They Survived

It turns out that my wife and my daughter can, in fact, survive without me for two days.

I am back from Austin, no worse for the wear. The wedding was beautiful, the reception was a rockin' good time with lots of drinking and dancing. Matt's wife is a wonderful, wonderful woman and her family is fantastic. Matt and Aarica are happily celebrating their honeymoon in Mexico right now. My dress was fine, the dress I had to buy quickly for a surprise dinner the night before the wedding was fine. My heels created the expected monster-sized blisters on my baby toes. I saw a "killer wasp" killing and then eating a tarantula. I drank a lot.

It was a good weekend. And Kelly and Bailey survived just fine without me (although, I can say that I think they were both delighted to find me home again!). I never realized that leaving would be so hard when there is a little girl (and a big girl) waiting for me and wanting me back with them. Leaving sucked. Being gone sucked. But it worked out, and in the end, I'm glad I went.

We are 12 1/2 weeks pregnant. Kelly may or may not be starting to feel better. I refuse to say anything right now, because the relief this weekend may have been a fluke. We'll see.

I was thinking that I can't believe we are few short days away from our second trimester. WHAT??? Where did the time go??? With Bailey, it felt like every single day dripped by and each new week couldn't move quickly enough. Now, we're nearly done the first 1/3 of this pregnancy, we find out our baby's gender in 6 weeks or so and it seems like it all just started. It's amazing.

I saw a tiny baby in Austin this weekend and I experienced a surge of joy that soon, we will have another one of those little loves in our arms. I absolutely cannot wait! I am so happy that we'll be able to have a tiny infant one more time. Having seen how quickly they grow up, I am grateful that we get one more shot at the tiny-baby phase. Seeing the tiny, scrunchy little bundle this weekend brought it all home.

In other news...last night I was smothering Bailey (go figure). I was saying, "Honey, can I have a kiss?" She pushed me away, backed up, pointed to her book and said "wanna read a book". It was clear as day. Seriously, this girl is talking up a storm and putting words together in ways that blow my mind. And what she understands is beyond my comprehension. When did she learn all of this? She answers questions appropriately. For instance, if I ask her if she wants another bite, she'll say no. If I ask her if she wants water, she'll either nod and reach for the water or point to the fridge and say "milk". Sometimes she says no. She tells us she wants to "eat eat" when she's hungry. Every morning while she is getting dressed she says "where is pitter". She loves the cats. When she loses something she holds up her hands and says "where is it?" She'll cry and ask for her "bobo" when she wants her binky.

It gives me incredible joy and pride to know that she is learning to communicate. Honestly, it makes life so much easier. Rather than trying a million things until the one is finally found, we just let her tell us what she wants. It's so much easier.

The other thing is that Bailey has officially outgrown many of her clothes. She has moved out of 2T and is into 3T. We need to go shopping for her soon, because she's got very little to wear. We just went out and bought her a new pair of shoes...size 6 Nikes. Size 6?!? When did she get so big???

They grow up so fast. So fast it's almost blurry.