19 Months Old

Dear Eli,

I can sum this month up in one word: TANTRUMS.  As soon as you turned 18 months old, you woke up one morning with the ability to throw a wicked tantrum.  I don't know where you learned it or what brought it on, but one day you were suddenly the king of tantrums.  Your tantrums were so good, you could give tantrum seminars to other toddlers.  One day, you suddenly started throwing yourself on the floor, kicking, screaming, and contorting your body in ways I didn't know were possible.  It was hard to not laugh at them when they began because they were so dramatic.  You would tantrum over the funniest things.

Throughout the month, they've become a lot less frequent and over the top, thankfully.  I've gotten better at containing my laughter, simply stepping over you, leaving the room, and completely ignoring you while you tantrum until you decide to pull yourself together.  Poor kid, you don't even know what you want most of the time but you're just learning that you have emotions and you don't know how to deal with them.

One glorious thing that happened to you this month is that you learned how to entertain yourself for semi-extended periods of time.  You will often play with your toys or "read" a book for a good 20 or 30 minutes or so, which has given me some much needed down time.  I'm growing your brother and working on our new house, you know, and mama's tired.  It's so cute watching your imagination at work.

You talk nonstop.  Most of it is jibberish, but I'm getting pretty good at understanding your little "Eli language."  You love to parrot things we say and I continue to be surprised by how quickly you pick up new words and phrases.  I love your little voice and hearing you use it all day.  You've been saying some questionable words lately, or at least what sound like questionable words to me and your dad.  Your favorite is a certain swear word that starts with an "S," and you say it all the time.  I don't know where you learned it, I swear!

We finally got into a new pediatrician, who I like a lot better than the last, and he took my concerns about your eating problems seriously.  You've regressed a lot this month, and your dad and I have been extra frustrated.  You have stopped eating certain foods that I used to be able to get you to eat, and I don't know why.  The pediatrician gave me some good ideas of things to work on with you, and your dad and I are trying to implement them into our daily routine.  Hopefully with time, an infinite amount of patience, and some of these new techniques, we can improve your diet slowly but surely.  The good news is that you're still a big kid (bigger than most your age) and you seem healthy and happy, so I try to not worry too much about your eating issues.

Eli, you continue to be such a joy in our lives.  Your dad and I always talk about what a sweet guy you are. You are always ready to smile, rough house, and play.  You constantly have a mischievous little twinkle in your eyes.  I've started to get a little sad about how little time left we have together, just you and me, before your little brother is born.  We are thrilled to add him to the family, but it's just going to be different with him here.  Change is hard for me, and I've started to get a little emotional about this one.  I am trying to treasure every moment we have together before the middle of May.

Thanks for being my sunshine,
Mama

19 month stats: 
Weight: 27.6 lbs (66th percentile) 
Height: 34 inches (81st percentile) 
Head Circumference: 19 1/4 inches (73rd percentile)

24 Weeks Pregnant

A few nights ago, I had a bad dream.  I don't remember what the dream was about, but I do remember that in my dream, I was crying.  I remember just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.  When I woke up, I realized that I was crying for real, and not just in my dream.  My pillow was soaking wet and I was a mess.  In that half-asleep, half-awake stage, I cried for a few more minutes, not really knowing why I was crying.  But it felt good to cry.  I was really shaken up by it the next day.  Never in my life has that happened to me, and it made me feel really weird.  My hormones must have been really out of control or something.

I have been craving brownies sundaes with ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream like you wouldn't believe.  Unfortunately, I've been giving into the craving almost daily, and almost every night before bed, I eat one while watching the news.  As I ate my sundae a few nights ago, I literally burst into tears as I took my first bite.  In a wild, hormonal episode, I went back and forth between bawling to Adam about how much I loved that brownie to laughing hysterically at myself because I could hear how ridiculous I sounded.  I might have even uttered the words, "I love this brownie more than you and Eli."  Wow.  Adam stared at me with a scared look in his eyes as I cried and laughed, not really knowing how to react.  I honestly cried and laughed for at least 5 minutes straight.  It was ridiculous.  Pregnancy hormones are real, people.

Like most pregnant women, I often wonder what the baby is going to look like.  I often refer to him as my "brown eyed boy" because I think the chances of us having another fair child are pretty slim.  I would be shocked if he came out with blonde hair and blue eyes like Eli.  I have a feeling that Eli is going to be our only fair baby. I hope he's a chunker, like Eli was.  I love big babies!  There is nothing better than squeezing fat baby thighs and kissing ginormous cheeks.  I won't be satisfied with anything less than a 9 lb newborn! 

Honestly, I don't have much to say about the pregnancy.  Because I feel so great and am so busy, I don't think about the pregnancy too much.  We are just trying to get through all of the big house projects on our to-do list before this little guy is born.  The closer we get to his due date, the more anxious I feel about that state of our house.  It is constantly a disaster and it's really starting to drive me nuts.  I can't wait until the house is no longer a work zone and we can get more settled in.

Making an Old House New

We've been working on home renovation projects nonstop over here, and I've been terrible about documenting them.  As soon as we put Eli to bed around 7:00 every night, the work begins, and we usually don't stop until we collapse into bed in exhaustion around midnight.  I wish I had been better about taking before and after photos of all the work we've done, but I barely have time to do the work, let alone document it on this blog for all  to see.  I can, however, give you a list of some of the things we've done, along with the few photos I've taken.  It's the best I can do.  Sorry, folks.

• Replaced all the nasty, aluminum blinds throughout almost the entire house with crisp, white wood ones.  They look so much better and much more updated! 
• Ripped out all of the filthy, stained, worn carpet throughout the entire top floor to reveal oak hardwood floors that are in pretty good shape, especially considering they're over 56 years old.  Adam is going to refinish them next week.  He's going to sand the heck out of them to remove surface stains, fill in cracks and holes with wood filler, stain them a sexy dark color, and coat them with some shiny polyurethane.  It's going to look SUHWEET!  I can't wait!
• Sanded and painted the door to the carport white.   Eli helped, of course. 
• Paid an electrician to install recessed lighting in our basement family room.  In the entire room, there was only ONE light fixture.  Ridiculous, right?  Now we have 10 recessed lights in the room. 
• Replaced a ton of outdated light fixtures in the house with new ones.  Can you even believe this crooked wood one they had hanging in the kitchen?     
• Painted the living room yellow.
• Painted the hallway and bathroom gray.
• Painted the basement family room blue/gray.
• Painted the dingy "white" closets with a fresh coat of white.
• Bought and assembled steel utility shelves in the 5th bedroom, which we're using as a storage room.  We also got a bunch of plastic tupperware bins to organize all of our stuff in to put on the shelves.  It looks so much more organized and tidy now. 
• Built a large linen closet in the area that was framed to be a closet, but was actually just nothing.  The closet is done, but now we're just waiting on the bi-fold closet doors that had to be custom made because the closet wasn't a standard size. 
• Painted the outdated oak cabinets in both bathrooms with Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformations kit, which we'd heard such good things about.  We used the pure white kit, and even though we're not completely done yet, it looks rockin'.  I can't wait to hang the cabinets and drawer fronts and install the new hardware.  It's going to look so good!    
• Got new carpet throughout the entire basement.
• Added hardware to the kitchen cabinets and drawers.  Don't worry, we're going to paint these white too.
• Removed the NASTY gold, flower-covered sliding glass doors on the tub with a shower rod and new curtain.  Such a big improvement, let me tell you!    
• Got rid of the gold and wood theme that was going on in the upstairs bathroom- the wood light fixture, wood towel bar, wood hand towel rack, wood baseboards, wood trim around the door, and shiny gold toilet paper holder.  We dug the baseboards out, popped the trim off, and replaced them with thick, modern trim and then gave it all a coat of white paint.  We also replaced all the wood fixtures with brushed silver ones.  We've done the most work in the bathroom, by far, but we're proud of it and think it looks a lot better.  Now I don't cringe every time we go in there. 

Wow, when I write it all down like this, I can't believe how much we've done in the short month and a half we've owned the house!  And on top of all of that, we've had the usual busyness of trying to unpack and organize after a move, take care of a toddler, work full time, keep up on the housework, etc.  Oh yeah, and the little thing called growing a baby!  Sometimes it seems like everything is progressing at a glacial pace, but honestly, we're going as fast as we can.  It just takes time (and some serious $) to make an old house look new again.  Adam is going to refinish our hardwood floors next week, and I can't wait for the improvement that that's going to make.

You know how when you're a student, you can never completely relax because you always have that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you should be doing homework or studying instead of relaxing?  Even on weekends, it's hard to enjoy yourself completely because you know that you can and probably should always be doing more?  Well, that's how we feel about this old house.  We never take a night off to watch a movie or go on a date.  We work constantly!  Especially because we have the ticking time bomb of the little baby growing inside me.  I've already told Adam that as soon as the baby is born, I'm done working for a long time.  I don't want to worry about having a newborn and doing house projects at the same time.  It will be too overwhelming, so whatever we can't get done before the baby is born will just have to wait.  Like at least a year.

Anyway, how's that for an update on what's been going on with the new house?

22 Weeks Pregnant

I went to the doctor today and got to hear the baby's heartbeat.  I love having those little glimpses into my baby's world.  I hope it's comfortable for him in there and he's happy to stay for another 18 weeks or so.  I've never been one of those women who wishes for her baby to come early.  I don't understand why women act frustrated or surprised when they go the full 40 weeks.  Don't they know that's how long pregnancy is?  Personally, I'm preparing to be overdue again, and if he decides to come a little early, I'll be pleasantly surprised.  That way I won't feel disappointed or frustrated.

I have been dealing with some dizziness over the past few days, so I talked to my doctor about it at my appointment this morning.  He suggested that my iron levels could be low and that he wanted them checked. My finger was pricked and the results were back in just a few minutes.  Yes, I had low iron.  This news wasn't really a surprise to me because I had low iron while I was pregnant with Eli too.  So the doctor prescribed me a supplement, and I should be feeling better within a few days.

I've been having what feels like muscle pulling or straining in my lower abdomen frequently, and it's really been freaking me out.  It's probably just my ligaments stretching, but I definitely don't want to pull any muscles or do anything to hurt the baby, so I need to be careful about what kind of activities I'm doing during the day.  I'm constantly picking Eli up and moving and lifting things as we work on our house, so I really need to watch myself.

I haven't really had any cravings or aversions these past few weeks.  Things are kind of boring on that end.  Adam and I have both been feeling the baby move a ton.  Either this kid is more active than Eli was or I just don't remember it very well, but I swear, he goes crazy in my belly pretty much all the time.  I love feeling him move because it helps me feel like this is more real.

We still have no idea what to name him.  We sat down and made a list of about ten names that we like, but none of them are really jumping out at me.  I'm sure we'll come up with something and am not really worried about it, but I definitely think that naming a boy is a lot harder than naming a girl would be.

A New (to us) Car!

Adam and I have shared a car for the past 5 1/2 years, and let me tell you, it was starting to get really old.  It's been especially hard since we moved into our new house and I haven't been able to borrow my mother-in-law's car as easily if I really needed it.  Poor Eli gets pent up in the house all day and we can't really escape because Adam has the car every day down in Salt Lake for work.  Plus, the freezing winter temperatures don't make it easy for us to play outside as much as we used to.

All of these factors added up and we decided that it was time to get a second car.  With the pending arrival of the new baby in May, we wanted something big enough to fit two car seats, but we didn't want the expense of a SUV or a minivan.  So we finally decided on a Chevy Malibu.  It's unbelievable how much more room the backseat has than our Nissan Sentra.  The trunk is also a lot bigger and it will definitely fit our family for awhile.

So this car is basically mine and Adam will continue taking the Nissan to work every day.  I hate paying the car payment, car insurance, and gas bill for two cars, but it was pretty much necessary at this point in our lives to have 2 cars.  And I love the freedom that I have to go anywhere and everywhere I please!  Eli seems a lot happier too now that we can get out of the house more often.