Running Around in Circles

This is Alexis' favorite new activity. I went to our annual HOA meeting a few weeks ago, and she was playing with another little girl and chasing her around her mother, chanting, "I got you! I got you! I got you!" Over and over again. And again. This has become a favorite pasttime of hers the past few nights since Jason came home. We clean up her room and play with just the three of us for a little while, and she'll just start taking laps around one of us and chanting again. Seriously, she'll take at two dozen laps or so before we'll stop her... she loves this game. I'm not sure why. And she'll go the other direction, too, so that she doesn't get dizzy. It makes us laugh so much, and last night Jason started chasing her with maardvark, and loud laughter entered into the equation. She is ridiculous. Then when it was finall time to go to bed, she climbed into her bed, said goodbye, and scooted way down and threw the covers over her head. She then realized she forgot something, uncovered herself, grabbed maardark, brought him under the covers, and then said goodbye again. Our daughter is crazy and makes us laugh so much.

She also just got the Elmo phone back that she got for her birthday from Babu and Bibi. She played with it so much that she ran the batteries down in the first two or three weeks of having it, so we replaced the batteries after her not having it for a while. She immediately started talking to Babu and Bibi on it; I was amazed that she obviously connected the phone with the givers of the phone.

She definitely wants more attention these days, but what's nice is that she can roam around a lot more freely now, so if I'm cooking in the kitchen, I don't really worry too much about her running back and forth in between the kitchen and the dining room. This morning she "helped" me make muffins. I had to keep mixing ingredients one at a time because after she helped me mix once, ske kept asking me to put the bowl on the table so that she could mix some more. I've done a lot of cooking this week, trying to prepare some food for when Micah comes and I don't feel like making dinner. It's been fairly successful, too, which is really nice. I made quiche and sausage casserole, and this morning I made even more muffuns. Nanny gave me a really healthy muffin recipe that can be modified to your own tastes, so I made two different types this morning that turned out really really great! Hopefully they'll be a quick breakfast to grab.

I'm also trying to use these last few weeks of "freedom" to get the things done that I'd really like to have done before Micah comes and not to worry about the things that don't get done. I did some more touch-up painting, (this time in the kitchen and not nearly as extensive as before), lots of cooking, I'm working on our grass although I think final front landscaping is going to have to wait (I did finally get out the 10 inch root of the rose bush we needed to dig up), organize stuff, buy things, etc. I think we have just about everything we need in order to start Micah out, which feels good, and Alexis' room needs a few things done, like curtains and a bookshelf, and then she'll be set for a while until we have time to do a little more in there.

And while I'm definitely wearing out more quickly, I still overall feel really great. By the end of the day I have some swelling in my legs and ankles, which is perfectly normal, so my legs and hips and butt tend to ache by the time the day is over. Micah is certainly still moving, but he's not turning around nearly as much as he used to. I'm pretty sure he's running out of room and starting to feel a bit cramped. I tend to think he might be in the head-down position, so maybe I'll find out next week at my appointment. (It was really nice not having to go to a doctor's appointment this week because I'm so healthy and feel good!) Amongst other things I'm looking forward to, I can't wait until I can stretch again!!! And sleep on my other side! They say sleeping on your side is the best, and the left side is the best of the two options, but what they don't tell you is that sleeping on your right side can help contribute to leg cramps, so I've had to give that up completely. (It's not as comfortable either, but sometimes I just need a position change. That's when I find myself waking up on my back.) I've been sleeping pretty well and only waking up briefly every few hours and then falling right back to sleep, which I really like.

It's about 9:00 right now, and unless Micah comes early, Jason and I will be at the hospital waiting for him to be born. We scheduled the c-section for Friday, July 17 at 10:00 am. It's so weird to be able to do that... I'm hoping to be able to come home on Sunday, but we'll see if that happens. They say three-four nights usually, but if I'm in on Friday morning maybe I'll feel up to leaving by Sunday late afternoon or evening. I'm not going to overdo it, though, and will stay if I need to. These days I'm all about not overdoing things and accepting things that people want to do for me. I am really pregnant after all!

My Little Copycat

Alexis has been asking for Nemo the past few days, so we're on the couch watching it. The shark started to laugh, and she laughed like he did - low and rumbly and with a sinister attitude. Then we he said "party" she started to bounce up and down and say "ParTee ParTee" like my mom taught her. It's pretty adorable. She's also playing with a balloon that Jason brought home for her yesterday. She takes the bottom of the ribbon and starts pulling it down and counting one to ten, which she can do, but she almost always skips four and five. I'm not sure why; it's like she's decided that she doesn't believe us about three and four, so she keeps going to five. It's pretty similar to her constantly mixing up Babu and Bibi. Even two nights ago when we were looking at pictures, she did the exact opposite. She also loves to copy Jason's cough. Cute and sad, all at the same time.

Jason seems to be getting better from having a monster cold. Alex has so far avoided being sick except for a small cough, and I went to the doctor yesterday and discovered I had a sinus infection. I think I got it in Wilson, not from Jason, because my allergies tend to get bad when I go there and we definitely had some different symptoms. However, I'm on antiobiotics now and am already starting to feel better.

In NOrth Carolina we met our new nephew, Isaac Andrew. (Isn't that a great name?) He's beautiful! It was really cool to be able to be there, and it reminded me of how tiny newborns are! It really kind of made it real to me that Micah's going to be here next month and life is going to totally change. Again.

In other news, I think the even of a lifetime took place on Wednesday. We had a DISHWASHER INSTALLED!!! I've been "testing" it because it's been so long since I've had a dishwasher and I don't really know what its abilities are, but we got one that had a hard food disposal, which is supposed to mean that you don't have to rinse your dishes. And apparently, they mean that. I was pretty amazed because I put some fairly gross dishes in last night and they came out beautifully! I made a casserole for dinner last night and didn't know what to do with all of my additional counter space, too, because we are now able to put away our dish drainer/dryer rack thing. It's ridiculous how much easier having a dishwasher is going to make my life. Hooray!

I am now going to continue blowing my nose, an activity that hasn't stopped since I woke up.

The Non-Saga

There has really been no drama when it comes to the transition from a crib to a toddler bed. Hooray! Alex has been amazing about staying in bed, and last night I stopped checking on her in the middle of the night. She has done a great job of actually staying in bed, which is wonderful. For now, at least, she's completely fine. We'll have to see how it is when everything else is in her room. However, she has taken naps with all of her toys in her room, and she's done FINE with that! This afternoon I even put her in her room and told her it was naptime, and she went directly to her bed and went to sleep. My daughter is AWESOME!!!

She actually got really sick yesterday and took two long naps and had a fairly high fever. However, we're pretty sure now that it was simply a teething situation because she's mostly better today but has been indicating that her mouth hurts some. This is good news; I really didn't want a sick child right now. She's currently eating some cheerios and saying ow and putting her finger in her mouth like her gums hurt.

She has also started "reading" signs around town, which apaprently I did as a kid. (I imagine all kids do this.) She identified the S in Lowe's and Kohl's today, along with other letters, and when we were stopped at a light she just started reading letters off of a sign that she could seen.

My doctor's appointment today went well. The doctor wasn't sure what position Micah's in. He had a really fast heartbeat this time, which isn't a problem, but he calmed down a little bit while she waited. He was prett active and kicking around while she was checking him out. It looks like most likely I'm going to have a c-section. We have yet to be able to get a copy of my surgical records from Nicaragua, and they can't do a regular birth without them, so unless we can get a copy by my next appointment in two weeks, I'll have a c-section. What I DIDN'T know was that they'll schedule it! They'll schedule me next time so that I can be on the calendar. It's very odd to think about not "going into labor" like last time, when I was scheduled but went into labor anyway. Micah could still come earlier than the schedule, but we shall see. (All of this is assuming that we DO have to do a c-section.)

Two Down, Zero to Go?

Last night she didn't cry at all. She got out of bed a few times to look out the window before she went to sleep, but I stuck my head in each time and gently but firmly told her that it was bedtime and she needed to stay in bed. That happened three times I think, and she fell asleep about 8:20 again. She was still in bed when I checked on her around midnight, and she was still in bed when she woke up this morning.

So far, so good! The bigger test will be when we take her gate off and put other things in her room. Maybe we'll start that next week. So far, though, I'm very pleased.

1 Down, 364 More to Go

HOPEFULLY this is not the case. Actually, I'm am VERY pleased. I am referring to the "big" transition from a crib into a toddler bed. Yes, we started tackling this monster last night. Our approach? Try and try again to see what works. :)

In reality, Alexis did a great job last night. She ended up not taking a nap yesterday afternoon, although she did rest in her crib for that time. So we figured she was pretty tired anyway. We put her down a little after 7:30, which is her pretty normal bedtime. We thought that the best idea would be to take everything out of the room except for her bed and her favorite friends to sleep with - no toys, no curtains or other decorations (we waited to put anything else up), basically no distractions. We also thought that what we would do is put the gate up at the door so that she couldn't get out of the room, and in a while we'll transition to putting the gate at the top of the stairs and closing all the doors so she doesn't go downstairs or get into other places. That's how we decided to try things.

Well, Alexis was adorable. She got all excited earlier in the day when we were showing her the big girl bed, and before bed she simply crawled in under the covers and tucked mardvaark in with her and was saying night night. All signs were good! Then we left, and she got sad. And then really sad. And then tragically sad. Jason went to be with her and she just cried and cried and cried. I joined after a while, and then we left for probably about ten minutes, letting her calm herself down a little and then start crying again and continuing the cycle for a little while. Jason went up again for a shorter period of time but still trying to comfort her and let her know everything was fine but that she was a big girl and she had to stay in bed. Then the leaving, the crying and not crying again, and I went up for a very brief period of time. She needed a diaper change, so I gave her one, and I did the whole explanation, kiss and hug and goodnights and put her back to bed, and she cried some more, and then she started to calm down. I left about 8:15 and we said we wouldn't go back for a certain period of time because we're trying to encourage her to self-adjust (I guess that's how you could say it). Anyway, by 8:25 she was out, sleeping on the bottom half of her bed, but asleep in the right direction. I was pretty impressed.

And yes, at some point in the evening she got herself out of bed... I woke up at 12:30 and went to go check on her, and although we hadn't heard anything, she has crawled out of bed and been sleeping on the floor for a while. (She was still in bed when we went to sleep, which wasn't too much after her.) I put her back in the bed, and it appears that she slept the rest of the night with her head on her pillow (kind of) and actually in bed. We got her up at 6:30.

Overall, I think I'm pretty impressed. At least for the first night. We'll see how naps and the other nights go. :)

Home Improvements and Professional Athletes

We have done so much to the house in the past few weeks! It's been almost all outside, which is great, because the outside still kind of looked like an abandoned home. Dad came and painted Alex' new room and power-washed the back of our house and the fence, which looks so much better now. We had some painters come and paint the front of the house after that. THAT was an interesting experience because of all of the back-and-forth communication about it, and I had to keep going back and double-checking their work. However, when it was finally done, it looked SO MUCH BETTER! Previously the columns had been all chipped away and someone had attempted to paint the siding with disastrous results because they the right paint wasn't used, and overall it just looked horrible. So THAT was taken care of. Then mom and Earl were around because mom had some training, so Earl and I (I refer to "we" loosely because he did the huge majority of work and I made blts...) did the landscaping part. We built a retaining wall the first day and filled it with dirt, good dirt, hostas, a maple, and mulch. IT LOOKS SO GREAT!!! I feel like our neighbors don't have to be ashamed of us anymore. :) Jason and I are going to take care of the right side of the steps and build a small portion of wall there, too, and probably put a maple in there as well. Before it was mostly a barren area with a chaotic lump of a few plants, and now it has patriot and June hostas and a sharp's pygmy maple in it. We're also going to put a cross to the right of the maple, although it's not in the pictures. The next day we went to the backyard. I took care of working on some of the trimwork that surrounded our sliding glass doors. (Earl, I filled it with more wood filler and painted over it, hooray! I might do one more coat - already done two after the Kilz - but it looks so much better.) He created a drainage system for us because we've had some flooding problems in the back. We now have a defined area around our ac unit that is filled with sand and covered in rocks to help with the water, and we have the same rocks under our gate, another area that was a mini-lake. He dug a trench bordering one side of our gate and laid black piping that attached to our gutter and talked to our neighbor because his run-off goes directly into our yard. So far, so good. While it hasn't rained, we have a problem with our hose faucet back there,. Previously the area would have started to flood after I tried to fill up her pool because of the leaking, but this time around it just produced wet rocks. Hooray! Okay, so I'm a little excited abut my new house... lol.

In kid news, Alexis has decided that she wants to stay up until about 10:00. This is not good news, and I'm going to blame Babu and Bibi. Okay, maybe not, but for two days after she saw them, she didn't want to go to bed at all. Alexis also keeps mixing up their names and has it set in her mind that Babu is Bibi and Bibi is Babu. It's pretty adorable and funny. When Earl and Alex and I went to Home Depot to get stuff, she basically refused to let him out of her sight, and each morning when he was here, and for the two mornings after that, she would ask for them when she first got up. She was asleep last night a little after 8:30 I think, so hopefully she's getting over this stage. We shall see.

I went to the doctor again yesterday and all is fine. She thinks that they weighed me inaccurately last time around, because if we trusted the records, I would have lost six pounds or so, which doesn't make sense. Two weeks ago I weighed 147, and this week I wehged 141. She thinks it was just a mistake, especially considering that the previous weight would have meant I gained about tenpounds in a month, which is a lot. So my weight is good, Micah's heartbeat is incredibly strong and steady and healthy, and she said I have the blood pressure of an athlete! (I thought that part was particularly funny.) She also answered some questions about when I call to go to the hospital and traveling and a few other small things. One significant issue is that we're trying to get my surgical records from our hospital in Nicaragua. Withouth them, a c-section is automatically done because the outside of an incision doesn't necessarily tell you what the inside of an incision was like, so they can't take any chances on a vaginal birth. We'd like to try it the normal way, but we have to have a records to even have a chance at that. We'll see what happens.

On a revision note (I'm adding this later), Alexis ate cheerios in milk this morning for breakfast. Disgusting, but she liked them, and it's yet another thing I'm going to blame on Earl. ;) Also, she randomly just started saying happy and sad and acting each one out. It was unbelievably cool!

And Some Videos

I haven't had a lot of luck uploading videos lately, but I'm going to try and include a few here.