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.

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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.