Cute Katie stuff

My parents have a large swimming pool at their home. They opened it up for the summer this last week. The first day, Katie and I went swimming. It was a little chilly, but still really nice and relaxing. Katie got in and just wanted me to hold her, and then she got out shortly thereafter. The next day, we went again, and it was about 5-7 degrees warmer, which was great. She got in, and within about 5-10 minutes was jumping off the steps into the water and not waiting for me to catch her. She has water wings on, but it still seemed pretty brave, especially since it was so sudden. She wasn't sure if she liked the water, and now she loves it and has no fear. Which greatly increases MY fear, but I stay close, and she seems to have fun. She can move towards a person, and it is really close to swimming. She likes to float on her back, and try to blow bubbles in the water. Unfortunately, she hasn't learned that you need to take a deep breath BEFORE you put your face in the water, so she has sucked in some water, but not enough to hurt her.

Katie seems to have entered her "terrible two's". But as my mother pointed out, she is still a fabulously obedient and happy two year old. Katie is very proficient at throwing fits. She goes limp, and falls to the floor, screaming loudly at the same time. Or, if I'm holding her so she can't fall, she will swipe at my face (which gets her stuck in the crib immediately). She seems fairly penitent afterwards, which is nice. She can just be so persistent. She doesn't get side-tracked easily, so if she insists on something, I will hear about it most of the day. For instance, she really likes to watch Batman (translation: movies). If she wakes up asking for Batman, I know I'm in trouble. She will ask for it just about every breath, and then throw a fit when I tell her for the 100th time that we aren't going to watch Batman right now because we need to eat, go somewhere, get dressed, play outside, or any other thing I can think of.
Of course, the problem is that I'm not entirely consistent on this point. It is nice to put a movie (usually short 20 minute episodes of Batman, Superman, or the Justice League) on while I shower, or fix dinner, or just relax next to her. I'm sure that is why she is so persistent about it.

What is really cute, is when I'm laying down on the couch or bed, and she has been playing by herself for a bit. Then, I will feel these soft hands, one on each side of my face, and feel her breath on my face. I will open my eyes, and she will be staring right at me, with her face about an inch in front of mine. Then, she will softly whisper, "Mom, Batman, watch?" and repeat it until I wake up enough to comment. She will have this look of pleading and yearning on her face, while she is softly stroking my face and my hair. A couple of times I just start giggling, because it is so cute.

Last Friday night, Ryan had 2 softball games that started at 8:30 pm, so we didn't get home until close to 11:00 pm. We had made arrangements beforehand to have Katie stay the night at Irma's house. Ryan and I put her to sleep in the crib there, then we left. She was crying, and Irma was strong enough to let her cry for about half and hour (according to our directions). I guess she went to sleep at that point. Apparently she woke up at about 1, and went back to sleep in Irma's bed. Otherwise, she seemed to handle it fine. I went over in the morning (Ryan had left early to go work on the cabin) and she gave me a huge hug, and kisses, as though she really had missed me.

She has been sleeping on her big bed now for about a week. She points at her crib every now and again, but when we tell her that she will have to sleep the whole time there, and we aren't going to move her, she decides she wants to stay on the mattress. She will sometimes stay in there when she wakes up, calling my name until I come get her, but most of the time she just wanders out with a cute smile on her face.

She knows her colors and can name them too. She hasn't gotten green, brown, and orange down yet, because she can't say them, but she consistently can tell you the color of anything else. She also can count to 3 and sometimes 4! Unfortunately, it isn't always in the correct order. 132, etc. Mostly it just means "alot".

She goes down the twisty slide at the park all by herself. There are also smaller slides that have a bar she can grab above her head as she is going down the slide. (Does that make sense?) So, she will grab the bar, lift up her feet, and swing there for a minute, before she sits down and goes down the slide.

Yesterday, Katie and I were sitting downstairs, and the baby was moving around. I told Katie to come feel the baby, and to say hi. She came over, and put her hand on my tummy, then laid her head on my tummy and softly said, "Hi baby". I asked her if she loved the baby, and she gave a shy smile and said yes. Then, I told her that the baby was her baby sister, and she repeated that. "Baby S....ter" It was so adorable! Now, I hope she will say it when we are referring to the baby. I don't think she understands the concept yet, but at least there is a little bit more personality involved.

6 weeks to go from today! (not that I'm counting, right?)

Pregnancy

Katie has been sleeping on her "big" bed off and on for a while now. The amazing thing about this, is she hasn't seemed to realize she can get OFF the bed by herself.
So, she would wait in the morning until we came and got her, and she would also stay on the bed, even if she didn't want to go to sleep.
This morning, Katie started calling for us to come get her. I was laying in bed, hoping that when Ryan got out of the shower, he would get her out and bring her in bed with me. She stopped calling for us, so I hoped she had gone back to sleep, and I apparently fell asleep again. Well, evidently, she got off her bed this morning and came into our room all by herself. Ryan says she peeked in the door to see if she could come in. When I woke up, she was talking with Ryan. She came and laid in bed with both of us for about 5 minutes, then Ryan had to go to work, and Katie was hungry. It was really nice while it lasted.

Katie said hi to the baby when I went to get her out of bed the other morning. I went in to get her out of her crib, and she rested her head on my tummy. Then she said, "baby? Hi?". So I let her lift up my shirt and she patted my tummy and said Hi to the baby. Then Katie said "baby? sleeping? shhh shhhh". It was so cute!

 

This is a picture of me at 30 weeks.

The baby is moving lots. This is the neatest part of the pregnancy, I think. I love to just feel her squirming around in there. It feels so weird, but I really like it too.
I have been blessed with my 2nd fairly easy pregnancy, and I'm very grateful for that. The only problems I have, are I have heartburn sometimes, and my back can hurt when I do too much in a day. Also, I am feeling more Braxton-Hicks contractions than I remember with Katie, but that is probably because I know what they feel like now.
Otherwise, I don't feel too different. Of course, there is this belly that sticks out there and bumps into things, but I still have fairly adequate energy and I'm not TOO uncomfortable. That will possibly change soon. :)

The doctor listens to her heartbeat each time I go to my appointments. He asks if anything feels wrong, and when I tell him everything seems fine, he says he will see me next time. I will start seeing him every week next week. I have 8 weeks left, so it is getting closer. Unfortunately, at this point, it seems longer than the 8 MONTHS I've already gone through.

We are getting really excited to have the baby here. We have so much fun with Katie, and love her so much, that it is fun to think of another daughter to add to our life.

Happy Birthday Katie

Here is a short video of Katie.