Lucy at 20 Months

We've had a fun-filled month at our house with little Miss Lucy. It is amazing to me how much a human being can grow, learn and change and yet still be that same little bundle of joy we brought home from the hospital 20 months ago. I'd say the biggest change this past month is her budding imagination. She will go off and create her own little worlds all on her own. The more blankets and dollies involved in the imaginary play the better, and things get really interesting when she chooses otherwise ordinary household objects or locations for props and background. In the below picture I can only begin to guess at the game she is playing with her buddies Elmo and Polly.Lucy also discovered the paper goods drawer in our kitchen, and loves setting up the plates, napkins and plastic cups all over the floor to serve play cookies on.My friend Krista gave Lucy a cookie jar for Christmas, which timed perfectly with Lucy's new vocab word "COOK-eeee". Lucy is also learning shapes, and can point out circles, triangles, squares, and new this month - cookies, which you or I call a star. I am guessing this knowledge is based on the 8 dozen star shaped Christmas cut-out cookies Lucy helped me decorate and eat.Other favorite words this month include her shouting "FLAG!" and "LIGHTS" (as in Christmas lights) everytime we see them while driving, as well as "Thank You". She will now cutely sing to herself "Humpty-Dumpty" every time she is doing something dangerous, like trying to climb on the table or balance on a pedal of our elliptical machine. This is a great clue for me to come running if I ever hear her get to "had a great fall" - I know my time is limited. She also loves singing "Tinkle Tinkle" which is not bathroom talk, but rather a favorite bedtime song. But my favorite word of the month is "Wheel", which is actually Will's name in toddler-speak. She really only says Will's name when shouting it across the house, up the stairs, or when being pushed by me in a shopping cart as we are trying to find Will. What makes it even funnier to me is that Will thinks this behavior is not appropriate, causing me to laugh even more when she does it. I asked Will if he would rather I start referring to him as Dada the next time I am trying to find him in a shopping center. I am still awaiting his answer on that.



Lucy finally saw snow for the first time this season, and as soon as she saw the snow falling, she started excitedly yelling, "SANTA!" She no longer refers to snow as Santa, but when she says it, it sounds like she is saying "No" which always sends a shiver down my spine until I realize it is a description of the fluffy white stuff and not the begining of a tantrum. The first time she walked through the snow, she took extremely small steps as you can see in the picture below, all the while saying "crunch, crunch, crunch."
A dust pan is the perfect sized snow shovel for Lucy!

Because of the snow and cold temperatures, we have spent a lot more times indoors. Thankfully, Lucy is enjoying the activities I have been thinking up for her so far.

Lucy sometimes is content to color at the table for over an hour. As I type this, she is currently coloring.

Lucy loves to run laps through the house - here she is getting ready for me to yell "GO!"

She also enjoys trying her hand at brain teasers, like how to buckle her three point harness on her booster seat at the table. She is really good at buckling, and is now working on how to get it unbuckled. I have to confess that I usually try to distract her before she can figure that part out.

And when she is ready to relax, she loves her new pint-sized snuggi from my friend Krista.

Lucy continues to improve with her sleeping. We have slowly reintroduced dairy back into her diet, and it hasn't seemed to cause any problems. We have also added a certain type of probiotic to her daily diet along with fish oil tablets. For some reason, this is supposed to help digestion go more smoothly and it seems to be working like a charm. She now goes to sleep on her own, and if she does wake up in the middle of the night, will either put herself back to sleep or only requires a couple of pats on her back and some blanket rearranging. This is absolutely huge for Will and I. Lucy's sleep has been such a long road, and I can't tell you the number of nights I have slept on the floor next to her crib because she was uncomfortable and in pain. As with all parenting milestones, I am sure there will continue to be setbacks, but the phase we are in now is unmatchable. It makes Will and I feel like we have finally made it to Easy Street. What better time than now to bring home a newborn and shake things up again!

Speaking of newborns, we have had a lot of friends welcome newborns into their families this past fall. Lucy is infatiuated with all of them, and got to hold baby Chloe a couple of weeks ago. This was the first time she has held a baby, and up until now, has really been the baby in most social settings. This is a big step for Lucy, and she LOVED it. She keeps talking about baby Chloe, and how when Emma gets here, she will hold Emma like she held Chloe. Sitting next to Lucy in the below picture are Chloe's sister and brother, Katherine and Killian. With this picture I found out how difficult it is to get a picture of four kids, all under the age of four!

It has been a great month for Lucy, and to top it all off, she finally cut her top two canine teeth which she has been working on since the summer. She only has the two bottom canine teeth left and we'll hopefully get a break before her two year molars come in.

Here Lucy is below with her Uncle Johnny, who taught her how to 'pound it!'

Happy New Year!

Christmas Traditions

It has been a whirlwind month of Christmas traditions, with Lucy at the center of course. This Christmas I wanted Lucy to begin to understand the true meaning of the season, and to create her first memories of this special season with her family. We began the festivities by getting a couple of books about Baby Jesus from the library and me researching like crazy trying to find some meaningful Christmas books on Amazon. I came up with very limited choices, and wish that I was an illustrator, because there is clearly a need for Jesus-focused Christmas books for toddlers. St. Nick stopped by on December 6th and left Lucy a Little People Nativity Set by her shoes that really did help to explain Christmas to Lucy. She would have been fine with just Baby Jesus, his mama, and his dada at this stage in her life, but I am hoping the Nativity scene becomes a great family tradition that our kids look forward to setting up and interacting with for years to come. A couple weekends before Christmas, we took Lucy to see Santa at the Rochester Christmas parade a couple of blocks from our house. It was a beautiful and cold day, but we bundled Lucy up in a pile of blankets in the stroller, and took a walk downtown. We were apprehensive as to how she would react to a strange man in a red suit, but threw caution to the blistery wind when we saw there was no line! Lucy said a couple of no's as I placed her on Santa's lap, and then proceeded to give him one of her classic, dirty looks. When asked by Santa what she would like him to bring for Christmas she looked him square in the eyes and said loud and clear "ELMO!". Once Santa handed Lucy back to me, we overheard him tell his helpers that he needed counseling after the dirty looks Lucy gave him!

Any hard feelings Lucy had for Santa were gone by the time we had walked home though, and she has been lovingly referring to him ever since. I think the gingerbread man sucker he gave her went straight to her heart. Here she is below holding her prized gift from Santa.Last year for Lucy's first Christmas, we began the tradition of a yearly Christmas photo of all our children. As Lucy is the only child we had on earth, we found a way to include Luke by pinning an amethyst pendant (his birthstone) onto Lucy's Christmas dress. This year, we pinned the purple gem on her again and she proudly wore it, telling all who would listen that it was for "Luke's mem-ree". It's hard to see it below, as it blends in with her polka dot dress, but it is right over her heart.

Will and I wanted to find a way to make Luke a more tangible part of our family Christmas traditions, so we decided to paint wooden snowflake ornaments for his grave blanket. Lucy went with me to the store and helped pick them out, and then kept reminding us that we needed to paint them! She loved this little craft, and did a great job painting an ornament for Luke.I wish I could say that the rest of this much anticipated family tradition went as smoothly. We packed Lucy up in the car to make the trek out to the cemetery and she screamed the entire half hour trip there. I have no idea what her issue was, but for some reason she was just not having it. When we got to the cemetery, Will's and my blood pressure was soaring. To add to Lucy's joy, we had to bundle her up in a hat, scarf and boots since getting to Luke's grave involved a short walk in the snow. For those of you who visit a loved one at the cemetery for Christmas, you understand when I say that it is an emotional experience. Christmas is one of those holidays where the loss of a loved one is magnified, and the empty hole in your heart that only your missing loved one can fill is felt all the more painfully. Lucy clearly did not care about this though. She screamed "SNOW" over and over the entire time while sobbing uncontrollably. Will and I did what we could to put the ornaments on Luke's grave blanket and tell our son how much we love and miss him as quickly as possible. We left the cemetery feeling frustrated and sad. When I was relating this story to my sister Jane the following day, and telling her how disappointed I was because my meaningful Christmas tradition was ruined by a cranky toddler she wisely pointed out that what I experienced yesterday was a true family tradition. She then went on to remind me of all the family traditions my parents worked so hard to create for me and my siblings, and how one of us would inevitably find a way to ruin it for the rest of the family. That made me feel so much better! While I am still wishing I could have had some peaceful and meaningful time with my son's memory at the cemetery, I am happy to know that I have successfully created a REAL family memory. It doesn't matter that I have a son in heaven - this is still real life folks!

We did enjoy a Christmas tradition as a family that everyone was happy for. We made our yearly trip up about an hour and a half up north to a huge Christmas store called Bronner's and got an ornament for our newest family member, Emma. We did this for Luke and Lucy, and it was so wonderful to be able to put a new name on our tree this year. Truly, this was the best part of Christmas for me. I love seeing my children's names together. I suppose it makes up for the fact that I will never be able to see them all physically together this side of heaven. Seeing their names lined up is the next best thing for me. We also sewed Emma's name on her very own stocking, and lined it up with the rest of ours this year too. Lucy was upset on Christmas morning to see that Emma's and Luke's stockings were both empty, but after showing her the letters we had written to both Emma and Luke and stuffed in their stockings for their Christmas presents, she was pacified.

We went on to have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve we spent with my family. Here is Lucy below with her Grandma and Grandpa Hines, and then pouting at a gift that wasn't hers to open.

Once we had Lucy tucked in to bed, with hopefully sugar plums dancing in her head, Will and I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. All of our Christmas preparations were finished. The house was clean, cookies were made, Lucy seemed to understand the meaning of Christmas and our traditions were in place. We sat together and wrote our annual Christmas letter for Luke which was extremely emotional. This Christmas tradition never seems to get any easier. That evening we balanced missing Luke more than we could ever say, and at the same time felt awed and enternally grateful of the fact that we were celebrating our first Christmas in our dream home. What a journey it had been to get here, and I just couldn't believe that we were actually sitting in our very own living room, with candles lit all around us, Christmas music playing softly in the background and our Christmas tree full of seven years of Christmas memories twinkling at us in the semi-darkness. The only thing that Will and I could think of to make this Christmas dream complete would be the knowledge of Lucy AND Luke sleeping soundly in their beds, dreaming of Christmas.

Christmas morning dawned early and still dark, as Lucy awoke at her usual time. When I went into her room to get her out of her crib, she sleepily stood up, rubbed her eyes and said "Luke". I asked her if she had a dream about Luke, and she said "yes." She said Luke's name a couple of more times as I carried her into our room to snuggle with Will and I and I couldn't help but smile and believe whole-heartedly that Luke had visited his sister for Christmas.

Christmas Day was busy. Will, Lucy and I opened gifts before the sun rose and then played and napped until Will's parents and brother came over in the afternoon. After opening gifts with them, we all headed over to Will's aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner. Here Lucy is below with some of her favorite presents...

...a diaper bag for her dollies, complete with a wipes container, changing pad and a sippy cup with orange juice.




...a doll cradle that used to be mine, but touched up with a new mattress, pillow and a blanket that I knit and sewed for her. As you can see below, Lucy clearly hasn't read the latest research on safe sleep for babies....and the most exciting gift of all - Elmo "undies" from Santa, that Lucy insisted on wearing all morning with great pride. And yes, Santa kept good on his promise and her stocking was filled with all things Elmo.Here she is below chilling with her Uncle Tim while waiting for Christmas dinner.I just had to end this lengthy blog with this picture - here Lucy is below in the new kitty-cat bath towel Will and I got her for Christmas. Lucy says, "MEOW!"Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you and your family. For those of you who spent Christmas missing a loved one, know that I was thinking about you and sending warm thoughts your way. Thanks to Baby Jesus, we have the hope of seeing our loved ones again someday, and what a joyous holiday that will be!

19 Months - Came in like a lion and went out like a lamb

Let's just say that Lucy's 19th month of life started kind of rough. If I had to pick two words to describe Lucy at the beginning of this past month, they would be 'sleepless' and 'defiant'. The time change did not help things. Up until this year, I had always loved when the clock 'fell' back, and I would gain an extra hour of sleep. This year, for Lucy, the time change meant that 5 a.m was the new 6. We tried putting her to bed earlier to compensate for her early rising, but to get enough sleep, she would have to be in bed at 5 in the evening and this was just not practical. So she woke up early and CRANKY. To add to this sleep trouble, we spoke with Lucy's pediatrician about her restless sleep, and she suggested that maybe Lucy has a food allergy that is making her uncomfortable and keeping her from sleeping. She advised that we try eliminating dairy from her diet and see what happens. I can only assume from the results since, that dairy was the issue because slowly but surely Lucy has been doing better with her sleep. Lucy must have known that I was going to write a post tonight, and so woke up this morning at 7 a.m., making last night the first night she slept almost eleven hours straight! Even if this is a one time thing for now, it gives me hope that she is capable of sleeping more, and we will continue to work towards that goal! From the beginning of the month to be up every 40 minutes with her, to an almost eleven hour night is definitely promising. Her mood today was nothing short of sweet, funny and happy. Amazing what a well rested child is like! Look at her just lounging in her bean bag chair - my happy, well rested little girl!Lucy has a great sense of direction (which she definitely does NOT get from me). She knows when we are going to towards Grandma's house, the library, a billboard with a baby on it, and the cider mill to name a few. This is both good and bad. Good when she is right about our destination, bad when we are going elsewhere, and she has a melt down when she realizes we weren't in fact going to the cider mill to get donuts. In the below two pictures we took advantage of one of the warm days we had this past month and went to the cider mill where she likes to eat donuts, look at the goats, and then throw rocks in the stream by the mill while watching the ducks. Everything needs to be done in this order too, or she will let you know the sequence is off!Besides the regular weekly activities like a trip to the chiropractor, story time at the library, the grocery store and play dates with friends our days are mostly spent playing around the house. We go outside as much as possible but lately, as the days have gotten colder, we have been trying to find creative things to do indoors. She watches Elmo once a day, usually at the end of the afternoon while we are waiting for Will to come home. This makes for great bribery leading up to Elmo Time and why I will almost never let her watch it first thing in the morning. When we are not eating, spending time on the potty, watching Elmo or playing outside, we are usually changing the diapers of Lucy's multiple stuffed animals and dolls. The best is when I hear Lucy telling me on the baby monitor at 4 in the morning that her stuffed Elmo "pooped". Finally I had to tell her that dolls and stuffed animals do not poop at night time - only in the day time! Here she is below kissing her doll Simone. Lucy likes to hold a doll on her lap while I push them both around the house in the doll stroller. One of these days those wheels are going to break, and I'm just shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Lucy's other favorite past time - second to watching Elmo and changing dirty doll diapers is looking at babies on the computer. We go through the pictures we have of her, stored in month by month folders and we also look at our friend's babies on facebook. Holly, James, Ella, Gavin, Tommy, Adam, Chloe and Eleanor are her favorites to 'stalk' and she would do it all day if she could. If your baby was mentioned in the above sentence, could you do me a favor and post more pictures? There can never be enough - Lucy has an endless appetite for viewing babies, and I have to say that she probably got that from me.

Will and I had a great find this past month on garbage day - a house near us was throwing out not one, but two Little Tikes Cozy Coupes! After a bucket of bleach water, they were as good as almost new, and Lucy loves riding in them. I'm just bummed that the riding season for cars without windshields - and windows and floorboards for that matter - is coming to an end here in Michigan. Our solution was to put one in the garage and keep one in the basement so Lucy can now ride her car while I do laundry.

Lucy's speech continues to improve. This month's favorite vocabulary additions include the word "more" which she repeats over and over again as if that would make the "more" happen faster. More Elmo. More oranges. More tickles. More laundry basket rides. More doll diaper changes! She also is quite fond of telling us to "seat". "Seat" next to me while I eat. "Seat" and play with me. "Seat" here and change my dolly's diaper! She has also discovered the moon, and excitedly screams "moon!" each time she sees it either in the evening sky, in books, or even on the bottom pad of my computer mouse which is shaped like a moon. Just recently she began referring to herself as 'me'. It is quite humorous when I try to do something for her like put on her shoes, her coat or buckle her into something and she yells "ME!" meaning, let me do it Mama! Finally, she has learned two simple phrases this month - the most scary being "No Dada!!" with quite an attitude, and the cutest being "Here you go" which she says at appropriate times. I just love hearing her little voice!

I couldn't resist posting this picture below. The expression on her face sums up the look she has been giving most of the month to me, Will and perfect strangers. "No! Me!!!!"

Emma Elise Timmerman

Baby T Three has officially been named! It is a relief and a joy to have our third child named. For Will and I, it is very important to have our children named as soon as possible. We believe giving and publicly announcing our child's name acknowledges their existence as more than just a passing thing, and turns a thought into a very personal reality. To us, it validates our child as a unique and very much loved individual and proves to the world that our child is here NOW, and is already a part of our family - worthy of a name.

As some of you know, one of my biggest regrets after losing Luke was not confirming his gender before he was born, and not publicly calling him by name. I personally was calling him Luke and believed in my heart that he was a boy, but we were waiting for his birth to confirm his gender and announce his name. This element of surprise that we were hoping to have for ourselves and our friends and family in retrospect seems like a silly game to me now. I sincerely regret that I took for granted that my baby would be born alive and that we used a human life for the fun of a surprise. Luke was alive inside of me for 35 weeks - he deserved to be acknowledged and known with a name by the world. The hurt of this is something I will probably deal with for the rest of my life. I have never experienced a regret like this before - something so major and that I can never change. So I will not let it happen again if I can help it. My children will be named as soon as we have a confirmed gender at our 18 week ultrasound, and then as soon as we decide on a name.

This is a very painful subject for me, and I know it is based on my own personal regrets and issues. It is tough though when the majority of society waits to name their child at their birth and makes it known to me that they do not agree with how Will and I are naming a child before we physically see them. It is human nature to judge things that you do not yourself understand and I get that. I am guilty of judging what I do not understand either. However, going through the experience of losing a child who you very much expected and assumed would live has opened my eyes to the fact that each person is making their own way in this world. I do not know how or why they came to the conclusions they have about how they live their life and it is not up to me to judge them on their choices. I also do not know what personal issues they are dealing with and can only assume then that they are making the choice that is right for them. In this post I am by no means saying that I believe everyone should name their children and find out their gender before they are born. That is a highly personal choice and one that each individual has to make based on their own circumstances and experiences. From where I am coming from, this is the choice I make and will forever make in regards to naming my children. I can only hope that my friends and family can go easy on judging me for my choices and the people that don't know me as well to accept that sometimes people do things differently then they would and we don't have to know why or judge. I promise to try to do the same for you!

With that being said, I would like to tell you the story of Emma's name! As I have mentioned in a previous post, Will and I were convinced that Baby T Three was a boy. We had a boy's first and middle name ready to go at the time of our ultrasound, but had not agreed upon a girl name. When we heard the beautiful news that we were having a healthy baby GIRL we looked at each other and threw our hands up in the air on what to name her! Based on the background information I gave you above, the fact that we didn't have a name for our blessed baby girl was really stressing me out. We had the ultrasound last Tuesday, and by the weekend it was keeping me up at night. I feel so strongly about never making the same mistake I did with Luke, it was turning into a fear that something bad was going to happen to Emma if I didn't name her and I would have a second regret for the rest of my life. A psychiatrist I'm sure would have a field day with me and my issues on this, but this is the reality I was dealing with. After many prayers with no answers we checked out a baby name book from the library (for the second time this pregnancy!) and our plan was to go through each individual name and write down on a secret ballot each name we thought would work for Baby T Three. I got to the J's and called it a night on Saturday. My plan was to finish the next day, and then pass the book to Will to do the same. When he was finished we would compare lists, and whatever names were on both lists would be our new name pool which we would hopefully be able to narrow down from there.

Now here's where we believe Divine Intervention revealed Emma's name in a most unexpected manner. After church on Sunday, Lucy asked to color a picture. I got out her crayons and some paper and while I was sitting at the table with her and Will, consumed in my own thoughts - and worries - about what to name Baby T Three, I casually asked Lucy: "What should we name your baby sister?" Really not expecting any answer, and going back to my stressed out thoughts, Lucy looked up from her drawing and clearly and proudly yelled "EMMA!!!" I looked at Will and he looked at me, and then we both looked at Lucy and almost said in unison "what??" Lucy looked at both of us again with a huge smile on her face and said a little softer this time "Emma!". I looked at Will again, and he looked at me and we both started laughing. Keep in mind we don't personally know a single Emma, and have never even said the name Emma to Lucy. Where she came up with that name we can only guess. Will and I started rationalizing - did she say Elmo? After all, that is her favorite character and we were drawing Sesame Street characters before I asked Lucy what Baby T Three's name should be. Or did she combine two of her favorite words - Elmo and Mama - and come up with Emma? So we asked her if Emma was the name of her baby sister. Lucy's reply? "Yes! Emma. Mama. Tummy." At this point Will and I decided to drop it and not draw any more attention to what just transpired. A couple of minutes later I casually asked her what she was drawing a picture of and she proudly replied: "EMMA!" Okay, that caught us off guard too! Up until the ultrasound, she never really acknowledged the baby in my tummy any differently than she acknowledged the fact that in her mind everyone seemed to have a baby in their tummy. And never did she call the baby a name. Then Lucy started talking on her own. "Hair" as she was scribbling with a brown crayon. I asked her "Does Emma have brown hair?" Lucy: "Yes!" Then she started coloring with a different crayon. "Back" Lucy said. I asked her "Does Emma have a healthy back?" Lucy: "Yes!". For the rest of the day, Lucy chatted about and to Emma. She even found a soft baby doll with a rattle in it and put it to my tummy and said "Emma." I asked her if she was giving her doll to her baby sister and she proudly responded "Yes!" From that day on, she refers to that particular doll as Emma's. I suppose Will and I could have stepped in at any time and said no, Baby T Three didn't have a name yet but we held back. Something just felt right about Emma. It has always been a favorite name of mine, and Will also liked it but it never made any of our lists because it is so popular right now. We were looking for a name that wasn't in the top ten of the last decade for our little girl. But again, something just felt right about Emma and it was the first girl name since we found out we were pregnant that left us with a feeling of peace and a smile on both of our faces. That night after Lucy went to sleep talking about "beebee Emma" we agreed with Lucy that Emma would be the name of our third child. We can only wonder as to where Lucy got Emma from, and I will be the first to tell you that my thoughts are that Luke told her in a dream that her baby sister was named Emma and had a healthy back in much the same way Luke told me shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Lucy that I would be having a healthy baby girl named Lucy.


Once we agreed on Emma, the middle name was easy. We chose Elise which is a Hebrew and German derivative of Elizabeth, after me of course! Below is the picture that Lucy drew when she told us what her baby sister's name was. In case you are worried that Emma looks like a Sesame Street character, the Ernie head and the other monster head were drawn by Will before Lucy revealed to us that she was in fact drawing a family heirloom. Oops! The brown scribbles are Emma's hair, and the blue dots are Emma's eyes according to the artist. She asked us to hold her hand to write Emma's name, and then Mama's and Dada's. We then asked if she wanted to write Lucy and Luke, and she agreed.

So now you know the rest of the story as to how Baby T Three got her name! Emma Elise Timmerman. Since giving our baby a name, a great feeling of peace has come over me. No matter what happens to our baby girl - if she lives a week more or 80-some years, in my heart she has been confirmed as important enough to have a name and be a member of this world. I now fall asleep smiling as I think about my beautiful children and go over and over in my head their names... Luke Thomas, Lucy Anne and Emma Elise. God is good and I am blessed!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It's a GIRL!!!

We had our 18 week ultrasound this afternoon, and found out that Baby T Three is a HEALTHY baby GIRL!!! We are so relieved and grateful to know Baby T Three is healthy, and we are on cloud nine knowing Baby T Three is a SHE! To be honest, I was convinced that this little one was a boy, and in fact have been referring to him - er, her - as a him for quite some time. It is still sinking in that we are in fact having another girl. Driving home from the ultrasound the conversation went something like this...

Me: "We're having a girl!"

Will: "A girl!"

Me: "A girl!"

Will: "We're having a girl!"

Pause...

Will: "Well, we have all the clothes, and all the toys for a girl so this should be relatively inexpensive."

Me: "We'll have to buy stock in Kotex pads, that's for sure."

Will: "Wha-wha-what? I never thought of that!"

Pause...

Will: "And then there's paying for weddings..."

Pause...

Will: "I am no longer going to be third in command in my own house."

Me: "Nope. You will be fourth!"

Will: "Three against one."

Yet another pause...

Will: "Well, you forget that I have Luke on my side, and you can't argue the fact that my team member has some serious strings he can pull in Heaven for me."

Me: "True."

Will: "It's going to be an est-fest, isn't it."

Me: "Is that a question or a statement?"

Will: "I think I need to get an outdoor hobby."

Silence.

The funny thing is, Will has told me all along that he thinks we are having a girl, and has even told me that he would love to have a house full of girls. I think the reality of that wish is starting to hit him. All I know is these girls are the luckiest girls around to have Will as their dad. Another confession, I am dealing with a strange mix of sadness and joy at the news of a little girl. I think I was hoping for a boy so that I could have a connection with my little guy in heaven. I know in my mind that no boy or girl could ever replace Luke, but in my heart it felt like the gaping hole that was left when Luke went to heaven could at least get a well fitting band-aid if Baby T Three was a boy. I cry at weddings during the mother/son dance, and wistfully watch mothers have sweet interactions with their little boys. My mind knows that even if I were to someday have another son, that I would still probably cry during the mother/son dance at weddings and wistfully watch sweet moments between mothers and sons because I would still never know how it would feel to have those with Luke. But my heart believes that a son would make a tiny bit of that hurt go away. With Lucy, I knew that I needed a girl because I wasn't emotionally strong enough to have another boy so soon after Luke. It would have been difficult to separate my hopes and dreams for Luke with my hopes and dreams for his little brother. But now I do feel like I am in an emotionally stronger place, and that I am ready for another boy. God's plan is infinitely better than any I could come up with though, and I am now switching my train of thought from boys to girls. Another girl! Who knew! Certainly not me!

We took Lucy to the ultrasound this afternoon which may or may not have been a good idea. She freaked out as soon as I laid down on the table and was screaming so loudly she kept forgetting to breath. Will had to remove her from the room, and thus missed the first half of the ultrasound. He brought back a slightly calmer child, and we got her through the rest of the exam by feeding her animal crackers and singing "Happy Tappin' With Elmo". There is no shame when you are trying to keep your toddler from throwing a public fit. It did work out in the end though, because once Lucy calmed down, she realized that there was a baby on the screen and was all eyes and ears then. She pointed out the baby's hand, feet, toes, and then asked us if the baby had thumbs. This isn't as odd sounding as you think, as this week she just discovered the word thumb, and that she has two. A couple of days ago she was concerned that her Uncle Johnny didn't have thumbs. Fortunately, we were visiting him later that day and she was able to see first hand that he did in fact have thumbs. I think she finally understands that there is a baby in my tummy. We had up-talked the ultrasound all day in hopes of avoiding any tantrums, and she was super excited to go to the 'hop-tal' to see the 'bee-bee'. She kept saying "Bee-bee. Back." and would then point to her back. It gave me chills each time she did it, and I couldn't help but wonder if somehow she had picked up on Will's and my thoughts and worries about whether or not Baby T Three was healthy. I really don't ever recall telling Lucy that Luke had spina bifida, or anything about a 'boo-boo' on his back, but who knows. She seems very intuitive about certain things, and the entire point of the ultrasound for Will and I was to see first hand that our Baby T Three had a healthy spine. Thank you God, Baby T Three is a healthy baby girl!

So that's my story, and I'm signing off as a mother-to-be of another little girl!

Lucy's Second Halloween

Here is Lucy on her second Halloween, this year dressed up as a black cat! In the below picture she is riding the elevator at her Great Grandma Hines' nursing home on Friday.Below is Lucy with her Great Grandma Hines.Here Lucy is with her Grandma Timmerman and Great Grandma Juszczyk this morning. Lucy on the car ride home from seeing her Grandmas (and Grandpas) this morning...

And Lucy on the car ride home from seeing her Grandparents last year on Halloween. See how big she's grown?!? Still the same pouty face that I love to kiss though!Here is Lucy caught in the candy bowl when we were trying to get ready for trick or treating tonight. As usual, we knew something was up when it got quiet...

In case you were wondering where her pants were, at the time of this picture they were being washed/dried because they got pee on them (sorry Aunt Jenna and Uncle Mike)! It's tough being a toddler, and having to keep the same outfit clean for an entire day. We almost made it, but thank goodness for washers and dryers.

Here Lucy is caught again, this time instead of eating the wrapper of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, she swiped a pack of Whoppers and actually got the package open.
Caught with Whopper's the size of her big brown eyes!

This is the expression she gave Will when he asked what she was eating. Her response? "Can-Dee!!"Yes, we bribed her with candy to get her to stay still for this picture next to the pumpkin Will carved. Next time I will be sure to add another piece of candy to ensure a smile. Looks like Will needed a bribe as well!Here we are walking down our street trick or treating. We went to five houses which is all of the neighbors that we know, and just enough walking for Lucy to have her fill.Happy Halloween!