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.

sleep
Ally didn't sleep last night. I'm blaming the storm. There was lots of thunder. Plus, I have had an upset stomach and sore throat, so I assume she does too. I got her to go to sleep at about 3:00, but she woke up again 10 minutes later. Rob got up to get her, but all she did was scream "mama" So I asked her what was wrong and she finally said "eat" We all went upstairs to get her some Kix. I was so tired, I just gave her the container I keep them in. She stuck her arm in and started munching. We sat on the couch, she leaned back in to me and got comfy. Before long, she was almost asleep. So, I leaned up against Rob, She leaned up against me, and we sat for a while. She fell asleep with her arm in the cereal container. Of course she woke up when we tired to put it away. So I changed her and told her we needed to go lay under the stars and go to sleep. It worked. She must have gotten enough cereal to settle her tummy, cause she went to sleep.

added entries
I added a couple entries to last weekend below, so check there for more stories, if you've already read that far

hi bug
See below about being outside last night. Ally saw a spider on the sidewalk. She put her hands on her knees and leaned down real close and said "Hi bug" Then I stepped on it. I hate spiders. There was a little black hopping bug on the sidewalk too, so Ally said hi to it instead. After a while she changed it to "hi bug, smash it" though and tried to step on it.

go away clouds
Last evening was gorgeous. Rob, Ally and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. After 2 laps, Ally was getting restless, but didn't want to go inside, so we sat around in the front yard. There was a storm coming, so the sky was pretty cloudy again. We could barely even see the moon. Ally was looking for it though. She kept asking "... moon go?" Rob picked her up and showed her where it's supposed to be but told her it was behind the clouds. He taught her "go away clouds. I want to see the moon" Then the moon came out a little later and she was happy. When the clouds started to cover it again, she kept saying "go way couds. moon"

stars
Ally has stars hanging from her mobile. The other day, she learned that they can come off the mobile. Now, when she wakes up in the morning, she throws a fit if we don't take them off and bring them upstairs with us. They're "tarsh". She also loves it when you draw stars on a piece of paper for her to color. She colors faster than I can draw though (with a blatant disregard for the lines(: )and is very impatient. This has been going on for a couple weeks now, and every time I remember to look at the sky before I take her to bed, the stars are behind clouds. Someday, we'll go outside and lay down to look at them.

puzzles
Igot Ally a bunch of puzzles on ebay pretty cheap recently. She is doing great! Some of them have knobs on the, and some don't. She has trouble with the ones that fit tightly and are the same height as the rest of the board, but only because she can't get them out. The others, she is mastering. Especially the ones with pictures underneath. She does have a little trouble with the ABCs and the numbers puzzles. I think they are a little too abstract concepts for her. The animals and shapes, she can relate to. She says "puzz" and "peeces".