Family Fun Time

Well folks, I made it! Tomorrow is my first official day of maternity leave - it really hasn't sunk in yet that I'll be off of work until around Charlotte's birthday in June.

I still have about two and a half weeks until my official due date, but it's really strange how two pregnancies can be so vastly different.  Last time, with Charlotte, I was done. I was huge, I had major swelling everywhere, and I had major aches and pains.  And don't get me started on the number of people who commented on how huge I am.  This time around? It's totally different. I've still gained a lot of weight (40 lbs so far), but I have little to no swelling, I feel totally fine most of the time, and I've had no one tell me "you must be due any minute," or "are you sure your due date is X days away?"  In fact, I have random people telling me how small I am when I tell them how close I am to my due date. I'm not sure about "small," but I'm definitely not as big as I was last time.

Last Friday at 37 weeks

Apart from not sleeping very well, and the brief, stabbing pain every time I roll over or get up to use the bathroom, I'm doing pretty well. And I'm actually not at all ready for this baby to get here.  I mean, I'm ready in that we have everything we need, although I haven't packed a bag for anyone, but I'm in no hurry for her to get here. I'm really trying to enjoy these last few days of being a family of three, and I'm cherishing my time with Charlotte.  I love cuddling up with her and watching a movie together, and I love playing games with her. That's not to say I won't be able to do those things once the baby gets here, I just won't be able to do them every time Charlotte wants me to.

The past few weekends have been spent doing a lot of family time, and for that I'm really thankful. We have had three birthday parties during the first two weekends in February (we were invited to a fourth but couldn't make it), and two at the same exact kids' gymnastics place. Charlotte has had a blast with her friends.

The first picture is at Charlotte's friend Elissa's 2nd birthday party; the second is at Charlotte's friend Ava's 3rd birthday party, both at the same place.  Charlotte was one of the few kids who was fearless enough to do the zip line (at Elissa's party it was an actual zip line, not the dolphin).

On Saturday, we went up to Echo Summit and went sledding. We were supposed to go for our friend's son's 2nd birthday party last weekend, but poor weather made it impossible.  I was itching to go this weekend because a) it was probably our last shot at it before the baby arrives, and b) Charlotte had such cute snow clothes that I didn't want to go to waste.  I, of course, being 9 months pregnant did not go sledding, nor did I have any snow clothes to wear anyway.  Instead, I wore jeans, a fleece pullover, and a down jacket that had two zippers, so that I could zip it at the top and leave it open at the bottom.  It was a bit chilly, but I was warm.

Charlotte was so excited to go up to the snow.  As soon as we passed the first bit of snow on the road, she started shouting "Snow! Snow!" and kept on shouting it for the next 30 miles.  It was so cute.  She also wondered why we weren't stopping.

Once we got up to the sledding hill (our friends arrived at the same time, which was perfect), Charlotte was ready to go.  She loved the saucer, and it went so fast, that Chris had to literally sprint in front of her in order to stop the sled.  Unfortunately, when Chris and Charlotte went down together on the longer sled, Charlotte fell out and scraped up her face on the icy snow.  That sort of ruined the rest of the day, but by then, it was so crowded on the slopes, we likely wouldn't have stayed much longer anyway.

After making a snow angel

Last night, we did one of those family activities I never thought I'd be doing.  We went and saw Toy Story 3 On Ice.  Charlotte loves TS3 - she's seen it multiple times streaming on Netflix and Chris' parents got her the DVD for Christmas.  When I learned that the On Ice version would be coming to Sacramento, I thought it would be a really fun thing for her, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to shell out the money for it.  Luckily, Chris ended up winning tickets in Intel's corporate box at the arena.  It was the perfect place for us to sit. The seats were much more comfortable than the normal arena seats, and we had a great view of the action.  Charlotte was mesmerized the entire time. She sat on Chris' lap and never took her eyes from the show (meanwhile, I was pretty uncomfortable and tired, so I kept standing up and walking around). Personally, the show was pretty cheesy, but it was worth it to see Charlotte so excited.  Chris' mom had knitted (crocheted?) Charlotte an amigurumi version of Woody, so we took it with us to the show. It's really an amazing likeness to the actual Woody, only crocheted. Charlotte held onto Woody the entire time and even made him clap at times.

Charlotte and Woody

Charlotte and Daddy

The Toys! On Ice!

Woody is watching the show

A happy girl at the end of the night.

On the drive home, Charlotte would not stop talking about the show, despite it being nearly 10 o'clock and way past her bedtime. She talked about the scene in which the toys are about to fall in the fire and how they're saved by the "crane."  (She corrects us if we saw claw) This scene apparently scared her a lot, but she told me: "It's okay, Mommy. Woody saved me."  Like I said, if you had told me 8 years ago that I would one day be taking my daughter to a Disney On Ice show, I would have laughed at you. But it was so, so worth it (and free!).  It might be time to get those two other Toy Story movies on DVD...

Snow Bunny!

We finally made it up to the mountains to try some sledding.  The weather was sunny and warm (around 45 degrees), and we had the best time.

We went to the place where our friends have taken their kids, and it was so convenient.  You pay for parking and you bring your sleds. In our case, we rented a sled, which definitely a rip-off, but I couldn't find any for sale down in our neck of the woods (everywhere is now stocked with summer pool equipment).  But it worked out great. The snow park has at least a dozen groomed sledding hills in various grades of steepness.  Even though there were a lot of people, we never had a problem going down the bunny hill with Charlotte.

I was wondering how Charlotte would deal with snow boots, snow pants, and a ski jacket on, but it didn't seem to faze her in the slightest.  For the first time ever, she kept her mittens and hot on willingly (progress people!).  Charlotte was very curious about the snow and kept scooping it up and piling it on the sled.  She really enjoyed being pulled in it because walking in the snow was definitely a challenge.

Charlotte had an absolute blast sledding.  She went down with one of us about a dozen times, laughing the entire way down the hill.  After we took a break for lunch, we decided to see if she would let us go down by herself.  No worries there! She went down a bunch of times and would shout "more" at the end of each one.  Charlotte was probably the youngest child out there heading down by herself.

Here's a little video I made of our day (song: Chocolate by Snow Patrol):

The last picture was taken seconds before she fell out of the sled - it didn't bother her at all!  But after that we sent her down on her tummy, which prevented her from falling out.

It was a great day. I hope we have a chance to do it again this year!

Kids These Days

Alas, we were not able to make it up sledding this weekend. It was snowing in the mountains yesterday, so it didn't make a lot of sense to trudge through the snow-covered roads to get up there. There's always next weekend!

But we had a fun weekend regardless.

I hosted the every-other-Saturday playgroup. This time, unlike the time in December when I volunteered to host, people actually came over.  That in of itself is a success!

Three other moms and their babies came, including one older sibling.  Charlotte still has a lot of trouble sharing.  It causes major anxiety. I had placed two bowls of graham crackers and goldfish on the little play table in the playroom.  They were for all the kids, but apparently Charlotte didn't get the message.  She yelled and swatted at every child who dared to take a cracker from the bowl, and this included the four your old brother who is twice Charlotte's height.  Once I brought down multiple bowls this seemed to calm Charlotte down, but man, it's embarrassing to have the only toddler have a tantrum.  I'm sure you're thinking, well yeah, it's her toys, that's understandable.  It would be if it only happened at our house.  She also gets really upset at other kids' homes, playing with their toys.  Other than that, it was fun.

We went over to our old neighbors' house on Saturday night for dinner and wine.  Our neighbors constantly ask us to come by so that Chris can help them with their wine, but since most of the wine is easily racked (transferred from one barrel to another) with a pump, we know they just want the company and to lavish attention on Charlotte.  On a side note, the people who bought our old house have finally moved in. They spent seven months "fixing" it up. I'm not sure why they couldn't fix it up by actually living in the house.  Our neighbors were convinced they were going to flip it.  In any case, the new owners are not very friendly, much to the chagrin of our very social butterfly neighbors.  Charlotte had a fabulous time, even if she hit her eye on the windowsill and caused quite the shiner.

On Sunday, since it was raining, we decided to take Charlotte to one of those bounce house indoor playgrounds to burn off some of her boundless energy.  They have slides that are constructed in the same ways as those jump houses, but Charlotte is too little to climb up to the top of the slide by herself, so Chris and I took turns getting her up there.  Once at the top of the slide, Charlotte would waste no time propelling herself down.  She loved it.  There was also a tube-type slide that was pretty slick and high.  Charlotte would go down so fast, if one of us hadn't been at the bottom to catch her, she would have landed a good five feet away.  The last time she went down, she managed to twist herself around halfway down so that she slid down on her stomach instead of on her bottom.  I was at the bottom to catch her, but as soon as she landed she caught her lip on the edge of the hard plastic.  Poor thing ended up with a swollen lip. Combine that with the black eye from the night before and it's a wonder that we don't have CPS pounding down our door claiming child abuse!  Charlotte is a pretty tough little girl and rebounded quickly enough to go down a bunch of the soft bounce house-type slides before it was time to leave.

As I mentioned, there was no way we could just let Charlotte loose in the bounce areas.  Her balance isn't great, and there were a bunch of much older kids who apparently didn't know or didn't care about being careful around toddlers.  So I spent a lot of time chasing Charlotte through various obstacles and tunnels, and it was a lot of fun, if exhausting.  At one point, I was following her through a tunnel, when I felt someone at my side trying to push past me.  And then I hear this: "Excuse me lady, I want to get through." I turned to see this little boy, probably six or seven, trying to squeeze his way around me through this tunnel. I replied, "Well, you're just going to have to wait, I'm going through right now." He then said, "But I want to get through right now, lady!" I was trying to be calm, but the rudeness was frankly appalling. I firmly said, "There is a baby in front of me, you're just going to have to wait." The tunnel was not big enough for him to get around me, and it also was only about four or five feet long. It took me all of 15 seconds to crawl through it. I just couldn't believe how rude he was!  When I was a child, I was very intimidated by adults. They were authority figures, and I was taught to respect them.  I could not imagine a situation in which I would talk to an adult, no less a stranger with that amount of snottiness. And there were other situations where children would push past Chris, who was busy hoisting Charlotte up to the top of slide, while their parents were watching, and the parents did nothing to correct their behavior. 

Apart from the children who apparently have never been taught manners, we had a great time. It was worth the $5 to wear Charlotte out, and it was so cute to see how fearless she has become.  The swelling in her lip has gone down, thankfully, but there is still a purply bruise around her eye.