photo albums
I updated my photo albums. Had to clear out some old stuff to make room. Free accounts don't have that much storage space. check out and

blogs
Sometimes, I find myself wishing that I had a different purpose in mind when I started this blog. I started mostly to keep family members updated on what was going on. It seemed like a good way to do that. I think that there aren't very many family members that read it though. Mostly, it's just my friend Jill. Which is great. I'm happy to see that someone reads it. It's kind of like a on-line journal for me. The only problem with that is that everyone in my family has the address too. It means that I have to censor what I say a little sometimes. it's just not very good therapy. It is however, a great baby book. Which is good, because I never bothered to keep one. The first months of Ally's life are lost forever to the gnomes that roam around my mind hiding things from my memory. Anyway, Rob and I have both been very stressed out lately and I am SOOOO grateful that next week is the last week of classes. I'll have a month off before he starts his last semester. I hope I love him enough to make it through med school with him if he decides thats where he's going for sure, cause he's a total ass when he's under any school stress. (Sorry to any of his family that might read this, but that's as polite as it gets)

btw: I have the free account, so I can't tell who is visiting what pages, but it does tell me that I've had 726 page visits this month. Damn, Jill, you've got to get a life. I updated my photo albums, and made some entries, but know that wasn't all me. Seek help

streching
Rob laid down on the floor to stretch out and try to pop his back last night. Ally went over to him and yelled "Wake up daddy" He explained that he wasn't sleeping, but was just stretching. She knows all about that. She smiled real big and laid down foot to foot with him and stretched too. He sat up and she yelled "Strech!". He was happy to oblige by laying back down.

play now
Last night, Rob got home from his last lab of the semester, and was about to get something to eat. He stopped and gave Ally a big hug and told her he missed her. Then he stood up and tried to go eat something. She grabbed his hand and dragged him onto the carpet. She said "Play now" Everytime he tried to step off of the carpet into the kitchen, she yelled at him to get on the carpet.

headstrong
Yesterday morning, Ally was all ready to leave, and I just needed shoes and a coat. I told her we were ready to go, and to come downstairs so I could get my coat. She stood at the top of the stairs saying "Ally get it" while I put on my shoes and coat and tried to convince her to come down and get it if she wanted to. Then, i went up to get her. She repeated "Ally get it" So I had to take off my coat and give it to her. She picked it up and threw it to me and I put it back on. I said "Okay, can we leave now?" She said "Zip it Mommy!" After I zipped it, she was perfectly content to let me pick her up and take her to the car. What am I going to do when she is a teenager? Or worse - when I have 2 teenage girls!! I need to stock up on the prozac now

sleep issues
You know all the sleep issues we've had? Well, this is a new one. Completely caught me off guard. I don't know what to do about it.

Ally doesn't want to get up in the morning. She doesn't always sleep through the night, still, but it's getting a lot more common. And when it's time to get ready to leave, she won't get out of bed. Yesterday, I went in her room and told her it was time to get up. She propped herself up on her elbows, looked at me, reached over and turned her mobile on, and laid back down to sleep. She's 2 not 14. This morning, she yelled for me, but didn't want to get up when I got her. I took her upstairs to wake up and she cried for 10 minutes, so I took her back downstairs. We sat in the rocking chair, and she went back to sleep. I'm not talking resting sleep here either, I'm talking about the - drop a brick on her head, and she might notice - sleep. I got her all dressed and ready, wrapped her in a blanket, put her in the car, drove to day care, and gave her to one of the teachers and she probably opened her eyes to look around twice.

She's been a little more active at night and stuff. running around and jumping and playing catch. But not enough to make her this tired. I hope she's not coming down with something. Last night, she was on all 4s hopping kind of like a frog, and barking like a dog. I even tried to move her bedtime up a little. It's not working so far, but I'm going to keep trying. The tiredness is causing more screaming fits than I can stand. Or maybe she's just 2...

snow
I hate winter. Ally apparantly doesn't share my dislike of the snow.

On Dec 1st (the first snow we got this year) Ally didn't want to wake up. I told her it was time to get up and she whined "no" and rolled back over. I told her there was snow outside and we needed to get up and she could see it. She sat up and was instantly awake. She said "snowman?" I asked her if she wanted to make one and she said "I make it". I told her no snowmen yet, but maybe they would let her at day care (small white lie). I had to dress her while she was standing on the couch looking out the window. I left her at day care looking out the window. That evening, most of it had melted, but Rob tried to make a snowman with her.

Today, I walked outside with her and said "Look at all that snow on Daddy's car. And on Momy's car too" She said "Snow on Ally's car" As we were driving down the road, I asked her what she thought of all this snow and she said "get off Ally's car". When we got to day care, she asked me to make a snowman again. I think that will have to be Daddy's job

the bright side of having a 2 year old
Every night, when I go to bed, my Christmas tree is decorated in a new way!

prgnancy dreams are just weird
I wake up some mornings thinking "What the hell was that all about?" I had weird dreams with Ally too, but they weren't quite as frequent. I have to think that Im more tired this time and am dreaming more or something. Here's some samples:

I'm in a swimming pool when a meteor or something comes down. I see it and dive underwater. I come up and everyone around is dead. It happens again elsewhere. Then, it happens and no one dies. They just turn into zommbies. Some other people aren't affected and are freaked out too. We hide. The zombies attack us, but it turns out that they aren't trying to eat our brains or anything, they just want the food that's in our cabinets of the bunker we're hiding in. It's an alien race that likes human food Invasion of the Body Snatchers type thing. It just got weirder after that.

I'm walking down the street with a small 4x4 banging up people's windsheilds and cars. The street is mostly deserted, but one block over, the National Guard is out and theres lots of machine gun fire. Then, I get on a bus with them and the History Channel Mail Call guy is driving and talking about war. We drive out of town, and are in a flooded area all of a sudden. We hit a giant underwater log, and the bus flips and we all fall out the top and slide down a small waterfall. I look up and see that the giant log wasn't a log, but was an aligator about 12 foot long and 5 foot high. He's coming for us, so we all try to swim under a garage door that was cracked a little. I made it, but don't remember any more of the dream.

Last night was a much more simple less violent one. I was sitting at work, and the baby kicked. I looked down and could see its foot shape through my belly. It was sticking out about to the knee. I tried to push it back in, but it wouldn't go. So I called over someone I work with and said "Hey, do you want to see something gross?" That's all I remember of that one.

Do you think I need a shrink? Well, because of the dreams at least...

just some rants
OK. I have some issues, and I'm sure no one wants to hear them, so I'll write them here instead to blow off some steam.

Is it asking too much that you go to the cafeteria and buy a baked ptoato that's the special and expect it to be cooked all the way through?

Why is the world would I want to take the effort to save a Wal-mart (insert and store here) gift card and reload it when they're free? I use it up, I throw it away. I can always get another one. They're free. Besides, I give them as gifts, and I'm not going to write down the number and reuse that same card for a gift next time, because I assume that person threw it away. Like any sane person would.

Why can you not go to the store and buy JUST ONE go@@@mn hot wheels fire truck?

To the sonogram lady I'll see in 2 weeks: If you draw stupid little bows on my pictures this time, I will "accidentally" piss on you the first time you push on my full baldder with that wand thingy. I'm just saying...

To the guy I had to follow halfway to work today: If you're going to drive 20 mph, you need to change your license plate. ERNHDT 5 is not appropriate.

To everybody that I have to buy presents for this year: Instead of buying me some more lotion, Why don't you just give me $20. I'll do the same for you. It'll make Christmas a while lot easier on all of us.

I've been a bad girl
I've been neglecting my blog. In part because I've had things to do at work. In part because I have pregnancy brain. I forget things before 5 minutes have ssed lately.

For example... I've been trying to remember to mention Ally's fondness for finding the socklint in her toes, but I keep forgetting. This has probably gone on for a month. Every night, when she takes her socks off and yells "I find it. sotint!" I think "I need to write that down. And every morning I forget.

I guess Santa will have to pass me by this year

running fast and playing catch
For quite some time, I've noticed that Ally really doesn't run much. She's actually been a pretty quiet child. She loved to color and read books.
She still likes those things, but she's also entered a new stage. An active stage.

She likes to run around the house at full speed shouting "I'm running fast!" This usually ends with a crash, but she thinks it's funny most of the time and picks herself up and takes off again.

She also has rediscovered her balls. (Haha, get your mind out of the gutter) She thinks they all are basketballs for playing catch. This is not especially a good thing when she picks up the soccer ball andthrows it "to" you when you're not looking. But, she loves to play catch. She actually catches the ball, if you hit her arms with it. She's never been interested before now. It's kinda neat. (for one thing, it encourages Rob to play with her more. He plays catch a lot better than he can draw pictures)

jumping
Ally has learned how to jump sort of. She's been trying to hop for a very long time, with no success. Now, occasionally, her feet actually leave the ground. Dubious milestone, I know, but she is mighty proud of it. Now, if I could just figure out why she will only jump on a book or puzzle or ...

school buses and fire trucks
Ally has a wonderful game that we play to keep her occupied in the backseat on the way home from daycare/work. It's called "I found it"

It works like this. Ally leaves daycare and usually sees the preschool bus dropping off some kids at daycare on the way out. She yells I found it or school bus or both and then we get in the car. She asks me where the school bus went and I tell her I don't know, maybe we'll see some more. She asks me to find them, and I tell her I'll try. She then looks out the windows absently until she sees another one. Then she shouts "there it is" and asks me if there are kids on it. She's endlessly fascinated by this game, and I encourage it. It keeps her happy enough that I don't have to turn on one of her CD's.

The variation to this is looking for fire trucks. Backstory: a fire truck came to her daycare a couple months ago, and I assume that they ran the lights and siren for the kids. She was thrilled. Now, however, she is absolutely, irrevocably, convinced that everything with a light and siren is a fire truck. Ambulances, police cars, whatever... basically the game is played the same, but with a lot less successful sightings.

beating away
Had my dr appt yesterday. The baby's heart is just beating away. Funny thing happened though. Just after the doc found the heartbeat, my cell phone interferred, so what we heard was kinda like this:

da-thump, da-thump, da-thump, da-, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, da-thump, da-thump

I had to throw my phone across the room to Rob. It was kinda funny. the doc didn't have a clue what he was hearing. I had to explain it to him. He says the doppler has occasionaly picked up a radio signal also. That'd be a shock: "well, let's take a listen to what that baby's doing in there..." -turn on the doppler- "the temperature for today will be.."

emotions
Ally is learning emotions. Unfortunately, Scary and Sad are the ones she's picking up on. When she's crying, and I have no idea why (I think she's teething again - my god, why won't they all just come in already) I ask her to tell me. When I finally convince her to use words instead of whining, she tells me a couple different things.

1. Ally's sad.
Why are you sad, Ally?
Ally's sad. whaaaaaaa.
Do you need a hug when we get home?
I see it. School bus!!!! (This conversation happens often on the way home from daycare/work)

2. Ally's scary. lvkjsdf lkjsdoif oisudfje scary

3. Ally's crying whaaaa

We have a couple psychotic books that we heavily edit when we read them to her. One is about a fat frog that almost gets eaten by a big fish, because he's too fat to run very fast. One is about a donkey that talks constatnly and then loses his voice because he never shuts up. She can tell you that the animals in books are sad or happy based on whether they are smiling. She nevers says happy though. just smiling. When she's happy and luaghing, she tells us "Ally's funny"

bunny rabbit
They had little baby bunnies at the pet store in the mall this weekend. Mom had one and Ally wanted to hold it. I held Ally and Mom gave her the bunny. She held it so close and laid her cheek down on it's back. It was absolutely adorable. She loved it!

Mom
Rob, Ally and I went to the mall and met my mom on Saturday. We wandered around shopping with her and Naomi and Marisa, and Ally had a blast. Once, I was walking around carrying Ally, and askd Rob "Where'd Mom go?" Ally answered me. She smacked my chest and said "right here!"

bribery
ok, I admit it. I bribed my child with a sucker to get her to smile for her Christmas pictures. Lately, she's not been thrilled to stand on the podium at Penneys and smile for the camera. This time I planned ahead. I carefully hid a sucker from Ally (and Rob - he didn't approve) in my pocket and pulled it out at the portrait studio. I promised her she could have it if she smiled and stood stil for us. Does that make me a horrible mom? No? I thought that's what you'd say. (If you didn't, I don't care. I'd do it again, too. It worked like a charm.)

She smiled real big and anytime she started figeting, I reminded her of the sucker waiting for her. She even laid down on her belly for me. They'll be up whn I get them back in about a week in a half, and you can see for yourself. In on eof them, we had some props - a plate of cookies and a fake glass of milk. The photographer was trying to get her to fake eating a cookie. She wasn't really faking though. She really wanted to eat it and was confused. Then she put it down and tried to take a drink out of the cup. She's so cute.

tonight, we're going to Walmart to get her picture with all of Christy's kids for Christmas - Mom's idea. Then Wednesday, we go back to Penney's for birthday pictures. Poor kid. Oh well, I see lots of suckers in her future...

pure cuteness
Even though she exasperates the crap out of me, I can't help but love how cute she can be. When I tried to get her to sleep last night, I told her to lay down. She very deliberately said No. I convinced her, and the second her head hit the pillow, she pointed at it and told me to lay down too. She even had to same tone in her voice that I used on her. I patted her back for a minute, and she laid there looking at me. I whispered "close your eyes" a couple times, and she did, but she'd open them back up before long. When I quit patting her back, she smiled at me and said 'close you eyes". That's when I decided I needed to leave the room. She's too cute for her own good.