Nine days from this minute she'll be about 5 hours old and will have met a few family members and a friend or two. I'm excited to meet her, and almost just as excited to not be pregnant anymore. I've reached the I'm too big to enjoy sitting or standing or laying down stage. Isabella has run out of room and the familiar feeling of a small person pushing against my rib cage has returned. I don't know what it is about my girls but they have both loved camping out under my right ribs during the end of their stay in utero! I'm fully embracing nesting and even recruited Jared to help me wipe down doors and woodwork yesterday while Addiston took a nap. He had planned on having a nice relaxing afternoon of video games, but he obliged... I think he likes me!
With the to-do list about complete and the bags packed, the house ready and me feeling like I swallowed a watermelon whole things are pretty interesting around here. I hate to admit it but I feel like my fuse gets a little shorter the more uncomfortable I become. Jared has been a champ about telling when I've done enough and need to go rest or that he'll take over, and Addiston continues to amaze me with her genius (that she gets from her dad) and sweet spirit, but I know there are days when I am too harsh on her, or am to strict, to demanding about potty training, or finishing all of our vegetables. I know this is a phase (for both of us) and I remind myself of that often! Jill Churchill said, "there's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."Sometimes, we will mess up. We'll flub up responses, reacting too harshly or not harsh enough. We'll yell when we should have hugged, lose our cool when we should have sighed and smiled, or retreat behind our bedroom door praying the kids won't find us when we should have faced our problems. But amidst all the chaos Addiston is at such a sweet stage and I don't want her milestones and sweet quirks to get overlooked through everything thats changing.
So just as much for myself as you I wanted to have a list of some Addy things, before she becomes a big sister!
-She's obsessed with stickers! They are golden. We used to give her a graham cracker for going on the big girl potty (she thought they were cookies) but now the best prize for potty success is glittery stickers.
-She has a little umbrella and has developed an obsession! Whenever it's even drizzling she requests one and disappears underneath it.
-The girl hates messes! On herself and in the house, if she's eating and gets food on her fingers she instantly puts down everything and asks for a napkin. It's precious! The other day Jared took her down in the toy room to watch veggie tales and she told him they had to clean up first because there were toys everywhere. She totally gets that from me, and while we both agree it's nice that she picks up he thinks it's a little crazy that she'd opt to clean before she gets to watch t.v
-She's a cuddler (and she gets that from the daddy!! I am NOT) every morning when the sun's up we let her come into our bed so she'll sleep/rest an hour or so longer and you better believe that whole hour she's attached to Jared.
-She loves cereal, she has it every night before bed, most mornings and if she spy's anybody in the house eating it she climbs up in your lap to steal some.
-She loves to sing & music of all sorts, some of her favorite songs are ABC's-which she can sing all by herself, Wheels on the bus-with motions, itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, and Jesus Loves Me. Sporadically throughout the week she asks for music and we dace around her room and ours.
-We read, A LOT! Probably 3 hours a day are spent reading. She has favorite books and books that she'd rather you just make up a story to because she likes the pictures, I get a crack out of her when she "reads" the story with me because she knows the book by heart. Some of her favorites right now are "I'm a new big sister," "Where's my truck?" The Bible-seriously, it's the sweetest thing! "Rise & Shine" and "I love you through and through"-we all have that one memorized, Jared can "read" it to her over the phone when he's on a work trip.
-She still loves outside, it's been over 100 more days than I'd like to count the past month and our time outside has grown slimmer and slimmer but she loves it!
-She's smart, like I'm her mom and I think she's of course the smartest kid there ever was but when random people who encounter her at church and out mention it I tend to believe them! She knows her ABC's, and can recognize all the letters individually, she knows all the colors, shapes, and fruits/vegetables, animals and their sounds, she can count to 14, she knows how to start a car-not that thats a good thing, she's grasping the concept of opposites and rhymes.
-She loves to pray. The other day she prayed all by herself, for no reason, just sat down, folded her hands and muttered something I couldn't understand and shouted AMEN. It was by far the sweetest thing she's ever done. We pray before every mean and recently during meals as well. One morning we prayed between every bite of breakfast-it took an hour to finish the meal. She's discovered that prayer is one thing I won't say no to and when she's suppose to be in bed but not wanting to be she'll slip out of her room and ask me to "pray more"
We still are pretty stingy with what we let her eat. She rarely gets sugar, and never gets deep friend things. She gets to watch t.v once a day for less than an hour-except when I'm sick then she can watch a whole disney movie-if her patience allows. We're pretty firm on listening the first time you're told and she's no stranger to the time out chair. She has gotten one spanking-for running into the street. She can get pretty much anything out of Jared, he's a softy and knows it when it comes to her.
I think she's going to be a great big sister. She's at a great stage, but I know that there will be an adjustment period. I know I'm going to have to remind myself that she's only two and not expect too much of her. But like Jill Churchill said, "there's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."
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