Mama at 25 weeks,

A lot of people have been requesting some pictures of mama's belly.

Here she is at almost 25 weeks. She's been feeling great and had a burst of energy that we can only assume is nesting. This week, we literally moved everything in the downstairs and vacuumed and dusted every surface imaginable. We even vacuumed all the upholstery. Then we moved on to the kitchen and cleaning and reorganized everything (with the help of Matt, our neighbor). We're now being held under a strict "no clutter" policy, under which everything gets put away every night and the kitchen counter and table gets wiped down and the floor gets swept. So far, so good.

Take a look at mama's cardigan. She's been looking for lightweight cardigan to wear, but not having any luck considering her clothes buying options are drive 30 minutes to Anderson or go to the walmart. She didn't want to drive, so she went to the walmart and picked up a white henley (for $5!). Inspired by some crafty blogs, she refashioned it into this little cardigan. She's pretty pleased with herself and picked up two more shirts on clearance for $3 to repurpose.

Mama thought that the first picture papa took wasn't very flattering and made her look huge, so she made him take another picture in her workout clothes. (Plus, she wanted to make she she didn't look ridiculous in front of all those buff college boys at the gym.) Though papa doesn't agree with it, she's continued going to the gym and still takes her spinning and weightlifting classes four days a week. Half of it is that it genuinely makes her feel much better to stay active and half is that lots of people seem to be impressed that she's still working out and she likes the attention and all the people saying she looks so good for being so pregnant. (But between you and me, the old lady is slowing down. I saw her in spinning and she can hardly bend over her seat without hitting her belly with her knees.)

Last week at her monthly check-up, mama asked her doctor if she seemed to be carrying especially low. The baby was breech at the 20 week-ultrasound, so Dr. Hearn got out his little portable ultrasound machine and double-check to see that the baby was, in fact, still breech. (No worries, though, it is still small enough to flip over.) Then he gently tried to tell mama that before she had any children, her uterus was nice and taut, like a drum. Now that she's on her third, her uterus is more like a stretched out, broken trampoline. And there's a breach baby head up, jumping on all of her pelvis. Thanks a lot, Dr. Hearn.

Camp out- Henry.

On Saturday night, mama was cleaning out our closet while we took baths. She found a tent that Aunt Molly gave me when we lived in Wisconsin. We never got it out in North Carolina because there was never any room in our little house. But now we have so much room, mama pitched it right away. I was so excited that we immediately threw a book party and begged mama to let me sleep in it for the night. Luckily, mama was in a good mood and agreed. She said I could sleep in it on nights that I don't have school in the morning. It was the best, and luckily there was a window on the side I could stick my legs out.

Mama's only worry was that June would be so mad she wasn't sleeping in the tent too. It took her a little longer to calm down (like that's possible- her norm is over an hour). But we both went to sleep with no incident, so mama says we can put the tent up again this weekend.

When mama cleaned the closet, she got out the summer shoes she'd been saving. June has new flip flops to pair with those shapely legs.

And I have new sandals.

Our toys are all getting new lives as I've started designing and building on my own. I have so much fun building my marble run and train tracks, with only a little help from mama or papa.

For all of you contemplating a trip down south, now is the time. June is super fun and adding new words every day. New favorites this week are "Baby" and "Dorge," meaning a baby doll she has made her favorite for bedtime and my old Curious George doll that I decided was no longer my favorite for bed and gave June. Papa decided she also has a highly developed sense of humor. For example, she has started calling mama "Mom-mmmmmeeee" in a highly mocking fashion. She also calls papa "Pa. Pa." when she really prefers to call him "That mama." She also likes to make her eyes very large and round, put her face right up next to yours, and stare you down before erupting into giggles. And she's very well known for faking sleep when mama opens her door to get her out of her car seat.

Like papa says, either she's out of her mind happy or has never been so unhappy in her whole life. She's going to be a handful in middle school.

Here's an image to make you laugh. This is the angel I made at Christmas. It's by far mama's favorite school art. When she asked me what I was doing in the picture, I told her I was making my "angel face." Oh boy.

The day off- June.

We didn't have school on Monday. Some sort of teacher-in-service day, though the same day is celebrated in some states as Confederate Memorial Day. (South Carolina officially celebrates it on May 10- the anniversary of Stonewall Jackson's death.)

Papa was going to take Bubba and I hiking. I slept in until 10am, interrupted by a few brief periods of dry heaving. I woke up in a good mood and drank a little milk. Good thing mama and papa decided that we shouldn't go all the way to the mountains to hike, because we got to the park and I threw up all over myself and my car seat.

That's why I came back wearing only one of Buster's sweatshirts. The good news is that this seems to be one of my spontaneous barfing days. I didn't get sick after this and seem to be fine today.

While I was cuddling my teddy bear and watching Dora, mama was on a mission to clean up the kitchen. She started cleaning out the cupboards and realized that she was not going to be able to clean out all of the lower cabinets, especially as cluttered as they were. So she called up Matt next door and offered him five dollars to come over and empty everything out and wipe everything down. It was well worth the cost to have a willing 7-year-old to help out. Plus, when he was done, he stuck around and played with Henry as well as any 7-year-old can when dealing with a 4-year-old eager to show off his toys. (The kitchen looks great now, by the way. It hasn't been this organized since we moved in. Unfortunately, as soon as we had everything cleaned out, a colony of ants moved in and attacked a jar of honey. So mama and papa got to clean out the pantry again tonight.)

We got a package in the mail and were so excited to get two new books from PawPaw! And they came with DVDs of him reading the books to us!

Mama tried to get us to read along in the book, but we wanted to watch the videos instead. Thanks PawPaw!

Saturday in Central- Henry.

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a rainy day. Luckily, they hold my baseball practice in a gym on rainy days.

Things couldn't be going any better at practice. Papa didn't have to bribe me at all this week to participate. I loved practicing fielding.

John did a great job too!

Here's a good video of both John and I batting. Check me out in the back knocking it out of the park! It took mama a lot of tries to get a good video of me.

Papa gave me a lot of advice about keeping my eye on the ball.

When we weren't batting, we fielded the balls. This kid is really good and papa could tell it was bothering me that he could get to the balls faster than me. What the video doesn't show is me telling papa not to hug me. I guess 4 and a half is when kids learn how to be embarrassed by their parents' interfering.

If you heard June talking int he last video, you can tell it absolutely kills her that she's not playing. She did sneak out on the court to play for a while. We can't wait to sign her up next year, even though the whole team is filled with boys.

When we practiced running bases, I was very fast. Papa says that after the second lap, all the other kids are starting to get out of breath, while I'm still going strong. Looks like "high energy" is starting to pay off.

After practice, we headed into Central for the Railroad Days. Central was named because it is centrally located on the railroad line between Atlanta and Charlotte. It's a struggling little town where most of the Clemson students live and is trying very hard to rebuild its image around the railroad.

There was a lull in the rain and we got there just in time to get rides on all the trolleys before the long lines started.

Lowe's had a workshop set up where kids could build a kaleidoscope. Mama really wanted to build it, so I humored her by pounding in all the nails. (She had so much fun that she says she wants to start going to all the Saturday morning workshops at Lowe's.) I helped her out on the condition that she let me ride the Thomas Train driving around.

I rode all by myself. Mama didn't think much of it until the "train" drove away and didn't come back for 10 minutes. I guess this is growing up.

Look at all these trains you can rent! Someone please convince my parents to get this for my birthday! Not only am I acting goofy in this picture, check out Junie in the background begging for another fresh made mini doughnut doused in tons of powdered sugar. They were so good.

After she downed the last of the mini doughnuts, Junie took a turn of her own on the train.

While they were waiting for us to finish building, June and Papa took a tour of the Clemson "CAT" bus. Mama says some day she'll take us on a bus ride, because everyone rides free.

The city set up an empty store full of train sets. June and I both drove a Thomas set.

And we spent a good hour playing with the wooden train sets.

They even had a TV playing Thomas videos! Could the day get any better?

Fun Friday- June.

We had a great afternoon. Mama woke us up early from our naps to go to the park with our neighbors. We got there a little late because we all took naps today, but mama was happy that we all woke up in good moods, which is pretty rare when we're woken up.

It was a great day to be outside. Baby Christopher was in a great mood. Mama almost traded me for him; he's so sweet and chunky.

We didn't get many pictures of the boys playing because Miss Kerri and Miss Juliet were clever enough to bring a ton of sand toys. The boys spent the entire afternoon playing with trucks in the sand and there were hardly any tiffs over sharing toys. James filled his car up with sand.

Andy played in the other sand pit.

John pushed his truck around in the grass while Henry spent the whole time filling up a toy garbage truck one stone at a time. We've got to find one of those little Waste Management trucks.

While the boys were playing with their trucks, I played on the playground. I managed to climb all the way up the 10 foot tall twisty slide by myself. Mama is thinking about enrolling me in a gymnastics class this summer. (By the way, could I be any cuter in my little tennis dress and cap?)

I headed straight to the sandbox as soon as mama slathered me up in sunblock, so I had a nice gritty coating for the rest of the day. I wonder if sand has a natural SPF.

Mama cracked me up by peeking through the holes in the tunnel. This may be our new favorite picture.

I keep begging mama and for a dog. They said I can hang out with Keats, John's dog. And Miss Juliet said we are welcome to walk him whenever we want.

After the park, we got a big treat- we went out to eat at a restaurant! A real sit-down restaurant even! We were very good and even ate the grilled cheese we ordered. Looks like we need to take advantage of two well-behaved kids while we still have time before the baby comes.

After supper, we got to go to the baseball game. We sat in the stands for the obligatory 10 minutes before we were too antsy to sit any longer.

Henry was so excited to see that we sat by a friend from school- J.D. And his parents let him come run around with us in the grass.

The boys had a great time playing tag and climbing the fence.

J.D. is in tee-ball this year and is very athletic. He taught Henry how to slide. Next time we'll dress Henry in pants so he can slide a little better.

The boys fun and were pretty bummed we had to leave to come home and put me to bed.

Henry has really been a pleasant kid lately. He's hit a great age where there isn't too much fighting or whining. We've talked about how Henry doesn't care much for doing chores for money, but loves the idea of earning books. Today, mama went to the thrift store and picked up a few more books. (We found more Dave Ramsey for kids books, Aunt Elizabeth.) Henry couldn't stand the idea of not getting a new book so he insisted they head outside and plant the new plants mama bought at a plant sale at the local Montessori school. When I was down for my nap, they planted a cayenne peppers, squash, parsley and Sweet William flowers. Henry is also getting very good at watering all of the gardens we've planted. We've got the vegetable garden, the herb garden, a raspberry plant in the back of the yard that needs buckets of water carried to it, flowers in pots inside the tree house, and flowers in 4 other spots around the house. We've learned the hard way that if we're going to keep anything alive, we need to water it often, because the clay down here dries out very quickly. We almost lost the Abelia we bought at the zoo, but it seems to be getting better now that we drench it daily. He earned one book for planting and watering. He tried to convince mama to get the shop-vac out so he could vacuum up more acorns but she made him come inside and take a nap before he could earn a second book.

While we're on the subject of Henry, it's worth mentioning his latest analytical obsession. He got a calender for Christmas and spends his mornings crossing off dates and counting down until future events. He can always tell you which day it is and how many days there are until the next pancake night, the train festival (tomorrow!) or how many pages until the new baby comes.

He's also really into adding. When he does his lessons on campus on Tuesday and Thursdays, papa has started writing out math problems and letting Henry work on them alone. He can add all the way into the twenties. Papa says it is really something to see. He counts out loud but doesn't use his fingers or anything. Mama says it's another sign of the "knack" and is very pleased that he likes math like she does. She can't wait until he started doing long division in his head to help himself fall asleep like she used to do.

The only down side to Henry these days is that he might be getting to an age when he won't take naps. We know we're lucky for him to still be napping at almost four and a half, but noooo! He didn't take a single nap last week. It was very trying more mama, who is still taking her naps every afternoon. He's good about playing by himself while she naps, but wakes her up every 5 minutes to tell her how much time is left on the timer she sets for him. Luckily, he napped a few times this week. We think that mama's promise to watch "The Incredibles" if he slept may have had something to do with it. If it gets a few naps a week out of it, mama says it's a good deal.

adding

Worst Parents Ever- Mama.

Okay, I'm sure somewhere out there someone trumps our poor parenting skills. We've never left our kids locked in their rooms with a jar of peanut butter while we went to the bar to watch the Packers (it happened in Wisconsin).

Tonight I was on the website for Henry's school and took a look through the photo album.

Here's Henry in October. The week of the Clemson- Wake Forest game. Wearing a Demon Deacon shirt is like suicide in South Carolina, especially two days before the big game. And we all wore matching shirts that day. I actually told someone at the gym that I only wore Wake Forest shirts to work out in because I didn't care if I ruined them. Because he was the 5th person that day to stop and heckle me.

Next up, the Christmas parade. Henry was so excited to sit on a parade float, but promptly fell asleep before the parade even started.

During Pet Week, Henry asked if we were going to get a pet. I told him we were going to get a new baby instead. He said that babies take too long to grow and asked for a dog while we waited.

The last picture was of Henry's class on St. Patrick's Day. Guess who forgot about wearing green? At least someone gave him a sticker so he wouldn't get pinched all day.

Today, I chaperoned a field trip to the performing arts center on campus with Henry's class. These are usually quite eventful because I always end up with 4 rowdy boys who do not have the attention span to sit through a 90 minute performance of anything. Why can't I ever get a few sweet girls who are enchanted by the Steel Drum Band's rendition of Little Mermaid classics? The boys did cheer along when the band finished the performance with (what else?) the Clemson fight song.

Later, we went to the park for a picnic. On Wednesdays in April, Clemson sponsors lunchtime music-picnic, including free bottles of juice! Henry had a good time running around with some girl classmates of his while I chatted up the moms. One asked if the boys in their class had as many playdates as the girls. (They don't. Of the 5 boys in the class, the other moms either work full time, don't speak English or are crazy.) I tried to casually say that we'd love to get together with some girls for a playdate, but before I could set anything up, June grabbed a plastic baseball bat and bonked someone's baby on the head. Maybe next year.

Finally, Henry has been pretty funny lately. There's a saying at school "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." I think this comes from kids whining about snacks. Henry has made this phrase his own by telling us repeatedly: "I do what I do." This was certainly met with a mixed reception. Today, he started saying "I always do what my parents tell me to do." We realized tonight this may stem from from the fact that my general response to "I do what I do" was "You do what I tell you to do." Best mom ever.

This weekend- June.

Good news on the baseball front. Henry actually participated! He was much more willing to practice tossing and catching, hitting, and running the bases.

Mama wanted to get more pictures, but she was watching baby Christopher (our neighbor and little brother to John, who is on Henry's baseball team). Plus, I wasn't helping at all because all I really wanted to do was get out there and play some baseball with the boys. I kept running away and sneaking on to the field to try and hit the ball off a tee.

It took a little coaxing, but Henry ran the bases with papa. When the whole team ran around the outfield, Henry started in back and made his way up to second place. He could have beat the first kid, but Henry isn't the kind of guy who likes to lead. In the end, he wasn't even winded. He said it was fun to pass all the other kids. Mama suddenly got super-competitive and started giving Henry advice about running and passing the other 3 and 4 year olds. I think it has a little to do with the fact that Henry has never before excelled at ANYTHING physical in his entire life and a little to do with the fact that mama was a runner in high school. Henry really couldn't be more of a Seibert if he wanted too. Well, except for the fact that he is actually a fast runner and no one has ever accused a Seibert of being speedy.

After practice, Bubba remembered a bribe papa offered last week: a Chick-Fil-A milkshake for a complete practice. We convinced him that it was too early for a milkshake, but we would go get doughnuts. Too bad no one had remembered to bring a wallet to practice. But Mama did scrounge up enough change in the van to get a doughnut from the Walmart-with sprinkles.

Here's a little Southern trivia- people just don't eat doughnuts down here. Sure, there is a Dunkin' Donuts down here, but any true Ohioan knows that those waxy things aren't really doughnuts. It's really impossible to find a fresh doughnut down here. They don't even make them at grocery stores. Papa noticed too and someone told him that before Krispy Kreme's came down about 10 years ago, you couldn't even get doughnuts in South Carolina. Gasp! We didn't know how good mama had it growing up when her neighbor used to bring over hours-old blueberry cake doughnuts from the overnight shift at John's Doughnuts. And don't get papa started on the lack of a good creme-filled long john.

We were going to spend the weekend in Atlanta, but decided to forgo a trip to the spring Renaissance festival (boo!) to stay at home on Saturday and do yard work (BOO!). We love our house, but realized this week that our yard has a lot of "potential." We spent all day Saturday raking 3 years worth of leaves out of a woody corner in the back and trying to shop-vac up the 18 million acorn caps and pebbles in the hopes that something besides moss may someday grow in our back yard. We've got a long way to go. We won't say much more about Saturday because it involved a lot of bickering about the utility of raking out an abandoned corner and two kids who refused to take a nap and a VERY grumpy, pregnant mama.

We did make it to Atlanta today. Henry's been begging for a trip to the Dinosaur Museum and got his wish today. We didn't take many pictures, but mama did get the camera out when I spent a good 25 minutes playing with this goofy creature creator. They were surprised I liked it so much, because they've never seen another kid ever play with something like this.

Every time I came up with a particularly funny combination, I would run back 5 feet and giggle at how funny I am.

I've made the full-time transition to walking down stairs upright and on my own. It makes mama nervous, but I refuse to go any other way. The only negative fallout is that I've started trekking upstairs when mama isn't looking to recover my blankie and nukie to bring downstairs. So far, mama is not letting me keep them out of bed. I'll keep trying.

As if a day at the dino museum wasn't enough, we also made our obligatory city trips to the Trader Joe's and the Ikea. Ikea was full of surprises. First, kids ate free this weekend. And June and I discovered that we don't like those Uncrustable peanut butter sandwiches of white bread filled with sugary peanut butter and tons of gross jelly. Mama cheered silently that she's brain washed us onto 10-grain bread with the all natural peanut butter that papa hates.

Our second surprise was that Henry was PUMPED to visit "SmalLand"- the drop-off childcare center. He went in without even a goodbye and spent 45 minutes watching movies and playing in the ball pit. He told mama it was his favorite part of the day. I can't wait until I'm old enough to go.

Our third surprise is that I got a new big girl chair! Wait for papa to put it together and we'll post some pictures.