Sorry for the 2-month hiatus, for the 3-4 of you who read this. :) We have survived the summer, had a wonderful time in Arizona with my Mom, sister, and Grandparents, and are now back in Happy Valley where it is actually quite chilly for this time of year.

I just looked at my last posting about Isaiah being afraid of the bath. Thankfully, he has moved on from that stage, and now happily, willingly, and with a lot of giggling and squealing, takes showers with Dan. This is definitely a welcome change. I'm not sure if it was the jungle paradise pool that my sister bought him in Arizona or just being able to move out of a stage, but either way, we are glad that he is no longer afraid of sitting in more than an inch of water. We are also trying to start potty-training him right now, and after a week or so, I am still not sure if what I am doing is right. We have had one successful 'deposit' (of the wet sort), but I don't know if he knew it happened...does that count? He got a cookie for it, of course, and much overly enthusiastic adulation from me, but I think I need to be more patient and just start with "Yes, that puddle on the ground is from you, and that is called peepee. Next time let's try to get the peepee in the potty!"

Isaiah will have his first official day of Stay and Play (kind of low-key daycare at our church) tomorrow morning, and I am guessing that I am the most excited about this newest development, as it means that I have an additional 3 hours in the morning to do...stuff. You know, like shower, brush my teeth, sit and stare at the wall, read, not worry about a diaperless someone crawling up on the couch, stuff like that. The simple pleasures of life... I am also quite excited to see how he does interacting with the other kids in his class, and I know that he will absorb quite a bit, especially at this stage. He is repeating EVERYTHING right now, and it is very cute...for the most part. When I thank a clerk at the grocery store, he'll often parrot "Thanks!" to them as well, which always earns a few brownie points, and he'll mimic any words you try to teach him, which is also a lot of fun. However, there is the occasional word that only I am allowed to use. I'm talking about the word "no." I was trying to get him to pick up some of his books the other day, and all he wanted to do was read them (I hate those dilemmas...). I kept telling him, "no, Isaiah, we need to put them back on the shelf. It's time to clean up." but he kept pulling them off. At one point, I said, "No! Isaiah, it's time to clean up. Please put the book back on the shelf." His response was "No!"--with a broad smile, of course. I was whipped, as usual. He has gotten substantially better at cleaning up, however, and I am quite proud of him for that. He still loves books, and it still amazes me how he does not rip them, even when they're not made of cardboard. I think it makes other people nervous when he grabs their paperback novel or some other adult equivalent, and maybe I should (for their sake) make sure that he gives it back, but at the smae time, I know that he's not going to do much more than flip through the picture-less pages, so I tend to conserve my 'no's for more urgent cases requiring disciplinary action.

Let's see, what else...ah, yes, three long paragraphs into a blog post is about the appropriate place to announce that we will be having another baby in March (March 21 is the due date). Being a second child myself, I have always thought that my parents totally lost interest after my older sister, as was evident by the fact that I slept in the hallway, was put in (and subsequently dropped out of) a laundry basket (my Dad says they had to make room for the clothes), and according to my baby book (I am actually surprised that I even have one) I accomplished nearly every milestone at 2 years of age (and all entries were written in the same color pen). However, now that I have a second child on the way at least, I am so much more sympathetic to my parents, and know that it is not a lack of interest per se, but just a different way of welcoming in another life. (there's a euphemism for you!) We're really excited, and love this one just as much as we did Isaiah, but I must admit, I don't look up every day on the internet to see how big Furoshiki is (that's the in utero name, by the way) or what I should expect in the next week or two. Maybe that is because I have been through it once before, but I think more than that is that I don't really have the time to be consumed by the pregnancy part of it. I do feel guilty a little, but Furoshiki is alive and well and doesn't need me to be looking up internet articles about them in order to thrive. They do need me to be well-rested and not too stressed, and that is proving to be somewhat harder than last time, as I have Isaiah to look after now. I am just pulling out of the first trimester, so a lot of the nausea and all-day fatigue is diminishing, but by 'diminishing' I mean that there is some left. :) Hopefully in a few more weeks I'll have all my energy back, my heart rate will be up in the 'normal for a non-pregnant person' range (which is high for me), and I will feel much better. In the meantime, I am relying heavily on my gracious husband to put up with a messy house, having to pitch in (or completely take over) making dinner, doing dishes, etc. My brother Sam was also here for the last week or so, and he did a lot of our dishes, which helped out immensely (I don't think he realizes how much, actually). I don't think Isaiah understands yet what is going on--in fact, I would be really surprised if he did--but I have told him that there is a baby in my tummy, and now when asked where the baby is, he will come up and lay his head on my stomach and gaze lovingly up at me. He used to come up and give it a nice smack (post-partum flab is great for making some awesome noises!), but I have pretty much broken him of that habit. We'll see if he has any more recognition set in once I get a little bigger.

Dan's experiments are winding down, we think...we hope... He came home fairly satisfied with some results today, so maybe in another two weeks he may be able to start writing his dissertation. We're still hoping that he can defend before the year ends, so lots of encouragement and prayer will be necessary and much appreciated.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to be better about posting more frequently, so maybe check again in November. :)