We're not artists
Ally expects us to be able to draw anything she wants. She brings us a crayon (usually yellow), paper, and her clipboard and commands us to draw something impossible like a monkey. Now, I don't know about you, but when I draw a monkey, it usually looks like a mutant polar bear. I'm just not artistic. Rob is a little better than me, so Ally likes to ask him more. hmmm... Did I say ask? She doesn't really ask... It's more of a command. She puts the crayon in his hand and points at the paper and repeats "kitty" (or whatever shes asking him to draw) until he does it. Then she points elsewhere on the paper and do the same. Rob likes to vary it up a little. He'll try to think of new things to draw. She loves it. She gets her face down to the paper as close as she can and tries to figure out what he's drawing. Then he can't see anymore. He's becoming a contortionist trying to seee around her. I love to see them sitting together like that. It just makes my heart warm. And, there's the added bonus that he has her undivided attention instead of me.

the floor
2 nights in a row, I have had to pick Ally up off the floor in the middle of the night and put her back in bed. I never hear a thump. I don't think she's falling out. I think maybe, she's just rolling around, and her legs go off the side. Then she moves around to get comfortable and ends up on the floor. She doesn't really wake up when it happens. She calls out for me in her sleep, I pick her up, lay her down in bed, and cover her up and she sleeps the rest of the night. It's odd though.

peace
Last night was wonderful! Ally ate earlier than we did. She ate a lot, and didn't even ask for juice once. Then, she played by herself for a little while. When Rob and I ate dinner, she came over to him with a crayon, and asked him to color. He told her he was eating, and he'd color after dinner. So, she asked me. I told her the same thing, and she went accepted it and played by herself some more. We got to spend a relaxing evening. It was quiet, and very un-stressful. After the last week, we needed it.

teething
Saturday night, Ally put up a fight when bedtime came. This wasn't any different, because she's been doing that 2 or 3 days before that too. When she's teething, bedtime is no fun. The only way I've been getting her to sleep, is to get her in bed, fight a little, then, when she's crying, I offer her "medicine" (Tylenol - but to Ally, anything that comes out of a dropper is medicine) and then she gives up and goes to sleep. I usually have to re-dose her around 1. Then she wakes up around 5. it sucks.

However, last night, she didn't do it. She laid her head down like normal and went to sleep after rearranging her stuffed animals. This morning I felt her teeth, and the top left molar has broken through with both cusps, and the right has 1 broken through. Yay!

head, shoulders, knees and toes
I had Ally dressed for Halloween for our trip to the zoo. I put black tights on her under black pants. As we were in the car, she was singing "knees and toes" over and over again. Then she was quiet for a minute, and then said "hiding!?" I turned to look at her and she had pulled both pant legs up past her knees, looking for them, but she couldn't find them because of the tights she had on.

Zoolie Goulie
They had a trick-or-treating thing at the zoo today. I dressed Ally up in black, and threw her in the car at the end of her nap to go. When she woke up, we were at the zoo and she got excited. I pulled her costume (a pumpkin) over her head. She looked down at her belly and said "pumpin". She sounded confused. She got used to it though and liked it. The whole zoo thing kinda sucked. There was long lines whole time. It wasn't really even about seeing the animals. I thought they'd have a little more emphasis on the zoo, but it was all about passing out candy.

Anyway, we got out of line a couple times and stopped at the animals. Ally likes the monkeys a lot. She stopped to pet the donkey. She wanted to pet the goats, but I wouldn't let her. They were really stinky, and her hands would have frozen if I'd had to wash them. It was pretty chilly out.

We stopped for the longest time at the duck pond. I didn't have any quarters, so we couldn't get the food out of the vending. I always have crackers though. We broke up crackers and tossed them in for a while. Ally thought we were just throwing things though. She didn't understand that the ducks only liked it because it was food. Everytime, we got to the end of the crackers she had, she'd start throwing them leaves. She had just as much fun throwing leaves as she did food. The ducks didn't. One of the swans got impatient once and tried to peck her hand. He probably would have made it too. He was tall. I pulled her back a little and tried to convince her to stop throwing leaves.

I am never writing in here about anything again!!
I said I hadn't been sick for a week, and got sick again. I said Ally was doing real well in her bad, and...

At about 4, Ally woke up crying. I went in and covered her up and she went back to sleep. 45 minutes later, she was crying again. I went in and almost tripped over her. She was curled up on the floor. She's been really cranky lately (Rob says I have too, so maybe she's taking her cues from me). I think she might be teething. She really didn't sleep well last night. Therefore, no one slept well last night.

This blog is cursed.

toddler bed
Firday night, I set up a toddler bed for Ally. Our plan is this:
1. replace the crib with toddler bed. bed is in exact same spot crib used to be.
2. In a couple months, tell Ally how big a girl she is and let her start sleeping in her toy room instead. Put toddler bed in same spot extra twin bed is. Move twin bed into Ally's old room (Darra sleeps on that bed when she visits, so Ally's room will become grandma's room)
3. Let baby sleep in bassinette for a month or so after she is born. Darra stays to help out after the baby is born, so she will still have a place to stay. Maximize the amount of time the crib is unseen to be forgotten.
4. Set new baby up in Ally's old room. Hopefully, enough time will have passed so as not to bother Ally.

I know plans never turn out as expected, but at least we've got one this time. Hope it works.

Anyway, Ally is doing pretty good in her big-girl bed. Since Friday, I have only had to go in and help her back into bed once. That was last night. I heard her whining and went in to check on her. She was still asleep, but had her feet on the ground and belly on the bed. I put her back in bed and she got comfy. I didn't hear from her again until she woke up.

She doesn't seem to understand that she's not confined to bed yet. For this I am very grateful. She doesn't get up without me ever. She lays in bed whining until I go in to let her up in the morning. I could do without the whining, but am glad she doesn't wander the house yet. That will come soon enough, I'm sure.

hidnin (translation = hiding)
Last week or so, Rob set up a fort for Ally with the couch cushions. She can't get enough of it now. She throws a blanket over her head and sits. She's hidnin. Or she drags Rob over to the couch and nods her head and smiles real big and asks "hidnin?". Last night he set up the fort again, and she climbed right under. she stuck her head out and said "come on Daddy" then, when he was under she said "come on Momma" She was quite content for a while, then she decided it was great fun to smash it. She climbed out and flopped onto the blanket and crashed the whole thing on top of us. We set it back up a couple times for her. One time, Rob went outside to check on the grill. When she saw ihm coming back inside, she ran as fast as she could and tried to dive/roll under the fort. She failed, but it was pretty funny.

mean mean trick
okay. This baby is mean - that proves she's a girl. I had a whole week of feeling pretty good, then Wham! I started feeling sick again. It's not unmanageable, but it sure hits hard after I thought it was over. I'm back to lots of crackers all the time. Oh well.

I thought I felt her move the other day. I don't know if that's possible yet though, so maybe I was imagining it. I felt Ally move and knew for sure around 17 weeks. They say you feel it sooner with your 2nd baby, but I don't know... 5 weeks is a big difference. I'm only 12 weeks now. We'll see. Am already having trouble sleeping. Pregnancy sucks. I'd just like to make sure that I get that down in writing, so I can read it next time I'm thinking I want another baby. Pregnacy sucks!!

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.