And Then She Was Two

Noel turned two two months ago today. Eek. And while part of me feels extremely guilty about not writing about her birthday before now, the bottom line is that the celebrations took awhile.


Family photo at Noel's party the week after her birthday.

Noel's actual second birthday began with us getting up early to eat breakfast, take showers, and finish packing. We left around 9:30 a.m. to head to the airport to catch our first flight headed towards America. There was no birthday pancake, no birthday presents, no nothing. I'm not even sure if we sang to her on her actual birthday…it was such a crazy day that I honestly don't even remember, nor do I have a single picture of December the 12th. Our flight was delayed and then it seemed that some of our bags were missing, so we ended up not getting to our hotel until 6 or 7 that evening…we ordered up room service for dinner and all went to bed promptly. Poor Noel didn't even get a good night's sleep since she slept in the bed with me and Shannon (which she doesn't usually do), so in turn Shannon and I didn't sleep well. The only benefit to the overnight in the hotel was that Lane started our really long travel day with 8-9 hours of good sleep in her.

So Noel's actual birthday was a bust.


She loved this ride. It had animals that moved and made noises when you pushed their button. She sat in my lap and waited about five minutes (an extremely long time for a 2-year old!) for another child to finish their marathon riding session so she could ride some more before we left.

A week after we had arrived in America we took her to Chuck E. Cheese's for her "real" birthday celebrations. We purchased a Dora ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen, invited her grandparents, uncles, and cousin who live in the Birmingham area, and let that girl ride the same ride about 30 times to appease her poor, birthday-deprived soul. She had cheese pizza and apple juice for lunch and was happy as a lark until Chuck E. himself came by, when she looked down at the table and refused to look up until he was gone. She opened a few presents and fell asleep in the car on the way home.


Getting ready to be sung to and blow out the candle!


This is exactly what she did the whole time Chuck E. was near her. She looked at her plate, continued to eat, and would occasionally look up with her eyes (while keeping her head down) to see if he was still there.

It was a fun birthday bash and even though it was about 99.9% not what I ever wanted to do for any of my kids for their birthdays, the bottom line is that she had a blast. She didn't care that I didn't make her cake or plan anything beyond the day and time of the party and pick up some birthday plates and napkins. And while I still feel a little guilty about her "poor excuse for a birthday party," sometimes you just have to let things go. And when you fly across the world on someone's actual birthday, live with two different sets of grandparents/parents/in-laws the two weeks afterwards, and have jet-lag to deal with…fancy birthday parties just don't make the cut of important things in life. Maybe next year will be better, more up to my expectations. Although I don't think she'll give a rat's behind next year, either.


I mean, does this look like a kid who cares that her party wasn't color-coordinated and that her mom didn't make her cake? I think not.

28 Weeks (third time around)

On Friday I hit 28 weeks, at least according to me. The doctors don't know what they're talking about this go-around because I am most definitely NOT any less than 28 weeks. I know. But due dates are all a guessing and estimation game anyways, so it doesn't really matter that much I suppose. Give or take 12 weeks and God-willing we'll have another kiddo in the house and that's all that's important.

28 weeks.

I have to say that I feel absolutely HUGE this pregnancy. I'm not sure what weight I started out at so I can't say exactly how much I've gained. But my "normal" weight range is between 120 and 130, with "healthy" for me being at 125 or so. I think I'm at 153, which means that I've probably gained nearly 30 pounds already. And I can feel it, too. It's just harder to move around, harder to squat to pick up anything, and so on. I bought new shoes today because I just couldn't take wearing my nearly-10-year-old boots another day because my legs would just ache if I stood or walked around for too long. So I'm definitely feeling huge, even if I look perfectly normal for 28 weeks.

I'm feeling pretty well, though, other than just feeling big. I still sleep all night if a kid doesn't wake me up. I'm not having to wake up to pee, although if I'm up (which I am nearly every night with one girlie or the other) I do take advantage of the toilet. I'm more likely to wake up because I'm starving than because I have to go to the bathroom. I've had a little bit of reflux but not nearly as badly as when I was pregnant with Noel. I've had no real food aversions or cravings this pregnancy. It's been pretty uneventful other than just being starving a lot of the time.

So that's life in third-trimester-land. I've got birthday party posts to write and lots about our time in the States to write about. I have a hard time convincing Shannon that I want to do something in the evenings other than watch television shows (we have been seriously deprived of television shows in English over the last almost-four years), so when it happens I read or blog. I'm loving not having to study in the evenings!

Off for a snack. This baby wants food. Again.

24 Months Old (A month and a half late)

Yup, you read that right. My baby's 2-year post is coming in at 25.5 months. Dear gracious what will happen when our third is here? Maybe we won't be traveling halfway around the world on his/her second birthday, which is what we did on Noel's…but that's beside the point.


Playing the packing boxes back in early December.

So…at 25 months and 11 days, here's what Noel is up to.

*has all of her teeth. She actually had all of them before her birthday…poor girl was miserable and cranky for awhile but this mommy is loving life now that there is no more teething going on in this household!

*is 100% potty-trained. We had a few accidents in airports and in the days following our cross-the-ocean jaunt, but within a couple weeks she was back on track and is now completely potty-trained, day and night. There were a few days after we'd first moved when she was struggling with going on a "big" potty (she had done it before but definitely didn't prefer it) and when we would sit her on the potty she'd say, "Don't fall in. Make me angry, make me cry, make me sad." It was so funny. And one night she woke up in the middle of the night crying and screaming, "I fell in 'da potty, mama, I fell in 'da potty!" And that, my friends, is what toddlers have nightmares about.


Christmas morning.

*is sleeping in a big-girl bed. Or a mattress on the floor, whatever. We had cribs lined up for when we arrived in America and it became apparent very fast that she was just over sleeping in a crib. We made her do it while staying with my in-laws because all of their beds are so high up off the ground that I was very worried about her falling off and seriously hurting herself (I had forgotten about box-springs…goodness those make beds so far off the ground!). But as soon as we got to the house we're staying in we pulled a mattress onto the floor and she's been sleeping there ever since. She never gets out of the bed and hasn't rolled out of it. Crazy how different kids are so…different.

*is our little snuggle bug. She loves to snuggle and sit close and give hugs and kisses. A few times this month she's just approached me and said, "I wanna snuggle wif you." She's definitely energetic and loves to run around and be crazy, too, but if we're all sitting down she probably wants to be wrapped around us in some way.


Eating her birthday cake.

*Is wearing 2T shirts and 3T leggings. She has a couple of pairs of jeans and they're 2T, but she's wearing all the 3T leggings that Lane never wore (since she skipped from 24 month/2T straight to 4T). She's still in her size 6 shoes but I think she's outgrowing them…she trips a lot when running in them.

*is very sensitive to our disapproval. She doesn't get spankings very often because she doesn't need them…a time-out seems to be much more effective with her. If she's pitching a fit or doesn't want to finish her dinner (in a "just being stubborn" kind-of-way) usually she will sit in time-out until she's ready to comply and then will come and follow the rules. She does not like to be spanked or popped and will burst out in heavy, "you've crushed my feelings" tears and sobs if we do spank her…it is never necessary to give her more than a gentle swat on the bottom for her to get the point. I hate feeling like I'm crushing her feelings but love knowing that I don't need to inflict any kind of actual pain on her for her to get the message. Once again…crazy how different kids are so different. Lane would have just looked at us and laughed if we'd swatted her as gently as we do with Noel.



*is learning how to pronounce the letter "l" correctly. It's crazy to me that she just turned two but can get the "l" right if it's at the beginning of a word.

*is just so funny. I really wish I'd had more time over the past couple of months to write down things she's been saying. Yesterday she was showing my brother how to fly (with fairy wings on) by flapping her arms up and down and telling him, "Jus' flap your wings and fly!" She was jumping up and down and getting upset that it wasn't working. A week or so ago we were playing play-doh and I made a pretend sandwich (using molds [side note, since I just googled it thinking that in this case I'd spell it "mould"…did you know that "mold" is American English and "mould" is British? Both are correct for both fungus and a form, but only in their correct countries.]) with light brown bread, yellow cheese, and green lettuce. She was absolutely distraught that she could not eat the sandwich. Tears and whining and everything.


First time on a sled in early December.

*Is getting to the stage where she wants to do everything herself. She wants to brush her own teeth, put on her clothes, pull her own panties/pants off and on for using the potty, etc. Some things she can actually do pretty well…others result in lots of tears because she wants to do it herself but just can't.

*still loves television. Her current favorite (which she gets to watch almost every night after Lane goes to bed) is Mickey Mouse Choo Choo Express.

*recognizes her name when it's written in capital letters.



*Is a pretty good eater these days. She definitely shuns new foods but usually will eventually try them. Some of her favorite foods these days are oatmeal, grapes, noodles (but NOT with any red sauce, heaven forbid), cucumbers, bell peppers, peanut butter, and fish crackers. She is also a big milk drinker…she loves milk.

And there you have it. The last of my monthly installments for this girlie. One more year of monthly photos before I completely neglect her each month on the blog! =)

Baby Bump

So…I've been horrible at documenting this pregnancy. Absolutely horrible. I have nothing to blame except, oh, the craziness of life. Not "normal" craziness, definitely abnormal craziness. Husband-out-of-the-country craziness (weeks 4-8, 17). Thanksgiving craziness (week 20). Moving craziness (weeks 21, 22, 23, 24, and oh yes, week 25 as well). Christmas craziness (week 24). Birthday craziness (weeks 22 and 25). All that to say…it's been a crazy pregnancy.


14 weeks. Mid-October.


17 weeks. Early November.

In the very early stages of this pregnancy (months 1-2) I felt just fine, for the most part. I had a little of that "need to keep my tummy full" feeling in order to stave off morning sickness, but overall I was ok. Months 3-4 I was so tired. Extremely tired. Like, I'd sleep as late as possible, go to class, come home and take a nap (I let Lane watch way too many shows while Noel napped so I could nap, too) and then cook dinner or do a load of laundry and that was it for the day. I was in bed most nights by 9 p.m., some nights as early as 7:30. Watching my kids, going to class, and keeping the bare minimum done on housework was all I could manage.


20 weeks. Late November.

Month five was better, and thank goodness for it since it was spent packing, packing, and packing. And moving. We moved out of our apartment, put all our stuff in storage, and moved in with some friends for a few days. They took us to the airport later that week, and we re-located to Alabama for a couple of weeks. We stayed with Shannon's dad and stepmom for our first four days back.


23 weeks. December 20.

The beginning of month six marked a move to Shannon's mom and stepdad's, where we stayed for a week before going back to his dad and stepmom's for three days. Then we moved to North Carolina where we'll be until mid-March, about a month before this baby is due to make an appearance.


26 weeks. (Right after I'd eaten dinner, of course.)

We've been in the States four weeks and have already put nearly 3500 miles on the vehicle we're driving. We've been to six states, celebrated two birthdays (three if you count Jesus'!), transitioned Noel to a big-girl bed, and slept in four different places. We've done some really fun things (Chuck-E-Cheese for Noel's birthday, a 2-night stay at a swanky B&B for me and Shannon, buying some new maternity clothes, seeing bambino #3 for the first time via ultrasound, our girls' first Christmas in America with grandparents), as well as some not-so-fun things (blood work, dental exams [Shannon and I each need a crown, ugh], Lane's first visit to the dentist, repairing the hatch-back of our 2002 van, jet-lag with a 2 and 3-year old) and so far...we're just plain tired. We are ready to get some rest, to recuperate from 3.5 long years of living overseas before we go back and do it all again.

So, that's the story so far of the bump. Just craziness. I'll try to get back on board with bi-weekly updates in the third trimester because I think we'll actually be in one place for most of it! This baby is already pretty active and moving around a lot…for not having felt the baby much at all until around 22 weeks…s/he is making up for it now!

Observations From America

Last Thursday we left our new homeland to come to America for 6-7 months. We'll celebrate some holidays and birthdays and welcome a new baby, heading back sometime mid-summer. Until then, though, we're soaking up all things Southern and American.

Hopefully in the next few weeks (after we're not living out of suitcases, crashing with my in-laws, and preparing for Christmas and a certain 2-year old's week-late birthday party) I'll have a bit more time to update the blog on the goings-on of the last month and the upcoming weeks. Until then, here are a few of my initial observations of America after being gone for nearly 3.5 years.

*Everything is big. Everything. Grocery store aisles, grocery store carts (both of my kids could sit in one and still have room for groceries. Huh?), roads, stoplights, cars, food packages, parking lots, homes, shopping malls, signs…everything. It's all big.
*Toilets have a lot of water in them.
*Toilet paper is very soft. Even the cheaper stuff in public places…definitely soft.
*There are so many choices for everything. For these initial purchases of toiletries and things I've had to just buy something "familiar" and worry about price comparing or ingredient comparing later. It's too overwhelming to attempt to do it with too many things right now.
*People actually obey traffic rules. I haven't heard anyone honk their horn at anyone else.
*School buses look weird.
*The water pressure…wow, at the water pressure.
*Everyone on the roads is so…polite. Drivers actually let you merge over, give you space, nobody tries to pass you on the left (or the right)…for all the talk about road rage, drivers are very considerate.
*Stuff is cheap here. I mean, yes, there are definitely expensive things as well, but overall…clothes, shoes, toys, and basic foodstuffs are not expensive.
*People wait their turn, patiently, in a line.
*Everything is so clean. There's no trash on the roads, the grass, etc.
*It seems like everyone has a smart phone. Even my electronically-challenged in-laws have them (love you guys!).
*It's easy to get caught up in the consumerism. A week in and I already find myself "wanting" all the newest, prettiest things that I see everywhere.
*There are so many cars…on the roads, in the parking lots…so many cars. And so few busses.

So there it is, a few initial observations. I feel like the reverse culture shock is not as bad this time around (so far) as it was when I came back from living in Poland, but it's definitely still weird. When I came back from living in Poland everything was strange, light switches and toilet-flusher handles included. Those things aren't so strange to me this time…it's more of the underlying attitudes of the culture that are getting at me. But we're only a week in…I'm sure I'll get used to it!

23 Months Old

It's here. Less than a month until she turns two. Cuh-razy.

At 23 months Noel:

*has 18 teeth and her last two 2-year molars on their way. When Noel gets teeth, she gets a lot of them. I think of all the almost-20 teeth in her mouth that she's only gotten two of them individually. The others she has gotten in groups…2 here, 3 there, 3 again, 3 again, etc. I'm hoping we're done with teething by the time she turns two…the poor girl's mouth has taken a beating in the last year (she will have gotten 12 teeth [8 molars and 4 incisors] in less than a year)!

*is a hoot. She's started giving a "cheese" face for the camera (scrunching her eyes closed and "smiling"). She'll pick up our…phone that connects with the buzzer outside…and say, "Heh-do? Was your name? Is Miz Janna. Bye-bye!" The first time she heard our home phone ring she stared at it and then said, "Heh-do! Was your name?"


Playing with "Snow Dough" earlier this week. The girls played with this stuff for 1.5 hours.

*knows a lot of letters (can identify about 20 of them), numbers (can identify 8 or so), and the sounds the letters make. She doesn't get them all right, but she knows a lot of them. Thank you, The Letter Factory!

*is now napping in our bed instead of in the pack-n-play. Either Shannon or I lie down with her until she falls asleep, which usually doesn't take more than 15 minutes. She was to the point where if we put her in the pack-n-play for nap time she'd play and toss and turn for a good hour or longer, and then she'd want to sleep until 4:00. Then she wouldn't want to go to sleep at a normal bedtime, so…we're doing this for now. And it's working for now. She can also skip a nap if need be and be fine, for the most part, as long as we put her in bed quite early.



*has decided that she likes chicken. I remember that Lane was right around 2 when she started to eat meat, too. She does not like sauce of any kind on her noodles. She does like things that Lane still does not really like a lot…cucumbers and raw bell peppers. She still loves cheese and yogurt and fruit and pizza and french fries. She's a pretty good eater…I have found that she is more likely to eat something new off of my plate than her own, especially if I have it in a room other than the kitchen. I did that with Lane, too…would purposely bring my own lunch into the living room and let her decide she wanted to try it (and like it) before giving her her own. Reverse psychology, I tell you.

*is starting to get whiney sometimes. I'm sure that some of it is the new teeth (wow am I ready to be done with teething for awhile!) and some of it is just her age. She's pretty good at stopping the crying when I tell her to use words, though, and she'll tell me what's wrong. If I explain to her that she can't have such-and-such for whatever reason, she still might start crying again, but generally I can redirect her to something else and get her to stop the fit. When she's unconsolable, though, she goes to lie in her crib or on a bed until she's done.

*had her first tea party last week. We got some cold tea and dried fruit and the three of us girls set up at the table in their room and had a tea party. "Real" tea parties are old news for Lane, but for Noel they're still quite novel.


First real tea party. Excuse the sweaty bed head.

*can count to 14 accurately. Sometimes she can count objects correctly up to three or four. This is not consistent at all, though.

*loves to cut our cut-able fruit. As long as I will put the pieces back together she will keep cutting them apart.

*can successfully narrate what she did when I was gone, what she saw, what she ate, etc.

*is wearing a size 6 shoe. She's still wearing a few of her 18-month clothes but is mostly wearing 24-month clothes. Later this month when we start packing in earnest for the States we'll figure out what we still have stored away for her, because I know we have more clothes…I just don't know where they are right now.


That girl loves her some ice cream!

*is still just really good at playing by herself. She loves to play with someone, to have directed play, but if she's on her own…she's just so good at playing alone. And playing pretend alone. It's gotta be because she's not a firstborn…she's had plenty of opportunities to watch other people play whereas, for example, Lane, did not, and therefore it's taken her a long time to play well alone.

*still loves to be read to. Currently she loves this book called Wiggle Waggle. It's about how different animals walk and it's her favorite. Honestly it's kind of a lame book, but hey, she loves it! She also likes A Potty for Me, and our Little People Let's Go To the ______ books.

*lets me clip her fingernails and toenails, clean her ears, put a ponytail holder in, etc., with no balking or fussing or complaining. She's still not a big fan of getting her teeth brushed, but I think that has a lot to do with big molars coming in.

The next update I write about Noel will be about her birthday celebrations. I can't believe my baby will be two in 27 days!

Life Lately

Life is crazy like always. But that's not why I haven't been around…I just haven't felt like blogging. Maybe my blogging days are coming to an end? I don't know, though…I really enjoy reading over past posts. Maybe that will motivate me to keep on posting. Maybe a new blog look would do it. Maybe I just need some rest to refresh me. I don't know. What I do know is that today I'm going to update.

So, here's the deal.

1) I'm 16 weeks pregnant with our third little miracle. I had a month or so, between 7-11 or 12 weeks where I was exhausted and didn't feel spectacular. But overall I've been feeling alright. We'll have this baby while we're in the States, and I think we're going to let it be a surprise baby, since we'll be able to buy whatever we need in the States. I'm guessing it's another girl, just because I feel similar to how I felt with both the girls. Who knows, though! We haven't spent much time thinking about names yet…we have a boy's first name picked out, but that's it. We need to spend some time working on it.


Our Facebook pregnancy announcement.

2) We will be here for about six more weeks (give or take a few days…we haven't booked our tickets yet) before we head to the States. We are very excited to spend the holidays with family, to take our kids to the zoo, to Chic-fil-a and the movie theater, and so on. I already have a HUGE running list in my mind of places to visit, places to eat, and so on. Before we actually leave I think I'm going to type out a "bucket list" of things to do in the States. And this time in the States is going to just be different…we've never really been parents in America. When we left we had a 5-month old. So we were just getting started in the parenthood thing, and let's face it, having a newborn is about the same wherever you are: you're exhausted, they eat, sleep, and poop, and you're just trying to adjust to life with them. So we're excited to be parents of little girls while in America. I'm so excited to experience the States through their eyes.



3) Our past few months here have just been insane. About a week ago we learned that our visas had been renewed, so that answered quite a few questions in our minds about our future. Before that we had thought we might have to leave the country and that if we didn't that we would definitely have to move apartments. Turns out we didn't have to do either, but of course we didn't know that until the last-minute, making life oh-so-stressful for awhile. We've also had two colds and a stomach bug. Add that onto morning sickness / pregnancy exhaustion and the result is that September and a large chunk of October are barely memories in our minds, because we barely survived them.


Just for fun…this was Shannon's birthday cake. We made it for him in late August or early September since he was in the States without us on his actual birthday. I don't know what happened to the cake but it obviously didn't set right. I dumped it on a plate and covered it in frosting. Ugliest cake I've ever made in my life, but Shannon still thought it tasted great!

4) Our kids have been so cranky lately. Seriously. Noel is cutting her third 2-year molar and is just. a. grump. All day long. It's miserable. I wish I hadn't lost our amber teething necklace because I really think it helped but…it's gone. So we're all pulling out hair out around here. Lane has had a virus or something…I thought she had the beginnings of pink eye but her eyes never turned pink and the goop in her eyes let up. But then she was saying her ears hurt and they were oh-so-red around the eardrum but not the eardrum itself. And she had a fever. And then she fell and busted her chin open, large enough that it made me slightly panic but not large enough to actually need to go to the doctor. The girls are just cranky and it's making me batty that we're cooped up indoors due to not-so-great weather.



5) Last Sunday the ex-pats in our city had a Harvest Celebration party. We all dressed up, ate yummy food, and played some games. We were going to carve pumpkins but didn't because it got dark and then we had cranky kids who needed to sleep. So I still have a pumpkin and am trying to decide if it's worth roasting…it probably is, I just need to get off my lazy tired bum and do it. One of the games that we played at the party was that game where you put your head on the end of a baseball bat, spin around X number of times, and then run to a marker and back. I was last for my team, and Shannon was last for his. He got a couple-spin head start on me, but as soon as I stood up from spinning myself around I took off…right for the wall of the house next to me. I don't think I actually went forward at all, but totally just crashed into the wall. After things had stopped spinning and friends had helped me up, I learned that Shannon had also crashed into the house, albeit five or six feet in front of me. So, I don't think anyone will ask the Scarbroughs to be on their team for that game again! (Although in my defense I did ask before we started if pregnant people got to spin fewer times…I was dizzy already from the 3-legged-race!)


Our crew in their costumes. Bonus points if you can figure out who I was.

6) There are just days when the culture here just drives me nuts. Today was one of them, and I wasn't even out much. I drove to my favorite grocery store, and they have one of those parking lots where the parking spaces are slanted, indicating the direction you are supposed to park, drive, etc. Well of course the parking lot is packed. So I see some guys getting into their car (which is of course parked the wrong way) and figure that I'll wait for them to pull out and then I'll take their spot. They just sit in the car looking at me for probably 3-4 minutes. I'm thinking, "What, you think you can pull out this way? There are cars behind me." So they attempt to pull out and turn around but are completely incapable of doing so, which was just so annoying because they were in a little car. I could have done it. Eventually someone else pulled out, they were able to pull into that spot (going the right way), and then back out and leave and I could finally park after waiting for 6-7 minutes on a spot. This might not seem like such a big deal to you, my reader, but trust me when I say that all I think about in situations like that is about how I live in a country full of people who think of nobody but themselves, especially when it comes to driving. I cannot wait to drive in America where people actually follow traffic rules and for the most part are respectful drivers.

And…there you have it. It's not even 9:00 yet and I think I'm going to head to bed. This has been the theme of my life lately…always in bed before 10:00, often before 9:00, and frequently before 8:00. This pregnancy is wearing me out.