In Jesus' Name, Elmo. Week 91.31

Dear Nathan,
This week you have really gotten into the alphabet. Particularly the letters "A" "B" "I" and the numbers 1 and 2. You are saying more words, including those that start with the letter "P". And while the color yellow was so last week, this week you get excited when you spot purple and blue objects. You will say "boo" for blue and your purple is pretty good. You can point to red, green, gray and pink objects when prompted, but you're not very good at saying those colors yet.

You are very excited when you see Elmo. Your pronunciation of Elmo sounds like Eh-mo. So does your "Amen." So it's kind of cute when you end prayers with Elmo. Some days I let you watch old school episodes of Sesame Street. I really think you are picking up a lot of things from the show, particularly alphabet letters. Every time a little segment with Elmo ends, you always call out and sign "more." I don't get why Elmo is so popular with little kids.

It's slowly getting hotter (but thankfully no temps above 100 yet [knock on wood]). So we've been spending a bit more time inside. Here are some new games that we are playing.

Paper Towel Roll Bowling

You like to set up the "pins"

Taking Aim

Throw the Ball. I've been trying to get you to roll it. You like to throw it. 

You like doing this better than a few months ago.

Also, a few other favorites are ice scooping (scooping ice out of a bucket with different spoons and toys) as well as more traditional favorites like wooden puzzles. You really like it when I call out a piece for you to find and put back into its rightful home. 

You also found a bucket of spare Ikea parts with brackets, bolts, wooden dowels and wrenches. You will sit quietly and play with the pieces for a long time. You like to put the bolts into the holes and use a screw driver to turn the bolts.

This week, we went to goodwill just to see what they had. I found a toy cash register (whose electronics parts were broken, but you still like to play with it) and a couple of wooden horses. Here you are racing Daddy. 

Playing supermarket is called "beep beep." Usually one of us shops for groceries with a baby in the cart. We then pretty much act out what happens once we get to the check out. The baby helps the mommy put the food on the conveyor belt and the cashier beeps each item and places it in the bag. Then the mommy pays for the groceries with the credit card and the cashier hands the baby some buddy bucks. The mommy and baby then go to the machine and if you are the cashier, you like to join us too to spin the prize wheel. After we collect our points, we push the cart to the couch car, load everything and everyone up, and drive away.

Potty training is still going. You are getting really good at letting us know when you need to go poop. You can even say "poo poo" but you are still just using the "potty" sign. We've had lots of pee pee accidents this week, but at least you are realizing this and signing "potty" after the fact. You love to spin the toilet paper roll, but we try to keep you busy with a few of your favorite potty books.

 We had our monthly baby party this month at the same splash pad that we visited a few weeks ago when your grandparents were visiting. When we got there, there was just a few kids running around, so you were much more spirited and enthusiastic about splashing and running through the fountains. After an hour or so, more kids showed up and you (along with your friends) started to become more clingy. Which worked out, since it was about lunch time. We went and got some yummy tacos at Austin's famous Taco Deli.

Swim lessons started this week. I'm a bit disappointed with the instructor this year. She pretty much just says, blow bubbles and has us working on that for awhile. Through the whole half hour session, we sang 1 or 2 songs. Last year, we sang songs through the whole class. Hopefully it gets better. I offered to suggest a few songs for class and she seemed enthusiastic/receptive.

Your friends Abigail and Evey are in the class too.

After lunch today, I gave you some frozen blueberry yogurt mousse. I left to eat while I cleaned up from lunch and when I returned, I found this little monster. When you saw yourself in the mirror, you simply exclaimed "woah!"

A few days ago, I got a chance to finally speak with the doctor. She answered all of my questions and assured me that the hospital is very pro mom and will try to accommodate the wishes of the mother. So I guess this time around, I will be laboring at a hospital. 

I have an appointment next week to see a perinatal specialist to get my gestational diabetes under control (mainly through diet). I still have a bad feeling about this diagnosis and kind of feel that my baby will come out just fine even if I stick to everything that I am currently doing. I'm curious to see what they will suggest. 

At night, I've been busy with a project for your little sister's room. We found a dresser on craigslist and decided to repaint it. Here's the before picture: 

 I am so glad that the guy who sold it to us had sanded it down already. While we had borrowed a power sander from a neighbor, the rest of the work was difficult enough with a big belly in the way.

I painted it with an aqua color that is a little bit lighter than a shade of aqua that is in the inspiration fabric for little sister's room. I spray painted the handles with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint since there were a few pieces that didn't quite match.

 I really love how it turned out and I'm glad that the work is completed. Now we just have to get it upstairs. I'll probably post another picture once we have the whole nursery decorated. I really just need to put in a few floating shelves and we are set.

Oh, I also painted a frame from Ikea the same color. When we bought the dresser, the guy convinced Daddy to take a dresser mirror since he had so many. What are we going to do with a dresser mirror? Silly Daddy. But I may try to cut out a mirror to put into the frame so that the dresser has a mirror above it instead of a cork board or a white erase board (as I had originally planned on doing).

Well, that's about it for now.

Mommy