6 weeks 6 days and counting...

The weekend is over and now I'm one more week closer to the delivery date. 7 weeks from today I hope to be holding a baby in my arms. I can make it!

Over the weekend I continued to get ready for the baby which consisted of lots of cleaning out and organizing. I think they call this the "nesting" phase. All pregnant women go through it I believe. I'm already obsessive compulsive so throw in this so called "nesting" phase and it makes for a crazy women frantically running around the house. On Sunday, Clay "claimed" he had to go to the office to work all day. I wonder if he really had to work or if he was desperate to get a break from my crazy "nesting" phase???? Think about it...I'm sure he would much rather be at the office in the A/C even if he is working vs cleaning out the back house in 100 degree temperatures. I think I would go with Option A too if I had the choice.

During my craziness, I cleaned out all the kitchen cabinets which included the Tupperware cabinet. Now all of our lids match to a container. Woohoo! I also cleaned out the cabinet with all the bottles, sippy cups, etc. I threw out two bags full of bottles and sippy cups that we'll never use again. Now I know how many bottles we have and how many we need. I also have so much furniture and junk I want to clear out of this house. In order to get to this point, we need to get the back house cleared out. We (I) made additional headway there over the weekend too. I have sent bags and bags and bags of stuff to Goodwill. Literally, just about every morning I load my car up with more stuff to haul to Goodwill. Looking forward to that big tax credit this year:) I've also started sending furniture too. I'm not messing around! At the rate I'm going, before you know it, our house will be blank. Surely Clay will shake some sense into me before we get to that point?!?!?!

I actually don't understand how I continue to clean/haul stuff out of the house but then find more. Believe it or not, things are still a disaster around here. It's never ending!!! I also went through all the bins full of baby stuff. I sent most of Lo's old baby clothes to Goodwill. Maybe I've come to the realization that after this horrid pregnancy I can't do this again so I'm probably not having another girl. When cleaning out the bins, I pulled out all the baby "necessities" we'll be using over the next 6 months. I'm actually surprised that most of it has made it through the move and storage. Lola has LOVED going through all the baby stuff. She's constantly asking "Is this for baby brother?" She demanded that we bring all of it in the house rather than storing it in back for a couple more weeks. I would have preferred storing it a little longer of course, but we hauled the stuff in, got it all cleaned up and Lola was ready to play with it.

Her favorite was the baby rocker. She kept asking us to buckle her up in and rock her while she drank her sippy cup. She actually requested a bottle but I nixed that quickly...we don't need to regress here. When we first put her in it, I couldn't believe that just over 2 yrs ago she was a little nugget in this thing. Now all her limbs are billowing out of it. Unbelievable! I was able to pull a picture from when Lo was just born in the rocker. Can you believe the difference. Where does time go????

Only a few weeks old....Look at this little baby girl...too sweet! She was a near perfect infant.

Today...little Miss Sassy. Not such a perfect toddler but I wouldn't take her any other way!

Lola also loved the baby bath. At one point, she asked me to fill the bath with water so she could bathe her babies so I did. Next thing I know she had stripped off all her clothes and was sitting in the baby bath playing....right in the middle of the living room. It was so cute but it also made me a little sad for her. She's not our baby anymore but yet she still wants to be baby at times. Is she ready for this??? Does she know what's coming???? It made me realize that although she's walking, talking, feeds herself, plays on her own, etc she's still only 2 yrs old and sometimes we may get ahead of ourselves in trying to set boundaries, etc. Seeing her sit there in the baby bath made me feel like maybe we're too hard on her at times... she is still our baby.

Her other favorite toy was the play mat which I'm actually replacing. Bella also loved the play mat and laid on it all day Sunday. When it was time for bed, Lola fought Bella for that mat. She then took it upstairs to bed with her, covered up with it and said "I love my magical blanket". You gotta love a child's imagination....there's nothing better. I guess I can't get rid of the mat anytime soon. I mean what kind of mother would I be if I threw the "magical blanket" out?

Getting all the stuff out made me VERY excited about having another infant around...crying and all. As a matter of fact, at this point, I'm fairly certain I can handle a crying infant far better than I can handle a whining toddler. I really do hope Lola is prepared though. We're working on it as much as possible. Last night she said to me"Mommy, If I'm gentle, can I touch baby brother?" I thought this was so sweet. My reply was "Of course...you can even hold him." She seems really excited and although I know we'll have our challenges, I'm confident we'll work through them...we always do I guess!