Emma update: two and a half

Emma is 2 1/2 today. Here are some facts and figures about Emma:

Physically:

• measures about 94cm but wears clothes for 3-4 year olds as she is wide around the shoulders and hips
  
• shoes size 26
• still not a vast amount of hair but we have it trimmed every 2 months or so - it looks neater and it might just help it thicken
  
• cute as a button - but hey, I'm her Mum, what do you expect?!
  

Speech:

We're not in the "Why?" stage yet but Emma is asking LOTS of questions quite relentlessly such as:

• Qu'est-ce c'est?/c'est quoi? or What's this? when she sees something she cannot identify or wants to know what the word for it is in another language
  
• Qu'est-ce que tu fais? (what are you doing?) when she enters a room and finds you actually doing something or wants to know the word to whatever action you are carrying out
  
• Je peux voir?/Emma voir (can I see?) most often when we tell her she has had enough of something (three servings of soup/pasta/apfel mus is surely enough!) she wants to see if there is any left. I actually now stress using "ça suffit" (that's enough) or "c'est le dernier/la dernière" (it's the last one) as opposed to "il n'y a plus de..." (there is/are no more ...) because Emma almost always asks to see the pot or pan or packet of biscuits.
• Tu veux lequel? (which one do you want?) when presenting us with a choice of toys or colors or books (mimic us).
• T'as fini? (are you finished?) at the dinner table
  

It's great for vocabulary building and quite cute actually, except when you are driving around looking for a parking spot and she is relentlessly repeating "what is that?" without giving you any indication of what the "that" might be!
It seems that mainly sticking to one language over the holidays helped things organize themselves in Emma's brain as far as languages are concerned and she seems to have made a leap forward with her French. However now she is actually mixing languages within words - not just sentences - a recent example "Liren, bitte?" (lire = read in French & lesen = read in German)

• Currently, her favorite question in German is "ist es lustig?" (is it funny?) which she asks after jumping, falling down on purpose or whenever she thinks she's done something funny.
  
• She still mainly speaks of herself and others using the third person singular (as in Emma tired) except in specifically learned expressions like "t'as fini?" (are you/have you finished?) or "on y va" (let's go!)
• Emma doesn't currently distinguish "who" from "what" (or "qui" from "quoi") but I figure that's in line with talking to inanimate objects such as teddies and toys...
• She is starting to make more complex sentences and state things like "this is little Emma" (ça c'est petite Emma) when pointing a pic of herself as a baby, or "ça c'est a Maman/Papa" (this is Mummy's/Daddy's) or "ça c'est pour Emma" (this is for Emma) c'est pas pour toi (it's not for you).

Expressing feelings:

• Emma is also very good at telling us when she is tired "Emma dodo maintenant" (Emma sleep now) or hungry ("Emma faim" - Emma hungry) and becoming increasingly eloquent at naming basic emotions such as "grumpy" or "angry" (fachée), "triste" (sad) or "contente" (happy) and will sometimes tell us we are being "böse" (bad, mean) when we insist on her doing something she does not want to do.
• She'll also enquire: "maman fatiguée?" when she sees me yawn.

Eating and sleeping:

• Now days, Emma eats practically everything (although she has totally gone of eggs and doesn't really like mushrooms nor pumpkin and will occasionally be choosy about things in her plate) making the little list in the sidebar quite irrelevant...
  

• She sleeps through nights 99,9% of the time except if she is ill or has not had enough to drink during the day. Emma slept in her "big girl bed" for the first time on January 17th but we are still using a grow bag rather than a proper duvet because she is rather restless in her sleep (as anyone who has shared a bed with her knows!) She loves her bed so much she now climbs into it to read her books during the day time and we often find her peacefully "reading" in the morning with her bedside light on.
  

I still have to move the wall stickers which were placed to be
around the top of her cot and look a bit funny now in the middle of the wall.

Toilet training & dummy:

• No visible progress on the toilet/potty training front - we just occasionally ask her if she wishes to use the toilet like Maman and Papa but haven't really gone further with that one and watching kindergarden friends hasn't inspired her immensely.
• Emma still sleeps with her "lola" (dummy/pacifier) at home but no longer uses it at naps in kindergarden. Unfortunately, our attempt at giving it to Santa Claus was pretty disastrous (not least of all as she was coming down with a cold) as she cried for her "lola" every time her cough woke her up. Maybe the Easter bunny could take it?

Chores, agility and mobility:

• Taking her shopping without a buggy can be hit or miss; sometimes easy as pie, sometimes her running off and playing "catch me" (and running with a belly is hard!).
• She still dawdles and this means a 5 minute walk from the kindergarden to the car can actually take 30 minutes - Patience, patience....
  
• She is generally very careful when taking things to and from the table and loves throwing things away in the garbage.
• Now days, Emma loves jumping (now with both feet) from the sidewalk and runs anywhere she can
  
• She'll gladly help with cleaning the snow off the car, setting the table and the laundry, pushing the laundry basket from the bathroom to the laundry room then pulling out the laundry and placing it in the machine and most of all closing the door and pressing the START button.
  

Playing:

• She definitely plays a lot more independently sometimes telling us she is going to her room with teddy or to play lego and loves reading and being read to (you can read the same book to her a zillion times - it's no problem at all for her!).
• She often mimics us with her teddy and "nounours" (there are two!) telling them she will be back when we leave them in the car or wishing them "goodnight" when putting them to sleep.
• LOVES reading! enjoys playing with Lego and doing the occasional puzzle and is still totally smitten by Peppa Pig and her family and friends. In the car she loves listening to her music and sometimes dancing at home but her favorite things of all are BOOKS!
  
• She's not so much a "rough and tumble" girl - although she loves it when we tickle her in our bed or on the couch - and tends to need to be close to someone to accept physical exchange such as playful chasing/pulling/pushing/catching etc. (at kindergarden it took her a long time to cuddle up to a teacher)
• She hated our attempt at skating but like sleighing and making snowmen
  

Terrific twos and threes....

• She's definitely testing us; banging her feet against her chair at dinner time although we have told her not to a zillion times, deciding she wants to eat with her fingers instead of using a fork, saying "no" to whatever needs doing (getting out of bed, dressing/undressing, brushing teeth, dinner-time, clearing up toys, etc.), refusing to put her boots on alone although she is perfectly capable of doing so, grunting at us, putting herself in the corner in a joking fashion (a place we ask her to go for 2 minutes to calm down when she is getting a out of hand), walking in the opposite direction to the place we are going to, running away...
• "No" is unfortunately still a favorite word...
  

Other than all the above, she's just a little bundle of joy despite the occasional "revolver eyes" (as they say in French) when she disagrees or is "grumpy".

Emma's new love

Emma's new love is her turquoise pouf which is in fact one of my breastfeeding/maternity cushions hidden under a Sit Fix cover. Pretty neat "recycling" huh? Check it out here

Pheew! We have an appointment to get her hair trimmed tomorrow after kindergarden!

Oh and on a more serious note of "love", last week Emma told me she was going to kiss W. a boy in her kindergarden group she seems to like. Here he is on Emma's right as they wait for the other children to get ready for the snow.

I definitely agree with her, he is the cutest boy in the kindergarden!

Baby/preggie update week 28

So on Thursday I had my routine checkup at my gynae's and got my glucose test results and blood test results.

In a nutshell:

• I don't have gestational diabetes
  
• I am anemic
• everything else is fine; in fact even my low lying placenta seems to have moved up but we'll still go for the final confirmation on that one during week 34
• unfortunately, no cool baby pics this time.

As for the baby, he now measures 35cm (!!) and weighs 1284gr. (Seems big to me!) According to the measurements, the calculated EDD (estimated delivery date) reads out to be April 14th-16th confirming my feeling (or hope!) that he's coming slightly before April 20th. Although, according to the gynae, these measurements vary each time and don't really change the EDD calculated at the beginning of the pregnancy.

I think Emma's EDD was also somewhere between July 27th-August 4th according to the various body measurements (see Emma's data on week 30 and of week 32)...

I'm still not entirely sure at which location to give birth (hesitating in between two) so I've decided to go visit the delivery rooms in each hospital again next week and hope my gut will have strong feelings about one place rather than another.

Also, I am hugely reassured after discussing post-term delivery with my gynae; one of the girls who does preggie pilates with me is over 10 days overdue and they are still waiting... I don't know how she does it. I would be really worried. Even with the checks every three days. In Switzerland that's a no-no. And in my book that's definitely a no-no. Very happily, my gynae is also against leaving the baby in more than 3 days post-term - Pheew!!!

Mind you, a couple of second time Mums have told me their second delivery was so quick they barely had time to get to the maternity or settle into the delivery room! I could live with that - as long as Steph is around and Emma is safely at kindergarden and it's not all happening at 4am.

Big girl bed

Emma slept in her big girl bed for the first time last night. It took her ages to fall asleep but I think that had more to do with a long afternoon nap than the bed - at least I hope so.

This is excellent news mainly because it was becoming really hard for me to lift her into her cot with my belly and her weight. She seemed quite pleased and kept saying "Emma a grand lit" (Emma has big bed). It also means that I can now sit on her bed next to her for our bedtime stories which she quite liked. (Hopefully there won't be too much climbing out!)

Another piece of good news; we're nearly done with all the vaccinating!
Emma had her "Hepatitis A" booster shot today and will have her third and last tick-borne encephalitis booster shot in April (before the baby arrives please) - after that Emma is all done with vaccines and boosters until she is at least 4 (unless we move God knows where in the meantime...). Yay!

Of course, then we can start all over again with baby boy...

what size is my bump at 92 days to go?

Preggie update - 100 or so days left

Today is the first day of the third (and last!) trimester of my pregnancy! Yiippeee!!!

What's up with the me and the babe?

• I've put on 5 - 5,5kg so far (currently at 65,5) and am hoping to stay below 70kg if at all possible, my feet will be ever so grateful!
  
• energy levels are pretty high now that I am getting rid of my sinusitis
• I'm sleeping well although finding it increasingly difficult to turn around in bed (my osteopath suggests tightening & relaxing the buttocks a few times and then tightening them to turn around so as to create a "belt" of support around your hips since by now abs are totally useless)
• my belly is looking pretty big and my belly button has flattened out completely (with Emma it never popped outwards which was fine by me, thank-you very much!)
• I can still zip up my winter coat, which is great as it's about -3° here in Vienna and windy
• baby is kicking strongly but no hiccups so far (Emma had them all the time and still has them occasionally)
• next check-up with ultra-sound due next-week

Update: Saw my endocrinologist today and it turns out my thyroid meds need adjusting again - up to 150µg/day (instead of the current 125µg) - I'm glad we're keeping an eye on this!

Back in Vienna, mini update

So we're back in Vienna after our longest holiday stay at the Poirier in France and I have to say it's not bad to be back. Hopefully, I'll finally begin to feel human again after a major bout of sinusitis (Emma and Steph were ill too) so back to health is a good start to the year.

But there has been other minor but still empowering happy bits of good news to welcome us back to Vienna:

• against all likelihood, my wallet was returned to me -Yippee!- with all my -now useless- papers and cards inside. Apparently somebody dropped it off in the lost and found mailbox. Kind of restores your faith in people... especially in a big city like Vienna. Too bad I had already ordered new driving license, ID cards, bank cards, credit cards, insurance cards... I wonder if it was the thief herself who returned it. I can imagine her loading off a bag full of wallets rid of their cash. Funnily enough, the letter from the Fundservicestelle was sent out on December 18, the very day we headed off to Geneva. Oh well. (for the theft story go here)
  
• January has brought lots of calls about our Polo (we're selling) and today we sold it to a family with two boys (3 yrs and 5 weeks). My new car arrives mid-Jan. and my ever-extending belly is very happy and grateful!
• Although my "mummy revenues" for taking care of Emma come to an end this month, I received some surprise extra cash from the state of Vienna who had forgotten to pay me three months of my "mummy salary" - always appreciated after Christmas!
• It's been snowing so we can finally test Emma's sleigh!
  
• I found some more preggie leggings (on sale at Jacadi) Yay!!!! I am really beginning to feel tight in my jeans and tunics and leggings are so much softer on my lower belly.
• 100 more days to go before D-day! Although we still have not found a name for our little man in the making...