I loves you, Momma!

Rachel still loves to cuddle, which I love, too, even though she’s a great big two-year-old instead of my tiny, precious baby girl.

Right now she has to curl herself around my tummy while I rock her and it’s a little bit awkward, but I love it. While I was singing to her the other night, with her half-squishing, half-supporting her baby sister, I looked down into her eyes and she looked up at me. I recognized that face immediately—I had seen it several times before when she was younger—she was staring at me so intently, her darling blue eyes focused on my own.

TMI, probably

*Sigh* I’m still pregnant. It’s not exactly like I was expecting to not be pregnant by this point, but my friend Amy had her baby on the ninth and my friend Natalie is scheduled for a c-section tomorrow.

This wouldn’t bother me, but I’m not due until the 27th. Natalie’s due date is technically the 23rd. Amy’s due date was the 20th. So while they should have been my comrades in pregnancy still, they aren’t. As of tomorrow I will be the only one pregnant, with no end in sight—except for the knowledge that eventually the baby has to come out.

Flashback Friday: Gullible

When I was younger I was quite fleeceable. Pulling the wool over my eyes was no difficult task and thus made me the obvious victim for any pranks my older siblings wanted to play. I was so gullible that it’s possible they weren’t even trying to trick me at all; off-handed remarks and sarcasm were often taken very seriously by me and once I reacted to anything they said they would take the ball and run with it.

So it’s not entirely their fault.

Eleven little pumpkins sitting on our couch

I wonder if, when you already have other kids, part of nesting is suddenly coming up with projects to do together so that you can spend some quality one-on-one time before another little person enters the scene. Either that or it’s leftover guilt from the first trimester when all I did was sleep all day, neglecting any and all parental and housekeeping responsibilities.

Corn!

When Andrew was learning how to drive, his dad would constantly lecture him about watching for things straying onto his path (kids, balls, deer) and how he should react to that.

One day when they were out doing driving together, Reid started giving Andrew the same lecture he’d heard several times before. And then, in the middle of the lecture, Reid yelled,

“CORN!”

Andrew slammed on the breaks and momentarily freaked out.

Crafty Day

Rachel was in a bit of an exploratory mood today and I really wasn’t so instead we did crafts and played school. She got to learn about the world around her and go exploring in that sense and I didn’t have to change out of my nightgown all day long.

In the morning and early afternoon we worked long and hard to put together a Thanksgiving* turkey.** First we painted feathers on paper and then let our paintings dry while we had lunch. Then we cut up the feathers and wrote down the things we were thankful for. Rachel was so funny when she was coming up with her contributions.

“What are you thankful for?” I asked.

“Ummm…Mommy and Daddy!” she said.

“Okay, what else are you thankful for?”

“The food,” she piped up, quickly falling back on a rote prayer answer.

Two big worries

We’re really getting down to the end here, and I’m still rather nervous about a number of things but I feel like we’re slowly getting the necessities done. Thank you, nesting instinct. I don’t know where I’d be without you. Lying on the couch, probably.

The two things I’m most nervous about right now are:

1) Recognizing I’m in labour when I go into labour
2) Changing our family dynamics

Unfortunately I can’t do much either of those things until the time comes. How do you learn to recognize you’re in labour without actually being in labor, or practice bringing a brand-new baby home to be a part of your family forever? We read about it, we talk about it, we pray about it…and I’m sure everything will work out fine, but there isn’t really anything concrete I can do to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. 

Lindsays’ Farewell

We’ve reached that glorious stage in life where we show up to a branch function and Rachel runs off to play. By herself.

It’s awesome.

It leaves us free to chat with other grown-ups, which is really nice for me since I’ve been in primary for the past…well, since before we got married. Not that I mind being in primary, but sometimes it’s nice to remember that there are people in this world who are older than six years old.

Running Commentary

Ever since Rachel was born we’ve narrated life for her. While it’s important to talk to babies, it’s almost impossible to know what to say to them—so we started narrating and she’s grown up hearing a running commentary on her life.

Now that she’s more able to communicate back to us and understands more about the world around her, the need to narrate is waning. She asks for clarification when she doesn’t understand something—trust me, she asks—all the time she asks. Who? What? Why? When? Where? Repeat.

Answering all those questions is more complicated and confusing than washing your hair, even.

Give the girl a lawyer…she’s cheating on pink!

This morning I got up early with Rachel, at least earlier than I wanted to get up with her, so when Andrew woke up I informed him that I would be going back to bed for a while or I wouldn’t make it through the day—I had a primary meeting in the afternoon and then he had an evening class and I was already grumpy.

Rachel was being a good girl and was entertaining herself quite nicely so I didn’t think it would be too much of a problem for him to watch her while doing homework. I don’t know why it was even a problem for me; I just was grumpy today. Perhaps it’s a combination of pregnancy, phone stalking, insurance woes and general Egypt malady all combining forces against me.