I spent most of the day running errands to Home Depot, grocery shopping, and picking up items for Eva’s 4th birthday party, which will be soon after we get back from our trip. It’s going to be a (what else?) CARS theme. At only 5 months along, my belly is already getting heavy, and my lower back bothers me if I spend too much time on my feet or hunch over. Oh, well, the aches and pains are temporary and worth it. Only four more months to go!
Amanda’s two bottom molars have FINALLY broken through, and her two top molars are halfway there! I’m so relieved! She’s almost two years old, and has been chewing with just her damaged front teeth for far too long. Now I don’t have to worry so much about her ability to chew her food. She’ll be seeing the dentist in July to finally get fillings, but at this point there is so little enamel left she’ll probably end up with two root canals. Hopefully she’ll weigh enough by then that they can sedate her in the office instead of having to put her under general anesthesia in a hospital.
Amanda has been calling Eva “sissy” up until now, but this week she finally started calling her by name. It’s especially cute when she’s trying to pin something on Eva instead of herself. When I start to smell something suspicious and ask Amanda, “Do you have a poopy?”, she’ll shake her head, point the finger at sister and say, “No, Eva!” J LOL! She likes to follow Eva into the bathroom and take her turn sitting on the potty like a “big girl” (now, if she would actually GO in it!). Her favorite music right now from Mary Rice Hopkins, and it’s cute to watch her try to sing along and do the hand motions, often spontaneously bursting into song at different times during the day, when the video isn’t even on.
Eva is growing up so fast it’s hard to believe. She carries on full conversations, and it’s funny sometimes to hear her childlike observations. Lately she’s been rather protective of us. When she sees me making dinner, she says, “Careful mommy, that’s hot! Don’t burn yourself!” Or when she sees Daddy working on a step ladder, she says, “Careful Daddy, don’t fall!” Eva likes to pretend that she’s “ice skating” (not sure where she got the idea), and she’ll strap on her dress shoes and knee pads and “skate” across the kitchen floor. Very creative!
Her favorite thing to do right now is “draw my name”. She can write several letters, and she has a pretty good ideas which ones are in her name, but not which order. If I tell her “E”, “V”, and then “A”, she’ll proudly write it all by herself. Otherwise, any combination of letters she writes is automatically her “name”. Considering the fact that I haven’t had her do any writing exercises yet, I’m amazed by how much she’s taught herself just from observation! She’s also gotten very skilled with the computer, playing with Windows Paint. She knows how to use the mouse to switch tools and colors, zoom in, fill in blank spaces with color, and draw pictures and letters. We never really taught her – we just let her click on the different buttons and figure out what they did, and now she’s very astute!
Dave has been struggling with insomnia for years, but the added stress of his job, two kids and another on the way finally convinced him this week to go in for an evaluation. The doctor says he suspects that David’s tonsils and deviated septum are contributing to sleep apnea, and wants Dave to come in overnight for a sleep study on June 5th. If the diagnosis is correct, his insurance should cover the surgery to correct it. Finally, after all these years, Dave might actually be able to get a full night’s sleep!
We had intermittent sun and showers this weekend, but Dave took advantage of the opportunity to tackle several projects. In one weekend, he replaced the bathroom vanity, sold the old one on Craigslist, fixed our water filtration system, and rototilled the garden. He also got about halfway through painting the bathroom. The blue looks sooo much better than that institutional white color. I can’t wait to see how it looks when it’s all done. Dave finds all this work "relaxing" because he hates sitting still and says it burns stress. My hard-working man!
This is going to be a very busy month for us. Mother’s Day is this weekend, we fly out for San Diego the next week, and then a week after we get home will be Eva’s 4th birthday party. I can’t believe she’s almost 4! Where did the time go? Of course, the month after that will be Amanda’s 2nd birthday, and then 2 months later we’ll be meeting our new baby. How time flies! The realization is finally starting to sink in that pretty soon I’ll have another newborn to care for, and it’s a little overwhelming of a thought. I’m still trying to figure out how we’re going to cram a third car seat into the back of my Taurus.
Amanda is already starting to act like a 2-year-old. She’s picked up Eva’s favorite line (“I don’t want to!”), and though she’s only figured out how to say the last part, “…want to!”, her meaning is very clear. She’s also been trying to get around the rule of no snacks or dessert until you finish dinner by waiting until we’re out of the room, scraping her food in the trash, putting her plate in the sink and declaring, “I did it! All done, Mommy!” It didn’t take me long to figure out what was really going on, but I can’t help but laugh at how her clever little mind works.
Eva and Amanda seem to be getting excited about the prospect of a new baby, though I’m not sure how much they really understand. Amanda likes to come up and pat my belly and yell, “baby!”, while Eva will come up and ask questions. “Mommy, you still have a baby in your tummy? Is the baby sleeping? Will he come out and play?” Every time I ask her if she wants a brother or sister, the answer changes. I’ll say, “is it a boy or a girl?”, and she’ll say, “it’s a boy!” But if I ask, “do you want a brother or sister?”, she’ll answer, “Sister! So I can have a little sister!” Then she’ll jump up and down excitedly at the idea. Either way, I think they’ll both be happy. Amanda is fascinated whenever she sees someone holding a baby, and has become more interested in dolls, so maybe she understands the “baby” idea more than I give her credit for.
We still don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl, and at this point it doesn’t look like we’ll know until the birth. Because I had to go in early for the second ultrasound to clear up questions about my due date, it was too early to tell the sex, and now I don’t have a legitimate medical reason to ask for another ultrasound. I’m kind of bummed, because I always like to know. Especially if this one is a boy – I have absolutely NOTHING for a boy baby, and I’d hate to go out and buy something boyish that I ended up not using, or dress him in pink because that’s all I have right now. I gave away most of my “neutral” stuff because I thought it was ugly, and I figured I’d find out the sex anyway. Silly me. J
