daycare and conversations

Here are a few random conversations with Anja this week, interspersed with completely unrelated pictures from daycare:

Anja: (while climbing under covers) I'm hiding for a ninnle (little) while, couple times.

Anja: I love you Mommy! (big hug)

Anja: Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy! I'm talking to you! Daddy, what are you doing?

Anja: (On the way to her room) Bye Mommy, see you later. I'll come back and play with you tomonnow (tomorrow). (about 10 seconds later from down the hall) Mommy! Come in my room!

Anja: I have something in my nose!

Me: Oh, what do you have in your nose?

Anja: (quietly) A rissin

Me: A what?

Anja: A raisin!

Me: And Peter lost one of his shoes in the cabbages and the other amongst the potatoes.

Anja: 'mongst the potatoes! 'mongst the potatoes! 'mongst the potatoes! (she repeats this every time we read that part of the book)

Jay: Anja, you're getting heavy.

Anja: That's not very nice!

Jay: What, saying you're getting heavy?

Anja: Yeah.

Jay: It just means you're growing up.

Anja: I not growing up!

Anja: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mom! Mom? I can call you Mom.

Me: No, my name is Mommy.

Anja: I can call you Mom.

Me: But my name is Mommy.

It's like magic

Anja's potty training has been going great. Except for a few hours at daycare yesterday when she had some "runny poo issues" (details omitted), she has been diaper free since Friday morning. And last night she woke up on her own at 4am to use the bathroom, then woke up in the morning in a dry bed! It was very tempting not to follow this particular program completely, especially since it just doesn't seem like she could be potty trained at night so quickly, but apparently it does work. We are optimistic about continued success in the coming weeks.

Our yard is a nice size for a city lot, and huge by California standards. It has a lot of little hiding places that are great for a little kid to explore. Jay made Anja this fort:

Blue loves having a yard again, especially on the sunny days.

Three Day Potty Training!

First, here's some baby movement:

I'm pretty sure this is more movement than most people see when they're pregnant, but this is how it's been for both of my pregnancies. And it's like this nonstop for almost all of my waking hours for months. It's exhausting! My doctor wanted me to keep a daily "kick count card" which means you write down how many minutes or hours it takes for your baby to move 10 times or something like that. Jay and I thought that would be a pretty funny waste of time for us. There was no box to check for how many seconds it takes.

The big news this weekend is that we started the Three Day Potty Training Method with Anja. Up until now we've only dabbled in potty training, not following any particular plan and not being very consistent, with mixed results. But we decided that this might be our last chance to try potty training for real before the new baby comes and it's too chaotic around here. So Jay stayed home on Friday with Anja so we would have the three full days needed to start this program. The general idea is that you stop using diapers cold turkey and never go back, not even at night. But it takes a few days to establish that this is the new regime for the trainee which is why you need at least three days. So far so good. I would summarize as follows:

Day 1: Lots of big accidents, no telling us when she had to go, but making it through 8 hours of sleep or a two hour nap mostly dry.

Day 2: Lots of accidents, no big ones, and getting better at stopping once she starts to pee so she can finish in the potty.

Day 3: Fewer accidents, all small, and by late afternoon she was telling us when she had to go. By the end of the day she was keeping her underwear dry between telling us when she had to go.

Pretty good progress for just three days. Daycare will continue the program this week with her and hopefully we're really done with diapers for Anja for real.

And finally, here's a humorous video of Jay mowing the lawn with Anja:

After tomorrow I'll be considered full term, although it will still be three weeks until my official due date. Really, the baby could come at any time, although not likely for at least a couple of weeks. In any case, we have everything we need now, so any time is fine with me. We're sticking pretty close to home and I'm just trying to get through these last few weeks. I'm really uncomfortable, and even walking is painful so I can't do too much. I'm finishing up projects at work this week and after next Monday I'm on maternity leave so I just need to make it until then and I can rest a little more.

Mother's Day weekend conversations

Anja: These are my bunnies!

Me: Yes. Mommy made those for you because you are special.

Anja: No! I'm not special! THEY are special!

Me: And you are special.

Anja: No! I'm not special!

Me: You don't want to be special?

Anja: No.

Me: Oh, what are you then?

Anja: (thinks for a minute) A monkey!

Mother's Day morning:

Jay: Anja, do you have something you wanted to say to Mommy?

Anja: (smiling) Noooo

Jay: Are you sure, do you remember what you were going to say?

Anja: No.

Jay: Did you want to say 'Happy Mother's Day'?

Anja: No. I don't want to say that.

Later when we went out to breakfast, spontaneously in the middle of pancakes:

Anja: Happy Mother's Day Mommy!

Me: Thank you Anja (as I teared up a little).

Anja: Happy Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day!

Me: Thank you. (more tearing up, but now a little laughing)

Anja: Happy Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day!

(now both Jay and I are really laughing and both have tears in our eyes)

Anja: Happy Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day!

Me: (through laughing and tears) Stop, stop.

And here's Anja being Mommy to her doll, Mimi, who we've been dressing up in newborn clothes lately. She was trying to read her a book:

Happy Mother's Day!

Anja loves insects and 36 weeks

Anja loves insects! We have to look a little harder around here since there just aren't as many as say, Michigan or Louisiana. But it's pretty easy to find ladybugs and crane flies, which are pretty good go-to creatures for Anja's bug house.

And she likes to sing songs too. Unfortunately we aren't very good at teaching her seasonally-appropriate songs, but Jingle Bells is a year round favorite here: "Jingle Bells all the way, crashing through the snow, hey!"

Just had another prenatal appt. I'm finishing up 36 weeks now. 37 is considered full term, so we are really nearing the end now. Heartburn has been bearable, with a lot of tums and a lot of propping my head up high at night. Not very pleasant but at least I'm able to sleep. Baby is still the right size, heartbeat is strong, and she is still head down, so all looks good. I've gained 23lbs now, which is also just right. I'd be pretty happy with gaining only 25lbs total, and it looks like I'll be close to that. With my stomach so small right now I've been trying to focus on high calorie foods mainly: meat, fat, ice cream, etc. I really pounded through our stash of on-sale Breyer's that we had in the fridge.

The plan for this weekend is to finish some stuff around the house that we want done before the baby is here. We will be putting the baby in our room for a while, so we still have some reorganizing to do there. Luckily our room is pretty big so we can dedicate half of it to the crib, dresser, changing table, rocking chair, etc, and still leave the other half for ourselves. We will also finish putting in our garden. I'm not really sure what we can grow well here, so I'm planting a little of everything this year. The hardest part will be keeping everything watered, since it doesn't rain here all summer. We'll try to be creative with reusing our grey water, and the garden is partially shaded, so that will help with evaporation. Anja planted her own sunflower seeds. They should be fairly durable when they come up, and will regrow quickly in case they get stepped on or otherwise loved a little too much. And the petunias she planted are looking great:

"I was a baby first"

More conversations from this week:

(while reading a book with a monkey in it)

Anja: We don't have any monkeys around here. We can buy some. At the store!

(While buying some baby supplies at the store today I put some pacifiers in the cart. Anja hasn't had a pacifier in at least a year)

Anja: Ooooohhhh... I LIKE pacifiers!!! I LIKE them. I LIKE pacifiers!!!

Me: That's what I was afraid of

and:

Anja: What's that?

Me: That's a bouncy seat. For baby Maija.

Anja: (sad, pitiful voice) I'm a baaabyyyy...

Anja has been very insistent all weekend that she is a baby, and not a big girl. She also told me today that baby Maija can't sleep in the pack 'n play we have set up, because it's still hers.

And she was really sad about not being allowed to sit in the bouncy seat, because she's too big. ("I'm little!") I tried to explain that big kids can do a lot of things that babies can't, like play with playdoh, but she wasn't interested in any of that. So I told her that she can be a baby sometimes if she wants. She doesn't seem upset that Maija is coming, she just wants to be able to use all the baby toys and clothes too.

Conversations

Heard around the house this week:

Anja: Daddy, you haff a baby Maija in your belly?

Daddy: No, no baby Maija in there.

Anja: Blue haff a baby Maija in her belly?

Daddy: No, Blue doesn't have a baby Maija, just Mommy. Daddy doesn't have a baby Maija, and Debbie doesn't have a baby Maija, only Mommy.

Anja: (thinking) But Dillon has a baby Maija!

(Dillon is her friend at daycare)

(Anja stands up and stretches her arms really high)

"I'm growing!"

(later that day)

Anja: I'm not growing anymore. It's hard.

"To infinity and beyond!"

Jay: Anja, it's time for bed.

Anja: No, it's time for jumping!