Waiting Days

Gabriel climbed into his old seat in the garage this afternoon. He twirled happily in it for a while. It gave me a nice break, knowing he was in one place and not getting in trouble. He still needs a nap every day, but it's just not happening. We struggle for several hours in the afternoon since we're both tired but we'll get there.

On the other side of things, I'm tired of waiting. I know the difficulties ahead and I know it will be hard to juggle a non-napping almost-3 year old and a newborn. Then again, I'm looking forward to Paul being home for a few weeks to help and I'm looking forward to being on the other side of this waiting. On the bright side, my church friends are throwing me a shower for tomorrow night which will be nice. And my blog book got published and arrived yesterday--it is gorgeous and I'm so happy with it. It is a hard-bound full color book of all my posts and pictures for 2007-2009.

Alligator's Coming

Gabriel quote of the day: "Watch out for the bubbles (pointing to old Cheerios on the floor). That means alligator's coming."
No nap anymore and a rainy day called for some creativity. We used the couch cushions and his futon and some sheets to make a tent which turned into slides, boats, and bridges. I'm not sure where he picked up the idea about the alligator, but it's always coming to get us lately. :)

Crib Again

Gabriel never really slept in a crib when he was a baby. Then one day when he was about 8 months old, he climbed out and fell. That was the end of the crib for him. Now that there's one set up again, he seems very interested in spending time in it. I rearranged his room and our office/baby room today so it made the crib seem new again (but not to sleep in, of course).
Also of note: Gabriel is quickly outgrowing his naps. It makes this very pregnant mother sad. He'll take a nap about every third day. He is extremely tired all afternoon when he doesn't nap, so I feel like he still needs them. I'm trying to invent "quiet time" that doesn't involve the tv.

My Nest is Best

Gabriel likes the story "My Nest is Best" by P.D. Eastman. The last few days he's been pulling everything (including diapers) off his shelves and building a "nest" around himself. Then he sings Mr. Bird's song "My Nest is Best." I think it's cute and funny.
Speaking of nesting, I've been nesting today. There isn't too much that needs to be done before the baby is born, but I've been cleaning and doing little things all over the house. Since I'm not due for another four (long!) weeks, I don't think it means anything. But we're glad we have a few weeks since we're rethinking the name we had picked out.

I also wanted to record some Gabriel things:
Gabriel has learned to lock and unlock the front door. This means that I need to lock the security door all the time now as a second line of defense. It also means that I have to take my keys with me when I empty the garbage otherwise Gabriel locks me out!

Gabriel is getting better at phonics. He knows the sounds of almost all the letters. He can also finally pronounce "fox" correctly! It just clicked the other day. We are thrilled that words ending in x come out as "cks" instead of "k"!

Fingerpainting

Gabriel likes taking toys with him when he naps.
Big baby belly at 35 weeks! We went for a tour of the hospital on Saturday and love it. We're both so excited about the big day coming.
Today we needed something new to do. I got out a bowl of ketchup and a bowl of mustard and Gabriel fingerpainted on the walls of the bathtub. He loved making a mess! The bubblebath afterwards was just as fun.

Playing Nicely

The weeks are going by and I'm trying to enjoy my just-Gabriel time as much as I can before the baby is born. Gabriel still loves reading books and sings songs all day. He's quite talkative and his toys talk to each other all the time ("tome'on, let's play," "you ohtay?" "yes, I fine," "ready to race?"). We went to a bounce house place this morning and he exhausted himself for an hour and a half. It's amazing to see how well he is able to jump and climb now!

Both Paul and I are super excited about our new baby boy and love feeling him kick and move inside me. We go for a tour of the hospital this Saturday so we know exactly where to go when the time comes.

Stories of Gabriel

Gabriel got some of his bathtub foam letters out yesterday and was lining them up on the table. As he touched each letter he said their sound, like he was sounding out a word!! It was a complete nonsense word--srbme--but I was so impressed. (I got a video of part of it, but Google Blogger is having trouble playing videos here so I won't bother posting it.) This is also Gabriel's favorite thing to do before he goes to sleep at night: play the letter's game. I say "what's the first letter in...nose?" or something and we sound out the word together. He has started being the one to ask too! His most common one is "what's the first letter in helmet?"

Paul did an amazing job cleaning and organizing the garage a few weekends ago. It's great because we can play in there now. Gabriel and I were in the garage fighting with swords this morning. He said he needed my help fighting badguys. He pointed to the far end of the garage and told me to go get the badguys. Using my imagination, I "fought" objects around me. Gabriel would say, "no...that's a laundry basket" or "no, that's another sword, not a badguy, mommy." When it was his turn, he said "10 badguys" and ran from one end of the garage to the other swinging his sword the whole time. Such imagination.

Gabriel loves being a part of our conversation. He enjoyed talking on the phone with dad as he drove home last night, telling him about his day. He'll point out things on the street as we drive by. The other day as we were driving, Gabriel declared, "I'm a robot. Boop beep boop!" It made me laugh.