Leina has a new weapon in her arsenol. She’s gotten pretty good at using her little “pease?” to her greatest advantage but yesterday, she took it up a notch. She added the hands.

She approached me and looked up from under dark lashes. Then she clasped her little hands together with her fingers interlocked and held them under her chin as if in prayer. Finally, she uttered in her littlest, sweetest voice…

“ice ceem, pease?”

Now, do I even need to say that we ended up watching Elmo’s world snacking on a bowl of vanilla bean at 9:30am? It was the little hands I tell ya. I have no defense.

Boy, am I a sucker.

Getting ready this morning I passed the full lenght mirror just right to get an unobstructed view of my butt and O-H-M-Y-G-O-D it was huge! And I was wearing black pants! Slimming black pregnant pants! I’ve been so fixated on my every growing belly that I seem to have neglected the sad fact that my rear end is valiantly keeping pace with my stomach.

I guess that makes me very symetrical but that isn’t much comfort. And the worst part is that I don’t have any “feel good” pregnant clothes to run to. When in non-childbearing mode, I have a few old reliables that hang just right to cover all the unwanted extra bits but with maternity clothes? Forgetaboutit. It’s all about being huge in three, four, five dimentions.

So the simple fix is to avoid the full length mirror until I’m back in shape which should be around…..lets see….huh.

How about avoid full length mirror. Full stop.

I used to think Artie was pretty smart for a dog. At least when it came to food and walks, it seemed Artie’s intelligence skyrocketed to impressive heights. Like most dogs, he knows the word “walk” and can hear you utter it from any room in the house in a magnitude of decible levels. We only use “walk” when we are 100% sure it’s going to happen. It’s the only humane approach really. It just isn’t fair to say, “hey, Kev, you wanna take Artie for a walk now or after lunch?” All Artie hears is “blah blah blah Artie blah walk” which is enough. He’s off the sofa like a shot, bounding around the room, raring to go. How do you explain to him that you were merely contemplating a walk? So we use “walk” to mean “leaving for a walk right now” and we use “W-A-L-K” to discuss a walk in the general sense.

Up until yesterday, this method served us well seeing as how Artie has yet to learn to spell.

Unlike some other small beings in our household.

Lately, after dinner, Kevin will take the dog out for a stroll. If it isn’t raining and above 30 degrees outside, he’ll toss Leina in her baby backpack and take her along too. We’ve been having an unseasonably warm winter here so almost every evening, he’s packed up Leina, hooked up the dog, and headed out. So the other night, after dinner, Kevin asked me, “think it’s warm enough for me to take Leina on the W-A-L-K?”

Artie lay on the sofa, unmoved by this remark.

Leina, however, looked up from putting a fresh diaper on her Elmo dolly and declared, “Walk?” She then toddled over to the closet where her backpack is kept and began pounding the door saying, “open….packpack….open…packpack…WALK!”

This was more than enough for Artie who leapt from the couch and began to hurl his body in twenty different directions to show his joy at the thought of a walk. Kevin and I looked at eachother in disbelief.

Leina is learning how to spell.

And it’s not just “walk”. Oh no, she now understands “E-L-M-O” as well. I’m telling you, Kevin and I are going to have to start brushing up on our French and Spanish if we hope to stay one step ahead of this kid. She’s absolutely amazing.

Marriage is all about compromise. This I have learned. In theory. Putting it into practice, however, means that I do not get my way all the time. This vexes me. However, as a testiment to how much I love my husband, I have found I am getting better and better at this whole compromise lifestyle.

Ooops. Something small, cute, and very very smelly just walked by. Let me take a quick (but nasty) poopy diaper break here. Be right back.

Right….So…. This weekend, Kevin decided he wanted a new shower head. At 69th, he put in one of those mobile shower heads that you can take down and hold in your hand. You know, the kind with the long silver hose? Anyway, he convinced me to change over from a stationary showerhead because he insisted that the mobile showerhead would help him clean the shower. Now, anything that will help Kevin with keeping the house clean, I’m up for so I allowed him to change showerheads on me. I hated this moving showerhead but I put up with it because I thought it meant my shower would be cleaned more by my husband. Ha! That proved to be a big fat lie. I believe in the two years this head was installed, Kevin cleaned that shower a whopping total of three time.

So when we moved down to Sherwood, it was with great joy that I returned to a stationary showerhead. But sure enough, a few months later, I saw a package on our bathroom sink. Yes, that’s right, another mobile showerhead and hose thingy. I stalled for weeks. Kevin tried the old “I’ll clean the shower” line but I wasn’t falling for it. Once bitten, twice shy.

Finally, after listening to him whine and mope, I let him put in his precious showerhead and it was awful. The water trickled out in a mere stream. The head was mounted so high that the water pretty much hit me straight in the face and no matter how I fiddled I couldn’t adjust it because of that stupid hose. For me, holding the thing was out of the picture. I need two hand to wash my hair and do my various shower routine. There was no way I could clean effectively one handed. I took a miserable, cold, contortionist shower and told Kevin no way. I wanted my old shower back and I wanted it now. Once I explained to Kevin the issues and he saw me getting hit in the face with the water, he reluctantly agreed to go back to the old way. But first, we hit HomeDepot.

Yes, the good old HomeDepo which is the bain and salve for so many married folks. They had a whole isle of shower heads and – even more exciting- a splitter. Yes, that’s right, the ultimate in compromise. Now, our shower offers two water spraying options. For those who prefer hand held control, there is the mobile showerhead and for those who enjoy a nice steady hands free steam from above there is your old fashion stationary head. Ahhhh, it’s heavenly.

The joys of compromise.

Leina has the best imagination.

She loves to mother all her dollies and her favorite pastime is changing diapers. These dolls must pop a lot because every day, Leina goes through the potty ritual with them.

First, she pulls out the changing mat and places a diaper down. Then, she selects the doll of choice and places her on the diaper. Lately, she’s added a new step to her routine. At this point, she’ll cruise around the room until she finds “toy” which she then brings to dolly. I suppose the idea is that dolly can play with the toy and be happy while the changing occurs.

Next is Leina’s favorite part. The diaper wipes. It takes anywhere from 10 -15 diaper wipes to clean her doll. I can only surmise that the toy dolls in our house suffer from the world’s worst case of the runs due to the excessive wiping that occurs. During the wiping favor, Leina announces “nasty poopy!” with great feeling. After wiping, she applies cream to the “butt” and the cheeks of dolly’s face. Finally, dolly is wrapped in diaper and declared “all done!”

I just love watching this whole routine. I’m hoping by the time little sister comes along, Leina will be an old pro and can handle a change all on her own.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but you never know!

The last grandparent has been reached and the news spread….Leina is getting a little sister!

Yes, the second ultrasound proved to be the ticket. I must admit I was relieved to hear she was a she. From what I’ve seen, baby brothers can be real pests to older sisters and I didn’t want to have to buy a whole new set of clothes and toys. Having another girl means all those cute outfits from Leina will get another use. Yipee!!

Kevin was equally excited but he harbored a bit of disappointment. I think he thought having a boy would be fun and new. I think he’s a daughter’s daddy through and through. I just can’t picture him with a boy. Of course, Leina has no idea what we are talking about right now. In a mere four months, she’ll have her very own little sister.

Wow. Four months. That isn’t very long. I’ve a room to decorate, a closet to fill, names to choose, and a whole house to get ready for another infant. Kevin is working like crazy every night in the garage custom building cute baby furniture I’ve seen at Pottery Barn Kids. Here’s hoping all the ducks are lined up in time!

A girl! A girl! A girl!