Orange Crush

Luke's favorite color right now is orange. He loves it! Every time he colors, he chooses the orange crayon or the orange piece of chalk. I thought it was just a coincidence, but when I picked him up from daycare earlier this week, one of his beautiful masterpieces was on orange construction paper with orange marker. Beautiful, but all orange, nonetheless! I mentioned this to the teacher, and she showed me a second piece that he'd done that day. A bird, painted orange.

What does this mean? I tried to look it up on the internet, but I wasn't quite sure what to Google. "My kid likes orange." "Toddler always picks orange." I found this about the psychology of orange: Orange is tied most to fun times, happy and energetic days, and organic products.

We'll see if it continues. Next week, we might be onto blue.

Big Boy Bed

I feel like I'm getting closer to getting ready. Luke's new big boy furniture was delivered this morning. It will be a long time until he really uses these bunk beds so we'll have a toddler bed in his room for a while, too. But, we didn't want to buy another crib set. He's a big boy now! Or, close to it.

We've moved the crib set into the other bedroom for the new baby. Luke and Dad did a great job of putting it all together. I did a good job of watching. Luke's been more than helpful lately and is very interested in the babies at daycare. He likes to visit the baby (Caterpillar) room before we go into his room, except that he's kind of like King Kong in there and seems to knock them over and barrel his way through their play area. He seems to know that there's a baby inside my belly, and he's extra clingy lately. Maybe he knows things are changing soon ... Aunt Lanie made the new baby the cutest going home outfits. One for Madeline (we decided on this spelling, instead of Madeleine) and one for Grant. They're so adorable! I can't wait to meet this little sweetbean.

Luke vs. Max

Since Max is tiny, just like Luke, it lends to a pretty even match between the two. Even a tug-of-war battle ends in a tie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-7f4nHyd9Q

Bye Bye, Pacifier

We've done it. Or, at least we're trying to do it. It's night 5 of not using a pacifier. He typically uses it only when he goes to sleep, but we've done without for almost a week now. The first couple of nights he cried for his "night night" but tonight he didn't even say anything about it. So ... maybe?

And, instead of his "night night," he's resorted to taking not one, but two busses to bed now. Grandmother and Grandad brought him the green bus from their latest vacation. They don't make busses in Malta that stand up to an almost 2-year-old! It stayed in tact for about 10 minutes. Now, it's a convertible bus.

37 Weeks!

I'm full-term this week! At this point, all I think about is this new baby. I can't wait to meet him/her! My blood pressure has been staying pretty high the last few weeks, and Dr. Sweeney has me check it at home twice a day.

Last week (picture above) she was hinting around at putting me on either bed rest or cutting work back to part-time. And, she told me to "take it easy" which made me laugh. She had me come in for another sonogram and some stress tests to make sure the high blood pressure was just that and not hypertension or pre-eclampsia.

Turns out, all is OK. Baby is growing normally (about 6 pounds, 12 ounces) and fluid levels look good. I'm dilated to a 1 and 60% effaced already, so he/she might come early!

Mother's Day 2011

Right now, I'm sitting with my feet up enjoying my nice clean house and smelling like lavender. For Mother's Day, Adam (AKA Husband of the Year) treated me to a prenatal massage, facial and manicure AND agreed to hiring a house cleaner. Who knows if the house cleaner will stick, but we'll try it out for a couple of months. With a full-time job and two babies (one that's not here quite yet), I'm done with mopping the floors for a while. Plus, my blood pressure is sky high, so it's just one thing that I'm not going to do right now.

As for the prenatal massage, there's a new salon by our house, and this is the second time that Adam has given me a gift certificate. It's so awesome! I wish it would've been there last time I was pregnant. I think I fell asleep twice today. And, I have so much lavender oil on me, I must make everyone around me sleepy.

We saw my mom and Brooke on Saturday for a Mother's Day lunch, and we got together with Adam's mom and family on Sunday at his brother Eric's house. They have a pool, and I was 100% positive that Luke would totally love it, but he didn't so much. He seemed really scared the entire time. I think it was too cold, and maybe next year, he'll be a little more more daring.

Luke and Aunt Amy playing with her phone. He loves looking at "shishures" (pictures), and he could see himself on Amy's iPhone when she snapped them, which he thought was really funny.

The massage was great, but this definitely took the cake. My very favorite Mother's Day present. Luke painted me a beautiful picture!

Overall, it was a great day. I'm so lucky to be Luke's momma and count my lucky stars that I get to do it again for this new baby.