Top Secret Fun

Alex works on a top secret craft project to take to his Grandad next week when we visit for Bloomsday.

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We took Alex with us for my 15 week doctor's appointment today. We were able to listen to baby's heartbeat, which Alex has been waiting for for weeks, since we didn't take him to our first appointment. We have an ultrasound scheduled for the very end of May, so hopefully we'll soon be able to start talking about a little brother or sister, not just a new baby.

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The doctor was surprised that Alex is just 2 based on his size and speech. He told her all about how there's a baby in mommy's tummy. The doctor said it would be more normal for him to be using two word phrases now, not complete sentences. What a little smarty he is! This morning I was drinking a glass of water and he said that the baby in mommy's tummy needs lots of water to grow up... he really seems to have things figured out!

Nap Time Trauma

For the past 20 minutes, Alex and I have been battling, with me trying to find a way to encourage (read: force) him to stay in bed, and he's been trying to get away with being out of it. I went in there a few minutes ago when I heard him playing with his plastic zoo. . This is one of his very favorite toys. I told him I had to take it away since he was playing with it while he should be napping. So, I took it out of his room, complete with a tour bus and all kinds of little animals, and he went back to his bed. Since then, though, he has been "helping" by periodically opening the door and tossing out additional pieces of his zoo set that I forgot in his room. Nice to have his help...

Fattening up at the Gym

My new plan to get into shape is shaping up to be Alex's plan to be a couch potato and get fat fast. I went to a pilates class there today and brought Alex with me. The class was okay, but not one I'll go to again while I'm pregnant. It took place with us flat on our backs on the floor for almost the entire class. Not a great position right now. So, I'm crossing that off the list of classes I'll attend.

Alex, however, had a great time the gym's version of Pleasure Island. Bins of snacks were available, as well as various movies and TV shows. When I went to pick him up, the floor was covered in crackers and pretzels in various states of consumption and he was sitting in a chair with other zombie children watching Scooby Doo. As we walked out to the car he complained to me "Mommy, I'm all covered in animal crackers." He ate about 5 bites of yogurt for lunch.

I guess now that I've joined the gym I can save money on hot water for my showers and food for Alex at the same time. Now I understand why they offer exercise classes for 3 year olds there. They'll need it after their first few years hanging out in the Kid's Club room.

Putting Down Roots

Despite continued forecasts of snow, and at least another month before I expect we'll be frost free, it's feeling like spring here. Alex and I have cleaned out the perennial beds and green is shooting up everywhere.

The combination of all this springtime and pregnancy is encouraging me to put down more roots of my own. I feel my toes digging in a little. From thoughts of "I wonder where we'll be living by summer" I'm now thinking more along the lines of "should I repaint that old dresser to match my bedspread?" and "I wonder where the best garage sales will be."

I joined Gold's Gym today. It's only a three month membership, but it still feels more permanent that most things I've done here. I went to a prenatal pilates class this morning, and feel better about the world in general. I'm extremely sore, since the name of the class should have been Variations on the Squat. The deal I found includes childcare in a nice clean room that has all sorts of Alex's favorite sorts of toys, so hopefully I'll be able to go during the week while Jeremy is at work.

Spring Has Sprung

Crocus and Early Snow Glories are blooming. Yipee!!!

Mouse Proficiency

Yikes!! Alex has learned to use the mouse on our computer. He recently learned how to log on to our computer by pressing random keys, so I added a password. I guess that gave him encouragement to see if he could log on using the mouse, and apparently he can now point and click quite well. Last night Jeremy sat down at the computer with him to help him play his favorite Go Diego Go Games online, and Alex told him "No, I'm going to do it!" and took the mouse away from Jeremy. He then amazed us by immediately maneuvering the mouse to do exactly what he needed to to win the game. Wow! I wonder how long it will be before he learns my password and starts navigating to Diego himself?

Museum Adventures

After visiting the Museum of the Rockies a few weeks ago on a free visit day, I went ahead and purchased an individual membership this morning.

Alex loves dinosaurs, but the dinosaur exhibit with the huge creatures and low grumbling dino sounds was really scary this morning. We were the first ones there when the museum opened, so we were all alone in the hall with the giant beasts. I can't blame Alex for running back out of the room, I felt like doing the same thing. Instead, I picked him up and we quickly walked on to the less scary hall of horns and teeth (yes, actually less scary!). There is a baby protoceratops that looks and sounds like it's asleep, breathing softly. It's little and cute, and one of Alex's favorite parts.

From there we went on to a hall filled with beautiful fancy rocks. Alex wasn't particularly interested in them today, but we stopped long enough to take a picture in front of some giant quarts crystals for geologist grandad.

Alex insisted then on returning to the original scary dinosaur hall, but upstairs where you can look down on them instead of having them towing above. There were some other little kids in the room by then, too, so it was much less terrifying than earlier.

With membership comes admission to the planetarium, so we went to a special Saturday morning children's program I thought Alex would enjoy. It was a cute narrative about all the neat things like ladybugs you can find in your backyard and the story of two bear constellations and Leo trying to eat their tails. Alex sat very still on my lap through the entire thing. When it ended he burst out crying. I think he had been scared stiff through the show, and let all that tension out when the show ended. I'm not sure I'll take him to one of those again soon.

One Small Step

Alex has learned to put on his own shoes! He has had very little interest in getting dressed (or undressed, for that matter). So far, he can unzip his pajamas, although he has never bothered to actually take them off, and take his socks off. It's nice to see him really helping to get out the door in the morning.

Blanket of Snow

Today we had the perfect snow. If I have to have snow in April, this is the way to do it. It was warm and wet and deep.


After a winter of cold dry fine snow, today Alex built his first snowman. Balls of snow rolled easily, picking up all the snow down to the greening grass below. With the ease of rolling, we started by building a caterpillar, with a body of multiple giant snowballs. Then Alex noticed the snowmen the kids down the street had built, and wanted one of those too. So, he helped me roll up the snow, and then he selected brown leaves for the eyes and nose, and picked out the perfect place on the head for them. We finished by rounding up some sticks from our neighbor's yard and Alex pushed them in to create his very first snowman.

Back In Bozeman

We've actually been back since November, and it's been a long cold Montana winter. From life on the beach it was hard to return to snow, especially 6 months of it. It's still snowing regularly here, although the bulbs are making a valiant effort to appear and most of the grass is now visible in the front yard. The backyard, on the north side of the house, still has a foot or two of snow in most places. Unfortunately, that's where I planted my earliest spring bulbs, so there is still no sign of them. I treated myself to a wireless outdoor thermometer so that I can figure out when my greenhouse will be usable, and have discovered that the temperature ranges from 13 degrees at night to a sizzling 111 degrees during the day when the sun is beating down on it with the vents closed. So, I'm not sure I'll be using that anytime soon.

Alex and I are staying very busy despite these cold days. We've joined a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) group, which is usually the highlight of our week. It's so fun to hear Alex explaining what he did there like quite time, and singing "silly" songs.

We've also been attending a class on the Five senses put on by the City Rec Department . Alex loves the circle time, when he's often the only child actually copying the teacher in hopping like a bunny, popping like popcorn, or flying like a bird. He doesn't appreciate the craft time, and usually completes a project by simpling smearing one brushstroke of paint or glue on it and declaring it finished. The one craft he really enjoyed was making a little drum out of a used cottage cheese container and decorating it with foam dinosaurs. He loves dinosaurs, and he loves drumming even more. I've signed him up for a Music and Movement class put on by the same group this summer, which I think he'll really enjoy.

We've been swimming on Friday mornings, and he's quickly overcome his fear of the water, especially since this is a nicely heated pool, used mostly for small children. He does have some lessons to learn about locker room etiquette, since he mortified me one day by pointing out the colors of the little girls' underwear "Pink underwear! Look, mommy, she has pink underwear!"

I've started preparing to organize our church's VBS program for this summer. Alex already has many of the songs memorized, months ahead of time. He just loves to sing.

With a morning of snow, and no activities scheduled this Monday, I decided today was an excellent day for crafts. So, we spent the morning using scrapbooking supplies to create alphabet letters to hang in Alex's room. Since he's learned to sing the entire alphabet song and can spell his name, I decided it's time he learn to recognize the rest of the letters. He thought that was great fun. After cutting out each letter I let him put a sticker on it for something starting with that letter (alligator for the A, etc.). We finished A-D today and hung them in his room to start learning. Amazingly he wasn't done with craft time yet, and begged to put together a mini indoor kite mom had sent him for Easter. So, we put that together, and I dug out another little kite I'd bought for him, and we raced around the house flying kites, just like the naughty Things in The Cat and The Hat.

He's sleeping now, giving me a chance to recover before another round.