Both of my girls are giving me a run for my money! Okay, so admittedly Kate is still pretty good 90% of the time, but she’s still exhausting and climbing up on everything to grab anything she shouldn’t have. I fear we will soon run out of spaces high enough to stash things. I’ve also finally had to remove my printer/scanner from the floor under my desk. I was fine with tiny little Kate using it to sit on, but she’s been using it as a step-stool for climbing and tipping it so that it slams back to the ground. Today I really thought she’d broken it, so away it goes. (Now I don’t know where to put the darn thing – I frequently need to print things for school. Maybe somewhere in the bedroom, when it’s cleaned out.)

Then Ember has shifted, today she had her feet way out in my side just under my ribs. When I was laying on my side watching TV she was getting dangerously close to kicking my ribs. She would alternate that with random periods of kicking low in my side at my pelvis, which also wasn’t too pleasant. And at one point she had her hands (I assume) really down low at my cervix and was doing something causing me to yelp a little with little jabs. Is this beat up on mama day? She’s been so good up to this point, always kicking outward.

She is an active kid. Wow. Maybe Kate was indeed this active at this gestation and my memory is failing me, but I thought it started later. Ember is just… crazy. I can see my belly jump and bend and jiggle – Den can too. And she only weighs, what, 1.5 lbs? This could be an interesting third trimester! I really love this part though. It is just so much fun to see and feel her moving in there – and very reassuring, too. She has stopped playing hide-and-seek all the time so Den has been able to feel a bunch of movement in the evening when she’s having fun in there. He’s always so surprised by what he can feel. “I don’t know how you handle feeling that all day long!” I laugh. It just becomes a part of you that you carry around all day…. I get so used to her moving that it feels weird when she’s having a quiet day.

I am finally feeling past the nausea – or at least the bulk of it. When people ask how I’m doing I’m getting all perky and saying, “Actually… great!” It is so so nice to really feel good after feeling nauseated and gross for so long. My face and back have finally cleared up, I’m not throwing up or gagging, I have energy to tackle projects around my house and do some cleaning… now this is how I should be feeling in the second trimester! And my growing belly doesn’t get in my way yet. The only big thing it affects is standing back up after squatting down – which is a frequent occurrence with a toddler. Squatting down to pick her up? Oh I huff and puff to stand back up. Those stomach muscles are just not there anymore!

One side-effect of the nausea going away is that I am all about food. I told Den flat out that he could pretty much convince me to go to any of his friends’ parties or work events or any kind of outing as long as he promised me I’d get food. Superbowl? I don’t give a whoop about football. I did however eat a ridiculous amount of snack food. Weekends we pick a day to go out for brunch (since eating out at dinner with a toddler can be hit-or-miss brunch fills the void nicely… so much yummy food and Kate is almost guaranteed to behave and eat happily). I am just so hungry. Den has been cooking dinner every night, but unfortunately, being a man on a diet, he’s big into the meat and veggies thing. I am not. In fact meat right now is not really sounding appetizing much at all to me. My cravings are all about sweets and carbs. Fruits are awesome, but can be very sad at this time of year. I’ve been eating a lot of cereal and sandwiches (PBJ) and yogurt.

Kate has also been a little piggy lately. Today at brunch I think she ate nearly as much as I did! A large piece of french toast, some potato chunks, hash brown mix, and apple rice. She hasn’t been eating enough at dinner – I think she’s not necessarily thrilled with the meals – which I figured out is what was leading her to wake up in the middle of the night. So we’ve started giving her a second “dinner” right before bed, making sure she eats as much as she wants right before she goes down. Bingo, sleeping through again. (Except last night, when she pooped 2 hours in. Unhappy baby, unhappy mama.)

Some other things my crazy kid is doing:
* Holds out her arms and says, “Hug??” And then dives in for a big hug. LOVE this. So stinkin’ adorable.
* Talks for a long time in/at(?) her crib after being put to bed. We crack up in here listening to her. Today she was loudly saying, “Banana! Banana! Ag-deegle-wa [random babble]. Banana!!” She also talks and giggles when she wakes up in the morning and after nap. I can leave her in there for half an hour or so most days, she apparently has a great time.
* She has figured out the mama word. And not just figured out that it means me, but that it gets my attention. So now all day? “MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!!” Adorable…. and also slightly annoying. Especially when I turn to her for the tenth time and say, “Yes baby?” and she just giggles at me. And then says, “Mama!!” as soon as I turn back around.
* She’s been very interested in her clothes and is starting to try putting them on. She is failing big time, but it’s funny to see her flapping her pants around and haphazardly trying to step into them… while already wearing pants.
* She’s also very interested in her baby. She shoved a diaper at me the other day and her baby, insisted I put it on the baby. So I pulled out one of her old xsmall cloth diapers and put that on the baby. She had fun taking it off and attempting to put it back on her baby. She also insisted I put socks on the baby. She will “feed” the baby food as well.
* She LOVES real babies. She wants to touch, and even though she’s gentle I still don’t want her sticking her fingers in babies mouths or anything! But she loves to pet them gently on the head and point out eyes, nose, mouth. She’ll offer her sippy cup and paci to babies as well.
* She loves her kitties but also has picked up some bad habits from us! She now shoves the cats off of tables and chairs saying, “Go!!” and laughs and laughs. Though today she saw Merlin on the couch and said, “Mewin. Mewin. Seeping!” (Merlin sleeping) which was pretty cute! It may also be the first step towards putting words together.