Rivalry

Abby and Maize have been fighting tonight. So far the score is Maize 2 - Abby 0. First Maize stole the all important cheeto, which we just brought home from our Mom and Abby date to the grocery store. Then Abby pulled Maize's ear in retaliation. I told her to stop pulling on Maize's ears, but she chose not to listen to Mom. So, Maize used dog language to tell Abby to stop pulling on her ear (dog language in the form of putting Abby's forearm into her mouth but not biting down). Needless to say the parties have been separated and are awaiting their mediation appointment tomorrow morning.

Birth Date and Party Time

Today, April 14th, was Olivia's due date. She turned 5 weeks old today. And she was wide awake the whole time Abby napped. That whole "sleep while your baby sleeps" stuff does not work when you also have a toddler.

And that toddler is turning two tomorrow. That doesn't seem possible. For real... I can't be old enough to have a two year old. We had a birthday cake to celebrate with her friends at our Bible study tonight. She was pretty impressed with her Snow White cake, I was not as impressed with my frosting job. Especially since I couldn't find my decorator tips, so I had to just squeeze the pink frosting from the tube onto the cake. But it tasted good and Abby liked her doll, so that is all that matters.

Other than cleaning to host the Bible study and making the Snow White cake, we had a very uneventful day. The car guy came by and gave us the estimate for getting it fixed, which he also sent to the insurance company. Now we just have to wait to see if the other driver's policy will pay the 1/2 of our deductible that our insurance company is asking them to since he was at fault. Then "Big Black" can get her new bumper and hopefully that will make Abby feel better, since she was pretty sad that her car got "hurted." She is pretty attached to some very random things around this house.

Last night she earned the right to go to bed extra early because she was flipping out whenever Maize sat down anywhere. Apparently Abby was sitting everywhere because everywhere Maize sat was "Abby's spot." I wasn't about to put up with that nonsense, so Abby got a very early bedtime and ended up sleeping 13 hours. She must have been pretty tired.

Muddy Buddies

Abby and Maize took advantage of some 49 degree weather after having lunch and took their first outside adventure of the year. Abby was more interested in being outdoors than Maize. She helped me sweep off the porch and we checked all around the backyard to see what was growing now that we've had almost a week straight of 40 degree days. I know it's way to early to expect Spring in the Upper Peninsula - I'm sure we will get some more snow and cold weather - but it was nice to enjoy some springy weather today. It's just a shame she wouldn't turn around and give me a smile for a picture. And her pants are pretty muddy, especially the bottom since the yard was kind of tricky to walk in.

Abby, Steve, and I spent the evening yesterday with our friends the Dodge family, including Abby's great friend Maddie. They had so much fun dancing and hugging. They are pretty adorable together. Steve also got his first - and probably last - dose of the Academy Awards. Neither of us are really movie people, so we really didn't care who won what or who wore which dress, but we did have fun with friends and Abby got to spend time with one of her two best buddies, so we always jump at the chance for that to happen.

Today Abby is using her imagination and is pretending to be Grandma Mary's puppy "Bark-ski". The real puppy - who's name is Barski - moved to a new home, but I'm sure Grandma Mary would rather have this new version of her puppy visit. We even had to get a dog leash out so that Bark-ski could go on a walk around our house. And she's crawling everywhere around the house instead of walking, since dogs can't walk. What a girl...

Caught!

I found this little black kitten sneaking around our living room this morning trying to get into trouble.She was also trying to get rid of the competition, but unfortunately for her she isn't quite strong enough to get the door open.
Abby and I are entering day 3 of our adventure without Steve. So far we've managed to have a good start to the day, although I didn't get her to take a power nap like yesterday morning. But she did wake up in a good mood, so that helps.

Growing UP

Abby has been stretching out - two weeks in a row her size 2T dresses seemed a little too short. It's hard to believe our little baby started out at only 8 pounds and 22 inches.

We finished our most recent round of swimming classes yesterday. Abby really enjoyed her class, but had the most fun when mommy was participating. And we had a much better time this time around since Abby's friends were in the class as well. We will have to see what we decide to do this summer when swimming is offered again - having two kids in the pool is going to be a lot more work.

Our Girl - 32 Weeks

How your baby's growing:By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

Apparently I've been doing a lot of laying on the couch (and with good reason), since Abby seems to have decided it looked like a fun thing to try. I've been having some major joint pain, mostly in my right hip and jaw. According to the web it's probably caused by the hormone relaxin, which helps loosen joints to aid in delivery. Unfortunately, I don't really need those joints to be loosened for a c-section and there seems to be an imbalance in the levels, because my joints never hurt like this when I was expecting Abby.

Abby and I went out for a lunch date with her friends Autumn and Little Abby. She had a great time at play land and finally went high enough to get down the slide (she had some major mommy assistance). We've been working very hard on breaking Abby of her recent habit of not listening to mom and dad. Today it took 3 tries to get her into her bed for nap time. She's also been asserting herself with Maize, which can be funny but also probably isn't too safe. Yesterday she was dragging Maize around by the collar (see pictorial evidence). Luckily we picked a very gentle dog, because I think any other dog would have taken a bite or two at Abby for all the abuse. It may make bringing home Baby Sister an exciting adventure. I'm really hoping that Abby will decide to be a helper/protector instead of a boss/aggressor.

And.... only 49 days until the scheduled c-section. Let's hope for a few days less :-)

21 Months Old!

Abby is celebrating the 21st month of her life today. It's hard to believe we are 3 short months from her 2nd birthday (not to mention the birth of her little sister)! Abby started this morning out with lots of playing and since it is staying just above freezing here today I think we will be doing some snowman making this afternoon. We'll see how Abby likes the snow when we actually play with it.

We tried something new today in Abby's diet - star fruit. Let's just say that most of it ended up on the floor and I'm not sure that any of it got into her belly. She did clean up the clementines and blueberries pretty quickly. Once she decides she wants food she doesn't really mess around too much.

A few funny things from traveling with Abby that I had overlooked mentioning. We left Maize at dog day care, but Abby was asleep when I dropped Maize off and asleep again when I picked her back up. All day long she kept telling me, and anyone else who would listen, that Maize was at the "dog circus" and that Maize was "going in bag." She came up with the dog circus all on her own. She also cracked me up talking about the dental school. We drove by the dental school at the University of Michigan 3 times throughout Wednesday and each time I told her that the building was where daddy learned to fix people's teeth. This fascinated her. She kept telling me that she wanted to fix teeth. And that she was a big girl dentist. And that daddy is a dentist and fixes people's teeth. I think she's been thoroughly indoctrinated in the desire to follow in daddy and Grandpa Scott's footsteps as a dentist. Finally, and worst from a traveling with children perspective, for some reason every movie we put on the portable dvd player while driving home for some reason or another scared Abby. I'm sure it was more a case of pure exhaustion and less a case of Winnie the Pooh becoming scary. We made it about 3 minutes into any given movie before we heard a little voice from the backseat saying "Abby scared. Change movie show. Scared." It made for a very long ride until she finally fell asleep (she also wanted any song on the radio changed immediately and wanted the radio on, but not on at the same time). Luckily after a couple nights in her own bed, Abby is back to her sweet self.

Doing Chores

Abby has been mastering her two chores around this house - feeding Maize and picking up toys. She is getting pretty good with the toys, but sometimes the dog food doesn't quite end up in the bowl...We've had a rather uneventful day today, which was a welcome change from the running around and busyness we've been experiencing lately. Abby and I even took the opportunity to re-arrange our family room so that we can enjoy our gas fireplace, which until yesterday was not working. We did a lot of sweeping, picking up, and rotating of furniture so that we can see both the t.v. and the fireplace from the couch. And Abby found lots of great things under the couch that we had "lost."

Abby is really mastering language at a great pace lately. She is talking almost exclusively in sentences now and it is becoming harder and harder to pretend like we can't understand what she is asking for. She gets pretty adamant about things too... Like yesterday, we bought a second toddler car seat for Steve's car. K-Mart had them on sale and we really wanted the ability to take which ever car was parked in back (since we have a one lane driveway and parking on the streets during snow season is not a great idea). So Abby and I went and picked out a new, pink car seat. Then she had a little fit because I wouldn't buckle it in right away and let her ride home in it. She didn't quite understand that we were on a schedule and changing out car seats in the freezing cold wasn't on mommy's agenda. She did enjoy playing with the car seat once we got home. She even wanted to be buckled into it and left alone.

Our Baby - Week 19

How your baby's growing:

Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

from (http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-19-weeks_1108.bc)

Today Abby says our baby is a boy. She has been talking to the baby a lot, so the baby will probably know her voice very well by the time it arrives. And it will probably know the words "no" and "time out" too since Abby has been having a very defiant week this week. Hopefully it is just a product of the two teeth that are coming in right now. Or maybe it's something in this house, since Maize has been growling at Abby a lot more lately. It may be time to get out of dodge for a few days.

Stinky Dog Kisses

Abby has been particularly enjoying dog kisses lately. Last night I was snuggling her after she jumped head first off the couch and noticed a very doggish smell coming right off the top of her head. She must have been letting Maize groom her or something. They were back at it again this morning and Abby was cracking up. What a nut!

Abby has recently discovered lotion and is now obsessed with getting it rubbed onto her. I think she likes the rubbing more than the lotion feeling, but I'm sure that the lotion feels good on her dry skin (I know... I have terrible dry skin in the winter too). She keeps finding me bottles of lotion and bringing them to me. I now have quite a collection of lotion bottles. She is going to be quite a girlie girl someday I am afraid.

We are waiting for the little princess to wake up from her nap. She has in the last week been putting herself in bed. I just place her in her room, get told to "go away," shut the door and leave. She plays for a little bit and then makes her way into bed. I always go check on her within 30 minutes to make sure she got into bed and to leave her door open so she can escape when she wakes up. It's been working out well so far, which will be a big help when I have a second kid to put down for a nap too.

Abby's New Play Space

Abby has been busy using her new back yard, so we have been busy supervising her back yard experiences.

She and Maize have had a good time exploring their new boundaries. They really like going to the farthest corner of the yard and sitting together. Weird, I know.

They also have been on the lookout for all the neighborhood cats and have enjoyed spying on them from the front door. This girl and her dog spend a lot of time together.

Traumatized

Abby just witnessed the taking of Maize's blood for a heart worm test. Thankfully there are 22 cats who live at the vet's office that helped distract her from Maize's crying and panic. I'm not sure why the vet's assistants felt the need to do the procedure in the waiting room, but at least it is done.

Now on to the fun parts - getting ready to head to Hastings :-)

Best Buddies

Maize hides in the bathtub when she gets scared by loud noises. Abby decided to join her the other night. Poor Maize was freaking out, while Abby was trying to feed her with bath toys.
But even when Abby tries to feed Maize dirty bath water, they are still best friends. Abby's been practicing her dog mastering skills by telling Maize to "sit." I'm still not sure Maize understands what Abby says to her, but Abby is really certain that she is going to be the newest dog whisperer.

Abby has two new words that she learned yesterday. I'm not sure where she learned them, because we hadn't been practicing them. Her first new word is "more" and her second word is "girl." She also has been practicing "eye" a lot - complete with the poking of anyone's eye who is fortunate enough to be within arms length.

Barks and Balls and Books

I am doing an experiment today to see how many books I actually end up reading in a day (and how many times I read the same book). So far we are in the 20's, and I've been busy so I haven't read every book that's been thrust upon me. I hope Abby always enjoys reading as much as I do.

Now that our backyard is almost snow free we've cleaned it up and started playing outside whenever we can. Abby and Maize have a lot of fun outside. Maize loves taking naps in the sun and Abby enjoys walking up and down on the cement and petting her poochie. Last night Abby and I went to K-Mart and picked out some outside play toys. She was most impressed with the micro sized soccer ball. We had a great time playing with it inside and it should be lots of fun outside too. We also picked out a kids golf set so that she can decide whether to follow in her daddy's club swinging steps. We'll just have to be extra careful and make sure that the clubs don't get swung at dogs.

It is rainy and cold today, so we will have to wait a day or two before we can find out how much fun our new outside toys are. Stay warm and dry :-)

Update

My jaw is back to normal (-ish). Not that it won't pop out again in a day, a week, or a month at some random time when I'm least expecting it. It took both Steve and I about ripping it off for us to get it back into place.

Abby is currently laying on top of Maize, who does not seem to be too thrilled about being a pillow. She has a little runny nose, but doesn't seem to have any other symptoms, so I'm pretty sure it is just from getting teeth into her little mouth. I hope she never has the jaw problems I've suffered with for the last two years.

We are doing the last load of laundry so that we can get to packing our bags for our Easter trip! We can't wait to see our family and friends :-)

Orange You Glad I Didn't Eat the Peel?

Abby found some tangerines today that we got in our Saturday delivery of Angel Food. She is super smart and right away knew that the tangerine was one of her favorite foods (she loves, loves, loves citrus fruits). She did all of this finding while I was busy chopping peppers and onions for a pot of chili. I was very surprised when I had a little tug on my pant leg and saw that Abby had chewed through the tangerine peel and had gotten part of the fruit in the process. What a little smarty pants. I peeled the tangerine for her and she gobbled it right up. But not before I got a picture of her damage.

We are still working on focusing with the camera for an awesome coming around the door photo. I'm still not sure what the deal is, but the camera always seems to focus on something other than sweet Abby. At least I keep getting her to do the posing - one of these times the camera is going to get the focus right and we are going to have a home run.

Other than eating tangerines, peel and all, and walking through the doors, Abby is becoming a walking machine. She has almost totally forsaken crawling and just cruises around here like she owns the place. She is really steady for only having a few weeks under her belt. She is also becoming quite the mommy to her dolls. Yesterday she was sharing her sippy cup with her dolls during the day. When we went upstairs to get ready for bed she insisted on going up the stairs all by herself and did so one handed so that she could bring JoJo up with her. I tried to get her to give me the doll so that she could crawl up with both hands, but she would have none of it. Today she fed part of her snack to her dolls, and also part to her best buddy Maize. She is growing up and learning a lot. And with only 15 days or so until her birthday, she is leaving babyhood behind for girliness.

Baby Loving

Abby has been doing some serious loving to her favorite doll JoJo. So far she's given him lots of hugs, kisses, and some drinks of her sippy cups and bottles. She is so funny with her dolls.

We are waiting for our snow to melt again. Yesterday we got about 3 more inches and today we didn't make it above freezing, so it's not going anywhere fast. At least we have beautiful sunshine to enjoy. And Easter candy.

And we are working on creating some exceptional 1 year photos of Abby, but so far we haven't had anything magical like her portrait last week or the cute bunny photos at White's (see previous post).

On that note, we don't have much going on. Just playing, housekeeping, and chasing the dog. So I best get back to doing all those fun things.

Abby at Home

I don't know who was happier to be home - it was a close tie between Abby and Maize. One went straight for the toys and the other straight for the couch. We had a lot of fun down in Hastings, but it is always good to be home and sleep in your own bed - or in Abby's case last night in your own mom's bed. We had lots of fun last night. Abby had to hug every doll that didn't get to make the trip with her. She also had to try out her chairs and get almost all her toys out to make sure they were still here. On top of that she is a great walker after last week, so she was trying out her legs around the house.

We had fun playing with Jack and Melissa while they visited mom and dad too. We were even able to get Abby's photo with Jack and a bunny. They are professional photos, so when we have the link to the website later this week we'll share them with you. For the record, Abby hates bunnies and cried every time she saw the cute little rabbit. Oh well.

We'll try to add some photos later today - for now it's on to digesting all the stuff we dumped right inside the door.

Pepsi Please

We are really behind and have no good excuse. This weekend seemed to get away from us and we sure didn't get things done like we planned. Oh well... it was fun. Abby got her 6th tooth yesterday. She now has 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. Quite a set of choppers they are and they are very good at biting and eating.

Most of our blogging dysfunction this weekend is due to Abby's new found love of the computer. If it is out she is trying to mess with it, pushing the buttons, pulling out the power cord, and in general being a little bit of a pest. So, that limits my ability to distract her with toys and get things done on the computer, which may cause quite a problem with all the Angel Food things I have to do this week. Abby's very favorite thing to do is open the cd-rom drive and smash it closed. Obviously not a good choice.

Abby's also pretty into pop cans. We may have to start pouring soda into a cup because she is like a heat seeking missile when it comes to pop cans. She found a closed Pepsi can this weekend and went crazy for it. But since she's already cut her finger 3 times on open cans that were left within her reach, we have got to find a better toy for her to play with.

In the last week Abby also began playing a newer, rougher game with her dog. It's a mild form of wrestling, with lots of kicking by both Abby and Maize involved. Maize will lay on her side and kick her legs at Abby while Abby, who is standing, kicks back and her. Then Abby laughs and Maize wags her tail. Apparently I am not enlightened enough to understand the joy of kicking and being kicked by your pet dog. Oh well...

And on a final note, Abby walked all the way across the living room at our Pastor's house last night. We had a nice visit with them and we were super proud of her long walking skills.

Play Date

Abby went on her first play date without her mom or dad today. It must have been really, really fun because when I went to pick her up she didn't seem to want to come with me. We are very glad that there are two girls about her age in our small group - it makes going to group fun for us and for her too. She is getting to have a HUGE personality and has got to be close to getting over her stranger anxiety because she spends every moment in public flirting and waving at anyone who will look at her.

Abby and Maize have been having more and more fun together as Abby grows. Abby loves her dog and likes to pet Maize, although sometimes the "pets" are little pinches or pulls on Maize's loose skin. Maize loves to kiss Abby, which seems to be one of Abby's favorite activities as well even though her dad and I don't sanction these activities. Earlier today Maize was doing her crazy dog dance for Abby who was laughing hysterically. We are lucky these too silly girls get along so well.

Abby and I are back to normal after our little bit of something - I still am convinced it was the Subway cookies, which were a little chewy and seemed like they were a bit undercooked. Who knows... Abby also got her 4 tooth, so she may have just been feverish from breaking that big girl tooth through. And now that she has her four front teeth she is a very effective biter. And she is also officially done with any baby food. I tried to give her sweet potatoes last night, which she likes, and she did the same trick that she did with the peas. She wouldn't even eat one little bite. Luckily we have a new couple in our small group with a 5 month old baby who I'm sure will be happy to eat all that extra baby food in a month or two. What a nut...