So, this whole 3rd trimester thing is really starting to wear on me. I went for a walk the other night, with Trav pushing the girls in the stroller, and the next day I was incredibly sore. Yesterday morning, I woke up with the pain down the inside of my leg that I had for the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Audrey, and fortunately it went away after a bit, but it really made me dread the next 9+ weeks. I'm already slow, sore, sleeping a lot, and just not able to physically keep up with my girls. But, it's not like I'm anxious for this baby to be born, because I know it's only going to get more exhausting in different ways.
I got confirmation that Emily is signed up for the older 4's preschool in Johnston, meeting M-Th afternoons. I think it'll be good for her, but it's just that it's so many months away, still! I think the countdown is really just until the baby is born, after which point I'll have the girls go to Ms. Teri's a couple of mornings per week, and pick them up after lunch. Then, I'll go back to work at the same time as school starting. It's kind of crazy to think how that's all going to work out.
We've sure been enjoying the beautiful weather. Just having the house open makes a difference, even though I'm generally too much of a moose to get outside with the girls. Travis was happy to get started on his landscaping project, and the girls have had a good time "helping" move dirt around. It's weird to have things green and blooming so early, but if we can avoid a frost, it's nice to think we have that much nice weather ahead of us!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
More bragging. Too bad. :)
If you're tired of hearing me brag about how amazing my kids are, you shouldn't read this entry. Or this blog anymore. :) I'm pretty conceited, but this format is for me! I'll be modest and polite in other mediums, but this has turned into a documentation of their growth and accomplishments that they might like to read someday (if they can stomach their mother's writing style), and you all get to be fortunate bystanders, if you choose. And I may have posted about this particular thing earlier, but I am too lazy to review my entries to find out for sure. I'm copying some of the rest of this posting from an email that I sent to my grandfather last night, after being so impressed by Audrey's writing. I thought he'd appreciate it because he spent 60+ years studying how children grow and learn, and he would appreciate the details of what I noticed while watching Audrey work. I seriously am not one of those "DO YOUR WORKBOOK!" kind of moms. These girls are seriously driven, and I find that my role is actually to redirect their activities to something not as intense when they get frustrated, and help them decompress.
Enough disclaimer. I'm sure the suspense is killing you all. :)
I bought a dry-erase alphabet book for Emily for Christmas, thinking that she would enjoy tracing over the letters with erasable marker. She thought it was all right but wasn't too interested because she does so well drawing letters on her own. She likes to draw me notes that say MOM, DAD, EMILY, AUDREY, MILO, and if I help her spell other words, she'll write them too. You saw all the lovely writing she did on her valentines!
But Audrey, at age 2 years 4 months, just spent nearly an hour working on the dry-erase alphabet book with me. Not only can she identify every letter, upper-case and lower-case, she traced them all exactly with the marker. The only thing that tripped her up was getting the lines to cross to draw the letter "x", but she was totally fine crossing a "t". Then, she traced a line that was drawn across one entire page, curving and sometimes hiding behind other figures on the page, and she connected the curving line in between and kept going. Earlier today, I saw her adding an "A" to one of Emily's notes to me.
...and then this morning, I saw her tracing letters from a wooden alphabet puzzle on a Magnadoodle. Over the past week, she's been tracing her left hand using crayons on paper, and doing such a great job that I can't immediately tell which girl did the work. Emily's artwork has mostly been faces lately, which are absolutely adorable. I need to get a few pictures of them in addition to archiving my favorites. The eyes she draws are circles with dots for pupils, equally sized and spaced and not "googley-eyed", and the noses are the lines for the bridge of the nose instead of dots for nostrils, which I find very novel. And the smile is literally from ear to ear. They are the happiest looking creatures!
Today, both girls are dressed in hot pink from head to toe. Emily is busy serving up imaginary breakfast, and Audrey is snuggled next to me, asking me to eat her toes - hee hee! Is there any better way to spend a Saturday morning? The only thing that would make it better would be if I weren't sore from working around the house yesterday. Only a few more months and I'll have another little girl to be fascinated by... and I won't be pregnant anymore! ha! bonus! :)
Enough disclaimer. I'm sure the suspense is killing you all. :)
I bought a dry-erase alphabet book for Emily for Christmas, thinking that she would enjoy tracing over the letters with erasable marker. She thought it was all right but wasn't too interested because she does so well drawing letters on her own. She likes to draw me notes that say MOM, DAD, EMILY, AUDREY, MILO, and if I help her spell other words, she'll write them too. You saw all the lovely writing she did on her valentines!
But Audrey, at age 2 years 4 months, just spent nearly an hour working on the dry-erase alphabet book with me. Not only can she identify every letter, upper-case and lower-case, she traced them all exactly with the marker. The only thing that tripped her up was getting the lines to cross to draw the letter "x", but she was totally fine crossing a "t". Then, she traced a line that was drawn across one entire page, curving and sometimes hiding behind other figures on the page, and she connected the curving line in between and kept going. Earlier today, I saw her adding an "A" to one of Emily's notes to me.
...and then this morning, I saw her tracing letters from a wooden alphabet puzzle on a Magnadoodle. Over the past week, she's been tracing her left hand using crayons on paper, and doing such a great job that I can't immediately tell which girl did the work. Emily's artwork has mostly been faces lately, which are absolutely adorable. I need to get a few pictures of them in addition to archiving my favorites. The eyes she draws are circles with dots for pupils, equally sized and spaced and not "googley-eyed", and the noses are the lines for the bridge of the nose instead of dots for nostrils, which I find very novel. And the smile is literally from ear to ear. They are the happiest looking creatures!
Today, both girls are dressed in hot pink from head to toe. Emily is busy serving up imaginary breakfast, and Audrey is snuggled next to me, asking me to eat her toes - hee hee! Is there any better way to spend a Saturday morning? The only thing that would make it better would be if I weren't sore from working around the house yesterday. Only a few more months and I'll have another little girl to be fascinated by... and I won't be pregnant anymore! ha! bonus! :)
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Weekends with grandparents
The girls are pretty spoiled. Each of the past two weekends, they've been able to spend some really good quality time with their grandparents. Last weekend was the Clifford show, and Emily had a fabulous time. Audrey got to hang out with my dad after she woke up from her nap and before Emily and her grandmas returned from the show, so that was pretty special for her. And this weekend, we were in Barnum and came back to Des Moines in time for Milo's birthday party. I can't believe he's ONE already! What an awesome kid he is!
It's really starting to set in that I'm in over my head with having another kid. I know that in the end I'll be glad we're a family of 5, but it's intimidating when I think how full my hands are already. I think I may have a slight advantage in that I tend to operate in the jack-of-all-trades category, but when it comes to parenting each of my children, I hate to think that I'm master of none. If there was anything worth doing right, it would be that, wouldn't it? There are times when Audrey's "do it myself" 2YO mind is just too much to deal with... just put your damn shoes on or I will do it for you!!! And I know Emily isn't a whiney girl, but just because she hardly ever does it, doesn't mean it's any easier to tolerate when she does. I just think to myself, how will I be able to mentally handle all this commotion and Audrey's inevitable 3-5 potty accidents per week when I'm nursing a newborn and running on zero sleep? How can I give this new baby girl the same joy and devotion I was able to give Emily?
I'm ready for winter to be over. It snowed most of today, and was cloudy and depressing. It's nice to see it light out when I get up around 6:30 each day, but I'm willing to give that up for daylight savings time and a little bit of light in the evenings. I think it might help my overall attitude. I suppose eating better and getting some exercise might help, too... guess I'll blame winter for my inability to do those things, too.
I also think I'm going to axe the new daycare search. The two places we looked at were both really dull. "We just hang out, no set schedule.." "they'll get enough structure once they get to school..." "we don't watch much TV..." I guess I will take a little bit of dog dander (and whatever else) for someone who genuinely cares about teaching my kids each day. I think the idea of finding a new daycare has been stressful for Emily, just thinking that there's something unknown coming has been enough to make her a bit on-edge. Maybe this fall, if it doesn't work for the baby, I'll look into a center or something. *sigh*
It's really starting to set in that I'm in over my head with having another kid. I know that in the end I'll be glad we're a family of 5, but it's intimidating when I think how full my hands are already. I think I may have a slight advantage in that I tend to operate in the jack-of-all-trades category, but when it comes to parenting each of my children, I hate to think that I'm master of none. If there was anything worth doing right, it would be that, wouldn't it? There are times when Audrey's "do it myself" 2YO mind is just too much to deal with... just put your damn shoes on or I will do it for you!!! And I know Emily isn't a whiney girl, but just because she hardly ever does it, doesn't mean it's any easier to tolerate when she does. I just think to myself, how will I be able to mentally handle all this commotion and Audrey's inevitable 3-5 potty accidents per week when I'm nursing a newborn and running on zero sleep? How can I give this new baby girl the same joy and devotion I was able to give Emily?
I'm ready for winter to be over. It snowed most of today, and was cloudy and depressing. It's nice to see it light out when I get up around 6:30 each day, but I'm willing to give that up for daylight savings time and a little bit of light in the evenings. I think it might help my overall attitude. I suppose eating better and getting some exercise might help, too... guess I'll blame winter for my inability to do those things, too.
I also think I'm going to axe the new daycare search. The two places we looked at were both really dull. "We just hang out, no set schedule.." "they'll get enough structure once they get to school..." "we don't watch much TV..." I guess I will take a little bit of dog dander (and whatever else) for someone who genuinely cares about teaching my kids each day. I think the idea of finding a new daycare has been stressful for Emily, just thinking that there's something unknown coming has been enough to make her a bit on-edge. Maybe this fall, if it doesn't work for the baby, I'll look into a center or something. *sigh*
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Happy Days
We've been having a lot of fun around here lately, just enjoying life with little girls. On days that Travis goes to work but I don't, I usually open my eyes to the face of a beautiful girl or two asking to snuggle with me in my bed. They climb in with blankets and stuffed animals and snuggle with me until Travis leaves for work. Then we eat breakfast, where Audrey eats an unfathomable amount of oatmeal and raisins, and finishes off the PBJ crusts from the sandwich that Emily makes, all on her own. It's a pretty awesome way to start off the day. Emily and I generally get a good solid chunk of time to snuggle together in the afternoon, and it's really fun to read with her and point out words that she knows. She WORKS hard, though, in her play, writing her favorite letters and words, counting things, thinking hard all the time. She's really hard to keep a step ahead of. I watched Audrey count out three pieces of meat tonight at dinner, and then promptly drop them on the floor. Exasperating, except, what 2YO can count that well?
This may seem like a little, nitpicky thing, but I can see it growing into something that makes my life a lot easier as the girls grow older. They're starting to actually talk nicely to each other in order to resolve conflicts!! In one day, I saw each girl resolve something by settling down and asking the other nicely for whatever it was the other had stolen. It is so satisfying to see that all that endless yammering I do about using words and whatnot are actually starting to show results!
I've already started in with Braxton-Hicks contractions. Baby is really lively at different points of the day, and Emily especially loves to poke my belly and feel her sister wiggling back at her. She has all kinds of ideas about what Baby is thinking or feeling, and it's fun to hear her verbalize all those thoughts. I'm feeling pretty slow and lazy these days, and consuming just a ridiculous amount of food. I've decided that I'm not going to really care about weight gain so much, this time around, although I'm pretty much on track with what I did with my other two pregnancies. It'll be much more satisfying to watch what I eat when I can exercise, and actually feel good about my figure instead of just making it less awful. I'm a blimp - so what??
And apparently it's the way to be. Yesterday, I heard of two more co-workers who are expecting this summer/fall, to go along with two others that I talk with often and several others who I know in passing. We're reproducing like crazy. :)
I spent about an hour this afternoon calling around to other in-home childcare providers, and it is really, really hard to find people. I thought the kicker would be finding someone who takes part-time kids and has openings, but I can't even get people to answer the phone! And a lot of people are either in little, icky-looking houses (according to google maps) or townhouses. So do I put up with the dogs and naptime issues where we're at, or risk switching?? I've got two potential places to check out, so I hope one of them turns out to be perfect. Otherwise, I guess I'll wait until next fall and try calling around again.
Emily has a date with both of her grandmas this weekend. I got them tickets to the Clifford musical show that's at the Civic Center downtown, as gifts for the birthdays they both had in the past week. I figured, what could be better than spending time with my sweet Emily, right? :) She's pretty excited about it, and I think they'll have a pretty good time together.
This may seem like a little, nitpicky thing, but I can see it growing into something that makes my life a lot easier as the girls grow older. They're starting to actually talk nicely to each other in order to resolve conflicts!! In one day, I saw each girl resolve something by settling down and asking the other nicely for whatever it was the other had stolen. It is so satisfying to see that all that endless yammering I do about using words and whatnot are actually starting to show results!
I've already started in with Braxton-Hicks contractions. Baby is really lively at different points of the day, and Emily especially loves to poke my belly and feel her sister wiggling back at her. She has all kinds of ideas about what Baby is thinking or feeling, and it's fun to hear her verbalize all those thoughts. I'm feeling pretty slow and lazy these days, and consuming just a ridiculous amount of food. I've decided that I'm not going to really care about weight gain so much, this time around, although I'm pretty much on track with what I did with my other two pregnancies. It'll be much more satisfying to watch what I eat when I can exercise, and actually feel good about my figure instead of just making it less awful. I'm a blimp - so what??
And apparently it's the way to be. Yesterday, I heard of two more co-workers who are expecting this summer/fall, to go along with two others that I talk with often and several others who I know in passing. We're reproducing like crazy. :)
I spent about an hour this afternoon calling around to other in-home childcare providers, and it is really, really hard to find people. I thought the kicker would be finding someone who takes part-time kids and has openings, but I can't even get people to answer the phone! And a lot of people are either in little, icky-looking houses (according to google maps) or townhouses. So do I put up with the dogs and naptime issues where we're at, or risk switching?? I've got two potential places to check out, so I hope one of them turns out to be perfect. Otherwise, I guess I'll wait until next fall and try calling around again.
Emily has a date with both of her grandmas this weekend. I got them tickets to the Clifford musical show that's at the Civic Center downtown, as gifts for the birthdays they both had in the past week. I figured, what could be better than spending time with my sweet Emily, right? :) She's pretty excited about it, and I think they'll have a pretty good time together.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Whoa, time to update this!
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!
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!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Audrey's Alphabet, take 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHcuxjuMAUo
Okay, she got them all except J and Q. What a hotshot. :)
Okay, she got them all except J and Q. What a hotshot. :)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Audrey's Alphabet
I tried to film Audrey saying her letters, but by the time I got the camera out, Emily felt the need to pester me with questions the entire time. I couldn't really stop the moment and explain to her why I wanted her to pleeeeeease be quiet, so in the end, Audrey was pretty distracted. But, she does some nice work anyway! I most of all wanted her adorable pirate-style R, but she toned it down for the video - so disappointed. :)
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgtHjHMhFeQ
(I missed her identifying M)
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77ACNpgKyY
Enjoy!
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgtHjHMhFeQ
(I missed her identifying M)
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77ACNpgKyY
Enjoy!
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