Potty Training update

Quickly, because I am exhausted, I wanted to give an update on how Brady is doing potty training. He is doing really well. He has really great days, and then not so good days.

Today was a not so good day. He had two accidents. It was quite frustrating because he said he needed to go potty at least 6 times in two hours. Each time he would sit on the potty, and then want to get up and go play. After not going for 2 hours, he had a huge accident. sigh. I can't make him go, but it is frustrating when he says he needs to go, but then he does nothing.

Another weird thing is that he sensitive little hiney gets a rash from his underwear. Each night it is super red, but after some rest and cream it is better in the morning. This ever happened to anyone? It is like his bootie is not used to the fabric, only diapers? Weird.

Friday was his best day. We made it through soccer, and most of lunch still dry. Sadly while playing at the chickfila play place, he ran up saying he needed to potty. I picked him up and ran with him, because he was shoe-less, to the other side of chickfila to the bathroom. Sadly, he did not make it, and had a little accident. Of course I asked him many times before he started playing if he needed to go, but he said no.

I guess as time goes on, he will be better about going when I think he should, and going when he has a feeling that he needs to. I am really proud of him. A week ago, I would not guess that he would go all day with only one accident. We just wear big boy undies now, but he still wears pull ups for naptime and bedtime. his pull ups have stayed dry for naptime, so they may be the next to go. 

He did get one of his prizes, because I thought he did so well Thursday and Friday. I just wonder if he has lost motivation because of that? We hope to have a big boy reward trip to Chuckie cheese really soon, but in the mean time, I am washing lots of big boy undies.  

Second Baby Blues

Just to warn you, this post is slightly hormone induced and emotional. I may change my mind, and take it down tomorrow. But it is also something that has been bugging me for some time, so for now I am just going to vent a little.

Now when I say second baby blues, it is not something that we have, it is about everyone else. We are anything but blue. We are probably even more excited this time, because we know how amazing it is to have a baby and to learn all about them. We don't have the first baby fears, just the joys that being a parent brings.

For some reason it seems to me, no one else feels the same way.

One of the few episodes of Scrubs I have seen was about the doctor announcing they were expecting their second baby. No one was as excited for them as they were when they were expecting their first baby. Very disappointing no one shared his excitement. So he started telling people it was his first baby so that everyone would be just as excited for him. And they were! Second and subsequent babies just are not celebrated like the first. Even though it was made to be funny, I understand exactly what he was going through.
Second baby is not asked about as much. Second baby receives nothing for gifts, other than what we (and Santa) have given it. Not that baby wants or needs anything, but it is hard to not feel that we are the only ones who think about this baby. Even I am not pampered like I was with Brady. It just seems different.

One of the main reasons I feel this way is lack of a shower or party for the baby. I love baby showers. I love the games, decorations, and of course cake. I love to throw baby showers and look forward to going to them. In fact, I am excited to be going to one this weekend.

I always have said that I found huge baby showers for second children a little unnecessary, but I guess I should have clarified. We had 3 different large showers for Brady, and got a ton of presents. For our second baby, I did not want that nor do we need that. But I think a baby sprinkle (instead of a shower), a diaper shower (always a need), or a sip and see are always great choices. I think every Mom and baby should be celebrated in some way, not just with gifts.

I am not sure if it is because we do not know the sex of the baby, or what, but I just feel like it is due to my all the sudden lack of friends. Seems like just a few months ago I was busy with different friends all the time, but now I got nothing. I have friends, but none that I am super close with and all are busy, and a lot live far away. I am trying to be better about calling friends and keeping up with them, so I can maintain my friendships. But my feelings are hurt by some, and I am really just not sure what I did.
Jeremy is my best-friend for a reason. He is sweet and encouraging. He does not care who loves the baby, he just knows that we will be able to give it all the love it needs. He keeps telling me he will throw me a shower, and I think he is quite serious. But that is not the point, not to mention against everything I know about baby shower etiquette. He also brings up how blessed we are that we need nothing for baby, and what we want we are able to buy. So true, but this is also not about the presents for me. It is about the baby, and how I am not feeling the love. I just don't want to show the baby it's baby book, and it wonder why Brady had 3 baby showers, and it did not have anything. Crazy?

I am so blessed to have been pregnant with not one but two babies. I am so blessed to have everything that we need for this baby. I am so blessed that we are to have the finances to be able to buy the other things we want for baby. I am so blessed to have a husband who loves me and our children so much, and is able to deal with my craziness. I am so blessed to have family and friends who love and care about me, even if they cannot read my mind. I am so blessed in life, and I am ready to focus on that, and what we have and not what we do not.
Okay, vent session over.

Potty Training

Potty Training is what we are doing this week. What fun! It is our second real try. We tried about a month ago, but we were unsuccessful. I would love to wait even longer, until I thought Brady was truly ready, but we are running out of time. The way I see it, we have 3 months now, or 3 months later.

Three months until the baby is born, and right now I can fully concentrate on Brady and his potty training. Even if he regresses, which I have heard happens when a baby enters the house, we will still have another three months before preschool starts. He is not fully ready, and it may take more time, but he is progressing and that is pretty encouraging.

This is what our bathroom looks like right now. Books, clean undies, and several potty choices.

Three months after the baby is born, potty training will be so much harder with a newborn also in the mix. He has to be potty trained by September or else he can not go to preschool, which he is already registered for, and I would feel terrible if that happened. Three months to potty train, with all of the life changes going on in our family, is just too much stress. Not to mention the time and expense of having two kids in diapers. 

So we are going to stick with it. Not sure why he isn't as on board as we are. He has awesome big boy underwear. 

 And super cool prizes for staying dry all day.

I just could not crop this picture, see that big belly at the bottom? Baby is growing so big, and will be here so soon!  

I hope to have amazing news next week, that we are all potty trained. It could take much longer, but I am not giving up so easily this time. No more going back to pull ups as diapers. We are on the road to being a big boy, and we are not stopping til we get there! Wish us luck!

Blue Bell

If you know me, you know I love ice cream. More importantly I love Blue Bell ice cream. It was a sad day moving out of Texas into Colorado, without Bell Blue. I love Colorado so much but I desperately miss Tex-mex and Blue Bell. I can get pretty good knock off tex-mex, but it is much harder to get ice cream. There are a few places around Colorado, but all are at least 45 minutes away, and not the same. While pregnant with Brady my mother-in-law and I went to Denver, and I happened to bring a cooler so I could bring home quarts of Blue Bell.

A few weeks ago Jeremy heard a rumor about Blue Bell coming to be sold in stores in Colorado. I searched all over the internet for news of this, but I could not find anything, so I figured it was just a rumor. Then last week, my friend found this newspaper article for me. I was/am overjoyed. It is the little things that make me happy I guess. And they should have it in stores mid-march, just in time for the I need ice cream part of pregnancy.  : )

I love all the flavors, but here are a few favorites.

Peppermint is seasonal, but my #1 when I can get it.
Just plain ole strawberry is so yummy with chunks of strawberry in it.

Neapolitan, has a great mix of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.

Cookies and cream is a classic, Jeremy's favorite.

A new favorite is the great divide bars. They are ice cream bars with vanilla and chocolate ice cream covered in white and milk chocolate.

I am so excited about being able to have Blue Bell in my freezer, and I know that once the initial excitement wears off, we will go back to rarely eating ice cream. But once mid-march comes I will be very happy that I am pregnant and can hide my ice cream baby weight.   
 

Post V-day

First off, I know I am a terrible blogger. I end up pretty exhausted at the end of each day recently. Especially because I have been trying to fit in many things in the day. One of them has been painting the baby's room, which takes up all of nap time, and leaves no time for me to have a little rest. If it makes you feel better I have been behind on everything else as well, dishes, my bible study, cleaning toilets. 

Also back pain seems to be a way of life for me for the next 3+ months. Baby is growing well, but my back cannot handle it very well. It is hard for me to not pick up Brady constantly, and to cut back on physical things. I am not used to it, and I tend to over do it, and then my back hurts so bad I am couch ridden. Oh well! Just a little pain! In fact I will be going to hurt it some more, by hopefully finishing painting the baby's room after this post.

For Valentine's day we stayed pretty low key. We are not big fans of the holiday, so we do not celebrate it much. We did make a very nice dinner together after Brady went to bed, (I really just stirred while Chef told me what to do). We had a lovely late dinner on fancy china with no Brady running around and acting crazy.

We had flank steak with some yummy sauce, risotto with mushrooms and shrimp, bread with roasted garlic, gingerale for me to drink, and creme brulee for dessert. It was sooo good! Isn't my hubby fabulous? 

The real reason I am not a fan of Valentines day is my husband is amazing every day, and he does wonderful things for me all the time. I am proud to say it feels like every day is Valentine's day with that guy around!

Losing my mind

Thanks little baby, I am indeed losing my mind. I hope that it returns shortly after baby arrives, but we will see. I have quite the serious case of baby brain, and it is starting to irritate me. I told Brady he better stay close or he might be lost next. Here is a few things I have lost recently.

- Wallet at Gringos (YUM!) over Christmas
- Sunglasses multiple times
- Wallet at Wendy's last week
-  Mail, checks, paperwork
- My unused Joann's gift card that I received for Christmas
- An entire bag full of different kinds of craft glue
- Library card

And there is even more little things. Thankfully, my wallet was found both times with nothing missing. The sunglasses were also found but this is why I never spend more than $10 on sunglasses. The gift card I am really disappointed about. I was saving it, and when I went to use it, it was gone. I suspect maybe it went missing when my wallet was unaccounted for, but I lose so much that I can not be sure. Seriously the craft things that are missing, I have no clue. I have turned this house apart! I recently have gone through the guest room/baby's room and emptied everything out, so maybe it got misplaced then? This month we also started our Dave Ramsey cash/envelope system again. It will really stink if I lose one of those envelopes.

Not only do I lose things, but I forget things. I forget names and places. I forget what I am doing, or I do something on autopilot that I do not want to do. For example, put things in the fridge that needed to go into the pantry or vice versa.

I can't figure out if I just have too much on my mind, or if baby really is causing this. This happened slightly with Brady but not this bad. I am really trying harder to pay more attention, and hopefully my mind will resume full function soon. The things we go through for our children. Anyone else ever have this problem?  

Artist in the Making

Brady loves to do all sorts of art and we like to encourage it. We have also been trying to encourage independent play because that is not something he does very well. Because we are trying to encourage independent play we let him play upstairs unattended in our room the other morning. We thought he was playing with cars, or some of his other toys, so we let him play for a few minutes. Ten minutes rolled around and he was still quietly playing my himself. This never happens! I should have been alarmed but we were enjoying the peace so we let it go on. After 15 minutes of not hearing much noise (the normal loud) from him I decided to check it out. This is how I found him.

 In his defense these are bath crayons, and he is in the bath.

Because I am also trying to encourage his artistic side, I let this go on for another 10 minutes, and took pictures.

There is a reason these are in our bathroom and not Brady's. These crayons are fun but they are terrible to get out of the grout. Every time I get in the shower I clean more and more off. I guess I needed to clean our shower anyway.

Moral of the story, if Brady is alone and quiet he is: making a mess, sleeping, or pooping (more on that weirdness later).