Houston...we have poop.

She came upstairs while I was cleaning and was prancing around. I figured she just had to pee, but when we went into the bathroom and she got on the flush she started to cry, a sure sign that she had to poop. So for the next 30m it was a bit of a battle of wills. First she wanted "bun bun", then her froggy potty, asked for a diaper (I told her they were all gone, that we had none left), then asked for her "fishy panties" and then I finally convinced her to sit down if I read to her a story - Max and Ruby.

After reading most of the story, some back rubs and re-assurance, she pooped! There were tears involved (I really do not think it was hard/constipation, I think she's just learning how to poop sitting down) but as soon as she pooped she bolted up off the potty, arms in the air Rocky style and cheered "YAYYY!! I pooped!!! YAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!" and I cheered with her, hugged her and praised her. Then she freaked about being wiped. hah

I rewarded her, 6 jellybeans, which is what we've been promising for weeks if she pooped on the potty. Then we called Owen and told him the good news. :0) While talking to him she informed him she "pooped on the potty and had 6 Jellybeans daddy, SIX!"

I also asked about the wake ups last night and he said each time he went in her room she had already peed, she just wanted him to tuck her back into bed. :0)

Clean sheets.

So yesterday morning I went in and she was sleeping in pee. :0( I can not say I'm all that surprised though, since it was kind of a spur of the moment decision to eliminate the diaper for bedtime. We did not limit liquids in the evening nor did we wake her up when we went to bed to see if she would pee.

Last night we cut off liquids at 6pm, allowed her about an inch or two of milk at story time (she always gets milk at bedtime and we are not prepared to cut it out yet - always seems as parents that we are trying to wean something eh?), and then at 10pm when Owen and I went to bed, he went in, woke her up and put her on the potty. She sat there for about 2 seconds, stood up and stared at him with these sad little eyes like "WTF?" and he felt bad for her so he put her back in bed.

Not sure about the exact times, but she came into our room 2xs last night, the 2nd time I think was around 4.30 bc even I got up to pee. hah I checked this morning and her sheets are dry and her potty is full, so I'm guessing each time she came in, it was to get help finding her potty, even though we had her lights on (she has a dimmer switch, so they were dimmed).

This morning, I love my husband a lot, as he's the one that go up each time.

Time to end diapers

Soo...it's time for night training. The first few weeks of potty training N would poop w/o a problem in the potty. Owen and I both were like great! This is awesome! We'd both heard how hard it is usually for your kid to poop on the potty. Anyway, I'm not sure what happened but she suddenly stopped. Since we were working on the whole fear of Flush thing, and peeing in public thing, we just let it drop and figured it was just a 'phase'. ha! 5m? later she still holds it and waits for bedtime for her diaper before she will poop.

We've tried a ton of things:

- Bribery - stickers, 5 WHOLE jellybeans Tash if you poop on the potty!
- Sitting her on it at bedtime before stories, after stories - she grunts and groans and says "no poop mommy/daddy"
- Putting a diaper on her and having her sit on the potty
- Praising her on what a big girl she was and how all her friends pooped on the potty. (I know horrible)

And numerous other things. Last night, within like 5 secs of the diaper going on, after I had her sit on the potty before & after stories, she pooped in the diaper. I will admit that frustration hit. I changed her diaper and said "Ok sweetie, this is it, your last diaper". Then I left her room.

Owen was working last night so I called him up, almost in tears (stupid pregnancy hormones) and told him "That's it, no more diapers for Tash at bedtime".

I vaguely recall at some point in the middle of the night her coming to our bedroom and Owen saying "Do you have to potty?" so I'm not sure if she did, I've not checked yet this morning or if she was cold or what. I did leave the light on in her room, but dimmed, so I'm hoping the urge to pee with her panties on woke her up, but I'm have expecting to go in there this morning to find a wet bed. We woke her up when we went to bed and put her on the potty, but she did not have to pee. She had just peed though 2hrs before after I'd read her stories.

Let's home diaper elimination helps with the pooping.

Random but not so Random.

Ever try and do something that you want to look completely random, but it seems like it would be more random if you'd not tried so hard? Or in your effort for it to be random, it turned out completely the opposite? It's funny how trying to be random is hard then just placing things together.

This afternoon I decided to take the plunge and finally put up the White Flowers by Umbra. I bought them a month or so ago after seeing them over on Dooce's blog and thinking how nicely they'd "pop" against jellybean's chocolate brown walls.

The thing that worried me about putting them up was that they are attached to the wall by what looks just like a thumb tack. Sooo once in place, if it's not where you wanted it to be, you'd be left with a tiny pinhole in your wall. In all the painting I've done in this house, I've filled a lot of holes, so it's the last thing I wanted to do on her freshly painted (as of january of this yr) walls.

So I dug out my trusty painters tape and began sticking flowers on the wall. Stick a couple on, step back, change one size for another, stick a couple more, move this one, move that one. Even once all 25 were up and I started to stick the tacks in the wall I moved them a bit.

So they are up and I *think* I'm happy with how they look. I was actually pretty proud of them and really do like how the white pops against the chocolate brown. But then Owen came home and I showed him and he was all "Meh". He doesn't hate them, doesn't love them, is just meh on the whole thing. He's really not into the whole decorate the nursery thing, so I'll cut him some slack. :P

I'm not sure what I'll do next. I need to hang her growth chart and I still have curtains to hang and the PBK Penelope canvases I have...I was also thinking of making a mobile from felt for over the change table..I'm not sure. I need to pick up some baskets for storage as well for the change table.

I want her room to be simple, yet have a bit of "Wow" factor to it when you see it. Like I've mentioned before, I never got to decorate Tasha's room before she was born and now that I'm doing jellybean's, I'm sort of sad I did not get a chance to do N's, even though we moved 6m later, and knew we would be, so it would have been a bit of a waste.

27w

Not the best photo, but it's been since 23w I think, since the last one I took.

So far everything is going smoothly, no aches/pains or anything worth complaining about. I'm feeling huge though. I ordered some more maternity jeans for fall, but they've not shown up in he mailbox yet. I wish they'd hurry up, I'm having trouble finding not only pants, but tops that fit over my belly. I've been living in stretchy capris.

I'm still working 1-2 shifts a week at GAP and have now added to my plate photography classes twice a week. When I registered for them, I was not pregnant and had been TTC for 5m and sort of a bit down in thinking it would probably take another 5m. If I'd known I was going to learn I was pg 3w after I registered, I may not have signed up for 2 classes a week.

Ladybug Transfer

Sneak Peek

After months of waiting, the Debbie Travis Closet Organizer finally went on sale this week at Crappy Tire. I dragged Owen out to pick it up and then spent the last 3 days putting it together. :P The main components actually did not take that long. But once I had the wide tower and narrow tower put together, I lost my steam for assembling the 3 drawers, so basically assembled on Monday and 2 yesterday.

I have to say I love this system. Tash has the Extend-it system in her closet, and while it was cheaper ($100 for everything and lacks as much storage as the DT has), it really does not maximize the space available in her closet. It also does not help that Tasha's and jellybean's closet are 90 degree angles on one end and the opposite side of the closet it's an angle/45 degree angle.

So this solves that. I put the narrow/wide tower at the 90 degree end then Owen (hopefully before she arrives) will install the 2 metal hanging rods I bought. It requires some /gasp drilling in the wall and wide tower, so it's going to take some nagging.

I also read reviews about the wood being flimsy, missing parts (screws/not enough finishing nails) and damaged pieces once out of the box. Luckily I had none of these issues and find the whole thing to be super sturdy and good quality wood.

With the 40% off, we paid $200 total for the Wide Tower, Narrow Tower, 3 drawers + 2 rubbermaid metal hanging Rods. I am a bit disappointed that 4 drawers would fit in the bottom half of the wide tower. I was pretty sure I saw set-ups of it with 4 drawers. So now I have an extra drawer..luckily I'll be doing the same set up in N's room so will just need to buy 1 pkg of drawers when we are ready to put this in Tasha's room.

And since I'm sharing the closet, I thought I'd share a couple other sneak peeks of the room. I've had the painting done for a while (like back in January), but now the crib is set up, receiving blankets are sewn, fitted crib sheets are sewn..so basically I'm sharing the crafty stuff. hah I still have to add curtains and wall decor.

Her Custom Rag Quilt (cotton) that started the obsession with doing coordinating flannel fitted crib sheets and receiving blankets. I had Heather at A La Mode Fabric make it for me, it's fabric from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market Collection;


Her receiving blankets - S.H. Farmer's Market - Vintage Breeze Dots, Medallion Bloom, Vintage Stripey, Vintage Cherry. I bought more of the same fabrics (minus the Vintage Cherry I could not find any) and did fitted Crib Sheets. The fourth which I did not do an RB out of but a fitted crib sheet is called Big Blooms. It's also not in the rag quilt. You can kind of see it in the closet organizer picture. :0)


Fitted Crib Sheet - It's amazing just how easy/simple these are to make!


One of 2 of her quilts. Again, made by A La Mode Fabric. I actually bought this last fall for Tasha, but she did not like it,(like it in the respect that it was not her ratty walmart blanket) so I held on to it and now jellybean gets it. :0) I love the patterns and colours.

Now if I could just find the right fabric for her curtains!

She seemed really happy

With the result of my u/s on Friday. :0) Not much new to report. Jellybean's heartbeat was 144bpm, I'm up to a whopping 60kg,(I weighed only 126lbs at the end of my pg with Tasha but I think I weighed less before getting pregnant that time) my blood pressure is normal but there was a lot of protein in my urine so on top of getting tested for GD this week, she's having that checked, my iron levels (I was anemic with Tash) and apparently they are re-testing all pregnant women for Syphilis? I only half listened to that part bc Tash was being loud. So I'm not sure if I heard her correctly for that. Seemed a bit off the wall?

She said I was measuring big (no kidding lady, it's all belly out there) but since the ultrasound on Friday has baby measuring on target (957g/2.1lbs) she's not worried about me measuring a bit bigger. She said she'll be happy once baby reaches 1000g and I make it to 29w. The chances of baby not having any problems skyrocket to 90% from the 36% to 50% at 24w. Amazing what four weeks can do for jellybean.

She also mentioned that we may get lucky and I'll make it full term. She says she has a patient that she's had through 2 pregnancies. The first time she had the cerclage done and went full term, but this last time she had the cerclage done again and at 28w she went into pre-term labour. She has a healthy little baby (no complications etc) but she said you just never know, as oddly enough it does not happen with every pregnancy. She also mentioned again, how while the studies are still early, the permitcium (I can never spell it!)was turning out to be more successful then the Cerclage or bed rest. :0)

Oh and she finally changed the due date on my file from Dec. 12th to Dec. 15th. So now we are only 1 day off in "when" we believe my due date is. I mentioned to her that this last u/s was saying Dec. 15th, the same as it did at the ones between 8 and 12w. She double checked and said since the earlier one (most accurate) dated me for Dec. 15th she'd change it. ha!

My Little Red Riding Hood

Part fairy tale, part bunny. She proved me wrong and actually did not cry when I put her in it. She's gotten use to the dress but has been getting really upset whenever I try the over-skirt on to check for length and strap positioning. Maybe I just lucked out? heh Let's hope not.

3.7cm

I had ultrasound #7 yesterday morning. It was close to 2hrs long, but I'd say close to an hour of it was just waiting. 20 minutes in the waiting room, 10 mins or so in the back waiting room, 10 mins waiting for the Radiologist to come back after I took my pants off, and then another 10 mins waiting for her to come back after my pants were back on and probably 5 or so minutes waiting for the doctor to come into the consult room to discuss my results with me. It was so much faster between 'things' last time.

I asked Owen on our way out that really, how long does it take the average person to get their pants off and back on again? I would not have cared if she'd just went by the door, pulled the curtain around and waited the 30 seconds. I think she was a bit new to the clinic as the woman I had last time had the whole timing down to a T.

Anyway, everything is looking good. My cervix has shortened less then 10% to a minor 3.7cm which is still good. The 'worrisome' zone is between 1.5cm and 2cm. The doctor told me that it was "probably" normal. A lot of women's cervix's will shorten just a teeny bit and then stay like that until they go into "real" labour. Hopefully this is the case.

Baby is weighing in at a little over 2lbs and he said she's on target right now to be between 7lbs and 8lbs at birth, but of course not to 'bank' on that and come hunt him down later after she's born and turns out to be 9 or 10lbs, it's just all estimates at this point.

This u/s was actually pretty neat and I wish Owen would have come in. He was out in the wait room with Tash bc she decided she did not want to come in. Jellybean is sooo much more developed now. Her face is more formed, less alien in appearance, she has eyelashes, I can see see her eyelids on the screen and the Tech pointed out on her head what looked like a tiny tuff of hair. She said by my next u/s baby's eyes may be open. Which kind of creeped me out. :P

I have Doctor's appointment on Tuesday, where Dr. E will go over the results again and I hope to remember to talk to her about the H1N1 vaccine. My next u/s appointment is the first of October, and hopefully after that one I'll just have one more.

Oh and Owen has booked off his "maternity" vacation. He starts vacation on December 4th and has the entire month of December off, with still 18 days of vacation left. 1.5 more days are used up for u/s appointments but that's it. So he will probably end up having the first 2w of January off as well. "Typically" his company only lets you carry over 1 week of vacation and that has to be used by March 31 each year, but his boss is pretty nice (and things will still be a bit slow in Jan) and is letting him carry them over. He just is unable to book the days off in their system yet for '10.

I'm excited that when she's born Owen and Tash and I will get to spend 6w together bonding as a family and adjusting. One option if we wanted longer would be Paternity leave, however, we can't really afford that and this way, with all the vacation he's not used (he gets 4w a year plus a slew of Flex days, when we started TTC again we decided he'd not use the vacation days) he gets his full salary and I get lots of help during the first adjustment period.

I'm just wondering if I will go crazy with him at home for a couple of weeks before she's born? I'm sure he'll do some work from home and pop into work for an afternoon or morning here and there. He never is ever truly on vacation unless we leave the province.

Wordless Wednesday

Weee!

See my ticker over there? Double digits! 99 days to go! The first bit of this pregnancy seems to have went quickly, but lately, it just seems to be draggggginnnggg along. Maybe because I've done so much preparation? Making fitted crib sheets, receiving blankets, decorating her room. I want her here already. hah I never felt so anxious with N..which you'd think I would have since I did not know the gender.

I'm not sure why, I'm just super excited to meet her and hold her. Excited to see how she and N interact, how they will bond, all we will all bond as a family..

Her sister is fighting back already

The other night N and I were snuggled on the sofa. She started out just sitting beside me but gradually she ended up using my belly as her own personal pillow. That is until her little sister decided to give a 'little' kick right where N's head was. She sat up super fast, looked at me and said "Mommy! What you do!". LOL I explained it was her little sister kicking but she just seemed annoyed that her 'pillow' kicked her.

Who would have thought..

it would feel as good as it did today to have a poop. It appears my wonderful friend Mr. Constipation has returned. Seriously, labour is less painful then being constipated.