4 - 16, 17 and 1

Today, 4-16 marks the official day that Chaselyn is 17 months old and we are 1 month from Jacob's due date. Wow! I'm one month away from having a 1.5 year old and a newborn. What else can I say but WOW?!

Now, Chaselyn Ann is doing just great. She has fully adjusted to the Toddler room at school. This week, she walked to the door, waited for me to open it, walked in and started playing. It's fantastic to see. And she's becoming less clingy to Mommy too. But no worries, I can still get hugs and kisses pretty much any time I want. Now, unfortunately she's learning some stuff at daycare that we don't particularly care for. Namely, Chaselyn now knows how to throw a fit. She just stands there throws her head back and screams. And a couple of times she's actually collapsed on the floor with kicking and screaming. Our parental tactic is to ignore these tantrums. But often, even if we wanted to fix the problem, we're not real sure why she's throwing the fit. On the plus side, she's learning to talk more. Her actual vocabulary as far as calling things by name hasn't expanded too much, but she knows how to make more sounds and is getting very good at mimicking what people say. She can also identify more by pointing. That is we play lots of the "Where's the _______?" game. I can even ask her "Where's Jacob?" and she'll point to my belly (except for sometimes when she points to her own belly, but we've almost got that kink worked out). It's too precious! She knows where her eyes, ears, nose, hair, hands, feet and belly are. And she definitely knows what birds are. She'll point and say "brd" endlessly until they're all gone. And that's no typo, it sounds like "brd". She also has become almost overly animated with her expressions, if that's possible. Just hand her a small box of raisins and she'll show you a face that says "Oh my gosh, you love me enough to give me raisins?! What a super fantastic treat!"

We had lots of fun in the past month. We made 2 more trips to Arkansas, which meant we went 3 out of 4 weekends. We spent lots of time on Granny and Papa's farm. We played in the snow, we played with puppies, we fed the horses, but mostly, we relaxed. We were up for Easter weekend too and went to a shower for Kimberly and then went to baseball on Easter day. We also got to see the other Texans of the family for quite a bit. (Go figure we only live at most 2 hours away and yet we don't get together until we both travel all the way back to AR.) The baseball game was great. We got to see all of the immediate family and lots of friends we hadn't seen in a while. And the hogs decided to make it exciting for us by hitting a walk off grand slam homerun to win the game.

Monday after Easter Chaselyn and I made the trek back to Waco all by ourselves. Stanton got to stay in AR for a few days on business. And can I just say that Chaselyn is one of the best little travelers ever! We were able to make it back in close to regular time. We only had one extra stop than usual. She slept for about 2.5 hours of the trip and only cried for maybe a total of 15 minutes and never longer than 3 minutes at a time. A big thanks to Stanton's parents for getting her a travel size Magna-Doodle for Easter. "Doodle" as she has now learned to call it kept her quite busy during the trip as did baby, straws, and her snack cup. I couldn't have imagined things going so smoothly for the trip.

Since Easter, Chaselyn has been living in single-parent mode unfortunately. Obviously when Stanton was still in AR, she was stuck with Mommy. Then when Stanton got back on Thursday we had a nice family evening together. But then Friday and Saturday I had a stats conference. And since then Stanton has been super focused and working late nights on the Rice business plan competition which is where he is now and will be until sometime tomorrow.

So the past month has been pretty crazy around the Greer household, but Chaselyn is dealing with it like a pro. I hope she does this well in the upcoming month with the elevated craziness that is about to ensue. As stated in some of my previous posts, I'm getting worried about the dynamic shift that is about to occur in Chaselyn's world. And I just want to do so much for her now while I can focus on her alone.

Chaselyn,

This may be the last full month of your life that you are an only child. By the time you can read this, you will not even be able to imagine life without Jacob I'm sure. We know you are going to be a great big sister. The way you already care for your baby dolls and love on random objects just shows that you have a natural nurturing instinct. We want you to always know that our love for you grows every day and will continue to grow even more as you learn to express yourself and share your love in more expressive ways. It's because of how wonderful you are that made us look forward to expanding the family. You are our precious little girl and we love you more than you'll ever know.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy