Big

This photo is pretty dorky but I haven't taken any of me with the giant belly.

I started to write this post at week 20 but here I am at week 27 and the above photo is week 26. My belly was gigantic at 20 weeks. It's enormous at 27. A woman at the post office asked me if I was having twins. And the cashier at Target: "You're due in July? Me too. You are way bigger than me." Too true, too true. From Chipotle: "You are the tiniest pregnant lady!" Wow, that's a change in comments. "When is the baby due?" Uh not until July. "Oh. You have a loooong way to go." So, strike the tiniest part I guess. One advantage of the baby being cantilevered over my feet is that he isn't squashing my diaphragm or kicking my ribs. The bright side, right?

A few months ago, Addie said my stomach was going to get so big it was going to explode and then I would die. Poor girl started to cry and said she wished she had never thought that and now she was sad. I reassured her that my stomach was not going to explode and that the doctor said the baby was healthy.

Addie is definitely playing the responsible Big Sister role. She has told both Cap and I separately that the new baby is "going to be a lot of hard work. Mommy has to watch the baby and Daddy has to watch Eliza." I told her we would all take care of Addie too and still play lots of fun games, do projects together and read books. We are a family and we can help each other out. That's what families do.

Easter!

By 8:30 this morning, the girls had followed the jelly bean trail from their room to their Easter baskets, consumed copious amounts of sugar and chocolate, ate a real breakfast, gotten dressed in matching floral ensembles and hunted down a dozen or so eggs in the backyard.

At that point Addie wasn't much interested in sitting for a sisterly portrait.



The girls had Good Friday off from school so I took the day off and celebrated with 3 vaccinations for Miss Eliza followed by ice cream. That afternoon, Cap got off work early too and Addie's friend Rya and her family came over to dye eggs.


This was Eliza's first time to get in on the action. She successfully colored 5 eggs and 2 hands.


Once she figured out you could eat chocolate bunnies, she was totally on board.


Addie plays the bunny. Saturday she told me that at her swim lesson James was teaching her the backstroke. It's a secret though and I was only supposed to tell the Easter Bunny because he can keep a secret. He IS a secret she said. Obviously Mommy can't.


Jelly bean score during the egg hunt. She was content to find one egg and when pressed to find a second, this time a real one, she preceded to crack the egg and eat it right there.


Multi-tasking. Egg hunting, chocolate bunny eating and you may notice a roly-poly bug on her right thumb which she escorted around the yard.


And Easter just wouldn't be the same without the Easter Slug. The only difference this year is that it's not a snug. I miss snugs.

Is that scary?

Addie goes goth warrior, and little Eliza is not so sure she likes the transformation.

19 Months

She loves the water. She drinks stagnant water from puddles, bird baths and even from the petting zoo animals' water dish. Obviously totally disgusting. She loves playing with the water in the sink and her pink watering can. She loves bath time and seems perfectly content lounging on her belly and blowing bubbles.

We've started to take Eliza to the pool during Addie's Saturday morning swim lessons. With arm floaties on, she bobs around in the shallow end watching the other kids in their lessons. Cap usually gets in with her because I look like a lopsided buoy in a bathing suit, but with Cap out of town last weekend (Seattle) and again starting tomorrow (Rio!), I'll be on full time kid duty which will mean pool time too. I think she's just about ready for swim lessons of her own.

Happy 19 month birthday little fuzz head. Kisses!

Spring Caterpillar

Addie told me she made the antennae into a heart because she loves Eliza.

Oh No! Watch Out!

Addie's class at school is studying volcanoes, and she drew this picture of lava erupting and a girl in her house shouting, "Oh No! Watch Out!"

Addie is learning to spell phonetically which is pretty cool. What I love the most though is the burst of confidence it has given her. In the past when she wanted to write something, she'd have us tell her each letter and she'd write it or we'd write it out and she'd copy it. Now she adds captions to her drawings without consulting anyone. The learning process reminds me how completely ridiculous the English language is to read and write!

Tucson: Botanical Garden

Our last adventure in Tucson was a trip to the Botanical Garden with Nana and Pop Pop to visit the butterfly house. I took waaaay too many photographs of butterflies. Addie also visited the carnivorous plant exhibit where she drew a picture of a plant that eats lollipops.




Nana had a stowaway. Can you believe this is the same butterfly with the blue wings as the one in the photo above?








I definitely want to get the girls a sandbox. Eliza was so content.

That's it for our Tucson trip. Already feels like a million years ago.

Tucson: The Desert Museum

No trip to Tucson would be complete without a visit to the Desert Museum in Saguaro National Park West.


Dad power


Big horn sheep


The look out


Eliza saw not one but two owls that day. A favorite bird - and word for her.


Addie petting a snake


Addie claims that the dinosaur dig is everyone's favorite part.


Sleeping Eliza

Tucson: Tohono Chul with Nana and Pop Pop

By Thursday, Nana and Pop Pop had arrived from cold Michigan. Nanci and I spent the morning getting massages and manicures at the spa before meeting up with the Big Boys and the Little Girls for lunch and trip to Tohono Chul park - a first for us. The outing was cut a little short after Addie stepped in the stream soaking her shoes and got a cactus needle stuck into her thigh.


The baby carrier arrived in the mail and Pop Pop gave it try.


Addie reading the map. She insisted we all walk behind her.


By the end, Cap was carrying two cranky girls on his back.

Tucson: The Zoo

GranJanne lives down the street from the Reid Park Zoo - a perfect way to spend an afternoon.




Addie's favorite part was the peacocks who roam about and hang out in trees.


Sisters in a log.


Play time.

Tucson: The Desert Of Course

And of course, there is the desert that I love.

At Saguaro National Park East, we learned quickly that alternately keeping Eliza away from the cacti and carrying her was enough to get me onto Amazon that night and order a backpack baby carrier.






Plus, hiking takes a lot longer when Eliza stops to investigate the gravel. Eliza called all the cacti "ouch!"


Lizard hunting


Addie and the biggest, oldest Saguaro we could find

Tucson: The Children's Museum

How did I not know that Tucson had a children's museum? It was the perfect place to let the girls run wild and escape the drizzle outside.



Eliza practicing being the Big Sister in the play doctor's office.

Tucson Time

In my usual behind the times fashion these days, I'm finally posting photos of our relaxing trip to Tucson during President's day week. We stayed at GranJanne's lovely new house, lounged around, ate take-out and went on some sort of adventure each day between Eliza's naps. Addie loved helping feed the mourning doves in GranJanne's back yard which involved lots of spinning and showering of bird seed in all directions.



This is Eliza's favorite perch, watching the birds and dogs from her window spot.


Eliza was also fond of the bird bath where she would lick the water off of her hand. Gross.

I'd love to come back in the spring when the desert is blooming. Maybe next year!

We miss you GranJanne!

(I'll be posting photos of our Tucson adventures and fun with Nana and Pop Pop soon!)

Face Painting

I bought a face painting kit several weeks ago. Addie painted a colorful sleeve on both arms and then I painted a caterpillar and wrote her name on her cheek. Her other cheek has her friend Danika's name on it even though Danika wasn't even over at our house that day.

Danika did come over recently, however, for a playdate and brought her little brother Kieran along. Eliza and Kieran are in the same toddler class. How cute are the two of them together. It's officially Eliza's first playdate.

One and a Half

18 months today!

Eliza is all energy and curiosity. She's figured out how to pull the step stool up the bathroom sink and turn on the water. She can be found standing on a chair, the coffee table or trying to scale the dining room table. She opens the caps to all our pens and markers and threatens to fall off our bed at every twirl. No is a favorite word and is the answer to all questions. Did you have a good day at school? No. Are you hungry? No. Is your name Eliza? No. When she doesn't get what she wants she screams and throws herself on the floor. We call her Tyrannobaby and Baby Menace.

Still she can be sweet as tapioca pudding, bringing you an animal book to read and sitting herself down quietly in front of you or on your lap. Her vocabulary has doubled at least in the past month and mainly consists of animal words. She's switched from calling me Mama to Mommy which is what greets us at 6:15 am in the morning from the next room over. She has moved out of the infant room at school into the toddler room where she sleeps on a mat and baby bottles are banned. She refuses to use a sippy cup but I'm hoping with persistence that will change. Her smile transforms her face. She adores Addie. She's confident and loving. She has no idea her life is going to change in July when her baby brother is born.

Happy year and a half Eliza Wren! You make me laugh and I love you.