general familial update

Mea culpa for the absence. My body has not enjoyed pregnancy near as much this time around, so for the last month or so I have been fighting the Virus of Death. I finally got rid of it a few weeks ago, but now I have strept throat. Again. The doctors keep telling me my immune system just isn't going to function as well right now, being with child and what, so . . . waiting for June ever so much here.

Today we received bonifide confirmation that Sputnik is indeed a boy. He is measuring right on target at 48% percentile and is currently sitting breech. Hopefully he'll re-situate himself before long.

I started feeling him wiggle around about a week and a half ago so it's nice to know he's kicking around in there. Just like with Lydia, I'm not really showing yet. I have to be nakers to really tell and only The Husband gets those kind of privileges (if that's what you want to call it).

Lydia has no awareness of the brother that is coming and, really, it's kinda tough to explain to a 19 month old who lives in the ever-present and NOW something huge that is coming in five months. We'll have to wait for the time to get closer and for her to level up a bit.

Speaking of Lydia, she is growing by leaps and bounds lately, especially her hair. Sometimes I think she could use a bit of a trim -- it's getting in her eyes -- but when I mention this to The Husband he yelps as if hurt. I would pull it back into a ponytail but she won't let me mess with it. However, there is someone at daycare she will trust her red locks to. I wonder how they gained that trust? She came home this afternoon looking like this, and I about died from cuteness:



Sometimes she tries her own hand with her hair. At her cousin's house last weekend, she figured her Aunt Cathy's potato soup would make a wonderful hair mousse.



And the speaking, oh! the speaking! She's a veritable chatterbox, even if she's telling you a story in complete babble. She'll pull out a book and tell you all about it in her own language. She knows some of the Queen's English, too. She's got perhaps 15 to 20 words she knows and uses, and she will parrot back just about any word you say to her. This can get you in trouble if you aren't thinking about what you're saying around her.

There's an attitude there, too. She will point her finger at Renton if he gets too close to her toys and say, "No no no!" Sometimes she points that finger at us. She's got sass.

Lydia's got a kind heart as well. If you ever need a hug or kiss, just ask her for one and she is always willing to oblige. She gives the sweetest kisses. There is just no better thing she could ever give me.

the creepy man that sneaks into your house at night

As opposed to last year, Lydia decided Santa is The Scary Man Extraordinaire. What a nice set of molars you have there, child!

Sputnik is . . . aptly named?

This past Friday I had an appointment for a screening test. It's basically an ultrasound and bloodwork to check for chromosomal abnormalities. No biggie, we did the same thing with Lydia mainly because, hey!, another ultrasound. Why not.

With Lydia we went downtown but now they're offering the test at our hospital so the drive's a bit easier. So in the ultrasound room we go, the tech gooks up the wand and asks, "If we're able to tell the sex of the baby, do you want to know?"

Uh, okay, sure. But at 12 weeks? Good luck with that, lady.

So off she goes to get her pictures and measurements. Sputnik is just as cooperative as Lydia was in utero. Then she says, "Okay, based on the angle of this here and yada yada yada, it's a boy. Welcome to the world of Star Wars."

A what? For real?

No fooling?

See, Steven and I have been living in the Land of Pink for about two years now, and we've just gotten used to that. So we're kinda floored, actually.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and said that was his guess as well. I asked him how sure he was and without missing a beat he replied, "95% sure." Then Sputnik proceeded to curl up in a ball like a cat while the doctor unsuccessfully tried to get a profile shot of his face for the actual screening test.

So, there you have it. I'm not about to paint the nursery yet or anything, but . . . Star Wars and Pokemon and whatever else it is boys like. God knows I have no clue right now. We have baby dolls and tea sets over here.

christmastime for tacos

At Christmas last year Lydia was not yet mobile so I had no far for all my Christmas trimmings and trappings. This year, however, I had a great anxiety about how the now-running Lydia would behave with the tree. After all, it's practically a toy-laden conifer in the eyes of a toddler.

When the tree went up this year I was very particular about which ornaments went where -- the few non-breakable ornaments went towards the bottom and everything else went higher-up, out of reach. Last year I had even labeled a box of extra-breakable ornaments "Nervous Ornaments 2008" -- they didn't even go on the tree this year.

Surprisingly, except for one backflipping-of-the-couch-into-the-tree incident, Lydia has done very well with the tree. She knows not to mess with it and she mainly gets a kick out of pointing out all the ornaments and naming them to us: 'birr,' 'durr,' 'dada,' 'ca-T,' 'FFFF,' 'OOOH!' (Translation: bird, door, Santa, cat, tree, 'It's all so pretty!')

sputnik likes oreos

I'm eating little mini Oreos this morning because Sputnik apparently likes them. I usually don't, or I at least scrape out the cream filling for disposal. If I gain 80 pounds, it's all Sputnik's fault.

I had a quick little checkup yesterday and everything's peachy. Slowly but surely I think the nausea horribilus is ebbing -- I went all the way from Monday to yesterday afternoon without taking a Pill of Awesome. Twelve pills left.

Looking forward to January and the beginning of the boring second trimester. I like the part where I'm hungry and can stomach water again.

and I thought the taco made me feel queasy

Hey . . . meet Sputnik!



This is actually from a couple of weeks ago. Been a while since I've mentioned the new one, huh? I have a very good excuse; even a doctor's note.

Right around the six-week mark, I started feeling sick, sick, SICK. It was horrendous. I never full-on barfed, but I was always at that last step right before one does. That feeling stayed with me from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night. Unconsciousness was my only defense. I even started to lose weight; I never lost a pound with Lydia.

This came up at my last doctor's appointment and, glory of glories, she prescribed me some happy happy anti-nausea medicine that has been a wonder. Dance! Unfortunately, due to an insurance prescription cap I didn't know I had, I am officially maxed out on drugs until January 1st, so what I have is what I get. Fourteen pills left. I hope I don't get really truly sick between now and January, actually.

Waiting 'till Thanksgiving to tell everybody didn't exactly pan out. The Husband talked me into telling immediate family the same weekend he found out, and so we did. After the last appointment where we got to see the heartbeat and all that jazz, we're pretty much telling everybody. I decided on Sputnik because I've decided it's a boy since it's kicking my butt so much more this time.

So here we are, two days after Thanksgiving, and I cannot wait for it to be January. Or Spring, for that matter. I'm cold.

the sign of the taco

Over the past week or so, I would notice Lydia do this seemingly random gesture where she would point into her palm. I didn't think too much of it. She's usually doing random things. I chalked it up to toddlerism and moved on.

Yesterday evening I finally caught on to when she was doing it, and it definitely is an intended gesture. I was feeding her dinner and she had finished her plate, so I asked her, "Do you want some more?" She immediately did her finger-pointing gesture -- left hand extended flat, right index finger repeatedly pointing into her left palm.

"Hmmm," I thought. They don't teach baby sign language at Lydia's daycare, but I wonder if someone there knows some and have passed it along anyway.

I told The Husband about it when he got home from work. I'm not sure he believed me until later when he was handing Lydia little pieces of pineapple for a snack. He asked her, "Lydia, do you want some more pineapple?" She pointed into her palm then opened her mouth with an "Ahh ahh ahh!" Every time he asked her, she would make that hand gesture.

It's pretty neat, I just wish I new what it meant. Does it mean 'more,' 'please,' 'yes,' 'give me that pineapple you crazy people!' -- I'd just like to know what's being communicated.

We looked up what is the official Baby Sign Language for 'more' and it's not that, so I'm clueless. Maybe she made it up herself.