Happy Valentines Day!
From my little sweetie to yours.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
We've had a fun week and a half or so over here, letting the knowledge that our little baby is a little girl soak in. There have been lots of new phrases floating around our house, like daughter, sister, and it's a girl. I even told the baby a few times on that day, "You're a girl!" I'm not sure that she knew.
I love her little profile in this picture, and that you can see her little hands in it. Although the more that I look at it, I think it kind of looks like she's got her arms in a "put your dukes up" position. Maybe she's already ready to fight off the boys, or fight her brother for toys or something like that. She is exactly where she needs to be as far as her size. The average is between 12 and 14 ounces and she is 13, so perfect. There were no problems and no concerns.
She has pretty big feet, at least I think so. (Proportionate to her leg, they seem big to me anyway.) But Jayce had really big feet when he was born and has always been tall/long for his age, so maybe she'll be the same.
We weren't sure that we'd be able to find out the sex at all, because she had her knees up with her legs pulled snugly against her body, and the x-ray technician spent about 20 minutes trying to get her to move her legs around. Our first clue was when she said, "Well, I'm leaning towards a girl," which was certainly not enough information to go by, and I was hoping that we'd leave with more information than that. After a little bit she said, "Yeah, I think it is a girl, I can see lines, so..." which made me laugh. But then she finally got the shot, and we have photographic evidence to prove the girl-ness. I won't put the gender photo on here, because even though I'm glad we found out the sex, I do think it's a little strange how a lot of worry and effort goes into getting an x-ray picture of our unborn child's genetalia. You know what I mean? If only they had a little pink or blue bow on, that would be a bit nicer.
The next picture is her profile, but with her arm up over her face. We also have a scary "baby looking straight at the camera and kind of looking like skeletor" picture, that I didn't get a good picture of. Maybe I'll show it next time, but I doubt it. It's not nearly as fun as the profile one.
Speaking of the profile picture, I made this cute little display for our house and put it on Lemon Tree this week. I found out the next day that it had been featured on Apartment Therapy in the Children's Section, called Ahdeedoh, here. Fun right?!
Back to the sonogram, once we found out that the baby was a girl, it was a little bit funny how she wouldn't move her legs at all. We told the tech that she was just modest, and we knew the baby would be stubborn no matter what. But the "knees up in front of her stomach" position blocked a few pictures of the umbilical cord that the doctor needs, so we'll get another sonogram at our next visit. She said everything was completely fine, looked normal, and she had no reason for concern, but they need these pictures and the baby wasn't cooperating, so that is what we're doing. And I won't object to seeing her again in there. :)
Several people have asked me if I've been shopping since we found out the sex, and the unfortunate answer is no. As soon as we arrived home from the doctor that day, a huge snow/ice storm hit that lasted for about 24 hours or so. (Notice that Jayce is standing on snow that is above Chris' knees in this picture.) It was pounding wind, ice and snow that shook the house, left thousands of families without power and even closed the universities for a few days. The storm was followed by several days of below freezing weather, and it is only now finally creeping towards 30. So, basically, the weather has forced me not to shop. At least in stores.
But I must confess, I HAVE been shopping, kind of. What do you call window shopping if it's done online? I've been doing that, lots of that. I also have spent an embarrassing amount of time online finding the perfect fabric for the nursery. (It's not actually that embarrassing, I spent as much time as was necessary to hunt down exactly what I was looking for.) I have a few things ordered and a few samples on the way, so now I am absolutely hounding the mailbox. It's kind of fun that in this period of waiting, this is something that I can do to prepare for the baby a little bit, and since I take on new projects every week for the blog anyway, there might as well be some baby-inspired projects. Since I haven't even bought a little pink onesie yet, hopefully this will appease me a little. :)
Discovering the gender has also opened up the floor to the Great Name Debate, something that we had been putting off until we knew the sex. Neither of us had a mental (or physical) list of names, so that night we would randomly would throw out names to one another, which is kind of nice to do at this "no pressure" stage of name suggesting. The only thing that we decided that night was that we know entirely too many crazy people. Many of the names that we suggested (at least Chris' suggestions), I could think of someone we knew with that name that was kind of crazy or at least drove us crazy. I guess that is what happens when you move around a lot? You meet lots of people, and there are always crazy ones in the pack, right?
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Jayce has trouble with the word "airport." He starts to say "airplane" but by the time he reaches the pla part of the word, he remembers that he needs to switch to port. So it ends up coming out, "airpa-ort." He gets really frustrated, and will try again, (and I laugh sometimes) because he will end up saying, "airpa-ort, airpa-ort" with a little stutter in the middle as he's trying to get it right.
Yesterday while we were at the grocery store Jayce was telling me about how sometimes he rides in an airplane to go see Grandma and Chelsea. He eventually said, "Mom and Jayce go to airpa-ort, airpa-ort, airpa-ort...plane station."
I was really impressed with this. Chris was only impressed the first 2 times that I mentioned it to him.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Chris' birthday was almost 3 weeks ago now, but I didn't want it to go by without noting a few fun highlights. We celebrated on the day, but it was the week when we were potty training, which I woefully discussed here if you missed it, which may help to explain why it has taken me a while to get these pictures up and why Jayce isn't wearing pants. :) But his crossed ankle in this picture cracks me up, he does that all of the time.
Jayce got busy coloring a "Happy Birthday Dad" sign while I cooked, which I thought he did really well on given how small the space was to color! I didn't get an after shot because Chris took it to work with him, but on one of the letters he messed up and colored outside of the lines (I think, he didn't really explain this to me, I was just watching from a distance), so he kind of let out a frustrated yell/growl and furiously scribbled all over that letter and all around it, kind of like a big square. He then went on and colored the rest of the letters like normal.
In lieu of a birthday cake, which Chris doesn't really like, we made scotcheroos, which he REALLY likes. So does Jayce, and so do I for that matter. I left the room for a minute and came back to this. He didn't even have the courtesy to look guilty. He just glanced at me, turned back to the scotcheroos and dipped his finger in for more chocolate. Little rascal.
Jayce had helped me wrap Chris' presents earlier that afternoon, and when I brought them into the kitchen to put on the table he got really upset and demanded that I put them in the living room on the ottoman. When I went in there were a bunch of toys on the ottoman and I started to clear them off into the toy box, which set Jayce off again. "No Mom! Toys for Jayce and Daddy to play Mom!!" When I looked back at the pile it appeared that these were actually a carefully selected collection of toys, basically all of the medium to large sized vehicles that Jayce owns. I remembered that the day before they had all been lined up and Chris and Jayce were racing them, so apparently this was on Jayce's agenda for the night as well. So we stacked Chris' gifts and sign right next to his evening activity.
When Chris got home, he opened presents immediately, before dinner or anything else. It's hard to turn down a kid who is excited to give presents, especially when there is no real reason to make him wait, so we didn't. We then moved into the kitchen for a birthday song, candles and scotcheroos. You may notice that there is already a big piece taken out of the "cake." It's also hard to turn down a birthday boy who wants some dessert even when it isn't quite time for it yet. I think my boys must have some sense of entitlement about their dessert around here.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Last week Jayce got up from his nap and wanted to wear this dragon costume. While he was eating his animal crackers, he was balancing them on the edge and they eventually started jumping into the water. At first I tried to stop him from doing it, but my warning tones just amused him, and he eventually started completely cracking up over his deviousness. Which made for some funny pictures.
I've been meaning to "officially" note some of the cute things that Jayce has been saying lately, so sprinkled in among some dragon pictures seems like a pretty good option.
Regarding the baby, we haven't really talked with Jayce about it a lot yet. He knows that there is a baby in mom's belly, but I'm trying not to supply him with information because I'm really interested to see with what he comes up with on his own.
That said, when I was in the first trimester and I was trying to co-erce Jayce into going to sleep, I would tell him that EVERYONE was taking a nap right then: Mom, Dad, a few of his friends, he would supply names of people who might be taking a nap then, and I would sometimes say that the baby was going to take a nap too. He always stopped me to say, "No Mom, baby not going na-night, baby wake up."
Since then, he will periodically interject something about the baby, typically that she has something that is "little tiny."
"The baby has a little tiny pillow."
"Baby eating a little tiny sandwich."
"Baby play with little tiny toy."
Even though we haven't really talked with Jayce about the baby, we did get him a book about being a big brother, and Chris has read it with him a few times before bed. I read it with him for the first time the other night. Earlier that day Jayce had said something about babies drinking milk, and it surprised me a little. When we were reading the book, it made a comment about that, and I had a little "ooooh, that's where he got it" moment, and turned to the next page without finishing reading the current page. Jayce promptly turned back to the previous page, and said "No Mom, baby stays cozy and warm," which was the exact next line in the book. Oops. So there are no skipping pages or lines in the books in our house now.
We picked up a Dora book the other day that Jayce had gotten from his cousin, and since I don't let him watch Dora (because I can't tolerate her voice and he doesn't know what he's missing), he didn't know who she was. He pointed to her picture and said, "What's this Mom?" I said, "Oh, that's Dora." And he replied, "No, Mom. Not door. Book."
Jayce likes to play basketball in our bedroom. He closes the door, turns on the radio that's on my alarm clock and run around the room shooting the ball, getting his rebounds, and generally just running. He likes a specific type of music for an activity like this, seemingly to get him all pumped up or to give him the option to stop and dance in the middle, because he always wants dance-type music and rap. If a commercial or a slower song comes on, he'll tell me that he doesn't like that song and request that I find a new song. The other day I flipped through the stations, landed on one, and asked him if he liked that song. He looked up and replied, "Perfect." And went back to shooting.
We introduced him to saying "excuse me" to stop him from barging on conversations a few months ago. It's sweet and he's doing really well with it, but now I need to teach him that after he says excuse me, that he needs to wait for us to prompt him to go on, not to just keep saying "Excuse me Mom, excuse me" over and over.
Yesterday while we were all at the table eating, Jayce asked for a sip of my orange juice and I knew what he was up to. (He thinks it's really hilarious to ask for a sip of my drink, then drink the whole thing, and giggle as I pretend to be surprised and exasperated.) Not surprisingly, he drank the whole thing, and when I was being "upset," Chris grabbed my cup to get me more. Jayce looked at me and said, "Don't worry Mom, Dad get you more." Don't worry Mom?! I wasn't expecting consolation from my 2 year old.
When I get in the morning or when I get him up from his nap, I'll often tell him how I missed him, among other things. Today when I was carrying him downstairs he put his head on my shoulder and said,
"I miss you Mom."
"What? You go with me?"
"I miss you Mom."
"You missed me?" (He's never said this before.)
"Yes. I love you Mom."
This was my favorite one yet. And it's not even Valentines Day. :)
Friday, February 4, 2011
I haven't posted videos of Jayce in a while and I think it is definitely time. He's become a little singing machine these past few months, often bursting into songs that we didn't even know that he knew! Last week Jayce was in a particularly sassy mood and was actually performing on demand, so I was able to catch some of my favorites in full (for the most part) and on video!
My favorites are Jesus Loves Me (particularly sweet), and Twinkle Twinkle, in which the star shines "like a dino."
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Before I had children, I never really understood why some people have cut outs done of their children's silhouettes. I never really thought there was that much that was distinct about a child, that an all black profile cut out would capture better than a picture. Until now.
Now I know that a profile shot can really capture your child. For Jayce, it's the tiny flips in his hair, his long eye lashes, round cheeks, button nose and little bird mouth. In fact, often when I catch sight of his profile when he is doing something that keeps him stationary, like playing in the kitchen, reading a book, or watching tv, I will be so overcome by these sweet little traits that I'll have to stop whatever I'm doing and rush over to bury kisses into those plump cheeks.
And now there are 2 profiles that I'm completely in love with.
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