And so it begins...

I have reached the point in my pregnancy where a full nights sleep is a beautiful, wonderful, magical impossibility. This baby, like his/her sister is a mover and when you combine that with a squished bladder and a 13 month old who comes in to sleep with us at 2am (and who is also a beg hog) then you get a mommy who gets very little sleep at night.

And a mommy who has to pee every 30 minutes.

Penelope's night wakings continue. It's all teething related, although some of it might be habit at this point. She was doing really well with sleeping in her crib from 8pm-7am every night before these two top molars started making their way in. I could just put her back in her crib when she wakes up and stand there until she falls back asleep, but I get so little sleep anyway that it's just easier for me to bring her into bed with us.

Soon (hint, hint Bryan) we'll have her new room ready and then I can lay down next to her until she goes back to sleep and then come back to bed. We're foregoing a toddler bed in favor of a Queen sized bed which will hopefully help with her night waking as well. She moves around so much in her crib (and she's really outgrown the darn thing) that I'm convinced she wakes herself up.

Hopefully "&" will be a little on the smaller side (i.e. normal sized for his/her age) and less of a wiggler - but that may just be wishful thinking.

Speaking of size. I've had FOUR people in the last TWO days tell me "Oh wow, your daughter is so BIG for her age". Yeah people, I know! 32 inches is far from average at 13 months, she's tall. I get it. She's not the tallest baby ever, but she's pretty far above average.

Ok, break time is over - back to homework! I WILL get all of this week's work done today - and I'm planning on getting at least half of next week's work done as well. Wish me luck!

Today, January 6th

So today was productive - for the most part. It started off with a trip to the mall (see previous picture blog post) and ended with a very rare dinner out in which Penelope boycotted everything but broccoli and milk.

I started a new class this week - it's a Health Education class and while there's going to be a lot of work involved, none of it seems particularly difficult (at least so far). I'm going to try and get a little ahead on the assignments so that I'm not scrambling the last week to get everything done. We'll see how that goes.

I was able to get some homework done today, in addition to applying for 4 different teaching/tutoring/mentoring jobs, meeting with my attorney (I can say "my" attorney now that we signed an agreement), reading Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now 14 dozen times, and cleaning the kitchen (ok, so I just did dishes and washed bottles - the kitchen could still use a real cleaning, but I'm counting it). There were a few more things on the To-Do list, but they'll just have to wait. I'm tired.

Yesterday was busy as well and I started having some contractions while we were out and about (had some today too). Nothing painful, regular, or particularly worrisome - but it does mean that I need to take it easy. I forget that I'm 26 weeks pregnant sometimes and do things that I probably shouldn't. The added stress of being unemployed and the accompanying financial woes doesn't help and is probably a significant factor... although it's not abnormal to have these kind of Braxton Hicks contractions at this point in the pregnancy. I didn't get them with Penelope until I was much farther along, but second babies tend to speed things up (from what I've been told) so I'm not worried.

And just for fun, here's what Penelope ate today:
8 strawberries
almost 1/4 cup oatmeal
3/4 banana
1/2 string cheese
4 flax crackers
4 apple wagon wheels (they're a Gerber toddler snack)
nearly a cup of macaroni
a bite of avocado
1/4 head of broccoli
1 bite of grilled cheese
12 oz of milk
at least 14 oz of water
and a dozen or so sweet potato Puffs (another Gerber toddler snack)

I won't recount what I had :)

Tomorrow is homework, homework, and more homework while my Dad babysits. Friday is Art Beast. Hope everyone has a wonderful end of the week!

More pictures - at the mall

So some of these I posted on Facebook, but since not everyone who reads this journal is ON Facebook I figured it would hurt to post more pictures here as well.

Today Penelope and I headed to the mall to hang out and play since it was so overcast and cold outside. It's free and fun. She really enjoyed herself and crashed out on the ride home, perfect!


"Hi Mom"


Climbing up the steps to the slide - she went down the slide 4 time (I helped, she's not quite ready to do it on her own)


Walking around


More playing

So I think she was probably one of the youngest kids there. Although there were plenty of kids that were her height, but they were much more coordinated so I'm guessing they have at least 3 or 4 months on Pen - probably more. She is, after all, super tall for her age. Regardless, she had a really good time. I think running around and climbing on stuff like that is good for her - the development of gross motor skills and more social interaction (she gets a lot of social interaction with her baby friends as well).

Next time I'll have to drag along one of our baby friends so I have a grown up to talk to. I chatted briefly with some of the moms there but it wasn't really a place to strike up any long conversations or make any lasting mommy friendships.

Ok, I should get some stuff done while she's still napping.

A girl and her dog...

Or should I say, a toddler and her dawGy!



I wish this one was less fuzzy:

A picture post

We went to the zoo today and Penelope had a great time:







And now for belly pictures - 26 weeks with Ampersand and 26 weeks with Penelope for comparison:

Enemy, thy name is teething

Before I rant on about how much I hate teething, here's some pleasant news...

*26 week appointment yesterday: baby's heartbeat is 154, facing down, measuring at 26 weeks, everything looks good. After my February appointment I'll start going in every 2 weeks until late March and then it will be every week until I'm the baby arrives. I have a feeling that this baby will come earlier that its due date, but I could be totally off base.

Ok. Teething. I believe I've mentioned before how much I hate teething. But since it seems to be a neverending cycle of torture the whole family can enjoy then I'll continue to complain about it.

Although to be fair, Penelope isn't a "bad" teether. She doesn't scream or cry and she's generally not super fussy. She just has a hard time sleeping. So naps are erratic and bedtime is downright unpleasant. Two nights ago Bryan and I tried for nearly 2 hours to get her to bed. Last night it took an hour and I was so exhausted by the end of it that I fell asleep as well (when I should have been doing homework).

Still, I hate teething. It's inefficient and unpleasant. It certainly wasn't designed, because if it was it's shoddy work.

There's actually a lot more that I wanted to talk about, but I can never remember what those things are when I get a few minutes to sit at the computer. I need to start taking notes during the day.

Look what I can do!

Yesterday Penelope learned "Brown Bear" - she can pick him out of the last page on her Brown Bear, Brown Bear book. We're going to start working on the other animals :) She can also pick out Max in the all the pages of Where the Wild Things Are, and will say "ooh, ooh, ahh" if you ask her what a monkey says.

She can point out Mommy's nose and mouth, and her own nose, mouth, and ears. Eyes are trickier and we're working on those as well. Half the time she'll show you her fingers if you ask, but not consistently...

Walking is progressing along nicely, she walks more often than she crawls and doesn't need to be carried as often. It's been nice, but also comes with its own set of challenges. The other day at Starbucks she kept running towards the door and needed to be corralled back to where we were sitting. I would call her name and she'd turn around, grin, and shake her head "no" and then turn back to the door and take off. Cute, and exhausting. It'll only get worse as she gets better at walking, I think we may end up with a runner :)

This morning we were looking at all of the Christmas/Holiday picture cards we received and she picked out the one of Orson, Kim, & Matt. I asked her "where's Orson?" and she leaned over and kissed his picture! :) So cute! It won't be so cute when she's 13 years old, but it is at 13 months.

Tonight she goes over to my parents for the night so Bryan and I can go out and celebrate our anniversary (a day late). Thanks to my parents & Santa we have a gift card to a wonderful restaurant and a gift card for movie tickets so we can afford to enjoy ourselves. Hooray!

Oh, my interview on Thursday seemed to go well... I should know in a week or so. Hopefully I'll have a few more interview and/or be able to find some substitute teaching work. I need to look into a few Charter Schools and Private Schools to see if they're hiring teachers since with my BA I can teach at nearly any non-public school. It would be wonderful to get a teaching job, although that will mean day care for Penelope. I think she'd do just fine, but I would miss our weekly mommy & baby activities.

And let me just say that my favorite Clone is Rex. He's just awesome. (We're watching Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon this morning).