no rest for the weary.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

i don't remember having this much trouble during my third trimester with ella. i slept pretty well throughout most of that pregnancy. i remember having a little insomnia at the beginning of my third trimester, but it was short lived. it helped because we slept in our guest bed the last few months because a 4" pillowtop is REALLY comfortable when you don't have a huge belly weighing you down. i sleep on the couch most nights and get 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night. tonight it's two hours. but it will all be worth it. i know lots of people tell you "don't wish your pregnancy away, the baby is quiet in there". well, the longer it takes to get here is the longer it takes to get through that screaming baby phase. so instead of avoiding the inevitable, let's just get this thing started! i'm definitely not one of those people who will drink caster oil, but i do hope it will start soon. i go in on wednesday for my first exam in a while. maybe the doctor will tell me that it will be sooner rather than later. my doctor is definitely a "let's not get your hopes up" kind of guy so we will see.....

okay, i'm done complaining now. :)

I had the best day with you today.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

I have 26 days to go until Sadie makes her debut. Or 31 days if she's anything like her sister. I've been feeling the heat of my deadline approaching so quickly and I am so worried about not getting to be the best mom to Ella that I can be. Again, it's one of those things where you have no idea what it's going to be like with more than one kid until you have more than one kid. So most of my fears may be irrational, but they may not be. I just don't know yet. So I decided that Ella and I were going to have a fun day today. On Tuesday, I had a couple of appointments, so I was trying to decide what to do on Thursday. My options were to go swimming at the Angleton Rec Center or go to the zoo. Well one of my appointments was to get my legs waxed on Tuesday and they told me I'd have to come back next week. With that said, I didn't feel comfortable getting into a bathing suit. Not that the hairy legs are the only thing that makes me dread a bathing suit....but I was willing to forgo the embarrassment of the gigantic belly protruding from me and take her swimming. The legs just squashed that deal. So we got up early this morning and headed to the zoo. It wasn't until I exited Macgregor in Houston that I saw about 10 school buses ahead of me and then realized that the cartoons this morning that Ella was watching were about recycling and cleaning up trash. So I put two and two together and realized that today was Earth Day. Oh my gosh. It was nuts. Ella wasn't nearly as put out with the hundreds upon hundreds of kids at the zoo today as I was. Maybe it's the fact that I can't squeeze through tight spaces anymore and I'm completely awkward when moving around and dodging crazy little kids that seem more like bowling balls headed right for me. Or maybe it's the fact that I really just don't like being swallowed up by a crowd of 3' tall people. Regardless, Ella had a wonderful time and that's all that mattered. We walked the zoo, although I completely avoided the Children's Zoo. We walked by and it was a mad house, so I turned around before Ella saw too much. We ate pizza, cotton candy, and bought a really cool animal puzzle at the gift shop. All in all it was a great zoo trip. We also went and rode the train around Hermann Park. That was definitely Ella's favorite part. Next time, we'll just skip the zoo and go for a ride on the train and play in the park instead. As we were riding on the train, Ella looked up at me and asked me if I was having fun. At that moment, tears started streaming from my eyes. I have such a sweet and beautiful angel for a daughter. She makes my life mean so much more.


Happy Earth Day Ella! I had the best day with you today!




Having no idea that it was Earth Day when we got dressed this morning, I feel like her shirt was still very appropriate.





Checking out the meerkats.


Time for lunch!

and cotton candy...


Waiting for the train to arrive:


riding the train


she waved at everybody we passed!


and this was about 10 minutes into our drive home. she was exhausted!

Does that whole mad season got ya down?

Thursday, April 15, 2010

April 9th would have been Jon's 26th birthday. It's surreal to think that he will never age past 25. I think about him all the time. I'll hear a blink 182 song or a jack johnson song in the car and it brings me to tears every time. There was a new rob thomas song that i heard a few months back and i thought to myself, jon won't ever get to love this song. We spent countless hours sharing headphones listening to our cd players on the 10 hour drive to church camp during the summers or riding in "the wave" to colorado for ski trips. You could almost always guarantee it was a matchbox 20 cd playing. I don't know why it's music that reminds me so much of jon, but i can't listen to the radio without hearing one that reminds me of him. I like it, though, because it means i'll always have reminders of one of my greatest friends.

who brought that?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ella has always had to know who everyone around her was. Anytime she'd see someone, she'd ask "who's that?" and I'd tell her. She has always needed to know everyone's names. She loves to know their names and she's also a big fan of nicknames. She thinks that calling my mom and dad Davey-baby and Patty-Wagon is absolutely hilarious. I think so too. She calls her big cousin Alley by her nickname, Alleycat. Or Alleygator or even Alleycatgator. I'm usually Paigey, skittles, or paigerator. Josh is joshy, of course. But lately, now that she has everyone's names and nicknames figured out, she's taken a new approach. I remember my brothers going through the "why" stage with their kids. Maybe we're not there yet, or maybe she doesn't care why. She just needs to know who. So she'll see something (food at the grocery store, her easter basket, a sippy cup, etc) and ask me "who brought that?" It's too cute. I love listening to her figure out the world and being able to help her along the way with all of her questions. She's a smart kid. Oh, and the unprompted please's and thank you's are also music to my ears.



And on the potty training front, Ella's still doing great! We haven't been back to diapers since my last update. It's wonderful. At first I thought potty training would be a big headache and I just avoided it. It was so much easier to put her in a diaper for 3 to 4 hours instead of taking her to the potty every 30 minutes. Since Ella finally figured it out, I've realized that potty training is a piece of cake. She just got it one day and she can hold it for 3 hours usually and will tell me when she needs to go. The little boys potty training at school had a lot to do with her getting movtivated to do it too, I'm sure. But mostly, I think it just finally clicked for her. If she's playing and having fun, I have to remind her to go and I always make her go before we leave the house. A soaked car seat does not sound like an experience I want to have. I'm sure I will soon enough, but I'm going to avoid that as long as possible. *UPDATE - this has already happened...and it wasn't as awful as I anticipated.* I have heard about regression, but hopefully the next six weeks of successful potty training will make the regression minimal and easy to bounce back from, if she regresses at all. But I definitely love this new potty trained kid of mine. She's a blessing, a handful and a sweet, affectionate kid. It's great to get to new places, but it also comes with new sets of challenges to figure out. On to the next one........