Boy, Oh, Boy

20 weeks is here so quickly!  I can't believe we're at the halfway point to meeting our next baby!
We went in for the scan assuming we were finding out what the sex of the baby was.  Only thing was that I was having misgivings about finding out, I hadn't yet talked with Nate about it.
So we had the technician write it down on a piece of paper so we could discuss and have the option of finding out...or not!
We didn't find out with Harper, I wasn't yearning to know, and do like a surprise.  Nate was ready to know.  All day long he'd been looking forward to it...but he was willing to wait until we got home.
We decide since we can't Skype with both sets of grandparents at once, to share the information with ourselves and then make our respective phone calls.
Nate unravels the post-it, and hands it to Harper, all of 19 months, who usually picks a letter at random and decides that all letters are called by that name..."O", "R", "P", "D" and "B" are her favorites...ok...the only ones she has down as of yet.  What I'm getting at is that "G" has not made an apperance either as a letter or as the consonant the starts words.  She refuses to say "giraffe", her attempts at "Grandma" all skip right over the first letter.  We knew we setting her up for failure asking her to reveal whether she would be getting a baby brother or sister for her 2nd birthday.
Nate asked her, "What does it say?  Boy? or Girl?"  I followed suit, "Is there a B?  or a G?"  She very authoritatively said, "B."  Then she spiked the post-it down on the table and looked at us as if to say, "Next."  We both held our breath, looked over at the post-it and indeed "b o y" was written.  
I shrieked, he laughed.  I don't think either of us could tell which was more amazing...that we were having a boy or that our 19 month old just told us what we were having.  WAY better than a stranger.
We're pretty ecstatic.  Of course, it would have been sweet to have another girl, but to be blessed with one of each is pretty spectacular.
And our baby boy looks like he's doing great.  Everything checked out with the best possible prognosis. Hopefully the 2nd half of the pregnancy will skate along as well as the 1st half.  I have to say, I'm blessed, pregnancy becomes me and I enjoy it tremendously.  Especially feeling the kicks...the absolute best part.
Here's a re-inactment of the reveal...and a sneak peak in 4D of our baby boy.

Three things that prove Harper is advanced ;)

Within the last 24 hours, Harper has done the following:
Pulled the trash drawer open, thrown away the peel from the banana that she was eating, closed the drawer, looked up at me and said, "All done!"
Hugged her dad goodnight, patted him on the shoulder, reached for her mom and said, "goodnight, daddy," as she gave him a gentle but knowing shove towards the door, indicating he could go now.
Pointed to a very pregnant woman's baby bump and said, "baby! Baby! Baby!" And no, I have not yet sat her down to explain the birds and bees. Yet somehow she knew I was pregnant before I did. And she knows how it grows without explanation. Very intuitive.
Color me impressed.

Boogie Time

Harper is so very into music. She's always loved to dance, but now she's starting to shake her hips, hop from foot to foot and change style with the music. She's also singing a lot more now. I'm amazed at how she sings along to a whole host of songs I've been playing for the past 6 months...some she hasn't heard in over a month.

When she talks, she's more into vowel sounds than the consonants, so I'm constantly trying to figure out what rhymes with what she's requesting. Thank God for sign language. It's really coming in handy. I think it truly cuts down on a lot of frustration and guessing.

Harper is such a happy girl, but she's definitely got an independent streak and she wants what she wants. Now. Over all, though, her disposition can't be beat. Nate and I are constantly amazed at how agreeable and happy she is most the time. She's got a great sense of humor and loves to explore and be surprised.

She loves the outdoors, loves to dig in the dirt, but hates to get dirt on her hands...go figure. She does not seem phased by the 103 degree temperatures, which is tough. She is always on the go, so I just try to keep up, but I'm running out of ideas for indoor play gyms that aren't super crowded.

Oos

We're at the phase where it's really starting to become necessary for Harper to use her words.

I know she has them in her head. Most times she refuses to use them until I urge her to.

But today, she picked up her shoes and held them up to me and said, "Ooos, ooos."

We put her shoes on and went for a walk. It was sweet.

I also noticed that she's in a better mood the more I pay attention to her. Tuesday, after we returned from three weeks away, I was running around trying to unpack, do laundry, put the house back in order...she was trying me every moment. Today, we spent the whole day playing... was a total angel.

She's getting to be quite a boogie queen. She's shaking her hips and singing a long. She knows to chorus to quite a large number of songs and I'm always pleased as punch to hear her sing along. She makes my heart smile. I'm a proud mama and a grateful one that she shares my passion for music.

Boogie woogie

At music on the square

Meeting some dinosaurs

Harper really enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit at the Houston Zoo today. Would have been more fun to be with her cousins. Especially Drew, the dinosaur expert.

So Close to Talking

Harper is really starting to repeat words and she babbles so much. It's a sweet tone she takes whenever she's saying whatever she's trying to express. Every day there's a new word she tries out. She's got 'yellow', 'blue', 'up' and 'poopoo' down this week. I'm working on convincing her to leave diapers behind, but I think it'll be a while.
She does like to carry her potty around upstairs, usually to the middle of our bedroom. Not quite sure what that's about, but I'm hoping once she starts using the potty for real it will stay in a bathroom.

This morning she carried the step stool over to the sink, climbed up and grabbed a bath crayon off the back of the counter. She was REAL proud of herself. She kept laughing to herself and telling me (I think) that she did it all by herself. What a cutie!

Happy 4th of July

Harper is enthralled with flags right now, so she is loving all the flags out in the neighborhood for 4th of July.
Today we went to the Gillette's to BBQ. Harper loves the whole family as much as we do. She has the best time trying to keep up with Will and Nick.

Harper is 1 year old! She's actually 13 months.

She has 5 teeth and I believe her 6th is on the way. She got her bottom tooth in December. She turned one with just one tooth. Her 2nd bottom came in that weekend. Gramma Nan is always blessed (or cursed) to be around for a new tooth.

Her fangs came in after a particualarly fussy week, yet they still surprised us since we never saw them until they were both fully in. (Ok, they aren't her incisors, but since she's still missing her two front teeth, they do look a bit like fangs.) One of her top front teeth is offically peeking through. I believe it's neighbor is on the way.

Harper has been such a pro at walking with pushing toys...she learned how to steer when we were at Christmas in CA and she never looked back. By the time we returned she was manhandling them, turning corners, jogging from one end of the house to the other. By the time her Grandparents came to visit, she decided it was one hand only if you wanted to help her walk around. By her daddy's birthday on the 28th, she was walking on her own.

I think she likes her new independence... I take that back, she LOVES her new independence.

She still loves her mommy. Her mommy loves that to be sure. Harper manages to strike a good balance between being independent and needing some TLC.

She now says 'daddy', 'doggie', and 'hi'. She points and mumbles words that may not have the correct consonants, but the intonation is spot on. I know when she means to say 'all done', 'birdie', 'there', 'that', 'yeah'. We've been working on her sign language in concert with her English and she can sign 'eat', 'all done', 'hi/bye' and then she does a universal sign which means 'diaper' or 'more' or 'puff's' or 'milk'...it's confusing but it's promising that she at least understands she can make her needs known by using her hands if she can't find the words.

Whenever she hears a birdie or a doggie, a helicopter or an airplane, a fire truck or an ambulance, she always stops to look for the source. Whenever she hears a machine, she imitates the tone... a garbage truck, a van backing up, a lawn mower, a food processor...it's pretty funny, she's got a great ear.

She's still the happiest baby I know. We both love her laugh try earnestly to win it all the time.

She loves to watch a ball bounce down the flight of stairs, she loves to climb said stairs...we've actually got her trained to call out when she's on the 2nd stair so we know to come spot her. She's been pretty good about always heading back down 'feet first'.

Happy New Year from Houston!

It's been so long since I've posted anything. We moved to Houston in the beginning of October...I think. By the time we got settled, it was the Holidays. I will try to back-track. For Harper's sake more than anything else.