Caroline's Latest

I just love this age.  It seems that she learns something new every hour of the day.  It's really crazy all of the things that she picks up.  Here are a few of my favorites...

• She says "brrr" everytime we go outside and she gets cold.
• The last couple of nights that I have put her to bed, she will snuggle me quietly for long time and then all of a sudden she will pop up her little head, grab both of my cheeks and plant a kiss on my lips!  My heart melts.
• When we tell her that we are having chicken for dinner she says, "boc, boc"
• She is obsessed with hearing the birds sing in the morning.  She walks around signing bird and saying, "bir, bir"
• She loves for us to sing to her and whenever we stop to take a breath, she immediately says, "mowre."
• She loves to bring me food from the pantry when she is hungry.  All of my baking supplies are on the bottom shelf so I always end up with something funny.  Most of the time, it's boxes of sugar or Bisquick.  However, this particular morning, she brought me two bags of flour.  By the time I got my camera out, she had decided one was enough to carry.

• Potty training.  We are in "serious" mode now.  She has told us a few times when she needs to go and she goes about 95% of the time that we put her on the toilet.  People kept saying "Two babies in diapers...that's going to be so hard."  Honestly, I was never the slightest bit bothered by two babies in diapers.  However, I can now see the challenge of potty training and I'm now hoping we can get this done by the time the baby arrives!

Valentine's Love

This past week we "celebrated" Valentine's Day.  I realized about half way through the day that I have become a Valentine's scrooge - it was really unintentional but it has happened.  For those who don't know him well, Mark is not the most romatic guy.  However, he is a stable, dependable, all around good guy all the time.  Of course, I would choose good guy all the time over sometime who has crazy extremes and works on being romantic occassionally.  Since I know he is not romantic I have absolutely no expectations that he will do anything for me for Valentine's day.  I used to do things for him but then it just got so it wasn't much fun anymore.  I was never bothered that he didn't reciprocate the love but more that the effort wasn't appreciated.  He just doesn't care about that stuff.  All of that to say, our Valentine's celebration was just a little dinner together on Saturday night.  (Thanks to Mom and Vern for coming up and watching the girls for FREE!)

However, I felt like the worst Mom ever when I took Caroline to daycare on Monday.  All of the kids were decked out in their Valentine's gear.  Parents had brought treats for the whole class and even brought gifts for the teachers.  Where have I been hiding?!  Then I get home and look at facebook...where all the dads had given their little girls flowers and moms had given them little presents.  I have got to step it up next year.  Thankfully, Caroline doesn't know the difference now but next year will be different!  Just because Mark and I aren't romantic doesn't mean I can't celebrate all of the other loves in my life!  :-)

Valentine's night was actually good though.  Instead of cooking a nice dinner like I thought I was going to do, we packed a picnic and headed to the park.  We had a good time together as a family. 

Catch Up

I haven't blogged in forever so I thought I would play a little catch up.  January went by so quickly! 

Around the first of January we got a phone call that Mark's grandfather was not doing well.  We kept up with how he was doing by phone for the next week or so and then he left us to see Jesus.  He was a wonderful grandfather, the kind that every kid dreams of having!!  We flew out to Missouri  (Mark's traveling has it's perks - we flew for free and even got to fly first class on the way back home) and were able to celebrate his life and the joy that he brought to ours.  

The trip also served as a good, although very short visit, to catch up with Mark's parents.  Caroline soaked up all of the love and attention.  She is normally such a shy girl around new people and groups but she warmed up quickly.  When we got home, it was as if she remembered all of the attention that she received.  She was very friendly and smiled at new people for several days! 

OK, she's not smiling in either picture but I promise she had a great time!

We got home from Missouri and a few days later PaulPaul came to visit.  In my mind I had great plans for our time together but it didn't quite turn out that way.  Friday night, the whole family went to dinner and Caroline was just not herself.  She was a little crabby and she is normally an angel in restaurants (I'm sure this will change at some point).  The next morning we went to the aquarium together and we could all tell that she wasn't feeling well.  We left a bit early and took her to the doctor where she was diagnosed with her first case of pink eye.  Sadness.  We spent the rest of the day at home resting.  Sunday morning Lindsay called and said that she wasn't scared of Caroline being contagious since we had already spent so much time together so Sunday and Monday we hung out together around the house.  

I'm always so glad to see Dad!  The visit just seemed a little more chaotic than our normal life.  Mark, Caroline and I are really a pretty peaceful little family but I guess the sickness threw everything off a little.  Come back soon Dad - I promise we're not always so crazy!! 

A couple of little updates on Caroline...

I love the picture above.  She is eating a chip with gaucamole on it!  She has just learned to dip things and she has been trying all sorts of sauces.  It cracks me up.  However, her eating habits have gone down hill!  I'm trying not to be worried about it because I keep hearing it's just a stage.  She used to eat everything and now we are dow to fruit, bread, cheese and yogurt.  I've been determined to just feed her what we are having for dinner and not to cater to her wants.  Tonight was the first time that I caved though.  :-/  In my head it's a battle to get her to eat her veggies and more but I'm not willing to let her know that yet.  We'll see. 

In some other good news, I think we are trying to potty train (not too seriously though).  We used to set her on the potty occassionally before her bath and she would just giggle.  A little more than a week ago I put her on it and she pooped!  I was a little startled by the whole thing but we've started doing it before diaper changes and she goes in the potty almost everytime we put her on it!!  We're not taking it too seriously because she doesn't tell us when she has to go yet and probably won't for a long time. However, she very clearly tries to go everytime we put her on it.  It's a little crazy and scary!

Finally, a bit of sad news.  I can hardly believe it but we are going to have to give Sophie to a new home.  She has been the sweetest, best companion ever.  All of my time in college and then living by myself in Texas, it was such a joy to have her!  However, as Caroline has become more mobile and we have friends come over frequently with young children, Sophie has not adjusted very well.  She has been growling and showing her teeth.  I never thought that I would be able to get rid of Sophie.  Sophie was my child before I had a child.  We were trying to explain it to some friends who don't have kids and it's just hard.  Of course, I love Sophie but she is a dog and I have a little human to protect and love.  I no longer feel safe leaving them alone together and I can't possibly have my eye on them both at all times so it's time for Sophie to find a new, loving home.  She will be leaving this coming weekend for sure and as the time draws near, I am feeling more and more sad about it.  I know it is the right thing though.

I think that is about all that is going on here.  I hope the next update is a little more cheery than the last two!!

Let's Get Physical

OK, not really.  Blog titles are so annoying.  I should boycott them.

Before I got pregnant this time I talked with Mark about how much it requires of me physically.  There are two parts to this.  Before getting pregnant, being pregnant and the first year of a babies life are all very physically demanding for a mama.  There are foods, drinks, medicines, etc that you can no longer enjoy.  There is the "morning sickness" that comes anytime day or night. Of course, there is the growing belly.  There is the tiredness that comes from carrying a baby while pregnant and afterwards and the general sleeplessness.  Then the breastfeeding afterwards...oh my that's another whole blog. 

The other aspect that really affects me is the lack of physical activity that I can do while pregnant.  I know there are those super women who exercise like feigns while pregnant (I desperately want to be that person) but it just doesn't happen.  There is no more training more triathlons, no more running, no more biking...it just doesn't happen.  I can't sign up for races.  It's really a sacrifice for me not to train with a goal in mind, to compete and have something to look forward to.

Mark and I talked about all of this several times but of course a baby is much more important than all of this!  One quick silly story...our friends Dustin and Adrienne had a hand writing expert at Dustin's birthday party.  The handwriting expert said that I was a very physical person and that I like to push myself and have goals for myself physically.  I left telling Mark, see, I told you.  :-)

All of this said, I could have never imagined how draining this pregnancy would be for me.  I have not felt like myself physically for a couple of months now.  People keep asking if I am better and I kind of nod that everything is fine.  I don't mean to lie. I'm not really fine.  What do I say?  I don't feel like myself.  I am not sleeping well, despite taking sleeping pills nightly.  I am nauseous and have heart burn most everyday.  I feel like I'm living with the flu everyday.  I now have a cold on top of it.  I'm just drained.  I'm 16 weeks tomorrow so the first trimester has come and gone.  Now all I keep thinking is that I have to feel this way until July.  Eeks.  I have no doubt that all of this will be worth it once the little babe arrives but in the mean time I am just worn out.