G'n'R Out West

We have been spending lots of time on the toilet with Adelle these days.  Today she was on there a good hour and pretty much sang to me the whole time.  These days she seems to prefer to sing by herself.  If you join her in a song she will often ask you to stop singing.  It is fun to watch her try to remember the songs.  Some of her favorites these days are ‘itsy bitsy spider’, ‘alphabet song’ and ‘baa baa black sheep’.  The spider song is by far the funniest as she can’t quite keep the lines straight and ends up in an infinite song loop.

She was a singing machine today until I brought out the camera…then silence…but with a little prompting I was able to get her to perform!

Another funny thing she has been into lately is putting Greg and I to bed.  After supper we usually hang out in the living room.  Recently she has been instructing us to lie down.  She will then ask if we want something to cuddle with (a bear or a doll for example).  We say yes (if we say no she just asks us again).  Then she makes this big exhausted production of getting us our stuffed animals.  She will then ask if we want a blanket, again, the only answer that is acceptable is yes.  Again she acts all put out as she gets our blankets.  After all this she will pat us on the back to put us to sleep.  Only instead of calling it patting, she calls it papping. 

One night she was being particuliarily ridiculous so I was just giggling and giggling.  I got shhh’d repeatedly in a very stern voice and eventually she told me to stop bugging Greg.

She is too funny sometimes.

Our computer is up and running, but we are missing programs and have lost some things (mainly email and addresses) and I am frustrated. 

We’ve had a good few weeks.  I was off in Ontario to visit my sister and attend my friend Nicki’s wedding.  My dad also came up to Toronto for the weekend, so as a bonus I got to spend time with him as well.  Adelle and Greg stayed home and I missed them lots, but I have to admit it was fun to be on my own.  It was also great to spend time with my sister’s kids without any kids of my own. It really gave me an opportunity to enjoy them like I was able to prekids.  It was pretty special for me. 

My sister is taking midwifery in Ontario and she found our baby’s heartbeat with her stethoscope.  It was super fun.  Everybody enjoyed it.  It was a nice time to hear the baby’s heartbeat because I’ve been having lots of baby related pain lately, so it was a much needed break from all the feeling sorry for myself I’ve been doing.  I am still enjoying pregnancy, but there are times that my patience is tested much more than it was last time around! 

My mom, my sister and my niece are all coming out to Calgary for the birth.  My sister and Lily will only be here for 5 short days so we’ve been spending lots of time talking to the baby about arriving in a timely manner.  So far I’m working on convincing the baby to join us on the 21st.  I have a number of great arguments in favour of that day, so I can’t really see why it wouldn’t make sense to the baby to come then.  Adelle was very co-operative and arrived at a very convenient time, so I figured I might as well hold this baby up to the same standards.  Adelle was 10 days late, but I think with the pain I’ve been in, coupled with the insane number of Braxton Hicks contractions I’ve been having, that I’ll be ready for this baby to come a little earlier.  Hopefully the baby agrees.

Adelle and I were both very excited to see each other on Monday afternoon when I picked her up at daycare.  It was such a wonderful feeling.  Greg and Adelle had a great weekend too.  Lots of bonding and life with fewer uptight mum rules!  Good times!

This weekend has also been jam packed with fun.  Adelle is doing really well sleeping in her big girl room.  She still consistently asks to sleep in her crib.  But she is slowly coming around.  We haven’t put the new baby clothes into her old room yet.  I was going to do it this weekend, but I think I might wait one more weekend it is hard to know just when is the best time to avoid hurt feelings!

A beautiful warm day in the park with my beautiful niece and nephew.

Adelle likes to have a picture taken of her belly whenever we take one of mine.  If anybody was wondering how her belly is looking 36 weeks into the pregnancy, they can check it out right here.  I think it looks lovely.

It has been a long time since our last post…our computer stopped working and we just got it back today.  Looks like everything is in working order, but we still need to reinstall a lot of things and get it all set up again. 

There is lots to update on, but I’m pregnant, so I forget most of it. 

The big news is that Adelle has finally moved into her new room.  Bedtime has gone from 1/2 hour of loving cuddle time to 2 hours of terribleness.  It has only been 4 nights and things seem to be getting better.  She really wants to sleep in her crib.  It is a bit sad, but time to move on.  She loves her room, but I think she’d love it even more if there was a crib in it!  She sleeps well through the night, but just has a hard time settling in there.  I suspect once she gets more used to the room she will be able to settle faster.  She hasn’t been getting quite enough sleep since she moved in there so she has been a bit of a grump, but eventually it will work out.

There has been some potty progress lately.  She still can’t quite figure out how to make the pee come on demand.  So she will often sit on the toilet for 20 min and then go pee 5 min after she gets off.  Same with poo…although, a few times we’ve been able to catch her before she starts and so there has been some success.  She has mixed interest in the potty.  Her interest tends to spike just after we have left her room at bedtime!!!

Here are a few little shots from the last little while

Adelle is going to be a pig for halloween.  I lucked out and found this one second hand…she is really into pigs these days so she was very impressed with the purchase.  For a few days it was all she wanted to wear.
 

Adelle LOVES her buddy Blake, they really have a great time goofing off together especially when they are outside.
 

We spent some time at Heritage park the other day.  Adelle’s baby Khali cried all morning.  She diligently carried her despite complaining on a number of occasions that the baby was very heavy.  She is such a patient little mum.

On the baby front – things are still going well.  The heart rate is still low, baby still flipped the correct way, mostly the baby is still quite quiet, but if he gets poked enough he kind of gets mad and starts fighting back!  I’m having TONS of braxton hicks contractions and am getting sort of excited for the big day.  The visits with the midwife are highlights these days, so fun to have Kimberly point out all the baby’s parts so I can feel them for myself.  Adelle loves to go with me.  She really enjoys listening to the baby’s heartbeat…but mostly she loves that our midwife has a bird.  I’ve hit that stage where you feel really big (which is a little unfortunate given that I am only 35 weeks).  I’m having all sorts of problems with my hips the last few days.  I went to the chiropractor and he was able to give me some relief, but I am still in pain.  I still am enjoying being pregnant, but the hip thing is a bit frustrating.  Oh well, no point in dwelling on sore hips, all this will pass soon…and it will become a distant memory.  So sad that you only get to be pregnant a few times in life.