4/22/09 - Spring Fever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve been enjoying warm, sunny weather the past few days, and have been taking full advantage of it.  It’s wonderful to finally be able to open all the windows and get some fresh air, to open the back door and let the girls run around in the backyard.  It’s been a long winter cooped up indoors!  

 

Amanda has figured out how to lie on her tummy and twist the swing until she finally picks up her feet and lets it spin her in a whirl.  She loves it!  Eva is still too timid to sit in the swing (she fell out of it last year), but she likes to cautiously sway in it on her tummy.  She’s got a good arm, and can hit a plastic ball over 20 feet using the T-ball.

 

This weekend we took the girls to the Bonneville Dam, hoping to see some salmon jumping up the fish ladder.  No luck there, but the fish hatchery was still a hit.  The girls loved to wave at the sturgeon through the glass and throw fish food into the ponds.  Last summer Amanda was still crawling, so this is the first time she’s been able to run around on these outings, and she loves the independence.  She resists even so much as having to hold my hand in the parking lot, yelling “walk!” whenever I pick her up.  

 

The forecast for the rest of the week is cold and rainy (back in the 50’s), so I know this preview of summer weather was just a tease, but we sure enjoyed it!

Growing Season

The flowers are blooming, the trees are sprouting their leaves, and everything else is growing, too.  Every few days my allergies go into overdrive and I end up sneezing all day.  Wish I knew what I was allergic to up here, by I have to wait until after the pregnancy to get allergy tested.  My belly bump is starting to get in the way.  Might be time to switch to no-lace shoes pretty soon.   Eva is growing into 5T shirts, but she’s still wearing 4T pants because her legs are short.  Amanda is starting to wear 24-month tops (also wearing shorter, 18-month pants).  The weather is in that in-between stage where on some days it’s warm enough to wear summer clothes, but it’s still too early to put away the winter clothes.  My friend Rocio tells me you can’t really pack the winter clothes away until July 4^th.  The catch is that I don’t have any 5T winter clothes and didn’t want to buy any (Eva will almost certainly be in a larger size by next winter), so I’m hoping she’ll still be able to fit into a couple of her warm 4T tops until the weather finally stays warm for good. 

 

Breaking Free

I think Amanda may finally be weaned!  She still wakes up at night, but for the past few nights I’ve been able to rock Amanda back to sleep without nursing (she used to only let Dave do that).  Last night I even managed to put her back in her own bed!  Thank God for little victories!  I’m at 19 weeks now, almost halfway there, and I don’t want Amanda to connect weaning to the new baby and resent him/her over it.  She’s already more clingy than Eva was at this age, which might make the transition more difficult for her than it was for big sister. 

 

Now, if Eva would finally agree to do #2 on the toilet (instead of insisting on using training pants), my pre-baby goals would be complete   I really don’t want to get stuck doing THREE poopy diaper changes a day! 

4/13/08 - Girls At Play

Eva likes to wrap up toys in a towel or container and bring it to Daddy or I, singing “Happy Birthday!”  Sometimes she’ll even sing the Birthday song and ask us to blow out the imaginary candle on top of the “present”.   Amanda has followed suit, so if any of my dishtowels happen to go missing, I have a pretty good idea of what they’re being used for.

 

Since Amanda has moved to a toddler bed, Dave has let the girls use the crib mattress as a kind of trampoline.  They love to jump up and down on it on the living room floor.  Sometimes Eva pushes it against the couch and pretends it’s a pool, “diving” onto it feet first.  Amanda, of course, eagerly follows her lead.  It’s a good way to burn off steam on those long rainy days.

 

Now that it’s starting to warm up, the girls love to run around in the backyard on sunny days, playing in the playhouse and digging in the dirt for “wiggle worms”.  Dave hooked up the bike trailer to Eva’s tricycle and let Eva tow Amanda around our street.  I didn’t think she’d be strong enough to pull her, but she pedaled away like a trooper and both of them seemed to really enjoy it!   Amanda has discovered the “big girl swing” and loves to hold on for dear life while someone pushes her.  Every time you try to take her off, she yells “no!” and clings all the harder until you give her another push, and then she giggles like a madwoman.  The little daredevil! 

 

Amanda, it turns out, is very shy and wary of people, but she’s fearless when it comes to trying out new things, like the swing or slide.  Eva, on the other hand, is completely comfortable talking to perfect strangers, but much more timid when it comes to trying new activities.  Take the ocean, for example.  During our last visit to San Diego, Eva - though she had been to the beach hundreds of times - refused to look at the roaring waves, clung fiercely to Daddy, and wouldn’t let him put her down.  Amanda, on the other hand, hadn’t seen the ocean since she was a newborn, but that didn’t stop her from trying to run straight towards the waves at every opportunity.

Growing Up

Amanda copies Eva counting, “One, two, three!”  Then she holds up her hand and says “five!” to indicate that she wants me to give her a “high five” for a job well done.  J   She’s constantly adding new words to her repertoire; now she can say “button”, “zip”, “dress”, “change”, “stuck”, “milk”, “open”, “bath”, “swing”, “lap”, “snack”, “hungry” (sounds like “honky”), and other one-word sentences that tells us what she wants.

 

Amanda has finally gotten used to the idea of going to bed without nursing, and now goes down for naps and bedtimes without crying.  She brushes her teeth, kisses mommy good-night, and climbs into her toddler bed just like big sister, and seems proud of the fact that she’s a “big girl” now.  She and Eva will giggle at each other for awhile, but it’s a sweet little sisterly bonding time that I try not to interfere with unless they’re getting too loud. 

Easter

Dave’s building hosted a huge Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  They had over 500 eggs and only a couple dozen kids showed up, so they all had more eggs than they knew what to do with.  Amanda wasn’t too eager about it until she figured out that the plastic eggs had chocolate in them.  Then she was trying to open them all up, yelling “candy!”  Methinks we’ve created a monster!  LOL!  I finally had to empty all the eggs in their baskets and put the candy away to keep them from eating it all up at once. 

 

This is the first year that the girls have been old enough to dye eggs, and they had a blast. Eva has been watching the snoopy special “It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown” on DVD, and she thought it was hilarious when Marcie cooked the eggs in every way except the way she was supposed to: frying, grilling, baking in a waffle maker, etc.  In one scene, Peppermint Patty tells Marcie that she’s supposed to boil them, so she cracks all the eggs and puts them in the boiling water.  Eva thinks that’s the funniest thing ever: “Mommy, Marcie made egg soup!  That’s so silly!”  Seeing her favorite characters dye the eggs made her eager to try it, too, and Amanda helped.  When they dried we let them decorate the eggs with stickers, and then used them for our own little Easter egg hunt on Sunday.

 

On Sunday morning Dave got called in to work to cover a no call/no show, so he missed the fancy breakfast I made.  I waited until he got home to give the girls their Easter baskets, and then we had our friends Katya and Steve over for Easter dinner.  After dinner we had a little Easter egg hunt in the living room with the girls and their daughter, Casey.  This time Amanda knew the drill and was running around eagerly to fill her bag, open the eggs and get to the candy in a hurry.  So cute!