Updates

Sheesh. I feel like a lot is going on in our family's life. We've been crazy busy the past few weeks, with just extreme amounts of busy-ness yet to come. Here are some updates for the few who are interested.

Me: I'm now in my 3rd trimester. As people keep telling me, I've busted out. I feel quite large. My sciatica (is that how you spell it?) is acting up when I get up from a lying position. I actually collapsed the other day. I'm tired all the time, similar to the first trimester, which has made me cranky. The whole guilt thing about neglecting my kids is back.

I had my test for gestational diabetes today. As a precautionary measure, I refrained from sweets for about 15 hours beforehand. Could you imagine if I wasn't able to eat carbs for the rest of the pregnancy?! I'd die. I discussed my delivery today with the doctor, which freaked me out. It's coming so soon! ACK! So not ready. Any name ideas? So far, it's just Baby.

My house is a constant mess, and I'm completely lacking the motivation to maintain cleanliness. I will attempt dishes and laundry, but at this point, picking up toys is not worth the effort. I feel grumpy. A lot. On the upside, I got 3 pairs of cute flats at this weird Foot Locker sale for $9.99 each! That was fun. And I AM excited about the holidays. I love Christmas. I love the weather, I love the shopping, I love the decorations up since Halloween. It makes me happy. And I have three weddings coming up. Although they take up a lot of my time, I really enjoy doing the wedding coordination stuff.

Peter: Peter is crazy busy at work. They added another doctor recently, so in addition to the regular growth of their practice, being on call is slightly ridiculous now. He gets calls almost every night, whereas he'd get maybe one nighttime call a week a year ago. The phone is constantly ringing, it feels like.

In addition to work busy-ness, he's organizing the youth retreat again, attending the Monday night shepherds' Bible study (translated from my Dad's curriculum), and shepherding our HC. And, of course, playing scrabulous on facebook. Actually, that's dwindled since he beats people so bad no one wants to play with him anymore. Including me. Especially me.

Peter is getting old. He'll be 34 in a couple of weeks, but it seems like he's getting injured all the time. I have to keep reminding him his bones are getting brittle and his body ain't what it used to be. He tried staying out late to hang out with some old college friends the other day, and they all fell asleep watching a movie (scaring me to death when I woke up at 4:54 to find him not home).

Ellie: Ellie had a blast with the eemos while we were gone in Chicago, but didn't get enough sleep. That was over a week ago, but she's been having sleep issues since. It's been made clear that she totally isn't ready to skip naps completely as she passes out at 6 on nap-skipping days, and is Little Miss Cranky Pants from about 3:00 on. It's great when she goes down at 6, except she wakes up super early, too.

Ellie is still the best big sister I know. She is getting really excited about the baby, although she told my mom that we definitely can't have any more after this one because she'll be too busy. She tries to teach Matthew new "tricks" and words all the time, and is just... sweet. Yesterday at church we talked about being thankful for the things God gave us, then later that night she declared, "Mommy. I'm so thankful for all the pretty things. I want to pray and thank God for them. Dear God, thank you for all the beautiful things you made for me to look at. Like the clouds, and the flowers, and the trees, and all the stores. Thank you for making these wonderful things. In Jesus' name I pray, amen." Wasn't that deep? What 3-year old things to thank God for things to look at? Seriously.

She is also Little Miss Rule Follower, following in Mommy's footsteps. She always has to confirm Peter's decisions with me, and strictly maintains her two TV shows a day rule. She told me Kudos didn't count as breakfast (I was in a hurry) because they have chocolate and a lot of sugar. She didn't eat some sweet thing offered to her because she'd already had a cookie earlier. Sigh. A legalist after my own heart.

Matthew: Matthew is 100% obsessed with trucks. I'm thinking we'll have his birthday party at a construction site. On the road the other day I was pointing out excavators to him, and he goes, "Mommy Mommy! TWO eckacacors." (At which point Ellie said, "ACTUALLY, there's THREE excavators," but Matthew calls anything more than one as two.) My mom bought him a mail truck toy at the post office today, and he was going nuts. He didn't let it go for about 3 hours straight. He can identify excavators, cement mixers, mail trucks, scrapers, and dump trucks. Everything else he calls "BEE guck" (big truck).

Matthew also talks nonstop, which can be tiring. It's mommymommymommy all the live long day. He wants to listen to a particular song (if he doesn't like it, he says, "no no no gong" until I get one he likes), he has to have a particular book, he will only eat particular things. He tells me daily, "Mommy BIIIIG butt." But his talking is mostly funny. He'll say bless you when people sneeze, and he loves to say hello to the guards at the neighborhood gate, any drive through people, people in the elevator, and people in cars next to us. He loves to sing, consisting mostly of moaning until it gets to a word he knows. (Jesus uh me uhhhhhh know. Uhhh Bible uhhh so. Uhhhhhhhhhh ong. Uhhhhhhhhh tong.)

He can count to 5, recognizes blue and yellow, knows the words to a bunch of songs (including the Yo Gabba Gabba theme song), does a lot of animal sounds, can identify about 5 different types of trucks, distinguishes not only the balls (baseball, football, basketball) but the games on TV, prays by himself (Dee Gaw, tak oo Mommy Daddy Ayee. Pay, amen.), remembers names of people really well, thinks he can skip and jump, and is almost at the point of voluntarily sharing. Almost.

Whew! Did you get through all that? I'm exhausted just typing it, let alone living it. Anyway, that's what's up with us. Wish me luck getting through the holidays and my last trimester. Come February, things are only getting crazier!

Ages and Stages

I remember before I had kids, I'd look forward to playing with my favorite ones at church every week. I remember being excited that the Hwangs moved to our neighborhood so I could see Abby. I remember Wesley running to "Meemo" every Sunday and requesting to take him home with us. I remember asking Jonathan to pick us up from a trip and bring Justin so we could see him.

Then, slowly but surely, these babies grew up. They became more independent, they liked me less, they were more interested in playing with their friends, and frankly - became a little less cute. Not less attractive, physically speaking, but less like babies. Let's face it - I, like many people, prefer babies.

So it's making me sad these days that Ellie is at that age where she's outgrown babyhood. I see my friends, some of them Ellie's most loyal eemos in the past, losing interest in her. Honestly, she's at the age now where I start losing interest in other kids. Conveniently, I have Matthew, who's at one of the most fun stages. He recognizes people, remembers things about them, and says and does all kinds of entertaining things. She doesn't seem resentful or jealous when people pay attention to him, but she is more sensitive towards certain people (Sandy, for example) if she gets ignored.

My poor big girl. Even I find myself looking forward to hanging out with Matthew more sometimes. I mean, of course I love my daughter. She's an awesome kid - so smart, so sweet, so funny, so loving. But Matthew is just ridiculously cute right now. The 1-2 year old stage is my favorite, hands down. I wonder if she senses it, though. In the past couple of weeks, she's become a lot clingier to me. I hope I'm not subconsciously pulling away from her or anything. I'm actually making concerted efforts to talk about her as much as I do about Matthew, spend alone time with her, etc. I try to make sure that others acknowledge her when we go places, and I try to give her the spotlight as much as possible.

I'm worried about two things now once the baby comes. #1 - Will Ellie become even MORE neglected/ignored? Will she fade even more into the background as she becomes the nurturing big sister? Or maybe jealousy will kick in this time around as she demands attention. That would not be good, either. And #2 - How will it be for Matthew in two years when the baby is all cute, he's getting boring, and he's the woeful middle child? He won't be the baby, and he won't even be the only boy. At least Ellie has the only girl thing going for her. Sigh.

So if you see my family, please make sure you acknowledge my semi-neglected daughter in between laughing and cuddling with my crazy boy. Sad!

On a lighter note, I discovered that I can fit three real carseats (not just a portable booster) in the backseat of my car. Hopefully the minivan will not be a necessity for this not-even-30-year-old mom anytime soon! Hooray!