Annalise at 20 months

I can't remember why I started out writing out numbers as words in the titles of my update posts, but once I'd started I didn't feel I could stop.  For the sake of consistency, I had to title a post, "Annalise at seventeen months."  Well, no more.  I'm done.  I'll have to be inconsistent.  Writing out numbers is driving me crazy.

One thing that stands out about Annie this months is that she's grown longer and leaner.  She's just as tall as Delaney was last year, but skinnier.  (I know this because she's wearing the exact same jeans Delaney wore last winter, and they fit lengthwise, but are slightly loose in the waist.)  It's probably been happening gradually for months, but I think her sickness of a couple weeks ago, when she didn't want to eat for days, made us start looking anxiously at her legs and belly for signs of weight loss.  We noticed she was thinner, but I doubt it was the result of her being sick.  She's just losing her baby fat.  Her legs are still so adorable and I can't wait to see her in shorts again.

Thinner, but still squeezable

At first this was a happy month.  We had Christmas, and she was healthy and active and fun, full of smiles.  But then came the SICKNESS right after the New Year, that lasted a whole week, and that was no fun at all.  First Tim and Delaney got it, but they recovered fairly quickly.  Then Annie got it.  Right about the time I thought she was getting better, she got worse.  Much worse.  She had a hacking cough.  She was listless and drowsy, not wanting to eat or drink.  All she wanted to do was sleep.  Her eyes were watery, droopy and sad.  She ran a fever from time to time.  For about three days straight, she was only awake a total of three to four of every 24 hours.  Her lips got terribly chapped, and I'll never forget the morning I went into her room and found her with snot all over her face, and blood on her teeth.  I felt so bad for my poor baby!  Throughout the day, I coaxed and coaxed her to try this and that, food or drink.  Carmex helped a lot with the chapping, but I knew the real cause to be dehydration.  

Little by little, she got better.  On the morning of the bloody teeth, she started drinking more fluids.  Then she had  a few pieces of fruit at lunch.  But the funk she was in remained, and hung over our household like a dark cloud.  She had no interest in playing for a few more days.  Only rarely did we see her smile.  But she cuddled a lot with us.  Since she's not much of a cuddler usually, we had to at least be happy about that.

We are so glad to have our happy little girl back, the one who grabs onto Tim's hands and yells, "One.. two.. free!" so he'll lift her up into the air.  It's wonderful to see her dancing around to the songs in her Sesame Street book.  I don't even mind her going into the cabinet and rearranging all the containers and lids.  I'm just grateful she's back to her old self.  It's a relief to be getting out of the house again and seeing other people.  It was only one week, but it was a long one.

A year ago today: Annalise at eight months

Delaney at three-and-a-half

Oh Delaney, how we love you and how you drive us cra-a-a-zy.  We love you for the sweet, fun-loving, smart little person you are.  But you really, really, really need to stop all that whining.  It's not necessary.  We are happy to grant reasonable requests.  When you ask for juice, you get it.  When you ask us to help you turn on a movie, we will.  If it's a snack you want, you know we want you to have adequate nourishment.  Yes, I'll be glad to let you have a half a pear to yourself.  Or some raisins and goldfish.  But please, please, please don't ask for it in that whine like it's the end of the world, and don't repeat it a hundred times after I've already said yes.  It might take a minute, but I'm working on it.  We're ready to tear our hair out here!  OK, glad I got that off my chest.

Here are some things that make Delaney happy:
1) Going to school.  She LOVES school, and a two-week break was way too long.  She kept asking about it.  She finally started again the first Tuesday after the New Year, and she was thrilled.  I was relieved.  It makes me wonder, what am I going to do with her all summer long?  Summer camp?
2) "The bouncy place."  Where we live, we have no Gymboree or The Little Gym, or Kids-N-Motion.  We have New Bern Gymnastics, which has a few trampolines and a foam pit.  It has an open play time for ages 1 to 5 one Friday a month.  We go that once a month, and she asks about it all the rest of the month.  It was cancelled at the last minute on New Years Eve, and I thought I could get away with just not going and not saying anything about it.  But every day she asks when we're going to "the bouncy place."
3) Her dinosaurs, of course.

4) Making up stories and songs that don't make any sense to anyone but herself, but they sound so happy.

Here are some things that Delaney doesn't like:
1) Mealtimes.  Having to sit down and try to take a few bites of whatever horrible, nasty food we make her eat is no fun.
2) Quiet time.  But I insist on it on every afternoon because I don't know what I'd do without it.  Every now and again she sleeps.  For the most part, she just quietly makes a mess of her room.

Occasionally of late she wakes up at night, around midnight, crying.  Tim and I think it's funny that usually whatever's making her cry has to do with her dad.  But he never goes in there, only I hear her, and when I ask what's wrong, she usually says something about him.  "I don't want Daddy to go to work."  "I want Daddy to sleep in my room."  She really loves her daddy.  She's going to miss him when he leaves this summer.

Every now and again she melts my heart with a kind and loving gesture toward her little sister.  She'll offer her something from her plate that she sees Annie eying, or at bedtime she'll go in search of the perfect little stuffed animal to let Annie have in her room for the night.  Those moments more than make up for the stinginess she displays at other times.  Or the times she informs me that she doesn't "want Annie anymore."  I can't help but be amused that after almost two years of having a little sister, she still thinks it's an option to send her back.  Or that Annie continues to live under a roof with us because Delaney tolerates her.  Ha!  I can't wait to see what she thinks of a newborn.

I'll have to change my blog title

And that is just too bad because it took me a really long time to think of a title as clever as this one (haha).  We are expecting another little one around the end of July.  I am still a little bit in shock about this, even though we've known since a couple days before Thanksgiving.  We knew we wanted a third baby, but not one with this particular due date.  Tim is set to leave on the MEU in July, after all.  But about two days after we'd had our discussion about waiting to try until spring, I bought a dollar store pregnancy test (you have to ask for them at the counter now -- only a little awkward) and took it just to reassure myself.  The other line appeared instantly, even in the middle of the afternoon.  Not even a moment's hesitation.  Oops.

When I told Tim later that day, I was laughing and he couldn't tell that I was serious at first.  When he realized I was serious, he was giddy.  Throughout the rest of that evening and the next two days, from time to time he would just look at me and laugh, then high-five me.  I would roll my eyes at him, but high-five back.  Then I'd say, "I can't believe you did this to me!"

So far this pregnancy, the only symptom I notice is FATIGUE.  I loved my sleep before, but now I nap just about every day during the girls' nap/quiet time, and my eyes get heavy around 9:30 every night.  I think I've been able to stay up through one movie since finding out I was pregnant.  I have not been suffering with nausea this time, and I'm attributing it to a daily 100 mg of B6.  Or maybe my luck has changed.  I never had bad morning sickness with either of the other pregnancies -- just enough nausea and food and smell aversions to make eating a real chore.

I really miss spicy tuna rolls.  When we order sushi, I have to have all the things that DON'T contain raw fish.  So when we get sushi, I get to watch Tim eat the spicy tuna.  He told me next time he'll be sure to order two spicy tuna rolls so he can have one for me too.  Isn't that nice of him?  He already drinks my share of the wine.  He is a very thoughtful man.

We told our families at Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, we Skyped for the first time ever with my family while they were having their Christmas Eve celebration.  I wanted everybody there.  It was pretty funny.  My family, Skype rookies that they are, all had their faces mooshed together in front of the camera.  Everyone was talking at once, no one could get a word in edgewise.  (I think that's how our first Skype sessions were with Tim's family too.)  Twice I said loudly, "There's something we want to tell you."  Everyone just kept talking.  I looked over at Tim a couple times, like, now what?  Then he got a brilliant idea.  He held a piece of paper up to the camera that said, "Guess what?"  Then he flipped it over to where he had written, "We're pregnant."

On Christmas Day, after Carolyn and Karen's arrival, we Skyped with the rest of the family in Massachusetts, and told them.  Karen said, "I knew you were pregnant!  I could see it as soon as you walked up to me in the airport."  Just shy of 9 weeks at the time, I already had a little belly.  As my sister-in-law Sam pointed out, that's what happens when you're having the third baby!

I've been told I can expect many visits this summer after the baby arrives, and for that I am very grateful.  Everyone we've told is happy for us, and we know they think we're a little crazy too.

Yesterday I had my first prenatal appointment with my midwife.  We got to hear the baby's heartbeat for a few seconds, before he/she moved away.  I was 10 weeks 2 days yesterday, and the baby is still very tiny, so I was glad to be able to hear if for only a few seconds.  We also heard the baby move.  So it finally seems real.  I've gained four pounds.  Tonight I start prenatal yoga. Yay!

Christmas 2010

We had a lovely, peaceful and quiet Christmas right here in our house in North Carolina.  That's the first time we've ever not traveled to spend Christmas with one family or the other.  We'd made the decision this past summer that we were done traveling for awhile!  It was nice getting a real tree, and waking up in our own house Christmas morning, listening to Christmas music and watching the girls open their gifts.

On Christmas evening, Tim's mom and sister Karen flew into New Bern, and we all had the most delicious ham dinner ever, and then delicious tiramisu layer cake afterward (thank you, Tim!).  I don't normally eat an entire piece of any dessert, but I made an exception for that one.   After that, there were even more presents to open.  They stayed until the morning of the 30th.  The little girls were in heaven, having them to play with all those days.  And for me it meant, besides nice company, a few days of not hearing, "Mama.  Mama.  Mama.  Mama.  Mama.  Mama!"

Not too many pictures turned out, but here are a few:

Delaney frosting cookies with Tim on Christmas Eve

Dressed up for Mass on Christmas Eve.  I couldn't get Delaney to stop goofing around and take a nice picture.

Back home, waiting to Skype with Grandy, Papaw, and all the Schlossers

On Christmas morning, Delaney goes for the biggest gifts first.  One is a play kitchen for them to share.

The other is a cozy coupe!  The two of them fought viciously over it for the first few minutes of gift unwrapping.

I couldn't wait for Delaney to open those dinosaurs!

Delaney and Auntie Karen playing with Play-Doh.  They did all kinds of crafty fun stuff at this table.

Annie snuggles up with Grandma for a story.

And then it was over, just like that.  Grandma and Auntie Karen went home, and another round of crud came through our house.  A year is gone and another one has begun and it promises to be a crazy (but mostly good) one.  Happy New Year, everybody! 

Annalise at nineteen months

The 19th of the month really snuck up on me this time.  I almost missed it, with Christmas right around the corner.  So what's new with Annie..?

She's going through another little phase of separation anxiety.  She doesn't like to be taken to people's homes, and she clings to me thinking I'll leave her there.  She also didn't like it when I left her at the church nursery during Delaney's Christmas program, but she only cried for a few seconds.  I peeked in on her a few minutes later, and she was contentedly playing with some dolls.  When Tim went to pick her up later, the babysitter brought her to the window to hand her over, and as soon as she saw Tim, she burst into tears.  I gave her lots of hugs and kisses.  Maybe I should've just let her squirm on my lap through the Christmas program.

Guess what?  She finally got a couple new teeth!  She now has one more bottom tooth, and another tooth coming in farther back.  I try to remember to brush them at least twice a day.  I don't know if I mentioned in her last update, but she's got bad teeth.  If you look closely, her enamel is thin, and there are some dark spots on her teeth.  It looks like baby bottle rot, but she's never taken a bottle.  I have an appointment for her to see a pediatric dentist next month, and I'm worried about what they'll say.  I look at Delaney's pearly whites, and I wonder what went wrong?  I treated them both the same, same (sometimes lax) tooth-brushing habits, same food and drink.  I've never put either of them to bed with juice or milk.  But Delaney has good teeth and Annie has bad teeth.  The nurse-practitioner at the naval health clinic told me that I wasn't taking good enough care of her teeth and that's why they were the way they were.

My smile is pretty, but if you look closely, you'll see trouble.

I called my mom for reassurance, because I know she didn't follow us around with a toothbrush all day, and I didn't have a cavity until I was 28.  She said she thought that nurse-practitioner had some nerve telling me that.  That made me feel a little better, but I've still got a kid who has British teeth and I don't know how it happened.  My next thought was fluoride.  Maybe they're not getting enough of it.  But when I called the naval clinic asking for a prescription for the same sodium fluoride drops that had been prescribed for Delaney over a year ago (different pediatrician, different state), they acted like I was trying to poison my kids.  They said that since we have city water, they get enough fluoride.  When I said they don't drink very much water -- mostly milk or juice -- they said that nevertheless they get enough fluoride through the water we cook with.  (Nevermind that these kids barely eat anything most days..)  I will definitely feel better after talking to the pediatric dentist.  I just wish I could get her in sooner.  Yes, I know I'm a bad mommy for not having taken her when she turned a year.  I just didn't think a kid needed to go to the dentist until 2 at the earliest.  But rotting teeth are another matter.  Tim and I are about to have some huge dental bills, between Delaney and her future braces and Annie's tooth decay.  We'd better start a dental fund right along with the college fund.

She continues to talk more and more, and says, "Yeah" a lot in that deep, breathy voice that is so funny.  She loves to talk on the phone and on Skype, although she doesn't like to talk as much as smile a lot, so Skype is really best.  Here are the girls and their daddy Skyping with Grandpa.  At the end of that conversation, she waved and said, "Bye, Grandpa."  (At Tim's prompting) she said, "I love you."  It melted my heart.

She has been having some temper flare-ups lately.  When she decides she doesn't want to be strapped into her carseat this time, she'll arch her whole body and cry, making it very difficult for me to wrestle her in.  She throws little fits sometimes when she's tired and in need of a nap.  But they're very seldom and short-lived.  Still, I know that 2 is coming in a few months, and when that happens, she'll probably do some things to appall me.  What will it be?  Poop on the walls?  Full-blown tantrums in public?  Tim thinks that she will be a real trouble-maker, way worse than Delaney ever was.  I don't know if I agree with that.  We will both see.

I will leave you with this photo of her taken by Delaney.  It is not a view of her that is normally photographed, but I think it's beautiful.

A year ago today: Annalise at seven months

Also: White Christmas  All told, we ended up seeing 30 plus inches of snow last year in Quantico.  Incredible!

Christmas card and stuff

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I am quite pleased with how our Christmas card turned out.  It was a joy to put together.  I was not quite so pleased with how the girls' recent photo shoot went (picky mom that I am), but not to worry -- I had plenty of awesome photos to choose from, that my sister Grace took at Cape Cod.  Thanks again, Grace!

And thanks to Shutterfly for the great deal I got.  I am hoping for a return of that deal next year.

Now the cards are all mailed, and Christmas is getting closer.  I love how our own little traditions are starting to take shape.  Almost every night, we sit down on the couch in the glow of the Christmas lights (multi-colored this year, per Delaney's request) and watch a Christmas movie together.  I need to browse Netflix today and add to our repertoire, because lately it's just been either Merry Madagascar or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, both of which we recorded from TV.  But it's so much fun to watch with these kids, especially when Delaney gets scared of the Abominable Snow Monster, and hides behind her dad.

We all trimmed the tree together, even though it was a little crazy with Annalise.  She only broke one ornament, though, and it wasn't an important one.  Yesterday our Elf on the Shelf arrived.  So far, Delaney is a little weirded out by it and Annie doesn't even notice it, but I thought it could still be a fun tradition eventually.  Maybe next year.

This Saturday we're going to Raleigh to see Disney on Ice Toy Story 3, and I'm looking forward to that.  I think the girls are going to love it.  We're leaving early in the morning so we can be there when a real mall opens its doors, and hopefully we'll find the girls some cozy Christmas pajamas and somewhat festive dresses.  Good times!

Delaney at three years, five months

Pretending is Delaney's  favorite thing to do.  She never misses an opportunity to play pretend.  One time, she  was on the potty going number 2, and I asked her if she was done.  She said, "No, this poopy needs some family."  "He does?"  "Yeah, here come some babies... and here comes the daddy...  Mama, why are you laughing?"

Out in the yard, she'll say, "You can see dinosaurs in your imagination."  Pointing to the trees, she'll say, "Look, it's a brachiosaurus!"  Brachiosaurus is her favorite.  In the children's section of the library, I chuckled when I heard her tell another kid, "I'll be back in a jiffy.  I gotta track some dinosaurs!"  She's still on her dinosaur kick.  Santa will certainly be bringing dinosaurs this year.

We had Delaney's first ever parent-teacher conference this month.  Ms. Melissa showed us the work Delaney's been doing with letters.  We got to see where she traced the first couple letters in the row well, and then just started scribbling.  She loses interest quickly, which is to be expected.  They described Delaney in her progress report as a sweet and loving child who recognizes all the letters, numbers and shapes they've covered so far.

Tim and I were told that sometimes Delaney has trouble with listening and following instructions, especially when it comes to -- ahem -- clean up time.  We said, "No way, not our kid!":)  But at least it's not just Delaney.  One day I walked in to pick Delaney up and Ms. Mary was telling all the kids they'd better help clean up or there'd be no toys on Thursday.  I don't know why I thought preschool teachers have special techniques for getting kids to cooperate, and they didn't have to resort to using the same threats I do.

Rarely is Delaney fully dressed if she's at home.  She just loses her clothes gradually while running around the house -- a shoe here, a sock there, and on and on until she's in just her underwear.  Our thermostat is only set to 68.  It makes me cold just to look at her!

Delaney will happily play with her sister in the playroom for a long time, but she always invites me to come up and "stay for a little while."  We'll play with puzzles together, they'll dance to the tune of one of the music-making toys, or maybe have a little game of hide-and-seek.  I might have other things that need to be done, but I try to remember how important it is to drop everything else and just be with them sometimes.  A co-worker of mine told me when I was pregnant with Delaney to remember to have fun with them when they still want to have fun with me.  I revisited that long-ago conversation recently while reading through Delaney's pregnancy journal, and that advice meant so much more to me now than it did when I was in the nursery-planning stage.  I made a little promise to myself to play more often when Delaney asks me to.

A year ago today: Delaney at two years, five months