affectionate

affectionate z

he's doing very well with his speech. his private speech therapist thinks he's doing so well, we don't need to have anymore sessions! he's finally combining groups of 4-5 word sentences, and coming up with things on his own, such as "look - bug outside going up. now going down." he says words we didn't know he knew. he's more active in his music together class, and more verbal about the songs at home and in the car. he finally has a favorite song on the cd (biddy bum). he wants to listen to it so much that it's driving me crazy! he still doesn't want to sing, but he can match pitches a little, and was singing the tonic pitch in class today. i imagine all that will come with time. he's much more active on playgrounds, being braver about going down slides, and climbing more securely. swinging is still his favorite thing to do, and he's still in the toddler swings. it's getting harder and harder for me to get him out of them - i often have to take a shoe or two off! i always ask if he wants to try the big boy swings, but he's not interested yet. same with potty training - knows he has to poop, but has no interest in sitting on the potty. he's able to answer more questions. for example, i asked him if he saw any neighbors outside this afternoon while i was teaching, and he was able to name g, s, & k, which he hasn't been able to do in the past (he'd just look at me blankly).

he's becoming much more interested in babies, with a baby sister on the way. at library story time today, he kept turning around to look at a 1 month old baby. when we picked him up from the nursery after church, the sitter said he sat for a long time next to a baby & held her hand gently. i'm reassured by this behavior, because it wasn't that long ago that he would always hit babies & try to poke their eyes out & push them down (if they were standing).

he asked to hug his baby sister (my belly) tonight - so cute!!! for now, he's excited about seeing mommy's belly grow and the prospect of having an infant around the house. he often puffs his belly out & says "baby sister in there," pointing to his belly. we need to get a picture of all three of us puffing our bellies out! i've finally surpassed jeff's belly puffing abilities.

i'm going crazy on this stupid no carb diet. of course a few carbs get consumed here & there, but still... i'm only 16.5 weeks, meaning i may have at least 23 weeks left of this (possibly). and the last time it didn't do any good. sigh. 3 weeks until the first glucose tolerance test. how can i last? i'm so sick of protein, especially chicken. garlic makes me nauseated, so lots of things are out. my breakfasts are usually 1 egg, some type of cheese, olives, fresh grape tomatoes (which are actually technically illegal, because last pregnancy they would make the blood sugar shoot up), carrots (also pushing it), and red pepper. basically a chef salad. roasted veggies for lunch, along with some sort of protein i can stomach (today it was another hard boiled egg), with more roasted veggies for dinner & more protein. so.sick.of.it.

i cheated this weekend, because z was staying with abuelo/a for one evening, so j & i went out with our neighbors. that's probably made it more difficult for me to return to the diet. somehow my students keep talking about cake & ice cream & other forbidden things in lessons. ugh. it's not bad like having cancer or something, but pregnancy itself is not easy. i feel extra sluggish (i imagine) due to the lack of carbs. diets & i don't go well together. i'm all about moderation, and that's just not an option.