Last Friday, Ellie and I arrive at daycare, and it is raining. Big surprise there. I get out of the van and go around to her side to get her out and right by the door is the biggest, longest grossest looking worm I have ever seen. I say, more to myself than to Ellie, “ewww…a big, fat worm”. She, in response leans out of her carseat to see said worm on the ground. She then says…”big, fat worm…right there”, looks at me very seriously and says “don’t eat it.”

So, last Thursday (the 24th), I realized I had under a month to go until I turn 30.  Can the panic begin already, or does that seem a bit extreme?  I mean, I have one baby…one on the way, a house…a house payment, a good job, and a minivan for the love…one should quite possibly be thinking I was 30 already…

If Oprah says 50 is the new 40, can 30 be the new 20? Am I sure I would want to go back to 20?

Is it simply a mental thing or do I really feel older?  Maybe its my current state…fat and tired (feeling very pregnant today, only okay by the fact that I AM very pregnant)…that makes me feel 30+.  Maybe 30 won’t look so bad on the flip side of it…but right now I’m staring at it and unsure of how to approach it while maintaining my sanity…and dignity too.  Hmmm…

 I’m welcoming your suggestions, both for achieving 30 with sanity and dignity…as well as suggestions on how to celebrate it.

Ellie’s been taking naps in her new toddler bed, but we haven’t been brave enough to have her sleep all night in it yet. For the last week, she has been deciding to go to bed in her bed, without rocking, and has laid down beautifully around 8:30 or 9:00 and gone to bed. What a big girl she’s getting to be!

Last night when she decided she was ready to go to sleep, she chases me into her room and says “big girl bed”, so we let her crawl up into it. She laid down and went right to sleep, and I haven’t heard anything out of her yet this morning.

I’m so proud of her…and kind-of sad that perhaps our rocking days have come to an end…good thing she’ll have a sibling in two months to pick up that slack.

I never thought i was that kind of a mom…wanting to hold on to the little-ness. I guess she proves me wrong again. We’re going to blame the sappiness on being pregnant.

Saturday was a great day at our house. I wish i could describe it in pictures, but we didn’t really take any…in fact, we really couldn’t. You can’t really capture an experience in pictures.

We started out by getting ready for the day and then venturing to our basement to play Mario Cart on our N64. We know it isn’t the most up to date gaming system…but we love it, and don’t really get to play it often, so on this drizzly and overcast day we thought it would be fun. We had an absolute blast. There is nothing like playing a video game with your two year old. She had her own controller, and added a new degree of difficulty to the game when she wanted to switch controllers every 10 seconds and it seemed like the only button she could hit with any certainty was the one that paused the game. I recommend this to gamers who think they have every aspect of the game conquered.

On we ventured to the library to pick up a movie. I’m happy to say it was semi-uneventful there. I’m always kind-of afraid to take Ellie to places where quiet is the standard, but knowing how the WPL works, I usually don’t get too worried about it.

From the library, we went to Hy-Vee. Hy-Vee on a Saturday is always an adventure. Nathan and I never used to go until after 9 p.m. and then we had Ellie. We still don’t usually go on a Saturday, but this day was a must, so off we went. The one good thing about grocery stores on Saturdays is that it is usually sample day…a way to keep Ellie occupied. Thank You Hy-vee for always providing tortilla chips for my child to munch on, but saturday was the jackpot. She had pizza, followed by chocolate ice cream, and quite possibly something else I’ve lost track of. We actually contemplated just feeding her lunch at the sample counters but then decided we’d feed her a small lunch before nap when we got home.

The culmination of our wonderful day though was upon driving away from Hy-vee. I turned and asked Ellie if we should go home and have some more lunch…to which she looked at me very seriously and replied “ribbit.” Nathan and I just cracked up laughing.

It was one of the best days I could have ever asked for.

Friday, Ellie and i went on a shopping trip after work to Wal-mart. We were on a mission to pick up some big girl underwear for her. We’re trying it this weekend – we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, after picking out her very first big girl underwear and showing them to everyone in the lingerie department, I picked out a couple of bras and took them (and ellie) into the dressing room to try them on. I tried them on, and when I was done, Ellie holds one up and says “my try it on”, followed shortly by “coat off mommy”, “shirt off too”. I convinced her that she should leave her coat and shirt on and we’d just try them on over her coat.

So there I am in the dressing room at Wal-mart trying a bra on my two year old daughter over her coat. All she could say was “ooh, pretty”, “my underwear, like mommy’s.” It was quite a moment.