Uncchris!

This has been the broken record playing in our house the past week.  Daniel's brother Chris (Uncle Chris or Uncchris!) has come to see us for a little while before he starts a new job!  Hollie adores him.  She took a little while to warm up to him, especially since he arrived late (after bedtime) and when Hollie woke up in the morning she found him in the kitchen instead of her daddy, but ever since then she has been like a second shadow.

A few updates:

I'm feeling good.  Big, but good.  When I sit too long my legs start feeling super heavy (which I don't remember from last time), but getting out for walks and exercising as often as possible have been helping with that.  And my back huuuurts...but what else is new, right?  It's a brief, shooting pain...sometimes even when I put a foot wrong.  Youch!  I recently started feeling hungry all the time, which didn't happen until much later with Hollie (and when it did I put on weight fast), so I'm like, oh crap!  I'm trying to have healthy snacks, or see if I'm actually just thirsty, or even just wait to see if the hunger goes away in a minute or two (which it does sometimes!)(not starving myself, don't worry).  As far as I can tell, my weight gain has been right on track, so I'm thankful for that.

I guess the reason I haven't written at all lately is because my head has been somewhere else, and I can't write about our mundane family life when this kind of stuff is on my mind.  Wish I could tell you more, but we're waiting to find out something definitive.  All I want to do is sit by the phone and sweat bullets, but I have a toddler who pulls my attention away occasionally.  Daniel has a great opportunity at work.  If he doesn't get it (or decides not to take it) it's no big deal, so don't worry - we're not stressing over anything potentially bad.  If it does happen and I get to tell you about it, then it will make sense why I'm going crazy over it.

Speaking of toddler, we've got a full-fledged one around here lately.  Some days (becoming most days), man, Hollie will fight tooth and nail about something...anything...and then later, fight about the opposite.  Like she really really really wants juice.  And then she really really really wants water.  Or NOOOO I don't want a shirt on!!!   And then later NOOOO don't you DARE take my shirt off!!!  Unfortunately, Daniel and I appear to be slow learners in this game.  We've found that by being patient, catching her in the right mood at the right moment (some pre-planning on our part helps), not fighting fire with fire, and the big one - choosing our battles, we've been able to avoid the meltdown...sometimes.  Still learning, yes, we are.  The not-fighting-fire-with-fire and the not-staying-mad-after-tantrum's-over parts have been the toughest for me, but I feel like I'm learning a little everyday and making improvements (to my own mindset) one step at a time.  I do have all the motivation in the world, after all.  She is sooo loving, when she wants to be!  She even pats your back when she gives a big hug...I love it!

Another big one - we've been making an effort to give her what she wants when she asks nicely (even if it's something that not ordinarily allowed)(but within reason).  I guess that falls under choosing your battles.  It's funny how we complain that her answer to everything is no-no-no! but sometimes we're just as bad.  Hoping this strategy has some long-term effect.  Also, we try to turn our no's into yes's: No, we're not going to have a bath now, but we're going to have one right after dinner.  And 9 times out of 10, she does remember...and reminds you!

Toddlerhood really is amazing, though.  She's become so demanding, but in a cute way!  She completely takes the lead: tells you where to sit, what toy to hold, what to do with it, etc.  She has a pretend blood pressure cuff and stethoscope, and one of her favorite things to do is have you lay down so she can put the cuff on you and "listen" to you everywhere!  It blows my mind sometimes.

Another funny thing:  when we're getting dinner ready, she sees all the food out and tells us she's hungry (hungee!), and we tell her don't worry, dinner will be ready soon!  Then she immediately climbs up in her chair, buckles herself in, and tells us about every 30 seconds that she ready to eat (ready eat!).

Her speech is growing in leaps and bounds.  Starting to string words together and everything!  However, she does tend to repeat things without really knowing what they mean, so it's tough to really gauge what she knows.  She also tends to use the same pronunciation for similar words, like monkey and blanket (mankie) and kitchen and chicken (just chicken, but ending with -on instead of -en: chick-ON!).  Her counting has taken two steps forward and one step back...she started repeating "one" and then weeks later added "two" (and she would sing "one-two-one-two-one-two!") and just recently added "three"...except that now sometimes it's "two-three-one"!  Uh-oh.  She knows and recognizes the music of Glee, one of our favorite TV shows (she calls is gee!).  The soundtrack for season one is the most requested CD in our collection!  Yeah, we might be kind of proud of that.  :)

If we're talking about more traditional kids' music, The Itsy-Bitsy Spider song (neebee spider) is her favorite, with the hand motions, of course.  Second favorite would be the Elmo song (youtube video here), rewritten to include Hollie's song, Mommy's song, Daddy's song, and lately Uncchris's song.  She will start singing that one all on her own!

Long update!  I will try to write more often.  I did add a new belly photo last week, and I'll have another one tomorrow (27 weeks!).

I've got it stuck in my head now: la-la la-la, la-la, la-la, Hollie's song...