Rude Awakenings.

As you can tell from my last post, we've been having fun around here. Madeline has all of a sudden become a great fan of temper tantrums. My normally sweet, well-behaved little girl is still sweet and well-behaved- if you don't try to make her do anything she doesn't want to do or punish her for misbehavior. We've been trying to remain sane and remember Madeline is a two year old who isn't intentionally trying to drive us into the nut house. The fun continued this morning, however, when Madeline woke up at 5:45 and came running into our room wide awake. She then proceeded to hop into the middle of the bed and take up more space than should be feasibly possible for two and a half foot munchkin.

Being the great parents we are, Jessie and I tried to ignore her and sleep anyway. But after twenty minutes of getting pummeled and climbed on and getting edged ever closer to the side of the bed, I found I couldn't ignore Madeline anymore when she literally kicked me out of bed. Luckily I landed on a body pillow I keep on the floor next to me. And oddly enough, my first feeling at hitting the floor was relief that I was away from Madeline and now only being kicked by one child. (Madeline is already pretty good at waking up her little sister when I don't want her to. A skill I'm sure she will continue to perfect.) It was actually fairly comfortable on the floor, and I wasn't fighting anyone for space. But my solitude only lasted about two minutes, when Madeline became concerned when I didn't come back up to the bed and jumped down to find me. And I discovered having a twenty-five pound child cannonball onto your stomach is definitely more uncomfortable than being kicked out of bed by said twenty-five pound child. Then the poking and prodding and kicking began again, and I gave up on getting any more sleep.

With that kind of start to the day, I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to make it through the day without any major nervous breakdowns or dissolving into tears. Madeline and I are actually back on good terms and enjoying each other's company. Here's hoping the good times continue. And that tomorrow we get to sleep past 6 am.

The story of lunchtime.

Around noon I tried to get Madeline to eat lunch. I asked her repeatedly what she would like and if she was hungry. I gave her several examples and options. She totally ignored me for twenty minutes. I gave up and went to load the dishwasher.

Five minutes after I started doing dishes, she came into the kitchen and threw herself on the floor and screamed. "Lunch!"

I am trying to be patient. "What do you want? Yogurt? A sandwich? Pancakes?" She pulls out a piece of cheese from the refrigerator and starts to unwrap it. "Okay. You can have a cheese sandwich."

"No. No pancakes. No sandwich. Cheese!"

"You can't have just cheese. You have to eat it on a sandwich."

"No! Madeline open the cheese!"

Repeat this conversation six times. I give up again and go back to doing dishes. Five minutes later Madeline gets in the fridge, pulls out a loaf of bread, and screams, "Sandwich!"

"Okay. Would you like a cheese sandwich or a jelly sandwich?"

"No jelly. No cheese. Bread!"

"You can't have a sandwich with just bread. Would you like cheese on your bread?"

"No. No jelly. No meat. No cheese. Bread!"

Repeat three times until I give up and just make her a baloney and cheese sandwich without asking her permission. She climbs up into her chair, screaming the whole time, and I give her the sandwich and go to make pancakes for myself. Two minutes later, she screams that she wants to get out. I look and she has had one small piece of baloney.

"You didn't eat anything. Will you eat some more?"

"No! Get out!"

"Do you want some pancakes?"

"No! No pancakes! Get out!"

Repeat four times. (Starting to sound familiar?) I give up and let her out and finish making my pancakes while she has hysterics on the floor because she wants her nose wiped and I haven't done it because it's unclear what she wants when she's speaking in gibberish and yelling into the floor. I sit down to eat and ask her if she will stop crying and ask me clearly what she wants.

"Please pancakes!" she sobs.

I get her some pancakes while she cries because I'm breaking it into small pieces and cries because I'm putting syrup on it for her, and cries when I stop putting on the syrup because she's screaming "no syrup!" and starts screaming "please syrup!". We sit down to eat.

We eat for about thirty seconds when she demands I refill her juice. And then has a fit because she wants to put the lid back on her cup herself. And then cries because the lid is on and she can't get it off. And then cries when I take it off.

We have a very pleasant lunch, punctuated by screaming every ten seconds because a) her juice lid is not acceptable b) she needs her nose wiped again c) she wants cookies d)I have two vitamin pills to take and she has only one e) her sandwich is still visible on the other side of the table f) life is a hard, miserable existence and she is clearly being abused.

We finish lunch and I have decided, at this point, that someone must be either sick or exhausted and should go down for a nap early. Madeline screams at me for trying to wash her hands and wipe her nose, and then because her nose isn't wiped, and then because she is tired. Then she runs away while I clean up lunch.

She proceeds to play happily and without complaint with her toys for the next hour and a half, a smile on her face, without once asking me to do anything except try on a pair of sunglasses.

I give up on life, decide my daughter is bipolar, and start searching online for boarding schools that take bipolar two year olds with snotty noses.

I love it when the month changes.

We're almost to October, and I can't convey how excited that makes me. Because there is a fairly decent chance I could have a baby in October. (Although I'm still resigning myself to November. Let's not get foolishly optimistic.) At any rate, I will be full-term this month. And October should have a lot of things to keep me busy and speed us towards the due date. For instance, my brother-in-law is getting married. We get to watch general conference. (Which is exciting because I love the prophet and apostles, and also because I can listen to them while reclining on a couch. Win-win.) My brother is leaving on his mission to Chile. And Halloween will soon be upon us. Mix in doctor's appointments almost every week, and we'll be pretty busy.

Poor Madeline is somewhat oblivious to the sudden change her life is about to take. She is very much aware that there is a baby sister coming, and she knows that makes Mommy tired and uninteresting, but she just has no way of grasping the magnitude of what a newborn baby will do to her schedule. When she's throwing fits or being particularly naughty, I admit I revel in the thought. When she's being adorable and loving and helpful, I feel kind of sad our one on one time is coming to an end. But I'm sure that once we get over the boring newborn thing and the jealousy, having a built in playmate 24 hours a day will more than compensate her for her loss of attention. Fortunately, we don't have to deal with this change for another month. Until then we just have to explain to Madeline why she can't go to school until she's five. Which may be just as traumatic.

Madeline's double life.

Madeline, seeing how tired and ready to be done with pregnancy I am, has kindly been stepping up her efforts to make the time fly by. Mostly by playing Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Some of her antics are pretty cute, and some are not so adorable.

Cute: Her new obsession with babies- hugs, kisses, giving them binkies, and generally being friendly.
Not Cute: Her new obsession with randomly hitting and kicking babies out of the blue.

Cute: Her eagerness to help me clean. Scrubbing the walls with rags, picking up her toys and dirty laundry without supervision, putting away shoes and clothes, etc.
Not Cute: The fact that she causes most of the messes I'm cleaning up. Trying to carry a bowl of cereal and milk around the house, getting raw eggs out of the fridge and smearing them across the floor, pulling all the toys out of her toybox at once, scattering goldfish around the house in an artistic fashion.

Cute: Memorizing Oh the Places You'll Go and other books and reading them back to me enthusiastically (even if I can't understand half of what she's saying.)
Not Cute: Demanding I read the same book over and over ten times in a row and throwing fits if I don't comply.

Cute: Running into our bed at six-thirty in the morning excited to snuggle with Mom and Dad and get them up for the day.
Not Cute: Running into our bed at six-thirty in the morning excited to snuggle with Mom and Dad and get them up for the day.

Cute: Running to the door to greet Daddy when he gets home, and practically falling down with excitement when he lets her wait for the carpool with him in the morning.
Not Cute: The tantrums and sobbing when Daddy leaves for work or meetings because he doesn't love her and is probably never coming back.

Cute: Making up dances and songs for our Mom's entertainment.
Not Cute: Making up dances and songs stark naked after baths and running the the house in said manner screaming because getting dressed and having your hair done is child abuse.

You get the idea. We sure are glad to have Madeline around, making our lives interesting, joyful, and occasionally stressful beyond all belief. Reminds us why we're having another one.

More of the same from us. Woohoo.

We've been alternating around here between being very busy and being very tired. We had a wonderful weekend at our stake conference. I really enjoyed the Saturday night session without Madeline distracting us from the talks, and Sunday we joined the rest of Utah county in listening to Sister Beck, Elder Holland, and President Packer. Quite the lineup.

We followed up this great spiritual weekend with two days of nausea, feeling exhausted nonstop, and feeling randomly anxious. Gotta love pregnancy hormones. Madeline got tired of me crashing on the couch while she watched movies and having to be dragged out of bed after she woke up from naps. (For the record, Madeline is not a gentle alarm clock. If anyone is having trouble waking up teenagers in the morning, she's available for work.) But we've felt a little better today, and got out of the house a bit, and Madeline got play her heart out with her little neighborhood friends. So life is good for a while. And maybe we'll finally get around to finishing up the last baby things we've been putting off for a month, like rounding up pacifiers and bottles, and fixing up a diaper station, and other riveting tasks. Or maybe not. I figure if we have diapers, clothes and a crib, we'll figure out the rest. In seven weeks. Seven weeks and four days. Not that we're counting.

Vacation!

All of a sudden I feel like it's fall. This makes me a little bit sad, but mostly pretty happy. For several reasons. First, because the temperature will be dropping, so I might actually venture out of my air-conditioned fortress. Also because it means we're officially less than two months from D-day. And autumn is just my favorite season all around, so win-win-win.

To celebrate the onset of September, we went on a family weekend getaway to St. George. I'd never really spent time there before, but it was a lot of fun. We went to Tuacahn and saw Tarzan, climbed around on a bunch of red rocks, spent a lot of time swimming, shopping, and golfing, and generally relaxed at the condo my parents rented. I may have spent a bit more time lounging than the others, as I was a bit under the weather. Madeline had a blast being spoiled and eating junk food and not sleeping at all. A nice way to spend a holiday weekend, overall.

Now we're back to real life, and being obsessed with having a baby in two months. Here's what's notable the last week or so:
-I finally had to ditch my wedding ring as the heat in St. George made my fingers fatter. It took a lot longer this time than with Madeline, so I'm okay with this development.
-We switched this month from appointments every 4 weeks to every 2 weeks. We might still be eight weeks away, but this is encouraging. It makes me feel like things are happening. Even if it's only that I'm getting weighed twice as often.
-Jalopy is getting stronger and kicking more. Usually when I'm trying to sleep. And occasionally hard enough that I gasp for breath. So much for hoping this baby would be calmer than Madeline.
-I'm not sleeping much at night anymore. I'll leave you to imagine how sad this makes me.

Anyway. That's what's exciting in the life of Cami. Until next time.