How?

Somehow, I have become the Mother of a Toddler.

Looking at her, talking to her, seeing her responses to the world around her, it blows my mind. How (and when?!) did she morph from the tiny infant we brought home from the hospital to this huge, independent, intelligent child? 

 She's much smarter than we give her credit for. I'm finding myself asking her to do things, and lo and behold, she actually does them. Who taught her that? Where did she learn what all of the words mean?

This kid is Super Curious about Everything. including poop. There have been a few crib-painting, stripping, needing-to-sanitize the whole room incidents... we're learning too. :)

She has an amazingly long attention span (she always has) and is still fascinated by anything with straps, buckles, or things that have to fit together, go inside or around each other, stack, etc. She loves all of it. Especially buckles.

She knows the parts of her face, and most of the parts of her body (nose, eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, ears, face, hair, head, hands, toes, knees, shoulders, neck, belly button, and almost elbows...) and can point to them, and can find them on animals in her storybooks.

She still says "Gwamma" when we say "Booger", probably because we always laugh so hard every time she does it :D

She says "Puppy!" every time she hears a dog bark, even if it's just once, even if it's far away.

She's started to refuse to nap. But she sleeps about 13 hours straight each night.

She is compassionate. Her nursery leader told me that one of the other little boys was crying, and she was the kid who went and gave him a hug and patted him on the back.

She's also learning about Prayer. She knows to fold her arms (and even close her eyes briefly!) and last night after our prayer over dinner, she even said "Amen!". She was so triumphant, and we were so proud :)

She loves to dance. Turn on just about any music, and she'll start stamping her feet, twirling, and laughing. She's such a happy kid.

She still has blue eyes and CURLY golden hair. I love it.

Have I mentioned the part where I'm really anxious about having another one? How on earth do we love TWO little girls? How will she react to not being our entire focus all of the time?

And yes - it IS another girl - we had another ultrasound because there was something funky about the baby's heartbeat at my last checkup. It sounded like Reggae. Or that the battery on the doppler was dying. So they sent me to the hospital, where I got to be hooked up to a fetal heart monitor for 4 hours. Thankfully, my stepmom Tania (and Natty and Kevin) were here, so they stayed and took care of Gabby while Paul sat with me in Triage. After being monitored, they asked me to come in for an ultrasound the following morning, which thankfully showed that everything is as it should be, AND it is definitely a girl.

Which is fantastic, because with all of Gabby's hand-me-downs, the generosity of one of our new neighbors who brought over 2 garbage bags of her daughter's baby clothes (she's only 3 months younger than Gabby) and still more gifts from family and friends, we've got more pink infant clothing than we'll probably use. As in, 30+ sleepers, 50+ onesies, and dozens of pairs of sweatpants and at least a dozen complete "cute" outfits. And this is just for the first 6 months or less, depending on how big the baby is. Forget about the 3 bins of clothing that have all been neatly sorted (thanks Tania!!!) by age/size up to the first 2 years.

The last little while has been all about laundering all of this clothing, receiving blankets, sheets, burp cloths, and organizing everything, packing my hospital bag, the diaper bag, and also trying to keep the rest of our home clean and organized and our family fed. I've had a few contractions here and there, but nothing serious. We've still got a week and a day left, so we'll just have to wait and see :D