visiting
Saturday afternoon, Rob's Grandparents came to visit his dad in Bloomington. We planned to go over, so decided to make a whole day out of it and went to see my dad first. It was a gorgeous day. Ally had a blast. In Delevan, she ran around the block with Rob a bunch of times. She'd get back around to where the rest of us were sitting at the restaurant, and take off running again.

When we got to Bob's though, she got really excited. Cullen was there. He's almost 4 and they play very well together. She chases him around, and he tries to make her laugh. They spent most of the time outside at the swingset. Ally had a little toddler swing, and Cullen was playing on a bigger one. Rob stayed out with them most of the time. From inside the whole, all I could hear was the giggling.After we got back from supper, they played outside until dark. cullen would run across the yard and throw himself at the swing. Ally thought it was hilarious.

We also got to see Cassen, who thought the toys Ally was playing with looked like lots of fun. He's getting ready to walk. He can stand up alone for 3 or 4 seconds now, and he kept trying to pull up on Ally. She wasn't really thrilled. But she put up with it as long as she got to play with Cullen.

ABC's
Ally has started singing her Abc's a little. She mostly sings h - i - j - k, but will sing along with a few other parts too. She sings the end of certain parts like p and s and v and z (Go ahead, sing it in your head til you get to those parts. See? now you know what I mean). And she likes the "now I know my abc's" part too. I can't believe how big she's getting.

ha-ha-ha-ha-ha ....shit!
last night Rob was playing with Ally. He told me she didn't smell so good. I told him to change her pants. About 20 minutes later, he told me she still smelled (screw grammer and spelling) bad. I told him he still hadn't changed her. About 20 minutes later, she came near me, and stunk to high heaven. I told her that Daddy really needed to talk on the phone that she had. So she smiled and went runnig full speed to him. She smashed the phone to his ear and sat on his chest. High. Right next to his chin. Near his nose. I laughed. a lot. He told me I was going to hell. After gasping for air. So he gave in and decided to change her. That's when it turned bad.

She had exploded out of her diaper and into her pants. Luckily, she was wearing pants under her dress. It was impossible to clean. Rob got a towel and we wrapped her up and carried her to the bath, where I sprayed her down with the handheld shower-head. Someday, I'm going to convince Rob that it's okay for him to change the baby without fighting me about it. Everytime I decide to hold my ground and make him do it, he argues with me so long, it becomes a mess.

Anyway, it was really funny to start with.

I need to reproduce faster
http://www.parents.com/articles/family_time/5432.jsp

At my rate, I'm just not doing my part to keep the sane:crazy ratio in check. Panic!

new baby
Guess with all the updates, I should mention the new baby too. Oops. I swear it won't get lost in the shuffle. It's just so hard to become obsessed with someone that isn't here, when you're already obsessed with someone that is. Once she (I know it's going to be a girl - go ahead and prove me wrong, God) gets here, it'll be a lot easier to appropriately obsess, I know. But, since ---- drumroll please ---

I haven't puked since last Wednesday

I'm feeling a lot better. If you've noticed that last Wednesday is incidentally the last time I conplained about feeling bad, you're paying too much attention. I think this baby just looked at the calendar and noticed that it didn't have much time left before the end of the frst trimester, and just decided to pack it all in to a couple days instead of drawing it out. it got really bad, and then suddenly it was almost over. I barely even have morning nasuea anymore. I swear it's over faster this time than last. Maybe by my 6th kid (haha, just kidding) I won't even have morning sickness at all!

It seems like forever between Dr visits at this stage of pregnancy though. Everything is going good, knock on wood, so I only have appts once a month. My next one is not for 2 weeks. What I can't stop thinking about though, is the one after that. November 22 is my next sonogram. That's the Peeping Tom one where we all get to peer unashamedly at the baby's private parts and hope it exposes herself. Then, we get pictures that to bring home so everyone can be forced to stare at the little blob that is the baby and try to figure out what end is up. We'll hear things like "Is that the head?" (Yes. It's five times bigger than the rest of the baby. Isn't it cute?) and "Is that his little pee-pee?" (No, it's a girl. That's the leg).

It seems like so long to have to wait.

speaking of sleep
Once again, she's back to sleeping. For a while, we were having problems again, but I changed her nighttime clothes (Namely, putting some on her) and they are fixed again. She didn't sleep in anything this summer, so I thought when it got cooler, i shouldn't put that much on, but she didn't sleep well in nightgowns. A onesie and pants has been working like a charm though. Kid is very temperature sensitive when she sleeps.

stolen nap
Ally was in a great mood Sunday. She had a good time with Darra. We went to Denney's for breakfast and she ate all of her pancakes. We bought her a tricycle. She got to play outside when we got home. She played for a couple hours I think. I had to bribe her to come inside with a peanut butter sandwich. (Then the bread was moldy and I had to make her wait while I ran to the store and bought some more) That was at 2:15. Her naptime is at 12:30 or 1 usually. Then, Rob made her a fort out of a blanket and the couch cushions and she had a blast!!! She loves hiding under blankets. They sat under there and colored for a while. I started watching Monsters Inc and after a while, I noticed she was peeking out (sitting under the blanket with it resting on her head so she could see out.) I told her to come sit with me. 5 minutes later, I noticed she wasn't blinking a lot. I told Rob she was going to sleep and asked what to do. Keep in mind that this was 5:00 on Sunday, and her bedtime is 8:30 or 9. I tried to sit her more upright, and she turned, wrapped her arms around my neck, and went to sleep - all in one motion. This was before Rob even had time to answer my question. She was OUT. I woke her up slowly about 6:30 and figured on a rough night ahead, but it didn't go too bad. She didn't sleep too much, I guess cause she was only mildly cranky, and slept just fine at bedtime.

potty update
We're still in a holding pattern. Ally pees in the potty in the morning, and will occasionally at another time. No predictibility. She just gets a wild hair up her butt and asks to go sometimes. Lately though, she's started asking to go downstairs in the real potty more often. I think she likes it better. If given a choice - I'd pick the potty seat. It's conveniently located smack dab in the middle of the living room in front of the tv.

tricycle
Darra came up to play this weekend. Sunday, before she headed on her way to Chicago and Jennifer's house we went to Walmart. She was looking at birthday/christmas toys getting ideas for Ally. There was a tricycle. We pulled it down to see how it would fit her, and that was it. We couldn't get her away from it. She rode it all over the store.

Now, I don't know about you, but I love Walmart. They don't discourage this behavior and it has saved us many many meltdowns in the past. In fact, I'm not even sure they notice it. Sometimes, I let her kick a ball around while Rob is trying on clothes, or looking at tools or something. It's great distraction.

Anyway, I think you all know where this is leading - Ally has a new tricycle. It was intended to be a Christmas present, but is in our garage for now. Maybe we'll give it to her for Christmas, maybe it's already hers... we don't know. Rob thinks it's wrong to give a kid a toy and then take it away and make them wait til the holiday to get it. I think she'll be just as excited then to get it again. Besides, it's getting cold out and she's not going to get much chance to ride it. It really will fit her a lot better in the spring. Her leg gets caught up on the seat when she trys to get on and off for now.

I love day care
When we were shopping around for day care for the first time, I was really worried. I wished so much that I could stay home and raise my kids myself. I thought I would be depriving her of something and had some real guilt issues over it. We obsessed over where to take her (which is always a good thing).

We thought about a home day care, but decided that there was no use paying for day care if it didn't gaurantee that I could drop Ally off every day, and home ones get sick or go on vacation occasionally. Plus, it's not like we live in a major metroplois or anything, but there are a lot of nasty people out there and some of them look normal to outsiders. At least with a center, the people are usually regulated a little more carefully. (most of the time)

We got lucky and got her into the day care provided for the hospital my husband worked at. It's a great place, but I still worried. I checked up on her a lot and made sure they were always doing things "right". I still think I may have missed a lot of good stuff at the very beginning, and regret that a little - but when you've broke, you've got to work.

But now - I'm realizing just how much more they can provide for her than I would at home. Now that she's past the eat-sleep-poop stage, she learns so much by just having the opportunity to observe so many different kids her own age and older. Plus, their job is to come up with exciting things to entertain, encourage and interest my kid. They can go beyond the parent-child struggle. Anyway - I started on this ramble because of one simple, tiny, innocent thing Ally did the other day that had nothing to do with me:

She started singing "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" when I gave her a Little People monkey to play with. I have never sang this to her. It never occured to me.

fun at work
Check out what I've been doing with my time at work lately

Yahtzee

shoe fly - smashin
Yesterday, a fly got in the house. Aly noticed it and told me all about it - "'s a fie!" I chased it with the flyswatter until she stole it from me. Then, she chased it for a while. She yells at flys a lot. She gets really animated. It kinda goes like this:

's a fie!
fie! fie! (pointing)
smashin fie! (while waving the flyswatter 5 feet away)
fie go? fie go?
's a fie!!
shoe fie!

and so on.

Last night, it was landing on the backs on the kitchen chairs. She was acting like she was afraid to get too close to it though. She always made sure to keep far enough away that she had no chance of accidentally hitting it. It wasn't at all afraid of her though. I think it knew she wasn't going to hurt it, 'cause it never flew too far, and wasn't it too much of a hurry when it did move. Rob finally smashed it.

the toliet for a whole different reason
I hate this part of being pregnant!!!! I don't know what I was thinking saying it wasn't that bad. I must have been high on something. I was mostly incapacitated this weekend. Saturday I even called Mom and begged her to come relieve me, cause I didn't have enough energy to deal with Ally. I couldn't eat anything and still puked a lot. I'm making sure to write this down now, so that I can look at it later and fight through the baby amnesia and remember how much it sucks. Then maybe I'll never do this again. (Although it's always worth it in retrospect)

I'm so sick of crackers. And of course, everytime I eat a cracker, Ally has to have one too. Rob is thoroughly un-sympathetic. Men have no idea what it's like. I wish he could get pregnant. That would serve him right. He says it's impossiblt to throw up food from your small intestine - but it sure feels like that's what's happening. and then some days I'm fine and think it's almost over. Countdown to the end of my first trimester - 2 1/2 weeks. That's when I got better last time.

Goddamn Eve for eating that apple anyway - oh wait...

the big girl toliet
Ally has been asking to sit on the real toliet lately. She went twice yesterday and didn't sit on her little potty at all. This morning, she went at day care. I don't know if she held it all the way in town or what, but I think she had to, cause she peed a lot. It's very encouraging. She likes to flush.

pictures
I took Ally to get her pictures taken at Penney's last night. Halfway to the photo center, she tried to take her shirt and pants off. We had to detour to the potty - where she peed around 5 drops in the potty. It almost made us late because Penney's is so huge, and the bathroom is on the opposite end of the store.

When she got done, the photographer gave her a treat - some sort of Sour gummies. She was excited and made me open them for her. I told her she wouldn't like them because they were sour, but gave her one to try. she said "sour" about 50 times and carried it around. She finally tasted it and made a funny face. I saked her if she liked it and she shook her head yes. She said "i yike sour"

progesterone poisoning
I read a book when I was pregnant with Ally. In it, the lady says that "morning sickness" is way too misleading, and makes it sound like it's just a minor inconvenience. She suggested that "progesterone poisoning" was a little more realistic. It gives that dire "I'm not going to live through this" connotation. I agress whole-heartedly. The first trimester absolutely sucks!

That said - I'm realy excited. I didn't think I was very far along, but yesterday found out I'm already at 9 1/2 weeks. That means I'm almost to the part where I feel good again. Also, it means that I'm not as sick as I was with Ally. By this point, I was already on anti-nausea medicine last time. Anyway, I'm due April 29. Yay

news
Well, since I had a fever Wednesday night and had a sore throat, Rob made me go to the dr and make sure I don't have strep throat. The Dr. ordered a strep test and mono test (which were negative). I told him to throw in pregnancy test - which came back positive. I thought so, but the home tests were negative. Don't know why. Anyway, I find out my due date at my sonogram on Monday the 26th. whoo-hoo!!!!!

peace and quiet (sort of)
So, Rob was going to go camping Saturday, but changed his mind after finding that Ally would be gone. So we had some time alone together. Friday, I got the whole night alone though. I didn't do anything. Think slug... happy, happy. Would have been better if I hadn't been sick to my stomach though.

Gama Darra came to visit
Thank God! I have been sick to my stomach for the last week and have a cold and sore throat. Wednesday night Darra came to visit and I zonked out on the couch most of the night. I had a fever and don't know how I would have dealt with Ally by myself. Darra had a meeting in Peoria on Thursday and came back to the house afterwards. She had planned to play with Ally Friday instaed of letting her go to day care, and then was going to leave to go to St. Louis for another relative's football game and parade Saturday. Instead, I convinced her to take Ally with her!!!!!! This will be the first night Ally has ever slept without me in the same house. I'll get her back on Sunday. Until then, I'm (mostly) childless.

day care potty
Ally was so tired this morning that I just grabbed her out of bed and threw her in the car. She slept all the way in town. I had to change her and stuff when we got there. Her diaper was still dry, so I put her on the day care potty to try. It is so cute. It's about 12 inches off the ground. She peed in it. She was pretty excited, cause she could hear it hitting the water. When she got done, I got her dressed. She said "I went potty". They've tried to get her to do it a couple times during the day, but no success so far. Maybe now that she's done it once, she'll not be afraid of it.