Potty Training

I think it's either time or getting close to time to start potty training Jimmy.  I said in my last post about him that the next step might be the hair…but I really think it's the diapers.  Wouldn't it be awesome if he could be on his way to being fully potty trained by the time Bonus Baby arrives?  It doesn't give us much time to work on it though.

I think its just a matter of Mamma and Daddy making the decision and then being consistent with it.  Kind of like the pacifier thing.  It was convenient for me to give it to him and it's convenient for me to just change his diaper instead of sitting in the bathroom for 10, 20, 30 or more minutes at a time trying to get him to go.

Once I actually work up the energy to start though I think we can make this happen.  I need to get some big boy underwear, a big bag of M&M's and a jar to put them in.  Then I think we'll be ready to start.  It would be so much easier to start this process if I stayed home with them but working moms everywhere have somehow managed to potty train their children so I know it can be done.

I have heard it takes longer for boys to be ready to potty train and it's not unheard of for them to be closer to three before they really "get it".  I'm not going to push him but I think starting to work on it and always offering to take him to the potty or even sitting him on the potty every hour is a good way to start.

Sooooooo…..now where do I find the energy???

*email post*

Week 18 – Bonus Baby

I know that isn't a very creative title – especially compared to my titles for pregnancy posts with Joey.  I'm just happy to be posting at all.  It looks like for the forseeable future my blogs are going to be blah and boring LOOKING.  Not because of my diminished capacity as a blog post author but because I can't get online to manage my blog and make it look pretty.  So if you can get past the look of each post hopefully you'll still find the content somewhat entertaining.

I guess in a way writing about pregnancy is really just writing about what's happening to me during this time period…and trying to tie it in to the pregnancy somehow.  Lately it's felt like there is just so much going on and it's hard to keep track of everything, enjoy life and your children's lives the way you're supposed to AND capture it in writing.  I really love reading back in my blog and reminiscing about things that happened just six months ago.  Most of the milestones we hit then I barely remember now.  That's why it's important to me to write about them so that I can go back and re-live it from time to time.  And so that when my kids are adults they can look at this and say "Mom wrote more about being pregnant with Joey than she did about Jimmy or Bonus Baby.  He must be her favorite".  When really truly Jimmy is my favorite.  Not really.  *for real kids, I don't have a favorite.  Hush!*

Being pregnant with no kids at home is a unique experience, being pregnant with one kid at home is unique and being pregnant with a toddler AND a baby at home is by far the most unique experience of all.  Jimmy is making huge, gigantic strides in his development and all of it is uncharted territory for the both of us. I want to be present and in the moment and capture all of it.  Joey is still such a baby and is starting to hit his own milestones and while I've seen these milestones before he's hitting them in his own time and his own little Joey way and I want to soak that in too.  And in the midst of it all I'm pregnant with an unexpected blessing and I want to capture these moments too.    

I've found it hard to balance it out.  I'm exhausted a lot of times and I feel like I'm failing to really acknowledge and even comprehend what I'm seeing Jimmy and Joey do and learn much less keep the blog of their shenanigans updated.  Blogging about all of this at home feels like I'm stealing even more time away from them…as if I could anyway since we don't bother to have internet at home in this age of smart phones.  So I'd save up my stories and pictures and write about them at work when I had some free time.  Now I can't even do that….for several reasons.  None of which are even good reasons in my estimation.

Finding a consistent balance would be nice but toddlers/babies/pregnancy are the antithesis of consistent in my experience.  Finding a balance would be nice, maintaining it is a joke.  I fall off that tightrope 12 times a day and then just take a nap. 

So for the tie in.  I have a lot on my plate and I can't and don't want to scrape any of it off.  This baby is getting bigger and stronger slowly but surely. S/He's already having such a different start from Jimmy and Joey.  Different pregnancy, different birth place, I have acne... Makes me wonder how different S/He'll be in person.  But if I have to pick and choose the moments I memorialize in the next 4.5 months I think I'll go with last 4 months of Joey's babyhood – learning to use his hands better, crawling, walking hopefully, turning 1!  Or with how fast Jimmy is learning things, how smart he is, how sweet yet onery he is.  The rest will have to be remembered with my, almost non-existent at this point, brain cells.

Red, Exploding Letter Day

Saturday, January 26, 2013.  Let us all mark it and remember it well.  For this is the day the toddler pacifier was cut and naps ended.

It really hasn't been as dramatic as I imagined it but there are some adjustments happening with this new change.  I think I'm going through withdrawals as much as Jimmy is.  It was time though, some would argue that it was way past time. Whatever.  I didn't mind it, actually liked it, until I didn't.  It's been handy to have to use as a sleep aid, a mute button and a meltdown averter.  But he doesn't NEED it and it was starting to get really annoying to try to understand him talking around it in his mouth.  On top of that, he really is getting to be a big boy now and it just doesn't look quite right.

So Saturday morning Daddy cut them.  It was awhile before Jimmy asked for one but when I gave him one and the suction wasn't quite right he took it out of his mouth and refused to put it back.  If it were that easy though it would have been a non-event.  As it is hasn't been a huge event over all but I also wouldn't classify it as a Non Event either.

Nap times are almost non-existent anymore.  I still sit him in his chair when he needs a nap but without the pacifier he can't seem to put himself to sleep.  I think he's had two naps since Saturday and he normally takes two a day.  Bedtime isn't awful but it isn't simple either.  He's awake until midnight or 1am.  He stays in his bed but he whines sometimes and mostly he just doesn't go to sleep.  If he wakes up in the middle of the night it's not as easy to get him back to sleep either.

I can't put anything in his mouth to give my ears a break now unless it's food and that's not nearly as effective.

He gets in more trouble now too.  Is that terrible twos or a side effect of pacifier withdrawals?  I don't know but when he has a meltdown now there is no quick fix and then it can escalate into a tantrum and then he gets in trouble.

The saddest part is that he goes around the house looking for it and then will finally ask for it and when we tell him there aren't any more pacifiers…well, it triggers another meltdown.  But if we get him the one we cut he doesn't want that one either.

So my little boy is growing up and we all know growing up is hard sometimes.  It seems like it's getting easier though.

I guess the next step is the hair…nah, that can wait!

*email post*

Sharing Pictures

Here are a few pictures I've taken the last couple of days.  Since this is a post from my email I'm not sure what order they will show up but here is a little overview of what you'll see.

Jimmy trying to make Joey laugh.

Joey laughing at Jimmy.

Jimmy and Joey sitting outside waiting on Daddy to get home.

Joey and his cute little fingers and toes.

Jimmy and Joey sitting on the floor watching Dora.

Joey playing on the floor at work with Mamma. 

*email post*

Boring Videos

Seriously, it's probably the most boring thing you'll watch but I think it's cute.  Jimmy absolutely loves Dora.  He's always handing us the remote asking for Dora and if Dora's not on right then he pretty much refuses to watch anything else.  Although lately he's shown a little more interested in Mickey Mouse.

Last night it was just me and the boys and after Jimmy played outside awhile he asked to watch Dora so sweetly that I couldn't refuse.  I have about 13 episodes recorded and he doesn't care if he's seen each of them 30,000 times, he still loves them.  We snuggled up together on the couch and I turned one on.  The look on his face was priceless.  His whole face lit up and his little lips where moving to the song – although I think he only knows the key parts.  I was kicking myself for leaving my phone on the table and not being able to capture the moment.  I finally got up and got the phone and recorded 1 minute and 47 seconds of him watching the show.  It wasn't quite the same but if you decide to watch this little video I think you'll be able to tell that he really loves Dora.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HqFtiraKrM

Joey was even watching it a little as you can see at the end.  But mostly Joey needed a nap and nothing was making him happy.  Nothing – not the swing, not holding him, not the pacifier, not a bottle – nothing.  That's a big sign he just needs to go to sleep.  He gets himself so worked up so I thought I'd try to capture it on video but he wouldn't really cry while I was standing right in front of him.  But you get the picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWjJJZNtBwI&feature=youtu.be 

*email post* 

Junk Drawer 1/21/2013

Living Dead Girl

There is a song by that title that I've always enjoyed head banging in the car too but this weekend even though I did hear it on the radio it was impossible to do any head banging.  Mostly because I felt like I was the living dead girl.  Sinus pressure is of the devil and I had it in spades.  I leaned down to get a garbage bag and felt like my head was going to explode.  I stood up, laid down, moved too fast or turned my head slightly and my head almost exploded.

I bought a kit to turn a regular water bottle into a NetiPot and then never used it.  Strangely enough it just went away on its own.  Crossing my fingers it doesn't come back.

Do Some Squats

Do you ever tell people stuff just cause you want too and don't really have any scientific reasons backing it up?  I belong to a pregnancy forum where every other week it seems someone is asking how to kick start labor.  I don't know why but I always feel like telling them "Do some squats!"  Is it because I want to torture someone else the way I was tortured in labor or is it just because I think it's funny imagining pregnant women lunging and squatting?  I don't know but I just refrained from offering unsolicited squatting advice to a poor girl just ready to evict her baby.  It seems like squatting would help but I can't remember why so I kept my mouth shut.

Why can't I remember? Because I have too many babies and they've devoured the little brain I had left after listening to Living Dead Girl.

My Babies Are The Cutest…

They really are.  Jimmy learned how to "shoot" a machine gun last night.  Oh my goodness I laughed so hard while he danced all over the living room and got into a shooters stance and shot his wooden spoon machine gun.  Of course I got the camera out to late so all I captured was him flinging his boots around the room from the end of the wooden spoon.  Thankfully he didn't hit the tv or this would probably be a whole different post.

Joey is showing personality…well, he's learning how to express emotion anyway.  He gets bored easily and doesn't like to sit on one place all day long staring at the tv (unlike a 14 year old I may or may not know).  So he expresses his displeasure, unhappiness and plain bored-ness at the top of his lungs.  But on the other side of the coin he laughs and grins and giggles up a storm too.  He just stares at you until you look at him and then gives you the biggest, sweetest, toothless baby smile.  He fell asleep in the high chair last night and when Daddy picked him up he got a handful of goodness…I mean gooeyness.  Parenting is such an adventure.  We laughed at him when we saw him red-faced and grunting and then promptly forgot that he was pooping while we took in the machine gun toting toddler show unfolding before us.

I hope the third one figures out how to change his own diapers.  It won't be long and I'll have two machine gun toting toddlers duking it out with wooden spoons, nobody's diapers will get changed at that point.  Heck, we'll go Chinese and throw all the diapers away! We'll have them paper trained in no time.

Blue Hair

I'm sure that's what most people think of when they think of the neighborhood Avon Lady.  That's okay.  I don't have blue hair but that's just because I haven't decided to do anything about this blooming gray hair that was recently discovered.  I may not have blue hair but I am the newest neighborhood Avon Lady and thanks to extreme technological advances in the last 125 years I don't have to limit my Avon services to my block.  I can provide Avon to the world!  Just what the world needed, right?

Anyhoo – I'm super excited about getting started and I'll be hitting everyone in my address book up with a link to my handy dandy website soon.  Please feel free to let me know if you don't want bubble bath advertisements in your inbox every two weeks.

It Finally Happened

First a note – Blogger quit on me again.  Sometimes it's a pain to be right all the time.  So here I go again emailing my post.

It took long enough, 2 years, 4 months and some odd days to be a little more specific, but it finally happened.  I really didn't think it ever would.  Jimmy cries when I leave him.  It's the most heart-wrenching, saddest thing I've ever seen but also just a tad bit validating as his mom.  He loves me, he really loves me!

Sunday evening I needed to run to the store and it's always so much easier if I can just go by myself.  Jimmy saw me putting on my hoody (okay, Daddy's giant hoody) and my tennis shoes and he disappeared into his room.  I told Ricardo I needed to leave asap because I was pretty sure Jimmy thought he was going with me.  After a quick circuit through the kitchen and dining room to pick up my phone, purse and keys I headed to the front door and was almost home free when here he comes around the corner.  Boots on (on the wrong feet), diaper bag over his shoulder and jacket in hand.  If that wasn't the cutest thing I've ever seen I don't know what is.  But being a mean mom (who also didn't feel good and wanted to be gone and back in the least amount of time as possible) I told him "I'll be right back" and opened the door and left.  Before I got the door closed he had plopped down on the floor, diaper bag next to him and started wailing. Poor baby.

I don't normally drop him off in the mornings so I don't experience this every day.  He's been sick the last 7 days though (update on that later) so this morning we ended up dropping off both kids together.  He stood right next to me the whole time we were there and tried to get me to hold him.  I gave him a big kiss and hug and told him bye and started walking out.  I looked back and my heart broke.  He was standing right where I left him with his arm up over his eyes and crying quietly.  My poor little sick baby and I was leaving him when he really just wanted his mamma.  Daddy went back and gave him another hug and kiss while I escaped.  Boy does it make you feel loved and needed and like a big sack of poop.

I have it on good authority though (Grannie) that he gets over it and does have a good time in my absence so at least there's that!

*email post*

Update-A-Palooza!

~It's 2013 Y'all!~

I’ve finally been able to log into Blogger today so I’m writing an update post to end all update posts. I don’t know why I’m having such good luck today with Blogger but I’m not letting this chance pass me by. More than likely it will be uncooperative again tomorrow.

Christmas

I’d love to post a detailed story of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day complete with pictures and videos but alas I don’t really have many pictures and only one long video that I don’t even have with me today. The likelihood that I’ll come back later and post is almost nil…so this will have to do.

Joey's early Christmas present!

We were able to have Christmas with all of the kids this year and it was Joey’s first Christmas so that was really nice. All of the kids really cleaned up with toys and clothes and dinner was delicious. (Daniel and Stephanie also had the most beautiful tree!)

Christmas morning - Jimmy throwing a small fit on the floor

Jimmy had a blast ripping open presents and he’s played and played with all of his toys and gotten ALL of his new clothes dirty so I think everything was a hit. Especially the stocking and all the “canny” – it was an all day chorus of “OpEN eet”.

Joey seemed to really love all of the hustle and bustle and the wrapping paper. Pretty much anything that was within his reach got chewed on. Jimmy happily helped him open any presents that he couldn’t open.

Christmas morning - his normal smiling self!

NYE and New Year Day

NYE was a really laid back affair. I had to work and then came home and relaxed for awhile with the kids before grilling hamburgers and hanging out around the fire pit while we designed our small dream cabin from top to bottom. When Joey woke up I brought him outside with me but it was hard to keep him wrapped tightly enough so I went in around 10:30 and ended up asleep on the couch while trying to hold Jimmy still - cause he was a little too hyper. I woke at midnight just enough to wish everyone happy new year and Mercedes happy birthday and then was out again.

Mamma & Joey enjoying the fire

New Year’s Day was a very slow and short day. We laid in bed with the boys – still designing the cabin – until about 11 and then it was time for another nap since the birthday girl was sleeping in very late. We finally were all up and dressed by 3 and spent the rest of the day eating pizza and taking Mercedes ice skating at the Galleria for her birthday. We wrapped it up by watching a movie at home and hitting the hay on time.

Side note – Mercedes turned 14 years old, Joey turned 7 months old and I turned 14 weeks pregnant on the 1st.