Baby #2 News

Poor Kalina. From here on out, she'll be regularly sharing blogspace with her new little sibling. I'll be posting newsposts whenever I have something interesting to tell about Baby 2. And she'll only appear in them if it makes sense for her to.

And yes, I have something interesting to post today! For the past few days I've been suspecting it, but this morning I was absolutely sure: at only 14 weeks pregnant (as of today), I'm definitely feeling baby kicks! (I also regularly feel toddler kicks, especially during diaper changes, but that's a different story). I could even feel them from the outside. They say it's normal to feel kicks earlier in your second pregnancy, but I'm still pretty proud that Baby 2 is making himself/herself known before I'm having much trouble fitting into my skinny jeans.

With Kalina, by the way, I was feeling kicks around 16 weeks--quite early for a first pregnancy. Does this mean I'll have a child more determined to walk than Kalina was? Somebody help.

The timing of this is good: my nausea has been waning, and without it, it's hard for me to remember I'm pregnant. No complaints, it's just nice to have this smooth transition.

Like I mentioned before, I'm still fitting fine into all my clothes. I'm glad. You'll remember that with Kalina, I was highly annoyed that I could still hide my pregnancy a mere 9 weeks before she was born. As much as I happily anticipate wearing my all-time favorite maternity jeans, I'm happier to keep them stowed under Kalina's crib for now.

At my most recent doctor visit, almost 2 weeks ago, we heard the baby's heartbeat and all was well. I'm guessing that weight gain is about nonexistent since the onset of nicer weather has had me chasing Kalina around all sorts of open spaces outdoors. Fine by me, I promise I'm eating healthy.

And that's the update!

What a mess!

At some point in every girl's life, there's a time when cute clothes simply won't do. No, at some point every young girl must reach deep into the hand-me-down Goodwill pile, pull out clothes that kind of fit and adorn herself in them. Even if they don't match.

And so, wearing a red T-shirt and shabby pink pants, Kalina headed outside with Mommy yesterday afternoon for an activity Mommy assured her would be lots of fun: painting.

Having bought the (washable, the box assures me) finger paint a good month ago, it took sunny warm weather to empower me to open the stuff. After all, there's no predicting where Kalina's sticky hands will go next, and I'd much rather nature endure the palm-prints than my house or my cats.

Following a toddler art book's wise guidelines, I'd gathered a bunch of objects for Kalina to paint and print with, from a ball of tinfoil to an empty spool to some pieces of rubbery drawer liner. I also had: 4 colors of finger paint, a stack of pre-torn paper towels, a lidded tupperware with soapy water (just in case), two tupperware lids to use as paint trays, a giant piece of paper and a cookie sheet to carry it all. Kalina made sure to bring her bucket full of flower petals, a pink shovel and a small pink watering can. We headed out to a flat, shady part of the driveway, and I kicked all the dried worms out of our way.

Kalina happily sat down while I spread our painting project in front of us. Which color did she want first? Blue, of course. She readily and without too much suggestion from me picked up the spool, dabbed it in the blue paint, and stroked it onto the paper. Then she did it again. I was delighted!

And she was done. Would she like to try the cool rubber pastry brush that even I could play with for hours? No. Would she like to use a Q-Tip? Absolutely not. How about a stick? Pine needles? The rubber drawer liner? The tinfoil? None of it. She went off to play with her bucket and flowers.

And then came the moment of Mommy truth. Is art about the process or the finished product? What if the finished product would only look like the merest chicken scratches when hung on the fridge? What if the process needs to take at least as long as the preparation did in order to make the whole thing worthwhile? What if Kalina didn't know how much fun she was missing?

And so, "How about another color?" I bribed. We squirted out purple and green, and then added orange, and soon found that the rubber drawer liner pieces would be acceptable to paint with. Mommy felt better, even though Kalina soon wandered off to find her smooth rock.

Next, I resorted to the oldest trick in the book: I started to clean up, figuring it was a win-win situation. Kalina shortly showed more interest than ever, and tried the pine needles, Q-Tips and sticks before we were both satisfied and actually ready to be done.

I'll note here that my worries about mess-making came true. Within 30 seconds of beginning Kalina had splotches of blue paint on her hands, pants, shirt and the bottoms of her shoes. Mother Nature dealt much better with these than Kalina's real mommy would've.

Another note: finger paint is inappropriately named, at least according to my toddler, who would much rather have me clean her hands with paper towels every 2 minutes than actually smear the paint on the paper with her fingers. I should probably count my blessings.

And then, since we were already in messy clothes and good moods, and Mommy's been raking it in with her freelancing lately, we decided it'd be a great idea to head to McDonald's for Kalina's first ice-cream cone, which she dug into with even more gusto than she did with blue paint and a spool. She amazed me with her skills in keeping the mess isolated on the lower part of her face, and in figuring out that the cone, while edible, doesn't really compare to the ice cream.

Photo: Kalina's masterpiece after a day of drying (some of the paint was rather globby). Thanks, Aunt Laura, for the book that inspired it all!

Because Kalina is so much fun...

The Odegaard family has a special announcement to make: we're expecting an addition! That's right, I'm not pudgy, tired and cranky for nothing--I'm now safely past week 12 with Baby #2.

The baby's due date is September 25. So far with the pregnancy, so good. I've had an ultrasound, seen the heartbeat and been nauseated for about 10 weeks of the 12, so I'm as confident as I can be that everything's going well.

Yes, we're excited. Kalina could really use a sibling, and we think a new baby will be cute.

Yes, I also at times feel rather moronic for being in this position. After all, life was only getting easier. However, a baby is always worth it. Kalina was certainly worth it, although I have to say she was more worth it, relatively, for Daddy, who in achieving Kalina endured far less than I did.

How am I feeling? Aside from irrational grumpiness, fatigue, nausea, extreme hunger and the fact that pregnancy only makes the rest of my life harder (yes, I still tell it like it is), I'm doing great. I have found some relief in a product called Sea-Bands that alleviates nausea through acupressure. I never would've believed it if I hadn't been desperate enough to try them.

The only problem about my Sea-Bands, by the way, is that only the child ones were available. Mine is an extraordinarily garish pair that's a pattern of neon green, neon orange, and neon yellow. Fortunately, the weather's been chilly so long sleeves have covered them--so far.

And how did Kalina take the news? Being of limited vocabulary still, she simply said "no." Poor girl, whose world will be rocked. Judging from how well she tends to her stuffed animals, though, this baby will be in pretty good hands with Kalina as a big sister.

Please pray with us for a healthy baby!

Ready, set, mix!

Words Kalina knows: Mixer, apron, flour. Words Kalina doesn't know: cookie, candy, chocolate. And yes, I'm very proud of that.

Kalina's been baking with me for, well, her whole life. Mostly because she's always preferred riding on my hip to pretty much anything else, so whenever I bake, she does too (this applies to far too many other activities, as well).

She's improved in her degree of helpfulness until yesterday morning (more about that later). It started many months ago with her dumping teaspoons and cups of ingredients into a bowl (often missing). More recently, she can cut out biscuits and put them on the baking sheet in an orderly fashion. She also knows that the oven is hot, and that she doesn't like hot things. I've been happy with her progress.

Having baked a cake with Kalina last week that she still talks about with pride in her eyes, I decided we could use another fun bonding activity (because she's not already attached enough, hah) and besides, I wanted brownies. And so first thing yesterday morning I told Kalina that as soon as the dishes were clean, we'd do some baking.

Kalina jumped into action and eagerly helped me start the dishwasher, proclaiming "mixer!" as soon as it began humming. Caught off guard at her urgency (getting her to do anything nowadays is like herding cats), I quickly cleared the counter and outfitted us with aprons. More for fun than anything else, and because whenever Kalina wears hers she demands I do the same.

I pulled over a kitchen chair to bring Kalina up to counter level and we got started: Kalina mostly talked about the mixer and played with anything that spilled and I ran all over the kitchen to try to keep the project moving efficiently and effectively. She helped me pour cups of sugar and flour and teaspoons of baking powder and salt.

Once the ingredients became batter, and therefore yummy, Kalina crossed a new milestone. She discovered, as we all do eventually, that messy beaters are a treasure trove of deliciousness, and all it takes is a finger to sample it*. This is when she became less than helpful: she determined that she'd rather sneak finger-fulls of batter into her mouth than let Mommy know she turned on the wrong burner and a plastic lid was melting on the stove. I probably could've left her to this task all morning, but my better sense kicked in and besides, I wanted brownies.

Finally, all the ingredients were mixed to Kalina's satisfaction, and I was able to pour the batter into the pan without Kalina grabbing any large handfuls (she tried: "Mom, why didn't you tell me that extracting the batter directly from the bowl would be so much more expedient than wasting my time with tiny little portions from the beaters?.").

I slipped the pan into the oven, and we snapped two pictures--Kalina was in the mood to pose. I left most of the mess for the bathtub later, and cleaned up the kitchen while the toddler contentedly worked off her sugar high.

I was, by the way, unsuccessful in convincing Kalina that the brownie batter (or later, the frosting) wasn't poop, and I was a little disturbed by the fact that she wanted to eat it anyway. I was, however, successful in not letting Kalina have any of the finished product. Cruel, yes, but she showed no interest whatsoever, she'd had enough sugar for the day and I know from experience that when we open that Pandora's Box there's no closing it, ever. I just don't want to have to remind her every day that it's not an appropriate breakfast food. Yet.

I was proud to see at the end that Kalina's apron now has a brownie batter mark on it. My apron has character too, and I hope this is the beginning of a lot of great baking experiences. With my sweet tooth and Kalina's love of mixing, there's no doubt.

*Note: Brownie batter contains raw eggs. You should never let your child consume raw eggs.

A trip in pictures

Kalina and I have both been busy lately, so we apologize for the lack of blog posts. We traveled last weekend to South Carolina to visit some friends, so here are some vacation pics:

Our friends Anna and Tierney traveled with us. We left bright and early so the kids would be in a good mood, and brought plenty of snacks and entertainment so they'd stay in a good mood. Mission accomplished, the girls did great on the 4-hour drive. So well that they now miss each other as traveling companions.



We were particularly excited to be heading south so that we could enjoy some warmer weather. Instead, we were met with 6 inches of snow by Saturday morning! Back at home, we got a dusting of merely 1 inch. Fortunately, I pack heavy and brought plenty of warm clothes for Kalina, although I had neglected to toss in her snow boots. Silly me.







Our hosts posing for Anna's camera next to me. Sara, Ethan and Lee!









To escape the cold/snow, we took the kids to the mall. So did everyone else, but fortunately we managed to snap this picture. Three kids in a photo at once--a record! The mall was an adventure for Kalina, who wanted to wander in every direction except the one I was leading her in. I'm told that in the next few months she'll learn the art of following a bit better. Until then, I keep an iron grasp on her hand in such situations, thinking Matt probably wouldn't be happy with me if I returned home without our child.

One of the trip's highlights was a carousel at the mall. Kalina first laughed at all the animals running around in circles, and then ecstatically chose a tiger when I broke the news that we could ride on it. Tiger! Roar! Tiger! Roar! What a happy girl.
(Again? Again? Again?)







More carousel pictures because they're so cute. Ethan and Tierney were nice enough to oblige Kalina by riding beside her after she unbudgingly made her tiger choice.













Another highlight: the zoo!
Here's Kalina with the geese. What? Those aren't geese? Well to Kalina, if it's big and has feathers and a bill/beak, it's a goose. Besides, they kept saying "honk." Interestingly, when I told Kalina we were going to the zoo that morning, she kept saying "goose." She's just really into geese and was glad to see some.
These and the giraffe (see below) were Kalina's favorite animals there.





Anna and Tierney in front of the penguin exhibit that Kalina could care less about.








"This place is great, Mom! There are rocks to climb on and lots of open space to run around! Oh, yeah, and I guess the animals are pretty cool, too."






We got to feed the giraffes some lettuce! Despite Kalina's somewhat grim expression, she was really quite excited.

In between all the site-seeing, Kalina had plenty of downtime with her friends. She uses the term "friend" loosely, though, and generally preferred to be across the room from them playing with Mommy (possibly because they're a good 6 months older than her). She surprised me by being the worst-behaved child of the bunch, and the only one to throw food (no offense, anyone, Kalina is usually a little angel!).

My other surprise came at 3:15 Monday morning when Kalina woke up for the day, and therefore so did I. At first it was an hour of tossing and turning in her crib. Then it was an hour of tossing and turning in my bed. Then it was 30 minutes of tossing and turning in the rocker with me, and then we both, quite sadly, gave up. Poor girl. She wanted to sleep more than anything, but couldn't.

Why not? Possibly because of her double ear infection. Or if not that, because of her upset tummy that decided not to hold milk in an hour later and at other times throughout the morning (I only gave her a few sips of it once, I promise!).

So we high-tailed it home, having planned to leave that morning anyway. Kalina fortunately dozed a bit on the way but still owes me/herself a good long nap to help her catch up.

We returned to a house that was freshly painted and fixed up, thanks to Matt's and my dad's hard work while we were gone. The next morning, Kalina, in such a surprisingly good mood that I told the nurse "no, I don't think she's in pain," and with a fever over 102, was almost diagnosed with a stomach virus until the doctor looked into her ears on a whim. Definitely a somewhat bad double ear infection, and from my best guesses, her left ear still hurts a little (at least, she's been cranky and a little stinker all week, so that has to be it, right?). I managed to have a very productive freelance week despite relatively short naps and a quite needy/clingy/newly defiant child, and have probably never been so glad to make it to Saturday in all my life. Judging by her smile after spending much of the morning with Daddy, Kalina was pretty happy, too.

And that's why it's been so long since I've blogged.

Snow day!

This weekend, like most of the other inhabitants of our hilly, icy, overlooked-by-snowplows neighborhood, we were snowed in.

Despite being midwesterners most of our lives, we've fully adopted the South's "stock up on groceries and hide at home until it's all melted" mentality when it comes to snowstorms (or even flurries), much to the annoyance of our family. After all, they only come once or twice a year, at most, and couldn't we all use a snow day once in a while? We sure could.

It started on Friday. We knew the storm was coming and spent the day running errands and cooking so we'd have plenty of food prepared in case the power went out. And sure enough, Saturday morning we woke up to a winter wonderland in our front yard. We were out playing in it by 8:30.

We would've been out by 8:20 had it not taken a full 10 minutes to get Kalina appropriately bundled. She patiently and even happily sat on the steps as we subjected her to a snowsuit, hat, mittens and, worst of all, boots. Surprisingly, by the time she was fully geared, she still wanted to go outside and play in the snow.

Kalina has been in snow before, but we're not sure she's ever actually walked in it, mostly because of the dreaded boots (she actually hates any new shoes, much to her mommy's dismay). So playing outside was going to be tough, especially since Matt and I were out of practice at snowplay (not to mention devoid of snowpants). We did our best, but Kalina had the most fun when we treated the yard like a beach and helped her fill buckets full of the powdery stuff. Standing in one place the entire time, she filled buckets, helped us dump them out, and watched us as we threw snowballs at trees and built forts and penguins (guess who built which).

We were intrigued by the idea of having a sedentary baby once more, and took the opportunity to place Kalina on top of our cars, on landscaping and in several small snow banks. We covered her with snow. And she loved it. "Are you ready to go inside?" we'd ask her. "No?" she'd respond.

When Mommy's feet got too cold, however, and Kalina took her first of two or three face-plants into the snow (after all, it's hard to catch yourself when you're wearing a poofy snowsuit and are unwilling to step), we figured it was time to take a temporary break from snow-play. That, and Matt and I were running out of ideas. Ten minutes later, the toddler was un-bundled and pointing at the snow through the window

We made it outside quite a few times this weekend. During the fourth snow adventure, Kalina gave in and finally consented to shuffle around in her boots. She found it tricky to navigate the lumpy landscape, though, and soon was asking to be carried.

When finally the snow reached the right consistency to make a snowman, we decided to show Kalina how midwesterners have a good time in the winter. Matt rolled out a gigantic snowman as Kalina and I watched, helped, filled buckets and ran inside to get Lamby because we really, really needed Lamby. We put together the snowman's face and Kalina rehearsed her facial anatomy as we added eyes, a nose and a mouth. As she pointed out, all of us have eyes, noses and mouths. Who knew?

The highlight of the snowy weekend, however, was a cutting from a cardboard box, looped with rope for a handle, that our neighbors brought over. The two toddlers rode around for a good 15 minutes on the makeshift sled, and then Kalina happily rode another 15 minutes, wearing a hole in it and being forced to go inside. After all, Mommy's toes were quite cold, so how would Kalina's be holding up?

Interestingly, although Kalina was stoic-faced through much of her outdoor adventuring, she never wanted to go inside. Maybe our Carolina girl is as tough as a midwestern girl after all? Let's hope so. Come again next year, snow! Maybe then we'll own a sled.

P.S. "Ha ba Unc Ta!" as Kalina would say ("Happy Birthday, Uncle Tom!")

A day without Mommy

Just a short year ago, when Kalina wasn't sleeping and required Mommy's constant attention, I longed for the day when I could escape her clutches. Her cuteness, while magnetic, occasionally couldn't surpass her neediness and frankly, I needed a break.

On Tuesday, it came, in the form of a business trip to visit a new client: Grandfather Mountain. Had the client been a dreary one, I don't think I could've torn myself away from my little cupcake, who is far easier to manage now, but the North Carolina Blueridge area is tough to pass up. I committed to attending.

*gulp*

Swallowing my true feelings, I commenced writing a 3-page, single-spaced document about Kalina's care, feeding and napping (which required a whole page all of its own) during the 10-hour period she'd be in the hands of her grandpa and her Aunt Nancy. They laughed, but committed it to memory, I'm told.

I was to leave for the 4-hour journey upon Matt's arrival home from work Tuesday evening. On Monday, Kalina was a perfect angel, sweet as sugar sweetened with honey. (Yes, it would've been much easier to leave if she'd been disagreeable--I'll admit it.) On Tuesday morning, she said her first sentence: "I love you," to me, with a smile and a hug, and I felt like the worst mommy in the world. During naptime, I tried to think of every excuse I could to get out of the trip. At snacktime I burst into tears and Kalina tried to cheer me up by waving at me before breaking down into sobs and needing a hug herself. And on Matt's arrival home, I reluctantly left a crying Kalina with her Daddy.

That evening, while I was sitting in a car with 3 coworkers, trying to make light conversation through a sore throat and congestion, Kalina was visiting the mall with Daddy. They played upstairs in the food court before heading back home for bedtime.

My bedtime came much later. And to my dismay but not surprise, the peaceful full night of sleep I'd dreamed of for a year and a half was not forthcoming, as the temperature of my room escalated to at least 85 degrees and my head cold didn't allow me to breathe very well. I think I slept worse than when I had a 7-month-old. Amazing.

However, I was cheered by the knowledge that Kalina was up long before I was (my alarm rang at the sunny hour of 7:00), as well as an email from my dad that showed Kalina tolerated the hand-off from Daddy to Grandpa quite well and was already gleefully breaking rules Mommy had set only a day before.

While I toured the mountain, enjoying lore as amazing as the views and braving strong, cold winds to cross the mile-high swinging bridge, all the time wondering whether I would die first from frostbite or from being blown off a cliff, Kalina relished the sole attention of her grandpa and her Aunt Nancy. The little ham was on her best behavior, and managed to put on quite a good show for them as well as she enchanted them with smiles and sorted blue objects. She also learned a new two-syllable word: out-side.

At naptime, I was engrossed in discussing the future direction of the organization's marketing with half my brain and using the other half to calculate whether we'd make it home before bedtime (yikes, what if we didn't?!?). Kalina was undergoing her nap routine, as carefully outlined in a full page of my Kalina Kare document, at the hands of Aunt Nancy. Despite a few self-proclaimed potential slip-ups (do I turn out the light before or after Kalina is in the crib?!?), Aunt Nancy managed to get Kalina down for a successful nap. Fortunately, Aunt Nancy never had to use the suggestions under the bullet points: "if Kalina talks for 45 minutes and then starts crying..." or "if Kalina wakes up early...."

My afternoon was spent enduring carsickness and dry contacts on the way back home. Kalina's was spent at the park with her Daddy, who took off early since he'd worked a lot on the weekend, Grandpa, and a friend she saw there.

The one mishap of the experience happened around 5:30 when the day had already been long for Kalina and Daddy mentioned the "M" word in the most innocent way: "We haven't seen Mommy for a while, have we?" Oops. The tears flowed, but fortunately Kalina was able to bottle them back up.

I was thrilled to see that my homecoming wasn't met with the nonchalance or misbehavior several books had warned me could happen. No, instead I was greeted by a little girl so joyful that she couldn't help but practically skip toward me as fast as she could, toddler-style, arms open wide. Kalina spent the rest of the evening exuberantly pulling me around by my finger.

Photo: Kalina and her mommy's cousins girls, ages 3 and 5, whose visit to the area last weekend Kalina thoroughly enjoyed (as did the rest of us).