Sixth Word

I only count a word as a new word if she says it many times. There are many words she's said once or twice, such as "this" and "kiss," but we've both heard her say "hat" enough times to count it as her sixth word. She says it in reference to Paul's baseball cap. If I put one of her hats on, she takes it off immediately; the same goes for barrettes in her hair. However, she will wear her Daddy's hat for an extended period of time. She also uses it to play peekaboo, which is still one of her favorite things to do!

Today will be her first time going to Sarah's in 4 weeks. Yesterday when she saw Sarah in the hallway at church she started wailing, which was the opposite of her usual reaction to seeing her. Nadia also cried when I dropped her off in the nursery although thankfully she only cried for 1-2 minutes this time. I guess she's going through a stage of not wanting to be separated from Mommy. Hopefully she won't cry too much at Sarah's today. She'll be spending 7 hours a week with Sarah - from 2:30-6:00 on Mondays and Tuesdays. I'll drop her off, and Paul will pick her up. On Thursdays (the other day I am teaching this semester now that I'm up to 75% of a full-time load) Paul will come home by 3:30 to be with her. Wednesday mornings I'll be going to MOPS once a month; Nadia will join me for that. Wednesday evenings I have choir rehearsal at 7pm. That's my schedule for this semester in a nutshell.

Farewell, morning nap

I think the time has come for Nadia to transition to one afternoon nap a day. She took two long naps on Tuesday, but I think that was the last time that will happen. Wednesday through Friday she took morning naps (60-90 minutes long) but no afternoon naps unless you count falling asleep in the carseat for 15 minutes as a nap. Yesterday she played in her crib in the afternoon for about 55 minutes, and just when I was about to go get her, she fell asleep and slept for about 35 minutes. This morning she played in her crib for an hour during the time that was her morning nap. It is nice that she'll play happily in her crib these days. I used that to my advantage when she woke up at 5:50am this morning. I didn't go get her right away. I am not happy with reverting back to the earlier wakeup time (3rd day in a row that has happened). Hopefully the transition to one afternoon nap a day will help her get back to sleeping in until 7am. The next few days I think it will be a challenge in the late morning to keep her up, but I am going to try to keep her up until at least noon. Today it wasn't hard since we were at church, and there was a picnic after church. The weather was gorgeous! We are back to short sleeve weather, and it's very pleasant out. I tried to keep her awake during our 12 minute drive home from church, but she fell asleep 2 minutes before we got home. She didn't even wake up when I got her out of the carseat or carried her to her crib (at 1pm). Hopefully she'll take a nice long nap since it will be her only nap today. In light of giving up the morning nap, I am going to join a Sunday School class that is starting next Sunday. I signed up for one and was given the materials for the quarter today. I also am going to try going to MOPS once a month this fall at my "old" church, which is 30 minutes away from our new home.

Thankfully I feel much better today. Yesterday evening I started to feel better. Maybe it was the nachos at Applebee's that did the trick, LOL. We didn't get Paul a computer at Staples. He wants to shop elsewhere. This weekend I've been doing some organizing. I've been sorting through the boxes of Nadia's old clothes and taking out the items that are gender neutral. Thankfully both sleep blankets will work for our son as one was yellow and the other was blue. Of course most of her clothes were very feminine, but thankfully not every single item was. I felt sad packing up some of her little dresses - I was wishing she could wear them again or another daughter of mine could wear them; then I remembered all the new dresses waiting for her to wear in the future that I've already purchased and that made me feel better. Plus I am certain I'll dress my son up in cute little suits from time to time. I am going to bid on some fall dresses for Nadia on eBay. My organizing has mostly centered on Nadia's closet and our son's closet. I am moving the baby stuff out of hers (gym and such) and moving my stuff out of his and into Paul's office closet (scrapbooks, wrapping paper, and such). I also went through the toybox and removed the toys for infants that Nadia doesn't play with any more. I put them in his closet and will get them out when he's ready for toys. I'd call this urge to organize nesting, but it seems on the early side for that, eh?

P.S. These photos were not posed. Nadia loves to pick out a book and then read it in her blue rocking chair albeit many times the book is upside down. :-)

Size Five

Nadia started the summer wearing a pair of size 3 sandals. The last 2 months she's worn a pair of size 4 sandals. Although I didn't feel like going shopping yesterday, I had a feeling she'd fall asleep in the car on the way home, and since she wouldn't take an afternoon nap in her crib, I thought that was a good idea. I bought her one fall pant outfit at Ross and then went to Target. I bought a froggy potty for Nadia. It was hard to find a gender neutral one! I also got Nadia a few long sleeved tops, some socks, and a new pair of shoes (size 5). I think the shoes are soooo cute! They are brown with a few flowers on them (pink, orange, and blue). Unfortunately the black patent shoes I bought at the thrift store in Chicago in March (size 4) are already too small; she never got to wear them. I know she'll need some more shoes and a pair of boots for this fall/winter, but at least she has one pair now.

Farewell, summer

Well it's my turn to go back to school on Monday. I should have gone in today for the annual freshmen orientation picnic, which I attended the past 5 years, but I woke up feeling rather lousy this morning, which clinched my decision to skip it this year. I am not sure if it's my turn to have a cold or if it's just seasonal allergies, but I woke up with a fierce headache and have needed to have the tissues nearby all day. Nadia woke up at 5:50am so unfortunately my day started an hour earlier than usual. Yesterday she woke up at 6:55am, and that had been the norm lately. As they say that bad sleep follows bad sleep (and good sleep follows good sleep) she didn't nap well At All yesterday so then she got up earlier than usual this morning. Yesterday when I put her down at 9am for her morning nap, she just chattered and played in her crib for 35 minutes until I decided she wasn't going to nap. I thought maybe it's time to switch to one afternoon nap, but by 11am she was so fussy I put her down, and she fell asleep immediately and slept 1 hour. However, she then wouldn't take an afternoon nap at 2pm; she usually gets at least 2 hours of sleep total between her two naps not just one hour. Today she took her usual 90 minute morning nap (8:15-9:45 since she got up so early), but then she played in her crib from 12:15-1:15 instead of napping. Up until yesterday she was still in a good routine of two naps which together lasted 2-3 hours, but maybe she's transitioning to one afternoon nap?

Another sign that summer is over is that today the weather feels like fall (it's 65 degrees right now). I know it will get warm again; it's very unusual for it to be this cool in August. However it definitely feels like fall outside. I realized when I tried to get Nadia dressed in warmer clothes that I needed to do an inventory of her fall/winter clothes. I tried on a few tops/pants I had purchased on clearance many months ago. The size 18 month tops fit her just fine, but the 18 month pants are too big. I did purchase several size 12 month fleece pants that she hadn't worn yet; so she can use those this fall. I am sure sometime over the course of the winter she'll grow into the 18 month pants. Size 12 month dresses are already too small. She can wear size 18-24 month dresses, but I found out I only purchased one long sleeve dress in those sizes - and it's a Christmas dress. I have several really dressy winter dresses in those sizes (short sleeved), but she definitely needs a few long sleeve dresses. She also needs socks. She hasn't worn any for a few months, and the ones she wore last spring are way too small, and she needs a pair of every day shoes as it won't be sandal weather much longer. The outfit she's wearing today (for the first time) is size 12 months. The short sleeved shirt is a bit too small, but the jacket and pants fit. It doesn't look right with sandals though. She needs her first pair of sneakers I do believe! She just wore the shirt around the house, but for our venture out to go shopping she wore the jacket also.

Clothes for our Son!

Nadia is definitely able to express her wishes more clearly these days. Thankfully she now makes use of nodding her head "yes" in addition to "no." I can ask her yes/no questions and she responds almost all the time. It's very nice to have more of an idea what she wants! Yesterday she made it quite clear she only wanted to play the piano if her big teddy was sitting beside her on the bench. Of course I still don't always know what she wants, but I know in time she'll be able to communicate more and more. Yesterday one of the words she repeated back upon request was "kiss." She pronounced it exactly right. Ahh what a sweet word to hear her say. :-)

This morning the choir director at the church I've been going to lately called to see if I was singing in the choir this fall. I was caught off guard, and since I hadn't made up my mind, I said "yes." Turns out the choir is having their kickoff picnic and first rehearsal this evening. I said I'd be there. I hadn't made up my mind whether to stay at that church or go elsewhere. I wanted to hear the choir at the church I visited this last Sunday. I was planning on taking the spring semester off in terms of being in the choir like I did with Nadia. I resumed singing in a choir when she was 6 months old. So one possibility is that I'll stay at this church through December and then can visit others and make up my mind next spring/summer. I did really enjoy this choir, and Nadia does like this nursery.

Nadia has been sleeping in until 6:50am on a more regular basis lately. YAHOO! I was amazed that she slept almost 12 hours on Monday night and then on Tuesday her naps totalled 3 1/2 hours. Usually her total hours of sleep comes to 14 hours not 15 1/2! She slept almost 12 hours again last night, but her morning nap was only 1 hour this morning. I was really tired yesterday morning so it was excellent timing that she picked that day to have a long nap as I slept almost as long as she did. I didn't take a nap today since I got 9 1/2 hours of sleep last night. She's taking her afternoon nap right now, and when she wakes up we are going to the mall to shop the clearance racks for her brother! Hopefully I will be somewhat accurate in guessing what size he'll wear next summer, and hopefully there will still be a few cute items left on the clearance racks. Everything should be really cheap since it's almost September. Although I've always preferred shopping for baby girl clothing, knowing it's for my son makes shopping for baby boy clothing really exciting also. :-)

I've had fun working on the baby registries (aka "Christmas lists"). Most of the items are for our son, but some are also for Nadia. I haven't put clothes on either list, but obviously we need clothes for him as very little of what Nadia wore was gender neutral. Although I'm wanting to get a second crib (the one I thought we were going to get was missing pieces so I'm still searching), I am not planning on getting a 2nd highchair or pack 'n play. My sister is giving us a double stroller she doesn't want any more. I put a few toys on the registry that are more boy oriented, but most of the toys Nadia played with from birth to 12 months are gender neutral. For Nadia for Christmas I put a dollhouse (one meant for very young children), little table & chairs for her bedroom, a toychest for her bedroom, and a play kitchen. If you have any suggestions of things a girl ages 18-24 months would really enjoy, please let me know! She's blessed to have her birthday and Christmas 6 months apart. Unfortunately our son will have his birthday less than a month after Christmas. I'll do my best to still make it a very big deal for him each year! If there's anything you think I might be forgetting that one needs for a second baby or for one's first son, please let me know. I have to admit that prior to having kids it was really hard to come up with many items for our Christmas wish list. Since 2007 (when I was pregnant with Nadia), it has been a lot more fun, and it's been much easier to come up with lots of ideas. We don't mind at all that most of the Christmas gifts labeled for Paul or I are actually for our children. :-)

Our Son's Room

I bought our first house in January 2001; it had three bedrooms as did our 2nd home that we bought in 2004. During the time we lived in those two homes, we only used one of the three bedrooms. I made the mistake of turning one bedroom into a nursery in the summer of 2002 since we were ttc. I painted the walls, put up wallpaper border (Boyd's bear theme), bought a matching crib set, etc. I gave that crib set away when we moved in 2004. In our 2nd home we did actually use one of the other bedrooms for 2 1/2 months since Nadia arrived before we moved. Our current house has four bedrooms, and three have been used right from the start since we made one of them into an office for Paul. I hadn't decorated the fourth bedroom yet. We had a set of twin bunk beds in there which were used a couple of times by guests, but 99% of the time the door on that room stayed shut. Well that will be changing in a few months! For the first time since 2001 ALL the bedrooms will be used on a daily basis. YAY!

In February 2005 when we thought we might have an adoption match with a birthmother expecting a baby boy (whom we planned to name Ian Alexander), I had picked out a transportation theme for his nursery (in primary colors). Although I saw many very cute bedding sets in other themes (such as jungle animals), I still found myself wanting to go with the theme I had picked 4.5 years ago. As with Nadia's room, I don't want to pick a theme that is too babyish. I don't want him to outgrow it at say the age of four which is what I think would happen if I picked Winnie the Pooh or something like that. I also didn't want to go the sports route just in case our son happens not to be too crazy about sports. Animals would probably also be a safe bet, but since the kids' bathroom is in a monkey theme I thought I'd pick something different. Even if you narrow it down to primary colors/transportation theme there are MANY choices - construction vehicles, trains, fire trucks, cars, etc. Wow! In the end I think I'm going to go with Travel Time (by Bedtime Originals). I really liked most of the items - lamp, mobile, wall hangings, and border.

I'm not crazy about the valance that goes with it, and it didn't have a coordinating hamper, but I found a hamper & valance in another collection that I think go well with the Travel Time stuff. I found other curtains that were much cuter (also had a transportation theme), but it was hard to find one that seemed like the colors would go well together. I started a baby registry at Walmart and Babies R Us last night although I doubt that's necessary for a second child; it's probably one of those things you usually only do with your first. However, since Christmas is about one month before he's due, I thought the registries would serve as idea lists for family members as to what to get us for Christmas. The only bad part of going that route is I want to start decorating his room NOW. I don't want to wait until after Christmas! :-) We'll see if I have the patience to wait and see if I get any of the items as gifts, or if I end up just buying the stuff myself before then.

I'm now up to 2 acid controller pills a day. I took two yesterday (one every 12 hours), and I felt much better than I had the previous few days. At least I'm still at the point where 2 pills is enough. For much of my pregnancy with Nadia even with 2 a day I still had heartburn. I gained 2 pounds in the 11 days in between my last OB appt and my perinatologist appt. I am going to try to be more careful about what I eat. I also am planning to make an appt with Dr. A (who delivered Nadia) to see if she still thinks VBAC is a good option for me. If she does, I think I'll start seeing her instead and plan on delivering in the same hospital where I had Nadia. Hopefully this time we can avoid both a c-section and the NICU. :-)

BIG Day!

There are three reasons why today is a big day for our family. First, we found out that baby is a BOY. He was shy during the first part of the ultrasound as he was in a breech position with his legs crossed. Nadia was head down in every ultrasound, but that's not true of this little guy. Thankfully though he did let us get a few good looks between his legs toward the end of the ultrasound. Everything looked fine. They want me to come back at 24 weeks for one more ultrasound so they can thoroughly examine the heart. I am very excited that Nadia will have a brother! I am following the pattern of my two sisters who both had a girl first and then a boy. Now we need to pick a name as Deborah Marie will not work for a boy, LOL! I also want to start looking at options for decorating his room. I have been searching on Craigslist for a crib, and I finally found one a couple of days ago that was reasonably priced ($50 and that included the mattress). They live near Paul's family, and since Paul's dad has a truck, they can pick it up and bring it to our house the next time they come up.
Second, Nadia turned 14 months old today. I still consider her to have a 5 word vocabulary (with "up" being the word she says the most often), but I think that will change dramatically in the next month as she's now starting to try to repeat words when I ask her to say a certain word. She will say "up", "Mama," etc. on command if I ask her to say one of those words. She's still a very good eater and generally sleeps at least 14 hours a day (11-12 of those are at night). I know the morning nap probably won't last much longer, but so far she still seems to operate best with 2 naps a day. Pointing is one of her favorite ways to communicate her wishes. She enjoys waving "hi" and "bye," clapping her hands, and giving someone "five." The last 14 months with her have been sooo wonderful, and I look forward to seeing all the ways she'll grow in the coming months! The highlights of my days are seeing her smiles, hearing her laughter, and cuddling with her.

Third, the fall semester began today for Paul. He is taking his last doctoral class. He's not excited about taking this particular class, but thankfully he won't be a TA this semester (as he was last year), and he's only taking one class (whereas he took 2 a semester last year). He plans to take his comprehensive exams in the spring. I hope this class goes better than he thinks it will. My fall semester begins one week from today so I am enjoying the last week of my 3 week vacation.

Nursery Woes

I probably mentioned it before, but I really dislike "church shopping." When we moved to our new house last September, I visited 3 churches, picked one of those as my new church, and in January joined the choir at that church. There were times I wasn't convinced I had really found "the" one we should go to; so I decided when the choir was on a break in the summer I'd visit some other churches in the area. Since I dislike church shopping I still ended up going to the church I had been going to several times this summer, and some weekends we were away (at my parent's church in MD, etc.). Including the one I went to today, I've visited 3 other churches in this area this summer. One I immediately ruled out. The second I really, really liked the preaching, and the people were super friendly, but it was a small church (around 100) so there wasn't a choir. I liked the preaching at the one I went to today, and although it's also small, they do have a choir (not in the summer though so I didn't get to hear them yet).

The only problem we experienced today was that Nadia was very, very unhappy in the nursery. She cried when I first dropped her off, and when I went back to check on her 5-10 minutes later she was still screaming. So I took her into the service with me. That worked for awhile, but then she wanted to get down and run around. So I took her back to the nursery and stayed a bit until she was happily playing and then tried to sneak out behind her back. It didn't work. I checked back 10-15 minutes later and a lady had in her in her arms outside the church building, and Nadia was still screaming her head off. The woman said she was willing to keep Nadia outside the rest of the service, but I didn't want her to cry that long so I took her back in church with me. When Nadia was 6 months and younger it was fine to keep her in church with me, and when she gets older it will be fine again, but it's not a good plan when she's 1 year old. I don't really think it was anything about the nursery or the nursery workers but rather today she was for whatever reason really clingy, and of course this nursery and the ladies in it were unfamiliar to her. I plan to visit this church again. Hopefully Nadia will be happier in the nursery the next time.

Yesterday we had a nice visit with my friend, Joyce, and her family on our way to Paul's aunt's house. Joyce used to teach 2nd grade at the school where I was principal. I have many fond memories of things we did together including we both bought our wedding dresses at the same time (same shop) when a bridal store was having a $99 sale (her dress was originally over $700 and mine originally over $500). She got married 1 year before I did. She is exactly 2 days older than me so we always celebrated our birthdays together, and she grew up on Long Island so we made a few trips out there together as my dad has some relatives who live on Long Island. We haven't seen each other as often as we used to since she got married in 2000 and moved to Harrisburg. It was wonderful to be able to introduce her to Nadia yesterday and to see how much her two kids had grown since the last time I had seen them (ages 6 & 8).

Then we went to Aunt Debbie's house. She was very touched that if jellybean is a girl we're naming our baby after her. Uncle Bill said we are having a boy, and evidently every time he's made such a prediction (such as with his own 3 children) he's been correct. I'll find out tomorrow morning if his accurate streak has continued or not. I did the Chinese gender prediction thing before I found out Nadia was a girl, and it predicted girl. This time it says "boy." Of course all these "methods" have a 50% chance of being right. :-) It was nice to see Paul's mom's side of the family as we usually only see them in December or January at Aunt Deb's annual Christmas party. Nadia enjoyed eating her grandma's famous baked beans. I need to get her recipe!

A Little Pampering

Well it has been about 2 1/2 years since I had a professional manicure and about 1 1/2 years since I had a professional pedicure. I had decided a couple of weeks ago to get one today. I didn't want to get it before our trip to the Poconos since chlorine eats away nail polish, and I thought it would be nice to get it done before school started. I picked today since we're going to a party this afternoon with Paul's mom's side of the family (at his aunt's house south of Harrisburg). I got a manicure and had my toenails painted (not a full pedicure which saved me $13). I was starting to regret my decision when I saw the other ladies getting their calves and feet massaged. That's one of my favorite parts. Unfortunately the guy doing my manicure didn't put any lotion on my hands or massage them at all. That also is one of my favorite parts of a manicure! My fingernails haven't had nail polish on them for over a year so I'm actually adjusting to having red fingernails, LOL. I have painted my toenails ever since the weather was warm enough to wear sandals so red toenails doesn't look out of place to me.

I went while Nadia was napping. She was kind enough not to wake up until 6:50 the last two days (which meant she slept almost 12 hours). Yesterday that translated to a very short morning nap, but thankfully she slept from 8:50-10:20 this morning so she was asleep most of the time that I was out. I first went to a yard sale and bought her a pair of pjs for next summer (2T) for $1.50. There were MANY yard sales going on near our house, but I restrained myself from stopping at any others. It's funny because for the first 36 years of my life I never shopped at yard sales. Then I made a quick stop at the library before heading to get my nails done.

Yesterday 14 members of my family joined the 3 of us at our house for about 2 1/2 hours. I fed them lunch (ravioli, garlic bread, and blueberry crisp), gave my sisters and their hubbies tours of our house, and the kids enjoyed playing with Nadia's toys. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to play Boggle. Hopefully we can at Christmas, which is the next time we'll all be together hopefully. They are planning on coming up here as I'll be 36 weeks pregnant, and since that's when I gave birth last time I don't want to be in MD that late in the pregnancy. We do plan to travel to MD for Thanksgiving, but my sister and her family (who live in Chicago) won't be there.

My sister took lots of pics over the last week. She got a few really good ones of Paul, Nadia, & I. I'll post them once she has a chance to edit them and such. We didn't order the one of the 3 of us that was taken at Picture People. I put the new large group photo in our bathroom (with a different frame as the old frame didn't work with the new print), and I put the pose of my dad with his 4 grandsons in a frame on the refrigerator. Switching the frame worked out well as the white frame that used to be in the bathroom looked better in Nadia's bedroom than a frame I used to have in there. Yesterday my family helped us move two doll cabinets from what is now the spare bedroom down to the dining room. Monday we'll find out whether that room is going to be for the baby or Nadia!

Rides and Blueberries

Yesterday my sisters decided to head to an amusement park (the one that we used to live 10 minutes from before we moved). So Nadia & I met them there instead of at the resort. We left after being there 3 hours because it started raining. The rest of the family stayed another 2 hours, which proved to be a wise move, as the light rain stopped soon after we left. I was fearing it would turn into a downpour. Nadia went on one ride with Adam (see pics in yesterday's post). That didn't work; she cried. She went on two rides with me - helicopters and cars. Wendy got a couple of good pics of Nadia & I in a car. She did fine, but it didn't seem worth spending more $$ on her riding rides. I think she's still a little too young to really enjoy it. She did enjoy watching all the people walking around the park and sharing some black cherry soft ice cream with Mommy. She's a girl after my own heart. Ice cream is the only food that she cries over (tears and all!) when it's all gone. Daddy likes vanilla milkshakes, but other than that he doesn't eat ice cream. One time Nadia said the word "ice" when I was feeding her ice cream. I haven't counted that as a new word since she only said it once thus far. Her favorite word these days is still definitely "up;" we hear that many, many times a day!

In preparation for my family coming to our house today, I stopped at the blueberry farm yesterday evening so that I could make a recipe my cousin's wife had posted on her blog recently. I had to taste a little last night, and it's very yummy!