Good Times in the Bath

Karol and I wrapped up the evening (a terrible, nothing goes right type of day today) with a mommy-daughter bath, complete with facial masques, tea-tree oil foot scrubs, and an intense game of 'Spuh-LASH!' which is a lot like catch, but without the catching.

Luckily the rest of the night went smoothly with no tears from either toddler at bedtime. Unfortunately, Matt will be up late tonight working on one of two final papers that is due tomorrow at noon. I will be SO glad when he is done with all of this on WEDNESDAY.

As for me, I've been done with class for a week or two now (yay!). Now I'm going nuts about packing, going through the kids' clothes and weeding the outgrown and winter weather gear from their drawers for storage, and making big piles of random stuff to be donated. We are going to be losing a lot of space with the move to NYC (oh yeah, and adding a kid) and the extra stuff just isn't getting out of my apartment fast enough for my taste.

It's 9pm, and I think I'm going to go to bed. That's actually a little early for me. I'm hoping tomorrow starts off a little smoother than today did, but I'm not looking forward to Matt being MIA while he crams on final projects the next three days!

Happy and Healthy Babies - All of Them!

Today was a 'big' day for the DC Plomins.  Bright and early this morning the whole family trekked up to our old stomping grounds, Silver Spring, for a round of doctor's appointments.

Karol - not surprisingly, Karol got a gold star for verbal ability.  The doctor was floored that she was answering questions like "how old are you?" and "are you a boy or a girl?"  I guess those are questions a 3 year old may be able to answer.  She was also impressed with the 6-word sentences she was uttering -but Matt and I know she can easily do 15-word sentences and more!
She's an expert at jumping, but hasn't mastered walking backwards yet - although that's another 3 year old task.

Patrick - Patrick is right on track developmentally, and doing especially well in the walking/climbing arena.  He's off the charts for both height and weight and a very healthy growing boy.  Patrick's language is seemingly ahead of schedule, too, but of course he was too shy to talk to Dr. Fishman at all.  He did manage a 'high five' though.
Patrick got a whopping 3 shots, one of which being the chicken pox vaccine.  The good news is that he won't need any at all at the 18 month check up.  I'm hoping we can squeeze that one in before we have to leave for NYC in July.

Baby #3 - Mommy and baby got a check up today, too.  I'm doing fine, of course, and New Baby Plomin has all the major organs and limbs and whatnot that they check for in the 20 week ultrasound.  And of course we got the opportunity to find out what we're having.  And, as I've been predicting since day 1 - the ultrasound confirmed we're having a boy!  Karol and Patrick are excited to have a baby brother and Matt and I are excited to use pronouns like "he" instead of "it" when referring to "him."

Measurement-wise he is still on track with his original due date of Aug 10, give or take a couple days.  I'm betting he'll be quite an average size, weighing more than Karol did (7 lbs 9 oz) and less than Patrick (9 lbs 3 oz).  It'll be 'fun' to get to know all new doctors just a month before he's born to deliver him in NYC, but we're getting closer to figuring out who that will be now.  Or I should say, Matt is.  I've put him in charge of finding the doc, the hospital and an apartment in NYC.  We'll see how that goes.

The apartment search is still pretty passive - it's still early - but we've got some feelers out.  We're still pretty focused on the West side, hopefully somewhere in our between the West Village and Upper West Side.  I'm not really thinking about that now, though.  For right now I'm just looking forward to tying my shoes without straining and meeting my new little boy, and thanking God we are so very lucky to have such beautiful and healthy children.

So that's the update for now!

Mommy Blogging from The Sears-er-Willis Tower

How did I not get this memo??? I'm in the Windy City and have an extra hour or two (in and out with the TA-50 drop off by 8:30, yay!) so I thought I'd take the opportunity to walk around my favorite city for a while. I go to the Sears Tower to go to the sky deck (despite the cloudy day...) and it says "Willis Tower" on it! I thought I was in bizarro world where cream cheese is ketchup and metal is now rope. Now can the Sears Tower NOT be the Sears Tower? Furthermore, how could I have MISSED IT?? Nobody thought this was interesting enough to shoot my an email? Come on!

So anyway, the drop off at the 416th went splendidly, and I'm excited to be c

oming home to my family in just a few hours. Unfortunately, my phone is kaput and I left my GPS at home, too. So I had to go by Mapquest and memory to get into and around the city.

Next stop - Midway airport, then home to my babies!

Thanksgiving Day

Matt and I have an enormous amount to be thankful for. The only things I'll bother to mention, though, are our children and each other. Even though we decided not to shell out the dough for a trip home (saving that for an extra-long Christmas visit), we had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Arlington. I made the extra special effort to dress up the kids even though 75% of the time they were bedecked it was just the four of us.

Well, Karol was dressed up. Pat's 'dress up' clothes are so restricting, I gave him a break. But he did sport a nice "Baby's First Thanksgiving" bib.

Matt spent the entire day - from 7am until 4pm - in the kitchen. Our new apartment has a phenomenal kitchen compared to the tiny set up in our place in Silver Spring, and Matt really enjoyed flexing his culinary muscles. He didn't have to go it alone though - our college buddy, Dan Wanke, stayed in town (for the same reasons we did - he's from Wisconsin); we were thrilled to have him over and he helped Matt with all the side dishes, of which there were many.

Besides an incredibly juicy, flavorful, delicious turkey, we had creamed corn, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, creamed spinach, chestnut stuffing, traditional stuffing, apple-topped sweet potatoes and traditional sweet potatoes (my personal Thanksgiving fave). Matt, did I miss anything? Dan brought over two pumpkin pies (I just polished off the leftovers of that while typing this, actually), I made a rather bland pumpkin bisque and a family recipe Irish coffee cake and Matt's friend Cherub brought an Indian dish (thankfully for me not too spicy!) as well.

We had a full house this Thanksgiving, since we had the honor of hosting Dan and three of Matt's friends from GWU-Anand, Ritwik and Cherub. They are from India, so not surprisingly they can't make the trip home either (and I thought we lived too far from home!). My favorite part of having friends over is seeing the interaction they have with Karol and Patrick. Karol used to be a frequent visitor to group meetings, classes, and the like, if I was on military duty, if someone was sick or if childcare fell through, so Karol is especially familiar with the GW MBA class of 2010. I love that she is comfortable playing and talking to Matt's classmates and that they are open to playing "Uncle" to K&P every now and then. And they loves the extra attention, of course!

Dan & Pat

Cherub & Karol

Ritwik & Pat

Anand & Karol

The next day we hit the Black Friday sales! I know what you're thinking, "Black Friday sales with two kids, is she nuts?" Actually, we didn't really start our shopping until after 8, and the craziness is pretty much quelled by then. We hit Target, Staples, and Guitar Center, all of which were only a little livelier than normal. Best Buy was the only place we went with any Black Friday rush left, so Matt dropped me off at the door and I grabbed what we needed while he drove around with the kids.

After that, we went to Uncle Joe and Aunt Judy's house at Karol's insistence. She absolutely loves going over there, especially when she gets to brush Dusty and give him treats!

The next day, Matt and Karol wanted to check out all the new decorations at the mall and maybe get some of our own for the apartment, so we spent all day at Springfield Mall and Tyson's Corner. The kids were both so good the whole day through (hint, hint, St. Nick) and we all had a great time. We crossed a few people off our gift list, got some cute new Christmas shirts for Patrick, and Mommy got a couple things from her new favorite store, New York & Company. Everyone except Matt has their Christmas socks for Louisville Christmas, which I'm told is a necessity. We'll have to pick up some for Daddy today.

So after a pretty packed long weekend, this Sunday we are chilling at home, writing letters to Santa, and maybe taking a long walk before Mass this evening. We are getting really excited for Advent and Christmas, and looking forward to a week and a half in Indiana. Next on the holiday to-do list: get a Christmas tree! I have no idea where we'll put it though!

I can't even count the many ways God has blessed us this year. I just pray that our good fortune continues and that we keep growing together as a family.

Happy holidays to everyone and we can't wait to see you at Christmas!

"Hold still and smile!"