Things with our family are moving right along, as always. This is week 31 of pregnancy for me, so we've got 9 weeks to go! My doctor's appointments are every two weeks now and uneventful. This weekend we are planning to finish cleaning out the baby's room and next Saturday we'll get Lila's new furniture and move her furniture into the baby's room.

We've also decided to use a doula for this labor and delivery. A doula basically helps mom cope with the labor, to avoid a lot of the interventions that normally occur in hospital births. We found one we really like named Jami. She is a nurse at a local school and has been working as a doula both on her own, and helping at a birthing center, for five years. She recommended a birthing class at the birthing center and we will start that next week. Roman has to do some travelling, but I'm hoping he will be able to attend as many of the classes as possible. We never took a birthing class when pregnant with Lila as I thought it would scare me more than help me. This class is designed to teach techniques to manage the labor pain, so I'm excited about going.

Lila is ever changing! Every week it seems she's getting a little more particular about her world. Things that normally she wouldn't have an issue with have now become small (or big) battles. She doesn't want us to brush her teeth or change her diaper. She wants to get in the carseat by herself, and says "self, self" and then is upset about being restrained while we're driving. She wants to assert her independence and have her way more and more. I guess that's what it's like as they approach two years old. Luckily she still listens pretty well--the time out still holds it's power. She likes to run off and explore when we're out and about though, so I have been searching for a double stroller as I'll surely need it once the baby comes. I'm hoping to find one used as they can be quite expensive!

Lila's vocabulary is still expanding rapidly. The other day after we got home from the park she was telling me "san booey, san booey" over and over. I couldn't figure out when she was saying until she tried to reach down the back of her pants. She had sand in her diaper and was telling me "sand, bootie". I was laughing so hard and she was just staring at me wondering what the heck I was laughing at. Then this morning when I sneezed she said "Bess you mommy". Too cute for words!

Roman and I have been playing around quite a bit with the new camera, so we have quite a few photos.

Lila loves Minnie Mouse and it always asking "Meeny Muss?"

She always has little dinner parties with Minnie and Elmo. She puts them at the table and feeds thems food from her kitchen.

Still obsessed with putting on our shoes.

More Videos

Last post I mentioned the video upload wasn't working. Once again, I've managed to get a couple uploaded separately from that post. For most of you who get this via email it's going to be much faster to go to the blog site to see the videos than to download them. Just click on the title of this post above, "Move Videos", and it'll take you there.

Lila has been talking so much in the last couple weeks, it's amazing. It's like someone flipped a switch and all these things that were in her brain all this time are coming out verbally. In all that talking she's discovered the word "mine". We have no idea how as we don't say "mine". If she has something of ours we tell her "that's mommy's" or "that's daddy's" so we can only guess she picked it up from one of the kids at school.

It seems everyday she's saying new words and phrases and asking us to do things for her. It's such a fun, exciting time for us! Both of the videos are of her talking. The first one is her telling me what/who she wants to watch on TV. The second is her singing a song. At the end of Sesame Street there's a segment just for Elmo called Elmo's World. He has a little intro song he sings and one day she just started singing it. You can hear me sing a bit of it in the video to understand what she's singing.

Busy busy

It seems we have been busy lately, but as usual, all I have to show for it is photos and videos of Lila. We took her to The Children's Museum recently and as is Lila-style, she really liked certain parts and could have cared less about others. She loved the grocery store. It was set up like a real grocery store, but at kid height, with plastic food. Outside they have a water play area. She mostly observed that, but got a bet wet by her pants in a couple photos. Most of all she liked the computer room. She loves to press the keys on the keyboard!

It was Grana Nana's birthday last Saturday and we all went to Benihana to eat. I was a little worried about Lila having to sit patiently in a high chair for that long, but she did great. She was most entertained by the man cooking, and the fact that different food came every couple minutes didn't hurt either.

We are making slow progress on the baby's room. Thus far it's been kind of the catch-all room for artwork and baby items that Lila no longer uses. We bought a celiling fan the other weekend and I started working on buying neutral items for the room. I went through Lila's outgrown clothes and pulled out neutral items that could work in case it's a boy, and a friend of mine from my moms' group gave me a bag of boy clothes as well. She told me if I don't end up needing them to just give them away. We also ordered Lila a new daybed with a trundle and a dresser that will arrive next month.

Last but not least, my belly is huge (at least it feels huge)! This is week 29 of pregnancy for me, meaning I have less than 90 days to go (11 weeks and 5 days to be exact, but who's counting right?). Lila and I were comparing belly sizes last night and Roman got a couple pictures. She was really cute, kissing my belly and once she pointed at my belly button and said "baby in". I think she thinks the baby is in my belly button, not necessarily my belly as she always points to my belly button when she says "baby".

Here are the photos. Once again the video upload isn't working so I'll have to try again another time.


Fake coins at the museum


Shopping







Helping Nana open her bday gifts





Roman got me a new camera for xmas so I was playing around taking photos of Lila. I got a couple good ones of her after she ate breakfast.







"Wow it's BIG!"


Giving the baby a kiss

Christmas videos

Alright, I finally got these videos to upload. The first is one I got of her dancing one morning. The second is of her playing the recorder she got from Santa.