So, the belly continues to grow....and grow...and grow! I feel good. I really feel like this baby is more active than Abram was, moves around anytime I sit/lay down to relax/sleep. I've been going to the YMCA once a week and doing a Aquatic Fit class. It's me and a bunch of women (and an occasional man) in their 50's+. I really enjoy it! It's really nice to feel so weightless for 50 minutes out of the week. I'm too cheap to buy a maternity suit, so I've been two-piecing it. I think the other women get a kick out of it! I do have some residual stretch marks from the end of the last pregnancy that are shining again, but I don't really mind letting the belly just hang out:-)
26 week pregnant, end of 2nd trimester, went so FAST!!
31 weeks, month into 3rd trimester, only 8-9 weeks to go!
Quite a bit bigger and starting to see the weight gain in my face a bit too. Last appt. I weighed 162, so I'd gained about 34lbs. This is slightly less compared to first pregnancy, but last time I gained a lot of weight the last two months. I do think I look better than last time. Here's a link to my post from 2010 with a pic of me at 32 weeks. We'll see what happens in the next two months...
Near the end of September, Leslie came down for the weekend. We were practicing for singing at Farmland Friends the following weekend, and that took up a lot of our evenings, but we had fun. Leslie went with us to a friends block party that I face painted for and she couldn't resist getting painted too! I do lots of different full faces and cheek art, but the butterflies usually get requested the most!
Pretty sissy!
Leslie brought me back up to Mom and Dad's where I stayed for the week, rehearsing for Sunday and spending time with family. I was also able to visit with several of my friends from high school. Melanie "Mimi" (Lach) Richardson, was up visiting with her family from Austin and we were able to hang out a few times, meet each others sons, etc. I also invited Abby (Cassel) Wagner and Stacy (Haggard) Hollars over as well since they're SAHM's and would be able to come visit in the middle of the day during the week. We all had fun chatting it up while the kids played. So strange to see us all with little kids! haha
Stacy with her little one, Reid, Mimi, Logan and Ian, Me, Abby with her girls, Cora in skirt and Ada in pink in front of Mimi.
Abram playing with Big Baby, Abby's son Max and Stacy's daughter Lilly.
Our baby boy is getting so big! I weighed him on the scale at my doctor's appointment and he weighed about 27 lbs. I haven't checked his height recently, but I know what he can reach! He can now turn his bedroom lamp on/off all by himself, he can put his cup in the holder on his high chair or counter, and he can put his empty yogurt cup in the sink.
He's tall and skinny and seems to be between sizes when it comes to pants. All his 18 month pants are too short, but the 24 month pants are so big around the waist (whoever designed the pants with the adjustable elastic on the inside is genius!). He has lots of 24 month sweat pants and pretty much lives in those for now. He's not crazy about wearing jeans anyways...not sure if they feel rough to him or what, but he definitely protests for a bit.
Abram loves to sit on the potty or toilet. He won't necessarily volunteer to go sit throughout the day, although he does at night when he's brushing his teeth, but once he's sitting there, he does NOT want to get up! I've put little books in our bathroom and the upstairs bathroom and he will look at books or want me to sit and read to him forever! I don't know how his little legs don't go to sleep! He will pee and poo in the potty...we've even had a few days without any poo diapers and that is HEAVEN!
He's also starting saying "cheese" for pictures:-)
I try to steer him away from the laundry room/bathroom because I don't like sitting on the floor in there right next to the litter box! Yuck! But he does like the kitty picture book in there.
I was cooking supper the other day and could hear him playing in the living room. Sound is good, silence usually means Gypsy torture. This time he was playing so well, pulling out toys from his hamper and being so self-sufficient. This is new and still not all that common. He will often be very fussy/needy when I'm getting supper together, so I'm very thankful for moments like this!
Abram has had several VERY good weeks of eating. He's been trying things that (although he'd had it pureed) he's been refusing in it's whole form. He will now eat most things that we do, even dishes like lasagna with multiple ingredients in a bite. His favorites still include almost all breakfast foods, pasta, cheese, and breads. Fruits that will go down include bananas, apples (sliced or sauced), dates, raisins and the occasional grape (recent success). Vegetables that go down are green beans (favorite), peas, broccoli, spinach, salad (most of the time), potatoes and hominy. He does not like corn or carrots yet, gags with sweet potatoes (a fav when he was younger), and he's surprised me by eating most of the veggies in an oriental blend the other day and downed my eggplant parmesan (which was so very yummy!). He drinks his milk well, likes juice, but his drink of choice is TEA! He gets VERY excited when he gets to have tea and can/will drink as much as me when we go to Texas Roadhouse or Chick-Fil-A. Loves it!
One of our recent additions has been giving him dry cereal with milk. We started out with Rice Krispies. He's also had Cheerios (with a bit more difficulty) and Lucky Charms (picked out all the marshmallows to eat first, haha) and does very well getting most of it to his mouth!
He likes getting to drink the milk when the cereal pieces are all gone!
So proud of himself!
Abram has a growing obsession with balls, mainly basketballs/goals and baseballs/gloves. We go to the park down the road to walk and Abram likes go to the basketball court and have daddy shoot baskets and chase the ball around the court. I found him a little basketball goal at a local consignment store and set it up on the deck for him. He really loves it!
"Shoot it right there, Daddy!"
"Here you go!"
There is also a little slide at the park and Abram really enjoys being able to climb and slide over and over again. He does not like to swing. The only swing he will swing on is a porch swing. He's a slide man. There is an indoor play area at church called "Bibleland" and the slides there are his favorite. They are nice and slick and he's figured out how to slide down and come off the end running, without falling on his bottom. We also tried out the play area at Chick-Fil-A a week ago and he loved the tunnel slide! They have one of those at the Y too, but I don't get to go in the daycare area there to see if he's playing on that one.
'Whee!"
This child has inherited his daddy's "bionic hair" and needs a haircut almost once a month...at least that's about how long I can go before the hairs creeping over his ears starts to bug me! haha He's getting very good at following instructions when I cut his hair, holding still and leaning forward so I can cut his bangs or get to the back of his head. He frequently gets compliments on his hair, so I guess I'm doing something right!
Playing in the empty toy hamper. Curtis tied a string around the end and was pulling him around the dining room table. He loved it!
He also likes to just run around the dining room table, especially when the neighbor boys are visiting! Then they ALL run around the table together! Abram likes for us to run around the table with him and will tell us when he wants a running partner!
Abram has chosen a favorite movie and he wants to watch it almost every day! Veggietales: The Penniless Princess. It's short and sweet, has catchy songs and cute characters that appear in lots and lots of other movies...so now I just need to acquire a few of those so we have some variety! For my sake! He's sitting for a little longer now and actually watching the movie, which does help when I'm fixing supper. I've been trying not to have the TV on too often anymore for his sake AND mine, but we'll occasionally watch some KET/PBS at lunch time because I don't have to worry about inappropriate commercials. We'll also listen to Pandora on the Veggietales station, which is awesome because it also plays Disney and Kids Praise and Worship music. It's great!
Abram is still definitely excelling more at motor skills over verbal, but that's coming along too. He runs/jumps/climbs/ does somersaults, dances, spins, stacks blocks (up to 6 or so) and throws/shoots/rolls balls. He likes to scribble, has started to work some puzzles (gets frustrated when it won't fall in place), and is getting quicker at switching out the letters on his leapfrog alphabet toy on the fridge. He can blow bubbles in the bath water and will now lay down on his back and relax (which makes rinsing his hair LOTS easier) but he hasn't figured out how to blow through his nose into a tissue (fortunately he's not really opposed to the bulb syringe).
He definitely TRIES to talk to us...in sentences...we just don't have a clue what he's saying most of the time unless we have context clues. We've been working on a few sounds like "f" and "m". He's been using "b" more and has recently been much more accurate, saying "buh-buh" for bubbles and "bye-bye". Words that I usually recognize because they bear a strong enough resemblance or the "timing is right" are, "hi, Gypsy, dada, dog, star, kitty, trash, tea, cracker, 'cuse me, thank you, bath, boo (said that tonight!), cookie, elbow (sounds like beh-boh)...there are probably a few more, but he's still pretty "Dutch". We'll just keep working on adding more consonant/vowel sounds, which is getting easier because he's finally watching me and trying to copy what I'm doing to make the sound. His attempts are very cute! He does a few animal sounds: dog, cat, chicken and horse are the ones that sound the most accurate, but his favorite is elephant ( buzzing his lips and raising one arm) which finally had to be banned from the dinner table!
He's changing so much, so fast, its' really amazing! I'm so thankful that (although it can be exhausting), I get to be home with this little boy that is such a joy to me! I love him SO much!
At the beginning of September, Curtis wrapped up his 7th season with the Louisville Bats. Looking back, the season went pretty quickly. Abram and I made it out to about 8-10 games. My parents were down Labor Day weekend, so we went to the last game of the season. We tried the carousel again. The first time, earlier this summer, Abram freaked out when his horse started to move, so we switched to the bench! This time we just opted for the bench, because he was still eyeing the moving animals suspiciously. Mom took a picture almost every time we went around and we got one really good one with our faces in focus!
Maybe next summer he'll be ready for a horse!
Curtis has been in charge of making desserts for all of his co-workers birthdays for the last several years (they reimburse him for it) and we've also done a "season ending" dessert. Last year we did a nearly regulation sized home plate with the bats logo. This year we tried our first tiered cake! It was a fun project, 3 layers: 2 round and one half ball on top. We uses all butter cream icing, because nothing tastes better and the layers where white cake and red velvet. I introduced Curtis to the "grass tip" and he had fun filling in all layer tops. He left most of the smoothing and baseball to me though:-) I'm excited to do another tiered cake again sometime!
After a month and a half, I finally managed to get my vacation pictures all put into a slideshow! I wanted to do it this way so that the post wouldn't be a mile long. This way it was all nice and consolidated and compact here on the blog. I didn't have all the songs that I'd like to have set the pictures to, but I'm satisfied with my final product. It's just under 13 minutes, but really it goes quickly. I tried to put in enough captions so you'd have an idea of what you're looking at, without me watching it along with you and narrating. And Leslie, there are lots of pictures of you, so if you want any, just let me know the time that it appears in the slideshow and I'll send it along to you!
Now that this is complete, I should be able to continue with my regular blogging:-)
Daddy took Curtis over to the school and taught him to ride his "scooter". Curtis has sort of caught the motorcycle bug...but I told him I've had the horse bug way longer, and that must come first! haha
Abram enjoying the pool at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Now the pool's closed for the season...I don't think we got to swim in it NEARLY enough!
Two of Abram's favorite things: Grandpa and Trains!
Speaking of Abram, he's now been jabbering upstairs in his crib for almost 30 minutes while I've been trying to get this finished. I've done all my prep-work, so more posts to come soon!
Sporting a hat, something he hasn't really
enjoyed or tolerated much in recent months.
Abram is now 19 1/2 months old. Hard to believe. Also hard to believe that I'm 25 weeks pregnant and there's going to be another tiny baby around here in less than 15 weeks! I decided to stop doing the monthly "Bear-y" pic at 18 months...we might do a reprise at 2...but I'll try to post at least once a month to keep track of these changes that happen so quickly! Since his 18 month pic, there have been some significant events.
The neighbor dogs like to come visit frequently,
which Abram enjoys.
1. Abram is pacifier-free! After consulting with some other moms, and delaying the event for reasons that probably had more to do with me than him, we finally took the paci away "cold-turkey". He only had it in his crib to use for naps/bedtime. I went from 3 pacis to one and then after a week of that, to none. He fussed a little, and there was one time during that first week that I gave it to him mid-nap (because I needed him to sleep longer!) but since then he's gone without and sleeping great!
Abram drinking from a CUP like a big boy!
This is new...and we usually still put the sippy lids on .
2. I took a vacation with my sister to Connecticut/NYC and Abram stayed with his grandparents for the week! He took turns staying at my parents house and Curtis' parents house and did VERY well. I think he did better away from me than I did away from him...I know I cried a few times. When I got back, he didn't act like he'd really missed me much but he definitely cried when he had to say "bye-bye" to Grandpa! Although, selfishly it would feel good to think I was missed, I am very thankful that he does well sleeping away from home, enjoys spending time with his grandparents, and doesn't need to be with me constantly.
Playing at Mammaw and Pappaw's house while I'm in NYC!
He looks so much like Curtis in this picture!
3. Fruits and veggies are coming back into play. After a brief strike, Abram has decided that he likes whole green beans again. He's also eating peas and broccoli without me squishing them first, which is great! Carrots are apparently still too suspicious. He still doesn't choose to eat fruit, unless it's bananas, dates, raisins, or applesauce, but he has actually eaten apple slices (with peanut butter) and taken a few bites of pear and mandarin orange. I think texture has a lot to do with it, because peaches/pears/orange usually cause him to gag at first. But I think these small improvements are big steps forward!
4.Abram is REALLY learning to communicate! Now, he really doesn't have that many more words that actually sound like they should, but he's trying! He will attempt to mimic us when we ask him to repeat us (his best mimic is "thank you") and he does a lot more "sentence" jabbering than he did before (he will talk/laugh walking around with his play phone). He's also more responsive to things we say to him and the vocabulary that he understands grows everyday. He will nod "yes" when we correctly guess what he is asking for, or if he wants something we offer. Conversely, he shakes his head "no", if he doesn't. He almost always shakes his head "no" when asked if he needs to go potty, so I've been trying to ask him which potty he wants to use, with better results:-) I've caught him patting at his diaper a few times and we've run to the potty where he finishes up. I really think he will be ready for REAL potty training by the time the new baby arrives! His improvement in communication has also helped with discipline. He responds much more quickly and will look at me and nod when I'm explaining what behavior I expect of him...I know he doesn't always understand everything, but it's a good start!
New words/phrases:
"Hi ki-ey" (Hi kitty)
"Tan-you" (Thank you)
"Gi-see" (Gypsy)
"Cu-ee" (Excuse me)
So much changes every day and it's hard to keep track of everything...if I remember more, I'll add it...or just mention it next month!
