Leslie's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 1/16/04 -------------------- 11/10/03 -------------------- Leslie's Introduction

January 16, 2004

Dear Ladies:

It's hard to believe that the holidays are all past and we're into another new year! Time continues to fly by. I hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday season. Ours was very nice. It was great to spend time with my parents, sister and her family, and extended family over the Thanksgiving holiday. My little nephew is growing so fast and is so cute. I wish we could see him more often. The only bad thing about our trip is that I got a 24-hour virus and was sick on Thanksgiving Day. It's my favorite holiday-I love turkey, pumpkin pie and all the trimmings. I was so looking forward to it because it was the first time I'd be with my family and have our traditional Thanksgiving dishes in almost 10 years. I love spending the holidays with Bill's family, but they don't serve some of the dishes I grew up eating and loving. Instead, I was in the bed, unable to keep anything down or in my body. Luckily, I felt well enough to travel home the next day, Claudia didn't catch the virus at all, and Bill only had an extremely mild form of it (some queasiness, but nothing else).

Christmas was wonderful. My parents came and spent a week with us and we planned some fun activities. Stone Mountain Park is a huge park (and location of the largest granite formation in the U.S.) near us that has many attractions. One of the things that they have is a mock 19th century village where you can see iron working, glass blowing, and that sort of thing. They had a special Christmas event where the whole village was decorated with lights and there were lots of activities for kids. There was a snow angel, Mrs. Santa Claus, a 4-D Christmas movie, and a train ride around the mountain. Claudia had an absolute blast and my parents really enjoyed seeing her having so much fun. We also spent a day in Helen, Georgia-a mock Bavarian village (see a trend here?) in the mountains and one of Georgia's most popular honeymoon sites. We also drove over to Bill's campus so that my parents could see where he spends most of his week.

We didn't get around to putting up or decorating our Christmas tree until my parents arrived. I didn't have the energy before then, and Bill was busy with exams and end of the semester activities. This was the first year that Claudia seemed really aware of Christmas, so we let her decorate the lower portion of the tree with our unbreakable ornaments. She loved it! She had made a star for the tree in daycare, and even though we have a very nice angel, we used her star. Bill held her up and let her put it on top of the tree. I think that because we involved her in the decorating of the tree, she didn't feel as inclined to "mess" with it. She would occasionally move ornaments from one location to the other, but otherwise didn't bother the tree. We kept the presents behind the tree in the bay window so she wouldn't be tempted, and that worked out very well.

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve with Bill's mother and step-family and that was, as always, very nice. This year, Bill's father and step-mother had Christmas dinner with us. Otherwise, it was a fairly quiet, and nice, holiday. Claudia was excited about opening presents, but didn't seem to care much what was in the packages. Because the grandparents gave her so many things, Santa just brought her a doll baby with accessories. We thought it might be helpful for her to have her own baby when the new baby is born.

Claudia Update
Claudia continues to grow and learn and amaze us. She turned 2 on January 7. Unfortunately, she had the flu, so we were not able to celebrate her birthday very much. This past week, I took cupcakes and party favors to her daycare and they had a party for her there. I think she was somewhat confused about whose birthday it was, though, because she didn't seem to understand that the party was for her.

Claudia is becoming quite sophisticated in her speech and talks in short sentences now. She doesn't babble nearly as much as she did just a few months ago and seems to understand much more too. She'll tell us when she's hungry and what she'd like to eat; she tells me when she's sleepy, or cold, and when she wants to go outside. She's still telling us when she's wet or stinky ("stinky poop!" or "I want to change you") but hasn't progressed very far with potty training. She now says, "I want to potty" and will sit on the potty, but doesn't actually do anything in it. We're still taking it slowly. Most of the children in her daycare are older than she is and are not potty trained. I think that once they begin using the potty more regularly, she will too. There's not much else I can do about it, since I'm not with her during the day. She still loves music (a favorite and often requested song is Elton John's "Levon"-she sings along!) and is lately obsessed with the Wiggles.

We are thinking of transitioning Claudia to a big bed soon. We'll need the crib for the new baby in just a few months and she has started to sleep more like a grown person. Even just a few months ago, Claudia would be all over the bed and would curl up on her tummy. Lately, I find her in about the same place I put her down when I go to wake her up. She also keeps a blanket on better these days. My sister gave us her childhood bed and we plan to buy some rails to use with it for a while. Claudia has never tried to climb out of her crib, so it will be interesting to see if she stays in her big bed.

Lately, she seems to be afraid of the dark if she wakes in the night, so we have been experimenting with different things. On the way back from our Thanksgiving trip, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for dinner, and Claudia became fascinated with this porcelain angel with fiber optic wings. She really is a beautiful doll. Anyway, Bill was so touched by that, that he bought her for Claudia. She stands probably 18 inches high and her wings glow and move. We have her on Claudia's dresser, across from her crib, and we plug her in and leave her on until Claudia is asleep. She always kisses the angel goodnight and tells us about her wings, candle, hair, etc. We have also put a regular night-light in Claudia's room. These things seem to be helping.

Baby News
On December 3, I had my "big" ultrasound. Baby is just perfect, growing on schedule, and is…..a boy! Bill was very excited when he found out because he had really wanted a boy. I didn't really care, but it has taken a little getting used to. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited too, but I know that it's going to be a different experience. I suppose another girl would be a different experience too, though. I continue to feel pretty well, and recently passed my glucose tolerance test. I'm carrying this baby differently than I carried Claudia, so that's been a new experience. I carried her very high and somewhat wide, so I was often short of breath. I'm carrying Little Boy low, so my belly is bigger and sticking further out than it did with Claudia. With her, I barely showed for the longest time and didn't wear many maternity clothes. With Little Boy, I already feel big and I still have 3 months to go. He is also a lot more active than Claudia was. She was pretty mellow, and would just kind of roll around. With this baby, it often feels like he's playing soccer in there!

Though I feel larger this time, so far I'm not experiencing too many difficulties. I'm beginning to have some joint pain and round ligament pain, but I'm not congested the way I was with Claudia and I'm still sleeping pretty well at night. My balance is not so good, though. I've fallen twice in the last two months, but luckily both times I fell forward onto my knees and hands and had no ill effects. I'm trying to be very careful these days. So far, I've only gained 13 pounds.

It's weird, because you'd think that after having Claudia I'd be okay with all of this, but I'm feeling rather apprehensive about childbirth again. I'm not afraid of labor, but I didn't have the easiest time of it-my blood sugar got very low. It was after the birth that I had the hardest time-bruised, stunned bladder; tearing; terrible joint pain for weeks; blood sugar that wouldn't seem to regulate. I felt like I'd been run over by several 18-wheelers. I can't say that I'm really looking forward to that. On the other hand, the idea of a c-section is even more frightening to me. Though I don't want a delivery full of medical interventions, I do plan to ask to be induced again this time. With Bill 90 miles away in the mountains, my mother-in-law an hour and a half away, and my parents 10 hours away, the idea of being in labor on my own with a toddler is a scary proposition. If I'm induced, I can plan to have supports in place to care for me and especially Claudia, and I'll know that Bill will be with me. Well, I guess I have a few more months to get ready for all of this!

I'll try not to take so much time to post another entry next time, although my life seems to get busier and more complicated all the time! Until next time, take care!

Leslie, Claudia (1/7/02), and Little Boy (edd 4/19/04)