New Coat

We had a cold spell last week and realized pretty quickly that we didn't have appropriate cold-weather gear for R to wear outside on the playground at daycare. Grammie found this coat and R was thrilled with it-- so thrilled, in fact, that she insisted on wearing it on a day when it was supposed to be 70 degrees by mid-afternoon. It apparently took some wheeling and dealing on the part of her daycare teachers to get her to take the coat off even though it was really too hot for her to be wearing it!

R and RUS

Ridiculous

Ok, I have been commenting on how it's ridiculous that all the stores seem to have their Christmas displays out and it's not even Halloween yet-- I almost feel as if I can't fully enjoy Halloween because I'm being bombarded already with images of Christmas.

But that didn't stop me from googling "Frosty the Snowman" lyrics and then playing three or four Christmas videos and songs off of YouTube for R this morning. Oops.

Going Shopping

A conversation between R and Grampie before heading out to the store:

Grampie: What should we get at the store?

R: Cantaloupe!

Grampie: OK, what else?

R: Cupcakes!

When they came back, they had a cantaloupe and an orange, the latter of which R devoured during dinner. As Grampie put it, R kind of forgot about the cupcakes and he didn't remind her.

RUS's Birth Story

For those who are interested, here's the timeline of RUS's birth:

On October 13, around 12:30 a.m., I wake up to pee and notice that I'm having contractions. This isn't anything unusual, as I've had on-and-off irregular contractions for a couple weeks now. But when I go back to bed, they keep coming. I try to sleep until about 2:30, when I finally decide to get up-- I wanted to time the contractions and see if they were regular or not. Turns out they are coming about 4 minutes apart and lasting about 45 seconds. I would have thought something was happening except for the fact that the contractions are totally painless. I am just sitting there like, "Oh, there goes another one."

Around 5 a.m. they start to get farther apart again and I decide it was just a false alarm and go back to bed and sleep until about 8:30 a.m. I was pretty determined not to just sit around waiting for contractions to happen, so J's mom and I head out and run some errands. We get home around lunch time.

At this point, J and I decide to take a walk. We walk for maybe 10 minutes, during which I have several contractions. These are about 2 minutes apart, but they are only lasting 30 seconds. They still don't hurt. We get home, and decide to call the birth center just to ask them what they think might be going on. While J is calling, I am sitting on our exercise ball, and all of a sudden I have a whopper of a contraction. I have to stand up, walk around, and I'm about in tears because the pain came out of nowhere.

J tells the midwife at the birth center that we can get packed up and to the birth center by around 1:30. We load up all the bags (bags that have been packed for an entire month, by the way) and get on our way. We arrive at the birth center around 1:20 p.m. and the whole way there I have contractions that are about 3 minutes apart that I could not talk through. We wait for a few minutes before going back to an exam room to get checked. The midwife listens to the baby's heartbeat through a contraction and says the baby is handling the contractions perfectly. She was going to check me there, but I am having contractions so close together that I don't have time to get up on the table, so she decides we should head upstairs to the birthing room to do the check instead.

We finally get upstairs after a few contractions, and at this point I have no idea how long anything took. But when she does the exam, I am 8 cm and the baby is at +2 station (so it is about 2 inches below my pelvic bone). Immediately after she checks me, I flip over to my hands and knees, a position from which I do not move until after the baby is born. I work through a bunch of contractions-- really painful ones-- by focusing on my abdominal breathing, working to relax everything I can, and keeping in mind that every contraction has a beginning and an end. I'm totally oblivious to everyone in the room except for a midwife near my head who is telling me what is going on, and J, who at some point got on the bed with me and started massaging my hands.

I never consciously decided to push, but during several contractions my body pushed a little here and there, and then shortly after that I started having serious pushing contractions. J said it was maybe 3 pushes and one really long big one and the baby was born at 2:04 p.m., just about 45 minutes after we parked the car in front of the birth center.

The midwife who caught the baby slid him under my legs so I could hold the baby and I got to be the first to find out the gender-- I held him to my chest for a moment or two and then pulled the baby away and saw immediately that it was a boy and shouted, "it's a boy!!"

We just held him and stared and all that for about an hour and a half before J helped weigh and measure him-- 7 lbs 1/2 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. We left the birth center around 7:30 p.m., about 6 hours after we arrived. I was so glad to be in my own bed, and with all the comforts of home around me. We called everybody and even talked to my parents on the webcam that same night. It was absolutely amazing.

This is the picture they took at the birth center right before we left to go home.

I still can't quite believe we're a family of four

"There is no reason any child's toy needs to have a loud setting"

Said this weekend by J, during a visit from Surf and Cali and Little T.We had the most lovely weekend with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. It was amazing to see how much Little T had grown since we last saw him at Christmas. He's toddling around -- he can take a few steps unaided, but for the most part prefers to be holding someone's hand as he walks -- and he loved our little music table. This is the same LeapFrog musical table that R held on to as she first learned to walk.

Of course, J's comment was in reference to the table, which has an "off" setting as well as two volume settings. R and Little T went wild for the buttons on the table, and it was endearingly cute to see them fighting over who got to push which button.

P-I-Z-Z-A

You generally have to be careful when talking about food around R. She will often hear the name of a food and then start demanding it.

A few days ago Grammie was heating up some leftover pizza for lunch and came into the living room to ask me if I wanted some. Only, she had to say it like this: "Do you want any P-I-Z-Z-A? I'm putting some in the toaster oven now."

Of course, R heard her.

And immediately started wanting Z-I-R-A-B-C-M-Z-Z-R-L-P.

Or was it G-L-R-T-R-I-A-S-J?

She asked for several different letter combinations. I'm not sure how long this spelling of foods is going to prevent her from immediately wanting whatever it is we're spelling.

Big sister, little brother

R met RUS shortly after he was born. She was very excited to see a new baby. She wanted to hold him, touch his nose, give him her baby's toy bottle, and give him her water. We think she'll be a great big sister, and RUS is lucky to have her. Today she wore her "Big sisters are the coolest" T-shirt and tonight she'll get to open her present from her new brother - a play doctor's kit to check out her own babies with.

Meet RUS

13 October 2009
2:04 p.m.
7 lbs. 1/2 oz.
19 1/2 in.

Maybe Today. . . ?

Assigning Chores

Every day after dinner R has a bath or a shower. We transition to this activity by asking her, once the meal is over, "What time is it??" and she answers, "Shower time!!!" (or, sometimes, "Bath time!!")

Since we've had Grammie and Grampie around a lot the last few weeks, she's been requesting that certain individuals-- sometimes Mommy, sometimes Daddy, but most often Grammie or Grampie or both, do her shower/bath.

Last night we asked her, "Who do you want to do your shower tonight?"

"Grammie!"

"Who do you want to do the dishes?"

"Ummmm, Daddy!"

"Then what should Mommy do?"

(R looks around the room, thinking)

"Ummmm, hold my baby!" (said while pointing at a doll sitting propped up against the wall).

Yep, Still Pregnant

I've gotten a few queries in the last few days so I thought I'd give everyone a quick update. I'm still pregnant. Here's a picture to prove it.The picture was taken a few days ago but I still look pretty much the same. I'm three weeks more pregnant than I was when R was born, but I feel 1000 times BETTER than I felt when at the end of my last pregnancy. I pretty much feel normal, except for the big belly. Seems like baby is going to hang around awhile longer!

Politeness Police

R is very good about saying please and thank you when asking for and receiving food at mealtimes. J and I are also pretty good about it, too. Lately, however, R has taken immense pleasure in reminding us to "SAY THANK YOU, mommy!" or "SAY THANK YOU, daddy!" if we should happen to forget. She then proceeds to go around the table and insist that everyone at the table say thank you or please to someone or other.

U-Pick Apples

We went to a local orchard and picked about 10 lbs of apples with Grammie, Grampie, and R yesterday. R loved being able to pick the apples herself and carry her own bag with apples in it.R also loved running around the pumpkins. We bought her a mini-gourd that she proceeded to call the "baby pumpkin" and she and I shared an apple cider donut out of sight of Grammie (who was trying to resist temptation!)

So You Think You Can Dance?

That show has nothing on R's cutting-edge moves, which she loves to do in the mornings while we get ready for day care and work. I took this video one rainy morning as we were getting ready to go out the door.

An Afternoon at the Park

We went to the park the other day after getting R from day care, and I remembered the camera, for once!

This is the park that is just around the corner from our house, and it's really nice because the play structure is the right size for R. It'll get too small before too long, I know, but for now it's perfect. She's gotten really into the swings the last few park trips. She could swing for-EVER.

 

And of course a gratuitous belly shot (37 weeks-ish).

Dinosaur Week

I'm a little late posting this but one week back in the summer it was very exciting to find out that R's day care made dinosaurs their theme of the week. They read dinosaur books and had dinosaur toys to play with and did various dinosaur related arts and crafts. That same week, R came home with this painting.

What do you think it looks like?

26 and 27 Months

Dear R,

The last two months have been a whirlwind. You are getting more independent at every moment and this is probably the greatest change we have seen in you as summer has turned into fall. You put on your own shoes, and you insist on choosing the shoes you want to wear (usually a flower pair that Grandma got for you that you love). You also love to take your socks and shoes off, especially in the car when we are on our way somewhere. You're working on being able to pull your pants up and down yourself.

You play independently much more than before. One of the remarkable changes we've seen is that you now read books--aloud--to yourself. The first time I saw you doing this, you chose We're Going on a Bear Hunt from your shelf (this has been a favorite book since we've moved to this new house) and you sat on your little chair from Great-Grandma H. and flipped the pages and read:

"Going on a bear hunt. (flip flip) Gonna get a big one. (flip flip) Swishy swashy. (flip flip) WHATS THAT! (flip flip) it's a BEAR! (flip flip) all done!"

You're also acting out characters from books. We've gone on a bear hunt plenty of times around the house and on the way to the park (Mommy is usually the bear), but you also love to pretend to be the Pigeon from the Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog and Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. You have Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus nearly memorized and you love to quote random lines from it throughout your day. Your favorite page is when Daddy reads "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!!" and shakes the book while he reads it. You demand that the book be shaken every time that page shows up, and often, you quote the line before we even get a chance to read it to you.

One of your favorite phrases this month has been "I did it ALLL-READY!" most often said in response to "let's go sit on the potty" but also said when you don't want to eat something that we're asking you to, when we want you to put some clothes on that you don't feel like putting on, or when there is something needing done that you just plain don't feel like doing. Unfortunately for you, we can usually see through the ruse and are rarely fooled. But I'm sure you'll come up with something else very soon.

You've also been busy helping us get ready for the new baby to arrive. Your biggest contribution so far has been testing out all the old baby toys-- you know, the ones that used to be yours but now are really too small to hold your interest for too long-- and ensuring that they all still work. You loved spending time with me in the baby's room while I worked on organizing and getting all the little newborn baby gear ready, and your favorite thing to do was to turn on the CD player and dance around while getting out every single baby toy. It's been so interesting to see how differently you manipulate the toys and use them now that you're so much older than the last time these toys were out.

You have about five different dolls and you alternate carrying one around and calling it your baby. You love putting blankets on them, laying them down for naps, holding them on your shoulder and patting their backs, rocking them in your arms, wheeling them around the house in your stroller, and giving the babies baby toys to play with. You frequently hand me and Daddy one of the dolls and insist that we hold it a particular way or rock it or pat its back while you handle a different one. I'm so curious and excited to see how you do with your real live little baby brother or sister.

Love,
Mama

Stool Antics

R is lucky to have a particularly crafty and talented Grammie. She painted this stepstool for her, and boy does R love carrying this thing around the house. She loves to climb on it to wash her hands at the bathroom sink, and anytime she can't reach something she runs to the bathroom, pulls out the stool, and uses it to get at things. Yikes!! It took her no time at all to figure this out-- I was simultaneously swelling with pride at my child's ability to problem-solve and panicking about all the extra childproofing we need to do.