Friday, September 27, 2013

What's up with The Pierogie Babies?



I used to be so good about keeping up with Penny updates on at least a monthly basis.. But then as soon as her baby book switched from monthly updates to annual, my updates here sort of fell off the radar.

So the last update was in June -  15 months. And she's going to be 19 months old next week. And I'm 17 weeks pregnant with #2. Oy. So here's some things going on in Penny's life and an update on the pregnancy.

TV Friends:
Until very recently, Elmo was Penny's BFF. At the start of my pregnancy when I was laid out on the couch, we spent an embarrassing amount of time watching Sesame Street. I'm ok with it. It was a short period of time and regardless of what others may say - I think there is definitely a level of educational value in watching certain shows for children. Especially for one who is at home with mama 24/7 and does not interact with other children terribly often. Which we're changing.

Penny very quickly grew attached to "Elvo" (which graduated to "Elbo" and is now officially pronounced "ELLLLLLLLLLL MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!") and it was the easiest way for me to catch a snooze for about 45 minutes and just try to get through the first trimester yuckies.

Then when we moved into our new house and we didn't have cable for a couple weeks, I pulled out a dvd called "Juno Baby: Indie's Teddy Bear Hunt" that I had bought before she was born. It's won some Emmys for original musical performance and whatnot, which having been a music major in a past life I have an appreciation for. The voices are annoying comical but now she asks for "kitty!" in the morning instead of her beloved Elmo. She's caught on to a few things from the movie that are absolutely adorable (popping out from behind a curtain and saying "Boo!" or dancing along with classical music) so I tolerate the silly voices and use that time to catch up throughout the house.

Favorite Foods:
This girl LOVES apples. She's gotten really good at demolishing an entire large apple on her own. I prefer to at least peal off the skin for her, but most days she doesn't mind and will literally gnaw the entire thing away if I let her. This is something that has come in handy during road trips. Other favorites include hummus, peanut butter, yogurt, french bread, peas, roasted butternut squash mixed with applesauce, slices of Parmesan cheese, crepes with spiced pear sauce and pistachios.

Activities: 
Putting coins in her piggy bank (which she calls "monies")
Hide and seek
Throwing the ball for Squirt
Reading books with Daddy before bedtime
Organizing / moving things around
Not favorite: grocery shopping. Not in the least bit.

Talking:
In addition to the few words that I already mentioned, she can say -
'pretty' = flowers
'bunny'
'ohh nooo!'
'sheeeze' = cheese
'yum - yum' = food
'juice'
'wirsty' = thirsty
'uh-cooo' =  uncle
'a-teees' = auntie
'gack' = cousin Jack and 'zeeekeeys' = cousin Zeke - her two cousins that she sees most often
'bay-zha' = Babcia and 'vovo' = Vovo, her maternal grandparents

New animal sounds: owl, bee, monkey, elephant, train (choot-choot), sheep, and we're working on saying the words 'goat' and 'goose.' She can point out a ton of different animals, even after only showing her once.
Then she's got this word that seems to be a catch all and it seriously sounds like she's saying bourgeois.

MOPS
Something new that I've signed us up for is the MOPS group at a church close to us. I've wanted to do MOPS with her forever, but the living situation over the last year made me disinterested in making the effort in joining a group, making friends and then possibly moving away. I'm such an introvert sometimes. But once we bought this house I knew we were going to put down roots. So last week we went to our first MOPS meeting and Penny spent her first 2 hours being watched by a stranger. I had zero worries. With #2 on the way, it's important to me that she can branch out socially with other kids and be ok with not having an immediate family member always being the one to watch her. We also want to start going back to church regularly so that'll be another opportunity for her to be independent and make new friends. And she did so well. She was one girl with 12 boys (story of her life - she's surrounded by boy cousins too!) and was really good with sharing.

In regards to my experience at MOPS, I felt so welcomed and supported. Our table has 8 women and 3 of us are pregnant. Each mom had at least 2 kids and at least one of them is within Penny's age range too. I feel so blessed to get the opportunity to know these women and draw on their experiences as moms. I am really looking forward to next week's meeting.


Quick other updates:
As I've mentioned before, Penny sleeps alone in her room in her big girl bed. The transition has been both easy and hard. Easy in the sense that she never woke up in the middle of the night terrified and wanting to return to our bed. Hard because she wakes sometimes 4 times per night just wanting a back rub. And her wake up time is between 5:30-6a when she wants to nurse...and unfortunately I am in the stage of my pregnancy where my supply is almost non-existent. I've started giving her raw whole milk throughout the day and making sure that she gets a really good, high calorie snack before bed time to help her through the night. But the morning routine is tough because I'm battling being tired due to the pregnancy and waking up throughout the night and she gets frustrated about the lack of milk. It's something we're working on figuring out.
And then there's the topic of Penny's hair. Yes, I am making a specific comment about her hair! The poor girl is so fair haired and it's taken her almost the full 19 months for her to have any hair to speak of. Now she's got this cute little plume / faux hawk going on and even has some hair over the collar of her shirt. Bring on the hair clips!


Pierogie #2
Admittedly I haven't had too much to say about this baby on the blog yet. The second trimester has been so low key and until recently I've felt 'pre-pregnant.' But now that bump has appeared and gets in my way at night so it's starting to feel very real now.

I had my 17 week appointment with the midwife this week and this was the second appointment where we heard the heartbeat. I've felt little bumps in the last couple weeks but with the Doppler pressed up against me I was able to feel a few more profound kicks. Baby's heart rate was in the 150's, as was Penny's.

We scheduled our ultrasound for October 9th and will be hosting a laid-back gender reveal party on the 13th with our family and close friends. It'll be a mix of reveal, house warming and just a plain old get together.

And that's what's going on with these Pierogie babies!

No comments:

Post a Comment

ShareThis

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...