I'm Pretending Mommy! I'm Pretending Daddy!

Last week sometime on a weekday morning, I was delighted to find out from Zachary that Cookie Monster spent the night in our guest room. I had not expected this. I didn't even know he was coming, otherwise I would have fixed up the room and left him a midnight cookie snack by the bed.
And wouldn't you know, when I finally did find out this information, Cookie Monster had already gone downstairs to the garage to help us fix the cars. I'll have to tell Zachary to invite him over more often. I'm sure if I keep enough cookies in the house it shouldn't be a problem.

Zachary's imagination has really grown in the past few months. Sometimes it's a problem when he's scared at night. Like when there are monkeys and airplanes in his room at bedtime, but most of the time it's delightful to hear about and participate in. He even told both Scott and I today that he was pretending by saying, "I'm pretending Mommy! I'm pretending Daddy!".
It's nice to know that he has learned to understand the concept.

About two weeks ago on a Thursday or Friday morning, Zachary took me to see the Wiggles at SeaWorld in our kitchen. We got the front row chairs closest to the refrigerator. Zachary was a star performer! He rode his tricycle and requested an audience member to sing some of the Wiggles' songs for him. And I was the lucky winner of course! So we delighted in singing, "Big Red Car", "Fruit Salad", "Hot Potato", and "Do the Monkey". I can't wait to find out what else our kitchen might have in store for us.

There are other moments that he's informed me of his outings or adventures in his mind.

Riding his tricycle he says "I'm going to the Zoo!" or "I'm going to Sea World!"

It's also nice to hear him singing songs. I'm excited to know that he is coming along in his development of audidation of pitch and rhythm. It's not perfect of course, but I can see the progress. Favorite songs that I hear him singing are:
"Do You Know the Colors of the Rainbow"
"The Rainbow Song"
"Itsy Bitsy Spider"
"Wheels on the Bus"
"Bob the Builder"
"5 Little Monkeys"

Tonight after we finished singing "Do You Know the Colors of the Rainbow" and saying prayers, I began to pull the sheets up for Zachary and he began singing, "Daddy's gonna take me to the zoo tomorrow. Zoo tomorrow. Zoo tomorrow".
Well, I'm going to have to talk to Scott about this! I certainly didn't know he was taking off of work to go to the zoo! And if he is, I'd like an invitation!

One of each!

We are having a baby girl!

We will now have one of each! From everything visible on the ultrasound, she is healthy and in the 52 percentile as far as weight. She's currently 15 oz. That is amazing that they can figure out weight! She was a little stubborn as far as trying to get her to flip over on her back so we could get a good look at her face. She went as far as her side and no more. Maybe she's going to be a tummy sleeper :) She's also active like her brother was in the womb. She won't have any problem keeping up with him!

Zachary is very excited about the baby coming and is still asking a few times a week if "the baby is coming out yet?" 4 more months. I know the Christmas holidays will fly by but it might feel really slow in January. Now we just have to pick out a name.

Cute and Funny Sayings

I'm trying to recall all of the cute and funny things Zachary has said in the past 3 days. There were several "I need to write that one down moments". So here's my list.

As we're eating lunch on Friday, Nov. 6 and Zachary is trying to get a baked bean on his fork.
"C'mon bean".
He finally gets it.
"There you go bean".

On our campout he is running through the sand and falling over with his friend Meredith.
He falls down and says "That's amazing!".

As we are on a hike during the camp out he points to the trees and says
"That's the chicka boom boom tree".


As I think of more I'll add to the list.

Is the Baby Coming Out?

I love that Zachary is excited about the baby and that he understands. He asks me quite often, "the baby is coming out now?"

I tell him that it still needs to grow but that he can talk to the baby and pat my tummy. He likes to do that. Sometimes he then tells me that Theodore came out (my friend's adorable baby) who we see pretty often.

So I'm pretty sure he gets it! Well, as much as a two and 1/2 year old can.

I feel Baby kicking quite a bit now. More than tiny twitches now. I'm not really sure how to describe this feeling of more than just little butterfly kicks, but not quite whale movements. It makes the experience very real.

I am much less tired than before but still going to bed pretty early. I hope that continues to improve. In two weeks we find out what the baby is!

Jesus' Birthday is Coming Down

A Perspective From Zachary

I saw these boxes wrapped in this very colorful and pretty paper. It felt smooth and I really wanted to rip it open like I did for my birthday. I had a feeling there might be a nice surprise in there. There sure was! Some trains! James the train! So I went to find Mommy.

"Mommy you open this?"

She didn't seem very happy. She was not smiling.

"Zachary, you're not suppose to open that yet. It's for Christmas".

"Open it!" I told her. "My trains!". I guess that wasn't the best thing to say because she didn't change her mind. In fact, she went and put it somewhere else where I could not reach it.

"You can have it at Christmas time when we open presents together as a family".

At Christmas time. Christmas is Jesus' birthday party time. His birthday is coming. It's coming down soon!

So just to be sure Mommy remembers, I ask her every day or sometimes just every other day,
"When Jesus' birthday comes down I can have my trains".

Mommy smiles at me and says, "yes, at Christmas, Jesus' birthday, you can have your trains".