First things first: baby looks healthy. It was curled up with knees above head, which made it hard for the tech to get all the pictures she needed. But everything looks completely normal, heartrate is great, all the parts are there. Baby was kicking me on the way to the ultrasound so at least I knew it was alive. But still I cried in relief when I saw the baby’s face and hands and legs, all moving about.

She took a look between the legs and said, “Looks like a girl.” And I just couldn’t help it, but I started crying little tears. I’ll be okay for a little bit and then start crying again. And it feels totally selfish and ridiculous to me, but my heart hurts. A part deep down inside me wants to yell, but I don’t WANT another girl, I want Devin back! If he had lived we would have a boy and a girl and now… now. Now he’s gone and I’m going to have two girls and I just totally can’t wrap my brain around that. Nothing has brought up this much old grief in years. I just keep sobbing over the boys outfits in the basement that now I have no idea what to do with, and mostly over this picture I had in my head of what this family would be.

And making it worse is that we had a name picked out for a boy and for a while I was tentatively calling it “he”. I went into this ultrasound really hoping to connect with this baby and instead I feel totally knocked off my feet and more alienated than ever. I can’t even picture a girl. I already have Kate. I am irrationally angry at this baby for not being what I thought it was… hoped it was.

I know I’ll be fine in a little bit, it’ll just take some time to process this. I know logically that I’ll love this child and bond with it eventually. But right now my heart really hurts. I really miss you, Devin.

Driving to my friend’s today I had the music turned up, my sunglasses on (it was bright!), and I was bopping to the music thinking how cool I must look in my pajamas and all.

I started thinking about just what a good life I have. My kiddo was home with her very competent daddy in our small (and somewhat messy) but cheerful house, I’m driving my nice (though older) SUV with a baby in my belly going to visit some friends for the afternoon. My hubby has a good job that brings home good money, so I get to stay home with our kids. We own our home. We have two vehicles. We have lots of toys and books for our child. Our kid is healthy and brilliant and happy. We’re somehow expecting another hopefully healthy little one. We have all kinds of tech gear and gadgets including a laptop and an xbox and big screen TV. (We don’t have a new kitchen or bathroom and our garage is not functional, but at least we have the tech stuff – priorities, you know.) I get to take college classes and work on my next degree.

And we are happy. Not every day, not all the time, but I really like my life. I have a lot of fun being a mommy. There is a lot of laughter in our home. I have intelligent conversations with my husband and non-intelligent conversations with my toddler. I have friends. I have extended family.

We are so very blessed.

I should be recording more, I’m doing a poor job of it!

I haven’t written it down anywhere, but I started this pregnancy at around 125lbs (maybe a little less) and I’m right now around 133, depending on the time of day. We’ll see what the doctor’s scale says next week, it’s usually way higher than mine is at home so they think I’ve been packing it on. ;)

People have asked me about cravings, and this one is being weird. With Devin I lived off of Cheerios, craved salads, and couldn’t eat chocolate at all. With Kate I wanted sweets and chocolate. With this one… I’m craving not-so-good foods. Pizza and salt and vinegar chips recently. I’m eating a lot of cookies (oops). I’m eating chocolate, but it’s not my favorite things in the world. But then when I go out to eat I’m loving on the salads (just not at home). So basically it’s in between both pregnancies.

I’m feeling really pretty good right now. No real physical complaints, the nausea still sticks around when I don’t eat enough or eat too much, but mostly I’m great. No aches or pains, except the random ligament tweak when I reach for something too fast in the wrong direction. I am starting to get random, mild foot cramps… I expect that will get progressively worse. The belly is definitely feeling heavier this week though… baby must have shifted position.

I am getting a bit uncomfortable when I’m sleeping though. I’m typically a belly sleeper, though I have one knee up so it’s not flat on my belly. The problem is that I sleep on top of one arm, and that arm is now either uncomfortable against my pelvis bone or it’s pressing into my baby belly. I kept shifting around last night and just could not find the right position. I think sleeping with the body pillow is not far away. I’m trying to hold off as long as I can because I know once I go that route there will be no going back to sleeping on my belly… I’m trying to take it while I can!

And I’m feeling a ton of movement (well, a ton relatively speaking for 17 weeks pregnant). Every time I sit down at the computer or watching TV or in bed I feel some kicks or rolls, like right as I’m typing this. This week I was finally able to catch some kicks with my hand, I can feel them from the outside – but they’re still so random and infrequent that Den hasn’t been able to get in on it.

I realized today that she hadn’t nursed at all today, and I don’t think yesterday either. She sat on my lap and asked a couple of times during the day, but when I asked her if she was thirsty and did she want some milk she said yes and eagerly took the sippy of milk from me. I’ve realized that a lot of the time she sits on my lap it’s her way of telling me she’s thirsty.

I’m not telling her she can’t nurse, I’m just offering alternatives. If she’s upset and really wants to nurse, then that’s fine. But man, it’s really starting to hurt. I’m not all “I need to wean her!” but I’m gently encouraging I guess. She’s doing just fine – even sits in my lap and just cuddles now, which I really appreciate! I’m the one who gets a little emotional if I think too much about it. I don’t think in terms of being done, but more just “didn’t nurse today.” Maybe tomorrow. I am pregnant and have no milk so it’s not like I have to worry about my supply crashing or anything!

I have started waiting to snack until Kate is in bed, or I sneak snacks in the kitchen. It’s no longer good enough for me to give Kate something appropriate for her while I’m eating, she wants MINE. Sometimes I can trick her, but some days she just keeps pointing and saying, “EH!” And I admit, I have not been eating the healthiest things lately.

We were out the other morning and I was starving and getting a bit faint so I decided to stop at Ihop that happened to be right there. We got a table right away and I put her in the highchair while I perused the breakfasty yummy goodness on the menu and ordered. She colored with the crayons they provide, very nicely I might add. Our water and food came straight out. First, let me say that I am wicked happy that restaurants have figured it out and are offering drinks to toddlers in plastic cups with a lid and a straw. This makes life SO MUCH easier! As for the food, I ordered a full meal consisting of two full pieces of strawberry french toast, two scrambled eggs, hash browns, and two strips of bacon. I was thinking that I’d eat the french toast and bacon (which is all I wanted in the first place), and she could have the eggs and maybe some hash browns. Yeah. So Kate dug into the eggs but then started pointing at my french toast and yelling “EH!” very loudly, so I gave her a little bit. Then a little bit more. She ate ate least a quarter of my french toast, most of the eggs, a good chunk of the hash browns, and then I had to feed her a couple syrupy strawberries because she wanted more. We both left that meal a little hungry. Damnit I wanted all my french toast! Guess I’m going to have to start ordering her an actual meal.

Her appetite is unreal. She would like to still be nursing, but I have no milk left at all – it declined throughout my first trimester and the last couple weeks I can tell it’s just not there at all. So I think the increase in appetite is linked to that, plus whatever growth spurt she is having. But this kid eats ALL day long. Breakfast she’s not a huge fan of, but then she HAS to eat something before her nap (first lunch), then she is starving when she wakes up from her nap (second lunch). Then dinner around the time when Den gets home. Then later in the evening she’s hungry again. Now some of those meals I give her just a little snack to get her through, but the rest… sheesh. We have to keep going back to the fridge and scratching our heads because we already gave her everything we can think of! Yesterday for dinner we had pork loins. Den had one, I had one, and Kate had one. Den went to wrap up the leftovers and was confused, because there were none!

Very helpful in this whole eating-like-a-piggy thing are her signs for “more” and “no/enough.” The more is accompanied by loud “EH!” yelling and frantic hand signing. She’s sometimes even repeating “Mow!” to us verbally while nodding her head. Her signal for no more thanks is actually kind of funny. It started out when we were feeding her mostly with the spoon or fork at the highchair, and she would lean sideways when she didn’t want more (or when her mouth was already full) to avoid the spoon. It evolved into that being her sign. She can even be standing on the floor and if I offer her something she doesn’t want she leans her head way over sideways. Looks hilarious, but gets her point across!

Her vocabulary is just increasing at an incredible rate now – she mimics so much! She comes out with new words almost every day, and has really started talking a lot more. Super Why has become her above-all favorite TV show and she is now repeating letter sounds when they say them and shouting out “Go!” and “Ready!” with them too. It’s so funny how into it she is! She definitely understands that letters have meaning, and one of her favorite things is to have me point out and name letters so she can repeat them. She claps her hands and grins in excitement.

Her favorite toy right now – though she has a bunch she plays with all the time – is definitely the megabloks. She’s been taking them apart for a while now, and sometimes putting things together, but now she gets really focused building big towers. She usually needs one of us to hold the base so it doesn’t fall over, but she’s very serious and methodical about stacking them up higher and higher. Then she takes it all apart and swipes the blocks around the floor like confetti. But between those and the stacking/nesting cups I can keep her occupied for quite a long time.

::

As for me, I’m feeling a heck of a lot better than I did in the first trimester. The sun has come out to shine, I feel like doing more than laying on the couch, and I can eat and sleep without puking. The nausea still isn’t all the way gone, though. There are days when I wake up gagging and sometimes random foods will make me feel ill.

I’m feeling the baby move a lot more frequently now, and stronger than it was a few weeks ago. I still can’t tell you if I’m able to feel it from the outside, though, since every time I carefully put my hand where I’m feeling kicks they stop completely. That’s even worse than what Devin used to do! (Devin would let me feel the kicks, just not anyone else!) Little booger head.

2 more weeks until we find out if it’s a girl or a boy. It will be nice to figure out a name for this one. Maybe then I’ll start feeling a little more connected. It’s still such a vague concept still… the little kicks still surprise me during the day, like I forgot there’s an alien in there.

Last night Kate went down at her usual 9pm without a problem and when I woke up after 9am all I could hear was silence. Den was up (and home, day off), so often he will get her up, but I heard no cartoons, no toddler babbling, no banging on the highchair. She was still asleep. She didn’t wake up until 9:40am, actually. That’s crazy. And even crazier? She went down for her normal nap at 1pm and slept two hours.

At bedtime tonight she was running around talking loudly and shrieking and laughing. I gave her some mild “It’s almost night-night time” warnings, but realistically that doesn’t do much with an 18 month old. I tried winding her down by getting her PJs on and reading her a book, but she still wanted off my lap to run around. I really wanted her to go to bed, though, just so I could eat some food and watch TV in peace. I’m tired, I need my alone time. So I took her in her bedroom in the dark and attempted to lay down with her, rock her, and sing to her like I do every night before I put her in her crib. She squirmed and kicked and patted my cheek and talked to me. I could see her rub her eyes once or twice so at least that was something, but she was still squirmy as hell when I put her in her crib. I figured it was not going to go well, but I was going to try. I left the room and closed the door behind me. And…. there was silence. That was it. She fell asleep.

I swear, she’s paying me back for all those months of horrible sleep she gave me. As Den said to me, “We always figured we’d have a good sleeper… we just never thought it would be Kate!”

::

I am so irritated right now. We cleaned our house pretty good – not fully (no house is every fully clean!) but we moved a lot of stuff out of the living room, put another shelf up to store things up high, and tried to reorganized and put things away. It’s great! I love having a tidier living room. Except…. there are at least four things that have gone missing. I know I had them out before, I knew roughly where they were, and I put them “somewhere.” I cannot for the life of me figure out where. One of these missing things is my box of Christmas cards that I need to send out shortly. I have hunted everywhere for days and still they remain missing. Well now I’m just pissed off. I’m going to have to buy new cards. And I’m sure the damn things will show up the day after Christmas. (As further insult, these are cards I bought years ago and never used because, yes, I lost them! They were just recently found in the massive dump that was our garage, and I was very excited to use them. Ha. Joke is on me.)

I also only just now decided on and ordered a dress for Kate, which means I haven’t taken pictures, which means I can’t send out cards or finish the calendar yet. Gah. And right when I think I’m on top of everything (gifts are pretty much all set – if not purchased, I know exactly what and where).

::

I read an article for my class yesterday about our brains and getting away from technology – taking a break and not being at the call of email, text messages, phone calls, Facebook, and any number of things that we occupy our brains with during the day. Now just for the record, the idea of being without my laptop or at least my droid for any length of time makes me outright twitchy. It’s just not good. However, there was something that I was thinking about.

In general I dislike phones. I always have. I used to have a lot of anxiety about talking on the phone when I was a kid, something that most people (family, friends) didn’t understand at all. When I got into college and was your stereotypical computer geek staying up all night writing code all my new computer friends loved to hang out in chat rooms. I didn’t. I had panic attacks when I logged into chat rooms. (Never quite figured that one out, other than the fact that it’s too many people all talking at once.) I no longer have anxiety when I talk on the phone. I don’t love to sit around chatting, but I have no issues making appointments by phone or calling to order something or calling up my mom. But the thing is, when my phone rings I will do everything I can to avoid answering, unless I see it’s Den or my mom. I will let it go to voice mail. Voice mail, by the way, does still give me anxiety, so I will avoid listening to it. Clearly that has nothing to do with the anxiety I used to feel about communicating by phone, but there’s something about listening to recorded messages that make me squirm and want to just hit a fast forward button, especially because very few messages are brief.

I love my phone for its access to the internet, and because of that I do tend to keep it nearby. I text message with some people regularly. I get email and notifications on my phone, which I find useful. For all of those I need to actually check my phone. I choose when I’m available, when to devote time to it.

There is something about the ringing phone that drives me up the damn wall. I hate the imposition, the interruption. I hate the expectation that I need to answer it right this second. It was bad enough when I was a kid and the phone would ring (it was never for me, but my mom would yell for me to answer it, and of course the whole anxiety thing). But now the phone follows you everywhere! There’s no “Oh, I was outside” or “running an errand.”

I turn my phone ringer down when Kate is asleep, because of course that’s the only time I actually get phone calls. I forget to turn it back up. It’s not really a conscious decision, but rather a result of me having absolutely zero desire to ever hear my phone ring. I later may see I missed a call, but unless it’s Den who was calling I have zero remorse.

I guess I just really like my quiet time. I enjoy being social, I am active in online communities, I go out to playgroups and hang out with friends, I keep in touch with friends on email and messaging systems… but I have my bubble of space in my house. I’ll be social when I want to be. But sometimes – often – I just want to be by myself and not be disturbed.

Man I have not been a good writer lately. We’re getting to the end of the semester and between the term project and getting ready for the exam that’s sucking up my “free” writing time. (I say “free” because in reality I have to sneak out of the living room and set up my laptop in the bedroom in order to do homework, and even then Kate’s whining at the door when she realizes I’m hiding!)

Den and I had a date last night, as it was his work Christmas party, and so she was with the babysitter for 5 hours. She loves her babysitter, but she is starting to make the connection now; when the babysitter arrived Kate looked from us to her and then grabbed my leg and whined “Up! Up!” But thankfully her unhappiness at us leaving is short-lived, from what we hear, and she is always just fine. That really makes me feel a ton better about going out, I have to say. When she was younger and I knew there was a very good chance she’d be hysterical while I was out I really couldn’t ever relax. So it’s quite a treat to leave knowing she’ll be playing and happy and maybe fall asleep. Our babysitter has not yet managed to get Kate into her crib to sleep – which is, I admit, a tricky thing that only I seem to accomplish without crying – but we aren’t strict about bedtimes here so I just tell her to do whatever works for her, if she falls asleep in the living room or stays awake, whatever. So unfortunately we came home at 11pm to a wide awake child who was totally thrilled to see us. But that had three very big benefits. First I got to cuddle her and hold her for a little bit before bed, which I admittedly almost always want to do when I’ve been out for more than an hour. And then there were very big bonuses in that she went to sleep very easily since it was so late, and she slept until 9:30 in the morning! That might just be ideal after a night out! I certainly appreciated sleeping in.

The evening wasn’t a full success, however. I still don’t know what triggered it, if it was simple overeating at dinner or if something at dinner or earlier in the day that was bad, but right after dinner at the party I got sick. Really, really sick. I kind of expected to overeat and throw up, that’s just how it goes when I eat too much, but this went way beyond that. I had stomach cramps from gas pain, I threw up a few times, and basically I couldn’t leave the bathroom for a long time – and when I did I had to go rushing back more than once. Clearly my body thought I had eaten something bad because it flushed my entire system out. After that I started feeling much better, it was only an hour or two long, but my stomach is still very sensitive and kind of sore to be honest. Not really how I wanted to spend my night. Thankfully it was all gastrointestinal, no uterus anything going on, and the little alien in there just gave me yet another good kick to let me know it’s alive in there.

I would love to write more but I think my sore belly and I need to lay down.

Today I cleaned out and re-organized our linen closet (ie, the “everything gets stuffed in there” closet), went through a few shelves in the bathroom cabinet that needed it, cleared off my desk, installed a second shelf above my desk (that was a disaster, couldn’t find the damn stud), hung a photo on the wall, went through half of the stuff on the table… oh, and did a load of laundry (err… half, I guess I should put that in the dryer now?). I feel accomplished but have a massive headache.

The headache may not be so much due to doing stuff around the house, but rather due to the screaming toddler tantrums that have been happening all day. She’s really been refining her tantruming technique, she’s progressed to stomping her little feet and following me around while screaming at me. And it’s usually because of something terribly horrible like me refusing to put her on the dangerous chair that spins. I know, I know, Kate is very underprivileged. She wants what she wants, and if she doesn’t get it she’s going to throw a fit. I am less than thrilled about this new stage.

Normally Kate won’t let me use the computer (she wants to play on it too) and gets cranky if I sit on the couch watching my TV shows (but hers are okay), but as long as I’m up and moving around she’s good. She plays with her toys, I take breaks to chase her around and tickle her belly, I get stuff done and we’re all good. Except today. No, today this was not acceptable. She wanted me to play with her every second. If I tried doing something else, going into another room, or sitting down, tantrum. I was especially thrilled by the tantrum she threw when the shelf was falling down and Den and I had to run over to hold it up and try to fix it. She’s just standing at our feet screaming at us. We had to put her in a quick time-out just to get her out of the danger zone so we could fix it! (Boy was she ever pissed.)

I suspected that her crazy moodiness today was indicative of something bugging her but I hadn’t a clue what. And sure enough after she and I both had a dose of tylenol we’re both feeling much less cranky.

One of the hardest parts of pregnancy, the nausea, has been exacerbated considerably this time by Kate’s night-waking. When I first got pregnant she was still waking at least once a night, almost always right at 3am. I knew it was just habit, she woke every night to have a snack, then went right back to sleep. But I quickly got so tired and nauseated that I couldn’t handle getting out of bed every single night, so I decided to night-wean her. It went a lot easier than I expected, and 3 days later she slept through 3am. In fact she started sleeping right through the night! I have been very, very thankful for that through the rest of my first trimester, because man do I feel sick when I wake up on an empty stomach and have to go comfort a crying baby. Because of course the sleeping through only happens when she’s feeling good. She had a cold a couple of weeks ago, which caused pathetic sniffling and whining and crying at night, then when that was gone she was having her weird freak-outs at bedtime (but at least not waking up after that). I will nurse her if she’s upset or sick, but I try not to make a habit of it!

But of course as soon as I say something to Den about how happy I am she’s sleeping through and I can actually get a good night’s sleep, well, that’s when she wakes up at 1:30 and then 3 and now she’s watching TV at 4am because I couldn’t stop throwing up bile until I got some food in me. She’s in a perfectly happy mood, by the way. She just is absolutely not tired. Awesome.

Speaking of nursing, we just hit the 18 month milestone! Wow! This was my ultimate goal, and when I had planned to wean her to do IVF. It’s just such a handy tool, especially when she’s sick or hurting, or even just when she gets over worked up over something and can’t calm herself down. Often a cuddle is enough now. Sometimes though she wants to connect with the boob. I don’t mind that, though the frequent asking to nurse during the day can get a little old sometimes. I’m pretty sure my milk supply is very low, she doesn’t really drink during the day, it’s more like she nurses just for fun for a few seconds. But the best part is that after those few seconds she looks up at me and softly tells me some important secret in toddler-ese “Pah peh lop buh,” and then lays her head on my chest and hugs me tight. I think the first thing in the morning nursing is my favorite, though. I bring her into our bed and cuddle her and nurse her, it’s the only time she really settles in and actually really nurses for a few minutes. I kiss the top of her head and rub her back and just sigh. She’s so big and yet still a baby in so many ways. I have no real plans for how nursing continues. She may decide to wean when my milk changes as I progress through the pregnancy. I may get uncomfortable enough that I want to wean her, right now my nipples are definitely more sensitive (they used to be completely numb), but not too bad. Or maybe she’ll continue, I don’t know.

Hormones are definitely shifting (or shifted?). My hair and face have finally stopped being oily messes and I can now somewhat keep on top of it. I don’t remember it being gross like that, I actually remember my hair being thick and shiny and my face clearing up. So what the heck? My third pregnancy changes all the rules? Not cool, pregnancy, not cool. I’m still cold all the damn time, like I normally am, and I’m really looking forward to that extra heat a fetus brings with it later – being pregnant through winter has its benefits. I’m fully in maternity pants now (or stretched out yoga pants from previous pregnancies), but maternity shirts just look silly and poofy on me. I prefer my normal long-sleeved shirts that are tight enough to show the bump, which is of course still growing. I can feel my uterus coming up out of my pelvis now, which is neat. For the past several weeks I haven’t had to pee all the time like I was, so I think it’s lifted off my bladder a bit.

I can feel the baby move a bit in the evening when I lay in bed. It usually takes a while, but if I’m there long enough I’ll feel some taps and maybe a wiggle or two. I tried laying my hand on the spot to see if I could feel it at all from the outside but apparently this one refuses to move while my hand is there. It could just be coincidence, but I wonder if this one will have a personality more like Devin’s, hiding when other people are “watching.” Kate used to kick harder when I touched my belly, even from very early on.

Alright time to try getting the kiddo back to bed. I need some sleep.

Is Kate really a year and a half old? (Well, in another day and a half.) I constantly marvel at how big she is sitting on our laps, how long her legs hang down and how huge her torso is. We were recently peeking at some of her baby pictures, and wow. I remember holding up 18 month size clothes (which she is now wearing) and thinking that my baby will never fit into such huge, long-legged clothes! But here she is. Amazing.

Since she doesn’t have a doctor checkup at 18 months I weighed her at the breastfeeding meeting and measured her standing against a wall. She weighs 21lb 11oz and is only 30 inches tall. That’s around 40th percentile for weight and only about 5th for height! Looking at how her growth chart has gone I’m guessing a height growth spurt will be happening soon.

If it isn’t already. She is an eating machine this week. A common phrase from us was, “You’re hungry again?!” For instance, for breakfast this morning she had a whole french toast (same size as mine), plus fruit, plus nursing. Fruit cups are disappearing faster than I can buy them, she would eat more than two cups of mandarin oranges per meal, but I ration them out at about one cup per day, which she practically inhales before I turn around. She loves the MultiGrain Cheerios I bought and has started opening the cupboard to pull them out – one day I found her sitting in the kitchen munching away, having opened the box! Yogurt remains one of her “can’t fail” menu items, and she will in fact grab one out of the fridge if I have the door open and then run to her highchair expecting to eat it. Yesterday she sat on Den’s lap and ate an entire apple on the core (one he was actually planning on consuming, in fact). I recently bought two different Gerber toddler meals for those days when Den and I are totally lazy and are eating something totally unhealthy like pizza. Not only did she love the ravioli and pasta, which I figured she would, but she also totally loved the side of soft, warm steamed peas and carrots – two things that she always refused to eat out of a jar. Score! She also loved having some of my turkey wrap, tacos, and various other mealtime things. That’s not to say she eats everything, however. Some meals she eats only a little bit of what I put in front of her, and randomly she’ll just refuse to eat a food that I know she actually likes. I will fight with her a little bit to pop one tiny piece in her mouth. Half the time she gives me a dirty look and then thinks for a moment and says, “Mmm!” and eats the rest of her own volition. If she still doesn’t like it then fine, I won’t give her more. Interestingly cheese is not a big hit right now – she’ll eat it, but it used to be one of her daily favorites and now she passes it up for almost anything else. Cottage cheese, also a previous favorite, is now being refused outright. Actually a lot of cold foods are. Cold ham? Nope. Heated ham in her scrambled eggs? Gobbled it all right up.

Her sleep has been getting much better after her being sick and then a couple of weeks of “what the hell?” screaming at bedtime/naptime. I’ve had to change things up a little bit, give her more time to unwind in my arms while I sing songs and nurse her, but then I can put her in her crib and leave without all hell breaking loose. I still don’t know what caused it, there was no obvious cause and nothing that I can see has changed, but that’s life with a child I guess. The good part is that she continued to sleep through the night through all of that. In fact some days she sleeps until 9am. She has given me a lot of trouble with sleep, but that at least is one thing I really love! It took a while to get here, but now I can say that my kiddo sleeps 10-12 hours straight at night in her crib. And usually goes to sleep easily. And takes a 2 hour nap. She’s still unpredictable about when, though. Usually her bedtime is around 9pm, we wait for her to show she’s ready but if she’s still up at 10 then she’s going to bed regardless. But some days it’s 8. And naps really depend when she wakes up… if she’s up at 7 then she’ll go down at about 11. If sleeps past 9 then I know she won’t take a nap until after noon. (But she almost always naps for 2 hours exactly. Some weird days it’s more.)

Words are coming much more frequently. “Up” has got to be her most-used word, she says it all the time, for pretty much everything. It means up, down, take me over there, I want something, I want your attention, and so on. We’ll be sitting down doing something and all you hear is, “Up. Up. Up. Up,” as she is tugging on your leg trying to climb up. Other frequent words around here are of course the much-loved, “KIH-EE!” and “DAH!” (dog). Body parts are being learned, and once she knows the word she likes to practice it while jabbing you. Like “Eye!” while poking you in the eye. “Beh-yee!” makes her very proud as she lifts her shirt and pokes her belly button. She also likes to lift my shirt and pat my growing belly… and then squash it like it’s silly putty. She’s doing a lot of talking right now, mostly non-coherent, but she’s adding new sounds and words each day. Also the sign language, with lots of words for everyday items that she enjoys showing off as we read her picture books and point things out. She clearly understands that things have words and now she watches us closely when we say or show her something new. It’s really helpful to have communication starting, and it really saves us a lot of frustration when she can clearly tell us what she wants. Sometimes it’s with a word (“up”) sometimes with a sign (“milk”), and sometimes she runs over to the highchair, or grabs her shoes and stands by the door. It’s much better than the “EH!” she does when she wants something but doesn’t know the word.

I just purchased her “Christmas present” (which I of course set up immediately): a kids table and chairs set (from Ikea). I am really pleased with how solid it is, how cheap it was comparatively, and most of all, how much she loves it! We put some of her toys on the table – her cash register, small bead maze, and sometimes a puzzle – and she just really loves sitting there playing. It’s right beside my desk so I think she feels proud of sitting like mommy. Of course her legs are too short so it takes her a bit to get up on the chair and we had two minor crashes backwards off the chair today, but it will definitely last her a long time. And it beats her climbing onto the dining room chair to grab things off our table, which she can now do!

Other favorite toys right now:
* Megabloks, she’s putting together and taking apart towers, not to mention dumping the entire bin on the floor and having fun flinging blocks to every corner of the room.
* Shopping cart, which she’s been putting balls in and pushing around.
* LeapFrog farm animal magnetic set, which plays the animal sounds and little songs.
* Wooden puzzles.
* The aforementioned cash register, which is apparently meant for older kids but she just loves it.
* Bead necklaces, she wears them all the time and also likes to play with their texture and putting them in and out of containers.

As well as those there are the favorite toys-that-aren’t-toys:
* My purse. She takes everything out of the purse, opens my wallet, takes out credit cards and puts them back in different slots. This can occupy her for a good half an hour at times.
* My phone, because, obviously… touchscreen smartphone. If I don’t want her playing with it I have to hide it because when she sees it she starts yelling “Eh!” and then has a meltdown when I say no. On the good side I can occupy her with a video or game during appointments, if I need to. Plus she knows how to swipe left and right and touch buttons to open things, which is awesome and yet dangerous.
* Shoes. She loves carrying and wearing our shoes.
* My printer. It still sits on the floor under my desk. She loves pushing the buttons to turn it on and off, and she loves to sit on it.

It’s clear we have a very sensitive child. In a lot of ways this isn’t really what I imagined her personality being like, since as a baby she was so vocal and spirited and outgoing. And to be fair, she is still pretty clear about what she wants and doesn’t want, especially to do with sleep. She needs things a certain way and she can’t have anything bothering her. She’s also very sensitive to our moods, and she really gets upset about yelling of any sort (like at the TV, or if we’re at a party and people are being raucous). She’s still social to a point, she absolutely loves babies, and she really likes getting out of the house and being around people. However she now has a bubble of personal space that she does not want invaded. If someone reaches out to touch her (whether it’s a kid taking her hand or a grandma tickling her cheek) she firmly pushes their hand away. She’s displaying some shyness by wanting to be held by Den or I around other people and “hiding” into our shoulder, but that might just be the age. She needs time to acclimate to crowds, but then she wants down to explore and she’s fine. She still has no problem just marching off to explore. She’ll check in with me later.

Waking up in the morning and from naps is kind of funny, as she now needs a little bit to collect herself. I can hear her awake, and then she starts calling for me. When I go in she immediately turns on some songs (Violet) and gets up to dance. But she doesn’t want to get out of the crib yet, if I reach in she steps back out of reach, then turns on another song. She’ll talk to me and hug her bear and collect all her pacis from the crib. Only after a few minutes will she decide she’s ready to face the rest of the world and want out.

She has developed a love of babies. It’s another of her favorite signs, which she does emphatically every time she sees what she thinks is a baby (doll, picture, live baby). She’s trying to say baby, but it usually sounds like just “Bay!” I’m of course encouraging her to be nice, be gentle, what a nice baby, Kate is such a good girl… etc. Good timing, I think! And she is quite gentle.

We both just adore her so very very much. The whining can get a little hard on the nerves at times, especially in the evening when we’re all tired, but most of the time she’s a very happy kid. She dances to music, she hugs the kitties, she makes funny noises as she runs down the hall, she spins in circles just for the fun of it. She “hides” in the corner of her room while we act like big monsters coming to tickle her. She loves getting kissed and hugged. In fact she’s a big hugger – she frequently pauses during nursing to give me a hug, her little hands patting my back like I do to hers. Melts my heart.

Oh, but she still doesn’t say mama. Daddy, oh yes! Mama? Mama is apparently the person in the picture!