RandomGoingCrazy-ness

Aaaahhh! Okay, so it is only the day after my due date. BUT I AM GOING CRAZY. Probably because this baby has been messing with me for the past two weeks and last weekend we spend a half day at the hospital thinking we would be leaving with a new baby in our arms. BUT NO. This baby just wants to play tricks on me-forever I think. A friend suggested spinningbabies.com, which i have been trying different exercises and techniques from there. I have also been walking a lot and trying to stay active in general to hopefully get this baby on the move. Along with some other ideas I found online, we went out for some spicey Thai food for lunch as well.

I guess I just feel like my life is hold and that I am constantly living on standby. Thinking that any moment we can go into labor and everything has to be "just-so" just in case. I have been crazy making sure every dish is washed and every bit of laundry is washed. I have been ITCHING to do some fall baking, but the crazy person inside me says, "No! What if you start something and go into labor while it's cooking in the oven" or something like that. I am going nuts over here. I did manage to do a fall craft today to keep my mind off things. Maybe I'll post about that later.

It doesn't help that I can't nap because of all the house construction work noise on our street EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST THREE WEEKS! AND not to mention our tenant upstairs is a lover of generating noise. All day I hear his computer vibrating through the floor (because it is old and needs to be fixed but he won't fix it and I have to suffer). Yes, I have asked him to shut it off several times when he is not home or not using it, but he just "so forgetfull" he says. Yeah, I am ranting....and going crazy. CRAAAZZY! I need to get out of the house, but I am afraid to go too far for too long.

My midwives tell me I am a "loaded gun" and when things start going I better get over to the hospital fast. I am already 5cm and an hour away from the hospital. Any conventional doctor would have induced me for sure by now, but if the baby isn't ready then it isn't ready. No matter how much it is driving me crazy I want to do what is best for my baby, not give into my selfish desires.

So pray this baby is done cookin' soon! I know it won't get any easier when he/she arrives, but I really just want to move on and figure out how to do life as a family of four.

For now, I will just spend some time with my new addiction, Pinterest. I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon after many invites from friends. Now I just get depressed at all the fun crafts or yummy food I can't(err won't let myself) make until baby comes.

That's enough for now. Blah!

Potty Training at 21 months: Days 1-3

Warning: Lengthy Post that has the words 'poop' and 'pee' used often. Post is mostly for my own records, but please read if you are interested in our journey!

Now that I am into my 3rd Trimester I am thinking more than ever about how our new little addition is going to effect Gideon and how to best prepare for it. I have been thinking a lot about potty training him. He will be 2 years old when baby #2 comes along and because I still plan to breastfeed and know how demanding it is in the first several months, I figure the earlier I start the better. Gideon knows what the potty is and knows that 'poo poo' and 'pee pee' go in the potty. He has been telling me when he has to poop for a couple weeks and has been even asking for diaper changes a few times. So, after some advice from friends and family and doing a little reading (not a whole lot) I cleared the schedule for this past weekend and decided to give it a go.

The week before we put him back in cloth diapers. I used cloth diaper for him for about the first year of his life and I regret getting lazy with it, because I know it really helps with the whole process. Being in a cloth diaper really helped him be aware of when he peed and he did not like being wet. We taught him how to take off his diaper and where the potty was if he wanted to go pee pee on there. We explained it all to him and had I had him sit on the potty a few times just to get used it. After he peed I would get all excited for him and we would take the pee pee to the big potty, flush, and get an M&M for a "treat". Over the next couple days I would find him taking off his diaper and sitting on the potty. He peed a couple times and couple times I think were just for fun. The day before the big weekend started I had him sit on the potty while eating lunch and put on his favorite show for him. He had a couple pees and really seemed to understand what was happening. Then, Saturday arrived. I decided to try the "naked potty training" method. Which basically is keeping your baby diaper free from the waist down. I did this for two days. Here is my log for the past 3 days. This is really for my own notes of this journey, so don't bother reading if you are not interested.

Naked Potty Training Day #1

-I Set a timer to go off every 10 minutes. Every time the timer went off he had to sit on the potty.

-Gave 1 M&M for each pee on the potty and 2 M&Ms for each poop

7:15-Gideon wakes up with a poopy diaper. Dad cleans him up and no diaper is put back on for the day. Gideon promptly poops more on the floor. We clean it up and explain to him where the poop goes.

8:30-Gideon pees on the kitchen floor and comes running to tell me what happened 10:30-Runs to tell me he has to poop and poops a little on the floor on the way to the potty. Half makes it in the potty.

10:40-Pees on the floor

11:05-I saw him holding himself, put him on the potty and he went pee on the potty

1:30PM-Put on cloth diaper before nap

3:00-Woke up with wet diaper from nap, put on potty, but no pee

3:40-Peed on the floor, but ran and sat on the potty in realization that was what he needed to do. No pee made it into the potty.

4:25-Pee on the floor, but ran to tell me

4:50-Pee on the floor and some in Potty, came to tell me 6:00-Went pee on potty encouraged by timer and treat insentive

6:40-Pee on potty encouraged by timer and treat insentive

8:05-Pee on potty on his own accord (he seemed to realize he had to go)

**Diaper was put on for bedtime **

Naked Potty Training Day #2

-Timer went off every 30 minutes
-M&Ms for pees and poop

7:00AM-Woke up for the day with wet diaper, put him on the potty and went a nice long pee to start the day.

8:50-Pee while standing up in bathtub during his morning bath

9:00-Pee on potty after putting him on after his bath.

9:10-Sat and Peed on potty on own accord with no prompting

9:10-Sat back down on potty on his own accord and went poop

9:20-Insisting on another "treat", he sat back down on potty and squeezed out another Pee

9:21-Sat on potty on own accord and squeezed out some more poop.

9:40-Went Pee outside in his underwear while giving dad some water

11:00- Peed on potty with promptin by mom

12:20- Peed in shower with dad

1:10- poop on potty after a prompting from mom

1:45- Peeds on floor, then pooped on potty with prompt from mom

2:00-diaper for naptime

4:14-woke up from nap with wet diaper saying he to go pee, but didn't pee when I put him on (maybe I didn't get to him fast enough?)

4:35-Went Pee on potty with prompting from mom

5:50-went poop on potty with prompting from mom after he got some on my pants.

6:10-Pee on potty after prompting from mom.

7:45-Poop on potty with promting from mom.

7:55-Pee on potty on his own initiative.

**Diaper on for bedtime**

Potty Training Day #3

-Timer set for ever 60 minutes
-M&M's given as rewards

6:00AM-Gideon wakes up. Mom puts him on potty and he goes Pee. (Naked time starts).

7:00-Pee on Potty with prompting from mom to go.

7:40-Pee on potty on his own accord

7:50-Pee on potty with prompting from mom after seeing him "hold himself."

8:10- Pee on potty on own accord

8:12-Poop on potty because he wanted a treat

8:40-Poop on potty on own accord

8:50-Squeezed out a little more poop and some pee on his own accord

9:15-(Cloth training pants are put on after expaining what they are not to go pee in them) He immediately tells me he has to pee and walks to the potty. I help him pull down training pants and he pees in the potty

10:25-Small pee on potty prompted by timer

11:30-tiny pee on his t-shirt (during short naked time while baby was napping). He was trying to "hold it" with his hand wrapped around his shirt.

12:30-(Training pants back on) Pee on potty after lunch prompted by mom.

1:00-Cloth diaper put on for nap time

4:20-Woke up with wet diaper. Pee on potty with encouragement from mom.

4:40-Went on a 20 min. trip to Post Office in training pants. Came home dry.

5:20-(Resistant to training pants, so left him naked. Baby girl went home for the day). Ran to potty on own accord and went Pee.

6:25-Went Pee after dinner with prompting from mom.

6:35-Poop on potty on own accord

7:05-Pee on potty on own accord

7:20-Pee on potty on own accord

7:40-Pee on floor/potty. I saw him hold himself, look at the potty, and then decide he was thirsty so went for a drink from his sippy. He started to pee on the floor. I immediately said, "hold it! Go pee pee on the potty." He did exactly that.

8:00-**Diaper went on for bedtime**

8:40-(40min. after bedtime) He calls us from his room saying "pee pee! pee pee!" We go to him and bring him out to the potty. He goes pee on the potty and his diaper was completely dry.

9:00PM-SAME AS ABOVE!!!

Thoughts from the day: Day number three was awesome. Although he is very resistant to the cloth training pants (prefers to be naked-uh oh!), he is really starting to get the hang of holding himself. During training pants time he never wet himself. I know that he still needs some time, but in 3 days he has made such amazing progress.

If you are reading this, I am no expert at potty training. This is my first child and I am pretty much just winging it. Got some advice from friends and family and did a little online reading, but I am really just trying to see what works for my child and go with it. Even though I feel stress free about our potty training experience so far, it is still SO MUCH WORK! Today was a great day, but I am SO EXHAUSTED. I hope that the logging of our experience inspires whoever reads it. Every child is different. Go with your instinct and be open to change if things aren't working out how you planned.

If You Haven't Already Heard...

...by the end of 2011 we will have a new addition to the family! We are only about 7 weeks along, but I was having hard time keeping it a secret this time. The morning/all day sickness has taken over and when people start getting suspicious I just can't lie! If my calculations are correct, we should be having another October baby. I was very shocked to see all three of the pregnancy tests I took come out positive. I have only had one cycle since I was pregnant with G and I thought it would take a lot longer than it did to get pregnant again.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this little one growing inside of me.

Here are some pictures of Gideon these days and video of him dancing:

Gideon and Dad sporting their free hats from Home Depot

Haha!




Watching Wheel of Fortune with Dad

Gideon Dancing

This is for you, Deb

I don't have many pictures of my little guy sleeping because well...he doesn't really like to do that sort of thing. Here is a shot I got of him snuggled with his new monkey from Gigi and Papa G.

My 9 month Old

Have I really been a mom for 9 months already? It seems like just yesterday that I taking my little boy home from the hospital.

He's been keeping me busy these days. Always, ALWAYS moving. Can hardly keep up with him. Pulling himself up on everything. He went from slithering everywhere to doing a full out real crawl now.

Baby-Led weaning has been working out well for us. He eats a variety of foods. I was a little worried about the orange today, but he seemed to like it. His pincer grasp has developed quite well. He can pick up any small piece of food and get it to his mouth just fine.

G enjoying some watermelon

He also is "sharing." He likes to offer up whatever he's playing or eating. I pretend to take or eat it to encourage him to share.

I used to think I kept a pretty clean house until I found him finding little things (like pieces of fuzz) and putting them into his mouth.

He has 2 teeth on the bottom now and another one on the way. The poor kid is in a lot of pain and sleeps even worse than ever now. We have found two secret weapons (for the sleep) that seem to do the trick though: The vacuum and dancing with mom to Jack Johnson. Any suggestions on ways to help with the teething would be greatly appreciated.

G's first firework show

Hangin with Papa

Loves his daddy

Gideon Likes to Share

God's Blessings

Okay, so I'm trying to keep this blog going. My little man still keeps me quite busy. He's napping now, so I thought I'd try a quick post (although, his naps are usually only 20 min. long so I'm trying to type fast)!

Byron's employer just called him and told him they would like him to do the construction supervision for their job that is starting on Monday. This will be about 8 to 12 months of work, which would be a huge blessing and we are thanking God for his provision.
Couple down sides: Byron has no experience in construction supervision, so he is a little unsure of his abilities (I know he's going to do great, but prayer for him in this area is appreciated); The commute is 1.5 hours each way and a very early start in the morning; We are really going to miss all the family time we've gotten the past few weeks, but are thankful for the time we had. Thanks for all the prayers. God is so good and so faithful.

Gideon Development: Now scooting/pulling himself forward on his tummy. May have this crawling thing down soon. Getting better at eating solid foods. Even though there are no teeth yet, he seems to have a handle on the chewing thing, some-what figured out how to swallow bigger pieces of food, getting better at picking up smaller pieces of food and getting them into his mouth (50% of the time). -6 months, 3 weeks

How Long Has It Been??

Wow, so it has been over a month since my last post. Life with our little guy leaves me little time to check my email let alone keep up with my blog these days. Dont get me wrong, he is a great kid, he just does'nt like to nap :). He takes 20 minute cat-naps which seems to work or him, but is hard on me.

So, life these days real quickly...

Aunt had her 4th baby-a girl!. I have been trying to go out there to help her out with my mom once a week. She also has a 17 yr. old, 8 yr, old and almost 2 yr. old!

My husband and I wet on our first date without the baby to celebrate his 28th birthday on tuesday. It was nice and we didn't even talk about the baby. G has been able to go much longer between feedings these days (which has been so nice on me).

My husband was recently layed off from his job :( The Lord continues to provide and we just found out his unemployment benefits will cover the bills ad there should be no reason or us to aquire any debt from this. On the up-side I am looking forward to the extra time with him. **Please pray for a job to come his way**

Gideon is going to be 6 months next week. We just started introducing him to solids and are trying Baby Led Weaning (more on that in a later post). He loves going on walks, listening to music, and playing with his mom and dad. He is rolling over from his back to tummy (but not visa versa). Diaper changes are a little more challenging now that he can squirm away. He tries to move forward, but doesn't quite know how to go about it yet. He does manage to turn himself around while he's on his tummy.

I am having fun and very busy being a mom. My little man brings me such joy. Balancing the mom and wife roles is a little challenging but I think I am getting better at it. Other than that my current hobby is Super Couponing.

Some pictures...

Easter 2010

Having fun playing with his toys

Eating an apple

A few Videos

Here are a couple videos of the little guy. Sometimes I think he just can't wait until his dad gets home to play.

Oh yeah, this kid will try to eat anything

Reunion!

(Thanks for the picture, Tina)

Last night we had a little reunion with our Bradley class. It was so much fun to meet everyone's little ones and hear all of their birth stories. Even though they were all different, the result was the same-Beautiful, handsome baby boys! Yes, we all had boys! It really was a great class and I look forward to getting together with them again.

Diaper Free?

I realize that most of my posts have centered around the new addition to our family. I'm not really good about scrapbooking, putting together a photo album, or even a baby book (which I would still like to do). So, I'm using my blog to document the different milestones in his life for something to look back on one day. So please bare with me...I don't expect everyone to read these long posts
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My husband and I recently decided to try Elimination Communication.

I bought a book called The Diaper Free Baby. I purchased this book after hearing about it from my husband. He heard something on the radio about it. Then, a church friend started doing it with her little girl. Amazed that a 9 month was using the toilet 80% of the time, I was intrigued.

"As Christine Gross-Loh reveals in her progressive, enlightening book...infants are born with the ability to communicate their need to "go," just as they communicate hunger or sleepiness."

Now, I was thinking just as you are now. A baby with no diaper? That seems pretty messy! But diaper-free doesn't mean diaper-less. It's all about listening to your baby's cues of when they need to go. The book talks about how babies are not born with desire to sit in there own waste. This makes perfect sense to me, because I've always hated the idea of my baby sitting in his dirty diaper. I change him as often as possible.

The U.S. average for potty training is 3 years! I just can't imagine changing diapers for 3 years! This book is not about trying to get your baby potty trained as early as possible. It's a book about being in-tune with your baby and listening to your baby's cues, just as you do with other things...sleeping, eating, etc., but it seems that most parents who practice EC have their babies potty trained at around one years of age. Did you know that 50% of the world's children are "potty trained" by one year's old? I didn't.

I love how the book puts no pressure to do EC full time. If you do it part-time or even occasional and it can be beneficial. This is where I am at with it. For the past week or so, we've been doing it occasional to part-time. I was very skeptical at first, but figured what could be the harm in just trying it out? We mostly catch his bowl movements because they are the easiest. Whenever we see G working on a bowl movement, we hold him over the toilet and he "goes." It's kind of exciting actually. Less messy diapers to clean and diaper rashes are pretty much an non-issue.

I'm also making my own version of these cute babylegs to make this whole process easier. We'll see how it goes. So far, so good.

3 Months

Gideon is 3 Months old already! What a big boy. He's 2 feet long now and over 17lbs. He's so much more vocal and plays with us a lot. He loves to be "rough housed" by his dad. He has a lot of control over his neck and is one strong baby. We just love him so much!

Our little boy!

Chubby!

3 Years

My husband and I have been married for 3 years yesterday. Wow, have the past few years flown by. We enjoyed the evening with an early dinner at our favorite Italian restaurante, Biaggi's. We haven't been there since our anniversary last year. It was delicious! We also brought the baby along with us (he's just too little and too unpredictable for us leave him with a sitter yet). He was so good for us. I fed him right before we left and slept on the way there and until we were served our entres. The rest of the time he spent exploring the new surroundings from his car seat. My husband and I were able to talk about things other than work and G's poop and really enjoyed the time out.

Merry {Belated} Christmas!

Okay, so I realize I'm a little late on this one.

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas. We started off our celebration of Christ's birth by gathering at our church for a reflective Christmas Eve service. The baby was so well behaved. We didn't even have to leave the sanctuary. It was nice to be able to focus on the sermon and reflect on the true meaning of this season. We spend the rest of the evening at my parent's house with good food and good company of about 50 family members and church friends. Christmas day we spent a nice day at my husband's grandparent's house and his side of the family. All in all I think Gideon had a good first Christmas. And probably too many gifts for a 10 week old.

Here is a video and few pictures...Happy New Year to all!

Gideon playing & talking w/ his aunts on Christmas Eve

Opening up presents on Christmas Eve
Gideon's First Christmas Morning
Christmas Day: Uncle Brad, Byron, Gideon
(picture courtesy of Aunt Leanne)

2 Months (and things are getting better)

Our little boy turned 2 months old on Monday. He really is growing up so fast. He had his first church experience on Sunday. We were finally ready to take him. He did suprising well and only fussed a tiny bit when he got a little hungry. I hope no one was offended, but we just aren't ready to have people hold him yet with the flu season and all. He's not his fragile newborn self anymore. He has very strong neck control already. He spends good chunks of time playing with daddy and me-smiling and baby talking. He follows me or dad with his eyes and moves his head to see us if we're moving around or picking things up in the room. If he's in his swing he will be looking at us doing whatever it is we are doing. Although I feel bad sometimes about this, he does prefer us over other people. It's a great feeling to know your baby loves you. He is a lot less fussy than he used to be. If you can call it a schedule, he's been going to bed between 10-11pm and gives me chunks of sleep ranging from 3-5 hours a night (wide range, but so much better than the average 45 minute intervals he was giving me before). I really think the chiropractor is helping. He's such a happier and a more content baby. At 8 weeks he's already 14.5 pounds. He's growing out of all his newborn clothes and fitting into 6-9 month clothing. Crazy.

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Speaking of clothes...
Byron and I have been using a envelope/cash method of purchasing things since May. We are still working on using strictly cash for all of our everyday purchases, but we do make the exception here and there. Our Discover card gives us coupons every now and then. We received a few this week and among them was a Kohl's coupon for $10 off of a purchase of $10 or more if you use your Discover card. While we were Christmas shopping we found this cute outfit on sale (the only one of it's kind and in G's size). It was originally $26.00, but on sale for $10.40. With our coupon it cost us $0.43. Sweet dealio if you ask me. We had to use our credit card, but I really don't think we are going to have a problem paying off the 43 cents at the end of the month. Of course, Discover was hoping that we would use the coupon on a purchase much more than that, keep a balance on our credit card, rack up interest on the purchase and in the end make money on us, right? Do you think Discover will stop sending us these coupons?

Life Update

Happy Thanksgiving everyone...okay...maybe a few days too late...

It's been a long few days. Our Thanksgiving festivities started on Wednesday. My husbands parents traditionally host a three day event. Extended family come in on Wednesday and stay until late on Friday. This year was a bit trickier with little man. We decided to spend Wednesday and Friday with my husband's side of the family and Thursday with mine. It was great to see everyone especially the family that we only get to see once or twice a year. It was a little different with the baby. Especially on Friday when he just seemed to want to eat all day long and was rather fussy. I think he may have been a little over-stimulated with all the driving around, getting passed around, and it was much louder than our quite home that he's used to.

Saturday I had a house full of my girlfriends that came over. A few were in who live out of town now, so we all got together. It was really nice to see and catch up with everyone. Boyfriends, engagements, careers, babies...we're all grown up now. I remember it like yesterday having sleep overs and talking about boys.

Sunday was a fantastic day. It was just me and my two favorite guys. I was a little stressed out at first because the house hadn't been cleaned due to the holiday and laundry was piled up. My husband was great and let me take a nap while he started on things. We finished up together. Gideon was such a good boy all day. We watched the Bears game (eeeh). We ordered one of my favorite pizzas for dinner, Pizza Hut (don't judge me) and got a great online deal. It was a good day.

Gideon is 7 weeks old today. I can't believe it. He's growing up so fast. He's already grown out of all of his 0-3 month clothing and turning into quite the chunker. He's smiling a lot more these days. Very responsive to me and daddy playing with him. He'll yell at me if I stop talking to him-funny. His top 3 activities right now are Eating, Shower Time with dad (he just loves this), and getting his diaper changed (he gets all smiley and laughs/"talks" to me while we get the job done). The poor kid still has his painful gas/bowl movements that wakes him up and keeps him fussy at times while he's awake. I've been taking him to the chiropractor regularly now and seems like it's starting to help some. Pray he starts to feel better soon. He really is a sweetie when he's not all uncomfortable. Right now he's snoring away, sleeping on my chest as I type. Couldn't have asked for a more precious boy.

Oh, and for all my FVC family, don't worry. We'll finally be attending church this coming Sunday, so you'll get to meet our little guy :)

Blessing to all. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Pictures...

Monkey Boy




Little Man




Matching


Chubby Cheeks!

One Month Old

I can't believe our baby boy is already 1 month old today! He's already grown 2 inches and gained a wopping 3lbs! Here are some more pictures and a couple short videos.

He's so peaceful when he sleeps

Out for our first walk!

He loves hanging out with Dad

Byron calls this his "jail-bird" look

Cute shirt from Uncle Brad and Aunt Leanne w/ his matching cute cloth diaper cover

Cute onesie from Papa T

Daddy Time

Tummy Time

Life These Days

Blogging has not been a priority for me lately. We've all been pretty tired around here. Our little man is keeping us busy, but we just fall more in love with him each day! Here are some more pictures...

He loves his little boy!

Yes, he smiles in his sleep. Love it!