Emily is 34 Months Old!

My sweet girl is 34 months old today...how time flies!  She is super fun right now and really is taking off in a lot of areas.  Here's your monthly update!

- She is really, really excited about Audrey.   She asks me every day when Audrey is going to be "borned out" (her terminology for childbirth, haha!) She is probably really looking forward to Audrey's birth because I've not been allowed to pick her up and hold her- I have to bend down to her. 

- When I'm bending down to hold her, she says, "You haffa hold me down here until Baby Audrey gets borned out!"  It is precious!

- She is still loving to cook with me, only now it's getting to where she has to also decide WHAT we are cooking as well.  The other day she insisted on making a cake with me.  It was late (after school) and I wanted her to go to bed so I finished the baking and frosting myself.  I secretly saved some of the cake mix and made her a couple of cupcakes.  The next morning she came downstairs and immediately yelled, "THE CAKE IS READY!!" because she saw it waiting on the counter to go to school with me for my teammates.  I quickly pulled out the cupcakes and showed them to her so she wouldn't be sad the cake was going with me to work...and it worked!! She was so excited to come home on Friday night and eat her cupcake. 

- She is starting to copy what we say.  I don't love this!  It drives me a little bit crazy, but what can you do?  She sounds really funny doing it, she even gets the same tone and body language with it, so it's so hard not to laugh at her.

-We had this conversation the other day:

Me: "Is Miss Christina still wiping your bottom at school?" (She had had a rash and I asked the teacher to help her).

Emily: "No."

Me: "Who is wiping your bottom?" 

...Emily: "Daniel" (a little boy in her class!!!!!!)

Me: "WHAT?"

Emily, insert guilty look: "Miss Christina".

HAHAHAHAHAHA.....you should have seen my face!

- This morning we were setting up Audrey's crib and Emily kept coming in and taking the screws and saying she had to "crack" Audrey's crib.  Not really sure what crack means but she was very intent on doing it!

- She has the cutest pronunciations for a few words--

    - neighborhood = nayver hoog

    - flash cards/ flashlight = splash cards/ splashlight

    - upstairs/downstairs = updairs/downdairs

- She is capable of making it up and down the stairs alone now.  If you've ever been to our house you know we have 13 hardwood stairs with a baby gate at the top and the bottom.  So how is she going up and down by herself?  Well, she simply opens the baby gates now! It's a fantastic trick....NOT!  I hate to see her on the steps but it's almost impossible to stop her- she is SO proud of herself.  She will come down with us and then suddenly "remember" something from upstairs that she simply MUST go get.  Then she's doing everything she can to get back up the stairs to go get it.  She'll say, "Oh NO- I forgot my silk!  I haffa go back updairs and get him or he will be very sad!" And then before you know it, she's opened the downstairs gate and is halfway up the steps again.  Crazy kiddo!

- This month whenever someone visited us, she wanted to leave our house and "go on a trip" with the visitors.  It was so cute but a little sad too since A) she couldn't go with them and B) why does she want to leave us so badly?  (I mean, besides the fact that she has a sister coming, ha ha!)

- She is in love with the whiteboard that Grandma Frances bough for her, and constantly asks to do the board and the pens (we keep the dry erase markers put up away from her other coloring stuff).  She has gotten pretty great at tracing her own name!  I am pretty impressed.

-Emmy hit her head on her bed one night, sat straight up, looked at me, and said, "Awwww dammit!". Fantastic.....

- We are beginning to have issues with telling the truth.  She has figured out if she says she has to go potty I will basically drop everything and take her.  Most of the time she can pee on demand, so I can never really be upset, because she does go..... but it is super annoying to get up from dinner twice in 5 minutes or to have to go back upstairs every night so she can poo poo, even though I make her try to poo poo every night BEFORE bed.   She'll say she doesn't have to go but then just moments later, suddenly she does need to.  This afternoon she was in her bed, "trying" (I use the word very loosely!) to nap, and she started yelling out, "MOMMY!  I HAFFA POOP!  I AM NOT TELLING YOU THE TRUTH!!"  How does someone even begin to respond to that?!?!

- We also had this conversation recently: 

Me: "Emmy, what color hair do you think Audrey has?" 

Emmy: "Purple." 

Me: "What color eyes?" 

E: "Rainbow.". 

Apparently Audrey is not my daughter, but Lisa Frank's. :) Love it!!

That's all I can think of for right now.  She's getting cuter, smarter, and sweeter with every day.  Thanks for checking in on our sweet girl! 

34 Weeks Pregnant!

Just wanted to say I am celebrating the number 34 this weekend- I am 34 weeks pregnant and today is Emily's 34 month birthday!  I am SO thankful my contractions haven't been horrible since the return to work- still having 20-30 BH ctx every day, but when you count in that I'm awake like ~15 hours or so that's not too bad. I had one Thursday that I thought, for SURE, was the onset of labor....it was RIDICULOUS.  It started while I was in the kitchen and I thought I needed to pee so I went in the bathroom...Paul had to come help me up off the toilet and into the living room to lie down b/c I was practically paralyzed from it!  It just kept gripping tighter and tighter and tighter...I was all white-knuckled and holding my breath...crazy!  But when I laid down it went away and it's not been like that again. 

Monday I go to the doc to discuss the next steps.  Hard to believe in 7 days, she doesn't have to mandatorily go to NICU, and in 21 days she is considered full term!  And I'm still working, which is best of all so I'm not wasting time at home without her here.  Belly pics coming this weekend! :)

Weekend Recap!

We've had a great weekend!  Emily and I went to the local children's museum with Miss Jamey, DD, and Avery on Saturday morning while Paul was on call at the hospital.  The kids had such a great time, and Emmy was SOOOO excited to see Miss Jamey.  She even asked me to wear special "Miss Jamey clothes" that day...not really sure what those were exactly, but she looked very cute in her outfit that day nonetheless.  After the museum we went to Chick Fil A and the kids all played together.  Then it was home for a nap and after nap Daddy was back home!  He had a great call day and only got called in once after rounding in the morning.  I LOVE call days like that! 

 (Sorry for the low-quality pic...I took it with my phone!)

 ("Miss Jamey clothes".... haha!)

Saturday evening we decided to go the very easy route with dinner and went to a local fast food-ish type place.  I didn't have shoes on (don't ask...I actually forgot them) so we changed plans and brought the food back home with us.  Now, I asked Emmy if she wanted to bring the food back to our house and have a picnic because she was disappointed that we weren't taking her out to eat (she is now in love with the IDEA of going out for meals....but sitting still from start to finish is still a major hurdle).  She changed "picnic" to "Ladybug Picnic" based on this Elizabeth Mitchell CD I downloaded recently that has a song called Ladybug Picnic.  So, we brought the food home, I put a red and white checkered blanket on the living room floor, and we ate our dinner there.  It was so much fun!  I looked at Paul halfway through dinner and told him this is what I always dreamed of- doing silly things for our kid(s) and making sweet family memories.  I looove how much fun we can have with her now.

Sunday we had a lazy morning, just venturing to the grocery store before Emily's nap.  Much to our surprise, we heard from my parents and sister, who were less than an hour away and wanted to come see us!  Needless to say, we were very excited to see them and Emily was super happy too, even though I woke her up from her nap to see them.  She wasn't cranky at all (and if you know her well, you know this is impressive!)  We played with my family for a while and then they had to keep heading home.  Later Sunday night I asked Em what her favorite thing about the day was (I ask every evening).  She said, "Pop!"...which is what she calls my dad.  It was too precious. 

So that's our weekend in a nutshell.  Emily also informed me that for Halloween, she would like to be a T-shirt.  Yup....you read that right.  I don't have ANY idea how I'll handle this one, haha! 

Look for the monthly update next weekend- we're almost 34 months now (and 34 weeks next week with Audrey...both of my girls are "34"!!)

Time Flies!

This week has flown by!  I returned to work on Monday, which was nice. I had a few weeks off from school this summer (less than 3 total!) and to be honest, I was a little bored by the end of it.  I was glad to go back and see all my teacher friends and get started with trainings and meetings.  Also, it's nice to be occupied during the day...I am spending a lot less money! (Smile, Paul....this is a good thing!!)

Tomorrow I will be 33 weeks along with Audrey.  I am still having regular Braxton Hicks contractions every day but not too many of the actually painful ones.  Paul has been giving me backrubs a few times a week which generally helps subdue the pain for a day or two following.  One major downside to being back at school is all the sitting in folding chairs, etc. during the meetings!  I actually brought my own chair- a camping/outdoors chair- to school this week to help me be a bit more comfortable.  I'm planning to take some pictures this weekend so I'll be sure to post those soon.

Emily is a little fussy this week, and we're not quite sure what's going on.  She has been completely falling apart in the evenings after school.  Since she has gone to school every day this summer I can't blame my return to work on her behavior.  The only thing I can figure out is that they've transitioned a few new kids into her class and a few of her friends have moved to the Young 3s room, including her friend Eva who she just loves to pieces...so maybe that's it?  Whatever the case, I hope it gets worked out soon....I feel so bad for her but these tantrums and fits every night are making us crazy!  It's a little like living with Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde!  I just try to take deep breaths and think, "This too shall pass..."

Anyway, just wanted to update quickly.  We're still here, still moving right along...just busier now! :)

What Daddy Did....

Last night Emily woke up around 11:30 and had obviously had a strange dream.  Here's the conversation that unfolded when we went in to check on her:

Emily: "Daddy, did you poop on the floor?"
Paul: "Umm, no, I didn't poop on the floor."
Emily: "DADDY! WE. DON'T. POOP. ON. THE. FLOOR. It's not nice!!"
Paul: "Ok." 

Em: "Did you do that? Did you poop on the floor?"
Paul: "No, I didn't."
Em: "YES YOU DID DADDY! We don't DO THAT! It's yucky!"
Paul: "OK Emmy...I won't do it again."

 HAHAHAHAHA!  It's amazing the things we will admit to doing, just to calm our children down.  I have also agreed with her before that the sun is actually the moon....anything for a moment's peace!! 

Emily-isms

Emily says so many funny things that I am feeling compelled to write them down. I'll continue to repost this post whenever she says something especially funny!

-Emily climbed into bed with me this morning, lifted up my shirt, and said,"Good Morning, Audrey!!" Now that's a wake up I can live with. Love my sweet girl!

-The other day, she was upstairs, fighting her nap, and yelling out things like, "I am ready now", "I don't need a nap anymore...." and my personal favorite, "Moooomy.....pwease come and get your baby!"

-Me:" Do you want the water or not?" Emily:"Not!"

- Tonight I told Emily I didn't want to rub her back anymore because it was hurting my arm and she said,"Mommy, wemme see your arm." *grabs arm, looks closely* "I fink you are gonna be OK. Now....rub my back." Then she lay down on her pillow and put my hand on her back and said, "There.....that's my sweet girl."

-Emmy felt Audrey kick today...her eyes got HUGE and she yelled, "Baby Audrey give me high 5!!" So precious!

-This afternoon, fter Em got in trouble for hitting: "It is very hard to be good, Mommy!" HAHAHAHA!

-Emily, after I got out of the shower, and I am putting my moisturizer on my face: "MOMMY! Don't rub your ASS!" (her NC accent is getting thicker and thicker...eyes = ass). Let's hope she doesn't share this one at school!

-I asked Emily if she was Mommy's angel...she looked indignant and said, "I not an angel!!"


- She has become obsessed with the movie Charlotte's Web. Now, anytime she doesn't want to do what we are asking her to do, she calls out, "NO- I can't!! I promised Wilbur!" It is SO funny!

- She would absolutely NOT call my father in law this morning to wish him a happy birthday because, she says, it is NOT his birthday (it really is). It is HER birthday (it really isn't!)

- Over the weekend she was sitting in my lap and Audrey was bumping her in the back. She squirmed a few times and then said, "MOMMY, don't poke Emmy in the back!"

- She was riding in the car with Paul and me over the weekend and Paul switched lanes so we could turn. Emily bursts out with, "NO NO DADDY- don't put the car over here!" She also does not appreciate having to stop at red lights. It is hilarious what she notices now!


Me: "Emily, tomorrow is Show and Tell.  What are you going to take?"
Emily (with NO hesitation): "My hand."
Me: "Your HAND?  You mean, your hand wearing your new bracelets?"
Emily: "No....just my hand." 


NEW as of Aug. 2, 2010

Emily: "I want an apple, Mommy."
Me: "OK- do you want me to cut it up?"
Emmy: "No, I want it like a ball. Do not cut it. Do not drop it. Do not throw it at me." 

Emily: "Bye, I going to the doctor now!" Me: "Why are you going to the doctor?" Emily: "I haffa get some batteries!"

Emily: "I want to go play with my baby doll. Come on, Grandmother!" -Emily to me, this evening. Apparently she's begun to notice my fine lines and wrinkles.....

Emily: "I DON'T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL! I want you to take me out for dinner! [breakfast]"
Me: "They're going to have breakfast for you at school. I just have to drop you off and then you can eat."
------she mulls this over---------
Emily: "WE DON'T DROP EMILY! That is NOT NICE! That hurts Emily!"

Emmy: "Mommy, do you like me?" Me: "Of course! I LOVE you!" Emily: "But do you like me?" Me: "Yes, sweet girl, I like you." Emmy: "I like you too Mommy."

 

Baby Audrey Update- 32 weeks/ doctor visit

Had my appointment today.  Dr R was ready to repeat the fetal fibronectin test today if I wanted to, but I told her about the cramping, contractions, and spotting last week and we decided not to do it after all.  She was glad to hear that things have basically stayed the same since last week and I'm having the same or fewer contractions every day.  So, no news is good news!  I will go back on the 23rd unless I need to be seen earlier.

One funny thing...they asked if Audrey moves 10 times in an hour....um, Audrey moves 10 times in 2 minutes!  She is going to be a wild girl, just like her big sister.  I just know it!