So it turns out I wasn't just sleepy

I understand why I couldn't keep my eyes open on Monday now. Annabella gave me her stomach bug. Yucko. After lots of sleep, and some grossness you don't want to hear about, I'm feeling much better. It's a good thing she's so cute :)

I'm sleepy

After a nice weekend, you'd think I'd be refreshed. But my girls just couldn't have that. The little one decided to have a dance party in my tummy that kept me awake starting around 3:30, and then the big one decided that she needed Mommy at about 4:50. Yawn.

60 days and counting

My due date is 60 days away. The closer it gets, the further it seems to stretch in front of me. I know the time will pass by and Awesome Pants will be here and it will have felt like the time flew by. But right now, I just want to meet her, to smell the top of her little head, to introduce her to Annabella, to feel my world shift again. She needs to bake awhile longer though; so I guess I'll just have to try to be patient.

In other news, I got an email yesterday about Annabella's transition at daycare. They want to move her up to the two's room starting on her birthday. I'm really nervous about this. She'll be the only toddler from her current room to move up to that room, at least for a couple weeks. The 2 toddlers who are slightly older than her are going to a different room. She might recognize some friends from the other toddler room, but they are quite a bit older than she is. The daycare person tried to alleviate my concerns, but I think she was feeding me a few lines of BS, honestly. "Oh, Annabella plays with Rylee all the time on the playground. And she likes to play with Tatum too." Funny that those are names I never hear when her teachers tell me who she's playing with. And it seems like the original biter (if I narrowed it down correctly) will be following her into her new room. With 3 or 4 biters in her current room and some next door as well, I can't honestly expect Annabella to be isolated from all of them when she moves up to her next room, but a Momma can hope, right? Even with all that, normally I would understand. She is turning 2 after all, and she will need to move up. The resources in the next room will better match her development, and she'll probably have more room to run. But the thing that still really troubles me about this transition is that it will be so darn close to an even bigger transition for her. I'm supposed to pop around 16 days before her birthday. I was thinking our one saving grace would be that her daycare routine would stay stable and help Annabella deal with having a new baby sister. Annabella transitioned from the infant to toddler room sometime in November last year; so I just wasn't expecting for them to want to move her in September. Argh! I've voiced some of these concerns to the admin staff; so we'll see if they give us another option. (I'm further frustrated because we had the option of accepting or declining last year's transition, depending on whether we thought Annabella was ready. This year we've been offered no such option. Grr. And don't even get me started on some of my other daycare admin gripes!)

Whew! I guess I can rant on and on when my Mother Bear comes out.

I don't think there's much more to update about, really. Annabella is continuing to assert her independence. She's choosing to sit at her big girl table rather than on her booster seat, which is a little sad for me because I miss having her at our height at the dinner table. She's screaming her head off before sleep, whether it be naptime or bedtime. She's pointing to let us know where she wants to go at any given time. She's talking more and more, and she gets so excited when she sees a duck or water. She's my little angel, and I couldn't love her more.

I'm updating over my lunch break at work; so I don't have any pictures from home to share. So I'm going to cheat again and give you some more from daycare (again with comments from her teacher):

This morning when we went outside, we saw a praying mantis! Annabella tried so hard to pet him, but he kept crawling away. When he would start to climb up higher, Annabella said "bye!" and waved.

After playing with the bug, Annabella wanted to play in the bushes with her friend Hannah (not pictured, because I feel weird having other kids' pictures up on the blog). They sat together and Annabella and Hannah "talked" to each other like they were having the best conversation! What a great way to learn social skills with others!

I think that last picture is kind of funny, because it shows Annabella's personality. She's obviously hot. You only have to look at her red little cheeks to see that. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that you'd have to drag her inside. After all, she's at her favorite place to be, "ahtsi" (aka, outside).

Vacation

We just got back from visiting friends in a cute little town in upstate New York. We had so much fun, and it was hard to come back to face the daily grind. I think Annabella had the best time out of all of us though, as JJ and Seda spoiled her rotten. Her days were filled with special sweet surprises, trips to the park, and dips in the kiddie pool.

Some of my favorite memories from the trip:

• Annabella shared a room with us, and I got to roll over and watch my baby sleeping over and over again. There was just something so sweet about seeing her perfect little body curled up with her butt in the air for sleep. And I never knew she sleeps with her ankles crossed. So cute!
• Watching my baby discover smores. We couldn't get Annabella to eat a marshmallow to save our lives, but melt it and smash it between chocolate and graham cracker and it was an instant hit. She might not have known what it was, but she liked it.
• Visiting with some dearly-missed friends. Good friends are hard to come by. And Seda and JJ aren't just good friends, they're cream-of-the-crop friends.
• Swapping pregnancy stories. Seda is 8 weeks behind me in her pregnancy, and it was fun to have another expectant mommy around.
• All the good food. Seda is an AMAZING cook. Everything she makes is just so good. And JJ's not too shabby either :) I think Annabella heartily agreed as she ate more food over this vacation than any other 3 day period in her life. It was crazy to see how much food she downed and how distended her little belly was.
• Seeing Annabella wake up in the morning to discover that she was still in the place of awesome fun.
• Watching my friends spoil my child. The were pretty obviously enamored with her. I remember reading somewhere that showing my child love is showing me love, and it's true. I was so touched they spent so much time playing with her and suffering through the heat of the sun so she could be outside (her favorite place in the world).
• The local fair... There's no way I could explain it in such a way to do it justice, but I've never seen so many back-woodsy people congregated in one place before in my life. Plus it featured my first demolition derby, Annabella's first sno-cone, and a child who appeared to have bleeding chicken pox who stood in line just behind us. I didn't understand why Seda was asking which childhood diseases we were supposed to avoid during pregnancy until I caught a good look at this girl, and then I decided it was time for both of us to leave. But it was still fun.

And because I've bored you with vacation stories, I'll include the pictures Annabella's daycare teacher emailed us today (along with the teacher's comments):

First Annabella quickly found the teeter totter and bounced on it with her friend.

Then, Annabella found a quiet spot away from her friends to dig in the sand. She used a shovel to scoop sand into a small container. What a fun way to show off her hand-eye coordination.

When she was done with her digging, Annabella went to play on the slide. She stood at the top of the slide and said "hi!" to all her friends before she slid down. What fun!