Is It Really That Time Already??

Birthday party planning I mean.  How in the world are we already coming up on my little munchkin's second birthday?  I mean, wasn't he just one like two seconds ago?

Oy. But here we are, less than two months away from my crazy little dude's next birthday, and I'm kind of stuck.  We didn't do a huge party for his first, but probably had 20 people (family and some close friends).  I'm toying with the idea of doing something even smaller for his second.  He still doesn't really "get" it and I figure we'll save the big blowout parties for the years down the road when he's all excited about them and in to it.

Does that make me a bad mom?  Should I want to go all Pinterest-y, making cake pops and hand made decorations that he won't even notice?  Am I supposed to be jumping at the chance to plan some cool theme party with coordinated desserts and a color scheme?

Because I'm not.  I'd rather have a small family get together. Something simple and special.  I'll make him a cake just like I did last year and we'll spend the day celebrating him, but I don't want to go overboard and waste a bunch of money on stupid details to impress others when he could not care less.  I'll save that type of stuff for next year  ;)

Wordless Wednesday ~ Munchkin 2.0

Ok, almost wordless.  Beautiful flickering heartbeat of 170 and measuring 9w4d.  Official EDD of 8/30/13.

Moment of Truth

In just a few hours we will (finally!) find out what is going on down there in my ute.  It seriously seems like forever since I was peeing on sticks and looking at lines.  I guess it's been one month and one week, but it seems like longer.

I know I'll be holding my breath until I can actually see something on the screen. And at over 9 weeks we should plainly see the heartbeat.  I'm more nervous than I thought I would be and that surprises me a little.  I'm still not feeling the total excitement that I felt with Andrew, but I'm trying to get there. I'm really hoping that today's appt will make it more real and give me more of a connection.

So yeah, 3 hours and 32 minutes left...

9 Weeks - We Have a Fetus!

We've made it to 9 weeks so far and this little being has officially graduated to fetushood.  I'm still feeling kind of disconnected from this pregnancy, but maybe that will all change tomorrow.  I hope so because the guilt of not having the same excitement I had at this point with Andrew is getting to me.



How far along? 9w0d - it's the size of an olive and developing more distinct facial features.

Weight loss/gain:  No idea. I didn't bother to weigh myself this morning because I am so freaking backed up that I know it wouldn't be a real measurement.

Maternity clothes: Nah - those are still in boxes. I'll dig them out in another month or so.

Symptoms:  I wish I could poop  :(

Sex (of baby):  Yes, we will be finding out.  We are impatient and want to know. It'll be another 10 weeks or so until we know, but I'm guessing 'boy' for now.

Sleep: Sleeping fine, but waking up at least once a night to pee.  I'm in a no win situation - I need to drink more to try to help with my awful bowels, but then I pee all the time.  Sigh.

Best moment this week? Nothing from this past week, but tomorrow should be good as long as we see a nice little heartbeat on the u/s.

Movement: No and I don't anticipate any for probably another 2 months.

Food cravings:  Nada

Belly button in or out?  In

What I miss?  Having more energy. I really need to step it up with going to the gym since that gives me more energy.

What I'm looking forward to?  The first appt (FINALLY!) tomorrow and seeing what's going on in my ute.

Milestones:  Does fetushood count?

What I'm nervous about:  That tomorrow won't bring good news. I have no reason to think that anything is wrong, but I tend to worry anyway.

Nothing to see here, but I'll show off my pale bloatedness anyway since I know it's so attractive  :)

8 Weeks (and a few days)

Yeah, with the holiday on Monday I didn't get around to my weekly check.  Not that there is really anything going on since it's still so early, but I guess I'll continue for consistency...


How far along? 8w2d - it's the size of a raspberry and starting to form taste buds.  Weird.

Weight loss/gain:  Still fluctuating like crazy, but I'll say it's around the 2 lb mark.

Maternity clothes: Heck no!  I won't be in those for quite some time..

Symptoms:  Very dry skin (but that might be due to the weather), sporadic nausea and the inability to poop.

Sleep: Getting a little better, but I wake up pretty much every night between midnight and 1:00 AM to pee and normally feel really nauseated when I climb back in bed. Once it passes I fall back to sleep.

Best moment this week? Nothing related to this baby yet.

Movement: Not for a while.

Food cravings:  Nada

Belly button in or out?  In (hopefully for the long haul).

What I miss?  Regularity and sleeping the whole night through.

What I'm looking forward to?  The u/s next Tuesday when we can finally see what's in there.

Milestones:  Nothing yet.

What I'm nervous about:  Scared shitless that we will go to the appt next week and find out there is more than one in there.  I don't know why I keep worrying about it since I doubt it will happen.

Obviously there is still nothing to see, but here I am anyway (from yesterday):

Backyard Transformation

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and munchkinless day (daycare was open) to get started on re-doing our back yard.  Now that we have a fenced in back yard we decided to move the garden back along the fence and level out where it was to put sod down so we'll have more space.  I thought we would easily get most of the way done, but J laughed at me and said it was probably a 4 day project.  Whatever.

While he went and rented the tiller I got to work ripping out the raspberry bushes.  I considered trying to save some to re-plant, but it's really just too hard to keep contained so we'll just keep the blackberry bush instead. I had it all ripped out just in time for him to get back with the tiller.  He went to work doing a few passes to loosen all the soil.  Pretty soon an 8 inch section of snake was writhing in the freshly tilled soil.  Needless to say I was freaked out and made him move it because it wouldn't stop moving. I tried not to think about where the head was.

We started shoveling the dirt into the wheelbarrow and I soon realized that his estimation of having to move around 100 wheelbarrows full of dirt was probably not an exaggeration.  Ugh.  We kept shoveling and moving dirt for a while and then out popped the other section of snake. Another 10 inches or so, still slithering.  J scooped it up on the shovel and walked across the street to sling it in the empty house's bushes. Five minutes later and more shoveling we came upon a baby snake.  J scooped that one up on the shovel and slung it in the bushes, too.  Ten minutes later we found a medium sized snake.  This time we gave up and put it in a bucket figuring we'd just collect them all and take one trip across the street to get rid of them (that was the last one we found, though).

After 6 straight hours of tilling, shoveling, and raking we succeeded in moving what used to be this:

To this:

The blackberry bush is barely visible on the left edge - we need to move it still.

We'll dig out all the mulch that's left around that huge palm tree and remove the metal edging that used to separate the flower bed from the yard.

We still need to dig up and move that big Camelia bush (once we decide where it's going to go) and we need at least one more layer of the landscaping timbers for the garden box.  J hit one of the sprinkler lines with the tiller so that needs to be replaced and he wants to run another line and put a sprinkler head along the back as well.

I really look forward to getting it all done with fresh sod and new flower beds.  It would be nice if we could just pay someone to do it, but it looks like we'll have another weekend full of work to get it all done.  It'll be so worth it in the end.

I Know It's Yummy, But Come On!

Yesterday I picked Andrew up at daycare around 4:50 PM.  He was still napping when I got there, so Marc went to get him.  When he set him down I noticed that Andrew wasn't chatting or laughing or opening his mouth.  He just stood there with his little lips pursed. That could only mean one thing - he was holding something in there.

I was able to pry his mouth open enough to see that he had a piece of burger in there.  From lunch.  WTF?!  I was concerned that he was left to nap with that in his mouth because hello! Choking hazard!  More than that I was grossed out that he had held a piece of beef in his mouth for four hours.  Gross!

Andrea couldn't believe that he had that in there because he had been laughing and smiling before nap time and they never saw anything in there. I guess he had been storing it in his cheek like a little chipmunk.

"Andrew, what's in your mouth??"

I got him home (with it still in his mouth after several failed attempts to remove it) and decided that maybe milk would get him to spit it out or swallow it.  No.  He just attempted to drink the milk and made a mess.  So I picked him up, laid him on his changing pad, held his nose so he would open his mouth, and dug it out while he yelled at me.  I got most of it and figured he would now swallow the rest.  Again, no.  What finally DID get him to eat it was when he picked up a cup of applesauce that he wanted. When I took off the lid and handed him a spoon he finally chewed it up and swallowed it.  I guess the prospect of his favorite snack was enough to inspire him to eat it.

He ate his dinner just fine with no hording or anything.  We had bath time, had a little playtime, and then he got a hold of a raw baby carrot that J was eating and proceeded to chew it/suck on it for the next 10 mins.  It was time to brush his teeth and I wasn't in the mood, so we had a repeat of the nose-holding-digging-out scenario from a few hours earlier. Ugh.

This morning he ate his breakfast of french toast sticks and green grapes.  Except the last grape. That one he chewed up and then refused to swallow it.  What in the world? What is going on with my kid?  Is he doing this because he knows he shouldn't?  Is he savoring the flavor that much?  Is he just weird??

So yeah, that's what we're dealing with at the moment.  He was dropped off this morning with instructions to Andrea and Marc to check his mouth before nap time and keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't choke on anything.  I really hope this is just a little phase and not something he is going to continually do at every meal/snack.  Toddlers are strange little beings.

A Party and the Park

This past weekend we had to head to Myrtle Beach for my nieces' birthday party  (Kayleigh turned 5 yesterday and Kendall turned 3 on Dec 15th).  I was less than thrilled with the 10:00 AM start time for the party considering I had a 2 hour drive to get there, but I sucked it up and the munchkin and I hit the road at 8:00 AM. We got there at about 9:50 and walked in. I had thought there was going to be jump castles based on what my sister had told me, but there weren't. Just a climbing/play area that was too big for him. Awesome.

Even more awesome was the fact that lunch was served at 10:30.  WTF?  Who eats lunch that early?  On weekends my kid normally doesn't finish breakfast until 9:00.  Anyway, I was happy that he actually ate some pizza and then polished off a cupcake (even though it looked like he was making out with it instead of eating it).

After lunch we headed back out to play games and win tickets.  Andrew had a blast dancing on the "Dance Dance Revolution" game, even if he wasn't actually playing:

He cheated a little as skeeball:

Actually he wasn't helping me cheat since he kept throwing my balls in the 0 point score hole. I guess his little arms couldn't reach high enough under the cage to get me some good numbers.

He was NOT a fan of the merry-go-round that they had, though:

Yes, I'm mean and left him on there for the entire song.  Later my sister put him on it again and he didn't cry. I guess he just wasn't in the mood when I put him on it.

We played games until we spent all the money on the game card and then picked out some junk with our tickets and headed out.  My sister gave Andrew a chocolate covered pretzel and I figured he would eat it while we drove to my parents' house.  Wrong.  He apparently held it in his hot little hand and rubbed the melted chocolate all over his face and his jeans - never even eating the pretzel (and he LOVES pretzels).

Needless to say he got a scrubdown and an outfit change as soon as we got to their house.

We hung out with my parents and enjoyed the absolutely gorgeous weather (mid 70's) until we headed home at 3:30.  It was a very long day and I was exhausted by the time we got home at 5:30. Oh, and no, I did not tell my parents our big news. I am not comfortable telling anyone (except my internet peeps) until at least after the first u/s in two weeks.

Sunday Andrew did us a favor ans slept until 8:30.  We got up and made some waffles for breakfast and enjoyed a little lazy family time.  My friend, Haley, called to see what we were up to that day and invited us to a little picnic at James Island County Park. I hadn't seen her in a while and an afternoon at the park sounded like fun, so we headed over at noon. Andrew loved the playground:

I had to drag him away at 2:00 so we could head home for his nap. I think he would have played all day if I let him.

All in all it was a fantastic and way too fast weekend with my little munchkin. I'm trying to savor every single day that we have with him as an only child because I know things are doing to change drastically in another 8 months or so.  For right now it's just us and I'm loving (almost) every second of it!

7 Weeks

How far along? 7w0d - it's the size of a blueberry and generating 100 new brain cells per minute.

Weight loss/gain:  It fluctuates so much on a daily basis that I can't even tell what is real gain.  Yesterday I was up 4.2 lbs and today it was 2.2 lbs.

Maternity clothes: Not for a while yet.  I did buy some new ones online from Old Navy and Gap because it was 35% off, but I don't anticipate wearing them for quite some time.

Symptoms:  Nausea is coming in waves recently, which is kind of new since I had almost none with Andrew. Bloating gets worse throughout the day and I still can't poop.

Sleep: Kinda sucky.  Andrew woke me up at 12:11 AM today and I had trouble getting back to sleep.

Best moment this week? Still nothing since nothing has happened.

Movement: Not for a while.

Food cravings:  None to speak of.

Belly button in or out?  In (hopefully for the long haul).

What I miss?  Regularity

What I'm looking forward to?  First appt on 1/29 and getting to see what's in there.

Milestones:  Nothing yet.

What I'm nervous about:  I hate myself for even thinking this, but I keep wondering if we made a mistake by going for 2. We have a good routine and not that it's easy, but we have a good thing going. I worry about screwing that up.

Still nothing to see besides my bloat, but here I am in all my pale poofy glory:

Potty

So it may be getting close to that time.  The time to start thinking about getting this little munchkin out of diapers before 2.0 comes along.

To say I have no idea where to start is pretty much the understatement of the year.  I haven't really read up on it much and have kind of been hoping that daycare will magically get him to go on a potty.  They work with the kids starting around age 2.  It has been my hope that him watching Gavin would inspire him to start using the potty.  Unfortunately Gavin will be leaving daycare as of Feb 1st so he doesn't have much more time to watch and learn.

Lately he has been starting to let us know when he poops (sometimes).  If we ask him if he pooped we get an "I poot!" from him and he grabs at his butt.  When I change his wet diaper he says "Pee pot" (I call him a pee pot sometimes) and he says "Potty".

This past weekend I dragged out the potty that my sister handed down to us.  I did a thorough cleaning of it and set it in the bathroom where he takes hi baths.  He immediately became interested in it and started opening and closing the lid, then doing some acrobatics to sit on it instead of his normal back up and plop down technique. I tell him that is the potty and that is where he can poop.  He has no interest in using it for it's intended purpose at the moment and is more interested in taking it apart and putting it back together:

He likes to drag it out into the hallway to investigate it.  Every once in a while he will sit on it for a few seconds at a time:

We haven't set his bare little butt on the potty yet, though.  Right now I just want to get him used to it and see where it goes.

One thing he does love about it is the fact that the lid flips down and basically turns it into a little step stool.  He loves to stand on it when we brush his teeth so he can look at himself in the mirror.  He'll step down and then pop back up and laugh at himself when his little head pops in to view.  It cracks me up every time.

So yeah - that's where we are as far as starting with the potty training. I had intended to start on it over the holidays when we had him home for longer periods of time, but I kind of spaced on it and we didn't get around to it.

 I'm trying to follow his lead and not force anything on him.  If anyone out there has any tips for starting potty training with a little boy I am all ears (eyes).  Any advice is welcome  :)

6 Weeks (Eeeeeek!)

Yep, still sinking in that munchkin 2.0 is coming.  It's been over two weeks since I found out, but for some reason it still doesn't seem real.  Doesn't help that my first appt isn't for another 3 weeks.  Maybe once I see him/her (and please dear God let there only be one in there!) on the u/s I'll feel more in touch with this pregnancy.  For now I'm too busy with work and keeping up with my little menace to dwell on the fact that I really am knocked up.

Speaking of my little menace - this weekend I discovered that him being quiet = him getting in to something.

While I was busy filling his bathtub he was behind me quietly unrolling half a roll of toilet paper. He's standing there looking at it like that because I had just asked "What are you doing?!?".  Gotta love my little troublemaker!

Anyway, I figure I'll start my weekly check-in, just like I did with munchkin 1.0, so here we go:

How far along? 6w0d - it's the size of a sweetpea and starting to sprout a nose, eyes, ears, chin and cheeks.

Weight loss/gain:  My starting weight with this pregnancy is 133 - 1 lb more than when I got pregnant with Andrew.  Considering how much my weight is fluctuating on a daily basis with bloat and crap I'm not even going to note it here yet.

Maternity clothes: No way - I should have a while before I need to break in to my box of clothes.  Unfortunately this pregnancy is opposite seasons so I'm not sure how many I can re-use.  At least being pregnant over the summer means I'll get to wear lots of skirts and dresses this time instead of sweaters.

Symptoms:  A little bit of queasiness, sleeping like crap and unfortunately cement bowel started early this go around.  Yay.

Sleep: It's hit or miss already. I woke up at 3:45 this morning and never fell back to sleep.  I'm tired.

Best moment this week? Nothing has happened yet.

Movement: No, still have a while for that! Hopefully it'll be sooner than 21 weeks like it was with Andrew, though.

Food cravings:  None to speak of.

Belly button in or out?  In and should be that way for quite some time. It never popped out with Andrew and I'm hoping it's the same this time.

What I miss?  Nothing much yet.

What I'm looking forward to?  First appt on 1/29 and getting to see what's in there.

Milestones:  Nothing yet.

What I'm nervous about:  My ability to handle 2 kids.  This thought it still kind of terrifying to me.

And there is absolutely nothing to see besides a little bloat, but here I am at 6 weeks:

Wordless Wednesday ~ My Sweetness

Happy New Year! (Family Style)

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone out there had a fabulous time celebrating however you rung in the new year.  Obviously based on my current condition we did not go out partying, but we had a great time with good friends celebrating family style.

Our friends have a NYE get together at their house that is totally kid friendly, including a countdown to "midnight" at 6:00 PM for the kiddos.  We got over there at 4:30 after Andrew had only napped about 75 minutes and I was fully expecting a meltdown of epic proportions. He completely surprised us and had a great time.  It was his first time in a jump castle and he couldn't get enough of it:

They also had a little ball pit out in the yard and he liked sitting in it, but he mostly liked to grab the balls out of it and toss them in the yard:

Renee cooked pizza and chicken nuggets for the kids to eat and there were an assortment of dips and hors d'oeuvres for the adults.  I ended up chasing Andrew around with nuggets because he was too busy playing with the baby stroller:

He's going to be such a good big brother  :)

After the countdown at 6:00 we sat around the fire pit and roasted marshmallows to make s'mores.  Andrew would stand by the fire saying "Hot!", which was good. I'm glad he knows hot means not to touch.

Andrew was more interested in swinging his marshmallow around on the stick than he was in eating any s'mores. He did eat a couple plain marshmallows though. Great plan to get him sugared up before heading home.

We stayed until about 8:30 then headed home to get him in the bath. I was shocked at how well he did - never having a single meltdown.  We had a little trouble getting him to sleep last night and I'm afraid he's getting sick (I swear he gets sick every time he is around some of those kids).  After some rocking he was back in the crib at 11:30 and I was in bed at 11:43.  We didn't even bother turning on the TV to see the ball drop.  New Years Eve sure has changed a lot for us over the last few years, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy New Year everyone!