Talking and Maybe Not Terrible Two's?

Terrible Two's?

I kept saying that we weren't going to go through the terrible two's, and that we'd probably get the awful three's (which I hear is worse!). Considering that she is almost two, and really the only kid her age I know that doesn't throw tantrums, I thought we were in the clear.

But then Gary left for his guys' trip, and it was like I had a different child! She kept getting mad and sitting down in protest, whining, crying when she didn't get her way, misbehaving in the stores while we were shopping- just generally being a little pill. I thought, "well, here we go, terrible two's have begun."

This lasted for a few days after Gary got home, but now she seems to back to her old self (thank God). I'm hoping she was just acting out since Gary was gone (after all, she is completely a daddy's girl) because let me tell you, I was not built to deal with terrible two behavior!

She is as stubborn as they come (and I thought Gary and I had the market on most stubborn couple!), which has led to two showdowns between she and I over saying sorry and cleaning up her alphabet toys- I won both times, but it took 20 minutes of time outs and crying- she cried too. ;) But I have to be thankful that she doesn't seem to have my type A personality and is much more laid back than I am. Let's just hope that if this terrible two behavior returns, it is only sitting down quietly for tantrums and doesn't involve screaming- so far, we don't have a screamer!

Talking

I know that toddler talk is interesting to NO ONE except the parents of the child, but I do want to keep some record of what she's saying!  It's just crazy to me the things that come out of her mouth that I know we have never said to her...where does she learn this stuff?

She says "ready, set, go!"  When Rylee is barking, she says, "Rylee bark shhhhhh".  She also loves, "NO Rylee!"  She puts her name at the end of every sentence about herself...so rather than saying I'm all done or ella all done, she says, "all done ella".  She started saying "high five".  She also knows the correct usage of please, thank you, sorry, excuse me and bless you!  She does mix up please and thank you sometimes, but it always shocks me when I sneeze, and she says, "bless you mommy"...adorable!  Although she knows when she should say sorry, she will only say it when prompted and she won't say it to her friends when she does something bad...it's that stubborness coming out!

Potty Talk

We haven't started potty training at all.  Diapers don't bother me (and I think they are way easier than trying to find a potty!), and frankly, it just sounds really hard.  We do, however, have one of those plastic potties in our bathroom, which Ella will sometimes sit on (but never pee in) before her bath.

Well today, with no prompting whatsoever, my little 22 month old went pee in the potty!!!  This is even bigger news than the potty training aspect because peeing in the potty means for ONCE she did not pee on the floor while running around diaper-less before bathtime...yippity do dah!

I'm still not ready to potty train, but maybe we'll encourage this behavior more often.  What I'm really afraid of is when she poops in that little plastic thing, and I have to clean it out.  Yuck.

Another Summer Weekend...

We finally went to Pretend City on Friday morning with Mason and Reese.  It was great!  We ended up buying a year membership, which I highly recommend!  We had our music class on Friday afternoon- next week is the last class so hopefully I get a photo then.

We went to brunch and shopping with Olivia again on Saturday...two weekends in a row!

Ella got to go to dinner with Hannah on Saturday night and Logan on Sunday night so she saw almost all her besties this weekend!

We also went to the beach, made a stop at Sprinkles, shopped at Sur La Table and finished off with dinner at True Food Kitchen...yum!!!

It was another busy and fun summer weekend.

I just had to post a couple photos of my little fashionista in her peasant top and skinny jeans...

The Haps...

Pregnancy

We had our anatomy scan today (I'm 18w4d).  Everything looks great.  Still a boy (to Gary's utter delight).  They couldn't get a great view of the small little heart so we have to have a full cardio something or other next time to make sure there are no holes in the heart or anything.  Baby weighs 9 oz.

I swelled up yesterday and got really dizzy (although, I was in Menifee at inspections- hot!), which the doctor was not happy about.  We'll see how long she lets me work...

Daddy's Helper

Although I think we're starting to enter the terrible two's...you know, the dramatic cries anytime she doesn't get her way and sitting in the middle of the street because she's mad her friend is leaving...all of which JUST started this weekend, HOWEVER, she's still daddy's favorite little helper!

She really did help wash the car- it was great!  No one ever told me about the extra benefits that come with having a child...she always gets the remote control for me when I'm too lazy to get off the couch, she throws my trash away for me, and now she washes cars?!  She is well worth the thousands of dollars it took to have her! ;)~

Birthday

I'm well on my way to having E's party planned.  I have purchased 518 balloons, bought the paper for various paper products I am going to make and finished making her invitations!  I'll post photos after they are sent, but I really have to say that I think they turned out ADORABLE.  I'm sooo happy with them!  Now I need to make her dress, design my menu, design the layout for the party and food tables and make all the paper products. 

Etsy

I've been sort of taking a break from Etsy since I had been feeling so awful, but for some reason, I received three orders in the last 2 days, including 2 dresses and 1 diaper cover!

I also recently made this dress as a "sample" because I am considering doing Ella's birthday dress in this style.  It's supposed to be a 2T, but it's pretty big on Ella so I would say it's between a 2T and 3T.  I'm not making these to sell, but if anyone wants to buy this one, it's $34 plus shipping. :)

Girls' Weekend

Daddy was away for his "guys' trip" so Ella and I had a girly weekend!

We had Ava over for a playdate...she's gotten so big and so cute!


Ella had her first music class with 6 of her close friends- it was really fun, and Ella really got into it.  I didn't get a photo, but there are two more classes in the session.

She had a super fun morning with Olivia, and it was really the first time they cared about and played with each other.  Ella would not stop saying, "lilia!  lilia!  lilia!"  They had brunch at Mimi's Cafe...

Then they held hands while shopping...it's so cute...Julie and I have been shopping partners for years, and now the girls can carry on the tradition!  Actually, we should not encourage this behavior since J and I are dangerous together!!!


In other news, Ella seemed to have a major word explosion just over the weekend! I remember people saying it happens over night, but geez, literally. She will repeat anything and everything we say, and she's putting a lot of phrases together. She actually said, "grandma, hold this." and "daddy, where are you?"!! It's so cute to hear them talk so much...I know eventually it's not so cute so I'm trying to savor this time!

Pregnancy

Since I just mentioned in passing that I'm pg with no explanation, I figured I'd elaborate in a separate post.  We completely thought we were "one and done", but we had two frozen embryos left over from Ella's cycle.  We never ever ever thought it would work, but we did an FET (frozen embryo transfer) at the end of April.  We didn't tell a single person we were doing it because we didn't think it would work but clearly it did!  I'll be 18 weeks on Friday.  My due date is 1.13.12, but I won't go past 1.6.12 if I even make it that far.

The pregnancy has been generally awful and much much worse than with Ella (well to this point, obviously Ella's was awful once I started swelling).  First, I had a subchorionic hematoma, which means I was bleeding in my uterus.  It's stressful because it can cause the placenta to detach resulting in a miscarriage.  I was put on bedrest week by week but because they didn't officially take me off work, I continued working and didn't really do bedrest except on the weekends.  Luckily, the hematoma resolved itself.  However, I still felt HORRIBLE the entire first trimester- I have never felt so tired in my life.  Not even when Ella was a newborn.  I couldn't function- I felt loopy all the time.  I thought something was really wrong with me.  I just felt like crap all day every day.  I'm still really really tired, but at least now I can function and don't feel drugged!  Completely different than with Ella when I felt great the first tri.

Due to age, IVF and my past experience with severe preeclampsia, I'm being considered extremely high risk this time, which is good.  They are monitoring me very closely, and taking every precaution to *try* and prevent preeclampsia and such an early delivery.  My perinatologist believes I have about a 30% chance of getting it again (much higher than normal 2nd pregnancies), but hopefully I'm in the 70% stat!!!

Oh, and it's a BOY!

Birthday and Fair Fun

Ella met up with Paige again to play in the water...they held hands walking to dinner...

Then after dinner, Ella rode the carousel for the very first time!  The before photo...

I thought she may not like it...clearly I was wrong.  The "after" photo...

I've never ever seen her get so upset over wanting to do something...apparently she LOVED the carousel!! [Let me edit this to say that we took her to SCP to ride the carousel the day after this, and she refused to get on!  So now she doesn't like the carousel???  I'm so confused.]

The next day she had a ton of fun at Cousin Brett's 3rd birthday party!  She rode a motorcycle...

LOVED going down the slide (oh, btw, I think I've neglected to mention that I'M PREGNANT, which is why I have a baby belly in this photo!!!)...

Kept going down the slide and rode the "roller coaster"...

And went on the roller coaster a few more times with Cousin Brett...

There was horrific traffic on the way home, which usually means Ella won't sleep since she'll only sleep if the car is moving and for a very short time, but since she was so worn out, this is what happened at least for 30 minutes or so on the way home...

I decided that instead of buying one of those plastic playhouses, I'd love it if Gary and my dad would build her one similar to this...

So to get some photos of the structure inside and not look like a total freak taking pictures of random doorways and framing members, I made ella pose next to things I wanted photos of!


On Sunday, we went to the OC Fair with grandma and grandpa.

Just like last year, she wasn't sure about the petting zoo (see her clinging onto grandma?!)...

But eventually she got close to the animals and even fed some sheep!

She even rode the giant slide with daddy, but we're not so sure if she liked it!

That nasty thing behind them is a giant tarantula that moved...gross!!!

My lesson of the day is that it's probably not a good idea to eat a tri trip sandwich and fries, followed by cotton candy, followed by dippin dots ice cream...but the cotton candy was soooo good!