Exploring

We've had an interesting first week in Mukilteo.  Haven't figured out how to convince spell-checker that "mukilteo" isn't misspelled.

Over the weekend Daniel's two older brothers, T and C, visited and taught Hollie all about bouncing tennis balls off the walls and tables.  I guess that's what uncles are for!

While they were here, Daniel and T decided to go out for a jog to see the coast.  Hours later it's getting dark and we get the phone call: "Help!  We're lost!"  A half-hour with Google maps later, C went out to pick them up.  Once they were back at home, slightly worse for the wear, we got to hear the whole story, which involved following a creek into the woods, crawling under a fence into a construction site (despite posted warnings of video surveillance) to try and find out where they were (unsuccessfully; no one was there), Daniel carrying T on his back over a gravel road (T had gone barefoot), and from there wandering residential streets for a main intersection to assist our Google maps search.

Crazy boys.

But wait, there's more.

A few nights later, after the uncles were gone, Daniel went out by himself to run errands at two stores.  He didn't take our GPS because he had been to both stores before.  Deja vu - it's getting dark and I get the phone call: "Help!  I'm lost!"  This time it only took about five minutes for me to figure out where he was, but by then his phone had very little battery life left so I had to give him turn-by-turn directions to the store and just hope that he knew his way from there to the second store, and from there, home.  Thankfully he did.  And when he got home we got a good laugh together when he looked at the map and saw how far off course he had gotten.  Waaaay out there!

To be fair, the same thing has happened to me more than once since we've been here.  Even though the GPS generally stays in my car, I tend not to trust it sometimes...

Anyway.

For Memorial Day, we visited a park on the coast where we had lunch with a few of Daniel's coworkers.  It was a chilly, overcast day (our new "normal", really), but it was gorgeous.  Check these out...

Hollie had a great time at the beach: 

walking into the icy water up to her ankles and throwing little rocks into the waves,

climbing over the driftwood,

collecting sticks and shells,

but the only part she's still talking about today is this train...

 

We walked across this little bridge while a train went underneath, loud and fast enough to made the bridge shake under our feet.  Daniel and I were both caught off guard by the effect and admitted to feeling inexplicably nervous despite how cool it was...but Hollie on the other hand absolutely loved it.  She alternated pressing her face into the chainlink fence to watch, and literally dancing around as if the roar was music to her ears.  

Now, at least once a day I hear,

"Wanna see more loud-loud train, Mommy!'

Pregnancy update time-

I feel huge.  And hungry all the time.  Having a few contractions a day.  Baby's still moving like crazy, trying to break out.

Hollie seems to really be getting used to the idea.  Every morning (and throughout the day) she demands to sit down with Mommy to see and hug and snuggle the belly.  Sometimes she tries to use it as a chair, but that doesn't work out.

We've started telling her that the baby is going to come out to see us soon.  She made it clear how well she had absorbed this idea when we were at our first appointment with the new OB yesterday.  When the nurse came to get us from the waiting room, Hollie stood right up and said "Get baby out!"  Daniel and I were speechless for a second (we hadn't even been talking about it at that particular moment), but this great nurse took it in stride and said, "Hmmm, maybe not today, but soon!"

The new doc is great.  It seems that this office consists of one doctor, one nurse, and one receptionist.  It seems very flexible and relaxed - they squeezed me into their schedule on very short notice, and it was evident  how far they had gone out of their way for me, but they made it work.  They took a quick ultrasound just to check on the heart and see that the baby's head is downward, and everything looked fine.  We'll have a longer, more detailed ultrasound when we go back next week.  :)

Later that afternoon we took a tour of the childbirth center at our new hospital.  Very different from the one in Wichita where Hollie was born!  Smaller rooms with some variation in the layout and amenities - some had showers and some had tubs, most had a couch for dad but one just had a recliner...and the whole place had an overall out-dated look.  "Cozy" is the word that came to mind.  But I honestly, I liked it and have no qualms about delivering there.

I'm going to cut myself off here...more later.

34 and 35 week belly pictures are up!        

Finally

Travel plans.  We have 'em.

Earlier this week they told Daniel they wanted him to start in Seattle next Monday.

First, we thought it might be possible for all of us to fly out together this weekend.  Then we thought Daniel might fly out first, and Hollie and I would follow a few days afterward.  Then we thought Daniel might fly out this weekend, work a few days, then fly back here and make the drive with me...
It went on and on - juggling what the relocation people could make happen, and what was actually going to work for us.

Finally, two days ago, we figured, why don't we just drive all together this weekend?  Get it over with.  

Ran it by the managers yesterday and got the go-ahead.  Daniel won't be starting on Monday...more like Wednesday, but they're okay with that.  Airline tickets on such short notice are craaaazy expensive, so we're saving them a chunk of change.  It will be a long drive, and a busy few days getting ready to go, but I am so-so-so happy that this is finally happening.

Fortunately, while we were waiting for all these things to fall into place, we were mentally preparing, so now the actual preparing and packing is off to a great start and hopefully will continue to go smoothly.

We tried to have some fun while we waited, too.

 

Yes, painting with q-tips.  Yes, shoes are on the wrong feet.  She's a tough one to argue with about that.

This girl is funny.  Here are a few of the new and crazy things we've heard from her lately:

"Oh my josh"

"Stay here.  I be right back."

One morning she woke up after Daniel had left, and when she asked for him I said, "Oh, Daddy went bye-bye."  She shook her head and insisted "Daddy hello!"

When we're out walking and we look for cars before crossing the street, she's got the script down pat: "No cars? No trucks?  Okay, go!"  No prompting necessary.  There have been a few times that she's run away even after we've yelled for her to stop, which we've let her know is unacceptable, but she's never run into the street.  I think she has, what I like to call, a "healthy fear" of moving vehicles.

There's more, but it's late and my head's full of packing checklists and things to do tomorrow - our last full day to get ready.  I have new belly pictures accumulated, so next time I have a minute (ha) I'll get that updated.

Next time you hear from me, it will probably be from Washington!

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...  

"Ummo's nummers"

We may have a future accountant around here.  Hollie's been learning been learning about numbers (nummers) out of an Elmo (Ummo) book, and lately she's been pointing them out everywhere - on everything from phones to food packaging.  It's usually just nummers, but occasionally she specifies: Ummo's nummers.

To clarify, she does not actually know the numbers.  However, sometimes she sings to herself, "One-two-one-two-one-two!"

She sings a lot, and I love it.  Her songs usually go something like this:
"Mommy-daddy-baby-mommy-daddy-baby"
or
"Baby-doggie-nummers-baby-doggie-nummers"
or
"Sah-shoo-sah-shoo" (see below)
or
any combination, in a little sing-song voice.  I wish I could catch it on video, but you know how tough that is.  By the time the camera is out and turned on, she's moved on to something else.  You never know, I might get lucky!

Socks and shoes - sah-shoo.  Heard when we're getting ready to leave the house (or if she wants to leave (usually right before bedtime)).  Also heard around the same time...

Jacket - jack-ah
and
Hat - at! (always with a !)

Her pronunciation of water had slowly evolved from woggy,
to woddy,
to wah-doh,
and finally to wad-dah , which sounds pretty close to the real thing, just with a bit of an accent.

Her month-old obsession with lotion (show-shah) continues.  The definition has been expanded to include hand sanitizer and chapstick.

She is saying more foods, like...
Orange -  ornge (one syllable).  I feel so bad, because she loves them and asks for them constantly but gets an awful rash if she eats more than two or so a day!
Apple - appo or appah
Banana - mana
Sandwich - sammich
Water and juice - She knows I dilute her apple juice, so she usually asks for waddah-juice.

There are probably a few more, but I can't think of any at the moment.  I hope all of you don't get tired of reading stuff like this.  I read a quote recently, something to the effect of - You have to accept that no one else in the world thinks your child is as fascinating as you do.  I don't care if that's true, this is mostly for me anyway, because I just can't stand the thought someday I won't remember all these little things.

So, bear with me.  I know the real reason you keep coming back...photos like these:

  7:30 pm

This is what happens when you miss naptime!

Quick vocabulary update, since I probably won't be posting again for awhile...

Santa Claus - 'Coz

Belly - beddy (Hollie looooves Momma's belly these days)

Mommy and Daddy - she has started calling us this instead of momma and dada (I don't know why, but this makes me kind of sad)

Blanket - mankie

Milk - moke (rhymes with poke) (she's finally developed a taste for it!)

Crackers - her new favorite snack and most-used word.  My response, usually, "Hollie, you're crackers."

Elmo - Ummo (she loves her Elmo doll.  Cookie Monster made an appearance on SNL last night, and when she saw him (yes, she was up that late) she got very excited and said "Ummo!")

Yogurt - gogee

Spoon - moose (I have no. idea.)

I think that's all the new ones for now.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!

Our little pick-pocket

So Daniel's parents, aka Abuelita and Pepère, came to see us for Thanksgiving.  So much fun!

Great story- Abuelita, Hollie, and I were at Target one day and Abuelita was pushing the cart and making faces and being goofy with Hollie while I shopped.  Apparently (I didn't see it happen), while making eyes, Hollie reached into Abuelita's purse and snagged her cell phone!  Out from under her nose, what a pick-pocket!  Abuelita found me and told me what happened, and we decided we'd have to keep an eye on her...but not long after, Hollie did the same thing and got her wallet!  By that point I'm thinking, okay, maybe this is a way to boost our income?  We've always said it, but this further proves what a sneaky, sneaky girl she is.  She's all smiles, but there's always a plan in the works.

Over Thanksgiving dinner, we tried to decide on what our new baby's nickname will be for the next seven months or so.  After heated discussion, Pepère had the winner with...

Cletus the Fetus.

Haha!  I love it!  It goes without saying, but this will not be our baby's name if it's a boy, so please please please DON'T get this embroidered on anything!  It is the best antenatal nickname I've ever heard, though.  And antenatal is the coolest new word I've heard in awhile.  I'm going to start using it more often.

Another cute story- This afternoon Hollie got out her wipes, a bear, and a doll.  She opened the wipes and started wiping them both between the legs while telling me that they "poopoo"-ed.

Vocabulary and other updates...

I haven't been in the mood for creative titles lately.  We have been going a mile-a-minute around here lately and my creativity is way past running on fumes.  I do want to update you on a few more words that Hollie is saying...

Water - Woggy (rhymes with froggy)

Fish - 'ish.  She only recognizes the fish that are still alive.  I get the blank stare when I try to tell her that it's also fish we're eating.

Go - Gogogogogo!

Up 

Aaaaaa-men! - This one needs explaining.  We have this little book with a short kid's prayer, and a button that will play a kid's voice reciting it, and at the end Hollie chimes in with the long, drawn-out aaaaaa-men!    

She's also fine-tuning (i.e. expanding) her use of no.  Hello, toddlerhood, we've arrived.

I love getting to record all these tiny details of what Hollie's doing and learning, and I have a great fear that I won't do the same for our future children because we'll have seen it all before.  I guess this has been weighing on my mind a little, and I've been convincing myself that I will record just as many of the the tiny details of our next child's life because I got one of these the other day...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Tomorrow I will be 9 weeks, and due June 30th, 2011!

I promise my next post will have all the details.  :)

Post-publication edit (11/30/10): I have another equally great fear, which is that when the next baby is born I will stop updating you on Hollie.  Being a mother of two will certainly be the balancing act of all time!  

Can I use the same excuse as last time?

We've been busy?

Daniel has been having a crazy time at work (he had to work this past weekend, and one day earlier this week he worked like eleven hours).

So, if I were to fill you in on life, it would be the little things like...

...Hollie's new fascination with armpits.

...Hollie's unwavering conviction that if her teeth have to get brushed at bedtime, so do Mommy's.

...Hollie chasing the ducks at the park yelling, "Quack-quack-quack!" and doing the sign for "duck" with both hands.

...Hollie moving all of her dinner from her plate to the table, smiling, and signing "all done".

...Hollie bringing me her cup to hold while she drinks out of it.

...Our new hole in the basement ceiling.  The ceiling (which we put up ourselves just a few months ago) was sagging a little, so rather than wait a few years until it's sagging a lot and there's furniture and stuff in there, Daniel decided to just fix it now...by removing a big ol' chunk, installing reinforcements, and putting it back up.

A work in progress

...The new Panda Express, the first in Wichita, will be opening right near our house.  That's one of those places we miss from Arizona.  Bye-bye, healthy eating.  :(

...Hollie's growing vocabulary.  She says doggie really well, and she sometimes calls me Mommy (which came out of the blue...I didn't teach her that!), and also
    shoes - shoosh
    juice - 'oosh
    snack - 'nack
    cheese - random consonant followed by -eesh
No sentences yet.  And she still just babbles a lot.   Even with all the new words she's learning I still only understand about 2% of what she says. 

...Hollie tempting fate and raising Mommy's heart rate by learning to jump on her bed. 

...Mommy-daughter dance parties.

...Hollie laying a diaper out on the floor, sitting on it, and trying to put it on herself.

...Hollie pulling her arm into the sleeve of her long-sleeved shirt and saying "Uh-oh!"

...Hollie locking the bathroom door from the inside.  She wasn't inside herself (thank goodness), which makes it all the more baffling because that door swings inward, so she had to pull it closed from the outside.  Never would have thought she could do that.  Then the next day she does it again with her bedroom door.

--------------------------------

I think there may have been one or two things in there that didn't have to do with her.  That's good, right?

Not to mention, we just got back from a trip to see my family in Phoenix for our ASU homecoming game, and also Halloween!

Daniel and I were in the ASU marching band (that's how we met! Cue: awww), so along with 100 or so other band alums we participated in the pregame show alongside the current band.  Always a good time.  Getting free tickets to the game doesn't hurt either, even if they are nose-bleeds and we're technically "on the clock" and have to play occasionally throughout the game.

Hollie-bear tagged along to the rehearsal...

She's checking out my mellophone (Daniel played trombone).

Also, as I mentioned, Halloween!  Hollie was a ballerina.  It was the only thing we could do without buying anything (even though I ended up buying some ballet shoes) and also because she loves wearing this tutu that she got from Daniel's parents for her birthday (eight-ish months ago?  Can't believe it still fits), so we didn't have to worry about her taking it off.

Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures except these, of her eating dinner and faithful old Duke waiting patiently for the inevitable fistfuls of broccoli to come down at his feet.   

I do have some other great photos that I've taken since we've been back, but this post has gotten too long already, so I'll get those up later.  Hopefully this week.

Happy Friday-eve!

New video

So, that was a nice little hiatus.  We haven't even been particularly busy.  Maybe just recovering from a few weeks of being really busy...is that a real excuse?  We just haven't had much going on worth talking about.  Daniel had a major hell-week (or two) at work, and things have since slowed down but he's still catching up on sleep and down-time.

Hollie is still jibber-jabbering away.  She is pronouncing "book" much better.  I love that she refers to herself, and to all her stuffed animals and dolls as "baby".  She gives them kisses and then makes me kiss them too.  She has gotten sooo loving and affectionate.

It is really tough to get good pictures of her these days.  She is always moving.  Really fast.  So I have a bunch of very cute but very blurry pictures.  Now that I've remembered that I have a blog, I might post them all together soon.

In the meantime, a new video.  One morning a few weeks ago I caught Hollie reading a book to herself, and it was so adorable I had to break out the video camera (which I know I need to do more often).  From the moment I turned the viewing window around so that we could see ourselves while filming, it quickly escalated from book-reading, to nose-picking, to camera-grabbing...and, well, you'll see.

When I played back the video for us to watch, Hollie thought it was the coolest thing ever...she signed "more" and demanded

Mo' bebe!

More "Speaking of..."

I have a few more words to add to the little bear's vocabulary:

Up
'Mote - for the tv remote (this makes me cry a little inside)
Yummy
Cat - sometimes gat! or ack! or even gack!
Nose and toes - hard to tell the difference (both are usually bows or doze)

Speaking of...

...everything.

Hollie's been a little talking machine!  It has happened very gradually, but over a fairly short time (a couple of weeks or so).  The first few were...

Baby - pronounced correctly now (as opposed to then) but with the most unbelievably cute inflection.
More - just mo.  Still accompanied by her sign language.
Bath - her most favorite activity lately, especially since we started using the shower at the end to rinse her hair (the cup of water over the head routine was just not cool).  Pronounced bah or bass.
Uh-oh - when she or anyone else drops something, also adorable (and with spot-on pronunciation)

Some others are...
Plane - she is always on the look-out for planes when we're outside, and there are plenty to see, what with a few aircraft companies plus an air force base practically in our backyard.  Pronounced bay or bane. 
Birds - always watching for birds too!  Abuelita helped figure this one out...it sounds like bus.
Bye-bye - always with a little wave.  So cute!
Ducks - quack
Eyes -  oz
Belly/belly button, Book, and Bear - all of these are generally just a "b" sound followed by a random syllable.  Hard to distinguish from baby, bath, bird, and bye-bye (I think she likes b words). 

and our favorite...
No - nonononononononono!

I love it!
And I promise to try to get some of these on video soon.

Also, Daniel and I started dating five years ago today.  <3

"It sounds like she's counting in French"

It's hard to hear, but that's what Daniel says from the other room at about 17 seconds.  

United States map place-mat = endless entertainment at dinnertime.

Also, you'll notice she's not eating at her little table.  Not long after we swapped out the high chair for her own little table and chair, she started always wanting to be in my lap during dinner.

She enjoyed using the little table all day for her meals and snacks, but you could tell that at dinner, when Daniel and I sat up at the big table, she was just feeling a little left out.

So, we decided to swap back.  Since she's too big now for the high chair, we went with one of those little chairs that straps to a dining room chair...and I gotta say, I love it.  It's so good to have her up at the table with us!

Bee beh!

That's how Hollie says "big bed"!  She has one now.  :)

Since we got the second vehicle, we've been slowly cleaning out the garage so that hopefully - eventually-  we can park both of them in there.  The thing taking up the most space in there was the crib, which Hollie used between the ages of about 3 months and 10 months.  We planned on just moving it down to the basement, but we remembered that one side can be removed, like so:

They call it a "day bed", which I don't get.  She mostly uses it at night.

Whatever.

But I think she likes it...

Sooooo close!

We're pretty sure Hollie's first word is going to be "baby" or "bath". 

Right now, for bath, she just says the first syllable - bah - whenever we are headed to the bathroom, and she can point out bathtubs in pictures.

For baby, she uses one of the following:

bay-bay
bee-bee
bee-bay
just bee
or
just bay

but never the actual word!!  So frustrating, but cute.  She looooves finding pictures of babies everywhere.  I bet she is going to be such a great big sister.  :)

Also, have I mentioned that she can identify her...

head/hair
eyes
ears
nose
mouth/teeth
belly/belly button
arms
legs
and toes?

Well, she can.

Anxiously awaiting...

...the first word.

Lately (as in the last few days) she's been saying something that sounds vaguely like "quack" when we read about ducks.  Actually it's more like "whack".

She also says something vaguely like "baby" when we read our book about babies.

Again, it's very vague, and possibly all in my imagination.  Nothing is going down in the baby book yet.  But it's coming soon.  I can feel it.

Another update on the cloth diapers is in the works!  Tomorrow or possibly Saturday.  We've had a busy week.  :)