Sounds like today is going to be a tragedy, too. Yesterday Lowell couldn’t/wouldn’t stop crying. This morning, it’s James; crying to the point of not being able to breathe. And when we’re supposed to be leaving for church. *sigh* If we didn’t have the sweet moments, sometimes it just doesn’t seem like it’s worth it.
So we did the pumpkin patch again today with Daddy and it wasn’t nearly as fun as it was on Friday… because Lowell was a grumpy-grump, because Lowell was a tired grumpy grump, I correct myself. So we left around noon and he slept on the drive home (an hour) but missed his normal 2 hour nap and is already ready for bed. It’s 5:45.
SO, it was also superdupercalifagilistic crowded and cloudy to boot. I haven’t looked at the pictures yet, but I wanted to post a picture of something I found on the drive out there yesterday morning. I made David stop on the way out there today so he could see it, too.
We’re in the praying stage. The major hesitation is that it is a 2002 and has 107K miles on it already. But the price is right. (And it’s loaded) And it’s a private seller so we have some negotiation room (hopefully in the downward direction)… The comparible mileage/year/make/models we’ve found have been in the $10-12K range, which makes us wonder. It’s listed at $10,500 though and was just “reduced.” Hrmmmm…. Thoughts? (yes, we know about a mechanic and yes, we know about carfax, and we will do both)
I’m opening up comments, or feel free to email us if you know our email.
Edited to add - the listing says the transmission has been replaced (there are loads of recalls on Odysseys’ transmissions from 2002-2004 models, but we will have to find out if this particular one had the “right” repairs…) as well as having a new A/C (our blue car just got a new AC about a year ago, so we know how important those are!).
We’re headed back out to Sweet Berry Farm again this morning, this time with Daddy.
Here are 3 quick pictures of our trip yesterday morning.
31 week checkup –
102/68, up 16 pounds overall (gained 16 with James but started off 10 pounds heavier, gained 26 pounds with Lowell but started 5 pounds lighter, expected weight gain to be about 23-25 pounds total), TONS of movement, Braxton Hicks about 5 times per day, no complaints.
The birth is completely paid for.
Next appointment on Halloween. I’ll be nearly 35 weeks (34w6d) on Halloween, and totally think I should be going every 2 weeks now… Same as last time then… We’ll go every 4 weeks or so then every week! eek! 9 weeks to go!
Maybe Little Post
No updates while I knit 3 sweaters in less than a month… unless David has something to say.
It looks like he was going to sneeze (to me) but, really, he was just singing a song.
We primed one big wall of the garage in preparation to add chalkboard paint to the lower 5 feet of it so the boys could draw on the wall in the garage with their sidewalk chalk. It looks so good, I want to finish priming and painting the rest of the garage!
Don’t expect much from us in the way of pictures of the boys dressed up as anything in a month. James is very against putting on anything other than a tee shirt and his “soft shorts” that he gets to pick out. Lowell will probably fit into the little ninja costume that we have leftover from 2 years ago, but I’m not going to push it. I’m not one to force the boys to do anything that they do not want to do, like dressing up. Hey, it’s cheaper not having to buy/make costumes, and David and I don’t like dressing up as something that we’re not, honestly, so I don’t feel like pushing the issue.
We do have plans, however, to paint up my tummy as a pumpkin, or an eyeball, or maybe a pokemon ball (in honor of Tait and Ransom) or something equally as round. We’ve started a small stash of candy and will be up late that night for the neighborhood kids, but we won’t go all out with dressing up and that. There’s plenty of time later in their little lives to do that sort of thing, and maybe later they’ll be into something you can actually dress up as. I don’t think it would be very easy for James to dress up as a parking lot, or Lightening McQueen, or a LETTER of the alphabet, or HEB (and he’s not big enough to fit into the HEBuddy costume) right now.
James is a whiz kid with letters and words and spelling and sounding out what he reads, and we owe it all to They Might Be Giants. Seriously. James goes to bed (and every-other-day nap) with the Here Come the ABC’s CD playing and has the entire thing memorized. He’s constantly singing the songs.
But more than the songs, it has piqued his interest in all things LETTER related (we switch between letters and numbers so the same things goes for the Here Come the 123’s CD as well) and we find letters everywhere. We’ve also reinforced his love of letters by signing them. He can now successfully sign all 26 letters with the ASL fingerspelling signs and he’s beginning to be able to read our singing and tell us what word we spelled “Z-O-O… that’s zoo!”
His favorite word used to be “R-E-D spells red!” but now we’re venturing onto his name and whatever other words are in front of him. He goes potty all by himself and his wipes are “F-L-U-S-H-A-B-L-E what’s that spell, Mommy?” On Friday, David said he spelled S-A-U-C-E and David asked him what word that was, James answered “That’s sauce, Daddy.” without any help. We think he is beginning to understand that the words have meanings. One of our games if we’re waiting anywhere for any amount of time is to find some letters and read them forward and backwards, sometimes even signing them.
After breakfast, when we don’t have anywhere to go (which, you know, is everyday) we’ll pull out the pen and paper and practice drawing letters. David has him 4/5ths of the way able to write his name. I’m stunned. I hadn’t even thought to work on writing his name. H is still his favorite letter, even though that’s not in his name.
Oh, and about the potty… he’s capable of doing everything on his own, but he prefers having someone to put his underwear back on him, and most of the time he forgets to flush and wash his hands. I was stunned to realize one day that I hadn’t had to ask him a single time if he needed to “go” — that he had taken himself to the potty on his own several times that day. He prefers “Mommy Daddy’s potty” since there is a window in our bathroom and doesn’t need to turn on the light, even though we have the light switch extensions on his bathroom’s light switch. If we can just get the flush and wash down, I’m perfectly okay with dressing him afterwards. He is growing up so quickly.
***
In other news, Lowell started singing tonight. “Roooh, roooh, rooooh, . . . BOAT!” It was the first time I heard him singing a song. When you ask Lowell what color anything is, he answers, “Blue!” His vocabulary is slowing increasing though he doesn’t talk very much (who needs to with a chatty big brother around?) … we have heard some 2-word phrases though, so we’re not worried about his development. His favorite word is “Mine!” I wonder why… he is just too cute!