Easter

Eva had a wonderful second Easter. Our church had a free pancake breakfast for everyone at 8:30, and I brought an egg dish to share. The service started at 10:00, we had a lot of visitors, and every child got an Easter basket. We don't have anyone working in the nursery until the teaching starts, but Eva often likes to go to the nursery to get a toy during worship. When I brought her in, a couple of the visiting moms left their babies there with me, apparently thinking I was there to watch them. Suddenly I was stranded with two babies and a toddler, as a largely pregnant woman who has to pee every 10 minutes, so I flagged down my friend Barbara to watch them while I ran to the bathroom. She's a grandmotherly old person, and offered to stay behind until the scheduled volunteers arrived so I could go back and enjoy the service. That was sweet of her. Afterwards we took Eva home for lunch, presents and a nap. We gave her DVD's of Veggie Tales "An Easter Carol" and "Peter Pan". Later we took her to visit Dave's mom, and let her do her first Easter egg hunt around the apartment. It took her awhile to get the idea, but she soon caught on and seemed to enjoy it. Then we took Grandma out to dinner at Cocos before heading home. It was a busy but enjoyable day.

4/22/07 - People Person

Eva is just as much of a people watcher as she was when she was a baby, only now she's much more interactive. She'll say "Hi!" to people as we walk past them, and then wave "Bye!" loudly as we leave. David calls her a "babe magnet", because whenever he goes anywhere with her, he notices all the attention Eva draws from strangers, mostly women. They're always exclaiming how cute she is, either because of her glasses or her antics. Like any proud papa, he's more than pleased to show off his little girl to adoring fans. Whenever I take Eva to visit David at work, he'll carry her into the dining room to introduce her to all the residents. It's like having 100 extra grandparents, which can be a little overwhelming at times. She's not afraid of them, but she doesn't want them to touch her, and will cling fiercely to Daddy or follow him everywhere he goes.

Daddy's Girl

Since she spends the majority of every day with me, Eva prefers Daddy's attention whenever she can get it. Whenever he's home, she wants him to take her on a bike ride, or begs for a horsie ride, climbing on his back and calling out "achoo" (horse) and whinnying enthusiastically. She prefers it when he gives her a bath or puts her too bed, often protesting if I try to do it instead. And given a choice, she'd rather be in same room with Daddy and do whatever he's doing than go with Mommy. I once thought something like this would make me jealous, but quite frankly, I'm often relieved by the break it gives me. And I think it will make it much easier when the new baby comes, since she won't be craving my undivided attention as long as Dave is there.

My Way Or Yours?

Eva is becoming much more expressive when she tries to communicate. When she falls or hurts herself, she doesn't often cry, but she will let out a mournful "owie!" to let us know it hurt. If something smells, she'll wrinkle her little nose, wave her hand in front of her face, and exclaim "phew!" loudly. She's also becoming a lot more assertive about what she wants. Whereas before she used to eat whatever we gave her and go down for a nap with no struggle, now she's starting to develop pretty strong opinions about it. She's gotten picky about her food, refusing to eat dinner and then asking for a snack. I'm pretty firm that whatever we are eating for dinner, that's what she gets. I won't force her to eat, but I won't make something else, either. If she's hungry, she can go back and eat her dinner. She definitely fights me on this at times, and gets pretty upset, but she also knows I won't reward a tantrum. With another child on the way, it just gets too crazy if you have to make something different for each person. I don't want to start bad habits, and I'm not running a restaurant. Sleep is another issue Eva has decided to get assertive about. The other day we visited friends at their campsite, and tried to get her to take a nap in their camper. No dice. She was exhausted, but preferred to have a meltdown rather than sleep. We finally took her for a drive and she collapsed after 20 minutes of screaming in the car. I guess we mess with her routine at our own peril. She's started occasionally fighting us about going to bed at home, too, but these battles don't tend to last very long. An extra hug or rubbing her back for a minute is usually all it takes, since her body clock is so used to going to sleep at 12:30 and 8:30pm.

Big Girl

Eva is convinced she can do whatever she sees the “big kids” doing, and is bound and determined to emulate them. When she saw a bunch of kids climbing over the top of a log tunnel at the mall playground, she insisted I give her a boost so she could do the same. She’d grin from her perch, slide down the other side, then run back to her starting point and beg to do it again. Lately we’ve been hanging out a lot with our friends Xavier and Amber, and their daughter Michayla, who is 10. Eva’s not even 2 yet, but already she wants to do whatever she sees Michayla and her friends doing. Whether it’s riding a horse or going down the big slide at the playground, the girl has no fear, and no concept of her own limitations. We went to Michayla’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s, and Eva was enthralled by the life-size guy in the Chucky costume walking around, and wasn’t even scared of him. She loved the music and glittering lights, clapped her hands and laughed right along with the big kids. I think we might have a budding party animal on our hands.

4/15/07 - Getting Bigger

At six months along, and am now officially doing the "pregnancy waddle". Even though the spring weather has been cloudy and chilly, with everyone wearing sweaters, I'm often uncomfortably warm, especially when moving around. I guess it's the extra exertion of trying to get around while carrying a heavy bump in front. I also fatigue a lot more quickly. Dave suggested I needed more exercise to boost my energy level, but at this point, moving IS exercise. I told him to strap on a 25lb bag of potatoes for a few days and see how energized he felt. Every once in awhile my inner feminist gets ahold of me: no uterus, no opinion.

Counting

Eva loves to pretend to count. One of her Baby Einstein videos teaches the numbers one through five, and lately we've been showing her how to count to 5 on one hand. To her, it's a fun game. She'll stick out different fingers (in no particular order) and try to count. The only numbers she can say clearly are "two" and "fwee", but she doesn't yet know where in the sequence they belong, or to which fingers. She just likes to say them. It's so cute to watch her pretend to count on one hand, and after a few minutes, finish by clapping her hands and yelling "yay!" to celebrate her success.

Tub Time Terrors

A few days ago Eva was splashing in the tub, so to avoid getting wet, David suddenly closed the shower curtain. It completely freaked her out, and since then she has been terrified of the bath. Whenever I mention the word bath, her lower lip sticks out, her eyes start to tear up, and she frantically starts signing and asking for "teef", meaning she'd rather brush her teeth. If her teeth are clean, the rest of her doesn't have to be, right? No such luck. So we strip her down and deposit a screaming, sobbing toddler into the tub, trying to distract her with bath toys until the job's done. Poor Dave, he can't bear to see her so upset, and gets tempted to forgo the whole thing, so I have to be the big meanie and insist on torturing our baby with warm water and suds. Bathing simply is not optional. David finally decided to try using the guest tub upstairs instead, and for some reason, that seems to be working. It has a shower curtain too, but I guess she’s not afraid of it suddenly entrapping her like the one downstairs. Go figure.

Thinking Ahead

It's hard to imagine that in about three months, we'll have two munchkins to take care of. Already I've been puzzling over everyday dilemmas I'll be running into, like how do you go grocery shopping with two? Wear one in the sling while the other sits in the front of the cart, I suppose, but you can only do that for so long. Other moms I've asked say they wait until their husbands get home, but I need to get out of the house during the day, and a trip to the store is as good a reason as any. And how am I going to get them both in and out of the car? In order for there to be room enough for both of our cars to fit in the garage, I park my car as close to the right as I can, so you can only get in from the left. That means I'll have to climb over one car seat to reach the other. Ought to be interesting. As for managing at home, I've already decided to keep a play yard with a changing station downstairs, so I don't have to haul both kids upstairs every time I need to change a diaper. Eva can usually be left unattended long enough for me to go to the bathroom, but leaving her alone with a baby is another story. You never know what toddlers might try with a helpless new sibling at their mercy. One thing is for sure, some of this I won't be able to figure out until I'm actually faced with it in reality. There are just some things you have to learn from personal experience.

4/4/07 - Mommy Time

Last weekend I went to a spa for my very first pregnancy massage. It was wonderful. She worked on all the hot little trigger points up and down my back, and afterwards I felt like Jello. You never realize how tight you get carrying around all that extra weight until someone works all the kinks out. I guess you just get used to it. But I'm definitely scheduling another one of those before this pregnancy is over!

FAMILY VISIT
My family hasn't been down for a visit since my grandmother died in October, and won't be back until just before my due date in July. My mom decided that was too long to wait for her next "grandbaby fix", and drove down unexpectedly for the first few days of spring break. My sister came with her, and it was nice to spend some time with them. It only took Eva a few hours to warm up to them. She's always been comfortable with Grandma. It was nice for her to get to enjoy Eva's personality and antics up close, instead of just reading about them on this journal. It was a busy weekend. My aunt Gayle (mom's sister) and her family came down to have dinner with us one night. The next day we had church, a get-together with David's family, and then a guest from Dave's company staying the night so they could fly out on a business trip together the next day. Monday was the last day of Mom's visit, and we decided to stay home and rest. All the activity over the weekend had caused me to have a lot more Braxton Hicks than normal, so I wanted to take it easy. They're not painful, but strong enough to get my attention, and I'm still only in my fifth month. I'm getting lots of heartburn, too, which gets old pretty fast.

Out an About

Eva likes to get out of the house. Sometimes in the mornings, she'll start rattling the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs and asking to go "bye, bye". I try to take her out at least once a day, even if it's just on an errand. She loves to go to the playground at the mall. I took her on Saturday with my mom and sister, while Dave was getting his hair cut. At one point she came up to me wanting something, so I went to the stroller to get her sippy cup. I was only gone a second, but when I got back she wasn't there, and my mom had no idea where she'd gone. I was just about to panic when a lady sitting nearby pointed behind me and said she saw Eva walk right past me. I turned around and saw her in front of the music store, about 40 feet away. It just about gave me a heart attack how quickly they can disappear like that! Later in the week I took her to a park with a friend. She'd never been to a "big kid" playground before, and kept wanting to go down the biggest slide. Of course she wanted me to go with her. It must have been a sight to see my huge pregnant self with a toddler going down the slide. I'm glad there were no cameras around! Eva is still uncertain about walking on sand, and kept wanting to hold my hand. If she loses her balance she has to catch herself with her hands, and for some reason she didn't like sand on her hands. What a miss priss! A little while later she started playing with it though, so it couldn't have been too bad. She'd fling it in the air and ended up with a bunch of it in her clothes and hair. Don't you just love toddlers?

Little Quirks

Eva's personality gets cuter everyday. She has a new stuffed pet doggy she likes to take on outings, and will sometimes carry it around or push it down the slide. She hates having her nails trimmed, so the only way I can get near her fingers or toes is to recite "This little piggy" over each and every one as I clip. She wants to go up and down the stairs without help, and has gotten pretty adept at using the lower handrail Dave installed for her. She loves bikes (truly her father's daughter), and whenever she sees one she always wants to try and climb on. Dave took her to a Performance Bicycle store and let her sit on some of them while he pushed, so now she's got it into her head that she can ride the big ones. We finally broke down and got her a toddler-size big wheel. Her feet can't reach the pedals (and she wouldn't know how to pedal if they did), but she pushes her feet along the ground to scoot herself forward, and loves it. I'm always amazed at how smart she is, how her problem-solving skills have developed, and how she learns things so quickly. We got her a wooden puzzle that makes farm animal noises, and within three tries, she had every piece in its place, all by herself. She has a set of colorful nesting cups that she likes to sort and stack. She can tell when one doesn't quite fit inside the other, and will keep trying until she finds the right one and has them all neatly stacked together.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

David had to go up to Seattle last week for a business trip, and it was very lonely without him. Eva would point to his picture on the wall and ask "where Dada?", and always called for him when she woke up in the morning. Last time he was gone she was pretty clingy of him when he came back, so I knew he'd have a little shadow for the next few days. She doesn't like to let him out of her sight.