Question of the day

"Momma, is your tummy getting big because you have a great big poop in there?"

Feeling movement

Dillon finally got to feel the baby move today! I've been trying to get her to feel the movements, but either the baby stops moving when Dillon puts her hand on my belly or most often, Dillon can't be still enough to distinguish her own movement from anything else. Today, the baby was kicking strongly enough for Dillon to feel it twice. She thought it was pretty cool & I'm glad she finally got to feel it.

Dillon's twins

I came home from work yesterday to hear Dillon's explanation of how her tummy was so big because she had twins in her tummy. Their names are Erma and Comey. We had to do lots of pretending that the babies were being born. I had to hold a washcloth (actually just a clean sock) on her head and help her dry the babies off when they were born- multiple times. She would grunt and tell me that it hurt, but it would be over really soon, then would excitedly tell me how big they were when they were born. Then she'd jump right up, and run to get some other prop for our scenario. She apparently recovers from birth really quickly! There was also an explanation in there about something called "Sperm Day," which only occurs the day after the first snow. Not sure about that one.

We've been reading a wonderful children's book about where babies come from & she's clearly learned a lot from it. She now wants to know if every male in public has sperm or not and if every female has eggs. She wants to know if Peaches has eggs. This has prompted another conversation about how it is fine to ask those questions, but they are private questions and need to be asked quietly to mom or dad- not loudly at the grocery store as she is staring at someone.

Tunbridge World's Fair

On Saturday Dillon & I went to the Tunbridge World's Fair while Dave was on call. Tunbridge is a small town in Vermont that holds this fair every year. It is one of THE events of the fall to attend, though I have no idea why it's called a world's fair. There was simply a lot of everything- food, noise, people, expense, stuff. It was a lot of fun for the 3 hours we were there. Dillon got to watch people contra-dancing, which is a early form of square dancing, she rode the merry-go-round, got to ride a pony as well as see and pet lots of animals. There were tractors everywhere to see and cheap toys to try to talk me into buying. There was even a tractor pulling a wagon operating as a shuttle to the parking lot.

I asked her today what her favorite part of the fair was, thinking for sure it would be the pony ride or the tractor shuttle. Nope. It was a ride we watched for approximately 2 minutes- that large boat looking thing that swings really high from side to side. She asked to ride it, as well as the Himalaya, a ride that goes really fast in a tilted circle. Of course, she's too small & in reality they would've scared her to death, but from her point of view, they were the coolest things there.

Friends

Dillon & Peaches were actually playing a few days ago & I got a cute picture of it.














This is Dillon & her friend Annan. Annan often comes over with her sister, Mesa, who is my mother's helper on tuesdays (so I can work mostly uninterrupted for a few hours).














This is Emma. We first met Emma when she was about 3 months old & these guys have been playing together ever since. This was at the farmer's market last night.

A conversation

As I was finishing my lunch today-

D: "So, momma, we're going to talk about something"
me: "OK, what are we going to talk about?"
D: "Forklifts. How does the operator get the prongs out from underneath the load once he sets it down?"

This definitely falls into the category of stuff I never knew I needed to know. Good thing the library has lots of books on heavy machinery.

The vet's

Took Peaches to the vet this morning. She has fleas & intestinal worms. Great. Otherwise she's in good shape. The vet told me that they've seen lots of problems with fleas this last year because it was such a mild winter last year. It still doesn't thrill me that the house has to be treated for fleas. Or that Peaches has worms. At least it isn't heartworms.

As expected, Dillon had many questions about the happenings at the vet's office. The vet took Peaches back to the back exam area for the anal gland exam (thank you!). As soon as she left, Dillon wanted to know what was going on beyond the exam room. I explained that that was where they kept the meds & did testing on the blood, etc. More questions. So, when the vet came back in I asked if we could just stand at the door and look back there. She was really nice & took us on a mini tour. It so happened they were working on a dog in the very back that had an unfortunate encounter with a porcupine. The vet warned me that there was a little bit of blood where they were pulling the quills out & asked if it would bother Dillon. I had to try not to laugh since Dillon is drawn to anyone bleeding, injured, whatever. She is enthralled with wounds. So, we got to see them work on pulling the quills out of the sedated dog's snout. Poor thing.

She couldn't wait to tell daddy about the dog that kissed a pine needle :) You could even see her get to the porcupine part, think about it, then say pine needle. An honest mistake, I suppose, they were like a bunch of needles!

Ultrasound results

We have a baby with
- a 4 chambered heart with a hole where it should be at this point
-Intestines inside the body
- 2 kidneys, located in the correct places
- an intact spine with no signs of any defects
- appropriately sized ventricles within the brain
- a moving mouth- and everything else for that matter
and .....

- little girl parts

So, it's another girl! We're happy, though we would've been happy with a boy, too. Dillon was far more interested in the box of toys in the ultrasound room than the actual ultrasound. The u/s tech got some really great views, even a great profile view of the baby from the shoulders down, looking like she was trying to stand up on my bladder!

It was fun seeing the baby and reassuring to see that everything looks pretty good. Unless there's a problem, that'll be the last look we get at her until she's born. Dillon says she's fine with having a sister, even though she had said she wanted a brother.