Yeah, it's been a few weeks, huh? It seems like we've been busy, but, gosh, doing what? Just our family routine, I guess.
Yesterday, I spent the day at work presenting a class to other user experience designers at Deere and the company we contract with. It was nice that I had teamed up with two other people to do the class, because we kind of pushed each other to get the class done and well-prepared. It was kind of crazy getting it all ready and I was a bit stressed by it, but it went really, really well and I'm SO happy to be done with it! I'm not at all comfortable presenting anything to any size group of people, even though I think I am a pretty good teacher, as long as I'm not outnumbered, I guess. :) Anyway, now that that's done, I'm actually done with two out of 3 of my year-long goals at work! I can't even remember what the third goal was supposed to be... guess it's time to go on maternity leave, right? ha!
And the other cool thing about work is that somehow I have gotten noticed, and I am being promoted to a senior position! It's not final or official yet, but it's gotten approvals from all the levels of management it needs, and I just need to pass a review by a group that recently formed to review people pursuing a "knowledge path" at Deere. That's me, all knowledge! I'm pretty excited, and only a little bit intimidated. Kinda cool!
So, enough about me. My little beauties have been keeping me very busy on my days at home, too. Audrey has mastered the whole alphabet and is working on lower-case letters. She can count to 5, which is pretty cool. Emily is starting to think about stringing together letters into words. If she knows what the words are, like a book's title or similar, I can ask her to point to which word is which, and she does pretty well at using the letters for clues, and not just guessing. It seems to be a good exercise for learning the whole left-to-right concept, which is funny to think that it must be learned! Audrey is as likely to spell out words backwards as forwards, but Emily is pretty reliable with reading left-to-right, and most of the time writing that way too. I guess since there are right-to-left languages, it's not surprising that it's not an innate thing to know.
Emily is pretty excited about preschool, and I'm hoping she is still feeling that way 6 months from now! That may as well be an eternity for her, you know, and she really doesn't get as much out of her daycare setting as she needs. I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with our current daycare setup, and I figure I'll start looking for something different this summer. There's just too many dogs, not enough outside activities, and not enough stimulation for Emily. They have quiet-time with lights out from about noon until 4:00. It's no wonder that Audrey still needs a pull-up for naptime there, if they're thinking she needs to be lying on her cot for the majority of that time; she's not going to buck the trend to get up to go potty. And they smell like dog!! ugh. My sweet little beauties always smell so BAD when i get home from work. I want to hug them and snuggle them when I walk in the door and then, YUCK. I hope it's a pregnancy-nose thing, and that it'll get better when they can open the windows there to air it out, but, I dunno. There's gotta be something better, right?? Their sitter has been marveling at what my girls know, and how Emily's going to be ridiculously ready for preschool, so it's nice that she's on board with my girls' capabilities. But, shouldn't any teacher or sitter? You don't have to spend much time with them before Emily will start talking like a book and you know there's something special there.
Funny Emily story along those lines: The other night, while she was in the bathroom getting ready to brush her teeth, her foot slipped off the edge of the stepstool and she bonked her elbow and her ribs against the bathroom countertop. Before she could even cry, she blurted out, "I was not expecting that!!!" and then the tears came. It was so funny that it was really hard to console her without laughing - poor girl! Because really, who says that??? Okay I probably do. But, what 4YO says that? :)
As for Baby, she is kicking and thrashing about these days. I know that I'm less in-tune with this pregnancy than the other two, but she is doing her best to not let me forget about her! I am feeling enormous these days, but really I'm not that big. My weight is exactly the same at this point as it was in my previous two pregnancies. I passed my glucose test last week, so even though it would probably be healthier for me to cut out the ridiculous amount of sugar that I eat, I'm not being forced to so I probably won't! But she is so incredibly jumpy, especially in the evenings and as I am going to bed. I know I should be feeling bittersweet about this novel sensation that I'll only get to experience for another 4 months, but it's getting to be exhausting. She has a lot of growing to do before she arrives in May... oof!!!
And no, we still have no name for her yet. It's probably going to be another "game-day" decision. I just hope we come up with something as lovely as we did for her sisters!
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