Too long

It's been too long since I've posted. Crazy long. Wendy is almost 22 months, nearing her 2nd birthday... which is just unbelievable to me. She's really talkative. She puts about one sentence together every day, not including things like "Mimi gaga" = "Mimi has glasses". She loves glasses and she always pulls them off my mother-in-law.

She is also difficult in the sense that she pinches and kicks a lot, which is frustrating. And bites, slaps, grabs... Mostly she directs it to me. She's been going through a really clingy stage, and it's her way of saying "PAY ATTENTION, MOMMY!"

Nonetheless, it's still really rewarding. She can also be incredibly affectionate with hugs and kisses. And she's recognizing so many letters, which is amazing. It's not like I've been pushing the alphabet on her at all. Sometimes when she wants me to draw with her, I'll draw a picture and then write out "Mommy" (or Daddy or Wendy or something else), and point out the letters. And she looks so proud of herself when she gets a whole word right. She's so smart!

The little things

I gave Wendy a bath about half an hour ago. When her hair gets all wet, it straightens out, and looks SO long, it goes down the back of her neck. After the bath, I rub it with the towel, but mostly it air-dries, and it's funny to watch it go through this transition of long & straight back to shorter and curlier.

I wish my camera was working so I could show what I'm talking about! It's just so cute. I have stick straight hair, so it's funny to be taking care of Wendy's curly (or very wavy) hair... I can't wait to see what it will look like in a year or two when it really grows out. She's got her daddy's hair to the Nth degree!

She's so good at entertaining herself. She loves to "read" (well, she intensely looks at her books). She's almost got the hang of spinning her octopus top (Seen here), which she has had for... Wow, a whole YEAR! Since she was just 3 months old. That's amazing.

Sleepy...

Yaaawn... I have got to stop staying up so late... I want to nap, but I should really be productive and put the laundry away. So I'll end up being productive now, and then at 11 or 12 tonight, I'll decide "Dammit, I deserve some time to relax and knit" and then I'll stay up until 2 am knitting and watching The X-Files on Netflix. What's wrong with me?? Because of course Wendy will wake me up at 8... or 9, if I'm lucky.

I finally went grocery shopping today. It got to the point where I had oatmeal for dinner last night. Good thing I loaded up on lots of food. I got the ingredients for meatloaf, matzo ball soup, and lots of other stuff. We go through seltzer SO fast, so I got 10 bottles.

I'm going to treat myself to some cookies...

Gray winter day

It's so gray out today. Usually at 8:30 the sun wakes me up because it's hitting me in the face, but not today. I guess it tricked Wendy, too, because she slept until 10! Her daddy did wake us up when he left, but Wendy went back down when I nursed her.

She's so funny now. She makes such deliberate choices. She loves throwing things down the stairs, which can be annoying. Toys, remote controls, shoes... She's also been doing this funny thing with her walker where she turns it upside down and walks with it that way! She also loves to open her drawers and empty all her clothes onto the floor.

Whenever she picks up her duck toy, she says "Kak kak kak!" That's her way of saying "Quack quack quack," which her mimi (grandmother) showed her.

I can't believe she's going to be one in less than a week!

Long time, no blog...

It's been a long time since I last posted, so I figured it was time to update again. It's been what, almost 9 months since I last posted? Wendy is almost 10 months old now, and she's a joy. She's a big girl, at the 97th percentile in height, weight *and* head circumference. I hope that she grows tall enough to reach things for me! She's been crawling for about 3 months now, and pulling up on everything for almost that long. She's been cruising around the living room, and I suspect any day now, she'll take her first real steps. She loves to express herself with shrieks of happiness and "ba baba" and "dadadada" and that sort of thing. I can't wait for her to start talking and really expressing herself!

Here's my sweet girl:

She's here!

Gwendolyn was born at 11:07 pm on Sunday, January 31. 8 lb, 7 oz. And she has red hair like her daddy! Which is so incredibly surprising. I didn’t think it was possible, because John kept telling me that red is the most recessive hair color, and it only shows up if you get the gene from both parents. But apparently I have a recessive red hair gene somewhere in the family.

She's so sweet, here are some pictures...











Gwen & her daddy (2 days old)











Gwen at 7 days old






I had a 42 hour labor, and 30 hours into it I was given epidural & pitocin, and it all ended with an emergency c-section. It was the complete opposite of what I planned, and probably the hardest experience of my life. The 3-day stay in the hospital after the surgery was really rough, but it's getting better. My feet & legs were terribly swollen for days, because of all the fluids they were putting in me at the hospital - and aggravated by the fact that I wasn't moving around very much. But they're 95% better now. I can get in & out of bed on my own now, and I'm getting around relatively easy, although I still can't bend over very much.

Countdown... 9 days left

I'm done being pregnant. I'm So. Freaking. TIRED. I thought this stuff would plateau, you know? The exhaustion, the hormonal freak-outs, and the difficulty moving around (especially getting in and out of bed) -- That at a certain point, it would just level out. But apparently not, instead it still gets harder by the day. I hate it. I just want to have my little girl in my arms.

I'm sick of strangers giving me funny looks because my belly is so huge (No, I'm not imagining it). I'm sick of friends thinking they know everything about pregnancy and labor and babies because they have one close friend who recently had a baby (not even THEM, but someone they KNOW). One woman's experiences are not the same as mine. Everyone has completely different pregnancy and labor experiences. I don't need to hear another horror story about being induced at the last minute because of something insane, or a c-section where the baby's face was accidentally cut, or anything else. I AM JUST TRYING TO THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS, AND I DON'T WANT ANYONE SCREWING THAT UP FOR ME!!

Tired. Very tired.

I haven't been blogging lately, basically because the third trimester is exhausting. I guess I'm having a relatively easy pregnancy compared to many other women, but I can't help feeling exhausted and cranky after just a couple of errands.

I'll be 8 months along on New Year's Day, and that astonishes me. Baby? Here? In a month? Impossible! There's still a lot to do. I don't really have a place to put her clothes. The apartment is not baby-proofed, to say the least. It has a lot of work to be done. I wish I had more close friends that I could call and ask to help me with housework.

Ok, I've got to go figure out what's for dinner...

John and I went to Florida for 4 days, which was great. It was a family reunion for John. We left on Friday and came back Tuesday. For the first 3 nights, we stayed at a hotel in Bonita Springs -- Which was beautiful, by the way, I recommend it if you're staying nearby (The Hyatt Regency Coconut Point). We hung out at John's cousin's house on Friday & Saturday, and then Sunday was spent lounging around the pool (and I got a mani-pedi). Monday, we checked out of the hotel and had lunch with lots of family, and then Doug (John's brother) drove us to his home in the East part of Florida. The drive was nice, we went through the Everglades and saw a whole bunch of alligators! We spent the final night at Doug's house and then went home on Tuesday. The weather was SO nice in Florida, high 70's - low 80's, and windy. Luckily when we got home on Tuesday, the NYC weather was relatively mild, so it wasn't too big of a shock.

I brought my camera to Florida but completely failed to take a single picture. I am bad.

John took the whole week off so we could get some work done on the apartment -- Get it ready for the baby by getting things organized, putting shelves up, etc. WELL... Not a lot has been accomplished. Yesterday, nothing was done. Today, work started around noon, and I helped him a little with mounting shelves. Unfortunately, before much was accomplished, the level fell on my head. SMACK in the middle of my forehead. It hurt like hell and that was it for me. I got a little weepy and wasn't about to keep working. After John comforted me a bit, he finished the task at hand and then stopped. So his office and the hallway are now cluttered because everything's in mid-project. It's not looking like we will get much accomplished, because this weekend will be devoted to birthing classes.

February baby

So I went to my new midwife yesterday, and she changed my due date -- It's February 1. I suppose now that I have a February baby, I should make the "February Baby" sweater! Maybe I'll wait and see if she comes on time...

This is me yesterday. As of today, I am now exactly 25 weeks along.



I still have to finish off the purple & white striped cardigan for Gwen. It shouldn't be taking me so long, it's not as if it's difficult or anything... I just keep putting off the finishing. All I have to do now is make the second button band, and then get buttons for it! I think I'll make a date with Abby to go to M&J Trimmings together for the buttons, so I have a deadline.