the littlest octopus

this baby is made entirely of elbows. at least 8 of them.

pregnancy update - doctor visit

yesterday we had another check up. once again we were scheduled with dr. "i am only interested in your husband" - why are you an ob?! i have a 1 in 3 chance of this man delivering my baby and the thought horrifies me. will he even remeber i'm in the room as he's talking to josh about how HIS labor is going? grr.

anyway...the baby is doing fine. heart beating away (no idea how fast as the doctor doesn't talk to women and josh didn't ask) and moving around like a demon. baby, please don't be a demon, mama's too tired to deal with that. thanks.

i've gained another 4 lbs. which puts me at a total gain so far of 16. and as unhappy as i might be about that (because i know what it's going to look like when the baby's on the outside and i'm not all round anymore) i'm sitting here at work craving everything i don't have with me. because i was silly enough to bring fruits and vegetables to work today. thinking that would calm the beast. it does not. i need candy, chips and salsa, some bread would be nice. and maybe a soda. mmm...soda...

sing with me.

on the days when mia likes to hear us sing (as opposed to the days when she stops us after 2-3 words and tells us "no singing, mama/dada") i love to watch her.

she won't sing with us, but she'll mouth the words along with us. just under her breath like she's talking to herself. trying to remember it all.

i'm trying to remember it all, too, baby.

back to basics

mia's been having a rough time going to sleep these days. last night was particularly difficult. she had taken a late nap and was excited about a new hot wheel car she had gotten that day. she wouldn't put it down. nor would she take it out of her mouth (these damned molars - it's like she's an infant again with the putting of things in her mouth). 45 minutes past her bedtime i finally just took the car away and told her she could have it back in the morning. hoo boy did that not go well.

now, mia's not one for throwing temper tantrums (i totally jinxed us with that last post, didn't i?) and it's usually not a problem for her to let go of things. but man, with the combination of car love and overtiredness it was not a happy scene. there was screaming and crying and her throwing her body from one side of the bed to the other trying to get past me and get to her car. i finally had to just restrain her. rocking her back and forth, singing her lullabyes until she calmed down. i haven't had to do that for about a year. and honestly? i've missed it.

so we rocked and sang and she calmed down and asked me to snuggle her to sleep. which i did. just another refresher on having a baby in the house, i guess.

and speaking of babies...we have another checkup today and mia is really excited to go and listen to the baby go "BANG! BANG!" in my belly.

oh mia, you're so good at being 2.

so mia's 2 now, did we mention that? and so far? so far it's not terrible at all. i mean sure, she's way more independent lately, but that's to be expected. she's still not having full blown tantrums, though. i imagine she's saving that for when the baby gets here. so let's enjoy her now :).

***

mia is finally tall enough to open the door to her room on her own and this only means that she has figured out how to stay out of bed as long as possible at night. once she's asleep she's golden, it's getting her there that's a challenge. she's learned that the following things will keep us in the room with her:

- snuggle me
- potty
- i peed (different from needing to go, and she knows it)
- i poop (liar!!)
- kisses, mama
- where charlie go?

***

the other day my belly was particularly stretched to the limit and i was really veiny. while mia and i were sitting on the couch watching elmo i pulled up my shirt so she could see #2 moving around. of course the baby stopped moving right away (it's first game of hide and seek!) but mia stared on anyway. then she poked me in the belly and asked me "who colored mama?" she wouldn't drop it, either. wanted me to wash up.

***

we played hookie as a family last week and went up to apple hill to pick pumpkins and what not. mia had her very first face professional face painting. i wasn't sure she would sit still once she realized that a stranger was going to be touching her but she was so enthralled by the paints that she sat stone still the whole time. of course, she didn't smile, either, but that's ok. didn't she look cool?

of course, as soon as we got in the car she upended her sippy cup of water on her arm (also painted) and rubbed it all off. we had left the pumpkin patch and there was no longer a need for the body paint, apparently. she's so my kid.

***

she's a talker, this one. she's been talking since she was about 11 months old so it's not really a surprise. what is a surprise is that she never shuts up. and that she speaks in complete sentences. all. the. time. no really. all the time. it's like having a voiceover for your whole life when you're with her. she comments on every little thing around her. and yes, i know at some point she is going to stop talking to me all together and i should appreciate it now. but dude. all. the. time.

she reminds me of her uncle ben when he was her age. the constant smiling and talking. never upset, always smiling. always talking. and her imagination is picking up, too. not quite like ben's did but still. it's pretty amazing to see her making things up and playing on her own with her toys and telling me all about something that she's imagined.

pregnancy - 24 weeks

i'm a lot bigger this time around than i was with mia. and people can't seem to stop telling me as much. though they are kind enough to note that i don't have a fat face yet. isn't that sweet?

this baby seems to move around a lot more than mia did. josh tells me i'm imagining things because he remembers me telling him every single time mia moved. but she never moved at night and this one does. so i guess that's the difference. mia slept at night. still does. does that mean this one will be up all the time? god help us.

i'm starting to get really worried about having a baby in the house. i was never worried really worried with mia. i mean, it came and went but down deep i knew i would be ok. and as soon as she was born and in my arms i knew all i needed to know and would be able to take care of her completely. so far i'm not feeling that with this one. as a matter of fact i'm scared to have a tiny baby in the house. what do you do with babies again? i'm toddler conditioned now.

i've never been one to grab an infant out of someone's arms. never one that "had to hold the baby". but yesterday i fond myself reaching out for 3 month old baby - testing myself. it didn't last long. the baby, though cute and cuddly, was squirmy and bendy and couldn't hold itself up. then it started to whimper and then cry. "ok, here you go" and i handed him off to someone. anyone.

holy crap, i'm having a baby. just when i was getting comfortable with the toddler thing.

weights and measures.

mia and i had dr. appts. say, oh, a month ago. let's talk about them now, shall we?

as mia turned 2 she weighed in at 21.5 lbs and is now 32 inches tall. so in the past 6 months she managed to take on a pound and maybe an inch. and josh was told that we were to feed her more and make sure that she ate because she's so tiny. for those of you paying attention you'll notice that josh took her to her appt. this time. the only appt. i have missed in 2 years as i had an ob appt. at roughly the same time - i'm already having scheduling conflicts with the kids!

mia and i had talked about her appt. for a couple days leading up to it and she was all prepared for them looking in her ears and seeing how big she'd gotten. there weren't going to be any shots and her daddy was going to go with her - woo hoo! yeah, no. she cried the whole time. poor thing. which made it traumatic for her to then meet me at my ob appt. only to find more doctors!

as for me and #2: i weighed in somewhere between 112 and 115 which means i gained somewhere between 5 and 8 lbs. last month. shut up, i don't want to hear it.

mia was very nervous with the doctor in the room with her mama and so she sat on my lap while we listened for the heartbeat. she showed the doctor exactly where the baby would be, too. she kept telling her the baby was high up in my belly (she's usually very specific about it being down low) but the doc wouldn't listen and so we waited and waited for her to find the little bugger. s/he was right where mia said s/he would be. kinda freaked the doc out. and then we heard the heartbeat. "loud!" said mia "bang! bang!"

so yeah, the baby's doing well. and is loud. and bangs on me a lot.