The size of a family...

My husband and I both come from a family with two kids.
I have a younger brother.
He has an older sister.
We come from very different childhoods and families and so our experiences with our siblings, among other things, are very different.
He grew up in a very "traditional" style of family with very few issues ever arising in his life.
He had both his parents who were married his whole life. His father worked, and his mother stayed home with the children.
His sister and he have an age gap of 5 years and that meant she was able to be there and be helpful and active and a role model to him as he grew up. She was ahead of him in life in many ways and he benefited from it immensely.
Even now, they have a great relationship and benefit from one another in so many ways. Even I have felt the benefits of an "older sister-in-law" from time to time.
I'm sure they fought, annoyed one another, etc. but they have a happy, healthy, mututally desired and beneficial relationship.
I admit from time to time I envy it.

For me, I grew up with a single mother who was an alcoholic until she was 7 months pregnant with my younger brother (We are a little over a year and a half apart in age).
Before being single however, she was in an abusive marriage for a while and even after the divorce she had to deal with the drama and violence that ensued from my biological father for years afterwards, not to mention custody visits on weekends for the first couple years back when he paid child support...
Then you bring in my brother having mental health issues popping up at age 7. Bipolar, heavy on the manic side, meds helped but not very much. there was a lot of violence directly in my life at home from that point on on.
I grew up hating my brother and being afraid of him. I wished I was an only child, and that I had been allowed to stay with my foster family (I was in foster care shortly before my brother was born, until  shortly before my third birthday) instead of being given back to my mom.
I grew up wanting to be a mother, staying home with the kids, being married to a good and safe and sane man and not dealing with the violence and insanity ever again. For a while I wanted to adopt for fear of passing on the mental disorders that run in my family but as time went on I really felt it was best to have one of my own. Just one though, and hope for the best. I never wanted more than one kid, and I only wanted a daughter. This was due to having PTSD and issues coping with the idea of having a son of my own after witnessing the violence and trauma between him and our mother.
Even today, if the baby in my belly is a girl I feel I could happily say "I'm done. Our family is perfect." but I do feel that if it were a boy I'd always pine for a girl and possibly want to try once more with an age gap of 5-7 years and hope that I'd get her, but if not I'd call it quits there.
My trauma and issues helped shape my view, I know that. My childhood has played a large part in making me feel this way and growing up I've accepted it as fine because I know I'd be happy with one kid, okay with two, and overwhelmed with three or more. I'm not a "big family" kind of person trauma or not.

Cellus would love one kid, and would even consider two if we could afford it and still have me stay home even if we get our girl the first go around. That's really our limit though even if money wasnt an issue in play.

Update~ Finally! :D

So. I'm 12 weeks as of yesterday. I'll get to that in a second but first here are the pics and numbers from weeks 9 through 11 (I should stop putting this stuff off so much... lol).

Week 9 (34-31-35 and 114 lbs)

Week 10 (34-31.5-35 and 114.4 lbs)

Week 11 (34-32-35 and 114.8 lbs)

So, at week 12 I'm still having a really easy pregnancy. Even the reflux has seemed to calm down enough to where I hardly notice it at all. I have an appointment with the midwife today. I woke up at 4AM even though I could have slept in. I think my mind and body is too excited for sleep. lol

Here is the week 12 update:

Week 12 (34-32-35 and 117 lbs)

As for life... Cellus and I went out to Tysons and got some sushi with a couple of good friends for Valentines day. We ran into a couple of other friends and that was awesome. It was a great day. The sushi was sooo delicious~ :)

I've been cleaning and organizing and sorting all around the house. I have accomplished quite a lot and have been pretty productive.

- The kitchen is about 95% as could use some reordering in the cabinets still but the table/water cooler/cat food/etc. placement has been fixed and looks great.
- The living room is about 99% complete and has never really been much of a hassle. The end tables get decluttered on occasion but nothing needed to be rearranged drastically. I do have to go through and work on sorting stuff on the bottom two shelves though.
- The upstairs bedroom is about 98% complete. I still have to clean and put away several toys and a bunch of clothes all of which were given to us by some dear friends. Everything else is pretty much where and how it should be though.
- The downstairs bedroom is 96% complete. I just have to organize and sort through hair/makeup/jewlery stuff and make it look nice. I did the closet yesterday. Some things Cellus needs to take care of in there still but it's not a major issue to me that it gets done... mostly because it's clutter that is out of my sight and I can pretend it doesn't exist. lol
- The den is about 85% complete. I've done everything I can. The rest is up to Cellus since I don't get to organize and declutter his stuff. Oh, and we got the dresser upstairs!!! I went and asked the neighbor to help us and it happened the very next day!!
- The bathrooms are about 97% complete. I should probably sort through things in there again eventually and organize and declutter. It's not very high on my list of things to do though. lol

Both kitties have been very lovey still. Jaa has taken to sleeping between my head and Cellus' head all night long while Khan curls up by our feet. They still keep an eye on me during the day too.

Also, a couple days before Valentines Day Cellus got me lilies from the grocery store~

They so pretty!!! They also smell REALLY nice.


Speaking of things that smell nice, I finally decided I might as well try using soap again because of this:

It smells SO wonderful just sitting there dry (It makes the whole bathroom smell good, lol) and is pretty natural compared to some of the other stuff out there that I said "Why not try it?" It's also not too expensive. So here is hoping it works for me. :D

So yeah. That's about it. Not a very exciting post. lol