Most of the family is exploding in one way or another lately. Adam spent the weekend working on the wiring in the two rooms that we're redoing, so his explosions weren't the best kind. Luckily no one got hurt and everything is still standing, so it wasn't too bad. It just took a couple of tries to get the power run up to the new subbox in the attic.
Abby's explosion has been in vocabulary. The latest BabyCenter email I got about her said that at her peak, she'd be picking up one new word every 90 minutes. I don't know if we're quite there yet, but she really is pulling out a lot of new words. Just in the last few days, she's started saying chair, keys, cheese, more, please, block, book, up, pillow, and mail, and probably a few others that I'm not thinking of right now. I took a little video of her saying pillow this morning, since she just kind of pulled it out of nowhere and I wanted to show Adam.
I feel like I'm exploding outwards, although it's really not that bad yet. I've just started to get to the mildly uncomfortable point as my stomach and lungs are getting compressed, and I also have a little bit of trouble making tight squeezes that I think I'll be able to make. Astronaut's not really exploding right now, though, so I'm not yet either. Friday marks the beginning of the third trimester for us! Then we'll see Astronaut start exploding, and probably me too since I'm supposed to gain about a pound a week for that time.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
In Honor of Jenn, I'm Updating
It was pointed out to me this afternoon that we've been neglecting our updates lately. So while there hasn't been a whole lot going on lately, for Jenn we'll make a little post.
Two weekends ago my parents stopped by our house on their way home from vacation, and Meg came too since she didn't have a cross country meet. Dad and Adam spent most of the weekend working on the wiring in the rooms we're redoing, which involved a personal record of 5 trips to Home Depot in one day. I think every trip was for a different drill bit - apparently they were having some trouble drilling through the wall to run the wire up to the new subbox in the attic. We ended up losing one drill bit in the wall, and it's still in there, so in another 90 years when someone is redoing the rooms again they'll see the results of Adam and Dad's efforts.
This past weekend Adam's parents and Alex came to help put up drywall in the rooms. We have walls again!
It makes the rooms look a lot smaller, in my opinion, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon. So there's still a little bit of drywall to put up in the closets, and then the taping and mudding and sanding and whatever all else you have to do to get the walls ready, but we're getting close to the part I've really been looking forward to - painting! We're thinking about a burgundy-ish red in our room, and we're not sure yet about Abby's new room. Part of me wants to wait until we know if Astronaut is a girl or a boy before we decide on a color, but we may just go ahead and pick something neutral before we know. There's still time - it'll be a few weeks before we're really ready to decide on paint colors.
Abby had a lot of fun playing with Grandma while the guys were working on the drywall. I think they had about 15 different dinner parties for all of her stuffed animals. I took advantage of the time to work on Abby's Halloween costume. She's going to be a bear this year - ROAR! The body is almost finished, and then I just need to make the hood. She may or may not wear it, but it'll be cute if she does. My goal is to finish it before I start working on October 19. I don't think that should be a problem - I still have a few Friday mornings when Kaylin's watching Abby to finish up.
Abby's been helping me rearrange all of the cabinets in the kitchen for a few weeks now, but this evening she figured out how to get the drawers opened up, too.
Two weekends ago my parents stopped by our house on their way home from vacation, and Meg came too since she didn't have a cross country meet. Dad and Adam spent most of the weekend working on the wiring in the rooms we're redoing, which involved a personal record of 5 trips to Home Depot in one day. I think every trip was for a different drill bit - apparently they were having some trouble drilling through the wall to run the wire up to the new subbox in the attic. We ended up losing one drill bit in the wall, and it's still in there, so in another 90 years when someone is redoing the rooms again they'll see the results of Adam and Dad's efforts.
This past weekend Adam's parents and Alex came to help put up drywall in the rooms. We have walls again!
It makes the rooms look a lot smaller, in my opinion, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon. So there's still a little bit of drywall to put up in the closets, and then the taping and mudding and sanding and whatever all else you have to do to get the walls ready, but we're getting close to the part I've really been looking forward to - painting! We're thinking about a burgundy-ish red in our room, and we're not sure yet about Abby's new room. Part of me wants to wait until we know if Astronaut is a girl or a boy before we decide on a color, but we may just go ahead and pick something neutral before we know. There's still time - it'll be a few weeks before we're really ready to decide on paint colors.
Abby had a lot of fun playing with Grandma while the guys were working on the drywall. I think they had about 15 different dinner parties for all of her stuffed animals. I took advantage of the time to work on Abby's Halloween costume. She's going to be a bear this year - ROAR! The body is almost finished, and then I just need to make the hood. She may or may not wear it, but it'll be cute if she does. My goal is to finish it before I start working on October 19. I don't think that should be a problem - I still have a few Friday mornings when Kaylin's watching Abby to finish up.
Abby's been helping me rearrange all of the cabinets in the kitchen for a few weeks now, but this evening she figured out how to get the drawers opened up, too.
Monday, September 7, 2009
In Honor of Labor Day, He Labored
Adam has been very hard at work this weekend. He took off Thursday and Friday, so he's spent the last 5 days working on the two rooms upstairs, pretty much from 7 in the morning until 6 in the evening. It's made me feel a little bad for not really helping out, but in my defense I offered and was refused (he was afraid that I'd breathe in something that's bad for the baby or work too hard and hurt the baby or something along those lines). But he's made great progress! We're completely torn out now (he had ceilings, lath, and insulation to deal with) and he's also started on the rewiring.
Here he is, hard at work!
We didn't think that we had that much left to tear out, but clearly we were wrong. This is our second dumpster, filled to the brim:
It's not as big as the first one, but that's still a lot of stuff that had to be taken out. But now the rooms are looking great! Adam tells me there's still a lot of work to do before his dad and brother come in two weeks to help him put up the new drywall, but I'm impressed with how much he's gotten done.
Here's our room:
And here's Abby's room:
I've mostly spent the last few days trying to convince Abby that it's not as terrible as she thinks that Dad is upstairs working. She does a pretty good job, but she just doesn't understand why he's home and not playing with her. Frequent trips out of the house have helped a little! Today we went to the park, and she spent probably half an hour pushing her stroller around (Gingham was riding in the basket in the bottom) and bringing me rocks to look at.
I've also been able to start on a baby blanket for Astronaut. I had a little bit of drama getting the yarn - I ordered it online during an online only sale, and never got a confirmation email. When I called a few days later to see what was going on, they told me that my order hadn't been processed, but of course by then the sale was over. Not really that big of a deal, but I'm super emotional these days, so of course it felt like the end of the world. Luckily, I had called Adam crying earlier, so I didn't actually cry on the phone with the guy at Jo-Ann's, and he was very nice and very helpful and gave me the sale price and free shipping, so it all turned out all right. And even though they said it would take 5 - 10 business days to get my order, it actually came two days later, so I've been working on the first blanket in the evenings. I started with the girl blanket because the darker pink is my favorite of all the colors that I got, but the boy blanket will look the same, only with two shades of blue.
There isn't much to report on the Astronaut front. I'm pretty sure he's still breech, based on where I feel his kicks. According to Babycenter this week, he's about the size of a large mango, and my Your Pregnancy Week by Week book says he's the size of a small doll. So I'm really not sure how big that is. I guess those could be about the same size. But we go for the next prenatal appointment on Friday, so we should at least be able to hear his heartbeat and be reassured that everything's looking great!
Here he is, hard at work!
We didn't think that we had that much left to tear out, but clearly we were wrong. This is our second dumpster, filled to the brim:
It's not as big as the first one, but that's still a lot of stuff that had to be taken out. But now the rooms are looking great! Adam tells me there's still a lot of work to do before his dad and brother come in two weeks to help him put up the new drywall, but I'm impressed with how much he's gotten done.
Here's our room:
And here's Abby's room:
I've mostly spent the last few days trying to convince Abby that it's not as terrible as she thinks that Dad is upstairs working. She does a pretty good job, but she just doesn't understand why he's home and not playing with her. Frequent trips out of the house have helped a little! Today we went to the park, and she spent probably half an hour pushing her stroller around (Gingham was riding in the basket in the bottom) and bringing me rocks to look at.
I've also been able to start on a baby blanket for Astronaut. I had a little bit of drama getting the yarn - I ordered it online during an online only sale, and never got a confirmation email. When I called a few days later to see what was going on, they told me that my order hadn't been processed, but of course by then the sale was over. Not really that big of a deal, but I'm super emotional these days, so of course it felt like the end of the world. Luckily, I had called Adam crying earlier, so I didn't actually cry on the phone with the guy at Jo-Ann's, and he was very nice and very helpful and gave me the sale price and free shipping, so it all turned out all right. And even though they said it would take 5 - 10 business days to get my order, it actually came two days later, so I've been working on the first blanket in the evenings. I started with the girl blanket because the darker pink is my favorite of all the colors that I got, but the boy blanket will look the same, only with two shades of blue.
There isn't much to report on the Astronaut front. I'm pretty sure he's still breech, based on where I feel his kicks. According to Babycenter this week, he's about the size of a large mango, and my Your Pregnancy Week by Week book says he's the size of a small doll. So I'm really not sure how big that is. I guess those could be about the same size. But we go for the next prenatal appointment on Friday, so we should at least be able to hear his heartbeat and be reassured that everything's looking great!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Animal Sounds
The other day I captured an extended video of Abby's animal sounds. She really enjoys making animal sounds. As you can tell she also thinks tails are great.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Conquering Her Fears
It's been four months since Abby last climbed the stairs, and in the intervening time she had decided that stairs were terrifying. Then a couple of weeks ago, she decided they might not be too bad, but only if Mom or Dad was holding her up while she climbed them. But this morning, with a little moral support from Elmo, she conquered those stairs!
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