Eleanor-isms

"Eleanor is dancing with her bottom!"
No explanation needed!

While placing plastic animals on a large world map (panda in China, etc.)

Eleanor:  The reindeer lives in...  the rain! 

I'm not sure where that is on the map!  :)

I speak Spanish almost every day with Eleanor, usually just for 10 minutes here or there.  She is actually the one who usually switches languages on me, so I just switch too and speak with her.  She knows quite a few words now, mainly nouns, but puts them together in sentences using English.  It's interesting to me that she does this naturally, even though I never speak "Spanglish" with her - it's always 100% one language or the other.  Some of my favorites (which somehow all involve food):

• "The gato comes inside to eat her comida and eat her agua."  (yes, eat agua)
• "The bebe [how she refers to herself] puts the huevo in her boca."  This was followed, of course, by her eating a bite of egg!
• "The bebe sit in her silla and eat her comida."

Hunter travels to Washington, D.C. every once in a while for work.  I showed her where Florida is on a map and where Washington, D. C. is and talked about how Daddy goes up on an airplane, etc.  Later that morning she played with her Little People airport and chattered about Daddy getting in the airplane, slipping off the airplane (yikes!), going to "washing to see", and then made the little figure who was Daddy get off the plane and said, "Daddy kiss the girl" and had him kiss one of the girl people.  I asked, "Is the girl Mama?" and she said yes.  Whew!  ;)  She also made Daddy drive the bus, the fire truck, and the helicopter.  Hunter said he really hopes his next trip doesn't involve him riding in any fire trucks or helicopters!

On a side note, yesterday was Eleanor's 2 year checkup and everything was great.  She is still TALL at 36" - that's the 95th percentile.  The pediatrician said that if she stays on the same growth curve, she'll be about 5'9" as an adult.  I also put her stats into a few websites and they all predicted she would be 5'9" or 5'10".  She now weighs 28.6 lbs, or the 75th percentile, and the pediatrician said she's slim for her height.  She did say that we can switch her to 1% or 2% milk now.  Also, she recommended taking Eleanor to her first dentist's appointment soon, so I guess we have that to look forward to!  Oh boy!

Eleanor's birthday

I think Eleanor had a pretty great birthday!  It was very low key - we just spent the day doing whatever she wanted to do.

This little plastic cake was a gift to me for my 6th birthday.  It was part of a doll tea party set, and the wonderful woman who gave it to me, a missionary to Peru and a very close family friend, was killed by a drunk driver less than a month after my birthday.  The rest of the set has been gone for years, but we always kept the cake and my mom put it out just like this for all of our birthdays as we were growing up.  Eleanor loved playing with it, and you can still wind it up and hear it play "Happy Birthday".  

Hunter took the day off, and we asked Eleanor what she wanted to do - the beach, the park, or her music class (to make up for the one we missed when I had my fender bender).  She very happily chose the park, so we even got some exercise in and walked over there in the 85/90ish degree heat.  She also picked out her outfit for the day, which is not what I would have picked for that heat!  She was so happy though.

After we got home, it was time for some presents!  She just opened 1 or 2 at a time and then played with them.  Here is is reading a card from Buela and Papa Bob:

Playing with the toy "happy cake" from her aunts

And figuring out her new little IKEA train set from us

I made her "happy cakes" the night before.  Hunter insisted that one monkey have red eyes.

And then he added the candles to look like horns

(Though I must admit, there aren't really any alternatives)

The best part of the day!

After a nap - well, more like quiet time since she rarely naps these days - and a couple of other presents (including a cute doll carrier backpack from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Vic!  Sorry I didn't get a picture yet), we had dinner.  We went out for what we think is Eleanor's favorite food - Mexican.  She LOVES to eat chips and salsa and guacamole.  The waitresses can never believe that she likes the spicy salsa, but she sure does!

I can't believe my sweet baby girl is TWO!

First haircut!

Eleanor got her first haircut today! It was pretty much just a trim, but the lady especially cut some off in the back where it was getting long and out of control.

I explained everything to Eleanor before we went, in the car, and again while we were waiting and watching other kids:  the big chair, squirting water in her hair, the scissors, etc. She really understood and described the process back to me. Then, when the lady called out "Eleanor!" and said she was ready for us, Eleanor lost it! Poor thing! A sucker, some bubbles, and a rubber duck later she finally got distracted enough to sit in the chair. The only thing that calmed her down was letting her hold her snack and her cup. She didn't eat or drink anything; she just wanted to *hold* them. She calmed down enough for the haircut, but she cried pretty much the entire time. As soon as she was out of the chair, she was FINE!

The lady wet Eleanor's hair while I was fishing my camera out of my purse for a "before" shot.

Calmed down

The final touches

My attempt at an "after" shot...hah!

That's much better!

Growing girl!

You might want to click on this picture to see a bigger version.

Summer Fun

Eleanor's little friend Elijah turned 2 on Friday!  He is exactly a week older than her; we met his parents in our childbirth class.  He had a fun little birthday party and Eleanor enjoyed every second of it.  I cannot believe our babies are turning 2!

The kids were all playing happily when somebody announced that it was time for cupcakes.  Eleanor immediately dropped her book and took off as fast as she could for the table with the "happy cakes".  ("Happy birthday" + cupcakes = "happy cakes".  Best term ever.)  She put her little face right by the table and stared at the cupcakes until it was time for us to sing and for Elijah to blow out his candles.  Finally, she got to enjoy her happy cake!

Eleanor has had oatmeal in the past and liked it well enough, but this morning she suddenly seemed to love it! She ate an entire adult serving (in addition to her scrambled egg and watermelon) and even licked the bowl clean.  What a mess!

3 years

Yesterday was Ada's third birthday - I can't believe it has been 3 years since I last held her.  Of course, we went to her beach at sunrise as usual to remember her on her birthday.

The day really wasn't hard at all.  In some ways that makes me sad, because it feels like I must love her less somehow.  I know that's not true though; it's just how grief is over time.  Eventually you get used to it and you can remember the person fondly without feeling much pain.  We enjoyed our time at the beach remembering her.

The third trimester is here

Well, I am definitely in the third trimester - my body literally seemed to change overnight!  One night last week I woke up at 12:30 with horrible heartburn.  I've only ever had it before during my third trimester with Eleanor, but it was never that bad!  Fortunately I had some TUMS, so no big deal.  Well, it woke me up again at 2:30! Then, when I woke up in the morning, my right foot was swollen - that's the first time I've had swollen feet during this pregnancy, though I did have them a lot during the last few months with Eleanor and it was almost always the right foot.  (No blood pressure issues at all though, thankfully!)  And, when I went to put my wedding rings on (I have never been able to sleep with them on), they wouldn't fit!  Of course, I couldn't wear my rings after 20 weeks with Ada or Eleanor so it was no surprise, but I thought it was pretty crazy that everything happened in the span of about 8 hours.  Thankfully all of those symptoms have mostly disappeared by now - I am wearing my rings at the moment - but I have a feeling they'll keep popping up over the next 3 months.

Yesterday after Hunter came home I went out to Target to return some stuff and look for a few things.  I love Target, and I can easily spend over an hour there when I'm by myself, but yesterday I didn't stay long because  it felt like I had a cantaloupe strapped to my belly.  My back started to hurt and my sides started to ache - I do not remember feeling like this at 6 months pregnant before!  I guess I'm just getting older.  ;)  It's all totally worth it of course, though I don't think Hunter's going to get his wish of us having 2 or 3 more children!

I had an ultrasound last week and Arthur is measuring BIG.  Well, mainly his HEAD is big!  It's off the charts (not a surprise or concern), he is "VERY tall" (don't know the percentile), and he's around the 77th percentile for weight.  I honestly don't know how much stock I put in their weight estimates, because they told me Eleanor was going to be really big and at least 8 lbs, but she was only 7lb3oz.  She was really tall at 21" though and also had a very large head, so maybe that's what threw off their estimate.  I'm kind of hoping the same thing is happening this time.  Still, I'm getting a little nervous about pushing that head out since we had to use the vacuum with Eleanor and she was only 38 weeks.  I'm afraid my OB will want to induce early again, which I really don't want to do this time, but I will do it if I'm afraid that the alternative is them having to do a c-section because his head is too big.  Hunter and I are both more relaxed with this pregnancy, but he's still more paranoid then I am and is leaning more towards the idea of induction.

The nesting instinct also kicked in big time last week!  I went in to dust and vacuum one room, and three hours later I had 4 bags of stuff for Good Will, one bag of trash, and I had completely rearranged a closet in a different room.  I keep noticing things everywhere that need to be cleaned or organized!

Yesterday we had a little scare, but everything is completely fine.  I was stopped at a stoplight and about to turn right onto a major road.  I started to go, then changed my mind when I saw how fast the oncoming traffic was coming, and I stopped.  Well, the person behind me was looking to her left, also seeing if she could turn, and didn't look ahead at ME as she rolled forward.  My Corolla got a little dent in it and her Suburban was undamaged.  We had to wait out in the heat with a million mosquitoes for about an hour, but everything is fine now.  Hunter asked me at least 20 times if I'm sure I'm fine, and I promise him I am.  I've felt Arthur move plenty since it happened.  I think Eleanor has caused more trauma to my belly just by squirming around on my lap.  Anyway, this was my first accident ever, but at least I wasn't at fault and the lady who hit me was super nice about it.

Another morning with Eleanor

These are just some pictures and a video that I took of Eleanor this morning.  She is starting to really look like a 2-year-old to me!

Watching "the fire truck song" on YouTube

Taking her dog on a walk

I got some really funny poses!

Changing the "finga-wingo's" diaper - she loves to use a real wipe and one of her diapers

Giving "finga-wingo" a bath

(The metal sink comes out...not sure where it is at the moment)

And here's a little video of her playing with the flamingo

Our visit to a farm!