Well Kate pulled it off! For the second year in a row she was awake when the clock hit midnight on new year’s eve. She and her friend both took late naps and then were playing all evening together, climbing on and off his trampoline and running around giggling. They are just so adorable. At around 11pm you could tell they were both tired but they weren’t whiny in any way so we kept them up – mean mommies. :) After the midnight countdown and pictures when we finally gathered our stuff and left Kate was so tired. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and didn’t wake up when I unstrapped her, carried her in the house, and laid her in the crib. The next day she was up at 8 but took a 3-hour nap. Too bad she didn’t sleep in, but Den was awake anyways.

Unfortunately that was not the only night she was up late for some reason, the night before she woke up while we watched a movie and ended up staying up for a little bit before going back to bed. Now she seems to have bedtime a little screwed up. Last night she went to bed at 7 and then was up from 10 until 2am. (I was so not a happy camper. She was happy and perky and playing with toys after her “nap”.) Today she tried going to bed at 7 but I am not that stupid, I was not going to have a repeat performance. So I kept her up until bedtime, but by then she’d changed her mind about the whole sleeping thing and kicked and screamed. I just got her down at 11pm. Well, it’s an improvement over 2am.

Guess she likes her routines a little more than I thought. Oops!

::

I am 20 weeks pregnant today! I let out a little breath I’ve been holding, because – as with last time – my first thought is “At least if I lose the baby it won’t be a miscarriage.” So I’m on to the second half of my pregnancy. In some ways it seems like it went really quickly!

Baby girl is quite active, putting even Kate to shame at this early point. Of course Kate had an anterior placenta, this one doesn’t, which probably explains it. Still, it’s amazing to me that I feel this baby kicking me pretty much every time I sit down and relax. (Granted that’s not often, but if I watch TV or sit at my computer or sit to eat, she typically starts thumping.) Movements are definitely getting stronger, it’s no longer figments of my imagination but clearly a growing baby. Unfortunately Den still hasn’t felt her because she’s taking after big brother Devin – she stops every time anyone lays a hand on my belly, whether it’s Den or me. I keep cautiously trying to feel her, but she’s usually kicking at my waist band, where my hand is blocked. And if I move my elastic she stops. I’ve caught her a couple of times, but Den hasn’t had as many opportunities.

And I have started getting heartburn. Already. This is not a good sign. I had heartburn with Kate, but only the last few months. And I’m still not over my nausea 100% which means the heartburn is making me gag and throw up. Ugh. It’s nasty.

::

I really need to write down some of Kate’s more hilarious personality traits and mannerisms. We’ve been pulling out the video camera often to try to catch things to remember.

Like how she runs. Kate’s never really been a runner, though she’s been walking for what seems like forever. But she’s started this new “fake fast” run that cracks is up! She makes lots of quick little stomping footsteps and pulls her arms up and swings them back and forth dramatically as if she’s running really hard, but she’s actually moving about as fast as her normal walk. It is just so silly! And now that she sees that it causes howls of laughter she does it just for effect.

The kid is definitely developing a ham personality, giving big huge toothy grins at us and throwing her head back.

She loves it when I run to catch her, then tickle her. I love the peals of belly laughs I get from her. She’s ticklish under her arms along her sides and also her thighs for some reason. She always gets the hiccups if she laughs too hard – always has. And if I stop too soon she has started looking at me and saying, “Tickle tickle?” How can I refuse?

She is talking so much more. She doesn’t do the “EH EH EH!” thing anymore, she asks for things by name: “Pa-ee” is her paci, “Fo” is my phone (which I don’t give her, and immediately causes a tantrum), “Ee” is eat, “Cah-ceh” is cracker, and so on. She’s also now started asking for “Ehhh-mo” (Elmo) which causes my heart to drop ten stories. (Why is Elmo so damn addictive? How? She just watches Sesame Street, but she latched right on to that bugger.) I am really appreciating being able to communicate better with her. I noticed she’s dropping many signs as she replaces them with words, but that’s all good to me – as long as she can tell me what she wants and needs then we have done what we need to do. She does still use signs for certain things she can’t yet say, like train, or some words that apparently need extra emphasis, like “wa-wa” (water).

One of the reasons I suspected this might actually be a girl baby is my ridiculous craving for junk food. I tried rationalizing it, saying to myself that even if I craved salads and veggies with Devin and chocolate with Kate, that’s not exactly scientific evidence or anything. And besides, I’m not necessarily craving chocolate, but chips and cookies and stuff. Well now we know it’s a girl and I can deny it no longer: I have been eating total crap. It’s not the meals so much as the constant snacking. At first I just had to get something in me, I didn’t care what it was – usually crackers or toast. And that’s fine. But yeah, the christmas cookies, chocolates, salt and vinegar chips (that are oh so SO good)? That’s just me being greedy. Well at 20 weeks pregnant I have gained roughly 15lbs, which is more than either of my other two pregnancies and more than I want. Note it’s not the weight itself that bugs me, but the fact that I know it’s because of my crap diet. Something has to change.

Now that Christmas is over and I have eaten my favorite goodies I have stuffed the chocolate into my not-so-secret drawer (but it’s out of sight, and that’s the important part). The leftovers of my own christmas baking (various chocolates, mostly), which I kept staring at every damn time I opened the fridge, I set in a pile last night and wrote Den a note that he would see before work: Please take these! I bought a whole roasted chicken from the grocery store that I can make chicken sandwiches from; I hard-boiled some eggs; I bought wheat bread and english muffins for Kate and I to have with breakfast and lunch. The hardest part, to me, is the lack of good fresh fruit in the winter – that’s my go-to healthy snacks. Oh there is some in the grocery store, but the quality is…. not very high. I do have some apples and grapes, but the pears and peaches and strawberries are pretty much in the “not until spring/summer” category.

I am starving. And twitchy. I crave those chocolates and potato chips like a bugger. It’s so hard when I get used to eating them, because I want them. I know from past experience that once I go a while without eating them I’ll stop craving them and won’t even like the taste of them that much. But getting off it is hard! I’m glad this is pretty much my worst addiction (barring the internet, but we won’t go there).

And I have apparently hit another must continuously eat stage, as well. It’s driving me a little bonkers.

::

I was going to finish this post last night but *someone* wouldn’t go to bed. She’s stuffed up again – I feel like the cold she had before Christmas never went completely away, now it’s back again. Just a stuffy, runny nose, so she’s fine otherwise, and she’s been sleeping at night and naps without much trouble. But last night she threw a fit at me! I layed her in her crib and she immediately started with the hysterics. I’d get her up, turn on the TV, try again in a little bit. She kept acting like she wasn’t tired at all and would start crying and kicking her legs whenever I carried her towards the bedroom. Ug! I finally got her to fall asleep just after midnight – not peacefully, she still didn’t want to but she was tired by then. Of course it happens on an evening Den is out, too.

Thankfully between her and the dogs they all slept until 10am! That never happens (especially the dogs). I looked at the clock when Kate woke up and said, “Holy crap!”

::

Kate’s new favorite word seems to be “cheewios”. She asks for them and when I bring out the box she shouts “CHEEWIOS!!” It’s too funny. Unfortunately we have had a few incidents the last few days of her dumping her bowl of cheerios all over the floor – thank goodness we have dogs.

She also asks for “Ehmo!” (Elmo), as I mentioned before, and now “Why” (Super Why). Which actually was very useful last night when she was up for hours past her bedtime and I just needed time to decompress, I put on TV and she zoned out in her chair holding her puppy watching her shows.

I’m really thankful that we have these means of communication with her, it definitely cuts down on frustration (her and ours) and any random shrieking and pointing. Although she’s started to come up with new words – and sometimes new signs – and then gets upset we don’t know what she wants. The other day she followed me into the kitchen and kept pointing at the counter saying what sounded like “Hot,” which makes zero sense. But she was insistent! And when I told her I had no idea what she wanted she melted down into tears. I picked her up and she reached for the sink faucet, so I think she wanted the water? No idea where she got that one from, unless I warned her once in the bathroom that it was hot, don’t touch.

::

As for me, I’m doing fine. I’m trying to be careful of what I eat right before bed. I cut out milk (and cereal, since that was my go-to snack) and the heartburn seems much much better. The nausea seems to be making a comeback, however, which makes me cranky. It’s not anything like what it was, but I’ll just be watching TV with Kate and then have to run for the toilet. As an added bonus, Ember is sitting on my blader constantly so now I pee all over myself when I throw up. I keep some cloth diaper prefolds in the bathroom now to stuff between my legs. Glamorous! (The Nausea with Devin persisted past 20 weeks too, so this isn’t unprecedented… just annoying.)

Ember is wicked active! Den got to feel her for the first time two days ago, she kept kicking and didn’t stop when he put his hand there. Every night when I lay in bed she just kicks and kicks. It’s as if she’s saying, “Yeah, big sister is in bed and mommy’s resting! MY TURN!” It always brings a smile to my face to feel her wiggle and kick in there.

I’m definitely adjusting to the idea of raising two little girls. There are certainly a lot of benefits – though I am definitely not thinking about the teenaged years. (La la la, can’t hear you!) I hope they grow up to be good friends and stay close. It’s certainly going to be a different family dynamic (from what I pictured… and from what it would have been if Devin were here).

It’s kind of funny how you just adapt to your child. I was a little sad when I found out Kate was a girl, too, but now… well now our lives just seem so perfect with her in it and I can’t imagine not having her. I couldn’t picture ever having a toddler either, and now I do and she’s still… Kate. Watching your own child grow is just such an amazing experience.

At a potluck dinner tonight Kate challenged Den for who ate more. And she ate a bit of everything: a bunch of meatballs, macaroni, bread, chicken, rice and beans. (I of course out-ate them both. I was pregnant and hungry.)

::

Why the hell is the “Journey to Ernie” song stuck in my head?

::

I learned the hard way to always pick Kate’s cash register coins up off the floor every night before going to bed. If I don’t the cat plays floor hockey with them all night, slamming them into our doors. I’m sure HE finds that very fun. Me, not so much.

::

Kate is such a drama queen when she’s sick. At this point when she starts kicking and crying at bedtime I just want to roll my eyes and say, “Seriously, you just have a runny nose. You are fine. Go to sleep!” Every single runny nose she gets causes this.

Which reminds me, I need to remember to have Den change her crib sheets tomorrow. I can no longer reach without squashing my belly.

::

The problem with Kate and I sleeping in after being up late? Insomnia the next night. I am wide awake. At midnight. This is not good.

Well something is still up with Kate, and since her nose has stopped running and her mood has gotten worse I can only assume it’s those canines coming in. Sleep has been hit or miss around here; two nights ago she slept 13 hours straight, then last night she was up and crying at 5am. We took an early “nap” (that I can only describe as a continuation of the sleep we should have been getting anyways) and then her normal afternoon nap, but she just wasn’t right all day. Very whiny, very demanding. She wants to watch Elmo. NO! WHY! I put on Super Why. NO! NO! ELMO! [insert tantrum] I tried engaging her and playing with her but she just kept randomly get frustrated and/or burst into tears. I’d try to give her a hug and she’d push me away. And so went the day.

Yesterday while making dinner I realized I was out of one ingredient so I had to run to the grocery store quickly. Since it was just for a couple things I put Kate in a normal cart like a normal baby. She was whiny but manageable – until she started standing up and trying to climb out. I had her buckled in, and she can still easily stand up. So she cried while I held onto her thighs and grit my teeth and ran for the cash register. She was fine, though. Until… she saw the car cart on the way out the door. She saw them, she pointed and said, “Car! Car!” And then she commenced yelling and crying as I carried her out the door.

Today we went real grocery shopping so I went straight for the car cart. She was very excited, climbed right in! She had fun! … For about 15 minutes. Then she got restless, which means she got pissed at being strapped in, and then somehow she twisted around and got her fingers stuck in the shopping cart bars. When I got her un-stuck and back into the car properly she really started yelling. She was just done. And so was I, by that point!

I know some of it is just the age, she’s clearly been trying to assert her own decisions lately, her own demands. But this? This degree of melty-ness is not normal for my child. I had to get some work done this evening, so I locked myself in the bedroom (with earphones on and music turned up) while Den chased her around the house and played with her. An hour and a half later my very frazzled looking husband opens the door and says he needs a quick 5-minute break, she’s been whining non-stop. Yep. Welcome to my day.

On the good side of things when I came out of the room she looked at me, smiled, and said, “Mama!” Awwwwww. Now that almost makes up for the day. (But I still hope tomorrow is better.)

::

I’m starting to think this baby is making me sensitive to dairy. The nausea comes and goes (mostly in the mornings, no surprise there). The heartburn has gone away since I stopped the cereal before bed.

But the other night I was feeling hungry. In the evening – not right before bed, but in the hours preceding – I had a bowl of cereal and then a cup of ice cream. I never eat ice cream, but I just felt like a treat. When I layed down that night I was reading and feeling a little gaggy, but just trying to ignore it. When I turned off the lights and got settled in my blankets I started feeling worse. A lot worse. Like I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep that down. I ended up sitting by the toilet for a while, gagging, and then throwing every single bit of ice cream and cereal back up again. It was horrible. I haven’t thrown up a meal like that in quite a long time.

Well, I certainly won’t be eating ice cream again for a while. And definitely not before bed!

::

Today Ember had a nice dance party in there while I was trying to get some work done (on my laptop reclined in bed). I lifted up my shirt and saw my belly jumping! She’s getting more active in general, and seems to keep going even when I’m trying to watch or feel her. It’s really weird to think about how big she is now, that soon I’ll be feeling body parts when I feel around. I still so clearly remember feeling Kate’s heel all the time, watching it glide back and forth across my belly.

Pregnancy is still so very fascinating to me. Even though it’s still hard to comprehend. I have a baby growing in me? I look at Kate and think, I made her? She came out of me and was tiny once? Now I have this large independent creature running around and talking to me (or at me). It’s such a bizarre thing. Does anyone really get used to that concept, I wonder?

Well Kate has decided that the middle of the night is unpleasant for sleeping. She wakes up crying, doesn’t go back to sleep, and wants out of her crib to watch TV for hours. I step foot in her room and she wants nothing to do with cuddles or hugs or… well, actually she wants nothing to do with me. I am just her jail-breaker and the one who controls the remote. The good news is that after a couple of hours of me either on the computer or sacked out on the couch (depending how exhausted I am) she starts to droop, I put her in her crib, and we both sleep until morning…. actually she’s been sleeping in until 10 or later, which screws up any plans I had for the day of course. I figure I could lay in her room while she screams for hours, but this seems more expedient at getting me back to sleep. She did this last time she was teething, too. And as soon as those teeth came back in she was back to sleeping normally. The only question is how long this will take. Assuming this IS teeth… I am never quite sure until they actually come through and it’s over. Maybe she’s just messing with me.

She hasn’t been up for cuddling much at all this week. I ask for a hug or a kiss and am just as likely to get a head-shake and “No” as a hug or kiss. I pull her onto my lap (like I usually do) and she immediately squirms off. The only time I actually get her to sit peacefully on my lap is when I am reading her books. I really like reading her books. I sneak in kisses. I also sneak in cuddles when we play the mommy-gonna-get-you tickle game.

The “No” thing has definitely progressed. I mentioned that she was using it conversationally, contemplatively, as if she’s considered my request and respectfully declines at this moment. It was (is) quite cute, really. But this week she seems to have made a mental leap, like she now realizes she can use this tool to assert independent thought. She is now a person with a strong opinion and the capability of expressing it in words.
“Elmo!” “Not right now, we’re going to watch mommy’s show.” “No! No! Elmo!”
“Let’s put your jacket on.” “No!” “We have to put your jacket on, put your arm in,” “Nooooo!”
“Eat!” “Okay, here’s your lunch.” “…. No. Done. Down.”

It is definitely more tiring. I joke at times (like when I’m getting her to identify letters and numbers) that Kate is a monkey, performing on command. I’m starting to question exactly who the monkey is.

I find it’s a hard line to figure out… what things to just let go and what things to enforce. It’s pretty clear that if I made an argument every time she said no to me it would be a very, very long, stressful day for both of us. Most things I figure don’t really matter. If she doesn’t want to put her jacket on right that second I’ll wait a minute, mention the car, and try again. The TV is a bad habit that I am not thrilled about, but I know we’re both bored as hell in the house. I try to get out once a day with her to some kind of playgroup or activity or just walking the mall, but this week with her really messed up sleep we’ve managed to miss everything. But there’s a point when I can’t take any more Elmo or Super Why, I turn it off and we find other things to do: drawing, chase-and-hide, blocks, piano. I am finding however that with the exception of the chase games she generally doesn’t want my participation, she just wants me to sit there next to her and watch her. That gets very boring. Apparently we need some new ideas… and to make it out of the house in time for the fun stuff. My house is a whole lot of boring right now.

In lieu of blacking out my blog – considering that wouldn’t really accomplish much, not many people would notice – I’m just going to post some links for info.

This really is a major issue. SOPA started out as a good(ish?) idea and a lot of major internet companies supported it. But as happens with government the bill was changed and re-written to a point where what it is now would affect almost everything on the internet. Especially blogs and other interactive communities. It hands the power of censorship to companies – they can decide what violates their copyright and gives them the right under law to submit requests to hosting providers to shut down sites – and the hosting provider must comply within 5 days. The bill also includes DNS blocking, which is the same censorship method used in countries like China. That’s some scary shit there.

Wikipedia (who is blacked out today): https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/SOPA/Blackoutpage Click on the “Learn More” for info and enter your zip for your reps info to contact them.

SOPA Infographic: http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html

A post about how these bills would affect you: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/how-sopa-pipa-can-affect-you/

The Day The LOLcats Died (video): http://icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/18/funny-pictures-videos-the-day-the-lolcats-died-pipa-sopa/

Courtesy of the Oatmeal:

I really urge everyone to do more than think about it, please call your reps today. This bill really cannot pass.

Holy smokes Kate is exhausting lately! Ever since discovering running and climbing she just never wants to sit still.

She’s started using furniture as step-stools to reach things. She’s very quick at moving a chair across the room and using it to climb. She started climbing into her highchair when she’s hungry, which doesn’t sound bad in and of itself except for the fact that I have always left the tray on the highchair. So she climbs onto the tray, turns around, then into her chair feet-first. Well one day we were cooking dinner and heard a crash and THUMP and wail. We turn around to find Kate and the tray on the floor! It’s not made to hold a toddler. So we have to take the tray off and keep it elsewhere, but she’s still trying to climb into the highchair all the time.

I ended up bringing our strap-on booster seat into the house the other day and she found it, dragged it into the living room, and sat in it asking for cheerios. I figured maybe it would be safer to have a booster at the table than the tall highchair – at least she can climb up into the booster safely on her own. So that’s what I’ve been using the last two days. And I’ve realized that it just creates new problems. She’s obsessed with climbing on and off the booster. So she gets there, grabs the tray off the table, snaps the tray on (?!), asks for food. That part is fine, I don’t mind that. I give her some food. She eats two bites, then says, “No,” and tosses the rest on the floor. I grimace and take off the tray. She worms down while I set to cleaning up the food. Then the moment her feet touch the ground she’s climbing back into the chair and trying to put the tray on again. If I ignore her she’ll start yelling “stuck!” because she can’t get the tray off herself.

Some meals, like breakfast and dinner, she’s fine sitting in the chair for a while, strapped in with food. She still will dump food on the floor and bang her sippy cup upside down to make a mess that way, but she’s okay sitting and eating when she’s hungry. But the rest of the day? Lunch and snacks? Forget it. I’ve started giving her a cup of crackers or cheerios and letting her sit in her chair watching Sesame Street. Of course then I turn around 5 minutes later to find cheerios all over my carpet because she won’t just sit still to eat them, she has to climb all over her little chair in the living room.

The sippy cup thing, by the way, is getting really annoying. She’s known for a long time how to get the water/milk out by banging it, but now she’s chewed the spouts enough that liquid comes out faster and she does it every single damn time I give her a sippy cup. And when I say, “Katherine! No! Messy!” she gives me a big stinkin’ grin. I take the sippy away if she continues doing it, but she still needs to drink during the day. So apparently I need to watch her like a hawk every time.

Because of the food issues and especially the sippy cup issues I’ve had to change her like three times a day because she ends up smearing food on herself or dripping milk all down her front. First of all it is freezing cold so I can’t just let her walk around soaking wet. And secondly, gross. She also has a great fondness for running her hands through her hair while eating. I swear, everyone talks about having to change newborns 3 or 4 times a day and we never had to – she didn’t spit up and never had blowouts. Now however it’s a whole new game.

I am exhausted! When is it bedtime?

I apparently just don’t grow quiet babies in utero. It’s funny to me because I thought Devin was so active, but I think both the girls outrank him in terms of activity and force. Ember’s movement is becoming quite regular and predictable already. Every morning when I wake up it takes me a while to move, and as I’m stretching and trying to convince myself to get out of my nice warm bed she always kicks me at least a few times. It’s a nice little “good morning!” During the day I’ll feel a few kicks here and there, but it’s in the evening after I eat dinner that she really has fun. If I’m on my feet here and there then she’ll stay quiet until I put Kate to bed and sit down. But at some point every evening when I finally rest she turns on the party dance. Thump. Thump. Thump. My belly visibly jumps now. And her kicks are almost always on my right side. Once in a while I’ll feel big kicks on my far right side at the same time as I feel little pokes on my lower left, which must be hands. I figure she must be transverse at this point… I know Devin was at this stage, and Kate possibly was too (but I forget).

I had an appointment today with the midwives, and as usual it was very smooth and uneventful, other than Kate trying to climb everything in the exam room. My blood pressure measured a little high because Kate would not sit still and was wiggling and kicking her way off my lap as the machine measured it, so I wrote that one off. Surprisingly my weight was only 138, which according to them puts me at about a 13lb gain total (lower than I expected). Kate sat on my legs as I layed on the exam table while the midwife used the doppler and we heard the heart beating away in there – Kate looked rather perplexed by the oddity of the whole thing! (Still such an awesome sound – even though I felt her moving just a little bit prior.)

She did mention that the letter of recommendations from the high-risk doctor (written right after Devin died) mentioned growth ultrasounds, though it was up to me. I actually wasn’t keen on the idea of monthly ultrasounds, both because they give me serious anxiety and the risk of seeing something random that makes me worry more. But at the same time it really is nice to know for sure that baby’s growing on track. So we’ve scheduled an ultrasound for around the end of my first trimester, and another one around the time when we lost Devin (35/36 weeks). Hopefully that’s all I’ll need and everything will be fine, but if anything is concerning then obviously I’d be monitored more closely.

The more I realize how grown-up Kate is the more I look forward to having a newborn again! I was looking through Kate’s old pictures and it was really tugging at my heartstrings, so sweet and cuddly! I’m still a little nervous about having another little one, about Kate not being my only focus of attention, but that’s pretty normal worries for people having another kid.

I do think Kate will be great, though. Kate loves babies. Her little friend (7 months old) was visiting the other day and Kate crouched down in front of the car seat to talk to her in toddler-speak, rock the carseat, and then try to give her a paci and a toy. It was so adorable! I’m starting to really picture her being the big sister, helping out and being a little mother hen. I really think Ember is going to adore having a big sister like her!

So here’s me at 22 weeks. Hopefully I don’t look too exhausted.

Holy cow toddlers are tiring when you are the only one on duty all the time. Den is away on a short business trip right now and the evenings are just so hard! I’m used to handing her off for at least a little bit – not literally, but at least knowing that someone else is in the room watching her so I can actually do the dishes or make dinner or whatever it is I need to do. Today I was chopping onions and garlic while running into the living room every ten seconds to see what the heck she was doing now. (This climbing phase is kind of scary!) I tried occupying her in the kitchen with me, but that failed. I’m trying to avoid turning on the TV every time I need to do something, but man. It’s hard.

The food/water thing really is driving me crazy right now. I am so confused. She asks for food then refuses to eat it. But then asks for food. And refuses to eat that. And asks for cheerios, but I am not giving her cheerios if she won’t eat anything else. Last time I ate chili on a salad I gave her chili in a bowl. She did not want her chili in a bowl, she wanted my chili on a salad. Okay, fine. I fed her from my bowl (or at least faked it really well). She ate it happily. So this time I was smart! I made chili on a salad for her, too. I gave it to her. “No.” Ummm. Okay. I offer her a bite of mine. “No.” Errr. What? I finally convinced her to eat a bite of mine. Then she proceeded to pick the lettuce off of every forkful I offered her. Not to discard it – to eat it. She ate JUST the lettuce. She absolutely refused to eat the beans or meat. What the heck??? What kid does that?!

She won’t eat any fruit right now. Strawberries, pears, peaches, oranges – all previous favorites, all refused at first sight. I even mixed yogurt with pear chunks as a “new food” – which she took a bite of. Then she made a horrified face and refused to open her mouth again. Oh, I take that back, she will eat apple… but only with peanut butter, the way I eat it. Plain apple slices like she used to eat like crazy are dropped to the floor.

The dumping of water continues. I can only give her water or milk while I’m standing there, and the very second she is done drinking and makes a move to dump the cup or make a mess with the sippy I take it away from her. I have cleaned up a LOT of water and milk in the last three days.

::

Today it snowed pretty hard so we stayed in all day. That’s a long day for both of us, I usually try to at the very least run an errand or something to get us out. But we found some ways to keep busy. I brought in a tub of snow for her to dig in with her shovel. I love snow; it’s fully edible and doesn’t stain anything. I just have to mop up water when she’s done. So she had fun with that for a while. I brought up an old toy from the basement (which sadly did not hold her interest for very long, damn). We read books. She stuck stickers in her art pad (she apparently loves stickers now that she’s figured out the trick to them!). She took a long bath and played in the water. She also took a very nice 2 hour nap, which I appreciated. So really it wasn’t a bad day! I didn’t have the energy to actually bundle us both up to go outside, but I did that yesterday in the inch we had already. She enjoyed that until the big dog knocked her down in the snow, then she changed her mind.

Why does it always snow when Den is away? I remember when he went on a week long trip the December I was pregnant with Kate. “It won’t snow,” he said, rolling his eyes at me. It snowed. This time he left off the eye roll. It still snowed. I guess he’s just not allowed to go away December through February anymore. We do live in Massachusetts, after all. (Not that these storms are really a big deal. I still get highly amused by how efficient everything is. Snow falls, plows come through an hour later, everyone snowblows their driveway, people continue on their business.)

So yesterday was one of those pregnancy-induced meltdown moments. I was making a longer trip to visit some friends that we don’t see too often. Den usually drives, and even then it’s been a couple years since we went to their house. I had an address, but when my google navigation said “You are at your destination” and I, err, wasn’t, well, that’s when it started going hinky. I was pretty certain I was on the right road though, so I just kept driving, following the house numbers up until I got to the number I had written down. It didn’t exist. I called my SIL, but she wasn’t home to look it up for me. I saw a house that looked vaguely familiar so I pulled in, relieved. Took Kate out of the truck. Grabbed my stuff. Took about 10 steps towards the house… and then stopped. Looked at it again. No…. that is definitely NOT the right house. Back to the truck, strapped Kate back in… and she freaked out crying. we’d been in the car for 45 minutes already, and she was fine until I took her out and then put her back in. Bad mistake.

So that’s about when I started crying and called my husband. I’m stressed out, I can’t find the stupid house, and Kate is wailing in the back seat. And really I knew there was no need for freaking out, I just had to get their number from Den and call, no big deal, but it was like something in my poor little brain broke and I just wanted to start sobbing. So bizarre.

Den called his friend, who went to the end of the driveway so I could find it. 5 minutes later I’m there. Took me a little bit to get Kate calmed down, though.

The rest of the day went great. Kate was really too busy to eat much of the food, but she really had a good time playing with their 6 year old. She thought he was pretty cool with the balloon throwing and trucks and games and stuff. Plus they have a bird (in a large glass enclosure) and fish, both of which utterly mesmerized her. She was funny and charming and didn’t want to leave!

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Between going to that friend’s yesterday and going to a playgroup and Walmart today we have found enough to keep ourselves occupied. She has been a very silly goof the last couple days, apparently trying to make me forget about how naughty she can be climbing things. Well it’s working. I can’t not laugh when she’s walking around the living room staring at the ceiling and then collapsing on my leg giggling. A friend gave her a bunch of plastic play food so today’s favorite words were “GAPE!” (grape) “BaNAna!” and “Bro-kee!” (broccoli). She especially is in love with the grape bunches and sat in her chair watching TV with them and carried them around all day. It’s funny seeing how excited she is about what seems like such a simple thing. But that seems to be the way of it – the fancy toys hold her attention only so long. The simple block shape sorter, shopping cart and megabloks have seen daily use for months. And of course the books. Always the books.

She has really started shouting “MAMA!” to get my attention now, which is still cute and not yet annoying. Especially since when I look at her and say, “Yes baby?” she makes her big silly grin and laughs, which makes me just want to go straight over and tickle her. (And often I do.) She’s also started repeating “Yuv yoo” which is about the sweetest thing ever.

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The pets, on the other hand, have made the last few days extremely frustrating. The dogs have decided that barking is their only means of entertainment outdoors, so when I let them out to do their business 2 minutes later all I hear is raucous barking from the fenceline and I have to go back downstairs to cuss them out and put them back in the basement. (Something about snow… I swear they do this every time it snows.) One night the dog was sick throwing up and I had to clean puke out of his crate twice, that was super fun. Then the cat kept throwing up his dinner on the carpet (always the carpet, not the linoleum… that would be too easy).

Yesterday one of the cats got out the front door, and I just stood there waiting for a few minutes. It’s below freezing out, there’s snow and ice on the ground, and it’s a very fat, spoiled indoor cat. A minute later he came scrambling up the front steps and back into the house. He spent a good 15 minutes licking his paws. I keep telling him he doesn’t want to go out there, he keeps trying.

Then today the propane was delivered at 8:30am – which, if you know anything about me, you know is before my wake-up time. The propane truck I can ignore; the dogs barking 4 feet away from my ear at said propane truck I cannot. So then after I let the dogs out for their morning pee break one of them wouldn’t come back inside. He always comes when Den calls him, but with me he shoots me a look and walks the opposite direction. So fine, I left him outside while we went to the playgroup for an hour. I came home to find him in the FRONT yard, waiting for me. Propane delivery guy didn’t shut the goddamn gate again. I’d blame the snow, but they never EVER latch the gate (yes, we are getting pissed). Thankfully the dog was all excited to see me and ran straight in the front door and I didn’t have to go chasing him around the neighborhood.

Fun times, fun times. Now Den’s flight is majorly delayed and he doesn’t expect to get home until 2am. I’m willing to bet the dogs will start barking when he arrives, waking me and possibly Kate up as well. Yep. Should be fun…