I know most of you read this blog for information on the under-aged in our household, so I figured I should give you a little update and one fun story just to keep you interested!
When we got our first small shipment it was partially ours and partially the Couser's, so there were a few things here and there that were starting to look familiar. When Koa went in to use the potty one time he noticed that he recognized the bath mat. He looked at me and said, "Is this ours?" I said, "Yes." He asked, "From our green house?" I affirmed that and added, "This is our new house and soon we will have all of our stuff here." He said, "This is our new house? CONGRATULATIONS!"
As you can see from that little story, his vocabulary is really exploding and he says all kinds of interesting things now! He is quite the little evangelist, too. He will sing or talk or shout about Jesus whenever he gets a chance! Sometimes he will be out on our front steps all by himself just telling anyone who will listen about Jesus. Yesterday we were at Ikea rummaging through the scratch and dent section and the whole time we were there he had a lamp he was using as a microphone and he was singing/yelling, "Run to Jesus! Run to Jesus!" the whole time! I kept asking him to lower his voice and he would for a time, but the message just could not be suppressed and in very little time he would be yelling it again. Can you really discipline for that?
He is getting pretty good at using the potty all by himself. When we are out somewhere he will insist that I carry on with whatever I am doing and he will do it by himself. There is usually some part of it that he can't quite do completely by himself (sometimes it starts with getting the door open to get in the bathroom). I can't really suppress myself from going in and keeping watch, but one day he went in the men's room and Zak was perfectly willing to let him try. We were sitting where we could see the door and when Zak did go in, the only thing Koa couldn't do by himself was reach the paper towel. However, you should have seen the look on the poor guy's face who walked in on the little two year old sitting on the potty! That was priceless! There have certainly been some adventures along the way as we make this transition to independence. I will have to blog about some of them for posterity sake at some point--mostly to remind me to just wait until the next child is 18 before we embark on this milestone!
Koa is really loving the new way of dressing that the rest of us are hesitant to adapt. He loves to wear long pants or "hot pants" as he likes to call them. He reminds me to bring his jacket when we go out the door even though he doesn't wear it for long when we do put it on because he usually gets too hot. We got Koa a pair of galoshes (Locals) before we moved to Portland and packed them with the rest of our belongings, but he did not forget in the month that he did not see them! He asked for them multiple times and when he saw me putting on covered shoes one day he insisted that he needed his "bootses". We got them out and he started wearing these bright blue boots everywhere we went! To Zak's dismay he doesn't even want to wear slippers anymore! So, I went to a second hand store the other day and bought him a couple of pairs of regular shoes and he danced around like a crazy man with only one shoe on while Zak was trying to see if they fit. For the rest of the day we could hardly get him to take them off. Surprisingly, he can put them on by himself and gets them on the right feet. I thought that was just a product of wearing slippers all the time, but apparently not. I can't tell you how grateful I am to not have to bend over and put them on him!
Speaking of not being able to bend over for any length of time without almost passing out...I am certainly getting rounder! I have had a bit of a cold for the past week which makes breathing even more of a challenge. Other than that, I am still feeling pretty good. My weird back issue rears its ugly head from time to time, but I cannot even begin to tell you how thankful I am that it hasn't been any worse during our move! With all of the plane flights and different beds and moving things from place to place I know it could have been SO much worse, but I have really done very well. I haven't been exercising as much as I would like, but I do some stretching every now and then and it seems to help keep everything working relatively well. Praise God!
Little BZ2 is getting slightly less busy. I don't feel him or her moving all day and all night anymore--there are occasional breaks is the action, but when he/she is moving it feels like there is furniture being re-arranged in there! Sometimes I feel my entire upper body move in response. I don't remember Koa ever keeping me awake at night with his movements either (there's isn't much that will keep me awake at night!), but this kid can definitely do so. One night at like 3 AM it actually felt like my whole belly was vibrating and then the baby was running laps on the inside. It was the weirdest thing I have ever felt--and I could NOT go to sleep! Koa likes to tell me what the baby is doing in there--it's usually a sport. "She's playing baseball!" (Yes, he still insists the baby is a girl and she will have green eyes, green hair and a green shirt.)
We have chosen a doctor/midwife very close to us. She does home births and birthing center births. We haven't totally decided which we are going to do, but I think it will probably be at the birthing center. We figure you kind of lose the "comfort of your own home" benefit when your own home still feels a little foreign. We'll see. We still have a couple of months...
We're still not certain on a first name for a girl or a middle name for a boy, so if you have any ideas we are still open to suggestions!
