Growing a Little Schulze

Monday, April 15, 2013

Way behind!

I'm way behind on blog posts. I'd like to say it's due to being busy growing a baby and chasing a toddler, but that's not all of it. I was waiting on pictures from Claire's birthday party. And they were on my mom's camera, so I had to get them from there and then get them transferred to Jeff's computer, and then go through them and upload select ones to the blog. And I like the blog posts to be in order so I didn't want to post about anything else in the meantime.

But I've finally got the pictures, so coming soon........

Blog posts about Claire's birthday bash, baby girl's follow-up ultrasound (good news!), Easter, and more!

Monday, March 4, 2013

The big reveal for Baby #2!

I scheduled the big ultrasound for baby #2 on March 1st, my mom's birthday! She wanted to come, having never gotten to experience ultrasounds when she was pregnant. She and my dad were headed to Alabama for the weekend, so he came up with her and watched Claire. Although the office was running behind again(!) we finally got in.

Here SHE is! Baby girl #2!

Baby girl #2 at 19 weeks, 3 days

And just for comparison, here's Claire at 20 weeks


Claire at 20+ weeks

Looking pretty similar to me!

And yes, we were hoping for a boy, for a multitude of reasons. For me it was because I have a soft spot for sweet little toddler boys from my days in daycare, I've always wanted at least one of each, and because we need some boys in the family. For Jeff it was mostly about not having to discuss girl names again! And someone to share boy stuff with. But we are, of course, happy with our second little girl. I do love saying that Claire will have a little sister. Hopefully she'll have a name by the time she arrives!

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures with this ultrasound. Just the one above plus one with the money shot of girl parts, which isn't terribly interesting. I do have to have another ultrasound in a few weeks so hopefully I can get more pictures then. The ultrasound showed an 11 mm choroid plexus cyst (fluid filled pocket) in baby girl's brain that they want to monitor. I've heard of this before and know that it usually means nothing and resolves itself. Thank goodness I know that because the midwife did a piss poor job of explaining it, and brought the issue up in passing to begin with. Not pleased with that. But I also know that these cysts can be associated with certain chromosal abnormailties. That is usually seen in conjunction with other concerning findings and all baby girl's other measurements look good. So we should be fine. But anything calling for a repeat ultrasound brings an underlying worry. So prayers for good news next time!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Maine trip - January 2013

My Dad had a trip to Maine planned for the end of January to check on my grandfather and asked if Claire and I would like to join him. Thanks to flexibility of being a stay at home mom, there was really no obstacles preventing is. Well, except for the challenge of Claire on a plane. But we went anyway! From January 29th to February 2nd.

They had a good few inches of snow on the ground when we got there, but high temperatures were forecasted for the next 2 days. So the evening we arrived, we got Claire dressed up in a bunch of borrowed snow gear and headed out to play. She loved her boots, and glubs, and the "no" (snow). And dropping chunks of snow on the driveway and watching them bust. Not such a fan of the sled.

We had a good visit, getting to see a good amount of both my grandfathers. We stayed with my Aunt Dori, who my Dad has nicknamed Irod (Dori backwards). He has passed this on to Claire. So when we would pull up to her house, Claire would exclaim "Iwod's house!" Or when asked who bought her a cute pink moose and ball: "Iwod!"

Claire had her first bubble bath. And Mommy and Paaps got to eat lobster. And Mommy and Claire got to go to the beach, even if the windchill was 17 degrees!

Claire did ok on the plane rides. She did well on the way up, with a morning flight. The return trip was during nap time and she got cranky. But she wouldn't fall asleep, even when I tried to let her cry for a few minutes. Didn't work! So I guess we'll be aiming for morning flights in the future! We did love the great kids' play area in the A terminal at Logan. Perfect for burning off some energy!

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Claire playing under a blanket on the plane

Snow pants

Almost geared up

Iwod helping with glubs

Ready for the snow!

Fall down!

Dori getting ready to take her on a sled ride

Claire do it!

With Great-Grampa

Playing ball

Bubble bath!

Looking at the wind and waves in Wells

Now that's a view!

Claire in a shopping basket

Found a rock at Ogunquit beach

Awesome play area at Logan airport

Sliding down the traffic control tower!

18 weeks!

Taken Feb 20th at 18 weeks, 1 day

Fully into maternity pants, which means I have to break out the maternity shirts to cover the panels on the pants.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Claire at 23 months

23 months: January 24th-February 24th

Claire's language continues to develop quickly. So quickly that she comes up with and then grows out of cute little Claire-isms so quickly. In one month Mickey Mouse went from "it ee ouse" to "mick mouse." :( "It ee ouse" was so cute! I think "hooch" is gone and many other cute things that I can't remember!

She's progressed to being able to label most animals instead of just saying their noises. Including dog and cat! She's learning about asleep/sleeping vs awake and how to tell someone to wake up. She says it as "Gup!" So we'll be sitting on the couch and she'll tell me "Mama night night." So I pretend to sleep until she tells me "Gup mama!" Which happens quickly because she doesn't like it when I'm sleeping.

These are not necessarily brand new, but things Claire is saying that I haven't documented yet.
heavy
bright light
unch (lunch)
nack (snack)
Alright!

In the car she still loves to say mama over and over. But now she also loves to say "mama dada mama dada mama dada" all run together over and over.

We've officially entered the repeat everything stage. We were riding in the car with my parents and something in the road hit the tire well and made a loud noise. My mom impulsively said "Oh, sh$t!" So Claire repeated it. And my mom says "Did she just say what I think she said??" And I say "Yes, she did. Because you said it!" And my mom says "Really? I did?" And then tries to teach Claire to say "sugar beets" instead.

Jeff and I took a 5 day trip to Vermont with our college friends. Claire stayed with both sets of grandparents for a few days while we were gone. She picked up a few skills while we were gone. She suddenly started saying "yeah" in context. And relatedly, she became a pro at saying "No!" Claire are you done with lunch? No! Do you want more food? No! Do you want to get down? No! Oftentimes I think she says it just to say, not really knowing what she means. She also was calling us mommy and daddy (instead of momma and dada) which was cute but also a little unsettling. I didn't feel quite ready to graduate to mommy just yet, so she's back to momma and dada. She learned the names of the Schulze's cats. Olive and Martini are known as "Ah-wiv and Tini." And she learned about Eskimo kisses or nose rubs, which she thinks is hilarious.

Physically she loves to "jump, jump." On the trampolines at the play space we visit, on the couch, around the floor, wherever. She doesn't quite have the regular 2 footed jump down yet so she does a kind of 1-2 hop. She also loves "running." Which to her means running around in a circle. Apparently she started doing this at school too. Lovely!

She got a small ball from my aunt on our trip to Maine (more about Maine in the next post). She likes to tell Jeff or I to catch or kick. But she can't catch! At all! She doesn't even put her hands out to protect herself from being hit. Jeff was trying to toss the ball to her. She would just let it hit her right in the face! Baseball is not in her future! Her kicking isn't too bad though, so maybe soccer.

And my favorite development of the month.......nuggles!

Also know as snuggles! She has become much more physically affectionate (which is not hard to do compared to none!) She will give me hugs or a squeeze at random times. She'll come up and hug my leg, or if I'm playing on my phone or the computer, she'll climb up on my lap for snuggles. She'll lay her head on my chest and say "Awww! Nuggles!" So cute! She's not quite so giving of the hugs and snuggles with others. Even with Jeff. But we're working on it.

And now time for pictures!

Playing in her Mickey Mouse tun-tun (tunnel)

Rare sighting these days: passed out in the car

Donuts (no-nuts) make you forget all about boo boos!

Trying out the jackee (jacket) from Auntie Dori

Visiting Fern Bank museum in Atlanta:

Claire loves to push the stroller

Lights and shadows

Big bubbles!

Looking at bug specimens under a big microscope

Rawr!

2 cuties

More random pictures:

Playing night night on the box

Mmm, chocolate chip pancakes! Where have you been all my life?

Valentine's party at Claire's school

Mouthful of snack cake

Everyone decked out in red and pink

Rearranging her toys

Claire's first girl scout cookie!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

16 weeks!

16 weeks pregnant!

16 weeks along with baby #2 as of February 5, 2013. I look pretty pregnant in the picture up there. But it was the evening, so the belly was a little bigger. People who don't know me probably think I'm just chubby. I tried switching to maternity pants, instead of just my fat pants from my postpartum time with Claire. But that didn't go well. The regular pants are more comfortable. One pair of maternity jeans is forever sliding down and has to be pulled back up. A low panel pair of jeans from my sister-in-law fits funny and just feels tight. I just can't win. So back to the regular pants, just unbuttoning when I sit down.

In exciting news, I felt the baby moving at 16 weeks exactly. Just like with Claire, it feels like popcorn popping in my tummy. It's still infrequent and slight but oh so fun to notice in odd moments.

I had a doctor's appointment the next day. Everything was good with my bloodwork from the previous visits and my blood pressure continues to be great. Weight was up a few pounds, which I suppose is right on track being a few weeks into the 2nd trimester. Baby's heartbeat was easy to find this time and sounded good. I scheduled an ultrasound for March 1st so that's the day we will find out boy or girl, if the baby cooperates!

22 months!

I'm 22 months old?! Whoa!

22 months: Dec 24, 2012 - Jan 24, 2013

Claire just continues to develop at lightning speed! It's so fun to watch!

Some new and fun activities for her include:
-Building blocks - she suddenly developed a strong interest in building towers with her mega blocks (large legos)
-Trains - she's loving the train table we got her for Christmas. She likes to push the trains down the hill, but doesn't like the 3 train cars to be connected to each other. She wants them separated. She also likes to tell Jeff or I to sit by her (Mama sit sit! Dada sit sit!) and play with her. To aid in that, she likes to carry the little chairs from her table in the playroom out to the living room and pull them up to the train table.
- Mama read! - She's very into books and being read to and labeling all the items or actions that she has words for. For some reason she fell in love with the National Geographic magazine Jeff put in my stocking for Christmas. She'd bring it to me and tell me "Mama read!" She liked the pictures of animals and water but only stayed interested in the articles for a paragraph or so. :)
- She also loves songs and has requests when it's singing time in the bedtime routine. Round, round (or Wheels on the Bus) is her current favorite. One night she was holding a baby doll in her lap as she was sitting in my lap. As I sang to her, she made the dolls hands move to do the round round motion of the wheels of the bus and the motions of pat a cake. It was the first time I had seen her do that and it was so cute I had trouble continuing to sing!

Cognitively, she is making leaps with her shape and color knowledge. She can label a good number of both. For shapes she has square, circle, triangle, oval, heart, star, and diamond. She recognizes a rectangle as well. She also does a pretty mean shape sorter too. She's become much more confident in her colors. Blue, red, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, brown, and white are pretty solid. She does mix up pink and purple and yellow and orange sometimes. It cracked me up one day when she asked for her "poo poo wa wa" and I finally realized she wanted her purple water cup!

It's been a fun month for language development. She has added the following to her vocabulary:
'mon (come on)
jamas (pajamas)
Care ub bup (Claire up up)
Dang mama. Dang dada (she heard Jeff say dang one day and decided to repeat it a few times :)
jaff (giraffe)
have/have it (Another way of asking for something. Have cracker? Have it?)
boke (broke/broken)
fix
tun tun (tunnel)

And....... my personal favorite:
Hooch!

What exactly is a hooch?

Well, it's a made up Claire word. Based on how she uses it, it's a verb that means to pick up something. Mostly her. She will tell me "Mama hooch!" and raise her little arms up to me, meaning she to be picked up. Jeff was trying to take her out to the car one day and she didn't want him to do it, she wanted me to do it, so she screamed "mama hooch! mama hooch!" Or in the morning when I get her from her crib, she'll gather up her sheep and blanket in her arms and ask me to "hooch" her and all her stuff. Or when she fell down the other day and ran to Jeff and said "hooch!" (Which was so cute that she went to him preferentially even though I was in the same room. It's rare that he gets that kind of treatment!) She's starting to expand it to other things, just the other day she picked up some bags and said "hooch bags" to let me know what she was doing.

We also had some fun outings this month. Jeff had a string of days off in early January, so we took a little trip out of town. We ran up to Chattanooga for an extended weekend. It was only about 1.5 hours away. Lots of kid friendly stuff for us to do, even in the chilly weather. We stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn downtown, right around the corner from the aquarium and the children's museum. So a great location plus it had a bedroom separate from the sitting area/full kitchen so we had a separate area to put Claire to bed plus a fridge for storing her milk and such. It worked out wonderfully.

The night we got there we walked around for a bit and crossed a long pedestrian bridge over the river to grab some food. The next day we headed to a real train ride and then went up to Lookout mountain. Claire LOVED the train ride. She talked about "choo choo, ride" for days. She also enjoyed running and climbing on the path through Rock City (Lookout Mountain). Sunday we finally visited the aquarium and also took advantage of free entry to the art museum (not Claire's favorite part!). Monday we visited the children's museum before heading home. Claire seemed to have a great weekend. Although she did get frustrated with us when we tried to make her hold our hand when crossing the street. Since she refused we had to carry her. And she was pretty ticked when we had the audacity to drive somewhere! She wanted to "walk walk" everywhere, all the time. Although she didn't really walk. She was usually too excited for that and did more of a prancing, tip toe type walk/run that was adorable!

And finally, continuing on the apparent choo choo theme, we went to the "Trains, Trains, Trains" model train exhibit at the local locomotive and civil war museum. They had really long track set up for multiple trains and various scenes in miniature that we enjoyed watching for a while. Then Claire played in the kids area and with the wooden train tables for a while before working on a craft. It was a bit of a madhouse with all the people but a fun morning out!