An Update Without Pictures

I can't believe I'm making an update without pictures, but there are too many random things I want to share and sometimes I just don't have pictures to go along with them!! I do have some photos from the Lebanese Food Festival this past weekend, and once I go through them I'll post those. . . .

As if I don't have enough to do between work, the house renovations, and life in general, I have decided to take another photography class this month. Cathy and Amanda are taking it with me. This class is supposed to take my photography to the next level. I had my first class this past Monday, and I will have three more classes. I cannot even put into words how much I learned at the first class. It seems simple now that I know it, but then since it took the instructor 3 hours to teach it to us, it is probably not as simple as it seems right now. I am actually looking forward to the next class. I'm also really glad that it's been some time in between my last class and this class. It has given me time to practice and understand the basics so that I can really understand and appreciate what I am learning now. I can't wait to see how this affects my photos. So far I don't have any homework, but I'm sure I'll have some later and I'll post those photos later.

This pregnancy is going really well. It is truly unbelievable how DIFFERENT this pregnancy is from the last one. At this exact gestation in my last pregnancy, I went into the hospital and only came home twice after that for less than 24 hours each time. At this exact gestation, I had been on bedrest at home for 7 weeks and in and out of the hospital with contractions for 3 weeks. So far now, I am living my regular life and, knock on wood, I have not had a single contraction. This past weekend, I had a forced closet cleaning out and worked my rear end off trying to clean out and put everything back up, I cooked and froze 6 casseroles, we took the kids to the Lebanese Food Festival, and I took the kids on a walk in their stroller. I went to bed absolutely exhausted Sunday night, but realized as I was going to sleep that at no point during this past weekend did I ever feel as tired as I did after taking a shower in the last pregnancy. . . .

I don't think the kids understand what is going on at all. Henry is completely oblivious to the fact that there is going to be a baby around the house, and I suspect that he will stay that way until the baby is at home and then he will be MAD about it. Even now he thinks that he is the only child I should hold. The girls seem to understand that something is happening, but not really what is happening. I tried explaining it to the kids the other day. I said, "Mommy has a baby in her belly." Henry had no interest and continued playing. Piper looked at me like I was an idiot, with an "as if" look that would make a teenage girl proud, at which point I realized that there is no way that she can understand that it is remotely possible that there actually is a baby in my belly, even if I tell her that there is. Rosemary was a little more trusting. She walked up to me, pulled my shirt up, didn't see a baby, and then looked at me in disgust for lying to her. Oh well.

Piper's recent favorite activity is antagonizing Henry. I had noticed that if any child gets bitemarks, it is Piper. And we can tell from the bitemarks if it is Henry or Rosemary because Rosemary has 4 more teeth than Henry, and the biter is almost always Henry. So, for the longest time I had assumed that Henry was mean to Piper. Now I think that Piper is mean to Henry and that Henry retaliates. I was in the playroom the other day, and Piper was sitting on my lap. Henry was sitting farther in front of us, with his back toward us, playing with a toy. Piper kept touching and pinching him, which REALLY made Henry mad. I told her to keep her hands to herself, then folded her arms across her chest and held them there to get the point across. She then started kicking him. Poor Henry was furious. His reaction just encouraged Piper. She had an entertained look on her face, as though she couldn't help herself. Piper and Rosemary seem to get along really well and share toys especially well, but if Henry has a toy, Piper can't help but try to take it from him. We're working on stopping this problem of course, but it is funny at times.

Henry has developed an obsession with keys. Not so much around the house, but whenever we leave the house, Henry needs his keys. We actually had a set of keys made for Henry the last time we were at Home Depot. He goes over to where we hang the keys before we leave to get his set of keys, then he holds his keys the entire time we are out of the house (and gets really quite angry if you try to take them from him). Once we get back home, Henry happily hands the keys over to hang back up where they belong.

Rosemary cracks me up. The things that she comes up with scare me. For instance, I will not put down one baby for another baby unless it is necessary -- everyone just has to wait their turn. A couple of months ago, Piper fell off the back of a ride-on toy and hit her head. I immediately put Rosemary down and ran to Piper to see if she was okay. Rosemary watched, then went over to the exact spot where Piper had been, laid on the floor, and mimicked Piper's screams. It was so funny that I made the mistake of encouraging it and picked up Rosemary and went on and on with "poor baby" and patting and rocking her and everything else. Rosemary quickly learned that the best way to get our attention when we were with another baby is to hit her head. She will now very gently bang her head on something, cover her eyes as though she is crying, then keeping both hands up close to her eyes, move one hand to the side so that she can see, and run to us for comfort. It's so funny and clever that we play the game with her. Henry and Piper have now learned the game, so we play it with everyone a few times a day.

We also have a new nanny now. Well, we had one that lasted a grand total of a week and a half, but now we have someone we all really like and that we hope will be with us for a long time. We also have a great substitute nanny that we are using a lot during April until the new nanny's schedule fits what we need. We owe a lot of thanks to Nana, Auntie Ann, and Lori and Harvey for getting us through the time we didn't have a nanny!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather. A post with pictures will be up soon!