Babies

About the only thing Claire wants to play with these days is her "babies." (Read: doll and stuffed animals) She loves putting them to bed - "nye nye", covering them with blankets, and giving them a paci. I must say I absolutely LOVE this. She's a girl after my own heart. :)

Giving her baby a paci

We frequently see this around our house - a doll or stuffed animal, going nye nye on a pillow, covered with a blanket.

Different baby going to bed on another pillow.

Burping her baby.

Kisses :)

And who doesn't love this girl's cheesy face?! :)

More Mischief

Note to self: Claire can reach things off of the counter, such as spoons used to stir cookie dough. When you aren't looking, she WILL grab them and get into mischief.

Mischief

Claire has really been proving to me that she is quite the handful lately! Already today we've had three mischievous episodes (all while Claire's friend Liam was over)...

#1 Claire and Liam were playing in her room while Liam's mama and I were chatting away in the living room. Just fyi - Claire plays in her room semi-unsupervised ALL THE TIME and never has had any issues. Well... Liam was walking back and forth bringing books and toys and just checking in with his mama, but Claire hadn't been seen for awhile so I went to check on her. She had decided to empty all of her books out of her bookshelf and had climbed onto the second shelf. She was just laying there, hanging out!

#2 After episode #1, I closed Claire's bedroom door so the kiddos couldn't get in there. Again, they were just playing around down the hall when I suddenly hear an interesting noise. What do I find, but sweet Claire Grace playing and splashing around in the toilet water. Ewww!! Liam was just innocently watching her. I hope she's not teaching him these naughty things!

#3 After episodes 1 and 2, all of the doors were closed and the kids didn't have much to do down the hall, so they ventured into the kitchen. Claire plays in there a lot so I thought - no big deal. It was quiet for a little longer than I like, so we went to investigate and there were no kids to be found!! We have a staircase off of our kitchen that goes down into the basement. Claire knows not to go down there so I always leave the door open. She has never tried to go down the stairs and I wasn't even sure if she knew how to get down the stairs. Well - guess what?! She knows! We found Claire and Liam just hanging out in the basement.

Yikes!! It looks like this mama needs to keep a more careful watch on this little girl!!

22 week update!

Hard to believe we are already over halfway through this pregnancy! I had my 22 week appointment with my doctor today. I hadn't seen her since the ultrasound so we finally got to hear the 'official' results. She said baby is measuring BIG - about a week ahead of schedule! They won't change my due date but she said that this just means we'll have a nice sized baby... yikes!! :)

They also found that I have a low lying placenta, which means that at the current time, the placenta is covering part of the cervix. This isn't the best news as it can be an indication of placenta previa. She said most of the time the placenta will move out of the way as the baby grows so that's definitely what we are praying for! I'm guessing I'll have to have a follow up ultrasound to check the position of the placenta when I'm further along.

I started progesterone injections at 20 weeks. These injections have been shown to prevent pre-term delivery. I go in once a week and they give me the shot. (Initially I was told that I would have to give these injections to myself! Praise the Lord they are allowing me to come in and give them to me instead!!! I don't think I could do it and we all know that Justin couldn't! :) We are definitely willing to give it a try to avoid another early baby! You can read more about the injections here.

Other than that, things are looking good! This little girl sure is active! It seems like every time I sit down, she gets moving and kicking again. Such an awesome feeling - I love it.

Injured

It's been a rough weekend for Claire Bear! She took a spill on the driveway yesterday and scraped up her poor little nose pretty good. The first of MANY injuries... I know!

To make matters worse, when we picked her up from the church nursery this morning, they said she had been bitten by another child! It actually broke the skin on her finger and was bleeding. She's a tough cookie though - with both injuries, she only cried for a minute before she was over it!

Mommy & Babu

A couple of months after Claire was born, we decided that since she has 3 sets of grandparents, it would be way too confusing to just call everyone Grandma and Grandpa. Plus, I think it's fun when kids have special names for their grandparents. So... Justin's dad & stepmom are Grandma and Grandpa and his mom & stepdad are Nana and Papa. My parents decided that they would be called Grammy and Grampy. Well, lucky for Nana and Papa, those names are the easiest to say and she has been saying them for months now. She knows exactly who they are and can point to them and say their names. The 'g' names are a little more difficult, though.

Recently, Claire decided on her own version of 'Grammy.' Whenever I ask her to say Grammy, she always says 'Mommy.' When she sees my mom, she calls her mommy, too! The ending is the same so I guess that's as close as she can get to saying it! (I'm fine with it - since she's actually MY mommy but I don't think I'd like it if she called anyone else besides me or my mom Mommy!!:)) Anyway... Claire has never been able to say Grampy. When I ask her to say it, she won't even try... I guess it's just too hard because she will at least attempt most words I ask her to - I mean, the girl says things like 'yogurt' and 'bracelet', so you'd think she would at least try Grampy! Well, the problem has been solved because she now has her own name for him, too! When Jason and Roxanne were home, Claire spent lots of time with them and Anni. Anni calls my parents 'Bibi' and 'Babu', the Swahili version of grandma and grandpa. I have never called my parents these names at all, but the other day, when I was telling Claire that she would be spending a weekend with Grammy and Grampy, I got out a picture of them so she would know who I was talking about. She pointed to my mom right away and said, "Mommy!" I pointed to my dad and said, "Claire, who is this?" Without hesitation, she answered, "Babu!" I have no idea how she remembered that, since JaRox have been gone for over a month now and Claire hasn't heard him called that in a long time. I guess she just remembered! I know I'm the child's mother, but that seems pretty stinkin smart to me! :) So, she has decided that instead of Grammy and Grampy, they will be called Mommy and Babu!

We were with Grammy and Babu today and she just kept saying 'Babu' all. day. long. Nonstop. Her new fave word, apparently. She has a little mind of her own!!

Sickies :(

We're all sick here at our house. Yuck! :( It started on Saturday. We had already dropped Claire off at Grammy and Grampy's house for the weekend, as Justin and I had plans to go to Chicago. I was going to attend my good friend Michelle's bachelorette party and Justin had plans to visit a friend of his in Chicago. As soon as I woke up on Saturday, I knew something wasn't right. I threw up right away but thought (and hoped!) it was just a random, pregnancy-related thing. We decided to pack up and head out anyway. I didn't feel well while we were driving but really didn't want to admit it since we had such a fun weekend planned. We finally stopped when we were over halfway there. Justin wanted me to try to eat something, hoping it would help me feel better. I couldn't eat a thing and felt dizzy and weak. So, we decided to turn around and go home. Soooo sad!! Good thing we did, though, because I got sick several more times on Saturday.

I seemed to be feeling better on Sunday so we went to my parents' house and picked Claire up. Yesterday everything seemed to be back to normal! After eating dinner last night, though, I felt really horrible and suddenly weak and sick again. Justin started to complain of body aches, too. Sure enough, I got sick again last night (and won't be eating spaghetti and meatballs again anytime soon!!!!). We took Justin's temp and he had a fever. What a bummer! To make things worse, Claire woke up at 2 am throwing up! This is the third case of the stomach flu for me in the past four months and the second case for Claire.

So here the three of us are, all sick and feeling miserable. Not a fun day for the Schumachers! :(

The results are in...

We had our ultrasound this morning and about 50% of you guessed correctly... it's a GIRL!! :) We are so thrilled that Claire will have a little sister! Everything seemed to look good on the ultrasound but we won't know for sure until our doctor gives us the full report, hopefully in the next few days.


Here are a few pics from the ultrasound:

Sweet profile


They were showing her heart rate in this one - 157 beats per minute! Totally in the girl zone!

Another profile shot - check out her spine!

Praise God for another sweet baby girl!

Easter

We had such a great Easter weekend! On Sunday morning, we gave Claire her first Easter basket. She had fun looking through all the things in the basket.

This is her "cheesy face." If we tell her to make a cheesy face, she always does this! It's the only way we can get a smile on command!!

All ready for church

Looking for Sonny, our neighbor's dog. She LOVES him!

After attending our church's Easter morning service, we drove to my parents' house to have Easter dinner with Grammy, Grampy, and the Dillman family. Everything was delicious and it was great to be together. We even got to Skype with Jason, Roxi, Anni, and Evy in Africa. Claire was THRILLED when she saw Anni on the screen! :) It was precious!

The Dill boys

Easter egg hunt!

Crazy Preggo Dreams

I've had some seriously weird preggo dreams lately! Clearly the upcoming ultrasound has been on my mind because two of my most recent dreams included this event. In the first dream, I was at the ultrasound and they told me I was having a girl. They also said not to worry, but that baby's heart rate was extremely low. They said everything would be fine (as in - she won't die) but that this low heart rate just indicates that she will be born with a skin condition (huh?!) and because of this, will need to spend some time in the NICU. I was so devastated in my dream, telling them I had really hoped this baby wouldn't have to be in the NICU. Apparently heart rates, hemangiomas, and NICUs are on the brain...

The next dream I had last night. I was at the ultrasound (again) and my friend Bridget was there, too, having her ultrasound. During my ultrasound, the person doing it just kept staring at the screen blankly and telling me she couldn't figure it out. She wouldn't tell me anything else and I was getting so mad. She said we would have to get some other doctor's opinion. Then we were walking down the hall with an ultrasound picture and we ran into the other doctor. The lady gave him the picture and he took me into the bathroom to explain it to me. He said I was pregnant with triplets - 2 girls and 1 boy - but that the boy had died and one of the girls was also going to die because my hcg levels were too low. (??) After hearing the news, I ran into Bridget and asked her how her ultrasound went. She said she was having a girl but they were really concerned because her baby was apparently really big and due much sooner than they thought. WHAT?!

Let's just get this ultrasound over with so I stop having these super weird and kind of morbid dreams!!!