Baby Watch 2010

No baby yet, I should get that out of the way right off the bat. Yesterday at church a handful of people asked why I was there. And why I wasn't holding a baby in my arms. I said it was because she hadn't decided to come yet.

I'm afraid I may have misrepresented myself in my D-Day post. Yes, I am waiting for her to come on her own, but I would like it if she were here already. I'm wildly uncomfortable. Lying down is tricky because getting back up sends pain shooting up my back and down my legs. I might not look that big (I'm not sure why), but at my 40 week appointment I was measuring at 40 weeks exactly. Granted, I know people that measure ahead, so maybe that's why I seem small, I don't know. I can still walk, but not without loud huffing and puffing and some moderate waddling action. I can still follow the boys around, but I certainly can't chase them. I've tried to focus on the positive aspects of pregnancy, but that doesn't mean that it's been without discomfort.

So yes, I am done. But she's not. And I would rather do this on her schedule than on mine.

That said, if she's not here by Wednesday, my Doctor is insisting on inducing me.

And so we're saying lots of prayers that she's here by then.

Rock Band As Real Life

Espanol

Peter is very into learning other languages right now. He likes to tell us how to say things in Spanish, his current language of choice. We've been encouraging him by teaching how to say things in these other tongues. At his disposal we have Portuguese, French, ASL, and (limited) Spanish. We could also throw in Mandarin, Norwegian, German, and a lot more Spanish by calling a few family members.

We've begun his training by teaching him to count (and in the process discovered that he can't roll his R's). He's done a good job remembering what he's learned. For the most part.

On Sunday he decided to share his knowledge with Cooper.

Peter: Cooper, do you want to know how to count in Spanish?

Cooper: No.

Peter: (More insistent) Cooper, do you want to know how to count in Spanish?

Cooper: NO!

Peter: (Ignoring Cooper's lack of interest) Okay. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve.

Me: That was good Peter. Do you remember how to say ten in Spanish?

Peter: (Pausing for a moment to think) Uh, Nathan?

No, I have no idea where Nathan came from.

D-Day

Here we are at 40 weeks. FYI, I'm totally fine with having made it to 40 weeks. Apparently I'm in the minority in that I don't want the baby out at the first safe opportunity, but that's okay. I've always been a little odd.

Reasons?

Remember that little thing we did last month called moving? And remember how the reason we had to move was that the fellow who owns our condo wanted to move back in? And so we spent the better part of July praying for a place to live and driving all over the area looking for something and packing and moving? And most of August unpacking?

As it turns out, someone may not have been telling the whole truth.

Soon after we moved out Bryan took up the habit of driving by our old place to see if the owner had moved in yet. Up until last week it appeared that nothing was going on. And then on Thursday evening we saw something new.

A for rent sign.

Yup, the same place we were kicked out of to make room for the owner was now being offered for rent. The next day we found a listing for it on the same site we had originally seen it. The condo was listed for $50 more a month than we had been paying.

Bryan and I have been asking ourselves the following: did the owner want to move in originally, but then changed his mind? Did they tell us the story just to get us to leave so they could charge more for it? If more money was their goal, why didn't they come to us first? True, we didn't want to pay more, but raising our rent would have cost $600 more per year. Moving was more expensive than that.

We both feel slightly violated.

Sleep Eating

We don't ask the boys to clean their plates during meals. It's often not even a concern. Both boys are pretty good eaters. There are two exceptions: Sunday morning before church and dinner. Neither boy eats breakfast on Sunday. At least they don't eat much and what they do eat is consumed VERY SLOWLY. I have no idea why. The other exception is Cooper during our final meal of the day. I think he's just eaten so much during the other two meals that he doesn't have much room left.

While we don't demand that they eat everything, we do ask that they at least eat something. Hence this conversation from last Thursday night:

Peter: (Upon completing his dinner) Can I have an Otter Pop?

Me: Sure.

Cooper: Can I have an Otter Pop?

Me: Cooper you haven't eaten anything yet. You at least need to eat a carrot.

Cooper: Oh, I ate lots of carrots before I woke up.

Did you now?

Sartorial Agency

Peter has liked picking out his own clothes for a while. I usually give him some caveat like, "It's going to be hot today, so you need to wear shorts and a t-shirt" and then let him decide on the combination. Usually he's fine. Occasionally I'll tell him he can't wear all the same color (I grew up around gangs and can't break that cautionary habit) and have him change, but that's rare.

This week Cooper jumped on the pick-out-my-own-clothes bandwagon. I knew for a fact we weren't leaving the house that day since all three of us had colds and didn't want to share our germs, so I didn't even ask him to find a different shirt when he handed me all blue clothes. When I asked what he had picked out he said, "My flag shirt and my dolphin pants."

Oh, and winter mittens.

Peter decided to join him and both boys added snow boots to the mix (Peter wearing Bryan's and Cooper wearing Peter's), because nothing says we're enjoying the last month of summer like build imaginary snowmen in the middle of your bedroom. Which is what they did.

Clean Up, Clean Up

Cooper loves to clean. This is a good thing...usually. Sometimes, however, it means that he creates messes just so he can clean them up.

Case in point:


Here's the rest of the mess.


It wouldn't have been so bad if he really had just dumped them out and picked them all up. But he didn't. He started cleaning, and then dumped them out again. Twice. I insisted that since he made the mess he needed to clean it up. ( I don't do this with every mess, but he was fully capable of taking care of this one.) It took so long and Cooper was throwing such a tantrum over it that Peter came over and tried to clean up the mess. I thanked him for what he was doing but said that Cooper had to do it.

He finally did, and clapped proudly for himself when he was finished, adding a self-congratulatory, "Good job!" It was cute, but would have been cuter if it hadn't taken thirty minutes to get to that point.

Home Sweet Home

Something very exciting happened yesterday. No, we didn't have a baby, something else.

I unpacked the last box.

Well, excluding the office, I unpacked the last box. Bryan's brother has been staying with us for a few weeks and most of his stuff is in the office, so Bryan is waiting until Spencer moves into his apartment for the school year before he moves into that room. However, all the other boxes are empty and flattened.

Cue sigh of relief.

Another big thing: we used our oven for the first time last night. It smoked, which was kind of exciting, but we determined that the smoke was the result of old food cooked onto the sides and it went away pretty quickly.

And we haven't seen any mice or their signs for a week and a half. We caught one in a trap a week ago Saturday, and we don't think they're necessarily gone for good, but at least we're able to use all but four of the drawers and one cupboard in the kitchen. (Those storage spaces need to have some holes filled before we can begin using them.) Someone bought the vacant condo beneath us, so maybe all the paint and remodeling they're doing is helping to drive away the furry critters.

It's almost like we live here.

Leader of the Pack

Sometimes it's a tricky thing having three oldest children living under one roof. Over the last nine years Bryan and I have learned to trade off being in charge, for the most part. But the struggle between Bryan and Peter...

I'm sure that Peter and I hassle over who is in charge. He does like to dictate how things will run, and I, well I don't take direction from my four-year-old with much grace. I often say the words, "You may not speak to me like that." But who am I kidding, I say that to Cooper too and he's not quite the Type A that the rest of us are.

Bryan and Peter, their conflict takes things to a whole new level. I sometimes feel like I'm watching two male lions fighting for supremacy of the herd. It's not violent, don't worry, but they both have iron wills so neither of them backs down very easily. Usually it involves Bryan asking Peter to do something (put away his toys, eat his dinner, find his shoes) and Peter wandering around doing everything except what he's been asked to do. Peter's common defense is, "Oh, I forgot." Bryan and I rarely buy it because Peter has a steel-trap memory and can recall ridiculously specific details that happened a year ago. Consequences are then doled out and Peter often throws a tantrum and yells that he won't have whatever is being handed down, timeout, loss of toys, etc. That reaction leads to more consequences and it goes on from there until one of them calms down or gives in.

I wonder what life will be like when Peter is a teenager and the same size (or taller) than Bryan. I remember my brother trying to wrestle my dad when he was annoyed with him and my dad always winning. Will Bryan and Peter battle over computer games?