Kate's New Favorite Man

Kate was around a lot of "new" people this weekend.  Family that she sees once or twice a year if we're lucky.  People who love her desperately, but because of her age and distance between us we don't keep up with as often as any of us would like.  She took it all in.  She warmed up to many of them, and kept a wary distance with others as she tends to.

What killed me was that she instantly warmed up to one person she had never met:  she would walk by him and say "hi" in a cute little peppy voice, and give him high fives.  That was when I knew it... she's the girl who falls for musicians.  Kate became buds with my sister-in-laws bestie, Chad.  He plays the guitar, is generally laid back and cool, and is probably one of the most easy going and friendly people I've met.  It might be that Kate picked up on the fact Mason (her cousin and favorite person in the whole world) adores Chad and so Kate automatically adores him, too.  Or, it could be that he plays guitar and sings.  Whatever it was, she liked him and it made me laugh.

Here's a quick video of Kate regaling us with her guitar playing and singing.  In case you need some help, she starts out singing the ABCs, moves on to Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels on the Bus ("people go Up and Down", "baby goes wah wah")...

You Want to What?

My daughter has special pooping requirements.  She needs privacy (physical distance) from others.  She also tends to have favorite pooping places.  One of her favorite places is retail stores.  Pick one, and it's good.  So of course, at Home Depot last night she had to poop.  She did.  Right next to the door display.  Unfortunately, we didn't have any more diapers.  Paul took this opportunity to teach her how to say "commando."

Today, we were negotiating with her about where to poop.  She didn't want to get into the car to go home from breakfast because she needed to poop.  We explained that we wanted to get in the car so we could go look at Christmas trees at Lowes (having already gone to Home Depot the day before to scope out our options).  She says, "Kate poop at Christmas trees."  Okay, we tell her.  You can go and poop at the Christmas trees.  She starts to get into the car specifying "Not Mommy Daddy poop Christmas trees.  Just Kate." 

We readily agreed to this.

Thanksgiving

Had a wonderful turkey day today. Started with a homecooked breakfast, walk on the beach and sand castle building. Then a break with the hubby while the baby napped. Then off to Carolyn's where Kate ate up all the attention and love.

Unfortunately we had a minor freak out. Kate began reacting wig a rash on her face around her mouth. Normally that's what we see when she accidentally eats something with egg in it. But this time it spread to her chest and ears and she got cranky and itchy.

Luckily I had my epipen and benedryl handy. Benedryl cleared it up in an hour

And the culprit? Our best guess? Pistachios...

Scary. Add "nut allergy" to the list...

Daddycentric

We are all relaxing and playing after dinner last night.  Kate and Daddy P were tickling up a storm and the girl was a little excited.  Finally they both collapsed on the ground and I went and snuggled in with Daddy P.  Kate sits up hurriedly and points at me and then at Daddy P's arm around me and says, "I need this arm! No mama.  I need this arm!"

Nothing pretty ensued.  Not the tantrum from Kate when Daddy P kept his arm around me, nor the tantrum from me when Daddy P gave in and scooped her up.

Little Miss

ss
 

 She instructs me now to how many ponytails she needs in the morning.  And has gotten very particular about what she wears (today getting her to wear anything on her lower half was a challenge).

Yesterday we were talking about the new baby (is in, "don't kick my stomach because it hurts me and the baby!!")... I bring it up here and there to see what she'll say.  Yesterday after talking about how there is a tiny baby in my stomach she pulled up my shirt and said, "kate see.  open!" and patted my stomach.  I then had to explain that she couldn't look inside and we'd have to wait for the baby to come out on it's own.

We've had similar discussions about food... I might have to start differentiating between these...

The Toddler Brain

I forget sometime I'm dealing with a person.

I started my prep work yesterday for Kate.  We leave Saturday to fly to Cali and are taking two separate planes (long story) and Paul is taking Kate.  Knowing my daughter, I know she needs a heads-up if the routine is drastically changing.

Well, she sure latched on to the warning, but being a toddler disregarded all time markers like "Saturday."  So, she got out her suitcase last night and started packing.  She packed up what she thought she needed (sunglasses, a stuffed dog, a book) and proclaimed she was leaving for the plane.  When we told her we weren't going on the plane yet and she'd be sleeping at home, she promptly stayed "Kate sleep Nana Papa's house."  Apparently the overnight the other weekend went exceedingly well and now she is ready to leave home.

This morning she stayed on her one track, proclaiming early, "see GG (her great grandma), see Nori (my sister's dog)."  And so we learn of a child's true priorities.

Forecast

Partial sun and windy

Halloween Recap

After learning that kids' Halloween costumes cost $50 a pop I went the home-made route.  One pair of black stockings, a headband and a belt later we had a cat.

Kate had her fall festival at her school on Thursday and then her first trick-or-treating on Halloween night.  Here she is at fall festival looking for treats in the hay and posing with dad...

On Halloween she got into the whole trick-or-treating thing really fast even though she had no idea what candy was until the very end when she got to eat a snicker's bar.  So cute...

This is when ya'll regret that I am designated blogger

I hate first trimester.  No fun clothes.  You aren't really showing and aren't really excited because it's so far away.  And you're sick as a freaking dog that ate all the Halloween candy.

All I want is to find food appealing again.  I used to watch those movies of those women having weird cravings and needing ice cream at a strange hour and think it was kinda strange their husbands would actually go buy it.  I mean, just eat something else.

But now, I get it.  You can't.  I can't eat anything.  Except, once in a while, I'm lucky enough to think about something I might be able to eat and get it down if I eat it RIGHT THEN. 

Yesterday was my first nausea free day (don't get to excited, cause today is back to normal).  So I have decided that I am going to eat every day what I ate yesterday:  milk in the morning, yogurt and oats, a slice of pizza, a blueberry muffin, a smoothie with protein, a carnation breakfast shake, and mashed potatoes.  Spread out carefully so my stomach was never empty nor full.  It was the BEST DAY EVER!

This is seriously so much worse than Kate.  But, I guess the flipside is that I am WAY less tired.  I call it:  adreneline.  When I finally do lie down to sleep I can't.  Then I wake up at a quarter to six when Paul leaves and can't fall back asleep.  It's absurd.  I am counting the days.  We better seriously like this kid.

Okay okay, so Kate...

No Celiac's!  Yay!  And... booo.... the doc is still concerned, so we go back to the GI specialist in December.  I really wanted her to say something like, "well, since it isn't Celiac's and she is doing okay, let's just forget all about this."  But it must have something to do with the fact she weighs only two pounds more than she did last year and is about a head taller... gives beanpole a new meaning if we continue at this rate...

Daddy P is doing his best to take care of his girls despite being swamped at work.  He's pretty overwhelmed, but still managing to do things to help me get food when I need it, make dinner since I can't fathom cooking meat, and watch Kate so I can nap.  We ended up (sadly) hiring a babysitter last night just so we both could work late.  Poor Kate.  I didn't plan work-pregnancy well.  When it was taking a while to get pregnant I decided to go ahead and take on a bunch of stuff and then (of course) baby!  And now I am just doing what I can until I can crawl in bed.

In an attempt to prepare for daylight savings time we have  been keeping Kate up 15 minutes later every two nights and setting her "alarm" later every morning.  Guess which one is working.  Yep, she's going to bed at 8:30, falling asleep around 9, and getting up at her normal 6:30am time.  Geesh.  There was one morning she lasted until 7:15am.  I am hoping that some miracle occurs so that she doesn't wake up at 5:30 on Monday morning...

So, thanks for indulging a hormone crazed pregnant woman in some good ole fashioned complaining...  Your reward:
:

Here's my sweetie carefully eating all the raisins out of her raisin toast

 

 

 

 

It's official!

We are doing it all again...

Heard the heartbeat today of my 1cm long baby. I am seven weeks of nausea down...way worse this time. Not a fun trick. My theory is that its worse because I get less rest (imagine that) because the one day I got a good nights sleep AND a nap I was nausea free.

We saw our little blueberries today and Baby Dos (as he/she has been dubbed) is totally unbaby like in appearance (being a centimeter and all). We didnt see Kate this early so it was a real trip.

So that's my excuse for dropping the blogging ball. pregnancy and toddler exhausted mamacita make.
It's amazing women do this more than twice.

Not I.

Apparently now big ovaries have made their contribution to society and I feel symmetrical enough to stop after Dos.

So yay! Baby 2 on the way!