Quick, before I get Sidetrack'd

My older kiddos roll out of bed early and hit the ground running. They’ve been that way from the very beginning.

Not S. No, my sweet middle girl takes after her momma. And that means waking up doesn’t come easy.

Every morning she rolls out of bed and walks down the hallway thumb in mouth, eyes half open, hair disheveled, blanket dragging. And, never fail, some of the first (very) few words out of her mouth are, “I want orange juice.”

She does not function well without her orange juice. It’s like her body doesn’t wake up until she has that jolt of fructose. In fact, we’ve been known to ration orange juice (or make a grocery trip just to get it) to make sure she has at least a small cup. It gets ugly around here otherwise.

Seriously, it’s like coffee for the three year old set.

As each of our children learn to talk, new words or phrases are added to our family vocabulary. S’s big contribution is the “hug abyss”.

Each night as we tucked the children not bed she would say, “I hug abyss you!” Meaning, I want a hug and kiss.

So every night we hug abyss.

There are certain things they say (and ways they say things) that I wish would never change.

My (no longer the) baby girl turned 21 months old this week! Wondering what she’s up to these days?

I am 21 months old now, and I…

…am super happy and cheerful (except when I’m not).
…have quite the little temper.
…am a bit obsessed with the fact that Elmo is on my diapers.
…am talking like crazy (although, you might not understand most of it).
…putting two and three words together and sometimes even a sentence.
…mimicking the words/sounds that I hear from my family.
…love my baby sister (mom says sometimes I love her too much).
…am obsessed with my baby sister’s paci.
…am trying my hardest to jump and get both feet off the ground.
…love to look at books.
…am a bit obsessed with Shake a Leg (Elmo board book).
…have 4 eye teeth coming in.
…love to spin in circles.
…try to do everything my big sister and brother do.
…love, love, love baby dolls.
…am still tiny (but I’m up to 21 lbs!).
…am a bit obsessed with clothes and shoes (especially shoes).
…hate the vacuum, broom, and choo-choo (they make me run and cry).
…like to color (especially on things I shouldn’t color like school books).
…bring great joy and laughter to my home (I’m a funny little bird).

My children call fishing poles “fishing wands” and root beer “root beard”.

I wish I could record all of J’s speech right now to have when he is older. His enunciation, age-related speech “impediments”, tone of voice are just so cute (and often hilarious). I know that all too soon he will talk like a big boy and I love the way he speaks right now.

S is coming into her own in the speech department. She comes up to us and jabber, jabber, jabbers. Sometimes she points emphatically, sometimes she smiles. We know she’s telling us something, but have no clue what she’s saying. She does have a lot of words, though, including “ha-bow” (hairbow), “to-bus” (toothbrush), and the sweetest little “peese” (please) ever.

The other night after dinner we were discussing (at E’s prompting) what to do in the event of fire. J said that if your clothes are on fire you “stop, rock, and roll”.

J says “choke” when he means “joke”.

Any time a question is asked (such as, who wants dinner?) S raises both hands and says “Meeeee!”

J uses the word “usually” in place of “used to”. As in, “I usually tooked a paci when I was a baby.”

E is getting old enough that she doesn’t have many mispronounced or incorrectly used words. She often brings a smile to our faces with her phrasing or use of certain words, but most of her funny “baby speech” is long gone. It’s kind of sad. However, she currently uses the word “okay” like she’s a grown up. She will tell J or S something and then say, “okaaaaay?” in a high pitched voice.

Oh how I love “kid speak”. I’m really going to miss it in a few years when our kiddos are older, but right now I will smile, laugh, and soak it up (and record as much of it as I can).

The baby (for now) girl is 18 months old!

Now I’m a “big” girl and I…

…am up to 18 lbs 13 oz! Still lower than 5th percentile, but on my own personal growth curve.
…am in the 25th percentile for height now!
…have 12 teeth and seem to have more on the way.
…have lots of words. My favorites all start with “b”, but I’m expanding my vocabulary every day it seems.
…love to climb. Mom says I’m even more of a monkey than my brother.
…love to dance. Especially dancing with my big sister.
…play “ring around the rosie” by myself (often).
…play with my “bay-beesh” and their stroller all the time.
…feel the need to wear shoes and carry a “bahg” as often as possible.
…am very friendly and love to say “hi” to everyone.
…have no clue what I’m in for when I become a big sister in a few days.

I want to write, but I only have a very few minutes before the littles emerge from rest time. So, I’ll give you a few outtakes from our day.

~ I am 23 weeks pregnant today. We have a lot to accomplish in the next 17ish weeks.

~ I wore a pair of non-maternity pants to my meeting this morning. I’m wondering how I kept them on my body pre-pregnancy.

~ S got her first busted knee this morning. J was trying to be helpful and hold her hand. He pulled a little too much.

~ We left home this morning in the rain. J had rain boots and no rain jacket. E had a rain jacket but wasn’t wearing her boots. I was wearing sandals. How’s that for prepared?

~ I’m trying a new recipe for dinner tonight. The listed prep time was 20 minutes. It took me almost an hour. And 3 pots/skillets. It’s a slow cooker recipe.

~ J’s birthday is this week. He’s requested a blueberry cake with chocolate icing. And Buzz and Woody on top.

~ E is singing a song to J about “never, ever play with matches.” At least we have fire safety covered.

~ In the car this morning, E was pretending to be a cat named Rainbow. She told me I could call her “rain” or “bow” or “rainbow” or just “cat”.

Hope you are all having a great Monday!

I am 14 months old now and…

…I am walking like a pro. I started a couple weeks after my first birthday.
…I still only have 6 teeth. Hopefully more are on their way.
…although I don’t have many words, I definitely let you know what I want.
…I sign “more” and am working on “please” and “thank you”.
…I love to play in the bathtub.
…I say “gickle gickle” and try to tickle you.
…I like to wrestle with J (until he starts to get a little rough).
…I LOVE my big sister and big brother.
…I am still comfortably in 6-12 month size clothes.
…I weighed in at 17 pounds a few weeks ago.
…I am learning to use a fork or spoon.
…I have a smile that lights up my face…when I’m willing to share it.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the picture. It was made with my phone, but I think it’s adorable.)

I’m going to do something today that I haven’t done in a while. (It could be because I haven’t really blogged much in a while, but let’s not rehash that.) I am going to participate in Chelsea’s fun little weekly link-up/meme known as Ten on Tuesday.

This week’s questions are all about names. Those who know me well (and know the difficulties we have choosing names around here) know that I have some issues peculiarities quirks about names. So, I thought this one was just too fun to pass up.

1. How did your parents decide on your name?
Here’s how the story goes (correct me if I’m wrong, Mom): Mom wanted to name me Sarah Melissa, but I had an aunt who wanted to use the name Sarah for her daughter. Mom deferred, and neither of my aunt’s daughters are named Sarah. My understanding is that my name (Jana) was some kind of compromise between Mom and Dad and has some basis from Jan on The Brady Bunch. I could be wrong, but that’s the way I remember it. My middle name is my Mom’s name and my Grandmother’s middle name.

2. Do your initials (First, Middle, Last) spell out anything fun/funny?
Nope. I grew up JCW and am now JCG. Nothing funny there.

3. Did you take your middle name from childhood or did you take your maiden name as your middle name? (If unmarried, what do you plan to do?)
I kept my middle name from childhood. I love my middle name, and it is part of my family history (see answer 1).

4. Are you or will you name your children thematically (ie. same first letter, all of same origin…)
No themes here unless you consider the fact that all of our children have traditional first names as a theme. I don’t.

5. Did you decide on baby names as a little girl? Did you stick to them or change your mind?
I had a bunch of names that I liked growing up. We have used none of them. I am just fine with that.

6. Does your family have any names that have been passed down through generations?
My middle name, as mentioned above. But, more impressively, J’s first name is a family name in Matt’s side of the family that goes back hundreds of years. Like to the mid-1500′s if I remember correctly. E and S also have family names, but not ones that have been used generation after generation.

7. Do you look at the meaning of the name or just the name itself?
Both. Biblically, a name was considered to encompass the fullness of the person (personality, traits, etc). I believe there is some truth in that.

8. Do you name pets with human names (Sally, Henry) or with pet names (Fluffy, Mr. Bo Bo)?
We don’t have pets with names. I mean, we don’t have pets, so no names.

9. Are there any names that you have an affinity or dislike for based on a childhood experience/someone you once knew?
There are a few, but Matt has a bunch. That’s one contributing factor in the difficulty we have naming our children.

10. What are some of your favorite names? Why?
I love our kids names (both first and middle). They are strong names with meaning (either familial or the actual meaning of or history of the name). Here are a few more that I really like but I doubt we’ll ever use for children – Annalise, Ellen, Audrey, Claire (or Clara).

So, after writing about not being sure if I want to write, here I am again. However, I’m making a list because this is a bunch of random stuff.

1. I’m tired of the kids “blog names”. I have several reasons: Little isn’t so much my “little bit of girl” anymore and I’m realizing it more and more as we approach Kindergarten in the Fall. Boo – the boy received his name in utero before we knew whether he was a boy or a girl. We’ve never called him Boo; however, Boo (or Boo-Boo) is Baby Girl’s real-life nickname. Sometimes it gets confusing (to me) who I’m writing about. And then there’s Baby Girl…since we don’t know the gender of baby number 4 yet, Baby Girl may or may not be the “baby girl” anymore.

So, what am I going to do about it? Instead of changing their nicknames I’m going to go with single letter designations. Henceforth, Little will be known as “E”, Boo will be known as “J”, and Baby Girl will be known as “S”. And, for now, baby number four will be known as number four.

2. S is walking now! She decided about 3 weeks ago to let go and take a few steps. She’s been building up her “endurance” since then and is on her feet most of the time now. She looks so cute as her tiny little body toddles around.

3. S goes to the doctor again this morning to discuss her weight gain “issues”. At 13 months she weighed 16 lbs. 14 oz. and the doc was really wanting her to be at 17 pounds by then. We’ll see what we find out this morning.

4. I’ve turned that 16 week corner in this pregnancy and am feeling much better. Today is doc appointment day, and I am really looking forward to hearing baby’s heartbeat. I’m hoping we’ll have the big ultrasound 4 weeks from today and find out whether this tiny one is a boy or girl.

5. E and J are doing great. They are constantly making us laugh, making us smile, and making us question our ability to parent. Just as it should be with little ones, I suppose.

I think that’s all for now.

In an effort to get back to writing, I’d love to know if there is anything that you guys would like me to write about. Any questions for me, any ideas, anything you’d like to read about?