Smarty Pants

Abigail has been shocking us lately with her brain. Seriously. The girl is too smart for her own good. I wanted to write a few of these down so I don't forget.

She is 3 years and almost 3 months old.

• While eating dinner the other night, she wanted some of my food. I don't remember what it was for sure but I think it was corn. She said "Mama, can I have some of yours?" and before I even got a chance to reply to her request, she said, "God tells us in the Bible that we need to share." Oh my! I guess she's been listening to my constant speeches to her about sharing toys with her sister.


• While driving in the car a few weeks ago, she said something that her dad and I didn't understand. When I repeated what I thought she said, she replied, "No mom, I mean the thing you drink out of" which I guess meant she was talking about cups.


• While eating lunch the other day, I thought Abigail asked me "What is this?" and was indicating some peas I had placed on her plate. She looked at me funny when I said "a pea" and continued to repeat what she asked (which was) "Where is Dad?". When I said, "He's at work" she then replied to me "why did you say he taking a pee?" Ha ha ha ha!!!


• Abigail and her dad have occasionally been indulging in ice cream every so often in the evening hours. If we mention this ahead of time we never hear the end of it. One night Andrew had mentioned ice cream and Abigail had asked us many times over if it was time to eat it yet. Finally her daddy said that if she brought it up again that she wouldn't be allowed to have any. So a few minutes later she was jabbering to her dad about what fun things we were going to do that evening and she came to the part about the ice cream . . . in which she said "then we'll sit down together and umm. . . . well . . . umm. . . we'll have a yummy treat." Ha! We were both floored that she remembered his ultimatum and didn't actually mention the word "ice cream".

Royalty!

So, I'm sure we're all aware of the Royal Wedding going on today. I watched a bit of it and it was a nice distraction from the norm but I didn't get up early to watch or anything. So . . . in honor of the Royal Wedding today, I decided to post a picture that was taken by my very own husband . . . who was then boyfriend, of the Queen of England.

Yes, I'm not kidding. We just happened to be in Scotland while she was at the palace (I remembered being annoyed that we could not tour the palace because she was in residence!) and we just happened to be walking past the palace courtyard as she was getting into her car.

We were pretty much the only ones there, except for the guards doing their ceremony thing (just so she could get into the car - crazy!).

So, yes, I've been that close to the Queen. Enjoy the picture!!

She's the little blue dot by the car. :)




P.S. No baby yet. Nothing to indicate that he'll be coming anytime soon. Very very very minor cramping and that's it - could be ligaments even.

Baby Poll

I was reading back on my blog from when Elsie was born and loved hearing from all of you the stats of when you thought the baby would be born. So, I thought it would be fun to do it again.

Let me all know what you think about the following categories. Perhaps there will be a prize if you're the closest! :)

Birth Date and Time, Weight, Height, & Name

Here is my guess (obviously, I'm joking about the name, since I would be cheating if I posted the real one!):

May 4, 2011
1:10 pm
8 lbs 13 oz
21 inches long
Hector Schechter

38 weeks

I'm 38 weeks pregnant and finally posting a picture. Woo! I feel so organized. Okay, not really.

My midwife appointment went very well yesterday. Here are a few of the details.

• My belly measured at 40 weeks (yikes, no wonder I look like a whale!).



• I was 2 cm dialated.



• The baby had not "dropped" yet or engaged. The midwife said the baby did not float away when she pushed on him so he's out of room!



• My blood pressure was very good. 112/70. I'm so thankful that my last two pregnancies have been free of blood pressure problems.



• She also said the pressure (which I have felt for MONTHS) is normal for a 3rd pregnancy.

I'm still feeling pretty good. Some days are obviously better than others. I love spring but I don't love the allergy suffering that I get along with spring time. I had a terrible sinus headache yesterday (thankfully Andrew was home anyway - he stayed with the girls during my appt.) but I am feeling much better today.

I still can't help napping once a day (about) even though I really fight it and try not to. I sleep much better at night if I don't nap during the day but if I lay down and sometimes if I just sit in a comfy chair, I am asleep. My morning nap was only 30 minutes so hopefully that wont' affect my nighttime sleep much.

I was having some intense sternum pain for a while but I have found that if I sleep with a row of pillows in front of my, one for my leg and one for my arm, that alleviates the sternum pain. I guess I was sleeping with my shoulders hunched forward too much. I'm glad to have found a solution to that!!

I certainly am ready for this baby to come anytime but I am going to cherish these last few precious days a family of four - so he can come whenever he's ready (as long as it's reasonable!!). We actually made it to play group this morning so it was fun for the girls to get out and play with friends for a little while.

All for now!

Been awhile?

Sorry, it's been a while. I don't want to stop blogging (or slow down even) because I LOVE looking back and reading about our activities in the past . . . particularly around when the girls were born. It's just that I don't have much time to myself these days and when I do, I'm usually cleaning something or resting! :)

Anyway, here's a little update so I won't be upset with myself in the future for not writing this down . . .

- Andrew is in NYC today for several business meetings. He flew out this morning around 7 am (I think his flight was delayed an hour) and he'll be back around 11 pm tonight. I can fairly confidently say now that I don't think the baby will be born today but I will be able to greatly relax when he is safely home.

- I'm 38 weeks tomorrow (need to post a picture!) and looking back on this blog I can see that with my previous pregnancies I had had some decent contrations by this point and this time it seems like I have had nothing. I know that each pregnancy is different and that they could just start at any random time but I still feel like the birth is a ways away.

- In the past I have prepped myself for natural childbirth and labor by practicing relaxation techniques and by watching birth stories. I haven't done much of that yet but I'm not sure it will make much of a difference. We'll see.

- My kids are just joyful, wonderful, and extremely challenging and sometimes that wide range can happen in just a few moments time. I have really backed off committing myself to things this past week and while at times that in itself was challenging, by the weekend I was so thankful to have had that time to spend with my children and I don't regret it. I'm planning on keeping it that way for a while.

- Abigail can now write her own name, with no help from me, and several other words and names, such as Ron, Duck, Mama, Dad, and sometimes Elsie. I feel like I have to work every moment of every day with her on cheerfully sharing her toys. I have explained many times of the sin of selfishness and about how it is wrong to whine and mope around when mom and dad say "no" because that shows an ungrateful heart. Whew! I think it's still going to be a work in progress and the main thing I need is consistency!

- Elsie is just growing and learning by leaps and bounds in this last week. I worked with her for a week or two on the sounds different animals make and she is able to say some of them already. I am starting to tell that she is making sounds that are supposed to be words (All Done, Sissy, Mama, Light, etc) but she isn't understandable yet. Her newest obsession is the little Dora couch we have. She loves to get on there and sit for a while. It's so cute!! I love her age because you can see them learn something right before your eyes but I also find it most challenging too because the communication is so difficult!!

Well, that's all for now. I'm off to take my daily bath and read a bit before I need to pick up my kiddos from their Grandma.

Thursday Reflections on Children

As I was feeding Elsie breakfast this morning, I was thinking to myself that once children get to the same "stage" in life (for exmaple: the girls both feed themselves) it doesn't really matter if I just have just one child to feed or I have . . . let's say, six children to feed. The work load for me as a parent is just about the same.


This thought came to me because Abigail was still snoozing away while Elsie got up early.


I'm not saying that this will lead me to feel called to have more children but it was just an interesting observation that I made as I was cutting up strawberries and waffles this morning. It was almost as much work to get breakfast for one as it was to get breakfast for two (and so on and so forth).

Travels and Sacrifice

We learned this morning that my husband will need to return to NYC for another trip before this baby is born. Yikes. I will admit that this makes me nervous! Thankfully it looks like it will just be a day trip (you know . . . leave at 6 am and return at 11 pm) so I'm praying now that I will not go into labor on that day. I feel bad for the guy. He's just doing that he has too.


Speaking of that guy, my husband, I just want to say how very blessed I am. He has really been picking up the slack around here lately. He filled my car up with gas yesterday, which is no easy task with the gas tank not opening without some major propping of levers and prying of gas tank doors, etc.


He also makes other sacrifices that are not easy for him. He's a night person and yet he makes himself go to bed early just go he can get up early to go to work. This, in turn, allows him to be home at a decent hour in order to spend time with the kids (and, I'm assuming, me too). I admire self-control in others and he does an awesome job of showing his love to us by exhibiting self-control (getting up at 5 am!!!) to make his family time a priority.

Weekend and Test Results

We had a fun weekend with my sister and nephew visiting from Chicago. She helped me so much and it was such fun to play with my nephew. They are planning to come back for the birth of this baby as long as everything works out. I can't wait (for many reasons!). My mother-in-law also threw a wonderful baby shower for me on Saturday. I had so much fun seeing everyone and we got some very nice gifts for our baby boy. I need to start on the thank you notes now!! My OB practice just recently started using an online reporting system where you can see and schedule appointments, see test results, and submit questions to a nurse. I got a notification today that my test results were in so I went to look this morning. I'm THRILLED beyond what I can express that my Group B Strep test came back negative. I'm fairly certain this means that for this birth (for the first time ever!!!!) I do not have to have an IV with antibiotics. Yeah yeah yeah! That will be so much better for everyone. My iron levels also came back. They were in the normal range but on the very low side so they will probably tell me to keep taking the iron supplement for these next few weeks. I have managed to have a bit more energy and I've been more consistent with the supplement so I'm wondering if that is part of my problem from last week. I am still struggling with sleep every night. It is mainly just uncomfortability. I cannot sleep on my back (very heavy baby) and if I sleep on my sides then the hip I'm sleeping on begins to ache after an hour or two. I did take Tylenol PM (approved by my doc) a few nights ago and noticed I slept much better. Perhaps I'll have to resort to taking that every few nights to catch up on sleep. Last week Elsie had a runny nose for a few days (and major irritability! whew!) and now Abigail and I have picked up on the cold. It doesn't seem bad, thankfully, but adding a bit of a runny nose and sore throat to being 36 weeks pregnant isn't the most fun I've had in my life. I've also been getting up with Abigail at night since she's miserable with her nose and cough. I think she sounds just a tiny bit better today so that's good. I'm 36 weeks tomorrow and I can't believe how fast time is flying. One more week and I'll be full-term even though my babies have historically come between 39 and 40 weeks.

Memories

I always start to get very sentimental when I'm going to have a baby. The memories are so strong around these times because these are the moments that define life! I've been reading back through my blog to when Elsie was born and goodness, we had a rough time. I didn't really realize it at the time but just a lot of things hit us at once. Abigail was terribly sick three days after Elsie was born and then a week later I had a terrible breast infection. Whew! I remember my temperature going from 102 to like 96. When it would swing low I would wake up and be completely sweat soaked and have to change my shirt before nursing the baby. Not fun times! I'm hoping the recovery period for this one will be a little easier! I can't believe I'm posting this because I feel extremely huge but I'm doing it for my memories! This baby feels huge and I feel huge. My belly button is painful today and it's never popped out before but I'm wondering if this might be the pregnancy for that! I also want to thank my friend, Jen, for lending me her support belt! It has been helping to relieve some of the heaviness but the pressure pain is still there. I will be incredibly surprised if this boy is under 8 pounds. Another weird thing about this pregnancy that I've never experienced before is the need to always have my legs shaved. It's getting very inconvenient as you can imagine. I simply cannot sleep if my legs aren't very cleanly shaved! Ha! Also . . . see my little girl in the picture? She's teething! I'm pretty sure her eye teeth are coming in. She was awake for a bit last night but wasn't really crying so I didn't give her anything. She's been pretty fussy this morning but we made it to nap time and I know this too shall pass. We had a breakthrough with her communication today. I've really been working on getting her to sign with me and say some words and she very clearly signed "all done" after breakfast and it sounded like she spoke the words too. That is awesome! The more communication the better! I also had to tell her "no no" to eating the dog food (to which my oldest child responded "Mama, you hurt Elsie's feelings"! Ugh! So much explaining to do.) and after she'd received a little hand slap for trying to eat some after I had said "no no" she looked up at me and repeated "no no". Okay, girls are asleep and I've probably done too much already this morning so it's bath and rest time for me. Andrew gets home this afternoon (praise be!!!) and my sister is coming to visit tomorrow. I'm SOOO excited!

Abigail Update: 3 yrs and 2 months

Abigail is 3 years and 2 months old. What can I say about my first born?! So many things! She's becoming quite an artist (see her smily face in the photo above). Here is a picture of her "Skyping" with Grandma Roro!

• She is a wonderful helper . . . getting me diapers, wipes, putting away toys, checking on her sister, (and many other things) any time I ask.


• She generally has a wonderful attitude when I ask for her help. She will occasionally say "I'm busy right now"!


• She is a sensitive girl! I explained to her just yesterday that being short and snippy with me hurt my feelings and wasn't honoring to me as her mother. She immediately burst into tears and when I asked what was wrong she said "I hurt your feelings". I hope she keeps this sensitive spirit!!


• She has a fantastic memory. She will bring up events from weeks and even months ago when I think there is no way she will remember something!


• She is a genuine mother! The girl would mother a rock if I let her bring one in the house! She mothers stuffed bears, stuffed dogs, her sister, friends, me and her daddy, and any other toy or object that has had a hard day and needs some love! So funny!


• She is turning out to be a smart little thing. She can write almost all of her letters and continually asks me and her dad how to spell things so she can write them on her white board or magna-doodle. She loves writing people's names in particular.


• She tends to be a bit of a perfectionist! When writing people's names, if she can't get a letter exactly right she begins to get frustrated and will ask me to write it for her. I will be honest when I say that this isn't a trait she got from either of her parents! :)


• She is the silliest girl I know. She cracks her own jokes and then laughs hysterically!


• A good example of her silliness was yesterday while we were eating dinner with her Nana. Abigail said, "Mama has a baby (in her tummy) and Nana has a baby." I said, "Oh really, who is Nana's baby?" Abigail says, "Jesus". . . and then laughs hysterically.


• She loves to be read to and to "read" to other people.


• She wears size 4t or 5t clothes and size 9 or 10 shoes. She is a tall girl!


• She has been potty trained since August but has recently been having potty accidents several times a week.


• She still wears pull-ups at night. I started working on talking about staying dry at night a few weeks ago but when she began to have day time accidents, I backed off.

Trying on Mama's Glasses!

I could really fill this blog up each day with the girl's activities. I need to do a better job of writing down the funny things she says!

Updates: Elsie and Baby #3

I have had so much fun reading through old blog posts to see what Abigail was up to when she was Elsie's age . . . and so forth. I have really be slacking lately to keep it update for Elsie, so I am going to try to do better! Elsie is almost 17 months old (in about a week) and it feels like she's turning into such a little girl now and not just a baby!

• She loves to feed herself!


• She can drink out of a regular sippy cup now (she know how to tip it back) and does great at getting lots to drink each day. I usually have to go on a sippy cup hunt when she's carried it off somewhere!


• She is saying just a few words but she acts like she desperately wants to talk and babbles constantly.


• She can say, "Mama, Dada (in direct reference to us), and Uh Oh". I think she says "more, all done, Nana, and Roro" but those are more guesses than anything else.


• She is fascinated with lights and can make the "l" sound pretty clearly but the rest of the word doesn't really follow yet so I can't claim she says "light".


• She is a fantastic sleeper! She got up a few times at night about two months ago due to extreme teething but other than that, the girl sleeps from 7 to 7:30 pm until anywhere between 7:15 am and 8:30 am (usually in the 7 o'clock hour). She's been sleeping through the night since we started giving her cow's milk to drink back in December.


• She did great playing with other kids (and was actually slightly more social than her sis) when we had a playdate here last week. One of the other mom's had a newborn and Elsie was crazy about the baby. Of course, I had to watch her like a hawk because she just wanted to poke the little baby in the eye. Yikes! What am I in for?!


• She wears 12 to 18 month size clothes and still wears a teeny tiny size 3 shoe! I haven't weighed her in a while so I will try to do that soon.


• She gets along so well with Dewey - much better than her older sis. Andrew even said he came downstairs a while back to see Dewey sitting right in front of Elsie and Elsie was scratching/patting his back!! :) This is good because I think we're going to try to have them share a room.


• She still wears a size 3 diaper.


• She can clap her hands on command, give high 5's, and give kisses when we ask.


• She often will go into the other room, get a book and bring it to us. It's pretty obvious she wants to be read to! She will sit quite still through a book at least once and sometimes more.


• She's still a Mama's girl but lately has confidently been able to go to Daddy and Nana for comfort as well.

• This picture was taken a few weeks ago. Around 30 weeks, I think. Sorry about the mess. This was taken in my closet!! :)


• I am 34 weeks and 4 days pregnant.


• It's getting difficult to breathe at this point! :)


• I am getting up 2 to 5 or 6 times a night to pee or to eat!! I guess my body's just getting used to being awake at night.


• Sleeping at night is becoming more and more uncomfortable. My main complaint is that my hips and legs ache a lot. It helps to lay in the Bradley position and to shift a lot - which is hard to do as well.


• I am having a little heartburn but it doesn't seem to be as extreme as it was when I was pregnant with Elsie. Maybe he'll be a smaller baby.


• My favorite thing is to take a bath everyday. I am definitely most comfortable there!


• It's hard to bend over to help dress little kids and to pick up toys. I'm thankful that Abigail is such a helpful girl and it has also been extremely helpful to have the changing table on the first floor. Much easier to use that for my little pooper, Elsie, than to change her on the floor or couch.


• I have had Braxton Hicks/Cramping for 3 or 4 months now. Can be pretty uncomfortable at times but it is good to know they don't cause any progression.


• I am also having a lot of pressure pain, especially when I am on my feet to long. I try to schedule laying down breaks and that helps a lot. I had this at the end of my pregnancy with Elsie (after 37 weeks) but this time it started in week #23 or 24.


• I think we've narrowed the naming possibilities down to 2 or 3 names. We probably won't officially decide until we get the baby in our arms but it's good to be on the same page!

I think that's all for now. I'll try to update Abigail's doings another time!