Also

I am still hacking up a lung. We had the windows open all weekend and into Monday, and that actually helped me feel better. Unfortunately, since Monday morning, the windows have been closed and the furnace has been on. So, I'm back to hacking up a lung like I was before (and sneezing like crazy).

Both Nora and Willis are over the cold. Lucky ducks.

Baby #2 (Baby Boy Brown) Update

Just yesterday, we were able to start feeling kicks on the outside. This little guy is moving around constantly, and he really likes it when I eat.

It's wild how different this pregnancy is. I'm actually thinner than I was before I got pregnant (except for the giant belly, of course), so that's different. I'm also not terribly tired, and I have yet to puke. I also think I'm carrying this one a little differently.

Baby Boy Brown is just kickin' along in there. I hope he's nice to us when he gets here like his big sister has been.

Nora Update (at about 15.5 Months)

Here is a list of things that Nora has been doing lately:

• She grabs her jacket from the dresser by the back door, "puts it on," and tries to go outside (it's funny to watch her reach for the doorknob). She so desperately wants to get outside.
• She can open the bathroom door to the downstairs bathroom.
• There's a song I sing to her from my cousin's kids' music album called "Way up in the Sky," and there's a part in it that goes, "Shh! They're sleeping!" Every time I sing that to her, she always does the "Shh!" at just the right time!
• She wants me to read books to her over and over—especially B Is for Bear and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (She gets really excited during Brown Bear each time I turn the page. I can actually hear her breath get faster and everything.)
• She loves naked time.
• She's more adventurous with climbing these days.
• She shakes her head really fast, and she chuckles when people do it back to her.
• She rides on her riding toy now.
• She yells at the dog after I yell at the dog (for now, it's funny, but that means I need to watch what I say).
• She randomly walks backwards.
• She fights with me to turn the water back on in the tub. She literally pries my hands off of the faucet—she's a strong little bugger now.
• She can reach our counters all of a sudden.
• Sometimes, if I'm lucky, if she sees that we accidentally left a child lock open on one of the cabinets, she tries to close it. Otherwise, she will open the cabinet and empty the contents onto the kitchen floor.
• She likes to feng shui our furniture. It's not rare to find a dining room chair on the other side of the dining room or to find an end table near the front door.
• She likes to pull clothes out of her drawers and "put them on" (this means that she lays the items over her neck—I think it simulates pulling it over her head for her). She also likes to "put on" Daddy's socks in that same way in the mornings when he is getting ready.
• When I'm changing her diaper, she gets an ornery look on her face as she grabs one of the tabs of her diaper cover and pulls it back off. The little rat! She only does it to get a rise out of me: I'm convinced.
• She is saying more and more words all the time, and sometimes, she'll just repeat things. Willis and I will be like, "Did she say what I think she said?"
• After she wakes up from night time or naps, she always goes back into her room to grab her penguin. If she can't reach him (because he's on the other side of the crib), she cries until one of us comes in there to grab him for her. It's actually a sad, little sight.
• She uses a fork now (I finally got her some real toddler silverware).

And now, for some photos:

 

And a video:

 

 

The end.

Gotta Love It When They're Napping

As I am typing this, Nora is still napping. She went down at about 1:30 p.m. (after a nice, cool bath to soothe her after that hot playground visit), and she's still snoozin'. That's a good, long nap (almost three hours). I had a chance to actually get some work in and blog.

 

Here are some photos from the park today (the one of her appearing to pose with a random dude is just as random as it looks: the guy was laying in the slide, and she found him amusing. When he sat up to address her, she started to walk away, and that's where that picture happened). I think Nora might have been too tired once we actually started to "play," so I'm looking forward to going back there when she's wide awake. Plus, her sunscreen was running into her eye (it was actually quite hot out, and she was sweating like madness). In some of these pics, you can tell that she's a bit puffy on the right side of her face. Poor girl. The park was really neat, though. I had seen the place before Willis and I had kids, but I didn't realize how extensive and amazing it is (and I didn't get very many pictures of the actual playground, so I really am not doing it any justice).

 


   

I put pigtails in Nora's hair for the first time ever (I did some on top of her head awhile back, but now, her hair is actually long enough to do real pigtails). Those are in the photos as well.

 

The last pic is from last night after Nora went to bed. I always go in there to see how she's sleeping before I go to bed, and last night, it was just a little bit too cute to not snap a photo.

 

In other news, we have moved directly from Winter into Summer. So, there's that. I'm not sure how I'm feeling about it. I think I might be a bit irritated, honestly, but whatever. It's finally warm enough to go outside. I just fear that in a few days, it'll be too hot to go outside. Can't always get what'cha want, though, I guess. Ain't it the truth?

 

Ooh! I hear Nora chatting in her crib now. So, she's finally awake. It sounds like she's in a good mood, too!

 

Tonight, Willi and I are making a tasty feast. I'm doing a recipe that came to my attention from a blog post by my friend, Slaney. I'm making a roasted red pepper sauce with some fun noodles, and Willis is going to grill some chicken to have on the side (we've gotta have some meat in there somewhere). It should be fun!

 

Dilly out.

Fleece Diaper Covers

Here are some photos of those diaper covers I made. The first one I tried on Nora didn't work very well. The elastic at the top was actually too loose (and I even measured her and everything). As you can see in the first pic, the cover is falling down. I tried another of the three on Nora last night, and it actually worked really well. So, at least one of them is going to do the job! I guess I should be grateful for that!

 

 

Friend Jacki sent me some patterns through email for some diaper covers, and I think I'll be trying to print those out for my next round of diaper cover making. (Thank you, Jacki!) That's for sure. A pattern would make life much, much, much easier. It occurred to me as I was doing this project that I have never made anything with a pattern before. I might actually feel as though I know what I'm doing if I try that, eh? So much of what I do with that sewing machine is trial and error, and it's pretty scary.

New Hair

I finally got my hair cut today after, like, a year. (Remember when I got bangs!? That's how long it's been.) I went in there, and I said, "I know my hair needs to be shorter, but I have no idea what to do. Can I just trust your expert hair opinion and have you do what you think will look good on me?"

So, that's what happened. I was a little startled when I saw all the hair on the floor behind the chair, but I have to say, so far I really, really like it. Here's what it looks like:

And yes: that is Nora's snot on my sleeve. Mmm. Yummy.

Oh, and while we're at it, we might as well post the belly photo for week 21 (and some days—two to be exact).

Nora's not in the pic because she's taking the most epic nap ever. Friend Kelly and I took our girls to the Fort La Play Porte park this afternoon, and Nora got good and wiped out. It was pretty awesome. She's actually still sleeping that off.

More posts to come!

"Oh, Mom."

Whenever I blow my nose (which is still very often right now), Nora looks up at me with her furrowed brow face. Do you know what face I'm talking about? It's this one:

Only, she's not usually remotely smiling at me when she does it, and it's much more intense than what this photo shows. I got lucky in capturing this shot (it was random, and it was Easter). She rarely keeps the furrowed brow when I go to take her picture. I certainly can't take the picture when I'm blowing my nose, either. Darn it. It's sure is funny, though. It's as if she's saying, "Oh, Mom. That's really getting annoying."

The Big Sister

I don't think Nora has a clue that she's going to be a big sister in about five months. I think she'll start to get the idea, though, because now that we know she's going to have a little brother, we can start saying, "Say goodnight to your little brother," when we do our bedtime routine. (In the past, we had just been saying, "Say goodnight to the baby in the belly.")

I think she'll be a sweet big sister. I'm honestly pretty excited that she gets to be "my little girl" a bit longer, too. (Sisters would be neat to have, though. That's for sure.)

Nora's been doing a few other things lately that are kind-of cool. I think she says, "Thanks," when I hand her juice in the mornings. We also think she says, "Please," but to anyone else in the world, it would probably sound like, "PAH!"

She consistently does her "all done" sign when she's done eating at the table, and she's starting to do "more" more consistently. That's also pretty cool (and I never thought she'd actually do it since I wasn't very persistent with teaching her).

Grandma and Grandpa Brown stopped in very briefly on Saturday on their way up to Michigan, and as they were leaving, Grandma (Mary) blew her a kiss. I couldn't believe it when I saw her do the same thing right back. She even made the, "Mmmm," sound and everything! So funny!

I attempted to make some fleece diaper covers this week for Nora's night time diapering needs. I don't know if a single one will actually fit her thickly diapered butt (they all turned out so differently from each other), but we'll give it a shot! I'll have to get some photos of those (they seriously are terrible—I have no idea what I'm doing with a sewing machine, and I use it all the time). I didn't have a proper pattern to work with, so they turned out pretty scary. They're in the wash right now.

Here are some fun photos of Nora from the past week or so. I never have taken nudy photos of Nora, but I thought that her reading in the hallway in the buff had to be captured. I actually took more photos than that, but I thought one photo was enough to post to the world (I even debated with myself about posting this one, actually).

 

She's growin' up on us. They aren't kidding when they say, "they grow up so fast."

 

They really do. I'm sitting here watching it, and it's flying right by me.

Quick Update on Three More Things

Firstly, we have been ridiculously sick over here in the Brown house. Nora, Willis, and I came down with some sort of nasty death cold last week, and we are all still trying to rid ourselves of it. It's seriously the worst cold I've had in a really, really long time, and the timing couldn't be worse: it was finally nice outside last weekend. We couldn't quite fully enjoy the lovely weather when all we wanted to do was lay down on the couch and moan.

Secondly, I fixed our gutter drainage issue on Saturday. I picked up some new corrugated pipe and some adapters (it may or may not have taken three trips to the hardware store to get everything I needed in the end), and I made sure that everything was draining properly (according to gravity and whatnots) into the pipe that runs down into the lower yard behind our house. Since then, our basement hasn't had near the water leakage (and it has been raining). There's still some, but it's nothing like the four gallons I sucked up with the shop vac about a week ago today. It's not even making it to the floor (it's just on our Michigan basement ledge). So, we still have to seal the basement in that corner, but it doesn't seem nearly as terrible a task now. What can I say? I'm a handyman.

Thirdly, it was my computer monitor that crapped out on my work computer last Wednesday. So, once I got a new, sweet monitor, everything was hunky dory again. Thank God.

Bed time!

Baby Number Two: 20 Week Ultrasound

We had our 20 week ultrasound today at 4 p.m. It went worlds better this time than it did when I was pregnant with Nora. I didn't pee my pants (I didn't even come close, actually—they got me in on time), and the technician was absolutely wonderful! She walked us through everything we were seeing, and she was so pleasant that it made our previous experience seem so stinking sad and pathetic. At the end of this lovely experience (which was neat to experience with both Willi and Nora in the room), we received a couple of photos of our newest rascal.

The technician said that I actually measured a week and a half ahead of where my due date is. She says that based on this ultrasound today, the due date would be August 23rd. I'm hoping they stick with the September 2nd due date, though. I'd like to have some wiggle room (I'd like to try this one without an induction this time, ah-thank you).

I think he'll be a sweet little brother.

The Best Laid Plans . . .

My work computer was working just fine this morning when I turned it on the first time. Then, it told me that it had installed an automatic update, and it needed to restart. So, I did.

Crap.

Now, it won't start. The computer is on, but nothing is happening. My monitor is acting as if it's not even plugged in to a computer (and yes, I have checked the connection).

I tried unplugging everything and shutting down power strips. I reset my modem and my router (not that I thought those two latter things would help). I, in fact, shut everything down and unplugged things a couple of times. I let them sit off for awhile, too.

I couldn't try to use my personal monitor on my work computer because apparently, there are no connections on my work computer that fit the plug for my personal monitor. So, I guess I'm SOL today.

What's more: we took the Chevy into the shop this morning (it's on our block). So, Willi has the "reliable car" that has Nora's car seat in it. I can't even drive the computer over to the office to take care of this today like I normally would (and have done before). I have to lose a day of work, I guess. We have a deadline on Friday, too, and I have a feeling we're going to blow right by it at this point. My boss's computer has been out all week as well, so we haven't gotten as much done as we should have by now for our deadline.

Good stuff. I don't know what it is lately, but I guess life has to be interesting. Maybe it's Mother Nature's way of distracting me from the injustice that she's bestowed upon us this Spring season. I don't know. Today, however, I think she's foiled herself: it looks like I'll have time to notice how crappy it is out there (not that I'm going to get out in it or anything). (It's actually a bit warmer out today than it has been, but it's still not the "balmy" I've been hoping for.)

I guess I should probably be positive about this and be productive in other areas of life today. Maybe I'll play with my kid more than usual. Maybe I'll clean the house for once. Maybe I'll do both. The possibilities are endless.

In the meantime, Dilly out.

Shh Shh Shh . . . Shh Shh Shh . . . Shh Shh Shh

Good grief. A lot has been going on around here, but I'll spare you the details. I'll just say that last week, we had a river in our basement (and this week, too, actually), and the "reliable car" was in the shop for three days in a row. We did a serious, hardcore mileage, whirlwind trip over the weekend, too, to see some family for Easter. We're all still recovering from that (and we got home Saturday evening).

Oh, and last Friday, I had an OB appointment, and I discovered that the elevator is still out of order. That office is on the third floor. Not only did I have my huge self to lug up there, but I also had Nora, my purse, and her diaper bag of entertainment. I was not pleased. They'd better get that fixed before I (and Nora) get much bigger. That is maddening.

I didn't really get a chance to pay attention during that appointment 'cause Nora bit it while trying to climb up the examination table. The main thing I remember is that "everything is just fine."

By the way, the ultrasound is scheduled for April 20th (a Monday afternoon).

Nora had her 15 month checkup on Monday. She clocked in at a mere 30 and three-quarters inches and 22 pounds and two ounces. So, she's growin' right along. I barely remembered that she had an appointment that morning (it was at 10 a.m., and I remembered at 9 a.m.).

In other news, Nora has been doing some hilarious stuff lately. I noticed the other day that she "blows" on her food with me when I blow on her food to cool it off before I serve it to her. We read and sing the book Wheels on the Bus together, and her favorite part (and she always goes back to those pages and makes the noise) is the part where it goes, "The parents on the bus go, 'Shh shh shh . . . shh shh shh . . . shh shh shh.'"

I sing a song with her that is from my cousin's kids' album, and it goes, "One, two, three, four, five fingers on my left hand. One, two, three, four, five fingers on my right hand. One, two, three, four, five. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. All together now."

Well, you get the idea. Anyway, whenever I sing it to her, I always count on my fingers, and she always lifts up her hands and tries to count on her fingers, too.

She loves to call her daddy on my office phone—to the point where I have to seriously try to destract her for most of the day while she whines and whines to call him. Part of it is that she wants to touch the buttons, I think.

She loves music, and she dances to it anytime she hears it—even if she's sitting in a cart at the grocery store.

She loves baths. In fact, she loves them so much, she was bolting to the bathtub last week (in the nude), and she tripped and fell and got a big, fat lip. It was pretty sad.

She's been wiping out a lot lately, actually. (That's not so funny.)

As I'm typing this, she's sitting behind me with Wheels on the Bus, and she's doing the, "Shhh . . . shhh" noise.

She makes a mad face that is hilarious, too. I think I captured it in a couple of photos in the previous post.

She loves to brush her teeth.

That's all I can remember for now! This kid is saying a few words, but she's not got an extraordinary vocabulary or anything. I do know that she knows a lot more words than she can say. She always knows what I'm talking about, it seems. She also does some inconsistent sign language for "all done" and "more."

We're havin' fun over here!

Photo and Video Post!

I've been way behind on uploading photos and videos. So, I'm going to do all that at once right here. Enjoy.

Nana, I think Nora likes her little Easter Bunny.  We attempted some outdoor Easter photos, but someone wasn't into it.  We definitely caught her angry face in the first two photos. Then, the second two photos show her sweet face.  Here's Nora dressed up for Easter and playing with the laptop that Uncle Josh got her for Christmas.  This kid loves to slam my keyboard.  She's always blurry because she's always moving.  The cat decided he wanted to start sleeping at my head lately. I'm not thrilled about that. Obviously.  She enjoys her PJs from Grandma! I desperately tried to capture Nora's enjoyment of this Easter Bunny. She was dancing to it hardcore, and it seemed like every time I got the camera out, she took it back a few notches. She'd sway back and forth, and she'd get her arms going with it. It was so stinking funny. I just wish she'd let me catch her!