Bonus Post: Baby Guesses (Hippo Edition)

It's time for baby guesses again!  My elaborate points system has fallen a bit by the wayside, so we're not going to complicate matters this time around.  For your own personal sense of accomplishment, you may attempt to correctly predict the following:

1. Birth Date
2. Birth Time
3. Gender
4. Weight
5. Length

Feel free to throw in other guesses as well.  Will this baby have a lot of hair?  Will we make it to the hospital in time, or have a baby on the road (the hospital is in St. Mary's, 30 minutes away)?  Who is more likely to miss Easter (Catholic Easter is April 5, Orthodox Easter is April 12)?

	Olivia	Gretchen	Hippo
BIRTH DATE	August 3	April 24
My Calculated Due Date	August 3	April 21	April 3
Ultrasound Based Due Date	July 30	April 15	March 31
TIME BORN	12:58 pm	3:29 am
Arrived at hospital	4:00 am, Wed (same day)	3:07 am, Wed (same day)
GENDER	Girl	Girl
Bryan thinks/thought	Girl	Boy	No strong feeling, but optimistically saying boy
Johannah thinks/thought	No strong feeling	Girl	No strong feeling
Olivia thinks/thought	N/A	No opinion	Girl
Gretchen thinks/thought	N/A	N/A	No opinion
Cravings	None	Chipotle, pizza with ranch, both once	Chips and salsa
Aversions	Cream of Mushroom Soup	None	None
First Trimester	Sleepy, never hungry	Starving	Hungry, but nothing sounds good
Sweet or salty snacks?	Salty	Both	Sweet during the day, salty at night
Fruit or meat?	Fruit	Fruit	Fruit
Weight gain	All in front	All in front	All in front
Carrying?	Low	High	Low
Complaints	Pain under right ribs from 4.5 months, mild heartburn	Shortness of breath from 6 months, mild heartburn (less than Olivia)	Pain under right ribs from 5 months, mild heartburn (less than Olivia, more than Gretchen)
WEIGHT	8 lbs, 5.8 oz	8 lbs, 0.2 oz
Johannah weight @9-11 wks	132	124	128
Johannah weight @ 29-31 wks	144 (+12)	141 (+17)	140 (+12)
Johannah max weight	148 (+16)	144 (+20)
LENGTH	21 ¼ in	21 in

February 8-15

Gretchen had a nightmare last week.  She woke up screaming in the middle of the night, so I went to check on her.  As she explained through her tears, I gathered that her animal blanket (the one my mom made her) was missing.  I found it under her other blankets and tried to hand it to her, but she shook her head, insisting that "Lolly took it."  After a few more attempts, she realized that I was, in fact, holding her animal blanket in front of her and that Olivia could not have taken it.  She immediately calmed down and went back to sleep.  Oh, the horrors of a one-year-old's life.

We have a lot of tea parties in our house recently.  At least once a day, those present must congregate at the small table in the playroom to eat cake and drink tea (with milk).  The table is set, the prayers are said, and the cake is gone when the girls decide we've pretended enough.  :)

Another frequent game in our house is hide-and-seek.  Often I will be working in the kitchen and I'll hear, "Mommy, your girls are hiding!"  "Mommy.  Girls.  'iding!"  Of course, if I'm not quick enough then they pop out of hiding to come find me instead.  Gretchen is a fantastic hider, being still and quiet and (often) patient as long as she knows someone is looking.  Olivia is less skilled, or perhaps just more excited, and usually makes fidgety noises to lead seekers to her position before jumping out to proclaim that they couldn't find her, so she needs to hide again.  Favorite hiding places include the master bathtub, the guest shower, and all the closets.

Our sliding back door finally has a lock that matches everything else!  When Bryan originally took the handle off to see what kind of lock he needed to look for, he accidentally dropped the locking mechanism into the sliding door frame.  He went to Lowe's and was told that he couldn't replace just that piece.  Rather, he needed to go to a specific website and look at pictures until he found one that matched our door handle so that he could order a replacement.  We decided that we could wait to get the pieces.  Then I was at Menard's getting keys made one day and noticed some hardware that looked suspiciously like our door handle.  I talked to someone there, and he said it was a universal handle and should fit our door, after which we could have it rekeyed however we wanted.  I bought it and brought it home, but when Bryan went to put it on, he realized that the lock mechanism was not included.  This inspired him to get some wire and a powerful magnet in order to fish our original mechanism out of the door.  I returned the part we already had and brought in our keyhole to be rekeyed, but apparently they can only rekey something if you have a key to fit it.  Luckily, they sold locking cylinders, too, so I got one and they rekeyed it and...  It broke when Bryan put it in.  I went back, found out it was a problem with the way the rekeying was done, and exchanged the lock cylinder for the last one on the shelf, which then broke while being rekeyed.  :(  It would be at least three weeks before they had the piece back in stock.  I called Lowe's, and they told me that what I wanted didn't exist, so I opted to wait the three weeks before going back to Menard's.  This time everything went smoothly, and Bryan was able to install the cylinder in our sliding door.  It was a long ordeal, but everything is in place and matching now.

Olivia phrases: "A lot of many," "very nice of kind"

Wednesday evening I left for Texas (hooray warmth!), so stories of those adventures will have to wait until next time.

Pictures:

February 1-8

We went to Bryan's parents' house last Sunday and left the girls in Grandma's loving care while we traveled onward to a Superbowl party.  I watched three commercials (maybe) and half the replays of the last two minutes of the game.  Most dedicated fan, right here.  :)  Bryan watched the game with Scott, though, while Steph and I worked on a puzzle.  Side note: I brought interesting desserts and if you haven't discovered the website Chocolate-Covered Katie yet, you're missing out.

We stayed in Sidney for a few days so that Bryan could make his monthly trip to Springfield from a shorter distance.  The girls danced and played games (Hungry, Hungry Hippos is a new favorite) and discovered an exciting new musical instrument in the basement.  Pictures below.  I read a book on personality and learning types and relayed more intriguing tidbits to Bryan than he probably cared to hear.

Wednesday we came home at lunch, just beating the surprise snowstorm that dropped almost as many inches on us as the anticipated "winter storm" of the previous weekend.  Lima was caught unawares this time, and roads were bad for the evening.  Our snow is nothing compared to that of Boston (or even Allen Park), but we did get enough icy cover to freeze Bryan's basement door closed.  Nine pots full of boiling water took care of that.

Friday was an extra ultrasound for Hippo because of a two-vessel cord.  I guess most umbilical cords have three vessels -- two arteries and one vein -- carrying blood, food, and nutrients back and forth between mother and child.  Two vessel cords are not problematic or even uncommon, but they are not the middle of the bell curve, so they warrant extra attention.  The midwife explained to me that a two vessel cord is the umbilical equivalent of having only one kidney.  However, they do like to do a third trimester ultrasound to make sure everything is getting through okay and the baby is growing appropriately.  Since I've been accused of measuring small before, this ultrasound was a foregone conclusion.  Everything is fine, though, and we seem to be on pace for another 8-ish pound baby.

Verbal things:
-Olivia uses the phrase "morning day" in place of both "morning" and "day."  She also says things like "unzip me up" and "can you undo me?" when she wants things to be fastened.  She can count to twenty, so long as she is occasionally permitted to skip fifteen.
-Gretchen has been trying her hand at the word "solution" as in "No, crying is not the best solution."  She's working on saying "Gretchen" instead of "Kiki" and can count, kind of: 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, ready, here, come!  Ever ready to contribute to conversation, she recently proclaimed that "Kiki heavy, too!" after Bryan complained about Olivia's weightiness.

Next week I'm abandoning my family and going to a conference in Texas.  Unless Bryan gets inspired to update my blog for me (unlikely), the post will be late.  :)

Pictures:

January 25-February 1

Last weekend was spent in Michigan with my parents.  It was a remarkably calm and quiet time.  Apparently when you remove more than half the family things get much less hectic.  Who knew?!  Anyway, Olivia got to watch Frozen with Aunt Jillian (twice!), Bryan and I got to play cards, and everyone had a grand time watching Josef's reaction to Dad discovering Google hangouts.

While at mom and dad's, we were gifted several large tubs of dress-up clothes from Athena and her kids.  The girls' excitement knows no bounds.  I spent one day sorting out all of the princess dresses, shoes, and crowns that would actually fit them and the rest of the week constantly helping them change their outfits.  Olivia, especially, delights in all aspects of poof, glitter, high heels, and feathers, while Gretchen is quite impressed by the shoes and purses.

This week has finally been back to normal.  Gretchen is coping well with the loss of her pacifier, although she's back to waking up once or twice every night for a drink of water or new diaper.  We're giving her a few weeks to finish adjusting before we swap out her bed on her.  :-P  Olivia has been reading books to Gretchen (usually with the help of her fabulous MeReader).  She also does a lot of puzzles and playing with dolls.  I've got my meal plan back on track and my brain calendar working for me again, so everything seems properly balanced.  :)

Have I mentioned that Gretchen can eat using utensils?  At mealtimes, she opens the silverware drawer, pushes up a chair, and selects a fork for herself (unless she is specifically instructed to get a spoon).  She's good enough with a spoon that she even gets milk in her cereal.

A while ago, Olivia started pretending to fall asleep in the car whenever we arrived at a destination.  It got to the point where she'd close her eyes when she though we were getting close and then she'd call from the back seat, "Uh-oh, Olivia is asleep again!"  Gretchen thought this was great, and started chiming in with, "Uh-oh, Kiki sleep!"  The difference was that Gretchen's eyes were seldom closed.  She would just wait until the side door opened and then she'd let her head flop sideways with her eyes wide open, a little like a dead fish.  :-P  Both girls would spend their sleeping moments informing their apparently unobservant parents that they were, in fact, sleeping.  If only they fell asleep so willingly at night...  Olivia's interest in the game has since waned, so now she only plays occasionally.  Gretchen, on the other hand, continues with great delight, chattering about how "Lolly fast asleep, Kiki fast asleep."

Pictures: