Small and Friendly

My oldest brother Jimmy always calls Lydia "small and friendly" for obvious reasons. On a recent trip to Toys "R" Us with his two kids, Jimmy got Lydia a little gift which she refused to wear for more than a few seconds until today. Presenting Miss Small and Friendly...

Quite the talker

Lydia may not know how to say many words, but she still likes to babble. She will be quite the little talker once she increases her vocabulary, which consists of new words "baby", "ball", "bath", and "no more".

Having one nap time isn't going so well for Lydia; she still sleeps barely an hour and it has been four days! I'll give it a full week, but if her naps don't increase to at least two hours, I'll probably go back to giving her two naps a day and try again in a couple weeks. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm going to do because I really want Lydia accustomed to one longer nap by the time the baby is born in April, but watching her that extra hour or so every day is tiring. I honestly would rather her take two naps during the day and go to sleep at 8 PM since Trung can help during the evenings then Lydia just taking one nap and going to sleep at 7. Any advice, experienced parents?

Mother and Daughter Day

The LAN party, where a bunch of guys gather in one place to play computer games, was rescheduled for today, so Lydia and I spent the day by ourselves. We dropped Trung off at Sing's house at 10 AM and went straight to the outlet mall. Our first stop...Smoothie Paradise because Lydia just loves smoothies. Lydia got a dirty diaper in the first store we went into, so I knew we wouldn't be shopping for long. These umbrella strollers don't hold very much, so I left her diaper bag in the car; I'll be putting a diaper and wipes in the little attachable bag in the future though. So I quickly finished my purchase at that store, made an exchange at another store, and went into Stride Rite...bad idea. They were having a sale and I'm Mrs. Indecisive, so it took me forever to decide on a couple pairs of shoes. By the time we got to the car, Lydia was so fussy because she had apparently exploded in her diaper. It was such a mess that I ended up completely undressing her and putting her in the car seat with just a diaper. Lydia fell asleep on the way home, but I had to wake her to give her a mini-bath and feed her lunch. I put her to sleep at 2 PM and she woke up at 3:20 with a dirty diaper; this nap reduction thing is harder than it seems. (Lydia only slept about an hour yesterday, but slept from 7:15 PM until 7:30 AM).

We were about to head to Chinatown around 6 PM after I transferred Lydia's clothes to the dryer when I discovered that one red shirt of hers had stained some of her other clothes...two of the shirts I had just bought today! Needless to say, I was not very happy with myself, but I've drenched them in stain remover and hopefully the stains will come out when I run the clothes through the wash tomorrow. Is there really a way to undo the staining? Anyhow, this little nut made me feel better...

Experimentation

Equipped with some helpful advice from friend and mother of two, Allison, I am attempting to reduce the number of Lydia's naps from two to one. Lydia woke up around 6:30 this morning, but went back to sleep until 7:35 . After her usual snack and breakfast, I gave her milk around 10 AM (her usual morning nap time) and let her play until 11:45 AM. Then we had lunch and Lydia finally went to sleep around 1 PM.

Oh no! I hear her whimpering already at 1:27 PM!! Maybe I'll wait about ten minutes and see if she'll fall back asleep. Hmmm, I don't hear her anymore, so that's a good sign. I'll keep you posted on my (I hope) progress.

Lately

The weather has been quite cold lately, but at least it is no longer raining. We are all still stuck indoors in the evening when we usually take our walks, so I'm sure Lydia is dying to get out. I try to take Lydia out whenever I can, like going to the dentist with Trung yesterday and taking a quick trip to the post office today, but it's not quite the same as fresh air. We paid both neighbors a visit this afternoon and gave them some sour cream cake. We used to visit the Sults, the neighbors to the left of us, almost every week, but it's been busy since the holidays. The Lews, the neighbors to the right, were home too, so we got to play catch-up with them (well, I played catch-up, Lydia banged on their keyboard). We are fortunate to have kind neighbors who give us a cup of sugar or even lend us their blenders.

*This part is more for me, but those mommies out there might find this information useful* Lydia has been waking up between 7-7:30 AM and taking only one hour naps as of late and I'm contemplating whether or not to start letting her take one nap a day. That dirty diaper is still waking her up during her naps half the time, but how do I time that right? A typical day goes like this...
7-7:30 AM - Lydia wakes up
7:30 - 8 - Lydia eats a snack
8 - 8:30 - Lydia watches a DVD (Baby Einstein or Sesame Beginnings)
8:30 - 9 - I do my morning stuff (brush my teeth, etc...) and then we have breakfast
9 - 10 - read & play
10 - ? - nap 1
12 - lunch
12 - 2 - run an errand or read & play
2 - ? - nap 2
3:30 - snacktime
3:30 - 5:30 - read & play, take a walk if the weather permits
5:30 - 6:30 - prepare (usually with Trung watching Lydia) and eat dinner
6:30 - 7:30 - read & play (more with Daddy)
7:30 - 8 - Lydia takes a bath and goes to sleep
8 - 10:30 - I take a shower, watch some TV or a movie with Trung, surf the web, go to sleep

Lydia has been really good about playing by herself, so I don't constantly have to entertain her. She loves "reading" her books and eating, especially her snacks; she's cutting her 11th and 12th teeth! While in Florida Lydia had learned to get down from the sofa, and now she is quickly learning how to get onto it (our sofa is still a bit high for her). She is still a rambunctious and happy toddler who loves to laugh, say "hi" to everyone, and blow kisses good-bye (and at Trung before every nap); and boy do we love her to bits! Just now, from across the room, this is what I see...

Then and Now

They say that during future pregnancies, you tend to be bigger since you are already all stretched and such. So, just for kicks I've posted that 29th week picture that some may recall from my first pregnancy and added one of me from today; I wore the same dress for comparison sake. I personally think the pictures look the same, but I certainly do feel bigger. By the way, I don't recall how the dress fit the first time, but it was pretty snug today and I did discover a tear on the side near my chest (Trung says that it was not from just now, but he could just be trying to be nice). :/

<--- 1st pregnancy @ 29 weeks, 2 days

---> 2nd pregnancy @ 29 weeks, 1 day

Brotherly Love

I just realized recently that Lydia has no 18-24 months clothes. I usually bust out the next season's clothes three months in advance and was prepping up when I discovered that there was a gap from her current clothes to the 2T clothes Cora gave me. So yesterday Mike and I went to the outlet mall and I went on a shopping spree on behalf of the little squirt; I even got a belly friendly top for myself. We met up Sing and Maggie for dinner at Korea House since we no longer go to Korea Garden after they were on the news. Then they chilled at our house while Lydia slept; Trung, Mike, and I watched the movie Cloverfield, which was pretty good.

This morning I went on a baking frenzy and made blueberry muffins and a cheesecake. I'm not nesting yet, I promise, I just want to make sure my family has yummy food to eat if they get hungry. We went to the Arborteum and had lunch at a new Japanese restaurant Kenobi...very good and Grace-recommended. After Mike and Trung made purchases at Express Men, we headed home where Lydia and I took naps. Jimmy's family arrived shortly after and everyone just chilled and played PS3 until dinner at Din-Ho. I predict PS3 for the next couple of hours and then off to bed, but with these boys you who know.

Close Call

Whew, I don't have gestational diabetes! My OBGYN's nurse Deb called me this afternoon and she said that my results were great. Note to self: Don't take the glucose screening test right after the holidays. :P

My brother Mike has come to visit us this weekend. He brought his PS3, so we were all up playing this super hero game. I don't normally play games, (Trung is the gamer of the family) but I had fun even though my hero kept getting killed. We have no set plans this weekend especially since Trung's LAN party got postponed, but I'm sure it will be quite fun as it always is when family members are in town. Jimmy and his family are supposed to drive up on Saturday afternoon, so more family fun yet to come!

Blog-stalking

My friend Summer had a great idea of asking all her blog readers to please leave a comment on her blog, so she would know who all was reading her blog. I hope you don't mind that I'm stealing your idea, Summer, but I too am curious to know who keeps up with all my ramblings. If you could kindly leave a comment and let us know who you are and where you're from, that would be lovely! Oh, and I whole-heartedly admit that I am a blog-stalker, well, stalker in general, so there is absolutely no harm done here. :)

By the way, I had my three hour glucose test done today and it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r! I got to the hospital around 8:20 AM and the lab technician immediately drew my blood to see if my sugar level was low enough for me to even take the orange drink. The level was fine, so I drank about a pint of the glucose drink and sat around for 3 hours while they took my blood at 9:35, 10:35, and finally at 11:35. I had to fast since midnight last night, but I wasn't as hungry as I thought; the whole process just took awhile. Thankfully, Lydia took a good hour and a half nap, so at least Trung got some work done while I was away. I'll keep you posted as to the results.

Fun Times with Daddy

Today was so beautiful! We have been fortunate enough in Austin to have at least one weekend day with nice weather these last few weeks. We met up with our Dallas friends for lunch at Wok on Fire and stopped by Wendy and Nick's place to drop off some helpful baby things. After Lydia's afternoon nap, she and Trung had a ball playing in and with cardboard boxes.

Finally we got to enjoy the fine weather at the Arboretum where Trung went to Barnes & Noble and Lydia and I took a stroll. The sun had set and it was starting to get a bit chilly, so we soon went to La Madeline for some dinner. The weekends seem to go by so quickly; I'm so glad that we are all well and can enjoy them together. :)