But I’m coming at this with no idea if or how these two are going to get along.

This is my problem as a parent – I’m always thinking three years ahead of myself. Before Henry was born, I had all these big ideas about going to the zoo, playing catch and hanging out all the time. I gave no thought to the burping / feeding / rocking, etc.

I feel like I’m falling into the same trap with the new baby. “What’s it going to be like when she comes home crying because another girl said she didn’t like her shoes?” That kind of thing. What kind of advice can I give? Except for the highly acerbic kind?

Like anything else, I suppose I just have to play things by ear. All I know is that it will be a different experience for me.

Cami’s due date is sometime around the middle of December. But since Cami is planning on having another C-section (after delivering Henry by Cesarean last time) we won’t know the exact date until we meet with our surgeon.

All I know is that I’m very much looking forward to meeting Baby Brazelton and as I know more, I will be happy to share details with you.

In the meantime, I just wanted to put the good news out there and share a little bit of my life with you.

Thanks and take care.