28 Weeks already!

I can't believe it is only about 12 weeks until the second baby beaver is born! I feel like this pregnancy has just flown by, and before I know it October will be here. I am pretty similar to last pregnancy, I never really had cravings or many symptoms...and a lot of movement as time goes on! I think I am ahead a little bit on weight gain this time, but only a few pounds. I had my appointment with the midwives this week and had gained 4 lbs, and when they measured me I was up 5 cm from the previous appointment!! The midwife did think she was measuring a little foot stretching up a little bit, though, but she couldn't push it down. So things seem to be going right on track!

I am wearing mostly pre-pregnancy dresses that are not fitted around the waist, because all of my maternity clothes from last time were winter clothes. The dresses seem to be working out; luckily I've got a lot of them. I bought one pair of maternity shorts and the fit is horrible (and they are majorly mom-jeans style), so I may try to avoid buying any more clothes and just survive on pre-pregnancy dresses and tops with maternity jeans, plus the few stretch pair that still button.  If only the heat waves would stop!! I love hot weather, but I definitely feel a lot hotter pregnant! Plus, it makes it harder to stay active and walk... but lately I've been doing a lot better. I do a prenatal yoga video almost every day, and we try to take walks through the park (or at least to get ice cream down the hill ;).

I still have no feelings toward either gender, although Riley has been saying she thinks it is a sister now for a while... I think that is what she is hoping for! I really think she will be happy with either gender though, she is just so excited about being a big sister! She loves coming to my appointments with me and hearing the baby's heartbeat, and she likes helping pump the bp cuff and to take my blood pressure.

In general riley updates, she is doing fantastic, and I while I know it will be a big adjustment for her when the baby comes, I think she will do pretty well! She is doing really well with potty training, even though we aren't really working on it a whole lot. At school they said she is ready to go diaper-free outside of naps, and that is what we've been doing at home too, and so far there haven't been many accidents. We aren't brave enough to try diaper-free away from home, though, so she still wears diapers a lot-  and night/naps will probably take a while still. But for us never really doing any potty training, we are pretty happy with her progress! I think I am not in a huge rush, because from everything I've heard even if she is potty trained she will regress back to diapers when the baby comes :)

Besides being excited about the baby, her favorite things lately are jumping (randomly and for no reason), singing and doing ring-around-the-rosy, playing with water outside, and loving on "her puppy" (Lili). She and Lili have become best-buds, meaning that riley is constantly hugging and kissing her, and Lili stays for it instead of walking away, or even seeks out riley's attention. Riley talks up a storm and can sing all the words to several songs now, but is still silent almost anywhere we go or when new people are around. She will talk to her friends at school, but doesn't really talk to teachers or other adults. They are working on getting her to be more talkative, but I don't think it's a big deal- I know she can communicate exceptionally well when she wants to. I love how she communicates about emotions so much too, and always is concerned if she thinks we are not happy (which will get us a hug, kiss, and the question- "Did I make you so happy? Are you happy now?") And it was quite amusing a few weeks ago when she told me she needed to "go cool off" for a few minutes, returning to say she was better now!

She is also learning incredibly fast- She has known her alphabet, counting 1-10, and colors for quite a while now, but she is starting to recognize a lot of letters and know what letters different words start with, she can count to 20 (though still missing numbers, and sometimes counts over 20!), and she actually counts objects now and can tell me how many objects are in a small set. She seems to be finally getting the one-to-one correspondence of counting, which is exciting! She is also amazing at puzzles (for her age, of course!). She has no trouble rotating puzzle pieces to figure out how they fit, and often does it by looking at the pieces rather than trial/error. She can build a 3x7 floor puzzle almost completely independently already! She needs some help on bigger ones, but can still fit many pieces together in small clusters on her own.

Riley is also incredibly interactive when reading books. I just recently noticed this, and it is so interesting! She will point out emotions of the different characters in the book, and talk about how their emotions change in the story. She points out when things are silly, and asks if she doesn't know what something is. She recognizes letters while we are reading, and while she obviously doesn't read or anything yet, she likes to point to the words and pretend to follow along, and likes to pretend to read books to me like a teacher, while pointing to words as she talks. We are actually not great about reading to her- we mostly only read to her at bedtime when she gets anywhere from 3-6 books depending on their length and the time. I do know she spends time on her own in the "library" corner at school, and they are read to a lot, so I guess that helps!

Okay I guess this was enough rambling- I feel so sad I don't write here much, and then feel like I need to try to think of everything I might want to remember in a few years when I do! I already feel like I left stuff out of my old posts when I go back and read them. Oh well... I'm sure there will be many memories that do stick! My goal now is to just try and take a lot more pictures than I have, starting with a new belly pic- hopefully to be posted soon :)