Where I've been

So... if you're wondering why you haven't seen any new pictures lately... I lost my camera!! I think it was stolen, which is the worst part. LOST you can always find. Anyway, so I thought I'd give a wordy up-date and throw in pictures as I get them. (Luckily, all the recent events like Halloween have been covered by other people's cameras as well!) But here's what's happening in our family lately:

Scarlett is a very feisty, very chatty twenty one month old. She has tons of words, most of which I can't understand, but I pretend to because I want to encourage her talking. Her favorite activity is to play with the phone: When I'm on the other line, she likes to pick up the office phone and say "Hi" to whoever I'm talking to. It's sometimes cute, sometimes not. She then garbles some stuff, usually says "Dora" or "Elmo" somewhere in there, then hangs up after a cheerful "BUH BYE". Her other favorite phone activity is to pick up the cordless, balance it between her ear and her shoulder and write on a note pad. It's absolutely adorable.

Scarlett's officially in her big girl bed, which at first was a nightmare, but I think we've worked out how to make it work. We've had a pretty decent two week run of her going to bed on time and staying in bed all night. The problem is that she's waking up at 5:30/6:00 AM which is pretty hard on her mom. We really got help from Dr. Ferber's book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem. I know Ferber is controversial but he's always worked for us. He basically says that when moving to a big girl (or boy) bed you should recreate the crib environment by making the whole room a crib. Scarlett's always been a good sleeper, with bad phases here or there. We've been pretty lucky. When we first got the bed, she spent three or four nights in a row in our bed and she is a terrible bedmate. She kicks and steals your pillow and sleeps horizontal and wakes you up by pulling your hair. So we had to nip that in the bud. We are not family bed people!!

We had our 20 week ultrasound a few weeks ago, and we had a terrible, grumpy tech who didn't want to work with us too much. She says she thinks we're having a girl, but she was unwilling to put a percentage on it and basically kicked us out while I was still wiping the goo off my belly. I thought about doing the 3-D ultrasound to make sure, but then I decided it would be fun to be a little surprised! We're pretty sure it's a girl though, so we're doing a purple (since Scarlett has pink) room. A boy would have been great, but Juan and I are very excited to have "the girls!" I always wanted a sister, so it's neat that my kids will have one! Not to mention I don't have to buy much of anything! Of course, if you know me, you'll know that I'll figure out a reason to buy things anyway...

So for the upcoming holiday Juan and I are leaving for Maui tomorrow (Friday). We'll be there a week, just soaking in the sun and enjoying the relaxation. Work has been pretty stressful lately for both of us, so it's a great opportunity to get away-- even if before we do so we have to make sub plans and cancel classes and do all sorts of grimy work.

I hope you enjoyed the update on our little family! I'm sorry it's been so long and hopefully after the semester is over I'll have a little more time to update. It's been a rough, challenging and probably my favorite semester so far! My students are awesome, just a little opinionated. Which I enjoy, I do!! I swear!!