Developments

I webcammed with my husband tonight.


That used to be the standard-- back before FaceTime, before I had a laptop with a built-in camera, before he had an iPhone-- it was us, computers, and webcams, communicating across the country. I had met him in my home state of Maryland right after I had already signed up to attend a massage school in Las Vegas, NV. We had three short months of face to face dating before I packed my car up and drove away. But, in that fleeting period of time, we had already fallen deeply in love. The relationship continued over cell phones and webcams, as I learned effleurage and petrissage in the desert, and he moved to Southern IL to get his bachelor's degree. The following year I graduated from massage school, we got married, and I moved to Illinois all in one weekend. It was a busy weekend. Now, five years later, we find ourselves once again connected by webcam. He is on the East Coast for a week long training, and I'm here, at our house in Illinois, with the two-year-old and a 32-week-old fetus gestating inside me. I'm ever so glad that my Dad is here, too (otherwise, I wouldn't make it!).




It works in our favor that R now loves her daycare. It was a rough transition for sure: my fully daytime potty-trained Cupcake went back to having (multiple) accidents, both at home and at "school." Thankfully the daycare staff was patient and understanding, and now, three weeks later, she comes home wearing the same clothes we put her in in the morning. She needs pull-ups at naptime, but that's understandable; the daycare staff have to stick to a schedule and put all the kids down at the same time instead of keeping one up until her bladder is fully emptied. But yes, R loves it. She has figured out that daycare is more fun than staying home and running errands with Mommy, or going to doctor appointments and watching Mommy get measured and hooked up to weird machines.


Speaking of doctor's appointments, I now go in for weekly ultrasounds and doctor visits, and twice weekly non-stress tests. Fun stuff. All of this time spent sitting around in waiting rooms has given me a non-stop list of knit and crochet projects. It's been awhile since I last picked it up, but I'm back to using the knitting jenny to make little hats for the NICU babies. I've also made a hat and two pairs of booties for Poppy, as well as finished her baby blanket. See?







I'm keeping busy, for sure. Until Senpai comes back home, and until Poppy makes her grand debut (another full moon is on its way... time to refill the anti-contraction meds prescription!), a steady stream of yarn flows through my fingers.

Easter-riffic

First, you should know that I started having preterm contractions on Wednesday (a full moon), at only 28 weeks gestation. I drove the 20 miles to the hospital at night, in the rain, to be monitored and medicated. You can't come early, Poppy, this is too early... The doctors sent me home with contraction stopping pills that I'm supposed to take as needed. So far, I have had to take two doses every night. I don't consider that a good thing, but I am quite glad to have the medicine.

Now, on to Easter! Because of the early labor scare, Grandad drove up from Florida. He'll be here for a while, hopefully until Poppy is born which will also hopefully not be anytime soon. The upside to the craziness on Wednesday is that we got to spend Easter with him. We're looking forward to having Oma join the party when Poppy arrives.


Saturday, we went to a local farm for an Easter Egg Hunt. It was R's first time hunting eggs (she couldn't walk last Easter!), and she did it like a pro.


The farm had chicks, bunnies, and ponies on display.


Such a sweet picture: Senpai and Cupcake holding a bunny.


Senpai put an egg in her basket and she figured out the rest from there. My big girl!


Today, Easter Sunday, Senpai took the eggs R had already found yesterday and re-hid them around our yard.


She's off! (Look, proof that Grandad is here!)


Found one!


The victory sippy cup.


Happy Easter, everyone!

The Cupcake's Lexicon

R speaks words! She has for awhile now, but here, at the second birthday mark, I thought I should type out her current lexicon for posterity.

dog - could be the animal or "draw"
muk - milk
poo-poo - means both pee and poop
head
eyes
ears
muh - mouth
unch - lunch
mao - cat
choo-choo - trains or cars
shoes
shu - lotion or soap
juice
apple - apples, any type of fruit, or tomatoes
Pooh (of course)
Win-na-pooh - Winnie the Pooh
Ti - Tigger
Owl
bees
beebee - baby
ahni - honey
hi
bye
ball
up
peas - please


Her latest sentence is "I like this!" Her favorite phrases are "all done," "beebee rock" (baby rock, aka rock-a-bye baby), and "nigh nigh" (bedtime).

It's the sentences that I love the most. In the past, she has said, "I did it!" "What is this/that?" and a couple of others that were only ever said once. Even though she zeroes in on one sentence at a time (she won't say "I did it!" now that she's focusing on "I like this!"), I'm still amazed that she has this ability to pull complete sentences out of nowhere and still have them be relevant to the situation. My smarty Cupcake.

Daycare

The Cupcake starts daycare tomorrow. Jelly Bean and I just started our third trimester together, and I am getting worn out very quickly. Also, R has been harder to take with me to doctor appointments because she gets scared and protective of me. I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow. R needs to be at daycare.



I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

What doesn't help is that Senpai showed me "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" last night. It's the prequel to "Planet of the Apes," where James Franco raises a chimpanzee (I had to go to IMDB to find out what kind of monkey it was. I can't tell those things apart!) from birth. At a critical point in the movie, James Franco has to relinquish his beloved chimp, Caesar, to an animal sanctuary. James doubts that the sanctuary will take good care of Caesar, and he's right. Cue my heart breaking for the poor monkey, abandoned, abused, and alone. James Franco has no idea what trials Caesar encounters. In the end, of course, Caesar becomes stronger for the hardship he's endured, and he leads his misfit group of monkeys to freedom while the human race eventually meets its untimely demise. Good stuff.

How am I supposed to leave R at daycare now???

I won't be there to watch over her. I won't be there to protect her. I can take comfort in the fact that a toddler uprising against authority and the subsequent decline of the population is highly unlikely. What is more likely to happen is that R will learn to protect herself. She will learn to rise above challenges without her Mommy. Tough lessons.

I hope she finds comfort in the daycare staff. I hope they can fill her needs. I toured three daycare centers, and the one we chose has the best ratio of children to adults. In my opinion, it will fill her needs for the two days out of the week that she will go. I hope I'm right.

The Cupcake's 2nd Birthday

The Cupcake turned 2 on Thursday.

We celebrated by going to Storytime. She got a free cookie from the cafe, and all the kids at Storytime sang the birthday song for her. The rest of the day (the whole week pretty much) was spent trying to prepare for her party today, Saturday.

It was a Winnie the Pooh party, of course. :-)


I designed the invitations myself (the blue (purple?) square is hiding my RSVP info).

I would be lying if I said I was truly happy with the party. It was absolutely a great time, and R had fun with all of her friends, but we did not give ourselves enough time to set up. The party started at 10, and I rolled into the parking lot at 10:03. Senpai was there already, setting up an elaborate tree decoration in the middle of the park pavilion (that we did not get pictures of!!! SOB), but there was still so much else to do. I rushed to get food arranged on tables, accepted all help that was offered by guests, and then we settled into the party without having taken pictures of anything (sob!). But it was a blast. I must emphasize that. As disappointed as my perfectionist self is that everything was not arranged and photographed "just so," I have to let it go and admit that it was still a fun party.

This is the only picture where you can get a hint of Senpai's tree inside the pavilion. Beautiful birthday girl, though.

UPDATE: Senpai pulled this still shot of the tree from some video we had taken. You can see my beehive piñata hanging from it, as well as a couple of goody bags. You can't see it here, but a Pooh garden statue is also hanging out in the tree. The strong wind that day gave life to the streamers and flowers as they fluttered and snapped in the breeze. It was truly enchanting to watch.
  


She had 7 friends show up!


Senpai and I spent a couple of nights last week making papier mache beehive pinatas. We each made one.


Here's the one I made. Senpai decided mine was too pretty, so his was the one that the kids demolished for candy. I wasn't sure how well two-year olds would do with a piñata, but it was actually really cute to see them all take a whack at it with the stick.


I ordered the cake from a local bakery. I had waaaaaay too much else to do to worry about how to make a Pooh cake.


We had served lunch of pulled pork that I cooked through the night, fruit and veggie trays that I cut myself (a friend helped to assemble them at the party; thank you!), beans, potato chips, and we also had huge tubs of potato salad and hummus that never made it out of the cooler (!!!). Sigh. Lots to do.


Here are the food labels I had worked on last night as my last project for the party. They got set aside somewhere at the park, forgotten about, and then not found until we were cleaning up. I wonder if more people would have tried the iced tea if they had known that it was honey green tea. Oh well.


This is what the goody bags looked like. I am happy to report that every child left with a goody bag; I didn't forget anyone! This one was leftover because we had a no show party guest.


We had balloons! There were these three mylar balloons and then we also had ten red ones. A friend tied some balloons to trees around the pavilion (thank you!) and the rest were just clipped onto the grill. So much for table decorations, lol.


R didn't spend too much time on the park equipment, but she did have a fun moment with the swings here.


Here is R on her "birthday throne," aka the travel potty set up next to the trash cans, haha. I'm happy to report that she made it through the party with no accidents! The whole day, even! And she's getting better at waking in the night to go potty. All of this means that we have a diaper-free two year old! Big girl!!!


After such a fun, enjoyable party, this is what we get to look forward to tomorrow: clean up. :-P



Happy Birthday, Cupcake!!