The countdown is on...

38 weeks and one day down...

six days to go! I don't remember if I updated our delivery (c-section) date here, so now you know: next Saturday, June 20 is the day! I can. not. wait. I couldn't be more excited to meet our new little girl - and, to be honest, not to be pregnant any more!

These last few weeks have been slow for us - Aaron and I have been kind of hunkering down, getting ready for the new baby and not really doing too much or going much of anywhere. Consequently, we don't have a lot of pictures to post, or interesting things to blog about...


Maisie is going through a major princess phase right now, which you may have figured out from her deep love of her princess skirt. Here, she is wearing a beautiful princess hat. Doesn't she make a lovely princess?

Fortunately, other people are doing interesting things for us to write about. Yesterday our friend Emi turned 1! We celebrated with her by swimming and then having cupcakes (which Maisie calls "pupcakes") at Lake Nokomis (or, as Maisie says, "Komis Lake").

Obligatory hilarious first birthday cake picture:

I love this picture because Emi looks SO SERIOUS as she sits in her cake. I also love that she's holding a fork - maybe purely decorative, given that she's clearly been using her hands to eat! Anyway, this picture cracks me up.

We had a good time swimming in the lake, even though the water was pretty cold. It was a beautiful day, and there were lots of people there, including many little kids who stared open-mouthed at my belly, which amused me. Only one child actually asked me "You got a baby in your tummy?" Hee.

Random cute picture of Maisie from this morning:

The way Maisie's speech is developing is so interesting. She has trouble with sounds in compound words that she can say just fine on their own. She can say "cup" and "cake" just fine, but together it's always "pupcake." My favorite though is "swim" and "suit" - no problem separately, but when combined, form "swimpoop." Much hilarity ensues every time we talk about going to the pool. Daddy, you got your swimpoop?

Conversations with Maisie

Maisie has become quite the little chatterbox lately. I know it happened gradually, but it seems like all of a sudden, she went from a really basic, small vocabulary to talking about everything! all the time! I don't think she has much in the way of an inner monologue, because she narrates everything - every car trip she spends talking to herself about the cars, the street signs, the trees, the water, the buildings, and the people she sees out the window. Following are a few illustrated examples of some of her recent topics of conversation.


"You help me, Daddy!"
As independent as Maisie is, she can also - usually, sometimes - recognize her limits, especially on playground equipment that is designed for bigger kids. This was at Powderhorn Park on Memorial Day weekend. She tried to make it up the ladder herself, and got most of the way before telling Aaron to help her. It's reassuring that, even as fearless as she is, she knows that she has some limits!


"I need SPACE."
Sometimes Maisie gets overwhelmed and need a little room. She used to push whoever was crowding her and say "You go 'way! Leave me alone!" But this was resulting in some hurt feelings. So instead we taught her to ask for some space, and to walk away when she needs it. Here, she needed some space from Grandma and Dylan. It's pretty effective, and hopefully something that will serve her in the long run... after all, everyone needs some space from time to time.


"I no eat chicken. I only eat french fries."
Somewhat self-explanatory! This is from dinner tonight - it was a long, hot day and we were all tired, so Maisie and I went to get takeout from Holy Land deli at Midtown Global Market. It didn't get taken out too far, though, before Maisie decided she wanted to eat right then, instead of waiting until we got all the way home (12 blocks!). Despite her assertions to the contrary she did eat all the chicken, as well as almost all the fries. She ate such a good supper that she got some ice cream for dessert, which leads us to the next picture...


"My face all dirty!"
"My seat STICKY."
"I like ice cream! I like choc-a-leet!"
Again, fairly self-explanatory... but yeah. Wow. It's kind of amazing, just how big of a mess she can make with a single-scoop ice cream cone. This kid's got talent!

The marker on her arms, by the way, is her "tattoos." The orange that you can see is "a big monster, RAWR!!" There's green on her other arm that isn't visible in this picture, that is stars.

And finally...

"Baby Ella in my mommy tummy!"
36 weeks down, 3 to go! Barring any early arrival - which seems unlikely, given that Maisie hung in there for 41+ weeks, Saturday, June 20 is our c section date. We're all looking forward to it - me most of all!

Three random things

Three random pictures for your enjoyment.

First, Maisie's outfit this morning:

You can't quite tell just how cute and crazy it is from this carseat picture, taken on the way to daycare. She's wearing a pale pink turtleneck sweater dress, red fleece pants, white shoes with twinkle lights, a purple and black striped hoodie, and the pumpkin hat her Grandma Jo made her. It was quite the ensemble. I've totally given up on trying to dress her so she matches. Now, as long as she's weather-appropriate, I'm happy. Mornings are a lot easier that way.

Second: what I found in my bag when I got to the office:

A few times when Maisie's been too sick to go to daycare, or if daycare's been closed, she's come into work with me while Aaron went to a morning class. She really enjoys it - I have her watch videos on the portable DVD player so I can actually get a little work done while she's here, and people usually bring her chocolate and candy and pay a lot of attention to her. She thinks my office is one big party. Not usually! But she'll sometimes stick things in my work bag that she thinks I need. Today, apparently, I needed this Barbie (a.k.a. dancing baby, at least at our house).

Third: reserved parking.

I used to think the "stork parking" was so, so silly. But now that I have sciatica and various other pregnancy-related complaints that make walking pretty difficult and sometimes painful, depending on how far I go, I totally appreciate it, and make use of it when I can. Thanks, Sears!

pregnancy update

Sorry for the delay between posts... we haven't had a lot of great picture-taking opportunities here. Maisie rarely stops moving - this picture is one of the clearer ones I've taken of her lately!

She's in a bounce house at Edinborough, an indoor play park nearby where our friend Oliver celebrated his 3rd birthday today.

Anyway, when she's not moving, we've been working on potty training! She's a little young yet, but she showed a lot of interest, so we're letting her run with it. It's tremendously exciting for us to think that we won't have two in diapers. But at the same time, spending 20 minutes reading to Maisie while she sits on the potty isn't super exciting to most people, and definitely isn't the kind of thing I want to be taking lots of pictures of. So I'll spare you the details, and leave it at: potty training is in progress, and going really well.

Speaking of two in diapers, I'm now 28 weeks pregnant. Gratuitous belly shot:

28 weeks generally marks the beginning of the third trimester. Yay, the end is in sight! This hasn't been the greatest pregnancy for me - I'm a lot bigger than I was with Maisie, at least so far, and I'm definitely feeling it... I'm fairly uncomfortable in some ways that I never was with Maisie, and we still have 11 weeks to go (c section is scheduled for June 22, at 39 weeks). So I'm excited to meet our new baby girl (I told you it's a girl, right? because it's a girl!), and to be a mommy again, but I'm also really looking forward to not being pregnant.

I realize that the front view may not look too big - at dinner last weekend, a friend said "But you're so small! Why are you so small??" I told her that it certainly didn't feel small to me! But check out the belly from the side!