it's a...

baby! It's way too soon to know whether it's a girl or a boy at this point (although Sarah thinks that it is a girl). But there is definitely baby #2 on the way! Estimated due date is April 8, 2009. And we have, for your viewing pleasure, a few pictures of the new little one...(sorry it took us awhile to get them up; the scanner did NOT want to cooperate!). :-p

So far, everything looks good and the pregnancy is progressing normally. I have had a good bit of so-called "morning" sickness (terribly misnamed). I have had the typical pregnancy exhaustion and fatigue. But Sarah has been incredibly helpful through all this. During one particularly bad bout in the bathroom, she patted my leg and said soothingly, "It's okay, it's okay. I'm here." She lets me rest in the afternoon, playing quietly in her room if it's a day when she doesn't need a nap. And she helps me dust. :)

I mentioned in the first paragraph that Sarah thinks the baby is a girl. This may be an understatement. She is absolutely convinced that it is a girl, and she will not listen to any talk to the contrary. She was chatting with a lady in a coffee shop one day. The lady asked if Sarah had any brothers or sisters. Sarah said, "I have a sister, but she's still in Mommy's tummy." At the ultrasound on Tuesday, when the picture popped up on the screen, Sarah exclaimed excitedly, "That's my sister!" Tonight at supper, the baby came up in conversation, Nelson mentioned that they baby might be a baby brother. Sarah just made a face. "No, it's my sister."

At this point, I'm not making a big deal about it. She has a 50/50 chance of being right. If it turns out she's wrong, we'll deal with that when we know for sure. It's not worth fussing about right now.

In other news, Sarah currently now has me all dolled up in jewelry so that I can "go to the ball and meet the prince." She is telling Nelson that he's the prince who needs to dance with me and fall in love with me! So I guess I'll fall in love with my prince now, per my daughter's request. :)

Happy Labor Day weekend!!!

adventures in vacuuming continued...

For weeks, I've been struggling with our vacuum--it just wouldn't work properly. The height adjustment somehow got stuck, so I was literally having to wrestle it across our carpet--not fun! We finally gave in and bought a new vacuum. Thanks to Nelson's nifty employee discount, we bought an Electrolux. It's a real whiz-bang model, and it will probably take me a month to figure out how to work the darn thing. :) But it comes with a 25-year warranty, which is impressive for a vacuum.

So yesterday Nelson brings this new masterpiece of the vacuum world home. Sarah, believe it or not, is fascinated. She thinks this new vacuum is incredibly cool. She oohs and aahs over it, exclaiming over all the features.

And then Nelson plugged it in. Cue Sarah's normal vacuum reaction: cover her ears and cower. :-p Doesn't matter if it's a cheap store model or a big fancy one--the result is exactly the same.

This morning, Sarah and I were headed for Greeneville to visit her Mike and Mumsy. As she ate her breakfast, Sarah said casually, "I think today is vacuuming day."

Surprised, I said, "Really? You think Mommy should vacuum today?"

"No," Sarah answered. "I think Daddy should do it while we're gone to Mike and Mumsy's!"

Sarah's unusual dish

As I type this, Sarah is playing with her play dishes. She is "cooking" from a "recipe" (a real estate flyer). And I must say, this is one of the most unusual dishes I have ever heard of! So far, it has cheese, 4 scoops of butter, oranges, garlic, eggs, sauce, and "twenty ten cookies from a shoe!" It will be interesting to see what we get when this concoction comes out from the "oven" (conveniently located under the couch). :)

Happy Friday!

waking up late

Most mornings Sarah gets up around 9:00 or 9:30. Once in awhile, she'll sleep until 10:00, but that's as late as it gets usually.

So I was a bit taken aback today when 11:00 rolled around, and still she slept. Finally I went to check on her. "Are you okay?" I asked. She opened her eyes and looked at me briefly. "I'm okay," she confirmed...then promptly rolled back over. Even more surprised, I asked, "Are you going back to sleep?"

"Yes," she answered. "You can come get me if you need me."

Chuckling a bit, I left her alone. A few minutes later, I happened to be in the bathroom. Sarah knocked on the door and called through, "I told you to call me if you needed me!"

Um...I'm not sure why she thought I needed help in the bathroom, but it was a nice offer anyway! :-p

environmental print

During college I took many child development classes. One of the subjects covered was early literacy. One aspect to this is reading "environmental print." This is just a fancy way of saying that when kids do things like recognizing the McDonald's sign, it's a beginning literacy skill. :)

Sarah excels at the whole environmental print thing. She knows Dollar General, Chick-Fil-A, Pizza Hut, IHOP, Subway, etc. Today though, she noticed a new logo that I wasn't expecting. We were eating Tostitos at lunch. The bag had the emblem for Food Network on it. It has been awhile since we've watched Food Network (blame the Doctor Who kick). But back in the day when we did watch Food Network, we watched one thing: Good Eats. I love Alton Brown. He's my culinary hero, and his show is always interesting and informative.

So when Sarah saw the Food Network logo on the bag of Tostitos, her excited cry was "Mommy! It's Good Eats!" :) I honestly didn't expect her to have noticed the little Food Network icon, let alone remember it after all this time. I don't know why I didn't expect it; Sarah is like an elephant and never forgets anything. :-p

funny song

As I was logging my food into Spark People and catching up on emails, Sarah was behind me brushing my hair (she likes to do this frequently). After a few minutes, I noticed she was singing while she brushed. She was not singing a familiar kids' song; rather she was making up her own lyrics to a nameless tune. The lyrics don't necessarily go together; they were very stream-of-consciousness. But they were pretty entertaining! Here are some of the highlights of her little ditty.

"Mommy's car is so sick, but we have a Taurus...the car needs a doctor; Doctor Who will come and doctor it...running through the long grass is Wow Wow Wubsy...the hairbrush tickles; tickling is fun..."

Top 40, here we come... ;)

random pictures and a walk down memory lane

My dad sent me some pictures from his camera phone awhile back. They are not current, but they're good photos. I didn't figure anyone would mind if they weren't completely up-to-the-minute. ;) Enjoy!

The first two are taken at Barnes & Noble. Sarah LOVES going there. She loves playing with the train set, making new friends, and romping around the stage. And sometimes she'll even sit and look at a book. ;) The first picture is from March 20, 2008. The second one is from April 26, 2008.






This is Sarah in her bedroom at home, performing on her piano. It is also from March of this year.




Moving on to even older pics now...

These are from August of 2006. We were at my parents' house. Sarah likes to wander over to their neighbors' and check out their stuff!

Hugs!

art imitates television

We have been watching some of the episodes of Doctor Who lately. Sarah is fascinated. In the recent season finale, the Doctor and his companions fought the enemy the Daleks. Of course, they were victorious.

The appearance and the actions of the Daleks concerned Sarah somewhat. She asked questions, most of which could be answered with "They're bad guys." She accepted this. (Ah, the simplicity of a child's moral structure!).

Later, Sarah was drawing in her notebook. "I'm drawing bad guys," she explained. She had to put the notebook away for awhile (we had to run an errand). When she came back to it, she said, "I need to finish my Dalek."

I wonder if the BBC would be interested in her representation of their space monsters? ;)

where cars go to die

Several weeks ago, Nelson's car was having trouble. He couldn't get it running well enough to drive it to work that day, or even to bring it all the way back home. He ended up having to park it in the lot of a hotel. Sarah and I went in my car to pick him up there.

Fast forward to today. We were driving by that same hotel. Sarah noticed a truck in the parking lot. She said mournfully, 'That truck is dead."

"Oh? Is it?" Nelson asked, not realizing the location of the truck she was referencing.

In truth, the truck was fine. Sarah just assumed it was dead because it was in that same parking lot where her daddy's car had been when it died.

Maybe I should take my car to that parking lot. Maybe it would help it run better! :)