Pregnancy Update

I haven't reported much news about Wee Webster Version 2.0, because up to this point, it's been the standard first trimester. I've felt green, gaggy (but no vomitus eruptus this time around), and very very very tired. Useless, actually. The morning sickness is more of an all day long thing, but it's not that bad. I feel really gross around 4 p.m. and that lasts most of the afternoon/evening when I'm supposed to be enjoying my Sophie time. My stomach starts feeling better around 8 p.m., but by then I'm on the couch and not likely to rise until after 10 p.m. when I wake up, ask Frank who the killer was on Law and Order (I usually peg it during the first ten minutes, but I like to verify), and stumble off to bed. I feel like I started showing the day I found out I was pregnant (or maybe I'd just been holding my breath since giving birth to Sophie, and now I let it all hang out). I'm DEFINITELY showing now -- especially in the evenings. The biggest news is that this week starts the SECOND trimester! Any day now, I should be experiencing less gagging, fewer headaches, and my fingers are crossed that my green skin will start to glow.

I had a doctor's appt. yesterday and finally met my new OB. (She was delivering a baby during my first visit, so I saw someone else.) We listened to the heartbeat and I gave four little vials of blood. That's about it -- everthing is moving along the way it should. The Wee Webster is about the size of a lemon (so why is the bump the size of a cantelope?!) and moving around quite a bit. I lost 3 pounds in the first month, but now I'm up 5 pounds. I'm gonna count that as a 2 pound gain, and y'all can just play along with me and NOT ask me if I'm having twins.

Sophie is getting more excited, I think. The other night, I was sitting in her rocking chair (feeling tired and useless) while she was getting ready for bed. My stomach was flip flopping around so I told Frank to tell the baby to settle. He put his mouth next to my belly and said: "Chillax, kid. Your Mommy and Daddy and Sophie love you. Take a nap." Then Sophie came over, put her mouth next to my belly, and yelled, "Relax! You got a big sister!"

Ditchdirt Holiday Pic

A few nights before Christmas, the Ditchdirt Gang gathered for our annual viewing of 38th Street lights, and our annual family shot in Maggie and Adam's dining room. (I mean photograph, not a shot of liquor...although I did have a teeeeeny bit of wine.)


Hey, where did Laney go? Take two:

And now...Christmas past. Here's the same party, in 2006:

And 2005 (before the door was painted, before Sophie's hair turned blonde, and before Momma got highlights to try to look more like Sophie):

The Legend of Redbeard

I don't think it started off as a protest -- just busy with grading and holidays and a two year old. But then people started making comments (especially me), and it turned into a challenge. He said he loved it. He said he wanted it to grow to his belly button. He said it was a war protest -- he wasn't shaving until the troops came home. "You think this war is long? Wait 'til you see my beard!"



He said that Sophie liked it, because it was softer. And that was true:



But then Will Shoaf's annual "Creepy Mustache Party" rolled around, and presented Frank with the perfect opportunity for a creepy shave.



Really, really creepy. But Sophie still loved it:



He did shave the next day. I know I should have hidden the clippers so that he had to go to church looking like this, but to be honest, I was too happy to see it go.

Christmas Card Sans Postman

Close your eyes. Imagine you're at your mailbox. Imagine you're opening an envelope...now, open your eyes! Here's your Webster Christmas card. Just doin' our part to save the environment, one biodegradable stamp at a time. Merry Christmas, from Frank, Stacy, Sophie, Callie the Dog, and Wee Webster, Version 2.0 (to be released June, 2008).

These photos were taken at Maggie and Adam and Laney's Christmas party -- they put a photobooth on their front porch! Also featured: Laney and Lucy (and the farewell performance of Frank's beard -- stay tuned for the before and after Frank shots)

Cookie Time!

We made cookies this weekend! Sophie helped with every step, except the oven part. After some debate over the best use of a rolling pin, we created tasty gingerbread bears. And then Sophie decorated them with gum drop boobs...

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Boxes are arriving. (And good news for Santa -- Sophie still likes the box as much if not more than the goody inside.)
Our primary pallete consists of green and red these days:

And the tree is up! It's our first ever artificial tree, but so far -- TEN THUMBS UP! I don't have to water it every day, it's been up for more than 48 hours and it hasn't started turning brown, we managed to get it into its stand and maneuvered into place without itchy arms, and not a single needle has dropped onto the floor. Of course, I miss the smell of a real tree. We may have to add some tree shaped car air-fresheners. You know, for authenticity.

Super STAHS

This is a pic from when I was out of town, but I just now downloaded some stuff from the camera and saw it. Frank took Sophie over to Laney's house for dinner, and the girls put on a little fashion show:

Tutu Cute

If you ignore the snotty nose...

Future prima donna or future plumber?

I couldn't resist.

Sophie's Words

I recently spent three nights away from Sophie because I was attending a conference in Dallas. I missed Frank and Soph sooo much (even thought it was kind of nice to skip the whining that happens around bath time and skip the groggy lunch-making routine every morning). But she grew a little in those three days -- and I think I might have missed it if it had happened right under my nose. Her new trick? Compound sentences!

Every day I ask her what she did at school. She always starts off with: I play with Kendall! (Um...even if Kendall's absent, this is how our conversation always begins.)

On the phone Tuesday afternoon, I asked her how school had gone: "I play with Kendall and Jason and Danny, but I not play with Roman -- Roman not there. Roman sick." Holy cow! A soliloquy!

Other funny things she said yesterday and this morning:
After sneezing on me: "I bless-you'd Momma's arm!"
After walking off with the cell phone and hearing me say, "Don't call China": "I called China. I said Happy Birthday, people!"
On the way to school today, she sang this song that I've never heard before: "Giraffe giraffe giraffe giraffe have a long neck like that, giraffe giraffe giraffe, hangy out the window!"

But communication barriers exist. This morning she said, "Where's my water? Where's my pink water?" I put some water in a pink cup and handed it to her. She burst into tears and started flailing her arms -- then walked over and smacked my leg. Yeah, yeah...I did the whole "Use your words, please!" routine, but I secretly thought, "No one hit me when I was staying at the Anatole."

Thankful for Snow and Fire

...and earth (the farm, especially) and water (in case the fire gets out of hand).

We spent Thanksgiving at the Lively Farm. It was tough this year, without Mom, but it was wonderful to be surrounded by family. My wonderful cousin, Schof, and his wife, Sarah, are expecting a baby this spring (as are the twin-in-law's, Rob and Lauren!), so we took the opportunity to promise them a special baby gift -- a tiny, little baby cousin coming in June. Yep -- my growing belly is more than turkey and green bean casserole! More news about that topic in future posts...

Right as we all sat down to eat, someone looked outside and noticed that it was snowing. There were HUGE flakes blowing sideways towards the big picture window on the back of the house. It felt like we were inside a snowglobe! Sophie loved her first snow:

My nephews, Michael and Christopher, scraped together as much snow as they could. Christopher actually launched his snowballs, but Michael was determined to build the biggest:

The night after Thanksgiving, after the snow had melted, we had our traditional Thanksgiving night meal of chili-dogs and leftover appetizers. Jud Bruce (Sophie has been known to call him Uncle Bug Juice) is the firemaster:

All aglow, but far enough away that the fire won't melt our faces Indiana-Jones style:
Now, with feeling! (And with flash.)

Basket Case

Sophie loves to read. She loves to be read to, of course, but lately she also loves sitting and flipping through pages and telling the story Sophie-style. And she pretty much hits the main words from each page! She has favorite books -- like the one my grandmother gave her about an adopted baby from China because Gram thought the baby on the cover looked like Sophie (?!?) and Bark, George and No, David (incidentally, there's a Spanish version out called...No, David) and Wow, School and the very annoying pop-up book featuring Elmo. I thought it would be great for our road trip this summer but who knew the batteries would last so long?

One of her most recent literary acquisitions is the Ten Little Dinosaurs book. It's basically the "ten little monkies jumping on the bed" story, but it somehow explains the extinction of the species (or the genus?). She climbed into her toy basket in the living room and read it several times to herself.

Two Thumbs (and a finger) Up (the nose)

Lucy and her folks invited Sophie (and her folks) to a movie this afternoon. It was Sophie's first adventure to the theatahhhh. And she LOVED it. Loved the popcorn, loved the big cartoons, loved sitting on Nini's lap, loved eating Jason's Reeses Pieces. I was a little worried when the lights got very dark for The Golden Compass previews -- a giant polar bear jumped onto the screen and roared -- but Sophie just yelled "Lion!" and roared back. We saw Bee Movie, a nice choice for her first film because there were no really scary parts and she likes bumblebees. Taking after her mother, Sophie did chomp down half a bag of popcorn before the movie even started. Frank was afraid she might barf so we had to hide the bag for a while. Lucy loved the movie, too -- despite her finger-up-the-nose commentary in the final picture. They both spontaneously applauded at the end. You don't get better reviews than that.

Gross

Frank went out to listen to some music a couple nights ago so I decided to introduce Sophie to the wonders of Subway rather than cooking dinner. When we got home, I cut her tuna fish sandwich into smaller pieces, but I left my roast beef sandwich whole. Here's our dinner conversation:

Sophie: You gotta hot dog? I wanna HOT DOG!
Me: No...I just have a big sandwich. And you have a small sandwich.
Sophie (picking at sandwich): What dat? I'm eating goldfish?! Goldfish?!
Me (laughing): No, it's TUNA fish. Not goldfish.
Sophie: You're eating kitty cat sandwich.

So then we just split the Cheetohs and called it a night.

I Wanna Be Halloween!

Who dat peakin' through the wings?

Oh! It's Dragonfly Sophie!

I just finished sewing this costume a couple of days ago. (Oh, alright...I waited too long and the store was sold out so I bought it off ebay. But it was still cheaper than a trip to Michael's.) Sophie has put on her dragonfly costume a few times since it arrived, and she loves to run around the house flapping her wings. If she sees it in her closet she yells, "I wanna be Halloween!" If someone asks her what she's going to be for Halloween she says "Flappy wings." She has also made up a dragonfly noise. It sounds something like "Yaawwwp."

Toddler Enlightenment

Tonight while we were eating dinner, Sophie said, "I want God." Frank and I kept talking. "I want GOD!!" We made a few existential cracks. "Sophie want God. I want God." I tried to give her more squash. Did she want more acorn squash? Is that what she was saying? "No, I want GOD!" And then she reached out to hold our hands, like we do when we pray, and she bowed her head. Oh. God.

And we saw the light.

Things She Said This Morning

When I walked into her room to get her out of bed:
S: Whatcha been doin', Mom? I had a really good nap.

Me: Let's go change your diaper, Soph!
S: Nope, Laney wants to sing (pushing Frank's mic stand towards her invisible friend).

While eating breakfast:
S: No licky my cereal bar, Callie!

While brushing her teeth:
S: Don't touch toothpaste, Laney. Dat my toothpaste. (Again, Laney was NOT at our house this morning.)

On the way to school this morning:
S: I want the ocean.
Me: You want the whole ocean?
S: And a really big shovel.

Rainbow!

Some might say a multi-colored lei is "too much" for tie dye. But if you're wearing tie dye, is anything really over the top?


We made this cute tie-dye tank at our friend Caroline's party. It's such a great experiment, to untie your creation and see how the masterpiece turned out. Since it's 90 degrees in mid-October, we can still get away with tie-dye and tank tops here in Texas! As soon as I put this top on Sophie, she ran to get the lei to go with it. Quite the party girl.

Super Shoppers

Our neighborhood hosts two garage sale weekends each year. Last spring we threw our own sale and earned a few hundred bucks. This fall we decided to re-fill our garage! Here's our booty: blue (who wants a painting project?) metal chair = FREE; basketball goal = $1; eight books for Sophie = $5; flowery shirt and sailboat dress = $1.50; Casio keyboard = $5; two large dinosaurs = 50 cents; couch for Frank's classroom = $10; wooden chair for Frank's classroom = $10; movie screen (not pictured) for Frank's classroom = FREE; blue pom-pom for Sophie = FREE...and the find of the day...the ENTIRE zoological spectrum, including the Jurassic Age.....$3 whole dollars.

All in all, it was a great day of shopping. Our Laney-friend picked up a LightBright (Lite Brite?) and the other FREE pom pom. We like to share the love.

Guilt By Association

So...Sophie is two. As in terrible, at times. I know, I know...she's "independent" and "learning about boundaries" and "exploring her world." Translation: she's licking paintbrushes and eating play-doh and grabbing the dog's tail and throwing food on the floor.

Last week, she had to go to Time Out at school because she pushed her friend Kendall. (There have been unsubstantiated reports that "Kendall bited me," --no marks teethmarks or teacher's report, but she's sticking to the story-- so it was probably mafia-style retaliation.) I could've told 'em -- Time Out isn't really a punishment or consequence to Sophie. She just marches off to the Time Out spot, sits there quietly without the tears or frustration that might make you think she was sorry for whatever infraction was just committed. When you go to retrieve her after the age-appropriate two minutes and explain why you put her in Time Out and suggest that she say "Sorry, Momma" or "Sorry, Callie," she often responds with "No." (Crossed arms, feet swinging, "I can stay in Time Out all day, lady" look on her face.)

So she got a Time Out in school. And she didn't care. The next day, her teacher tried to re-direct some misbehavior and Sophie said, "No!" and did it again. They tried Time Out a few more times, but when Frank came to pick up Sophie, Miss Heather explained that they would be looking into some new consequences for her since Time Out didn't seem to work.

Huh?!? Like what? Sitting in a corner? Cleaning the erasers? Duct tape? What could this mean?!? My friend Julie told me that the only thing that really worked with her son was taking away his matchbox cars. That very same evening, Sophie did something mean to Callie -- I can't remember what. Dumped out her food bowl or smacked her on the head or something. The point is, Cow was there, too. So Sophie learned a little lesson called Guilt By Association. Sophie may have done the crime, but Cowmoo had to do the time. I scooped him up and told Sophie that Cow wasn't being nice to Callie-dog and put him in the Time Out room but up high where Sophie couldn't reach him. And she broke. There were tears and wailing and flailing and I think she even tried to smuggle in a cake with a file baked into the middle. After one minute of Cow being in Time Out, Sophie was saying she was sorry and giving hugs.

Sigh. Tune in next week to see pictures of me holding Cowmoo over a pot of boiling water.

Go, Sophie, Go

The girl's got wheels. The COOLEST set of wheels were unveiled at the farm. GramKat found a little silver truck (Sophie calls it "Sophie's Little Daddy's Truck") that you actually drive like a car. As in, "put the pedal to the metal" and "eat my dust." Cow took the maiden voyage:

So many errands, so little time. Hang on, Cowmoo -- we don't want you to get whiplash!

Sometimes you have to take a pit stop and smell the roses. Sometimes you just run into them because you're driving without hands.

"What? I didn't cut you off; you cut ME off, bozo!!" (Sophie experiences her first road rage.)

And here's the insane Grandma who bought Sophie her first car. They both look pretty pleased with themselves, don't they?

As we were driving back to Austin, Frank and I started a tally of Webster vehicles:

Frank: one rattly pick-up truck and one sand-encrusted, rusty bike with missing seat cover

Stacy: one Honda littered with goldfish crackers and reeking of sour milk; one bicyle with no gears and squeaky brakes

Sophie: one jogging stroller, one Graco stroller, one umbrella stroller, one bike buggy, one wooden sit-upon car, one plastic Cozy-Coupe car, two tricycles, and one silver pick-up truck with much better alignment and road noise than her Dad's. Oh, yeah...and a wagon.

So maybe we're not teaching her a good lesson about the environment. Then again, the only "vehicle" we bought for her at a store was the $9.99 umbrella stroller from Target. All her other rides were (in order): garage sale find, gift, garage sale find, used toy depot purchase, Craigslist find, used toy depot find and Grandma gift, Grandma gift, and garage sale find. We suck at emissions standards but we're great at recycling!

Go, Austin!

I know that most of my blog-readers don't give a flip about Austin High School football -- you're all Longhorn fans (or gasp...Aggies) or fantasy football fanatics. And my side of the family, of course, are Cowboy fans -- the loyal ones, not the fickle type. But I just have to tell you...we did it AGAIN. For years, our top rival Westlake has decimated us on the field. People actually move to Austin and search for homes in the Eanes district so their kids can be on the Westlake team (sick, I know...but keep reading). Last year, in a miraculous turn of events, Austin High, MY kids, beat the team that has won the state champ title so many times. And I'll be honest -- I didn't think we had a chance this year. Not again. I thought they'd be out for revenge. I didn't even go to the game this weekend because we were going out of town and I thought it would be a pretty bad beating to witness. But I was wrong. I should have had more faith. Austin high beat Westlake for two years in a row. Suck on it, Chaps.


We weren't at the Westlake game, but this is Sophie with Brian-uncle at the McCallum game. She cheered the whole way to the stadium -- Frank even taught her to say, "Boo, Caaam" -- but she was a bit overwhelmed when we were actually sitting in the stands. She barely whispered her "Go, Austin" and buried her face several times. She pointed to the Maroon (our mascot -- a big fuzzy maroon-colored puff ball on legs) and said, "Sun. Sun." At halftime, she found her calling. She was sitting on my lap and we were all focused on the band on the field. Someone said, "Look at Sophie!" I looked down, and she was conducting. Just like the drum major. There you have it folks. Not just a future band geek. But the future SUPREME band geek. I'm so very proud. Band kids almost always do well in school! On the way home, she found her voice again and shouted "Go, Austin!" "Go, Mooons!" (Maroons)

Goin' On a Frog Hunt

I'm a bit behind on posting...these pics are from last weekend when we took Sophie down to the playground and then explored the pond looking for frogs. We heard the frogs plopping into the water, but never saw one. We did see lots of dragonflies (Sophie's a big fan) and Momma snapped off a cattail for Sophie. (Epilogue: The cattail ended up on the floorboard of my car and "blossomed" three days later -- big and poofy like a giant dandelion.)