An Important Word from Adeline....

Did you catch all that???

Also, some new words:
"Juice"
"Eat"
"du jour" - Amma says "Adventure" and Adeline says "du jour!"
"Click"
"Nose"
"Shake"

Can you stand the cuteness!?!

Adeline and I are moving home tomorrow (Saturday) where we don't have internet so probably no posts for a little while. Pray for me this week as I will have to spend a lot of time taking care of Adeline by myself and am worried about my energy level. We're actually coming back to Holland the following week for Thanksgiving (the first Thanksgiving I've spent with my family in 8 years) and I'm really looking forward to that. Next midwife appointment is Tuesday so I'll post updates as soon as I can.

Much love,
Meredith

More Words

"Nine" - when you count with Adeline every number is nine!
"Kitchen"
"Whee!!" - does this count as a word? Her new favorite thing to do is turn herself around in circles and say "Whee!" over and over again. It is toooooo cute!
"Bye" - very similar to "Hi" and "Nigh-night" but it's the context that matters, right?
"Peach" - Amma calls Adeline "Peach" a lot so Adeline repeats it! Time to be extra careful what we say. It all gets parroted back!
"Squash" - Amma has some Fall decor out and they always say nigh-night to the squash on their way downstairs.


Everyday Adeline does new and different things and surprises me with the things she knows. For example, when Alan and I first arrived in Michigan we were in the car with Adeline. We were parked and unhooked her from her seat. She crawled up to the front, sat in Alan's lap in the driver's seat, took his keys from him and reached around to put them in the ignition! We were so amazed! She knew exactly what to do (but thankfully not exactly how to do it!).

When you ask her if she wants lunch or dinner she goes straight for her little seat, reaches up and grabs it. Or occasionally she'll go to the fridge and try to open it. If she's done with her juice or milk I say, "Go give it to Amma and she'll put it away," and she walks straight over and gives it to Amma. She's very good at putting things away when you ask her to and closing cupboards and things that she might have opened. And she knows her routine so well that when you say, "Is it time for a snooze?" she walks over to the top of the stairs (can't go any farther because there's a barrier there) and just stands there waiting for Amma to pick her up and take her downstairs. Oftentimes when she wakes up these days she just lays in her pack-n-play and talks to her doggie. It's just amazing to me how much she knows how to do and everything she understands. Her verbal vocabulary may be limited to these lists, but her cognitive vocabulary is certainly way beyond.

I guess that's enough swelling with pride from Mommie :). I just really love that kid!

Wishlists Updated

Adeline and I have been working hard on getting our wishlists populated and updated to give people ideas for Christmas if they need them. I've also started a new baby wishlist. It's meager right now as we don't really know what we will need - I'll have more time to think about it in the months to come. I've decided to call Baby #2 "Floyd". Don't know why. It just came to me the other day and I like it better than "baby", or "new baby", or "baby #2", etc.

You'll find the new wishlist links to the right and we'll work on Alan getting his updated as well so we can post a link to his.

I'm enjoying a beautiful rainy/snowy/mix day here in West Michigan and hope you all have a nice Sunday, too.

Much love,
Meredith

New Words & Pictures!

To add to Adeline's vocab list...

"All Clean!"
"Yes"
"Apple"
"Go, go" (Amma says, "Adeline, should we go on an adventure today?" Adeline replies, "Go go?")


And, without any further ado, new photos and video of Adeline can be found here.

The Election - my $.02 (Meredith :)

Because I apparently started the blog election talk among some family and friends I thought I'd better post some closing remarks. Not that anyone probably cares what I think, but hey, I have a blog so I can tell you anyway ;-).

First of all, I should probably let you all know that I actually did not vote. Before you freak out, let me explain. Alan and I made extra effort to make sure we were registered in our new home state of Michigan in time to vote on November 4th, and at the time I had every intention of voting. However, due to my health, I was unable to get an absentee ballot and of course was nowhere near my polling place in South Lyon on Tuesday. So it was not for lack of desire, but for lack of ability.

Moving on... I must confess that I was never a gung-ho McCain supporter. Frankly I chose him because he wasn't Obama. However, now in the wake of the election, I must say I am a little relieved that McCain did not win, but still quite concerned about an Obama presidency. On the one hand I am excited for America that they are excited about their president-elect. They wanted change and hope and they think they can find it in Obama and I am willing to sit back and let him prove himself. On the other hand, I don't think there's a single issue on which I agree with Obama. I don't like his tax plan, his health care plan, his education plan, his plans for a troop withdrawal timeline, I disagree with him strongly on his stance on abortion, I don't think the government should legislate spreading the wealth, and I believe in small government and low taxes. But to the democrats' credit, it is true that this country has not thrived under President Bush's leadership and I think America has spoken and they want to give them a chance to do it their way. You have 4 years. Start proving yourselves.

On a different note, I must say to the San Fransiscans out there (I'm sure there are so many who read The Conrow Family Blog), you should be ashamed of yourselves. Thankfully it did not pass, however even the notion of putting a measure on the ballot that would change the name of a toxic waste plant to bear the name of our 43rd president is disgusting. I don't care how much you disagree with his policies, his leadership, his choices, etc. He is your president and the person in that position should command and secure your respect, even while you disagree. The treatment of George W. Bush by some people with a lot of voice has been disgraceful, and I can promise you I will never condone such treatment of a democratic president in office even while I might disagree.

So there's my little soapbox posted in the only little outlet I have for my faithful blog-readers (if you've made it this far). I am always proud to be an American, always, and you should be too, no matter who your president is, if for no other reason than the process you have the privilege of participating in the first Tuesday of every fourth November.

May God bless our president-elect, and God bless America.

Baby #2

Given that I'm feeling a bit better - well enough to be online just about everyday now - I thought I should post an update about how our new baby is growing:

This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.

In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.

Tomorrow marks the end of my first trimester. In a couple weeks I'll go back for another appointment at the midwives' office and maybe have another ultrasound that will tell us if Adeline will have a little brother or sister :).

Adeline's Vocabulary

I thought I might sit down and try to list all the words Adeline can say. Since we've been living with my mom her vocabulary has definitely expanded. I love to hear her little voice. I keep waiting for the first sentence, but she hasn't quite been able to put a couple words together yet. I keep hoping for "Hi Daddy" since we say that one a lot on the phone :). Her attempts at "I love you" have mostly been extended babble. Mostly when she hears someone else say I love you she starts giving kisses :). Too cute!!

Without any further ado, here we go:

"Uh-oh"
"Mommie"
"Daddy"
"Papa"
"Hi!"
"Nigh-night"
"Cheese"
"Toes" (she says "toht" - not to be confused with "tot", the German word for dead!)
"Stretch"
"Cookie"
"Trash"
"Up"
"Off"
"No"
"Hush" (Goodnight Moon)
"Squirrel" (kinda comes out like "qor")
"Yum"
"Doug" (her lovey)
"Shoe"
"Doggie" (still "goggie" - and actually most animals are "goggies")
"Trojans" (fight on!)
"Domino" (she loves playing with Amma's domino set)

And we're getting really close with "I love you" and "Amma". For a while she was saying "mom" and it was decidedly different from "Mommie" referring to me of course so we thought that was Amma - but she's since stopped doing that.

She also says "Howie" on a pretty regular basis but we have yet to have any clue what that means. And there's one "phrase", for lack of a better word, that she says all the time that's so nonsensical to my ears that I can't even type it and I've yet to figure that one out too.

I feel like she has more words than this but I can't think of them at the moment. I'll add to the list as I remember more.

Dr. Bochman at Adeline's 15-month check-up said that between 15 and 18 months her vocabulary would explode going from the half dozen or so words she knew then to about 50. I think we're on our way! She chats all the time. I wish I knew what she was saying :).

Precious Adeline, I am so delighted by you. Thanks for being the most adorable little girl ever :).
Love,
Mommie