mystery solved

The missing box has been found and all is right with the world.  Actually, the missing box turned into three missing boxes!  My wonderful husband crawled all around in the crawl space looking for it, since I had looked everywhere else in the house that it could've been, and instead of just one box, he uncovered three boxes that said "baby" on the sides!  I found all kinds of things I had forgotten we even had.  They were mostly baby toys, but I also found the baby bjorn, play gyms, bathtub, and doorway jumper that I knew were missing.  Now I can continue with my nesting and get them all cleaned up.

In other news...tomorrow the countdown will be 31 weeks down, 9 to go! I'm in single digits! Here's a picture for those of you who keep asking me for pictures of my big belly. Today was my sister in law's wedding, so I had something on besides jeans or sweats for a change and told my husband he'd better get a picture since it doesn't happen very often! (I was very self conscious about not wearing a dress/skirt to a wedding, but every dress I tried on felt like a tent, and I really, REALLY didn't want to wear hose!!! My husband assured me that no one would notice that I didn't have a skirt on. I hope he was right!)

how are you-ah?

Rachel heard a song tonight with the word, "Hallelujah" in it.  She started trying to say it, but instead of saying the right word, she was saying, "How are you-ah!"  It took us awhile to figure out what she was saying and why...and then we couldn't stop laughing! (though my laughing turns into a coughing fit at the moment...I still don't have my voice back and can't laugh or hum or sing without coughing!)

We tried to get her to say it correctly, but each time it came out "how are you-ah!"  I guess it IS a pretty hard word for a little girl who can't yet say the "L" sound!

joining the ranks

...of the mini-van moms!

nesting

My "nesting" instinct started a few weeks ago, when I suddenly HAD to have Rachel's old clothes out of the crawl space in the basement so I could start going through them.  I needed to know what I had (tons!) in order to know what I needed to buy (hardly anything!).  When we got them out I found lots of stains (stains which hadn't been there when I packed them away--I'm SO careful with scrubbing out stains).  My mom and I did some research and found out that it's actually common for formula stains to appear when baby clothes are in storage.  Ugh.  So we looked for ways of getting the stains out.  I tried a couple of techniques and came across one that seems to be working fairly well: soaking everything in the laundry tub full of hot water, dish washing powder, and Biz.  The longer they soak, the better they seem to look (last week they were in there for a whole week since I was too sick to go down and deal with them, and they turned out great!).

Over the weekend my husband and dad put up the crib!  It's a new crib, because Rachel's crib was recalled (after we were done using it with her, thankfully!).  We received a voucher for a new crib, so many months ago, we went and got one, thinking a different baby would be using it, but then we lost that baby (that sweet baby was due today, by the way....), but now it's finally put together and ready for a very special little girl to sleep in it!  Rachel was so excited to see it and about seeing the nursery taking shape.

So now that I'm finally starting to feel better (hooray!), my nesting is in full force.  Yesterday I worked harder than I've worked in months, and I'm still getting over being sick.  But I just feel like there's so much to do before the baby comes and I have to get it done NOW!  I'm still soaking stuff--I finished the 0-3 month clothes and have moved on to 3-6 month clothes so I won't have to worry about them once the baby is here.  I'm washing load after load of blankets, burp cloths, sheets, towels, and so forth.  I'm searching through the basement for baby things, cleaning out Rachel's old closet, sorting through what goes in her new closet and what stays for the baby....  lots to do. 

And there's a box that I'm missing that is driving me CRAZY.  It has about five things in it that I know that I'm missing (my baby bjorn, a couple of play gyms that the baby lays under, and a few other things).  I'm also missing a stack of burp cloths I know I have somewhere. Ugh.  I hate it when I can't find things.  Hopefully I can enlist my husband to dig around in places I can't reach and find it for me before I go completely crazy.

In other news, I sold my little Neon today.  I've had it for almost exactly ten years.  I bought it just before I met my husband....also almost ten years ago.  That sounds like forever!  So we're down to one vehicle for today and tomorrow, and then I'll get my new (to me) van!  Hooray!

sunshine

I haven't posted because in the last post I promised that I would write about something more positive.  But when I promised that, I hadn't anticipated that I'd still be really sick TWELVE DAYS after starting this illness, so I've had very little positive to say lately!  Yes, I've been sick and running a fever off and on for twelve days.  That's crazy.

But here's some positive news:  I finally have a diagnosis and I'm hopefully on my way to recovery.  I went back to the doctor for the second time today and she said I have bronchitis. I wish they would've caught it last week, but for whatever reason, they didn't, and said it was a sinus infection then (though my sinuses were practically clear then!).  So now I'm on a stronger antibiotic, an inhaler, and a steroid (thankfully, all safe for the baby, according to my OB), and I'm hoping they all kick in QUICKLY and I can start feeling better.

And the sun is out today. Always a positive.  It's 59 degrees and beautiful.  I sat outside while Rachel played 'Pirates' on her swingset--it was nice.  Come on, spring!

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was not a birthday I'd care to repeat, since I was feeling lousy, but my parents were here, and they, along with Rachel and my husband, helped make it as nice of a day as it could be, under the circumstances.  But I missed out on a lot of the fun things I had been looking forward to.  Oh well.  Some other time.

And more positive news:  We bought a minivan.  Anyone who knows me very well knows how much I've disliked driving our truck, which has been my primary mode of transportation since Rachel was born, and my little Neon was no longer a viable option.  We get it on Friday, will finally get rid of the Neon, and I'm so excited! 

sick of sickness

I hate winter.  I don't use that word much....I just really, really hate it.  Mostly because of the endless sickness it seems to cause.  Most of the winter Rachel was sick every couple of weeks.  Now it's my turn. 

Somehow I managed to dodge most of her colds and so forth this winter, but not this time.  I'm on day six of this junk...and day four of having a fever.  Every time I think the fever is gone, it comes back later in the day and I start shivering again with a pounding headache.  Ugh.  And being sick when you're also seven months pregnant is even more miserable than normal!  Not only is there not much I can take or much that anyone can do to help me, but there's no snuggling down for a nice long nap or anything, because just finding a comfortable position to lay in is becoming increasingly more difficult.  And even if I do find one, it isn't long before I have to get up to go to the bathroom, and the comfortable position is lost.  And then there's the problem of coughing up both lungs....combine all of these things and you've got an equation which makes it nearly impossible to get any sleep.  I'm going to the doctor this afternoon, but I'm not very hopeful that they can do anything for me.

Sorry to whine.  I'm just really, really, really tired of this.  And it's my blog and I can whine if I want to.... 

And the worst part?  The weather is finally warm this week and I can't even get out and enjoy it. 

Okay, that's enough whining.  Next time I promise I'll have something more positive to say.   Promise.

growing up

Over the last six months or so Rachel has become so much better at entertaining herself.  I can't even explain how nice it is.  That doesn't mean that she doesn't constantly ask for me to play with her....she does.  But more often than not I can tell her that Mommy's busy with X, Y, or Z, and sometimes will give her a suggestion of something she could do, and she's off, and perfectly content to play by herself. 

I think part of it is training and part of it is just age--she's growing up.  Since she was about 6 months old she's had independent play time every day.  It started out in her pack and play every morning while I would take a shower.  She hated it at first, and it would only last for 15 minutes or so and she'd cry a majority of that time, but gradually she got used to it, the time got longer, and she learned to enjoy it.  I've always put a CD on for her and she's had plenty of toys to play with and books to look at.  As she got older and too big for a play pen, she graduated from play pen time to room time.  Now she spends about an hour each morning in her room playing (usually with her princess polly pocket dolls or my old Strawberry Shortcake dolls, or sometimes looking at books).  During this time I take a shower, get dressed, clean up my room, get laundry started, put clothes away, put dinner in the crock pot, or some other assortment of tasks that need to get done.  She never complains about it--she loves it!  This used to be the only independent play time she'd willingly do, but now that she's older she'll just start playing by herself at other times during the day.  This morning, for instance, she has played with lego (part of the time I had to help because lego is a very frustrating activity to her all by herself--she has a hard time getting the pieces apart and making them look like she wants them to look, unless she's just building a tower!), colored a princess picture, played with her train table, had a circus with her little people animals, and played "Princess Flower Girl Rachel" (which consists of her dressing up in a princess dress and pretending she's a flower girl, though the only way she knows what a flower girl is is from a Babar book we once had out of the library months ago!).  Sometimes she does some of these simultaneously (like wearing her princess dress and reinacting "The Little Engine that Could" on her train table, which is what she's doing right now as I type this!).  ***

Now we're entering a new phase of life.  We finally moved her to her big girl room this weekend (it still needs some work, so pictures will be coming eventually, but it's looking good so far) and the room is huge--big enough for lots and lots of her toys.  Our dining room has served as her playroom for the first (almost) four years of her life, and it still will be, but many of the toys that filled it are now in her new room, making room for the baby swing and changing table which need to come up out of the basement for a new little girl who will soon be making her appearance in our family.  So the new phase is now being able to say, "Rachel, go play in your room!"  I'm anxious to see how this phase goes.  She's thrilled about it now.  Hopefully it will stay this way.

This independence she's learned is both good and bad.  Good because it allows me to get things done.  Good because she's developed quite an imagination and loves coming up with scenarios for what's going on with the princesses or trains or whatever she happens to be playing with at the moment.  Bad because she has learned to be the one in control when she plays, and always expects things to work that way.  This becomes a problem at school when she's playing with other kids.  If the other kids don't want to play the way she is playing, she'll just play by herself.  She doesn't get upset (usually)...just prefers to go do things her own way.  This is the whole reason we sent her to school in the first place--to learn to socialize and interact well with other children.  And she is learning...her teacher says she's improved a lot since the beginning of the year, but she still has a way to go.  Hopefully having her in school three mornings next year will help her learn these skills even better.

All that to say, my little girl is growing up.  I can't believe she's almost four.  That just sounds so old.  She's starting to give up her naptime (NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!).  I'm still in denial about that one and still put her in bed every afternoon, but she's only sleeping about half the days right now.  We'll see if with the time change next weekend she'll need the extra sleep again.   I can't believe that this time next year I'll be registering her for kindergarten.  I can't think about that yet.  I just want to bottle her up like this--her joy and enthusiasm and wacky imagination--and savor it forever.


***I should explain that I wrote part of this much earlier in the week.  She wasn't playing with her train table at 9 pm when I published this--she's sleeping in her big girl room at the moment.

March!

Finally!  March is always a happier month for me....halfway through it my birthday comes and it means spring is near.  The snow is slowly melting (I can see some grass again!) and there are birds chirping every morning outside my window.  Rachel says every morning, "The birdies think it's spring!  Not yet, birdies!"  But they know what I know...it is near! 

This year March also means I'm in my third trimester and the end is in sight!  Hooray!

Yesterday Rachel was riding in a cart at the store (she doesn't like riding in the cart anymore and usually asks to walk on her own, but she's SO slow and wants to touch everything that more often than not I end up putting her in there halfway through the shopping excursion because I can't stand the dawdling or telling her not to touch anymore).  Anyway, she was in the cart and her eyes were just about at the level of my big belly.  She put her hands on it and said, "I'm going to look at my baby sister in there."  She stared for a few minutes and then said, "But I can't see her!" 

She tried lifting up my shirt (we were in the parking lot by this point!), as if that would help her see the baby better.  I quickly told her, "NO!  Don't lift up Mommy's shirt!"  She said, "But I can't see if she can dance in there!"  As I held my shirt down I assured her that she didn't know how to dance yet and when she got bigger Rachel would have to teach her how to dance.  She liked that answer and thankfully forgot about trying to lift my shirt up.  Maybe I'll have to put up with the dawdling next time.