A funny thing happened at the doctor's today...

Sooooo, I was having another good appointment and telling the doctor about how probably 200 people know that we're having a girl. Somehow that made her nervous and even though the appointment was wrapping up, she decided to do an ultrasound. The baby was moving all over the place and she had quite a time getting a good view at first. Well, it seems that this time she saw boy parts. She hadn't been totally confident about the girl declaration last appointment and we hung our hats on the news of a girl (maybe because we needed something to hold onto). There's a part of me that still can't quite believe it... probably because it hasn't sunk in yet. I think the news really threw Eric off (I did call him a school). I've had a little more time to process it and I'm getting excited. I had been hoping (a little bit) for a brother for Ashlynn but was happy with the girl news. Now I'm starting to adjust my thinking to a boy. It's funny, when we were expecting Ashlynn, I had the hardest time accepting that we were going to have a girl because I knew that Eric's family has tons of boys and just expected to have boys myself. Now I'm struggling to accept the boy news. But... We are having a BOY (I think)!

On our way back to normalcy (sort of)

Life doesn't seem to be slowing down, but we have started to have a glimpse of normalcy in our house and family after a long while. Last night we went to our friends Grace and Thomas's home for dinner. They've been in their new place for about a month and a half and we finally got to see it (our fault, not theirs). It was so nice to eat dinner outside on their patio and then hang out watching the USC v. UCLA basketball game (even though for me it was disappointing because USC lost). Ashlynn had fun playing with a basketball and exploring their back yard. It felt comfortable and normal. This morning while I did some laundry, Eric was finally able to go through a stack of clothes he received for Christmas and hadn't yet had time to try on and check for a good fit. I know things won't slow down, especially with the start of major construction on our house, the usual spring stresses of testing and Open House at our schools, and the arrival of baby Lindsey in June, but I'm hoping to regain more of a joyful and happily-busy feeling in our lives.

Ashlynn's creativity amazes and amuses us. She has created a new game she likes to play inside our house. She's named it "Palmick" and it involves us hitting bumpy Lakeshore balls around the living room and dining room floor with different spoons and spatulas from her play kitchen and sometimes from our kitchen too. If all three of us play, she runs around after the busily moving ball, while almost constantly giggling. She uses her imagination all the time to play everything from "picnic" with us or her stuffed animals eating pretend food on a blanket on the living room floor, to pretending that the blue rug is a "pool" for her and her toys to swim in, to turning her shoes into a roller coaster that races around our living room with cars holding small stuffed animals and Little People animals and people.

Ashlynn is getting ready to be a big sister. I'm sure she'll never quite understand what's going on until the baby comes home, but for now, we're making it into something fun and exciting. She is very cute and tells people that her baby sister is in mommy's tummy and that she is "sleeping, growing and playing". She talks to Lindsey through my belly button (that is already an outie) and usually says something like, "Hello Lindsey. How you doing? This is Ashlynn big sister." Then she will inform me that Lindsey is playing and will talk about playing things with her, like picnic. Sometimes we sing Lindsey a song (because Ashlynn LOVES to sing). It is very cute!Ashlynn loves being lifted up into the oak tree that is in front of our house so she can get a bird's eye view of the yard and neighborhood.Ashlynn decorated our hands with St. Patrick's Day stickers from Trader Joe's.

Here she is wearing a hat my mom wore when she was a baby.

Ashlynn and "friends" are swimming in the "pool" (please note, she remembered a "beach hat" for herself and her baby).

Crazy kid!

We learned early this morning why most of the zip-up, footed jammies have a snap tab at the top of the zipper. I used to think it was to protect their sweet little chins from being irritated by the zipper, but I learned last night that it also serves as a toddler security device.
Ashlynn, who has been a solid 10 hours a night sleeper for as long as I can remember (because you forget those first sleepless months), fussed a little and then started talking to herself sometime around 4:45 this morning. Eric and I kept hoping that she would just go back to sleep. However sometime after 5:00 she started calling for me. "Mooooooommyyyyy, Moooooommy, where are you? Mooooommmmy...." I tried to ignore it for a while, not wanting to start our day so early. I finally decided that she wasn't going to stop anytime soon and went in to check on her. After telling me that she was awake and that we needed to go into mommy and daddy's bed (which doesn't mean sleep, it means hang out and play under the blankets, as we might on the weekend), I noticed a bare shoulder peaking out from under her blanket. I pulled back the blanket and discovered that she had taken her jammies off. She thought it was hilarious. After a few laughs, the jammies were put back on her, she arranged her pillows where they belong and laid down, her two blankets (the "softy blanket" and the "cozy blanket") were laid on her, and we told her to go back to sleep. It didn't happen right away, but she finally fell back asleep just before 6:00.
I am now hoping that our gardener, who came last week at almost 10:00, doesn't decide to show up with his noisy blower and mower before she can get a little more sleep in for the night. We'll see!

Sadness

On Wednesday night Eric's mom, Linda, passed away. We are sad that she is gone, but we're glad that she no longer has to feel pain and that she is with the Lord.
Eric is doing okay. I've been so proud of him through the whole process of Linda being sick and how he continues to be a wonderful and supportive son and brother through the grieving process. We are also blessed that a great group of his parents' friends, in addition to his Aunt Laurie and Aunt Loretta, have been so caring and helpful during this difficult time.
Please continue to keep the family in your prayers, especially as time goes by and Phil's supporters get back to their regular lives.
Services for Linda will be on Sunday, March 9th, at 5:00.

It's going to be...

a GIRL! We found out today. She cooperated, so we saw with pretty good certainty. Ashlynn was right all along (she called it before I even knew I was pregnant). Also, we are scheduled for a c-section on June 12th. Pretty exciting!

Aren't you glad you checked our blog... now you can be one of the first to know!

Ashlynn's Happy Day

Ashlynn is having a great day, and it isn't even half over yet! It began like most weekday mornings when I am home with her... her cup of milk, playing in the living room, a little "Sesame Street" while I take a shower, and breakfast of two Yo Baby yogurts with a little granola and blueberries on the side. After that she tinkled in the toilet and earned her 21st star sticker for using the toilet since Friday night and got to put on real underwear.

Then it got really good... we went outside and she got to paint pictures for Valentine's Day for Daddy and her grandparents using pink and purple (her favorite color!) paint and a sponge paintbrush. At the end I painted her hands with the purple paint and we made handprints too. Then she spent a little time exploring our backyard. It is a beautiful day, with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 70s. We haven't been out in the yard much over these past few months because it has been cold and yucky, but today is perfect! She had fun just checking things out, but then I opened up her sandbox and she was thrilled. Ashlynn can spend forever digging around in the sand and scooping it into buckets. She actually had a little tantrum at the end of sandbox time because although I gave her a five and two minute warning she was still not ready to get out. We came inside after almost two hours outside (and no bathroom accidents... which was our reason for coming inside). She cried a bit but soon pulled it together when she realized that she was going to get to take a shower-bath (her latest favorite way to bathe). She was very happy to splash around in the tub while the shower water fell down on her head. After tub time came lunch, which included granola (her request), dried cranberries, pita pizza, and milk.

She is now finished with lunch and is happily looking through a Lakeshore catalog. She loves looking through the catalog and finding toys and books that she has. Sometimes she'll go find the item and bring it to the catalog where she'll compare the real thing with the picture. Luckily she doesn't talk about all the things she wants from the catalog; she just looks through it. I'm sure it won't be long before we hear many "I want"s, but for now it's nice to see her content to look at all she does have (it's hard for many of us to do that!).

It has been a great day! These are the days when I especially feel blessed to get to stay home with Ashlynn part-time and get to experience the world with her.

Changes

There are going to be many changes in our lives over the next 8 months or so. We're (hopefully) adding onto our house, we'll probably lose Eric's mom to cancer, there will be the new baby in June, and Ashlynn will start preschool in September. I worry the most about Ashlynn and how she'll work through the transitions, since she's only two. My mom assures me that she is a solid and secure little girl and that she'll do fine. Some of my worries were eased yesterday when we toured the preschool Ashlynn will likely attend. She was so excited. She loved all of the toys and she wanted to play in their sand area and swing on the swings. Later in the afternoon she said, "I might go to preschool again tomorrow!" which is her way of saying that she hopes to do something. I'm sure the first few days of school will be tough, but I think she's off to a good start by being so excited about going!
Please continue to keep Eric's mom and the family in your prayers. Linda's condition continues to worsen. It is all happening so fast. She was just teaching in June and now she's receiving services from hospice. We are still praying for a miracle, but if that is not God's will, we are praying for comfort and peace.