Rotating books vs Upside Down

Developmentally, it is QUITE INTERESTING to watch Sydney grown and learn. It is fun to watch all of his AH-HA moments as he figures things out.

Interestingly, a few months ago, it wasn't uncommon to find him sitting on the floor and looking at an upside down book, not seeming to notice that there was anything wrong with it. Then, last month, he found it easier to stand on his head when his book was upside down. Now, he skillfully rotates the book with both hands so that he is holding it in the right direction.

The Best

The Best Small Cities to Raise a Family...

how incredibly lucky are we?!?

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/the-best-small-cities-to-raise-a-family.html

Kitchen Helper and Tickle Fingers

This morning, I got out the rather neglected video camera and taped Sydney "cooking" in the kitchen with me. We were making Wedding Soup together. I cleaned some celery and carrots and placed them on a plate. Sydney had a chair in the kitchen so that he could supervise. He separated the carrots and celery into two respective piles and nibbled sample bites from both.

I encouraged him to go find his salt and pepper (toy shakers) and he quickly climbed down and went to retrieve them from the living room. I diced some of the carrots and celery for him and we put it in a bowl for him to stir and pretend to cook.

It was cute video footage.

Then, when Mike came home from work - after we had tried the soup for lunch - I showed him the footage. Of course, Mike agreed with me that Sydney is SO STINKING CUTE!

Then, we flipped through old footage on the camera and showed Sydney "That was YOU when you were a little baby!"

At one point, in the old footage, I had been tickling Sydney near his shoulders in our first real successful attempt to get him to laugh. (We had struggled for quite a while and despite the baby book telling us that he should be laughing, we just couldn't get him to do it.) So, we had caught him laughing on the video - with me tickling him by waving my fingers in the air and announcing "Tickle Fingers, Tickle Fingers, Tickle Fingers!"

Sydney thought that the Tickle Fingers video footage was funny. He held up his hands and mimicked my "tickle fingers" from the video. Mike and I thought that THAT was pretty funny.

Later in the night, Mike witnessed Sydney "walking" on his knees across the dining room while doing "tickle fingers" as he approached Mike (who was laying on the living room floor). Mike says he looked a little like Frankenstein. What a funny kid!

Now, if only I can get him to demonstrate "Tickle Fingers" for my video camera... 

Let's Pretend... chef at work

Sydney spent a large majority of the day with a spoon or spatula in his hand and an assortment of sauce pans, lids and frying pans within reach. He was BUSY BUSY BUSY pretending to cook food and would often stop stirring his pretend dish so that he could feed me a taste of it.

The hilarious part was that sometimes, he would stop to blow on it before serving it into my mouth.

Eventually, I got out his toy salt and pepper shakers. I showed him that we sometimes use just a little bit of salt and Mommy likes A LOT of pepper. He must have taken note because the S&P were his favorite additions to his pretend kitchen.

Sydney was "cooking" when Mike came home from work. I explained that we had done A LOT of cooking and taste-testing in Sydney's pretend kitchen. Mike thought we've got our hands full... Sydney LOVES to help in the kitchen. Also, I think he has been inspired by watching the Food Network with Mike. (Surprisingly, Sydney will willingly sit through almost an entire episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats, too - as long as we fast forward through the commercials!)

When I was making dinner tonight, I brought a kitchen chair in for Sydney to stand on. I showed him how to bend asparagus to make it snap at the good breaking point. I showed him that you snap it and keep the flowered end. I was pretty impressed when he stole a piece off of the counter and snapped it into two pieces - just like mommy did. We also measured water into a liquid measuring cup and I showed him which tickmark we were shooting for. He helped measure out some rice granules, too. (We were having FUN!)

After dinner, Sydney dug out our lemonade pitcher from a kitchen cabinet and insisted that he pour pretend liquid into his pans before seasoning and stirring. We asked him what he was pouring into his saucepan. Mike and I were pretty impressed that he knew to tip it over to pour (although, he does watch me pour milk onto his Cinnamon Life cereal some mornings). Mike laughed because he would shake the container to get the pretend liquid out. (Sydney was watching me shake the container of BBQ sauce the other day because it was almost empty; I think he is a little sponge and takes everything in!) I told Mike that he sees me get his cereal ready. At that same moment, Sydney was signing the word MILK with his hand.... YEP, he thought the pretend liquid was MILK.

This kid makes me LAUGH! He's SO STINKING CUTE!!!!

A walk in the park

This afternoon, we walked to Clarke College so that we could take some pictures of Sydney in the leaves.

We set him on this little curb - just off of a pathway - and tried to take his picture, but he kept POPPING UP and running over so that he could SEE the pictures that I just took in the view finder window. So, we'd encourage him to go sit back down and we'd try again. (Got a few bloopers this way, as you can imagine.)

Here, I told Sydney to "SMILE!" (I guess he thought I meant to say "Close your eyes, Silly Boy!") He REALLY thinks he is smiling. (Perhaps, that is how you smile with your eyes?)

I tried to get Sydney to lay down in the leaves so that we could take an areal-shot, but he didn't "get it". I even tried to show him how, but instead he laid on me and then, we both had wet butts.

All of our attempts made him look like a turtle that was stuck on his back. He didn't like laying in them at all. Perhaps, if they weren't wet...

Running in the leaves.... HOW FUN IS THIS?!?!

Hey, look at me... I am WAY OVER HERE!

Mommy tossed handfuls of (wet) leaves into the air. Sydney thought THAT was pretty darned cool!

Look, I can do it, too!

Helping Daddy push the stroller home. (Sydney holds onto the basket on the back and has NO IDEA where he is going... just walks forward while Mike steers.)

Sydney was riding on Mommy's shoulders home for a little while, but her head was starting to hurt because SOMEONE was playing with (and pulling) Mommy's hair. We switched off so that he could ride on Daddy's shoulders instead... and Daddy's freshly shaven head is too short to pull.

We had a fun weekend with Daddy off of work.

12 weeks down, 196 days to go (Progression)

Can't believe how quickly time flies when you're having fun! 

Now that the morning sickness is gone, the real fun can begin. I can look forward to getting through the awkward-looking phase where it will look more like a beer belly than a pregnant belly. Then, I can look forward to feeling some movement inside of my belly that will magically POP overnight, it seems. (I think that is when baby hits a major growth spurt again.)

Right now, baby should be the size of a lime and weighs a 1/2-ounce. 

(Just over 2" from head to bottom.)

Progression of growth

4 weeks - poppy seed

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5 weeks - sesame seed

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7 weeks - blueberry

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8 weeks - kidney bean

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9 weeks - grape

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12 weeks - lime

(That quarter doesn't look nearly SO BIG anymore!)

Photos from babycenter's slideshow

http://www.babycenter.com/slideshow-baby-size?slideNumber=10&bclink=img&scid=mbtw_preg12:947&pe=2Uwiawm

More MICE! Yay for cats (and traps!)

When we first bought this house, there was PLENTY of evidence of mice left behind by the previous home owners. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned - because the previous home owners and their mice had left QUITE a mess behind. Then, the next day, I was HORRIFIED to discover some new mouse turds following all of the cleaning that we had done. (Granted, we DID have a 6" gaping hole at ground level where the previous home owners had a dryer vent hooked up, but because they took those appliances with them (and the fact that our new ones hadn't been delivered yet) we may as well have installed a neon sign that said "FREE FOOD, ENTER HERE!")

Once the gaping hole was closed, Mike set some mouse traps. We ended up catching ONE MOUSE and had NEVER seen ANY evidence EVER AGAIN... 

that is, until this year!

NUMBER ONE

Perhaps a month ago, I was creeped out when I could feel one of the cats playing with SOMETHING on top of the covers where I had been sleeping. I could tell that they were chasing and playing with something so, I immediately tented the blanket in the air so that they didn't get it close to me/my face and then, I gave a few swift kicks in their direction to get them off of the mattress. Then, since I had been sleeping in Sydney's room, I closed the bedroom door to keep them out.

The next morning, when we went downstairs, there was a dead mouse laying on the dining room rug. One of the cats sat about a foot away, proudly displaying their find.

NUMBER TWO

A few days later, we found another mouse in the same location and the other cat proudly sitting by.

After TWO MICE, I begged Mike to bring home some traps. (Although, the cats seem to be doing a FANTASTIC JOB being that we've never found ANY EVIDENCE except for their limp, lifeless bodies.)

NUMBER THREE

About a week ago, I could hear a disturbance in the hallway outside our bedroom.  By disturbance, I mean strange heavy breathing and snorting. A few minutes later, after the disturbance continued, I glanced with my flashlight into the hallway and saw Eddy. Then, I saw his mouse slowly making his way from the hallway into the bedroom.

"He's got a mouse!" I told Mike. "Get it!"

Mike says "Give me a shoe!" 

"I don't have any shoes over here!"

"Where's a shoe?" he asks.

"In the closet!"

So, Mike grabs a shoe - one of mine, of course - and whacks the poor little mouse over the head. Thankfully, he (the mouse) moved about as fast as a turtle, but who knows HOW LONG those poor cats had been playing with it?!? Then, Mike scooped it into an empty Kleenex box and set it out on the sunporch.

Oddly enough, we have noticed that our cats have been hanging out in our kitchen a lot more recently. And we're noticing that they don't seem to be interested in going to bed whenever we do. Now, it seems, they like to HUNT. On a few occasions within the past week or two, we've noticed one or both of the cats sitting in the kitchen - in front of the fridge, staring into the corner by the stove. Interesting... I did check the trap that sits in that corner a few days ago when I was looking inside my corner cabinet for something, but it (thankfully) appeared to be empty.

NUMBER FOUR

Just days ago, when I woke up, I ventured to the bathroom. As I approached the office, I could see SOMETHING laying on the floor in the doorway to the office. Immediately, I think it is a pile of cat puke, but as I get closer, I see another limp, lifeless mouse body in our house. Being that Mike wasn't going to be home from work for a good majority of the day, I could hardly leave it for him to dispose of so, I grabbed a plastic bag and tossed him into the poop bucket. Oddly, I was VERY PROUD of myself for picking it up. Mike did tease me that I probably had to wash my hands twice after touching it. (Perhaps, I did. He knows me well.)

Tonight, I was using the vacuum and blew the breaker for the entire upstairs. Naturally, Sydney had snuck upstairs to see what mom was doing while Mike was watching tv so, when all of the power went out, I was thankful that Sydney came to find me in the pitch dark hallway.

NUMBER FIVE & SIX

On our way downstairs, on the field trip where Mike was going to show me the breaker for the upstairs, he immediately noticed that the top mousetrap had been set off, but no one was in it. As he went down a few more stairs, he announced "There's a mouse in this one!" And down a few more stairs, announced again "And another one here, too!"

Hmm, apparently, we have mice in OUR BASEMENT. Mike announced that he will clean out and re-set the traps tomorrow. We both find it odd that we never noticed any - besides that one - last year and in one month's time, we have now caught SIX!

On my pregnant trips to the bathroom during the night, I have now decided to take a flashlight - because I don't think I would handle it very well stepping barefoot on a mouse carcass. (And now, I am a little more apprehensive about peeking in that corner cabinet... I'm thinking that there very well could be a tail hanging out of that trap!)

Part of me also wonders how many we've got out in the bonus room. My neighbor, Frank, told me that he discovered all of his insurance papers inside the glovebox of his truck had been shredded by a mouse. (I hope my boxes of old photos, as well as our wedding memorabilia are safe out in the bonus room! I'm almost afraid to go look....)

12 week check-up (x+6)

Instead of coughing and coughing for 2 more days (and getting less and less sleep at night) I was encouraged by Mike to see if our OB had any openings for this afternoon. Luckily for me, she did!

Appointment Stats:

Today, I had a trace of protein in my urine and no sugar, which is acceptable.

Baby 2's heart-rate was 166. (Good and strong.)

My weight gain is up 6 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight.

My uterus measures right at 12 weeks.

I'm told that my uterus is resting at an angle that applies extra pressure on my bladder right now, but within the next month-to-month-and-a-half or so, should reposition to be more comfortable. (Then, doctor teased that I'll be comfortable for a short while - until the rest of my organs are relocated to make room for a growing baby.)

Pregnancy is looking good!

I was granted permission to take some cough medicine today. Took a dose around 4pm and it seems to have helped a little bit. Going to take another dose any minute now and then, hoping for a good night of sleep tonight.

Sydney stepped on the scale today to... weighing in at EXACTLY 23 pounds!!! (YAY, he FINALLY made it past 20!!!)

I do have a belly pic (taken earlier today) to upload from my camera. It was a mirrored self-portrait, which I figure is better than nothing.

There was an incident with some POOP!

Sydney protested his afternoon nap AGAIN - similar to the rest of the week - where he hung out talking and singing to himself. Like a handful of other days this week, he did this for an hour. (You'd think he would have had enough incentive to sleep since I told him that Grandpa would be here when he wakes up from his nap. Perhaps, he thought it was better to wait UP for Grandpa.)

Around this time same time that an hour had elapsed, Grandpa Lowell showed up for his weekly Sunday with Sydney visit, but I insisted that he MUST get some sort of a nap in this afternoon because there is NO WAY he can make it from his morning nap until bedtime. We left him in his bedroom and after a few more minutes, he eventually settled down.

A short while later, Sydney started SCREAMING. It wasn't a "Mom, I'm up!" kind of cry. It wasn't an "I'm hungry" kind of cry. To the best of my better judgement, to me, it sounded like it was a "HELP! I am REALLY UPSET" kind of cry. I offered to bring him down, but Grandpa said "I'll get him."

Grandpa went up the stairway announcing "Who's making all the noise? WHO is crying?"

Soon, I heard "Oh, what's with all the poop?" (The voice in my head was saying "that's not a very funny joke, Grandpa.") Next, I heard, "I think you're best to go straight into the tub."

At some point during Sydney's nap, he managed to remove his athletic pants. At another point during Sydney's nap, he managed to remove HALF of his (poopy) diaper. (Grandpa reports that it was half-hanging on.) Sydney had poop all over his hands and smeared all over his butt cheeks. We set him, screaming, into the tub. I'm not sure if he thought he was in trouble - or what - since the screaming is not really his nature. 

We cleaned him up and got him dressed in fresh clothes. Then, he went for a stroller ride with Grandpa while I sprayed some Lysol into the air - in hopes of neutralizing the strong stench of POOH. Then, I stripped his bed and made a wipe-down concoction to thoroughly clean his crib. I did not find visible poop in his room, but it sure smelled HORRIBLE in there. It seems that the poop was (thankfully) mostly all over Sydney instead of his room. I have heard HORROR STORIES of people who had poop incidents where it was used as finger paint. (Shiver.)

Of course, Mike (and my mom) laughed when I told them the story. Sadly, I did NOT find the humor in it one bit. I had planned on running to the grocery store so I could finish up on our dinner plans. I wondered how I am ALWAYS the lucky one who gets to clean up poop. (Mike reminds me that it is because I am lucky enough to stay home with him every day.)

MENTAL NOTE: Purchase some tshirt onesies in his current size so that it becomes more difficult from him to EVER do this again.  Also, make a point of checking on him while he is protesting his nap to make sure that he is NOT getting into trouble. Little stinker.

• • • • • 

Happy Birthday "Auntie" Terri!

Baby 2 at 11 weeks

Baby 2 is busy, busy... GROWING!

    Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about thesize of a fig, is now almost fully formed. His/her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under the gums, and some of his/her bones are beginning to harden. Baby's already busy kicking and stretching, and those tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as the body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won't feel your baby's acrobatics for another month or two -- nor will you notice the hiccupping that may be happening now that the diaphragm is forming.

Gosh, it is SO HARD TO BELIEVE that Baby 2 was the size of a blueberry a few weeks ago. It is INCREDIBLE to watch how quickly they grow. This week, I was able to schedule my 16 week and 20 week appointments. WOW, those really AREN'T "that far away." Gulp. 20 weeks is HALF-way already! We'll be seeing our doctor (for the 12-week appointment) on Thursday for (my yearly) pelvic/pap and will get to hear heart tones, as well as getting the lab results from last week's blood draw. I believe my uterus is now the size of a grapefruit, if I remember correctly from what I read recently.

Speaking of growing, I read somewhere that I can (soon) expect to put on ONE POUND PER WEEK. Hmmmm, 29 weeks to go... means 29 pounds added to my recently thinned frame. (If I am lucky, I will be able to weigh less than Mike for this entire pregnancy!!!)

The majority of morning sickness seems to (thankfully) be gone now; although, snacks are still good to keep on hand for sudden outburst of starvation. My head cold appears to have cleared to that point that I have next-to-nothing for stuffiness left; Sadly, I am stuck with a horrible tickle and cough. (Perhaps Kegal exercises should have been stressed as more important since the coughing spells are challenging my bladder control - or lack thereof. I'm told by a few of my neighbors that each pregnancy gets a little worse in that department. It's a good thing that children bring SO MUCH JOY to our lives - that it makes it all worth it!)

Sydney continues to lay his head down on my bare belly when I lay on the floor. (Mike likes to think that he is giving his brother/sister a hug, but he does it to Mike's belly, too. Still, it is cute to see.'') I did tell Sydney that there is a baby inside mommy's belly and how mommy is going to get a GREAT BIG BELLY. He smiled. I think he will be a GREAT big brother; he is such a little helper already!

Took Mike dinner at work tonight. While there, saw a very pregnant mom and her little girl shopping in the Christmas section. I asked the mother how old the little girl was. (Answer: 2)

Come April/May, I will look A LOT like that.

• • •

NOTE: Will TRY to add an 11-week belly pic to this post tomorrow.

• • •

Happy Birthday to Auntie Nicki!