Baby dreams

Lydia is so over-the-top excited for Clarissa to get here. This morning she shot into our room to check to see if Clarissa came early. I guess she got over her disappointment that Clarissa isn’t another boy like Ammon and is just happy she’s going get another baby in the family. Lydia loves babies. Today she kept telling me throughout the day that she wished Clarissa would come soon because she can’t wait to have another baby around. When she talks about the prospect of a new baby, she grins really wide and basically radiates joy. She is such a great big sister.

Mary is nonplussed by the idea of Clarissa. She seems relatively indifferent to the prospect of a new baby, although she is intrigued by Clarissa’s room and her baby toys.

Ammon has no idea he is about to be robbed of baby status. He can’t say his own name so he has started to referring to himself as “baby.” This unfortunate turn of events took place in the past couple weeks. Just as he finally learned to call himself “baby,” a smaller baby is about to show up. I hope he takes losing baby status better than Mary and Lydia did. Sometimes I think the reason they have so many emotional issues is because they never got over the trauma of losing baby status. Maybe I am bad at integrating new siblings. It’s probably my fault.

We were initially afraid to let Ammon sleep in his new room because we knew he’d end up doing this:

He did that yesterday. The girls thought it was hysterical. Now that he has that out of his system, he has been sleeping in his toddler bed like a champ!

We won’t actually put Clarissa in her room for a while, but I need a place to change and feed her at night, and right now that place is her room. Abe and I realized this yesterday and decided to train Ammon on his toddler bed ASAP.

Today I listened to conference talks and The God Who Weeps while crocheting and eating Chip cookies. Chip delivered some cookies Saturday night. I actually prefer the cookies the day after delivery when they’re a little firmer. (They deliver them warm right out of the oven, and as good as that sounds, they are always a little too soft and over-the-top buttery that way to me.) I am excited to be mobile again sometime so when I want to eat my favorite food group, chocolate chip cookies, I can actually just make them myself for a fraction of the price. In the interim, Chip cookies has been a fun, fattening discovery.

That reminds me. I gained three pounds last week. I was only supposed to gain half a pound, but it seems I took the doctor’s advice to eat more very seriously (hence the Chip cookie discovery)–and it worked a little too well. Eep.

I took a picture of the main parts of my day today. That darker yellow was a nightmare. I made so many mistakes and had to redo so many rows. I am so glad to have moved on to the next color!

Abe said that at church today he attended the best lesson he’s ever had on family history. He also took a long nap, which is awesome because he has been sleep deprived for months now. Since I’ve been immobile, he has been getting up with Ammon’s teething (Ammon has been teething now for over a year), and he gets up around 5am twice a week for basketball and temple attendance. He also works late–sometimes into the AM’s–and so sleep has been difficult for him to come by. I was so happy to see him finally get some rest.

After church the girls spent the whole day playing outside with their friends. Ammon took an epic nap, and my mom went visiting teaching after church. In the evening one of Abe’s coworkers, who I barely know, dropped off homemade cinnamon rolls because he and his wife heard that I have had a tough pregnancy. Isn’t that amazing? I couldn’t actually manage to eat one because I am stuffed with cookies, but I was so touched.

Also, I keep having birthing dreams. In the dreams, I am either giving birth or talking to medical personnel about the possibility of giving birth. I am actually looking forward to being induced because it sounds so tidy, but I won’t be complaining either if tonight my dreams finally come true.