Teamwork

I think my daughters communicate telepathically. Or maybe by morse code. Either way, they seem to have set up a system where one of them is driving me crazy, then the other. Yesterday was Baby Sister's turn. She apparently thought she could create extra space for herself if she just pushed hard enough. She seems to be giving me a break this morning, so I hope that doesn't mean that Abby is about to pick up the driving mom crazy antics.

Abby came to an amazingly funny revelation last night. She was rubbing my belly, which is one of her favorite pastimes (she likes to find the hard lumps that are Baby Sister). She looked at my belly, then looked at me and said "Baby Sister has stripes." Of course those stripes are the stretch marks that mostly came from Abby, although Baby Sister has added a few in the last couple weeks. It's a good thing I have a sense of humor, since Baby Sister has lots and lots of stripes.

We are really looking forward to Steve being home tomorrow. Abby keeps reminding me that her Daddy is in Chicago (pronounced chick-cago). I'm not sure she understands what she is telling me, but she has the facts straight. I'm looking forward to a few diaper changes off, a nice uninterrupted nap, and a break from being the 24-7 entertainment for the last few days. Thankfully last night we had a friend from church over and she was more than happy to read to Abby and provide some much needed adult conversation.

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.

Making Up For Yesterday

Abby decided to make up for yesterday's lack of napping by taking an early morning power nap. So, I enjoyed some personal time from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. I am trying to make Abby her own kitten hat, but I think the one I am making is going to be too big. We shall see. And this morning I did some customizing to the set of curtains we had for Abby's room. We bought pink sheers and then blackout curtains, so I had to sew the sheers onto the liners and then we put a butterfly ribbon to hide the seams (and match the sheet set Abby has). They are starting to look pretty cute!

We are trying out new Disney movies today. So far we've watched The Little Mermaid and we just got started on 101 Dalmatians. It was time for a change :-)

Only 2.5 days until Daddy gets home!

Our Girl - 33 Weeks

How your baby's growing:

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

from (http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-33-weeks_1122.bc)

We had another check-up today. Everything was good and growing on schedule. There have apparently been a ton of really sick people around town lately and the doctor had admitted three kids around Abby's age to the hospital, so we are hoping to avoid whatever it is that is making the rounds.

Abby and I have almost survived our first day of our little stretch with Steve. He made it safely to Chicago around 3 this afternoon and Abby and I have been missing him already. Abby is all off schedule, didn't take a nap at all today, and is still going strong at 8:40 p.m. I'm hoping that means she will sleep in for me, since there won't be any alarms going off in my room tomorrow morning. Although she seems to have a knack for waking me up early. This morning Abby woke me up at 5:30 a.m. to tell me "Abby is tired." It's one of those things where you don't know whether to laugh or be upset that you have to crawl out of bed at 5:30 to go put her back into her own bed and turn her Veggie Tales c.d. back on. She didn't even want cuddled or anything, she just wanted to tell me she was tired. What a girl...

And... to keep today even more interesting, Abby wore a skirt under a dress today. And I had to take her out in public with her skirt on under her dress. Luckily they were both denim and the skirt didn't peek out too much. Unluckily, she got food on the dress (which was on the outside) and had a diaper leak on the skirt and tights, so I get to do double the laundry for today. Oh well... at least she has a little bit of spunk and independence.

Here Kitty, Kitty...

It was cupcake day at Abby's play group and she got to bring two mini-cakes home for her afternoon snack. Her afternoon snack ended up being 5 p.m. after she took a three hour nap. And the best part is that I didn't have to lay down with her or stay in her room. I just took her up, popped in her c.d. and left. I love it when that happens.

I finished a kitten bonnet for Baby Sister today. I had to do a little improvising to get the chin strap the way I wanted it. And I had to do a lot of learning, since I hadn't knitted anything besides basic dishcloths. I can now say I'm a fairly decent beginner at knitting.

This is what 47 1/2 inches of belly looks like

Once upon a time, about July, I was a size four or six. Not anymore.

Three Milestones

First: Abby told her first "not" joke. It went something like this... "Abby change her play clothes... not." Then she laughed. I laughed harder - almost hard enough to fall down the steps. She certainly keeps us on our toes.

Second: I am up to 47 1/2 inches. I don't know how much further my poor belly can stretch.

Third: Steve now weighs 3 pounds less than I do. This is the first time since we've been dating that I've outweighed him. I guess his 4 weeks of eating sensibly and running on the elliptical have worked wonders. Now we are going to have to pull out his box of smaller pants and I'll need to pull out my box of maternity dresses, since pants are becoming a more and more uncomfortable option.

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.

Abby Reads

Abby's version of reading (this is the same video we put on facebook earlier this week - it just wouldn't load here until now).

If you can't tell, she reads this book a lot. Like 5 to 10 times a day. I'm pretty sure she knows every single word.

Newsflash!

At 1:00 p.m. today Abby finally did her stinky business on her potty chair - and got rewarded with two mini reese's cups. Let's hope she decides the reward is worth letting us know that she needs to go potty. And it would be great if she'd decide to pee on the potty too. Changing diapers is not something I really enjoy doing.