I can’t even believe it!! It seems like yesterday that I was 13 weeks pregnant… time is truly flying by. My aunt told me that every new pregnancy flies by faster than the last – and that by my fourth pregnancy (haha, she must be delusional if she thinks I’m doing this two more times, HAHA. or maybe God is laughing at me for saying that…) it hardly begins before it’s over.
Anyways, I can’t believe I’m already at 16 weeks. Well, 15 or 16 weeks. The baby is about a week behind how far along I’m supposed to be – which probably just means it will be a tiny baby but I’m a tiny person & I come from tiny people and Hubby’s mom isn’t much bigger than me anyways, so tiny is okay. The baby is approximately the size of an avocado!! That seems so HUGE to me!!! I’m definitely showing so I’m sure the baby is indeed the size of an avocado.
I’ve been feeling the little one moving around inside my belly for quite a few weeks now. Not every day do I feel the flutter, but most days I do. I made an artichoke-olive dip the other day and the baby went WILD when I started eating it. That was fun to feel. The kicks aren’t strong enough yet for Hubby to really feel them, but he says he felt one the other day. I’m sure in a few weeks it will be much easier to feel the kicking.
I’ve been really into ‘cooking’ lately. Mainly things like dips and cookies. Teehee. I used to work at a bakery/cafe in the Big City so my attempts of late have been to recreate their recipes (“secret” recipes) for myself. My next thought is to start a petition for them to ‘write’ a best-recipe book. For my own benefit, of course. Haha. And the benefit of all us bakery girls who now live across the country. I sure can’t drive 350 miles every day for lunch… or my craving-whims. I haven’t done any dinner prep as of late. I feel badly for Hubby but by the time dinnertime rolls around… I’m exhausted. We’re heading to a BBQ at a friend’s house tonight and tomorrow night Hubby will be a bachelor party (boo.) so maybe Sunday I’ll suck up the tired & make dinner. A pot roast would be easy. I loooooove my crock-pot. I can’t believe I only started using one after I got married. I could totally have handled crock-pot cooking when I was a single gal. Maybe in my next life.
My sisters are coming to visit next month. I’m very excited to see them. I miss them a lot now that I don’t live in the Big City anymore. Our parents won’t let them drive down for fears they’ll be “raped, mutilated, and thrown in a ditch” (no really, our mother thinks that, truly she does). *sigh* They’re way over-protective. My sisters are heading into their last year of high school & will soon be off to college…… I of course, think it’s absurd that they aren’t allowed to drive down here, but whatever – I’m just glad they’re coming down! 🙂 We’re not planning to do much, but I am planning on enlisting them to help paint. The original plan was to paint the baby’s room but… we won’t know by then if it’s a boy or a girl and since I want the room to be blue (I think) for a boy… we’re going to paint our main room instead!! I’m super excited as I’ve been waiting since before we moved in to paint this main room. I’m going with Benjamin Moore color… oops, can’t find my color list. It’s a golden yellow, that’s bright, not too bright, not mustardy, not baby yellow… just perfect. It’s very soothing and I think it will really help open up this room. Not that it needs opening with our 20 foot ceilings and one sweeping great room feel to it… there aren’t many windows and in it’s current greyish-blue state – not very cozy feeling. I’m really excited to get it painted AND to get new sconces for the lights. Our current ones are really tacky early 90’s yucky sconces… and I had insisted that my children would never set their eyes upon them but somewhere between being pregnant with twins and having twin babies – we never got around to changing them. Then came the day when I found the PERFECT sconces only to discover they cost nearly $150 each!!! I have good taste, what can I say? Haha. So, I’m still looking for good-looking sconces. It seems neither Lowe’s nor Home Depot have anything that I like – and neither does Ebay. I’ll keep looking until I find the perfect ones. If not, we’ll just have to pony up for the expensive lights. I AM insistent that this new baby will not lay eyes upon these ugly sconces.
The girls are doing great. I hardly write about them! 🙂 They’re able to go up and down the stairs with very minimal help, if at all. This is going to be of huge help to me when the new baby comes. I’ve also been working a lot on picking up toys before naptime, before bedtime, and when it generally gets too messy for my head to think straight! They’re still learning how to stay on task- but it’s great that I’m not the only one picking up their toys during the day. Juniper is finally saying “yeah” (no definitive yes, but yeah works just the same as far as I’m concerned) instead of ‘no’ for both yes & no. It’s been very helpful that she’s figured out to say ‘yeah’ when she wants something, and ‘no’ when she doesn’t. When she was saying ‘no’ for everything – it really became a crapshoot figuring out what she wanted. She’s very particular, ornery, assertive, and just like me. I’m glad I’m just like her so I can be more patient with her – sometimes I’m not so great at that. And I feel badly for yelling so much at her but she’ll learn not to touch the garbage cans, open my kitchen drawers, or bite her sister. Someday… haha. What else is Junie doing these days? She’s very interested in this animal puzzle we have. It’s a barnyard animal, match the animal to the animal shape puzzle. I’m pretty sure the brand is Melissa & Doug. They’ve got some great puzzles and educational kid toys. You can check them out here. Their toys are available in lots of stores so you don’t have to get it online. We’re big fans, I suppose I’m plugging them. Haha. So she’s really into this animal puzzle, so much so that I’m considering buying a few more. I say considering for the plain & simple fact that toys are very trendy these days so this may be a passing love for her. She’s still really into the big Lego blocks. She & her sister make lots of towers with them and other shapes and are always very proud of their creations. Magnolia is really starting to pick up on language. Both girls are but she seems to be faster on learning new words. It seems like every day she’s saying something new! She’s also becoming quite the picky eater. One day she loves cheese, the next she won’t touch it. Same goes for nearly everything we give them, except for Macaroni & Cheese. I finally figured out that she wasn’t saying “Ernie” when she was pawing at the fridge, she was saying “Roni” (macaroni….)! I’m so glad I figured that one out, I was getting confused. 🙂 But now she also says “Ernie”, it’s more like “Ear-nie”. Haha. And she says “Cookie” (cookie monster). Super cute but their favorite TV character is “Caillou”. This was one of their first words, believe it or not, and every day they spend about a total of one hour saying “Caillouuuuu, Caillouuuuuu”. They LOVE his show. So funny, why is he bald at age four? Does anyone know?
Both Juniper & Magnolia have really gotten into coloring. We found a whole cupfull of colored pencils on our third floor & gave them an old Crate&Barrel box to draw on. They LOVE IT. And they’re so intensely concentrating while they draw. It’s really sweet and as someone who dabbles in the art herself… it really touches me that they seem to enjoy it so much as well. They lie on their stomachs grasping the little pencils in their hands and scribbling all sorts of craziness on the flattened box. It’s almost full of color now and of course I’ll be saving it to hang up somewhere. I’m a fan of the abstract art, and especially my own kids’ art, so it will surely find a place somewhere! 🙂 I’ve saved EVERY drawing they’ve made so far. I know, I’m nuts. Maybe I’ll stop saving everything at some point…. but I highly doubt it. I think they’re sweet little drawings. Both girls really enjoy when I take their hands and help them write their names or other words. I think it really fascinates them. They can recognize their own names already – I’m not going to say they can read their own names, but they definitely point out where it is when I ask. I can’t wait to move onto finger painting. While messy it shall be, it will be fun to see.
The girls are also really really really really into Sleeping Beauty. I’m trying to school them in the Magic of Disney every week. We own Sleeping Beauty & Finding Nemo (that’s Disney, right?? haha) & Pinnochio, but I’ve rented Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmations, and as soon as Cinderella comes back in the store (fingers crossed) I will bring that one home for them. I suppose I should just pony up and get them all off Ebay. I’ll have to wait until the next time Hubby makes a big deposit in my account and just buy them “under-the-table”. Muahahaha. He’s not a cheapo but I feel bad buying things like movies when we could really use the money on other stuff. But I want my kids to enjoy Disney as much as I do. Anyways, so they really LOVE Sleeping Beauty and I’m glad about that. They enjoyed Little Mermaid a LOT (I have it on video at my parents house… but I should really just get my own copy for here on DVD) and sort of like 101 Dalamations. That Cruella’s a little creepy though. I’m not a fan of this Disney Vault stuff. I know it’s probably good for THEM but it stinks that my kids can’t enjoy all the movies I used to enjoy as a kid because they’re simply not available. And like Cinderella for example – the guy at the movie store said that they hope it gets returned but because of the Disney Vault, people tend to never return them just so they can get keep the movie. Jerkos.
Okay. So Juniper just brought me a roll of paper towels. And by roll of paper towels, I mean a shredded mess of about 100 paper towels & the empty cardboard roll. Also presented to my nose, is the lovely stench of turd. Fabulous. Must mean it’s time for diaper changes and a nap for these two gingers.
‘Till next time dear readers…adieu. 🙂
The Unexpected World of Mommyhood 