Growing Up

First I had a little newborn.

Then I had a chubby little baby.

Then I had a plump tiny toddler.

Now I'm starting to get a skinny kid.

The first day of kindergarten is going to be rough on this momma. This all comes up because I decided to look through all of Charlotte's old clothing in the basement and sort out the gender neutral stuff. There was some, but let me tell you I sure did like to dress her in pink and ruffles! No question she was a girl by those totes. Anyway, as I looked through the tiny dresses and sunday shoes, the frilly little sun outfits and the little swimsuits I started to yearn for her to be that little again! How did it go so fast? It's been two years, but still she's so new and awesome to me every day!

One of my friends says she has a niece who had curly hair like Charlotte's until she turned four and then it grew in thick and straight. I asked her one day if the girl's mom (my friend's sister) missed the curls. I absolutely adore my daughter's curls. Now though I'm thinking that she might miss them, but honestly there's probably too many amazing things about her daughter now that she can't miss the curls too much. It's like that with Charlotte. I don't really have time on a day to day basis to miss my little cuddly bear because I'm so awed by the ingenuity, beauty, and humor I am faced with today. She is so awesome!

But looking at her baby stuff I can't help but remember that she was so awesome too.

Daydreams

Lately I've been having this recurring daydream so I thought I'd share it. In my daydream Dan has time off of everything, school, house, church, etc. We are able to have Charlotte stay with someone (this usually oscillates between either set of grandparents) and I'm not pregnant. Sometimes in my dream I've already had Greg and he's with Charlotte, but sometimes he's just inexplicably taken care of. Either way I'm not pregnant. Then Dan and I have enough money to go on a week long vacation together. The destination changes each time, but here's what doesn't. We take so much time just sleeping. We lay in bed until noon one day. We, of course, go out and see the sights of the different places we visit in my daydream, but mostly we just stay together and sleep, and read and enjoy each other's company. We take no thought of what to eat because we have a budget to just go buy food. There is also no wrangling children into and out of clothing, on and off the potty, brushing teeth ("stop biting the toothbrush!"), or putting them to bed. Yesterday I was thinking about this I had to laugh at myself to know that my dream vacation right now involves a whole lot of doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, I love my children. Charlotte is so wonderful and I enjoy fully being her mother. I feel like I'm starting to bond with baby Greg too so that's great. But also, right now, a little vacation wouldn't hurt anything either.

And in case you didn't know, my sister, brother-in-law, mom and dad are in Disneyworld this week and my mother-in-law, and father-in-law are in Hawaii.

Hopeless Romantic

My husband is in a men's basketball league that plays games every Saturday. Every Saturday that, except for this coming Saturday, that is. I noticed this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't think to mention it to him. Then, during half time of the game last Saturday the announcer said, "Well men, there wont be any games next Saturday, so take your wife out and do something nice for her." Assuming he meant for Valentine's Day I thought this was a nice thing for them to do.

Later that afternoon, my husband stood looking at his list of house projects to complete and our calendar of when we might do them and said, "Oh! It looks like we don't have a game next weekend. I wonder why that is?" To which I replied, "Really? You seriously don't know why that would be?" The blank look on his face made me realize that he wasn't joking as I had though. So I walked over to the calendar, pointed to the double underlined "Valentine's Day" on the calendar and said, "You seriously don't know why they aren't having games next Saturday? You didn't hear the announcer say, 'Well men, there wont be any games next Saturday, so take your wife out and do something nice for her.'?" To which he replies, "All I heard was, 'there wont be any games next Saturday.'"

I was laughing about this to myself as I emptied the dishwasher this morning. I'm married to a man that has me help tile a bathroom for our anniversary and has no clue about Valentine's Day. He hasn't once bought me flowers. But you know what he has done? He was the one that filled the dishwasher up and ran it last night, and the night before that, and the one before that too. In fact he's been quietly doing so much stuff around our house since I started this pregnancy I'm overwhelmed by his love for me. So no, I wont be getting any little gifts to celebrate this coming Saturday, but that's ok because he truly is my Valentine.

The Squirrel Whisperer

Remember when Charlotte was persistent enough to get a pigeon to let her touch it in our backyard? Today she struck again, only this time with a squirrel. Or at least she would have if I had let her. Knowing her great ability to get otherwise wild animals to let her go near them I grabbed her away just before she actually touched it.

In case you didn't guess today is an unbelievably beautiful day in St. Louis. It's about 60 degrees out, but it has a light wind that makes it feel chillier. I decided to skip our usual Friday activities and packed a lunch and headed for the park. We played there from about 11:30 to 1:30 and I had to pull Charlotte off the slide to get her to go home. Then she blissfully fell asleep on the way home. After I pulled into the parking pad behind our house I turned around to see her little face, smeared with dirt and blackberry jelly asleep and smiling. It was awesome.

But back to the squirrel. This was an usually brave squirrel that saw we were eating a picnic lunch. It saw our bright orange carrot sticks and came to just the other side of the playground fence which is about 6 feet away. Charlotte had long since decided to not eat her carrot stick so I decided I'd let the squirrel have it. I threw it away from us and then asked Charlotte to watch the squirrel. Sure enough not two minutes had passed before the squirrel decided that he wanted that carrot stick more than he was scared of us. He climbed through the fence grabbed the stick then ran away. Charlotte was thrilled. She decided she wanted another carrot stick and ate hers, "just like the squirrel." I was thrilled. Then the squirrel came back. (This is where I became not so thrilled.) I let Charlotte go out and give the squirrel a quarter of a carrot stick. She went out as close as it would let her go (saying, "come mere squirrel, come mere) then dropped it and walked away a few steps. It took the carrot then ran away, and came immediately back. That squirrel knows a sucker when he sees one. In the end I let Charlotte give the squirrel about one and a half carrot sticks until I realized that the squirrel would probably just take the next piece right out of her hand! Which to my mind screamed danger. So then I decided we were done with our picnic. I've got to watch out for this one and the wild animals!

Take 2

Warning: This post is entirely about my pregnancy and probably wont interest anyone but myself, but I needed a place to keep it so there you go.

Before I forget what this pregnancy has been like so far I thought I'd write down a few of the differences I've noticed between Charlotte and Greg. Although I realize that I've forgotten much about my pregnancy with Charlotte already, so maybe this comparison isn't fair. I'm doing it anyway.

First, I haven't taken any nausea medication in about a month. That's awesome. I feel like I have 10x the energy when I don't have to take it so I'm loving that.

Second, Greg doesn't move as much as Charlotte did. I kept thinking that I wasn't feeling it because I remember how Charlotte moved at the end of my pregnancy and I'm not there yet, but I think it's safe to say by now that he's just not as active. He does move. I'm not worried or anything, it's just that his movements aren't so frequent, and when they do happen they don't happen for all that long. I wonder if I think this because I'm busier than I was during the last pregnancy, but that's the observation I've had. Also, he moves very low, down in the pelvis region. That's not to say that he's not taking up more than his fair share of my insides at the moment. He seems plenty big, he just doesn't move up top all that much.

Third, my joints hurt. I will wake up 2-3 times each night because my hips, knees, shoulders and wrists just ache. I've asked other women about it and none so far have told me they experienced the same thing. I'm going to have to bring this up to my doctor when I go in Thursday (has it already been a month?). This pain did not happen with Charlotte.

On the other side, my leg hasn't gone numb like it did with Charlotte. I keep waiting for that to happen, but it just isn't.

Also, I think I'm gaining weight at a more steady pace. Last time with such bad nausea I didn't gain anything for so long then I practically exploded. This time I have been surely and steadily gaining weight. This makes me wonder if I would have gotten the stretch marks last time if I had been able to grow like this. Although the stretch marks that had faded a bit are now the bright angry purple of stretching so perhaps not.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll probably add more to this list later.