We signed Ashlan up for swimming lessons in May a few weeks ago. I tried to sign her up for March, but apparently a man got there a minute ahead of me and took the last spot for his daughter. They asked me if I wanted to do lessons for her in April, but I thought that would be too much with a newborn. As of now, we're just planning on having her in lessons for two weeks in May, and maybe June lessons too, depending on how she does in May. She is still in gymnastics, which she does every Tuesday afternoon and really loves it. We were thinking of starting her for dance lessons instead on Wednesdays (bc it's way closer and even cheaper) but we'll have to see if she enjoys that more than gymnastics. The dance lessons would also be held at her new school, so that would give her familiarity to the place before she starts school.
About a week ago I signed her up for preschool starting in September. For now, it's two days a week from 8 to 1 PM. We will see how she does with two days to see if we want to add the third day, but we still plan on going to Disney once a month for three-day weekends during Dan's weekend off and she will still have gymnastics or dance once a week too. We think that's plenty for a three-year-old to handle right now, as she won't turn four until December. When I told her that I had signed her up for preschool, she looked up at the ceiling, closed her eyes, raised her arms, and said, "YES!" Dan and I burst out laughing. We're glad she's really excited!
A lot has happened with my pregnancy in the last few weeks. About three or four weeks ago I randomly coughed (I didn't have a cold or anything) and I think I pulled an ab muscle. I had called the doctors office who said keep an eye on it, but it got worse throughout the next week. I called the doctors office back again a week later bc I was in tears to stand (I really couldn't stand past a minute or two without being in excruciating pain), and after deciding it was more of a 'me' problem than a problem with the baby (thankfully I had no bleeding), they told me bedrest for a week. Well, for the next two weeks I did not get any better, despite me resting as much as possible. I've seen the doctor twice since this happened and they said I must have torn an ab muscle but that they were going to check for a hernia if I ended up having a repeat C-section since I was still in pain. It has actually been much better the last few days, and I was able to stand for about 20 minutes cooking dinner the other night without too much pain.
Another issue is that my blood pressure has increased in the last few weeks, and along with slightly elevated protein in my urine and a little bit of swelling, they thought it may eventually turn into preeclampsia if I didn't take it easy. So even though at the last two appointments those symptoms have been rising, it hasn't been bad enough to classify me as having preeclampsia, thankfully. I have also been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions with this pregnancy too. I never even had one contraction with Ashlan before induction, and even when I was induced they weren't bad at all because I never progressed past one cm. I've gotten up to 8 to 10 contractions in one day, but nothing regular or time-able. I am interested to see if this baby will make it to my scheduled c/s date, which is two weeks from today (4/4/14). My parents will be here in the next week to help out with Ashlan, so the baby is free to come anytime after that, lol.
We are 100% ready for this baby girl to get here. We have absolutely everything we need, and I'm so glad I did not procrastinate on anything considering I haven't been able to do much in the past month. Ashlan has really been an angel with me not being able to do much. She has been entertaining herself for the most part, but I am so thankful that we got the iPad because that has helped tremendously.
A few weeks ago we went to see if the car seats were installed correctly. I am happy to say that both of them were installed perfectly and the lady checking them actually asked me twice if I wanted to be a car seat installer, lol. I told her I was just good at it because we would always take Dan's car down to Disney, and since we only had one car seat, I had to keep installing the car seat between the two cars at least once a month. We will not be doing that with two, I can tell you that right now, lol. Way too much work!!
Craft day in the Denning household.
She loves them, but I do not like glitter glue sticks, lol.
Valentine's Day art project for daddy.
And mommy and Ashlan's hand.
She decorated the penguin that I made, LOL.
I found some free Disney Princess coloring pages from Pinterest, so she wanted to color those too. We were crafting for hours that day.
And then she got tired...lol.
She doesn't take off these princess dresses very often. I think she's had one on every day the last month!
My little Rapunzel playing ABC mouse.
New toy for mommy, a double stroller. Cannot wait to use this at Disney and Ashlan loves it too.
And of course she has to play with the box. Sometimes she prefers boxes over toys still, lol.
This apple was huge, and she ate the whole thing!
Kicking the soccer ball in her little mermaid dress. She wasn't old enough for us to sign her up for soccer this year, but she will definitely be doing it next year. She can kick a ball really well and even asked us to sign her up (when we thought they had a 3 y/o league and asked her if she wanted to do that, whoops).
Still loves dancing to music!
She dressed herself this day, obviously.
More dancing.
I have been using this desk when I'm laying on the couch lately. She was so excited to use it too. :)
