Sept 8, 2008: The last few days saw big developments in Casey's comfort level in the swimming pool. She has always tolerated going in but never showed any interest in staying in for long periods of time. My brother put the heat up pretty high the other day and suddenly we could not get her out of the water. She would stay in for 2-3 hours at a time, started dunking her own face under (see picture and her response after popping back up), jumped off the sides to us in the pool, and would play on her own on the steps. In general she turned into a little water bug and had so much fun. We are very conscious of the dangers of falling in and always keep a very close eye on Casey whenever she is near the edge. She has always been really good about knowing the pool is not allowed (she goes to the edge and shakes her finger at the water and says 'no, no, no' the way we do). Yesterday was the first time she actually fell into the pool. She was helping me clean leaves out of the filter and when i turned to reach in to grab the leaves I heard a splash, she had stepped back too far and went in. Of course I was right there to jump in and grab her and she was not even that scared. Funny though that she lasted all summer and fell in on what was probably the last pool day of the summer. Besides the pool she has had some other changes too. For at least the last few weeks her naps have been getting worse and worse. She would take almost an hour to fall asleep sometimes, or just never fall asleep at all. So I finally caved about a week before she turned 16 months old and moved her to one nap. I was reluctant to do this because I was just hoping to hang onto the additional free time and was hoping it would last for awhile after number two came so that I would have more time to nap myself. Alas, this was not to be but I have been happy with the schedule change. Now she goes down at 1 o'clock, right after we get back from lunch. She goes down immediately with no fuss and usually sleeps for 2 hours, sometimes even a little longer. It allows us to do more in the mornings, so I try to plan an activity for the morning, then we meet James for lunch, go home for naps, then James usually takes her for an hour or two in the afternoon until dinner and before you know it the day is over. Since school started up we've gone for walks at an Audubon trail area, gone to see a petting zoo, story time and arts and crafts at the library, and today we went to a country fair. Casey's vocabulary blows me away, she really picks up on words so quickly now and remembers them and uses them. She loves running places now.
Baby number two is doing well also. I am 31 weeks and feeling pretty good. I've been sick actually for the last two and a half weeks so I have not done any running. I went for a short one today and felt OK, but it still made my coughing start up somewhat. This baby moves so much it's incredible. I had been sleeping great throughout this pregnancy and just recently started getting worse sleeps. I guess it is all part of gearing up for the baby's arrival. I told James tonight that I have a hunch this baby will not go to the due date. Obviously I have no clue, but I wanted to get it down on the blog just in case my prediction comes true. I go to the Dr. in 3 days for a check up. Now that James is back in school I have to bring Casey with me which should be interesting. We've been reading a book to her about bringing home the new baby. She seems into the book but when we were visiting with our nephews this week she was very jealous if James or I were holding one of them. I had to have the three hour glucose test as a follow up to the routine one hour one because my numbers were high (whatever that means). It was a pain in the neck; I had to fast for 12 hours, and then get my blood drawn four times in three hours. Fortunately the results came back fine and I am not at risk for gestational diabetes. Well, that is all I have to report for now. Oh one last thing...we bought a mini van this summer. We love it, but it's still hard to believe that we drive one and have arrived at that stage of life. I'll post a picture of our sweet ride soon.