January 29, 2004
We just found out this morning that we have yet ANOTHER water leak on our line. Apparently, our neighbor's sump pump was still running about every 5 minutes, so he called the city out to check again. They tested all our lines again and yep, this one is also ours. We haven't heard our sump pump run more than a few times since we had our line fixed, so I was really skeptical, but they pinpointed (using a listening device that finds running water) this leak to be about 15 feet farther out than the last one, right by our fence, and when they turned off our water and tested it, it definitely showed up as our line with the problem. The water is just passing right by our house, I guess, and into our neighbor's. The guy who tested our line today says that what he thinks happened is that once the other hole was fixed, water pressure went back up to normal on the line, which then broke through another spot that must have been weak. I guess the whole line is rotting, because this is our third leak since we've lived here and the previous owner had a leak fixed right before we bought the place. So now we have to have our ENTIRE front yard dug up, from the house to the curb, and a whole new line put in; the city pretty much told us flat out that we had to run a new line, and unfortunately he's probably right. The easy (and cheaper) way to run a new line (isn't it sad that we've learned so much about this?) is to take a new pipe and pull it right through the old one, but in the case of our fine community, we can't do that because the builders for some reason put the water line in the same trench as the gas line, so when a line is pulled, it cuts the gas line up. (This is what one of our neighbors found out when they replaced their line last year. Our entire neighborhood is infamous in this city for having the cheap, thrown-together house lots; almost every single house has had a water line repaired or replaced at least once.) So, a new line can't be pulled; we have to get a whole new line put in, which is going to mean digging up our yard, sidewalks, and fence, and probably our tree, because that's all in the path down to the curb. And, no, our homeowner's insurance doesn't pay for a cent of this. They would only pay if it got so bad that it caused basement wall damage. There's no way the city would allow us to wait that long. We have until next Wednesday to make some arrangements, because that's when the city guy told me he'd be back out to "get an update".

On a lighter note, I wanted to mention a cute game that Natalie has been playing recently. She covers her eyes (or our eyes, she does this to us too) with her hand or a blanket, and says "dark" (actually she says "gark"), then after a few seconds she uncovers her eyes and says "dight!" (that means "light", if you hadn't guessed). She plays this game over and over again, along with lots of giggles. She also now loves to point out when things are unusually bright, like when I first get her up and have just turned on the light, or even just when we're in the bathroom and I have her on the counter changing her diaper. She points to the lights, grimaces, and says "briiiight!" 

I've gotten a few questions lately about how I'm feeling. I'm not feeling so queasy as often anymore, so I think that's beginning to go away as I get ever so close to finishing the first trimester, though the right-before-bed nausea hasn't gone away yet. "Morning sickness" for me has been the worst right at bedtime, with it being most uncomfortable once I lay down. That hasn't been fun, because it means I have had lots of trouble falling asleep lately. I try to eat something and have something to drink but it doesn't seem to matter either way. Then of course once I fall asleep I'm up after a couple hours to go to the bathroom. I'm looking forward to getting my uterus up off of my bladder soon! It won't be too much longer, it seems like my belly is growing more every day. One other thing I'm experiencing this time which I had little or none of last time, is heartburn. If I had some last time, it was so mild that I don't even remember it, and certainly it wasn't this early. It's so amazing to me how much faster the time is going this time compared to with Natalie. I can't believe I'm only a couple weeks away from the second trimester already!  And unlike last time, I'm just really in no rush to get to August. I remember how hard the first several weeks were, so I'm happy to take my time getting there again. (Not that I'm not looking forward to having a second child, but I remember all too well how continual lack of sleep and feeling lack of control wreaked temporary - though it felt never ending at the time - havoc on so many things.) A friend of mine at church, who is pregnant with her third and due in March, said she felt the same way. The way she put it was perfect, "I can take care of him really easily right now. He can just stay in there as long as he needs to." Of course, by the end you are biologically programmed to want that baby OUT no matter WHAT because you don't think your body can handle another week, but until I hit that point, I'm not rushing the time.

January 20, 2004
Just a few random things I wanted to mention today, and I do mean "random".

First, we finally got our water line fixed today, after having our sump pump (the "mump" as Natalie calls it) run for the last few months. Maybe now our neighbor will stop having that slightly panicked, slightly perturbed look about him because the water was running toward his property and his "mump" was running every few minutes. The great mystery as to where this leak was located was finally solved a couple days ago, when we paid $200 for a company to come out with special equipment to tell us just exactly where the leak was. It was either that, or pay the excavator thousands of dollars to dig up our entire front lawn. So it was pinpointed to be just a few feet beyond where our last hole was dug, but the water wasn't detected then because there is a gravel trough of some sort that ran between the spots, channeling the water straight under the house. Well, they found it today and it was just the tiniest little hairline crack, caused by a fist-sized rock pressing on the line. Water was shooting out from it; they estimated it to be about 3 gallons per minute. So, after another $650 for another hole in our yard, it's fixed now, and we haven't heard our sump pump run all afternoon or evening. I did hear a neighbor's going once though...I'm still not convinced that the neighbor whose pump was running twice as much as ours doesn't have his own leak as well...

Yesterday morning after Natalie ate her breakfast, she was playing in the kitchen while I finished eating. Suddenly she came over to me, and out of nowhere, pointed to my belly and said "baby", followed by, of course, "waa-waaa". (The sound that babies make, of course. She's getting this figured out early.) I just wanted to mention that because this is the first time she's done that with no prompting from us; she just walked right up and pointed to my belly.

I expected that Natalie might want to regress some when the baby arrives, but I never expected her to start it now. For the past couple days, she's wanted me to feed her every single bite, even though she knows perfectly well how to use her own spoon or at least her fingers, and to carry her up and down the stairs even though she is getting pretty good at doing that at least with one hand for support and her other hand on the rail. It's as if suddenly the two things that she has most recently accomplished, she doesn't want to do. Today at breakfast, not only did she want me to feed her every single spoonful of cereal, but she didn't want to sit in her high chair or on the chair next to me. She wanted to be in my lap. Once I finally relented and brought her on my lap, she proceeded to eat her whole bowl of cereal (if I fed her the spoonfuls, that is). 

I wanted to mention that I had a very frustrating afternoon of trying to find VeggieTales stuff for Natalie's birthday. Apparently the Bob and Larry Wilton cake pan is not being made anymore, and a store here that carries the out-of-stock pans that you can rent couldn't find theirs though they are sure they carry it. After that I went to Factory Card Outlet, and the designs of birthday party stuff is about half of their stock they had last year. They had two different Veggie party patterns last year, now they just have one and really not more than some plates and napkins and stickers that we already have. I was pretty disappointed, because last year after I had decided on the Elmo theme, I kept finding SO much cute Veggie stuff I almost changed it to Veggies! So I'm not sure what we're going to do now.

Phil and I have both been sick with a cold for the past few days. We think it might be the same one that Natalie had right after our flus about a week ago. Hopefully we won't be passing this back to Natalie, but it's been hard to keep distance from her when she's been wanting to be in our arms even so much more than normal. Plus she's so very cute we couldn't stop kissing her anyway. And have I mentioned before how smart Natalie is? (I'm sure not.) We got her some alphabet magnet letters for Christmas (not just ordinary magnet letters, oh no, but Leap Frog ones, where you can place a letter into a magnetic holder and it sings a song about the letter. It's called Fridge Phonics, and Natalie loves it). Anyway, she has figured out at least three more letters now, besides the favorite she's had for awhile now, which is "O". She points to the "N" and says "Natalie", and she points to the "D" and says "Daddy", and the "M", for "Mommy". I think she likes the M best because it also is the letter for her favorite candy, M&M's (she calls them "M's"). On Friday night Phil and I were itching to go to a movie, so we took Natalie to the 10:00 pm showing of Cheaper By the Dozen. We hadn't taken Natalie to see a movie since she was barely mobile, so we weren't sure how she'd do. We were glad to see there were only a few other groups in the theater and they also had young kids with them. She actually sat in my lap and watched a lot of it with us. (She liked the dog; every time it came on the screen she pointed to it and yelled "puppy!" to which we whispered, "yes, that's a puppy, but you have to be quiet...") She got antsy just a few times, and then she was happy anyway because she got some Sprite (she calls all drinks except milk or water "buice" still), a bag of popcorn (she eats it almost as fast as I do - runs in the family), and a bag of "M's". She ate the entire bag of M's herself! I was a little worried that she wouldn't fall asleep that night, but when we came home at 12 she went right to bed. Phil and I just couldn't believe we'd actually gotten to see a movie together - in a theater!

January 18, 2004
My first belly picture is posted! It was taken on Friday, when I was exactly 8 weeks (2 months) along. (To clear up any confusion, the pregnancy script that is in the right column always states that "I am ... weeks pregnant." It's just a matter of wording, but it's not always exactly accurate. I think their end of week date is off slightly. I was fully 8 weeks pregnant last Friday, and am now IN my ninth week, but I won't BE nine weeks pregnant until this Friday, when I begin my 10th week. It's accurate as of right now, but I've noticed that the week number changes a little earlier than on Fridays. It's pretty close though.) I still just can't believe how much faster my belly is popping out this time. It's not that I've gotten too big yet, but the area of my body that for the last two years has been, well, kind of bread-dough like, is now solid again. Pregnancy has accomplished what not even a year of solid weight loss and lots of sit ups and 2 miles a day couldn't do - a firm tummy again! Oh, and speaking of having lost weight, I was very glad to hear that on the pregnancy weight gain charts at the doctor's office, I'm considered to be starting out at the "ideal" body weight! Big difference from last time!

I had my first visit to the new doctor's office on Friday, but I didn't meet the doctor. It was the initial visit where I had 7 vials of blood drawn and the nurse asked me my medical history. The office staff seems really nice, and I point blank asked the nurse some questions about the doctor, such as if he encourages natural child birth (he does, she even said there are very few times he doesn't allow at least trying a VBAC), including what his rate of cesarean is and if he does routine episiotomies. I liked everything she had to say, and she didn't even mind me asking questions like that which is a good first indication. I told the nurse that I'd never had a male OB before, so she understood my feelings. So I guess now I'm just going to wait until my next appointment when I'll actually have an exam with the doctor to see if I'm comfortable with him. My next appointment is just a couple weeks from now, on Feb. 2. I'm going to have an ultrasound done then so I'm looking forward to the appointment. I know I shouldn't be worried about anything but after having the miscarriage in April and then having just a little (very normal) spotting on January 1st, I will just really like having the reassurance that everything is going fine, including having the correct fetal age and a good placement of the placenta. Of course there are two nagging questions I have about this pregnancy that won't be answered by any tests - 1, will my hair stay curly or will it go back to being straight like it was prior to pregnancy #1, and 2, are my feet going to grow yet ANOTHER size bigger this pregnancy or is that an unfortunate phenomenon of first pregnancies only? I used to wear a 9, now I'm a 9 1/2 or 10. I can accept that my feet will probably swell again toward the end of this pregnancy (it's going to be August after all!) but I hope this time the change isn't permanent. One more pregnancy thing I wanted to relate today - as is typical in pregnancies, my dreams have gotten very frequent and vivid lately, and the other day I had my first childbirth dream with this pregnancy. I remember last time having dreams where the baby just "appeared" and it was explained to me that happened probably because I had no personal idea what childbirth was like. This time, of course I have a month-long experience of labor and I remember pretty much everything about Natalie's birth. (The details in my journal help!) In this dream, I went into labor right on time, no pre-term, but when I got to the hospital they barely had time to get me set up in the birthing room when the baby came out. I was so angry because it all happened so fast, I couldn't focus on what was happening like I did with Natalie, and afterwards, the baby was perfectly healthy but the nurses took the baby to the nursery right away instead of letting me hold him. (It was a boy, by the way, I'll get to that in a second.) I told my mom about this dream and she said that probably came from when they did take Natalie from me just a few minutes after birth, just to get her cleaned up and it was only on the other side of the room, but I couldn't see her from where I was and I didn't like that. They did give her back very quickly, though. In the dream, he was taken completely out into the nursery and I didn't get to hold him at all, for over an hour, and later I was yelling at the nurse about it, saying that they better be glad I knew how to nurse already because if this was my first baby it would have been all their fault if I couldn't get nursing going! So, then the dream changed and we were going home. We had named the baby Daniel (I don't know where that came from), with no middle name I guess, but everyone, including myself, kept calling him Alex. In the dream I asked myself, "why are you calling him Alex? His name is Daniel" but everyone did. Alex was the name of my mother's grandfather, and she's always said that if she ever had a boy (which of course never happens anywhere in our family) she would have wanted the name Alex. So that was probably my mom's voice ringing in my head. We haven't even really started thinking too much about names yet. We're probably going to wait until we know if the baby is a boy or girl. (Default answer is "girl" of course, but you never know!) A friend of mine got one of those new, 3D ultrasounds a couple weeks ago and it was less expensive than having an elective, standard ultrasound at the doctor's office, so we want to do that too around 18-20 weeks. The pictures from it are really amazing.

This is getting to be a really long journal entry...well, what else is new. I wanted to mention that Natalie has been acting better the past few days, so maybe the majority of her attitude problem was just from recovering from the flu. It wiped me out too. She's still saying "nnnnnnno!" a lot and trying to be contrary for contrary's sake, but it's been interspersed with a lot of cuteness too. Oh, the look she gave me tonight when I told her to stop saying "no" to me - it's probably a look I've given my mother thousands of times - both eyebrows furrowed and glaring at me with her chin jutted out. It's too bad I have to be stern in those moments so I can't jump up and grab my camera. 

This weekend we went to Addie's birthday party so now Natalie is all ready for hers. I think we'll probably have her party on Sunday, February 8th, around late afternoon, maybe 3:30 or 4:00. (After nap time - that would be a very good thing to let Natalie at least have the opportunity to nap beforehand, though she doesn't always take a nap anymore.) We had her party after church last year and that seemed to work out. I think this year we're going to do a VeggieTales theme, if I can find cake pans and such. It was between that or Pooh, but Natalie seems to like Bob better than Pooh right now.

January 12, 2004
My, my. What a week it has been. I'm just going to start back where I left off last time and work my way to today. Of course, last Sunday night I got the stitches in my finger because of my clumsiness with sharp knives. Monday was uneventful, but then Tuesday Natalie just wasn't acting herself and wasn't eating much either. Tuesday at dinner, she just pushed the food around her tray, and then suddenly she had what sounded like a "yucky burp". A few minutes later, she vomited all over her tray. She continued that, along with diarrhea at the same time, about every 10 minutes after for the rest of the night. We tried to give her sips of water or Pedialyte but nothing would stay down, so eventually I just cuddled her up in bed with me and let her fall asleep as much as she could. The hardest part for me (besides seeing my little girl sick, but I mean me physically) was that, with my already queasy-weak stomach, I had a lot of trouble cleaning up after her throw up and diapers. Phil did most of them that night, but this went on into the next day and he had to go to work. It finally started to subside on Wednesday evening, but it really wiped her out. On Thursday morning I had a meeting with my pastor to start our church wedding coordinating stuff, and that lasted over a couple hours. I ate a banana on the way there and I wasn't feeling very hungry, but other than that I felt absolutely fine. On the way home at about noon, I started to feel really shaky and cold all of a sudden, but I figured it was just because I'd hardly eaten anything all morning - I just can't do that these days. When I walked in the door, Phil was getting Natalie her lunch and I opened the door and the smell was HORRIBLE! I asked, "WHAT did you make for lunch???" to which he said "peanut butter and crackers..." The smell was beyond unbearable, but I figured it was just more of my morning sickness. Then I suddenly had to go to the bathroom...uh oh...it started for me. From that point on, just like with Natalie, I was either throwing up or on the pot (or both) every 10 minutes or less, the rest of the afternoon. Phil had meetings so he had to go back to work, so Natalie pretty much just took care of herself the entire day. Every now and then she'd call out for me (I had her gated into the living room) but other than that she just played and read her books the entire afternoon. I was getting really worried about dehydration because of the baby, because just like with Natalie, I couldn't even sip anything and the sickness was so CONSTANT. I knew I'd probably be fine because Natalie got through it, but mid-afternoon I decided I wanted to call and get some reassurance from a doctor anyway, that this intestinal flu wouldn't hurt me, being 7 weeks pregnant. I called my doctor-to-be (I will meet them this week finally) but since I hadn't been there yet, they had no records on me so the suggested I call my family doctor. After the next vomit episode, I did that. The gate-keeping office staff wouldn't let me speak to a nurse and insisted (these were her words) "oh, HONEY, I'm sure it's just early pregnancy symptoms." Well, HONEY, my daughter had just had this the day before, and it is NEVER normal to have diarrhea during pregnancy, and especially every 5 to 10 minutes, accompanied by violent vomiting.  All she could suggest was "just try to keep down some fluids." Gee, thanks for the tip. After that (and another trip to the bathroom) I called, in desperation, my old, beloved ob/gyn's office, who I can't go to this time since their office doesn't take our insurance. I just wanted to talk to a nurse and with my last pregnancy, I appreciated Dr. Teague's nurses almost as much as the doctor herself. I got their voice mail line and said "I just didn't know who else to call. I've been a patient of Dr. Teague's for about 13 years but I can't go there now, but I don't have my own doctor yet. I'm 7 weeks pregnant and have had a bad intestinal flu all day. I can't keep even a sip of liquids down, so I just wanted some reassurance that this isn't going to hurt my pregnancy." Of course, she did call me back (when Phil was home and I was upstairs sleeping, so he took the message) and not only did she give me reassurance, but also she gave me a list of three women ob/gyn's that I can check out if I don't like this guy I will see on Thursday. (I've never had a man OB before and it makes me pretty uncomfortable.) So, that was a rough night. Natalie wasn't even fully recovered from her bout when I got sick, so Phil had to work double duty taking care of both of us once he got home from work. My stomach started to finally settle a little sometime in the middle of the night, and by Friday afternoon I was starting to feel better (and drinking LOTS of water, just like Natalie had done the day before). I knew I was dehydrated, because I didn't have to run to the potty at all on Friday night - I slept right through the night for the first time in weeks. Unfortunately, this whole thing through off Natalie's wonderful go-to-sleep routine, so we're working to get that back on track now. So, anyway, back to Friday. Natalie started getting a sore throat and her voice sounded hoarse. On Saturday she got a really wet, yucky cough. From one thing to another! I stayed home with her on Sunday morning, and today she still has a little bit of a runny nose but it sounds like her cough is clearing up. THEN, finally, tonight, Natalie was dancing around the living room to a VeggieTales song, when she suddenly tripped and flew face-first right into the corner of her toy box. It's plastic and has round corners, but she still managed to split her lip in three places. It bled like crazy, of course. Natalie handled it surprisingly well, for the amount of blood that gushed out initially (just like she did when she hit her head awhile back...maybe she'll be a doctor because her own blood doesn't seem to faze her). She cried and you could tell her lip hurt (got all big and purply too) but after about 10 minutes with a cool rag and her boo-boo bunny she was back to dancing around, even though her lip was still bleeding a little. I gave her some ice cream and finally got her to sit still for bedtime stories, and now she's in bed, so hopefully she'll keep her mouth from moving so much and the lip can heal over. 

So that's been our week. Oh, and I did get my stitches out this morning. All healed up, and no sign of infection. We're all just feeling...pooped (yes, that is just the best word for it). Natalie has not been acting herself even the past couple days. Either that or she's trying really hard to get a jump start on living up to being two. (Next month! I can't believe it that in less than a month Natalie will no longer be a one-year-old!!!) She's just been VERY contrary lately and loves to look me right in the eye and say "no!" to every suggestion or question. Unlike before when she was just saying it to say it and then she'd giggle or smile, now you can just see the defiance sparkling in her eyes. She is starting to play "games" with us where she tells us she wants something and then as soon as we do it or take her where she wants, she tells us she doesn't want it anymore. Drives us nuts. Then, tonight at dinner she was being very unpleasant with us so I took her out of her chair and put her into the (gated) living room, and Phil and I tried to continue our dinner. She, of course, started crying immediately. I've found that the only punishment that gets this child's attention is physically removing her from our presence, so she can't touch us. A couple minutes later, I went over to her and said "Natalie, are you ready to be pleasant again?" to which she looked at me, stopped crying, and said "no." So I turned around and went back to the table. Crying resumed. A couple minutes after that we repeated this, and this time she held up her arms to me and said "mama". So I picked her up and brought her back into the kitchen with us, and she acted nice again. I told her that she was one of my favorite people to be with, but she needed to be nice to us. That is, after all, a very specific commandment given by God himself. She nodded yes. 

January 5, 2004
Last night we spent about four hours at the hospital ER, and it had nothing to do with Natalie being a toddler. She didn't get injured, I did. It was close to 7 pm and I hadn't started thinking about making dinner yet, so when Natalie started getting hungry, I decided to cut up an apple for her. Usually I just give her a whole apple and she does just fine with it, but since she eats more when it's sliced up, I decided to slice it up for her, using my new Cutco knives I got for Christmas. They are very sharp knives, which I knew, but I'm generally pretty clumsy anyway and particularly so when pregnant. So I sliced into my finger instead of the apple. When it wouldn't stop bleeding, Phil suggested that we should probably go to the ER. I now have some stitches in my right hand ring finger, right below the nail bed. Unfortunately they can't use the glue kind of stitch for fingers, so I have the normal kind of stitches that will have to be taken out next week.  The worst part of it all (until the part where they had to numb my finger which not only was painful but I also was not crazy about because I don't even like taking Tylenol for a headache when I'm pregnant) was we didn't get home till after 10, and we had not eaten since about 2:00 that afternoon. Natalie seemed to hold out amazingly well (she was very well behaved during the whole time of waiting) on just a few crackers and Fritos, but by the time we left I was really feeling shaky and sick. All because I felt too tired to start dinner on Sunday night so I just decided to get Natalie an apple instead!

This entry will probably be a little long because there are some random things I was wanting to write about anyway, before last night's events. First, Natalie shocked me by going down the stairs all by herself at a friend's house on Saturday night. She was having fun playing with her friend Ian, who lives there, and a bunch of us were in the living room letting them do whatever they wanted. For a long time they were just playing in the front room, so I figured that's where they still were. Nope, Phil went to check on her and found out the two of them had gone down to his playroom in the basement. Natalie never has gone down our stairs without holding our hands, and we have soft, carpeted stairs. These were those unfinished, slatted basement stairs, with a hard cement landing at the bottom. Here at home, she still doesn't go down stairs without reaching for a hand to hold, so I still don't know how she did it because she can't scoot down those kind of stairs. Ian, the older, more adventurous kid she was with, probably instigated it. She plays with him for hours without fights or tears, but she also seems to go when he says go and do pretty much whatever he says. This better not become a trend with Natalie and boys... :-)

Another interesting thing that Natalie is doing right now is when she plays with her babies and her play food, she puts her baby's head down and "prays" with the baby before every course. The other day she gave the baby a hamburger, then water, then pie, then cheese, then more water. Before she fed the baby each thing, baby prayed. For some reason, she also thinks that a little play carton of milk is medicine for the baby. She tilts the carton up to the baby's mouth and says "meddie!"

I forgot to mention in my last entry that on New Year's Day, I took Natalie over to my mom's house to watch the HGTV broadcast of the Rose Parade (no commercials and they show everything, unlike network TV), and mid-morning, she crawled up into Grandpa Brett's (Papoo) lap and snuggled down for a long time - it had to be at least a half hour and probably more. She'd never really snuggled up to him for a long period of time before - probably because, since I'm usually there she's in my lap. She stayed there so long and Brett got so comfy too that he fell asleep. Natalie never did fall asleep; I kept watching her eyes: they stayed open, but just very relaxed. It was really cute. 

January 2, 2004
Woah, "morning sickness" has hit pretty hard the past few days. I read a good quote in a book called The Morning Sickness Companion, which read something to the effect of, "The term morning sickness must have been coined by a man who saw his wife only in the morning before heading off to work for the rest of the day." It's been different than with Natalie, when I felt pretty much lightly nauseated (but tolerable) all day long, non-stop. This time, it's hitting in waves; really hard a few times per day. At least I don't always feel sick, so I get some breaks, but when it hits it's worse than it was with Natalie. Today the only thing I could stomach eating for lunch was a big bowl of popcorn, which, along with dairy products, is pretty much the only thing I've been craving so far. The other day I ate spicy potato chips washed down with milk, which I thought would be disgusting, but it was just what I wanted. I was feeling really nauseated, and I thought the really spicy chips might cut through it, which it did. At least this nausea is a little reassuring that everything is going okay, that plus it seems like my belly pooched out a little more just overnight. (I'd forgotten how sometimes big changes happen very quickly, like when last time I woke up one morning and my belly button had popped out.) As hard as the nausea has been the last couple days and today in particular, the reassurance was good to have today, because I had a little spotting yesterday. Everything I've read says it's normal, but I knew it was too late for it to be implantation spotting, so it still had me a little concerned. It was just a little yesterday afternoon, and then no more, so I think everything is just fine.

We had a quiet, nice new year's eve. We had had plans for a murder mystery party, but our friends who were hosting it had their baby girl come down with the flu that night, so it had to be canceled. So we just rented some movies and had a relaxing night at home, which felt like just the right thing to do this year anyway. Phil hasn't been sleeping well because he's had a bad cough, which means I haven't been sleeping well either (that plus frequent trips to the potty) so we were really tired and liked the idea of spending the night doing nothing. 

One more thing I wanted to mention today, I thought that maybe Natalie had started to forget but apparently not. Very early this morning, after Phil nor I had slept well, Natalie wanted to get up before the sun and she refused to lay back down to go back to sleep. After fussing for a bit, Phil gave up and brought her into our room. She cuddled right up with me but still didn't want to go to sleep, and after a few minutes, started tugging at my pajamas and said "nurse". That was the first time she had even mentioned it in a long time! When both of us told her, "no, Natalie, nursing is all gone" her whole face clouded over and she cried. It didn't take long before she just settled back down cuddling up with me, although she never did fall back asleep this morning. I'm also having trouble getting this kid to take a nap these days. She just refuses to do the 'go to bed and go to sleep' thing when I try it. Phil can usually get her to take a nap when he is home, but when it's just Natalie and me, unless we are out and she falls asleep in the car, or I need a nap so bad that I just take her in with me for a nap, she doesn't take a nap. I don't know whether she's about to give up her nap entirely (the plus side is she's going to bed much earlier than ever before) or if she's just being particular about not letting me put her down to sleep in her crib like daddy does.