Only Monday?

I wouldn't say it doesn't feel like a Friday, but I'd swear it feels like a Thursday. At the very least, a Wednesday. But the calendar tells me it's only Monday, and Blogger tells me it's been many moons since I was last around here. I've got a quiet night so it's about high time I caught up.

The kitchen is coming along. At this point, we're just waiting for the countertops to be fabricated and installed - all the tear-out is done and the lighting is finished. I hear through the grapevine that the countertops will be in on Thursday, but last week it was supposed to be tomorrow, so I'm not hanging all my hopes on that. While I still don't have a working kitchen, at least I no longer have workmen in my house until Countertop Day.

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Julia is evening out a little bit. Her sleeping has gotten a bit better and the "tantrums" are calming down.

I have to put "tantrums" in quotes because they're truly just about 30 seconds of screaming and crying - not bad by toddler tantrum standards. I'm responding by getting physically accessible to her (getting down on her level, holding her, etc.), using very very short sentences to empathize with her ("Play with stove! I know! Fun stove buttons!"), then waiting for her to calm down a little and redirecting with an explanation as appropriate ("No stove. Stove hot - ow! Look! Phone buttons!"). It's roughly based on the Happiest Toddler On The Block book, and thus far it seems to be working alright. I like that I take the time to empathize and be emotionally available for her without compromising my position or authority. Do I have any idea if this is more effective than any other approach? Nope. Do I have the patience to do this every time she doesn't get her way? Absolutely not. My other tactic is to ignore her, which I do when I feel like screaming right back at her. But I'm trying. I'm also getting better at seeing a conflict before it happens and heading it off.

She's also been doing some adorable things lately:

• When she sees that I'm making her a bottle, she'll run to her room and lay down on her floor where we usually feed and change her. From a child who used to hate laying down, this is hilarious.
• She'll pick up her play phone and make this big fake laugh into it. "HAH HAH HAH!" Is that what I sound like? Yikes.
• When my phone rings, she always goes, "Dada!" because R is my most frequent caller and his picture pops up when he calls. 
• When we go somewhere in the car, I give her a book and she sits in her carseat and reads her book to me. I can often tell what she's looking at based on the sounds she makes, but it's looking back and seeing her reading quietly on her own that really warms my heart.
• Still very little in the way of actual talking, but she makes signs for food, water, basement, butterfly, gorilla, frog, help, please, airplane, cat, and cold. She knows a few more when I make them and she's understanding more each day, but between the signs she knows, and pointing and shaking her head "no," she can communicate pretty well.
• She still loves Scrappy. LOVES Scrappy. Loves to pat her, scratch her, hug her, kiss her, and bring her toys to play with. (Scrappy is a dear, patient dog who doesn't get enough credit in our house.)

Guess who was here first and who decided to join?

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Being pregnant sucks right now. I'm pretty pissed off about it. I'm happy about New Baby but the thought of being pregnant for ANOTHER FOURTEEN FIFTEEN WEEKS makes me cry inside. Nothing's physically wrong, and I remain grateful for that, but mentally this one has been tougher on me than Julia's, for a variety of mundane reasons.

And those are my major updates. More details, probably on all of those subjects, later this week.

Thursday

What happened today:

We got carpet installed on our basement stairs, and the basement rugs delivered. Haven't set up the rugs yet but the stairs look really nice. Ironically, when they pulled up the icky old carpet that was there, they exposed these really lovely dark wood steps. We have a baby so I think we need carpet on our stairs regardless, but they would have looked just beautiful if we repainted them. Anyways, the stairs are now new and soft and fluffy and smell like new carpet which is kind of nice.

The carpet installer guys left our back gate open (the one that I always always always keep shut so I never even thought about it being open after they left) and Scrappy took a little walk today by herself. Thank goodness we have lovely neighbors with whom we're on great terms (and whose dogs fascinate Scrappy), because she went right over to their house. Our neighbor saw her and brought her back in the rain. Whew. Also made me glad that we have a "collar ALWAYS on except when she's in her crate" policy with Scrappy. At least she had her tags with our phone numbers. No one's going to approach a German Shepherd-looking dog without a collar on but a kind soul might scoop up one with tags. Put tags on your dogs, people! You never expect them to get loose!

We had put Julia to bed tonight, and about 45 minutes later she starts wailing. We're listening to the monitor to see if she calms down, and I'm heading out of the room to go re-settle her when R hears her go, "Ahhhhh" and get quiet. I guess she lost her blanket or her bunny, and all was well once she found them. It was cute.

Update on prepping for my friends this weekend: I did about 1/3 of my To-Do list so I have quite a bit more to do. But, I made plans and reservations for Saturday, so at least we'll have something to do. And I can get them out of the house so they're not appalled at how messy everything is all the time. I swear, every time Julia goes down for a nap, the place looks like a tornado hit it, and I do damage control and maybe one other thing and she's up again.

Here are some pics from this past weekend, of her on our deck playing with this big purple ball we have.They're all I've got at the moment.

"Can't. Quite. Get. A. Grip. On. This. Thing."

 

Yes, that's her dad throwing the ball at her/me. Yes, it hit both of us.

She knows that on the back of my camera there are buttons you can push and a screen to look at.

So now I get fewer backwards shots and more shots like this.

Julia, a remote, and a doggie walk into a bar...

A typical evening in our household...

"Oh doggie, I know you love this remote because it has your teeth marks on it. Where aaaare you?"

"Ah hah! There you are. Would you like this yellow plastic knife?"
"Maybe she has something good for once..."

"No? Not tempting enough for you?"
"Make her go away."

"Alrighty then, what do you think of...."
"Make her go away. This is my cushion."

"Oh what's this? A remote? Would you be interested?"
"Um yes quite possibly."

"Just kidding! How about ME?"
"......"

"Hmmm."

"Secret evil plan in progress..."

"Oh doggie - look! A remote! And I'm sitting so very far away from it."

"Yeaaaaah that's what I'm talking about."

"And ME! I COME WITH IT! HOORAY!"

"I GOT YOU! DOGGIE!"
"Oh crap."

"DOGGIE DOGGIE DOGGIE!"
"!!!"

She's... communicating?

Big moment of the day:

I was holding Julia and R was tickling her. She would giggle a little every time he did. Then he tickled me, and of course I don't think it's giggle-worthy, so I go, "Ahh ahhh ahhh!" Then R tickled Julia again and she made the EXACT same "Ahh ahhh ahhh!" We did this a couple times so it wasn't a fluke! She's been imitating my "Hi" for a few weeks now but I figured it also sounded like cooing and wasn't very distinctive so it could have just been coincidence.

But she's definitely imitating sounds now. And this is the clearest example she's given us yet. It was really cool and hilarious and adorable all at the same time.

And of course I don't have a video of it or a photo of the babe, so ya'll will have to settle for Scrappy in our backyard, digging a hole to China after a chipmunk.

"I'm an awesome digger! I can get my whole body into this hole!"