Another Brick in the Wall

Okay, so maybe it's not nice to call my future child a brick and in so doing imply my current child is a brick, but I wanted to be true to the lyric. In all truth possibly the title of this post should be, "Another Girl in the Family"... but I don't think Pink Floyd wrote that song. Have you caught on yet??

IT'S A GIRL! :)

Yes we are indeed expecting girl #2 which is granddaughter #5 for my folks. Alan said at the ultrasound, "What does it take to get a boy around here?!?" We, of course, are thrilled to be expecting a little girl and Adeline no doubt will love having a little sister (she will someday, right Megan??? ;-)

We got some great ultrasound pictures and I hope to be able to scan and upload them soon. Our newest little addition is absolutely beautiful like her sister - I can tell already :) - kicks up a storm and is not shy! She was very active during the ultrasound too so it was fun to watch her move and roll around.

I am measuring about 13 days small. At my early ultrasound I was measuring 5 days small. Neither of these amounts, however, is enough for them to change my due date, so it will remain May 2 according to them, but I will keep it at May 8 according to me :). Alan is still not permitted to schedule ANYTHING from the end of April to mid-May :).

In other news... Adeline grows cuter everyday, if you can imagine. Everyday brings new words and new discoveries. She continues her love affair with Pooh and shouts "Piglet!" every time he comes on the screen and when we see his picture in our Winnie the Pooh book. She really has come to love both Piglet and Pooh, but will also say "Eeyore" and "Owl", although I'm probably the only one on the planet who actually understands what she's saying :). I'm Mommie. It's my job.

She's also becoming exceedingly fond of Elmo. She can't wait to run and get her diapers changed several times a day because Elmo is all over her diapers. "Elmo! Elmo!" When we're walking through Target and she spots Elmo Live I have to push the little button on his foot multiple times - "Elmo wants to tell you that Elmo loves you very much. Mm-hm. Kiss kiss! Mwa! Mwa!" She gets a kick out of it every time. She also really likes the Christmas section in Target with all the lights. "Ooh!" When Daddy was putting up our Christmas tree every time he would plug in a new set of lights Adeline would squeal "Ooh!" with delight. So adorable.

On the down side she is definitely teething right now. It looks like tooth #13 is giving her more trouble than any other tooth so far. She can be pretty cranky and chews on her fingers and just about everything else, too.

I think that's about all the updating I have for now. I have been taking lots of pictures of Adeline lately and hope to get a chance to upload them soon. Check back :).

With love,
Meredith for The Conrows

Brilliant

So this week I discovered two incredibly brilliant things:

1. A bowl of vinegar will disarm any smell in any room. Really. It's amazing. Why on earth have I ever gone out and spent money on air fresheners that simply mask the smell with "ocean breeze" or "fresh linen" (which doesn't smell anything at all like fresh linen by the way) when all I needed to do to neutralize odors was put out a tiny bowl of vinegar? A bowl 3/4 full has been sitting in Adeline's room for the last few days and you wouldn't even know there's a trash can full of poopy diapers in there. Actually, it was minutes before it started to neutralize the odors. Really. It's amazing.

2. Whoever works in the baby department for the Method company must be the most brilliant person on the face of this earth. The other day while perusing the Happiest Place on Earth (aka Target) Adeline and I were shopping for some diaper rash cream. Sure enough, sitting there on the shelf amongst all the tubes and tubs of various things that have or have not worked over the last year and a half of her life was this:

It's a pump!! I can't tell you how many times I've gotten diaper rash cream EVERYWHERE in the process of only trying to get it on nothing but one of my fingers and one little tushie thanks to those flip-top or screw-on caps. Maybe I'm just diaper rash cream challenged, but this seemed like the most brilliant invention ever for mommiehood. Putting cream on Adeline's little tushie has never been simpler or tidier. I seriously bought this cream the second I saw it just because of the pump! It was an extra plus that it's all natural and works GREAT! Very exciting. I highly recommend it :).


That's all.

My Second Thanksgiving

I have had so much fun this Thanksgiving weekend with Amma and Papa and Uncle Rob. On Thanksgiving Day Mommie, Daddy and I got all dressed up and took our Christmas pictures in front of the fireplace. Amma even hung our stockings. I was very adorable in the little dress Mommie bought for me from Gap and my new little brown shoes. What do you think??

Amma and Papa were busy busy in the kitchen for most of the day preparing our feast. For dinner I enjoyed mashed potatoes, turkey, hawaiian rolls and even some duck! Yum!

On Friday after I woke up from a looooooong nap we went downtown to walk around. We stopped by the gallery, where Amma occasionally works, and had to stop by Kilwin's to get a caramel apple for Mommie. We went to a little store full of Christmas things that I had so much fun looking at. Mommie says it's called "Home & Company". Amma and Papa bought me a little nativity set. I have had so much fun playing with it too :). Then we went to a store just for little people like me called "Tiptoes". Amma bought me a little book. I love to read.

It was pretty cold outside so we had to head back home. Plus I wanted to get up and run around. When we got home I had something new for dinner - Pizza! I scarfed it! So yummy. After I went to bed Mommie and Daddy played a game called Chickenfoot with Amma and Papa and watched Miracle on 34th Street. I guess the movie is a Thanksgiving family tradition. They also put up Stanley, the Christmas tree.

Today we're just getting ready to go home. Papa says that today it's very important for us to root for Oklahoma State, Auburn, Oregon State, Florida State and of course USC in football. I don't know about all those others, but I can say "Trojans!"

I hope you all had as great of a Thanksgiving weekend as I did!

Love,
Adeline

Update

Sorry for the delay in a new post. We don't have internet at home just yet so posts will be few and far between for now. At any rate, here's what we've been doing recently...

• I had a list going of more and more words Adeline is saying, but the list was growing by about 10 to as many as 20 words a day and I just can't keep up! Some of my favorites that are new are "magazine, "Amma", "silly silly", and the fact that she recites lines from Winnie the Pooh!
• Adeline and I went to our first play date last week at a friend's house. We had breakfast for lunch and played and played. It was fun. We had another little play date this morning at another friend's house. It's fun to get out of the house and let Adeline play with other kiddos while we moms get to chat :).
• I don't think I posted that the first time we heard "Floyd"'s heartbeat was October 22nd. My ultrasound is scheduled: December 10th. Two weeks from today we'll get to see "Floyd" again and learn if he's a he or she's a she! I did start to feel "Floyd" moving around last week. It is the coolest thing. I will never get over that or get tired of it.
  
• We're now in Holland at Amma and Papa's house where we'll celebrate Thanksgiving with "Turducken" and Alan's Grandma's Potato Casserole tomorrow. Yum!
  

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Much love,
Meredith, for The Conrows

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