I happen to live in western MA. We happened to have a snow storm last weekend. Now snow storms in new england are a pretty common deal, just flip on your 4 wheel drive, snowblow your driveway, and life continues as normal. Except it happens to be October when all the trees still have leaves. Snow storms just don’t happen in October. The result? Massive, unbelievable power outages. Ours went out Saturday afternoon (while I was baking a huge batch of zucchini bread, I was so pissed), and came back on Wednesday evening. We have never been out of power for that long, not even close to that long.

Saturday it started snowing and kept snowing heavy snow for hours. We had already lost power, at that point it was just an inconvenience. That night after the snow had pretty much stopped I layed in bed and listened as the trees fell. Every few minutes there was another crack… crack FFLUMP as another huge branch hit the ground. Thankfully we have no trees close enough to our house or vehicles to cause damage, though our wooden fence is smashed in a few places in the back of our yard.

I haven’t lived here all my life, but people who have say they have never seen anything like it. Our street alone had power lines down across the street in three places, with huge tree branches blocking half the street in several places – it was a single-lane zig-zag obstacle course. And it was like that everywhere. Huge trees have been de-limbed – huge, huge branches snapped like twigs under the weight of that snow on all the leaves. The day after the storm residents were out moving branches out of streets and clearing their yards. There are still a lot of dangling branches above and beside the roads, just waiting to fall. Tree crews are very busy along with the electrical repair crews.

So for 4 days we had no heat, no hot water, no stove, nothing but running water. The first day was just a little cold, but after that it sat at about 50 degrees in our house. I have never been so cold in my life. So I’ve spent the days driving around, shopping at the mall, visiting friends, and basically living out of the SUV. I had my big diaper bag packed with my toiletries, a change of clothes for Kate and I, food for her, and random other things. I had my phone with internet access on it, but of course the battery was run down when the power first went out. I started carrying my phone charger in my purse so I could plug in wherever I might be.

Kate of course didn’t really notice anything except the fact that the TV wasn’t on, and she was not at all happy about that. She kept yelling at me to turn it on. She did think that wearing her hat and mittens inside the house was pretty fun. She also seemed quite happy to be out often, spending time elsewhere – she had none of her bored whininess that she gets at home.

We slept two nights at home, trying to use a small generator to run a heater in Kate’s room. When she woke up and the generator had quit we brought her into bed with us. What a disaster that was. For a kid who coslept every night, all night, for the first 8+ months of her life she’s gotten pretty miserable to try to sleep with. She basically spent two hours running around our bedroom and flopping around on the bed. She finally fell asleep stretched along my leg like a cat and we decided we had to move her in case she rolled right off the bed at night… and moving her of course woke her up. So she and I spent a night at a friend’s house who at least had heat. She refused to go to sleep until 11pm when I put her in a mei tai and walked her around long enough for her to pass out, then she slept awkwardly in my arms on a large couch. She kept kicking and twitching and whimpering until I realized that she didn’t like being trapped in my arms (the way she used to sleep), she wanted to stretch out. Soon as I got up she slept just fine. Until 5am, that is, when she woke up, saw she wasn’t at home, and decided it was eat and play time. I did get her back down eventually, but my head was throbbing. So finally the last cold night we decided we couldn’t put her in the crib at all, so we all stayed up late and then piled all three of us into bed, fully dressed with many blankets. I brought her Violet puppy, I nursed her, I sung to her, and miracle of miracles she fell right asleep! Not only that, she stayed asleep. I had to get up to pee 3 times and she would only roll around a little bit between us, nurse more, and continue sleeping. She slept 11 hours!! 10am I woke up before she did and just layed here with my face in her hair (which tickles, by the way). I was also squished up against the side of the bed, as she had continued to encroach on my side all night!

Wednesday evening we came home from our friends’ house to find lights on! And heat when we walked in the door! I have never been so happy to feel warm, I jumped up and down and patted my appliances lovingly. We put Kate straight to bed in her crib, which went off without a hitch, but instead of being simply relieved to have my space in bed again I was rather disappointed to not get another good night with her snuggled up to us again. Obviously having alone time before bed is a big bonus, as is being able to read in bed and such, but still, I do miss her at night sometimes. I also really missed the sleeping in, as she was up at 7am. Ew.

As for me, everything is just fine. The nausea – which had gone way down after I hit 10 weeks – was bugging me pretty bad just because I wasn’t snacking constantly, and boy do I regret it when I let my stomach get empty. I haven’t really had any time or opportunity to lay still reading for an hour to see if I can feel some baby wiggles; sometimes I think I feel something, but with all the unhappy gurgling my stomach is doing I can’t say anything with certainty. But I’m just going on the assumption that everything is fine unless shown otherwise. (It’s kind of weird to be able to do that this time!) I’m hoping my nausea will be completely gone by Thanksgiving so I can eat to my heart’s content. Even if I get heartburn.

I’m very happy to have my internet back, but I have to say, when you lose your heat in really cold weather you really find different priorities! At least I had my phone to keep in touch with people or I really would have felt lost.

Today I let Kate play with our TV remote for a while, since she was just changing the channel – it’s not like she can accidentally purchase something like she did once with the xbox controller. At some point she wandered over to me at the computer and I put her in her highchair for us to eat lunch.

Afterward I couldn’t find the remote. I tore the living room apart for half an hour wondering what the hell she could possibly have done with it. I know she was in the living room, all doors and gates were closed so it couldn’t be elsewhere. Though I couldn’t recall if I took the remote from her when she came over, which means I could have stashed it anywhere, or if she had put it somewhere. And to add insult to injury, while I was looking I put down my dish of pears I was snacking on and couldn’t find that either. Sometimes pregnancy brain just sucks. Okay, a lot of the time it sucks. I can’t tell you how many times I put something down then turn around and can’t find it again without hunting all over the house.

Finally, after picking up every toy in the living room, pulling up every cushion and looking in every bin – which left pretty much no other options – I checked the printer again. I found the black remote stuffed down inside the fax feed. Oh, and my pears were on a shelf behind the xbox controller, right where I had left it.

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Yesterday I had some homework to do so I quietly locked myself in the bedroom and left Kate playing with Den. This usually goes just fine until she sees or hears me, then a meltdown occurs. In any case she was happily playing with Den, he was reading her books and she was chatting at/with him in incomprehensible toddler-ese.

Den was watching football, as he does every Sunday. He was also getting rather heated at the TV, as he also does every Sunday. I heard some bad words and a lot of angry comments as he told off the refs and stupid plays. I then heard Kate whining and her babbling in a loud, intense voice. I thought his outbursts must have upset her and she was talking to Den to get his attention back.

Today he was mentioned the football game watching and told me that in fact she watched him yelling at the TV and then turned to the TV herself and started yelling at it in toddler-ese! He said it was funny in a humiliating, maybe I shouldn’t be doing that around her kind of way.

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One thing I have been wondering about toys: why the hell do they put the volume control right on the front where the kid can see it? I understand, to a point, the on/off switch. Kate loves turning things on and off. But the volume? Why bother having a “low volume” setting if your kid insists on turning it up all the way? Kate has a LeapTop that she loves to play with, but I am forbidden from turning the volume down. I was trying to watch a TV show the other day and every time I turned her LeapTop down she’d turn it back up. I finally had to just pause until she finished playing with it. (Which took a while.) Then at a friend’s house we were trying to have a conversation while Kate was playing with a musical toy. My friend turned the volume down. I shook my head. “That’s not going to work.” Kate turned it up. My friend turned it down. Kate gave her a look, then turned it back up. So we ended up talking louder.

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Why are kids menus at restaurants so lame? Kate will eat my fancy chicken salad or steak far more readily than she’ll eat a grilled cheese. I just don’t want to have to order a huge portion for her. And I’m glad to see that more restaurants are offering veggies or fruits on the side for kids – she LOVES her fruits and veggies! French fries? Well she likes them, but I’m not going to get them! (At least, not for her!) I usually end up just feeding her part of my meal and ordering some veggie side for her. Which does it for now, but soon she’s going to want more and I’m not going to want to share my meal. Well, plus I bring her fruit cup and yogurt. It keeps her happy, and that’s the important thing when eating out with a toddler!

I do need to share more pictures of Kate! So here you go… pics from the past few weeks, 17 months old. :)

Kate is making me a little crazy right now. Since getting sick last week she has been refusing to go to sleep without crying. At first it was just a pseudo-temper tantrum, and those I can ignore – it would only take 5 or 10 minutes before she’d give up and go to sleep. And she is still sleeping all night after that. But it’s getting progressively worse – now it’s like she’s having little panic attacks when we even walk towards the bedroom at night (or nap!). And the crying is no longer “don’t leave me here, I want to play!” it’s really upset crying. I’m at a loss. I can get her to fall asleep in my arms if I lay down with her, but I can’t get her in the crib without waking her up, and then she does the crying thing (but less, because she’s usually pretty tired). I could try leaving her on the mattress on the floor, but she hasn’t slept on that in months and months and I worry that will lead to her waking up and getting up to play in the middle of the night. I could try bringing her into our bed, but the dogs are so noisy they wake her up (as does Den in the morning) – plus I really need SOME down time. Ugh.She’s still a little stuffy but definitely on the upswing, not nearly as sick as she was. I am really really hoping that when she’s feeling 100% again that she’ll go back to liking her crib. :/

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I am starting to feel MUCH better. At 10 weeks the nausea took a big step down, which was pretty major because that’s only 3 weeks of feeling seriously miserable. Then at 12 weeks I really started feeling more like my old self – more energy to keep up with the house, play with Kate, get schoolwork done. I even stopped needing a nap during the day. And I’m also noticing that I’m starting to just feel better about myself in general. My hair doesn’t feel as gross, my face did recently break out horribly but I think I’m getting it under control finally, and when I make an effort to get dressed nicely (jeans, fitted shirt to show the belly, necklace, makeup, hair blowdried) I’m actually feeling pretty good. This perks me up considerably. I don’t remember feeling that blah the last time. I was working when pregnant with Kate, and while sick and tired I just don’t think I was that gross feeling. I felt like this baby had sucked everything out of me and just left a deflated mess.

The belly is now clearly (in my opinion, at least) a baby belly. I could still hide it, if I chose to, with baggy sweatshirts, but everything else is showing the bump. And I’ve always been one to prefer fitted shirts to show that it really IS a bump instead of loose shirts where I just look pudgy. I do feel pretty huge for 12 weeks – of course that gets some “twins?!” comments, but I’ve already had two ultrasounds and we know there’s just one. It’s just that it’s my third pregnancy. And I thought I was showing early the last two times! Ha!

Baby remains very active. For being only 12 and a half weeks I feel it moving pretty much every day. And not even just when I’m laying down; once in a while I’ll feel a nudge when I’m at my computer, watching TV, or driving in the car – so when I’m sitting still for extended periods. When I’m laying in bed some nights I feel more than a poke or nudge, I feel what I can only describe as wiggles and rolls, and a bunch of pokes. Baby also sits higher than I would expect, but then Kate was down low pretty much the entire time sitting on my bladder. This baby has thankfully gotten off my poor overworked bladder. (Though I still often pee when I throw up, not that that’s the baby’s fault.)

I’m just so happy I’m close to the end of the first trimester already!

Kate is doing much better with bedtime already! I really had to think hard about what might be causing her bedtime fits – it wasn’t the same as previous ear infections or I would have assumed it was that. She wasn’t pain-screaming, she was angry-screaming…. and then it turned into anxiety-freaked-out-screaming. I don’t know how to describe it, I just can tell the difference. The angry tantrum I still want to play, come get me right now! screams just make me roll my eyes. But these bedtime ones were really starting to upset me, something was just different about them.

So I started laying down with her again. Not to sleep all night – pregnant mommy can’t handle that mattress anymore – but I lay down with her at bedtime and naptime, nurse her a little bit, then rock her in my arms a little bit. The first night I decided to try it she was doing her usual kicking and crying and panicking the minute I walked into her bedroom with the light out. She was freaked! As soon as I layed her on the futon instead of her crib she quieted and when I layed down with her she curled into my side and hugged me. So every night now she does that, she hugs me tight (as if afraid to let me go), and I sing her lullabies and rub her back. I can feel the tension ebb from her as she gets sleepy. When she’s almost asleep I put her in her crib and tip-toe out. The first two nights she woke up crying when I left but fell asleep shortly after – and it wasn’t her completely freaked out scream, she was just unhappy that I’d left. The last two nights she’s given a little whimper/mutter and then fallen asleep. Yay!!

So I still don’t know what caused it, though it coincided with being sick. She’s also having a mental leap right now so that probably contributed. But at least I’ve found a way to calm her down and get her to go to sleep, even if it’s an hour later than usual – I’ll take calm bedtime over screamy bedtime. And besides, it is kind of nice to hold and rock my little girl.

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I constantly marvel at what a unique person she is. She’s very… girly. I’m not sure where she got that from other than simple biology, since I am not much of a girlie girl… I’m a tech geek who sometimes likes pink things. And don’t get me wrong, my kid loves her techie toys. But she wears bead necklaces and my shoes around the house. She’s also very dainty. She doesn’t destroy things or throw things. She’d rather take the crayons out of the (glass) jar they were in, then put them all back in one at a time. She likes to figure out how things work. She pulls my wallet (and everything else) out of my purse, only to pull my credit cards out of their slots and then put them back in. Then she leaves my pens and chapstick and nail clippers all in a neat pile.

She does like to yell, though. She’s recently really found her yelling voice, which she thinks is hilarious. (Most of the time it is. In restaurants not so much.) That mental leap I mentioned? Words. Suddenly mimicking everything we say, adding new words almost daily. Today she was repeating her friend’s name “Ellie!” for hours. She’s learning some letters (mostly vowels – she still can’t wrap her mouth around most consonants). She knows that a cat says “mao” and a sheep says “baa.” She’s added yet more signs to her repertoire, which is making it harder for me to figure out exactly what she’s saying, since her versions are only rough approximations of the actual sign. She says “up” for everything: up for up, down, why are you still holding me? Today in her highchair she said “up,” which I took to mean down, so I picked her up and put her down to which she responded by crying and trying to climb back into the highchair. I’m still not sure what she was trying to communicate to me.

She does have some little mini tantrums, usually when I close the door of a room or say she can’t have something anymore (like my phone). Today I closed her bedroom door and she just started screaming in frustration. I sat down at my computer and raised my eyebrow at Den. She walked into the living room and then just stood there screaming in what amounts, for her, to a pretty big tantrum (which in reality is very small, I know). I just sat there and watched for a minute but it was clear she wasn’t going to let it go without being acknowledged. So I got down on my knee and held out my arms. She walked over to me, laid her head on my chest, wrapped her arms around me, and let out one more wail of frustration. I patted her back and told her I was sorry she was upset. Then she lifted her head and walked off to play with a toy. That’s pretty much what all of her tantrums require: simple acknowledgement and a hug. Then she’s fine. She’s been having little crying fits when she trips or falls down in some manner – usually some very pathetic little thing that is just ridiculous, but she’ll lay there and wail as if she’s stuck until I crouch down next to her. I don’t necessarily pick her up or help her, I just… am there. And that’s enough.

It’s clear she’s a sensitive child just like I was (am). I think any form of discipline is going to have to be very careful and very calm and probably just expressing disappointment and explaining why. She gets upset at loud, raucous noise (like at parties), she gets upset at yelling. I remember growing up all my mom had to do was get angry and raise her voice and I’d burst into tears and hide.

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The baby in my belly continues to be alive. I mostly feel better, only nauseated when I overeat or forget to eat. I think I’ve gained 5 or 6 lbs so far, which is the most of all my pregnancies for the first trimester, I think. Mostly due to needing to eat constantly and my frequently less-than-stellar choices.

I am 13 weeks and a few days so that puts me in my second trimester! Wow, that went fast. (Except the puking part, that went slow.) There is still a nice little exhale I feel as I cross over this imaginary boundary. Not “safe,” no – but safer, maybe. Less statistical chance of bad things.

Though I still don’t feel very attached. I think that’s somewhat common for subsequent pregnancies when you are busy occupying a child, and also for surprise pregnancies. It still just seems so far-fetched. I wake up in the morning thinking about diapers and appointments and exams and it’s not until Kate climbs on top of me, causing an “oomph!” that I remember, oh yeah, I have a small alien inside me. I hope at some point it sinks in.

I kind of use my Facebook status updates as a log of Kate’s new things, and every couple of months I scroll all the way back through them and write important things into her calendar – when teeth arrived, new words, illnesses, etc. Sometimes though the status update just makes me giggle and I wanted to save a few. :)

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“Hon, what did you do with your steak?” “It’s on my plate (duh).” “… I see an empty plate?” We both stared around the corner at, yes, the empty plate…. and saw, beneath the table, a cat eating steak.
October 7 at 5:54pm

From living room I hear Kate crying and crying. I hear Den consoling her to little effect. Then he says, “Did the kitty get you?” Crying stops. “Kitty? Kitty!” Apparently crisis is over.
October 16 at 5:24pm

The movie we were watching had a device that coalesced a new “Earth” from space matter. Me: “Only it would take a few million years to cool down.” Den: “That would be a pretty lame movie ending.” Me: “A few billion years later, the first prokaryote appeared.” Den: “THE END!”
October 17 at 2:04pm

Kate likes to turn her sippy cup upside down and bang it on her tray to make a terrific messy puddle. I turn around and see her doing it again, walk over, and take it out of her hands. She looks down, throws her hands in the air, and says, “OH!!!” as if just seeing the mess for the very first time. Cracked me the hell up!
October 18 at 3:48pm

Yesterday the xbox controller was blinking, meaning battery low/dead. I said so and went to take it in the kitchen to replace the batteries. Den took it from me and said to let him handle it. Later that evening I go to use the xbox and the controller is still blinking. WTF? I ask suspiciously, “Den did you put new batteries in?” “No. I never said I’d put new batteries in. I said I’d handle it. I got it working for an extra hour!” *facepalm*
October 23 at 8:31am

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!

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.

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.

Well Thanksgiving itself went as well as could be expected, given that Kate had to nap in the car on the way there and back instead of her usual two hour in-the-crib nap. When we arrived at Mother-in-law’s Kate was very quiet and a little overwhelmed – her cousins were there already, people were cooking food and setting up the table, and Kate just wanted to be held by Den or I. She was in an okay mood, just a little clingier than usual. But by the time we sat down to eat she had woken up fully and realized she was indeed quiet hungry, and that girl put a dent in it! She ate everything, from turkey to stuffing (bread and meat types) to squash and mashed potatos. And she wanted more. Finally she announced she was “done” and “dow(n)”. She played quietly while we finished. Her cousins weren’t nearly so quiet, but they ate more than her! They love their food.

After the meal the kids were running around playing, Kate included. Much more outgoing and energetic than when we arrived! Though she did have issues with her cousins trying to play with her toys. She was getting really tired by the time we left, though not really showing it too much – just rubbing her eyes and getting a little whiny. She napped on the way to Father-in-law’s, then had a pretty decent evening there, too, with a few minor meltdowns at being bonked by random people as everyone was running around. Dallas won the football game, so at least Den was in a good mood when we left.

When we got home she seemed really excited to have all her toys to play with, as we hadn’t been home all day. But she was wired and refused to go to bed. I tried. And failed. At 11pm(!!) I finally had to put her in her crib and we went to bed. She was angry but after a while realized that she was indeed exhausted.

However yesterday – Friday – sucked. She slept until a decent hour, but it was just such a friggin bad day. She whined all. Day. Long. Non-stop. Oh, wait – except for when she stopped whining long enough to throw the biggest tantrums she’s had to date. Over stupid things, too – she wants to grab a picture off the shelf, no you can’t have that, tantrum. She wants to be picked up right-this-second except I’m trying to screw a shelf bracket in the wall, tantrum. Nap time she was clearly tired but again refusing to sleep, so I again had to put her in her crib and leave. She slept for 2 hours. Clearly tired. Maybe overtired? But when she woke up her mood was really no better for the rest of the day – in fact I think it got worse. Some whining is irritating. Hours upon hours of sobbing because I left the room and told her to stop climbing things made me want to throw my own hissy fit.

Part of it, I think, was because we were trying to take advantage of this long weekend and get the house cleaned out. I cleaned out a closet, organized the bathroom cupboard, cleared off my desk, installed a new shelf to put things on it, finally cleared off the dining room table. Meanwhile Den was clearing out our breezeway and cleaning out part of our kitchen…. a lot of stuff moved to storage or just chucked out. All of my stuff was within this one area, though, so it’s not like I was leaving Kate locked up somewhere, she was right beside me “helping” (and there were times when she was pretty funny and helping me sort things), but I wasn’t paying direct attention to her. Normally that’s not a big problem. Yesterday was not normal.

Today was ten times better… twenty. She had her moments of foot-stomping wailing, but she was generally in a good mood. I tried hard to pay a lot of attention to her and play games with her, it seemed to help a lot. I even was able to put up our new tree (without tantrums!). I wasn’t too terribly worried about Kate and the tree – all of my ornaments are non-breakable because of the cats anyways – but we have a serious space issue in this room. So I ended up getting a smaller tree today and setting it on the dining table. I miss the big tree, it’s so pretty, but I do kind of have to accept our space limitations here. I’m still concerned about the cats, though. One of my cats especially is obsessed with christmas trees. At least this one is too small for him to climb (I hope).

The good news is that Kate took a while in the dark to wind down at bedtime, I had to just lay there singing lullabies, but finally she crawled over to me and layed down on me. When I moved her to her crib (fully awake, but relaxed) she whimpered once and didn’t cry when I left! That’s a good step up from the last few days. I really need her to get a good night’s sleep.

I’ll tell you, though, if that’s what the terrible twos and threes are like all the time, well… it’s a good thing I’m already pregnant or I might be re-thinking the whole idea of adding another!