Still in there

Baby Two is a stubborn little thing! Oh well.

I read an article in the NYTimes yesterday about toddler speech, and I must say I was all smiles. Despite Cooper's slightly slow start to using words from 9-15 months or so, he now would rank above average in terms of the type of words he uses, how many he uses, and how many he strings together. For instance, he often will ask where something has gone. "Blue marker go?" The 'where did the' is indicated with exaggerated sign language of a hands in the air, palms up, eyebrows up, shoulders shrugging plus the way he says it is very obviously a question. That, in toddler speak, is a pretty darn good sentence! Very cool.

His love of color names only started about a week ago, and it is very fascinating to me. His favorite colors are green, orange, and yellow. He also likes purple, blue, white, and black. He stubbornly refuses to say red- although I did trick him into saying it the other day, and so I know he's physically capable of saying the word itself. I won't push that hard on red again. I was mostly worried that the R was not working for him, or possibly that he doesn't see red, and now I'm pretty sure neither of those is the case.

Grey and brown seem to be a bit too abstract right now, but he'll say them if prompted, and can pick out a brown object from a selection of other easy colored things (like a pile of brown, yellow, and red crayons). He likes saying pink, but I don't think he really has that one down yet. I think he mostly says pink because it is a fun word. PEEE-NK!

Getting closer

I'm excited to report that at yesterday's checkup, Baby Two was doing extremely well and I'm showing a lot more signs of pre-labor prep. According to our midwife, Baby is in a really good position, I'm at least 3cm with 50%, and the fact that I gained four pounds in one week is probably a sign that my body is prepping for the regular fluid loss that comes with delivery. Weirdly, my wedding ring and engagement ring still fit fine. I do recall that in the final week of my first pregnancy, I couldn't wear them because they were getting pretty snug and I was scared they could get stuck. So that's interesting- makes me wonder if I similarly gained fluid at the last minute that time, too. I had the baby on the day of my scheduled checkup, so there is no way to know if that was the case or not.

The other thing that was rather heartening is that as we were chatting at the end of the appointment, she started pulling all sorts of stuff out of her supply closet. I asked what she was doing, and she said, "At this point, you are a loudly ticking time bomb. I don't want to be surprised if you go into labor this afternoon, so I'm going to go through all my stuff one more time just to be extra sure."

Well now... THAT'S a vote of confidence! When your midwife determines she needs to nest, you know its real.

Unfortunately, that was yesterday. And last night yielded no baby. But still, it is good to hear, and makes me feel a lot more confident that I won't make it to my past-due deadline (this coming Monday). Not that it would be horrible, but induction is not at all what I want, so I'll be glad to avoid it.

Darn!

Today, being the 7th anniversary of the day we met, is now a historic day for two reasons... Matt just beat me at scrabble for the second time ever. By two points.

Let it be known that the first time he beat me, I had the flu, so we've always had this caveat that maybe that's why he got the better of me.

But this time, no excuses. I lost fair and square.

Also, note that about two years ago, while I was in labor with Cooper, I had one of my most impressive scrabble words ever- "management" which was both a scrabble (I used all my tiles) and a triple word score, sealing the deal on kicking his ass between contractions. And then I had a baby. That was a good day.

In other news, still no baby. Still not in labor. Will let you know.

The best bad dog ever

This morning, Cooper and Lucky got into a love-fest of giggling, doggie slobber, rolling around on the floor, and general cutest kid and dog behavior ever. I can't tell you how adorable it was, because nothing could do justice to how dang loving and sweet those two are together. He's the best dog in the world.

And then after lunch, I was reminded of the dark side of loving toddler-dog relationships. Cooper was quietly settling in for a nap in his darkened room, and Matt was heading out to grab a few things from the hardware store. I heard whispered up the stairs, "Bye hon- I'll be back in a little bit." And then the door closed. And a few moments later, I heard this odd sort of smacking wet sound from downstairs. So I peered through the slats of the stairs to see what on earth was going on. The dog had his paws up on the counter and was gnawing on the rock hard stale loaf of neglected banana bread that I was intending to give to the chickens. He knew I was upstairs and that Matt had left, so the coast was clear. He'd clearly been plotting this for a while, in my opinion. The timing was too impressive to suggest anything less.

What has this to do with Cooper? Well, when Cooper was learning to eat, he spread food far and wide and we depended on Lucky to do a lot of the cleaning. This was Lucky's really first taste of "people food" on a regular basis, and he's learned to like it. Not like it, actually. He learned to love it. And steal it. Find it and eat it. We've had to totally change our food storage behaviors as a result of this, and we are still making mistakes more than a year after this all started.

Sigh.

He's the best dog ever.

Bad dog!

Ok, we are so ready now

I was cool with it when Baby Two decided not to arrive on the 25th, my quasi-random guessed birthday for this child, because Matt and I had an unexpected trip to the ER after he took a severe fall on the ice and we thought he might have broken his leg. It didn't seem like a good idea to have a new baby plus a husband that could hardly walk. So it wasn't too bad when the three or four days of painful hobbling did not coincide with labor plus a newborn.

And then Matt (the poor dear) got this horrible stomach bug on my due date. I will not elaborate for the sake of my readers. Let's just say he's been very much laid up, we've been sleeping in separate quarters to avoid him breathing on me, and only today is he really eating again and acting like himself. I've been keeping the kitchen and bathroom obsessively clean, washing hands every 15 minutes, and it is looking like Cooper and I might escape without getting this nasty thing. So that's great.

But now he's better. The bruising on his leg is fading away, and he's eating regular foods. Besically, Matt is no longer a liability.

So let's do this thing. Baby Two... your turn.

Merry Groundhog Day

I figure I need to start fining this kid twenty five cents a day for being overdue.

On the bright side, I slept for 9 hours last night, interrupted twice (very briefly) by my bladder. And I bet that won't happen again for, oh... 6 to 9 months, starting very soon.

Due date

Today is baby's due date! Hurray! I did not think we'd get here. But we are here, and I really can't complain. I feel good and baby seems happy in there. So... whatever!

We had two interesting developments in Cooper world this weekend. Totally out of the blue, Cooper has stopped using his infant-language-developed invented word for his favorite sacred yellow blanket (which is best understood written as "Cee-cee") and switched to a very close variation on blanket, namely, "Bankey." Without any transition time, obvious reason, or hesitation. It is just a "bankey" now. Matt and I are both puzzled and amused by this. We never corrected him, we just stuck to saying blanket ourselves. But I sort of thought that Cee-cee was here to stay. Farewell, Cee-cee! Hello, Bankey!

The other thing that Cooper did this weekend is try to teach himself how to hop. He wants to be able to get both feet off the ground at the same time. He's having a hilariously and adorably hard time DOING this, as his technique leaves a lot to be desired. Practice will clearly make perfect. Sometimes he tries to help himself out by bracing an arm on the couch for more lift, which often ends in a bang as it makes him lopsided and thus encourages the attempted hop to end in an awkward fall. Regardless, he cracks himself up giggling as he tries, which is incredibly cute. This morning after breakfast he was attempting to hop, and he started laughing so uncontrollably that he almost fell over. It was great. What a funny little kid.