We have 4 weeks until Skittle's due date...can you believe it? Mario and I exchanged incredulous glances this morning, saying "Can you believe it is already October???" It is hard to believe this pregnancy is almost over, and that we'll finally get to meet our new baby and find out if we are adding a boy or a girl to our family! I've been feeling pretty good, for the most part. I'm uncomfortable, of course, which I remember from the last part of my pregnancy with Miriam. And I'm slow and struggle to put on my own shoes these days, but luckily Mario and Miriam help me out and take care of me. Skittle is measuring exactly where he/she should be for this far along in pregnancy. Miriam has been accompanying me to my recent doctor's appointments, and she always gets excited to listen to the baby's heartbeat. We've got lots of things ready for the baby - car seat out, car seat base installed, bassinet out and ready, hospital bag packed. The biggest thing we don't have ready is the baby's name. We've got about 10 girl names and 5 boy names on our "short" lists, which we are taking to the hospital with us. We fully expect to have to make two announcements - one to announce that Skittle is here and whether it is a boy/girl, and then another announcement once we've figured out/decided the baby's name. We can't wait to be sharing the exciting news in the next couple weeks that Skittle has arrived!
In other news, Miriam is continuing to grow and amaze us every day. She's a tall girl for her age...about 39-40" and 32 pounds at 2.5 years old. She loves our cat, Bella, fire engines and ambulances (she's always asking to drive by the fire station by our house and gets extremely excited if we see a fire engine or ambulance out on the road!!), and doing puzzles, stamps, singing songs and reading books. She knows the words to many songs (ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Bumblebee, Itsy Bitsy Spider, the "elephant" song, the "fire engine" song, and many more). She walks around the house singing to herself throughout the day, and also sings in the car with us and sings before bedtime. Miri knows almost all of her letters and can recognize them when she sees them, and she knows her colors as well, although not many of her numbers. She's got a great memory, and will remember tons of things she does or sees and will relate them to us later. She especially remembers if we tell her she can do something later (as in, ride her bike after dinner) and as soon as that time is up, she'll remind us ("Is after dinner. I ride my bike!!").
Miriam has been enrolled in preschool and gymnastics for about a month, and she is doing fantastic at both! She had a couple of teary drop-offs at preschool at the beginning, but now she's fine. She's made some friends in her class and really likes her teachers. They report that she still seems reserved right at the beginning of each class, but she warms up quickly and is constantly telling them "I love you much" and hugging/rubbing them. They say that she'll make a great big sister because she seems very affectionate and caring towards them and the other kids....we hope that she will be that way towards the baby when it arrives too! Miriam has her first field trip on Thursday (they are going to pick apples at an orchard) and she had school pictures today! We ordered school pictures, hoping she'd cooperate and actually face the camera (and maybe even smile?!?). And Mario is going on her field trip on Thursday, so he reports he'll take a lot of pictures, which hopefully I can share! In gymnastics, she can walk on a balance beam all by herself, and has learned how to do a forward somersault all by herself! The skills seem to escalate pretty quickly week to week, so she still can't do a lot of the things they ask them to do (bear crawl backwards on a balance beam?!? I'm not sure I could do that!) but she tries hard, for the most part, and has a lot of fun doing somersaults, jumping on the trampoline and running laps around the track. We are definitely planning on signing her up for another gymnastics class once this one is done at the end of October.
We are looking forward to Skittle's arrival later this month and then getting to spend some great family time at home. Mario will be home full-time for at least a month after the baby is born and then part-time for another month after that, and we are excited to have lots of quality family time as we adjust to being a family of 4. I'll be home until the beginning of April, so I'll have time to get adjusted to having 2 kids for a bit after Mario goes back to work.
I'll leave you with several recent pictures of Miriam. We haven't taken a lot of photos in recent weeks because things have been so busy, but we've got a couple good ones!
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| Feeding Bella treats |
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| Reading books on the couch with Mama |
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| Sitting in Skittle's carseat... |
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| More reading on the couch with Mama! |
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