Bailey has been adopted! After 6+ months with us as our foster dog through All About Labs, he is going to join a couple in Hoboken, NJ who want to make him part of their family. He’ll head off on the doggie bus on June 24 and arrive two days later. The woman owns her own business and will take Bailey to work with her. They also live close to a dog park, so he should get the chance to play with some other dogs.

We have mixed feelings about this, of course, but I suppose all foster parents do. We’ve loved him, taken care of him, and integrated him into our family, all the while knowing that we would be sending him off when the time is right. Anna loves him, and I know she’ll be asking about him for a while, but I think she’s young enough that she’ll transition fine to another dog when we foster or adopt again.

So we’ve got another week and a half to love on him, play with him, and get ourselves ready for the big day.

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Anna graduated! I’m so proud!

Ok, so it was from “Mother Goose on the Loose” story time at the library. Since she’s 2 now, she’s supposed to move up to “Toddler Time” for the next year. So after story time today, they held a little graduation ceremony complete with certificate and refreshments. (No graduation speaker, thankfully.) I’m sure the kids didn’t have a clue what it was all about, but there were lots of proud parents there!

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… girl!

Yep, we are expecting another healthy baby girl! I had my Level II ultrasound yesterday down in Little Rock to check for any abnormalities (not because of any existing concerns, but because of “advanced maternal age”), and everything they saw looked healthy and normal. Although the doctor couldn’t see everything he was looking for in the heart, what he could see of the heart as well as all the other anatomical features looked fine, so David and I were satisfied enough to not schedule a return visit. FINALLY, at the very end, he was able to get a good enough look to say he was 90% certain it was a girl. That’s good enough for us, especially since I know my own doctor will do a couple more ultrasounds before my due date, so I’ll ask her to make sure. :)

We are thrilled to be having another little girl. I know you’re not supposed to have a preference, but we did. I think most people probably do whether they admit it or not, so we just went ahead and admitted it. If it were a boy, I know we would love him like crazy, and once he was here, we would marvel at why we ever wished for anything different. Maybe a boy is in our future; I don’t know. (We are seriously considering adopting in the future, and I have no idea when, from where, what age child, etc.) But for now, we’ll have 2 little girls—how precious is that?

And before any parents of same-sex siblings get on my case, yes, I do realize that another girl doesn’t mean another Anna. Anna is so wonderful and has been a blessing beyond our wildest dreams, and I know that our second daughter may be completely different than the first. But she’ll be a blessing beyond our wildest dreams too, I know it. Anna is very particular about things, plays with her toys the way they were intended to be played with, already knows her letters and numbers at age 2, and doesn’t like to be messy. Will the second child be the crazy, creative artist that leaves David and me scratching our heads wondering how in the world to help her channel her energy?

I hope that, for both of our girls, we can help them find what they’re good at and do it well. David and I share a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses. If one of our girls shows an interest in what we’re weak in, I hope that we are able to recognize it and help her succeed in whatever she’s supposed to do.

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Oh my goodness, could this child be any sweeter? I don’t think so! I know I’m a little biased, but she’s just the most precious thing ever. She smiles so much and is happy most of the time. She is smart and picks up on everything. She says “thank you” when we give her something and “bless you” when we sneeze (it comes out more like “ba-bash,” but that’s what she means). She tries to do so much for herself now, and we try to let her. Her verbal skills are developing, and she’s starting to communicate with us more and more that way (although she has understood us for a long time now). She sometimes sings along to her lullaby CD now—it started out as just random syllables sung in a sweet little voice, but lately the syllables are starting to resemble the actual words.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll just leave you with some pictures from this afternoon.

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It was a gorgeous day today (a fact that was apparent to the rest of central Arkansas as well), so we thought a great way to celebrate Anna’s birthday was for David to play hooky from work and take us to the zoo. It’s so great that he can take off and make up the hours whenever! Anna loved it so much she cried when we left, but I promised her we would come back. She did a few of her animal sounds, and a lot of the animals made “a mess” and needed “a bath” (see earlier post). She also enjoyed climbing on every single park bench when she was out of her stroller.

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We had a little birthday party for her last night. Small and simple—just the grandparents, a taco dinner, balloons, a couple of presents, and cake. I’m SO thankful I’ve been feeling better the past couple of days; I was afraid I’d be too sick to enjoy the party. I “outsourced” the cake this time, and I’m glad I did because it was super cute (thanks, Mom!). Anna had fun being the center of attention, getting some new goodies, and eating her “ye-yow” (yellow) cake!

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Anna, our late-talker, has been stringing 2 or 3 words together for several weeks now. One of the first instances I can recall was at dinner one night when she kept saying, over and over, “Mama eat!” and “Dada eat!” She was quite proud of her new accomplishment.

Lately, though, she’s also gained the ability to retell things that happened in the past. Her favorite right now is, “Dixie… a mess… Dixie… bath!” While Anna was at my parents’ house last week, their little dog Dixie, unbeknownst to my mom, started going after a crawdad in a patch of mud. Apparently she was just a horrible mess and had to be hosed off out on the deck. Anna thought it was hilarious. It’s fun to hear her tell her “story” over and over!

UPDATE: Ok, so we were at her weekly “Mother Goose” time at the library today. We got to the part where the teacher pulls various animals out of a bag and we practice our animal sounds. The dog just happens to look like a little Pomeranian (like Dixie). So now, instead of “woof woof”, my child says, “A mess! A mess!”

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On Saturday we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, despite a cold that was making me feel crummy. It would have been a good day for the zoo, but I needed a shorter, closer-to-home trip, so we visited nearby Cadron Settlement Park. Several friends had mentioned that even their little ones had done the trails there, so we thought we’d give it a try. Anna did great going up and down those hills! We just hiked a little way, then turned around. I’m sure the older she gets, the more of the trail we’ll be able to do. She’s going to be a good little hiker!

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Ok, I finally let Anna go out and play in the snow. It’s cold, wet, and messy. I don’t like cold, wet, and messy. But I eventually felt guilty enough about ALL the other kids except Anna playing in the snow; I knew she would love it, and she did! So did Bailey—he ran around and frolicked in it, and Anna got a big kick out of him.

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Anna’s little twin boyfriends came over to play today!

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