Dollhouse

A few days ago I purchased Nadia's Christmas gift on eBay. I got her this Fisher Price dollhouse as well as some of the furniture that they sell separately. I hope it's something she really enjoys playing with over the next few years. When I was 12 years old, I made my sisters (ages 8 & 9) a dollhouse. I believe the box I used was a large Pamper's box (my brother was a baby). I remember covering it with contact paper, decorating the rooms, and creating some furniture. I also remember saving up my money to buy the people and some furniture. It was one of the most expensive items I had ever saved up to purchase. I have no idea how much the furniture actually cost, but to a child my age - it was a lot of money. Buying birthday and Christmas presents has been something I've really enjoyed doing for as long as I remember, and I remember in particular how excited I was for that Christmas to come around. After investing so much time, energy, and money (at least it was a lot for a 12 year old who received money about 5 times a year), I was very anxious to see my sisters' reaction when they opened their present. I'm not very artsy/craftsy, so this was one of the few handmade gifts I gave someone. The other exception would be that I did give my mom a few gifts that I had cross-stitched over the years. I'm not sure what eventually became of the dollhouse I made, but I do remember coming across it in a bedroom closet many years later. I look forward to playing with Nadia with her first dollhouse in less than 3 months!

The last two nights I had trouble teaching for 2 1/2 hours straight. Last night I sat in a chair for about half of the class as I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn't sit down. It was awkward teaching from that position so I sent an email this morning requesting a stool for that classroom. I don't normally sit while teaching, but it seems I need to take it easy right now. It wasn't until late in the 3rd trimester that I sat some while teaching when I was pregnant with Nadia. I am grateful I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. It's my 24 week ultrasound with a perinatologist. I am thankful that my friend, Donna, can watch Nadia while I'm at the appt, and I'm also looking forward to having some time to visit with her.

Happy Girl

As I mentioned earlier, Nadia was very fussy on Saturday. Well thankfully she was back to her usual happy self yesterday, and that's true today as well. What a difference a little extra sleep makes! Saturday night she slept 12 hours and 15 minutes, and last night she slept 11 hours and 45 minutes. Let me tell you I really like not getting until after 7am! I would be thrilled if that became the norm, at least until her brother is born. She also took 2 naps yesterday (compared to only one on Saturday), and I think that helped as well.

She definitely understands the concept of "wet" as on Saturday night we had a torrential downpour at one point, and she said, while looking out the window, "wet" to which her parents heartily agreed that it was definitely wet outside. It's been raining quite a bit the last 3 days (is raining right now) so our little girl hasn't been able to play outside, which has been another reason she's shed a few tears lately.

Her newest word is "Bob." I am very glad that "book" came before something related to the tv (VeggieTales). We do let her watch VeggieTales once a day, and I enjoy the cuddle time, although both Paul and I now have the silly songs running through our heads all the time. She says "book" most often when we are rocking her before naps and bedtime when she wants us to read her another book, and she points to the tv and says "Bob" when she wants to watch VeggieTales. She asks for Bob more than once a day, but 99% of the time we only let her watch it once a day.

PTL, I haven't had any contractions since Saturday night and haven't seen any more blood since yesterday morning. Paul thought we'd be making a trip to the hospital yesterday, but he was glad to be wrong.

Good News/ Bad News

The good news is that I woke up feeling better than I've felt in about a week. I had energy, wasn't nauseous, and hadn't had any contractions in more than 12 hours. It was also the first night I got a really good night's sleep in awhile as I went to bed early and Nadia slept 12 hours and 15 minutes straight. Woohoo! I was dressed for church and had Nadia dressed as well (see photo at left), but the bad news is that then I discovered some blood. I called the OB resident on call at the hospital, and she said in light of the contractions on Friday and Saturday and the bleeding today, that if I had any more bleeding or any more contractions (the four an hour rule was going out the window in light of the blood), that I was to call back and they'd have me come in to the hospital. So Nadia & I changed clothes and stayed home in case we needed to be making a trip to the hospital. Thankfully, I haven't had any more bleeding or contractions. Hopefully that will continue to be the case.

Nadia learned a new trick today. She now can make the "touchdown" signal with her arms upon command, and sometimes she initiates it first and takes great delight when Mommy and/or Daddy follow her lead. :-)

Contractions

I haven't felt well the last four days. On Wednesday I attributed it to eating at Long John Silver's for lunch. I go there maybe twice a year for a fish sandwich and hush puppies. I felt so lousy the rest of the day that I made a mental note to make sure I didn't go there again during the rest of the pregnancy. Although I was very careful about what I ate on Thursday, I still had a lot of nausea. I thought maybe the "morning" sickness was back, which wasn't a pleasant thought. Friday I continued to be nauseous. I almost didn't go to faculty meeting in the afternoon. They served scones at the meeting, and actually My stomach felt better after eating one. Go figure. However, in general I felt much worse yesterday. In addition to the nausea, I have had a bad headache and sporadically have been having really strong contractions, the kind that wrap around and cause your belly and back to be in a lot of pain. I am not sure if it was just the physical pain or because they were scaring me, but several times they brought me to tears. I contemplated calling and/or going to the doctor yesterday. Late last night I remembered that drinking water can help sometimes. I started drinking more water, and that did help some.

This morning, the contractions were still very painful; so I called my new OB's office. They instructed me to call the OB resident on call at the hospital. I spoke with her, and she wanted to know how many contractions I was having an hour. I hadn't been timing them; so she asked me to time them for one hour and call her back. In the first 15 minutes I had two, but then I felt fine the rest of the hour. When I told her I only had 2 that hour, she said she wasn't concerned. She told me to call back if at any point I had 4 or more in one hour. I've been drinking LOTS of water; so if dehydration was the problem, hopefully they'll totally go away. I didn't have any that hurt this much until a couple of days before I had Nadia. It's much scarier to have them at 23 weeks than 36 weeks. Of course #1 I am scared for our son's health; he'd have about 50% chance of surviving if I gave birth at this stage. That percent skyrockets up in the next 3 weeks. #2 I am scared of needing to go on bedrest for an extended period of time. Of course that's not nearly as bad as losing a baby, but it still isn't something I'm wanting to experience. Both of my sisters were on bedrest for a significant portion of their 2nd pregnancies due to preterm labor. I remembered that today. I don't want to follow in their footsteps in that regard although I have followed in their footsteps in that both of them had a girl and then a boy. Of course it is reassuring to know that both of them avoided giving birth prematurely with those pregnancies.

To add insult to injury, Nadia also doesn't seem to be feeling well. I am not sure if she's teething or what the problem is, but she has had a really hard time sleeping. She didn't get to sleep until about 8:30pm last night (an hour later than usual) and then she woke up at 5:15 (an hour earlier). We let her cry and thankfully at 5:45 she fell back asleep. She also didn't sleep when we attempted her morning nap at 9:15, and she only slept 80 minutes when we put her down at 1pm. She was super fussy today, and she doesn't like the last bottle of Tylenol I got her whereas normally she gladly consumes the Tylenol. Hopefully we'll both be feeling better tomorrow!

15 Months Old

The first picture was taken on July 2, 2008 when Nadia was 10 days old. She weighed about 5 1/2 lbs. The photo below was taken today; at 15 months old she weighs about 24 lbs. Sometimes I feel sad that she's not a baby any more, but most of the time I enjoy watching her learn and grow. Isn't she adorable? I know I'm biased, but we get enough comments when we're out and about that I know I'm not the only one who thinks she's super cute!

It's not a very nice way to celebrate, but today she's getting the first half of her flu shot. Last year they ran out of the vaccine before she got the second half. Hopefully this time she can get both doses. Unfortunately her appointment is at a time that lately has been in the middle of her second nap; when I scheduled this appointment that wasn't the case. We shall see if she gets her second nap today or not. At the drive-thru at the bank this morning, I was given a sucker for the first time. I plan to take it to the doctor's office as a little sugar might cheer her up after her shot.

Autumn is Here

Fall officially began yesterday evening; so today is officially the first full day of the fall season. Since I'm in the field of education, I associate the start of fall with the start of school. In two days the fourth week of this semester will be complete. In terms of the weather, we have had days that felt like fall, but that's certainly not true today as it's 83 degrees out right now! I am not complaining although I also enjoy fall temperatures and love to watch the leaves turn colors.

Nadia & I went to Walmart this morning. Two things on my list that I didn't end up getting were black patent shoes for Nadia and maternity clothes. They only had one style of black patent shoes for toddlers, and they had some purple in them. They were pretty, but I just want plain black patent shoes so they'll go with more of her dresses. At first I thought I'll need to head to the mall or Target, but then it hit me to look on eBay. Hopefully I can get a cute pair of size 5 black patent shoes and save a few bucks. Baby clothes were in the maternity section at Walmart, and when I asked where the maternity clothes were now located, I was told they didn't carry them any more. I don't know if that refers to Walmart in general or just this one store. During my last pregnancy, Walmart was the only store within 45 minutes of our house that sold maternity clothes. Thankfully there are several stores within 15 minutes of our current house that carry maternity clothes. Walmart was cheaper though.

Yesterday my department chair asked me to attend a committee meeting being held today. Although saying "no" doesn't come easily to me, that's what I said. If I had gone in for the meeting today, I'd have been on campus 5 days in a row since I have faculty meeting this Friday. Nadia is already spending more time at Sarah's than usual this week, and I didn't want to have another day where my round-trip commute is about equal to the amount of time I'm on campus (which will happen on Friday).

Item #2

Well I think the order I've bought things for our son's room is probably very unique. My first purchase was the dumptruck trashcan. Yesterday the second item came in the mail - a tissue cover I bought on eBay. I'll be picking up the third item tomorrow at Walmart - the wallpaper border. That's probably not as unusual as a trashcan and tissue cover. I wanted to take the border with us when we go to the store to pick out the paint color for the room.

Last night Nadia woke up and was screaming at 2:54am. I let her cry a few minutes, but when I realized she was not going back to sleep, I gave her some Tylenol and let her snuggle with me in our bed for 25 minutes before I put her back in her crib. Thankfully she only cried a couple of minutes before going back to sleep. I am not sure if she is teething or what caused the problem, but she doesn't normally wake up in the middle of the night. I had gone to bed at 10pm, which is later than usual for me; so I was really dreading getting up at 6am in light of being up for about 40 minutes in the middle of the night. Thankfully she slept until 7:45am. I think that's a new record! She had gone to bed at 7:15pm; so even with being up for a bit around 3am she still almost got 12 hours of sleep. Yahoo! I am not sure if today will be a one or a two nap day. I just put her down for her morning nap - about 2 hours later than usual due to the fact she got up so much later. If she takes an afternoon nap today, she'll have to take it at Sarah's house.

She's spending more time than usual at Sarah's this week. Yesterday I dropped her off 15 minutes earlier than normal as I was scheduled to observe another faculty member at 3:00. Today I have to drop her off 75 minutes earlier than normal as I have a meeting at 2:00 and then another faculty observation at 3:30. She usually on goes to Sarah's on Monday and Tuesday, but this week she'll also be going on Friday as I have a faculty meeting at 2:00 on Friday. Thankfully she doesn't cry any more when I take her to Sarah's; she's back to being very excited at the sight of Sarah and/or her 3 year old daughter, Abbey.

Our son can now kick me hard enough that it can be felt from the outside. The timing hasn't been right for Paul to feel it yet, but hopefully he'll be able to feel his son kick in the very near future. For whatever reason it's not as exciting to him as it is to me.

Adjectives

Normally the majority of a child's first words are nouns. It makes sense as they are very concrete whereas many other words are rather abstract. Of course there are a few exceptions as "hi," "bye," and "no" are first words for many children. At first it surprised me that "hot" was one of Nadia's first words, but then I realized that is the word she uses for "bagel" so really she's using it as a noun. I am pleased at how nicely she says the word "hot," but really that's not the right word. It does amuse me that the first food word she said was for bagel as although she likes them (she's eaten 1/2 a bagel a day the last few days), bagels aren't her favorite food by any means. Yesterday though she correctly used an adjective. We had been playing outside (barefoot), and when we came in I was washing her feet in the sink. After I pulled her foot out of the flow of water, she said "wet." Good job, Nadia!!! I am very pleased with her enunciation, particularly of words ending in a "t" sound.

Yesterday Nadia didn't get her morning nap due to Sunday School & church. Thankfully her afternoon nap was 2 hours 20 minutes long, and considering she slept 10 minutes in the car that means her nap time was as long as the 2 naps put together were on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I was concerned it would cause a problem today, but she's now taking her 2nd nap. So it's nice to know we can have days where she just has one nap now and then. I only wish she'd get back to sleeping at least 11 hours at night. The last 4 mornings she's woken up between 5:45-6:00 although she's not been going to bed until closer to 7:30 most nights.

Friday night Paul's parents picked up a crib for us that I had seen listed on Craigslist for $50. Now we just need to get a mattress, and our son will have a place to sleep. It will be fun to turn that spare bedroom into a boy's room! All of the dolls are out of that room, and he now has a dumptruck trashcan, but that's all I've done so far. My due date is now a little less than 4 months away! For some odd reason my new OB moved my EDD up to 1/18. He said he knew that was based on ultrasounds and not my egg retrieval, which makes ZERO sense to me. I've now been given 3 different EDD's ranging from 1/18-1/21. I am sticking with 1/20 in my mind and fully know that he'll come when he wants to come although I hope not as early as Nadia did.

Little Cheerleader

I know that the Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the teams in the NFL who don't have cheerleaders, which frankly is perfectly fine with me since some of the outfits the other teams' cheerleaders wear aren't what I'd consider "modest." However, I have been wanting to dress my little girl in such an outfit, and Paul's mom, who actually is an Eagles fan, bought this for Nadia this summer. Today was her first time wearing it. I am going to put white tights on her, and I wish I had a pair of black patent shoes that fit her. I will have to get some the next time I'm at Walmart. I love her brown shoes, but black shoes would go much better with this outfit!

No Sympathy

Yesterday I was attempting to lie down on the floor of the family room so I could give Nadia an airplane ride. Unfortunately I misjudged how close I was to the wall, and my head smacked the corner of the wall. It hurt A LOT. I said "Ow!" and choked back a couple of sobs. I was afraid if I cried that would upset Nadia. Boy was I wrong. She started laughing hysterically. I sat up and was trying to get my bearings straight, and she continued to laugh. I had to remind myself that she didn't have a clue what was going on as otherwise I was tempted to feel offended that she was laughing at my pain. My head throbbed even throughout the night when I woke up, but thankfully it feels fine today.


Paul was hoping to get home before Nadia went to bed last night, and it seemed possible since they planned to leave Toronto at 10:30am. Unfortunately, he didn't actually get home until 9:45pm, which happened to be even after I had gone to bed. Since he caught a cold while he was away, he slept in another bedroom. Nadia & I were very glad to see him this morning. She definitely remembered who he was. :-) This conference is held every other year, and they rotate continents. The last one was held in Japan, and the next one will be in northern Italy. I hope there's a way we can join him for that one as although Paul & I went to Italy a few years ago, the farthest north that we went was Venice. My brother might be moving to Milan in the future; that will give us another reason to travel to northern Italy someday. Speaking of traveling, we have invited my parents to join us on our family vacation next year, and we have selected which week we'll go (3rd week of May). Now we just need to decide where to go!

Rock collecting is SO much fun!


Nadia wishes that Mommy would let her stay outside ALL day long!

Kids are so creative in their use of objects - a pail becomes a chair!