Worries about having two kids.

I love being a mom. I love my Simon-son. He is amazing, and so sweet and he makes me so grateful that I have such a fun calm, well-mannered little boy. Knock on wood. Let's hope he stays this way. I am grateful that I get to be a mostly stay-at-home mom, and that I could be a full-time one if I wanted, but Simon loves going to his Vovo's house and playing with his cousins and I love my job and my coworkers. I am also grateful that I am not working as much through this pregnancy. I am feeling pretty good nowadays, but am always tired. How did I work full-time through the last one? I actually worked two jobs last time and sometimes went a few weeks without a day off. How did I do that? How do other moms do that? I have no clue, but they are amazing.
Some days I wonder how I am going to handle having two kids. I feel like some days I have absolutely no patience for Simon and I thought I was a pretty patient person. What am I going to do when I have a crying baby and a whining Simon? I have a feeling it will involve watching more tv and movies than we already do. It may involve reading more books. I think it will definitely involve more sitting on the couch, though I already do a good deal of that because I am tired all the time. And hopefully it involves more walks but it will be getting cold out shortly after baby comes so we will have to bundle up! I do plan on getting a Moby Wrap or similar type of wrap to have the baby close and my hands free for Simon, I had a sling with Simon and didn't like it, all the weight on one shoulder was not comfortable.
I worry about Simon alot though. He has become much more of a momma's boy than he was already since I stay at home a lot more now. How is he going to handle having a younger brother? Is he going to get jealous, is he going to love the baby so much? I think he will love the baby, he likes to see my belly to see the baby, and when the baby is moving a lot I will take Simon's hand and put it on my belly so he can feel it. I'm not sure if he feels it or not but he giggles and he likes to kiss my belly. Hopefully he is still as fond of the baby when it is no longer in my uterus.
We went to register at BabiesRUs the other day because if I went and registered I got a free $10 gift card, so I figured why not, and also at the end we get 20% off anything on the registry not purchased, so even if no one else looks at it, we still a discount on the stuff on it like swings, bouncers, bibs, blankets, whatever! But while we were there I realized there is a lot of stuff we never had for Simon and for two reasons. 1. We were in a pretty small 1 bedroom apartment and didn't really have the space for a lot of stuff. 2. He was in daycare 5 days a week, and got to play with lots of cool toys there and when he was home I was mostly playing with him and holding him and didn't have a need for lots of things to amuse him and keep him occupied, because I was that thing. Now that I am a stay-at-home mom, and have another kid that is going to need attention too, I am going to have to buy a lot of that gear I never had before. With Simon we had a bassinet, a swing, a tummy time pad, and his crib. He never had a pack'n'play (which we aren't going to get this time either), he never had a bouncer, or a vibrating seat, or a play exersaucer thing, or a baby monitor (his crib was in the living room, his bassinet was in our room, and we co-slept), or a boppy (i just used a small pillow). We never had to buy an infant carrier (carseat) because we were given a used one by a trusted friend, but now the handle is broken and doesn't lock in place so we need a new one. I am realizing now that these things add up, there is tons of gear we have to buy and it's a little scary- so much money! We have a swing already, but I am thinking of getting one that is a swing, bouncer combo, and you can take the bouncer seat off, but maybe it's smarter to keep the swing we have and just buy a bouncer seat, but having the two in one saves a lot of space in our small place. We are thinking about moving, but want to stay here because it is so cheap, we would rather keep the extra $350 a month we would have to pay to live in a larger place. Oh goodness having another kid is a little scary. So much to think about and buy to get ready for the new one, perhaps a trip to Once Upon a Child is in store instead of stressing about the cost of all the new stuff. Thank goodness we are having another boy so we don't have to buy an entirely new wardrobe too, and thank goodness Steve has a real job now, so money isn't quite as tight as it used to be, though it's still a little tight since we have to pay off his school now.
So, sorry about the complaining about all the gear we have to get, really if we just worry about the basics, we'll get a carseat, a double stroller (buying from my sis), and a moby wrap, and we should survive. And as far as Simon I plan on giving him his own special time at night like we do now, where I will rock him and read books and sing to him before I put him to bed, I am hoping that his special time at night will help a lot and I will try to give him special Simon time whenever the baby is sleeping. Any suggestions on how you prepared your first kid for the arrival of a second one and still made time for the first one so s/he didn't feel left out would be appreciated. When we get close to delivery time I will ask for suggestions on the hospital/delivery part and what you did with the older kid during that time- but we will worry about that part in a couple of months. Simon wants attention now, I have been typing too long and he is hungry and needs Dora!

Up too late...

Now that I decided to name this blog, I realize it can have two meanings. The first and intended meaning is that I am up way too late right now because I am working on laundry. But then I realized it also applies to our late habit of Simon staying up way too late.

This new schedule of Steve's is still some taking some getting used to, and is definitely impacting our schedules a little bit. Through now fault of his though, I just hate cooking dinner for just Simon and I, and I can make enough for Steve too, but then it is cold and not as good by the time he wakes up, so I have big dinner most nights at 10, and have healthy snacks and smaller dinner earlier in the evening. It is still some getting used to, and I still have yet to develop a routine for our family, though it's only been a month, and new routines take some getting used to. Right? Maybe...

Who knows, but I have been better this week at cooking. I made us homemade mac and cheese tonight. Came out of the oven right at 10, it wasn't as good as I wanted, but Steve said it was good, Simon hardly ate any of his. I was hoping it would be creamier like Kraft, but apparently homemade in the oven doesn't come out that way. I even added extra cheese, but it wasn't very cheesy and definitely not creamy.

I don't know how stay-at-home-moms do it all. I am having a hard time with it. Not the mom part of it- that is so easy and fun. Simon is just so much fun, and is really starting to have an imagination and making up games and rules. He even put a balloon in time-out yesterday because it wasn't being nice to him! He makes being a mom pretty easy. The hard part is the homemaking part of it. How do they keep the house clean, especially with said fun two-year old running around? Which brings me back to my original point...

I am up way too late right now doing laundry. Why I am doing laundry, and why must it be done right now? Well, that is because I need whites, I had them all done and folded and on the sofa waiting to go upstairs yesterday when Simon fell asleep on the couch on top of said pile of laundry. You may recall that he is potty training right now... You see where this is going right? Well at some point during the waking up and whining process of napping, he must have peed, because my entire pile of whites was soaked. So sad, definitely need underwear because I work tomorrow, so I can't even wait until noon to shower after some laundry has gone through. Ugh! And I am going to Idaho for work and leaving Thursday morning, so I need all my clothes clean so I can sort through them and figure out what to pack. I always over pack for everything, so I will need lots of clothing options. Lots of folding and hanging has been going on. Just waiting for the load in the dryer so I can throw my whites in and then head to bed. Goodnight!

Oh Poop

I love when my son tells me he needs to go poo-poo. I tell him okay, let's go, and we proceed to run to the bathroom. I look at his little bum running ahead of me and he is running a little bow-legged and his underwear are drooping in the bum area.
He is doing okay with the potty training still, but I think poop is going to take him a while. He has a poop accident everyday, but is getting much better with pee. I do put him in a pull-up when we go anywhere still, and at night, and will probably do both for a while, at least until he gets better and more consistent with using the toilet. He only goes about 4 times a day once he is out of the pull-ups in the morning. He can hold it forever, and we haven't been staying as hydrated as we need to be. But still, he will hold it through a movie and wait for it to be over before he goes to the bathroom, it's so cool.
Now if he can just get a hold of the pooping thing. Not a fan of the run to the bathroom and I can see the poop hanging there in his underwear (though it does make me laugh inside to see him run like that)

Potty Training Update

So I think the potty training is going good. He has had less accidents today and yesterday.. but he also went 5 hours without peeing, and then had 3 accidents right after that yesterday, and they were all after Steve woke up. I think he is really learning to hold it. Simon does not like going poop on the potty and hasn't really done it yet. He's finished it off on the toilet, but he hasn't started out on it, at least since we actually started officially potty training, he has done it in the past. But yeah, he is good at holding it. He also stays dry during his naps which is nice since we typically take them on the sofa together and half the time he is in my lap.
He held it all through a movie today, and I was getting nervous thinking he should be about to go anytime, and I would push pause during it to show him the movie can wait and going to the bathroom is most important, but he wouldn't go. As soon as it ended I stopped it, and looked at him, a little wet spot was starting to form on his underwear like the pee was starting to leak out, but he still mostly had control, so we ran to the toilet and he sat down and went pee!
I think his biggest motivator though is the "potty snacks," he gets a pack of fruit snacks every time he goes. I think as he gets better we will cut it down to like 4 fruit snacks every time or something like that. I am trying to motivate him to go poop on the toilet by using marshmallows, but I just started that today, so we will see how it goes. Also when I go to the bathroom I make a big deal of it, and I get potty snacks too, just to try to be an example to him that if he goes he gets treats. He liked the sticker chart the first couple days, but now he doesn't care, he just wants fruit snacks!
I'm not really sure how trained he is, he isn't good at telling us yet, so I still haven't decided if he should go to Cindy's tomorrow armed with pull-ups, I'm kinda nervous about it and don't want him to regress by wearing the pull-ups and not being able to feel it when he pees and wets his underwear, I am just going to have to call her and see how much she wants to deal with with the whole underwear and peeing and accidents thing. And maybe promise to shampoo her living room carpet when I am over on Sunday! I will keep you updated, it seems to be going well if you ask me, definitely a lot of improvement since we started, I just need him to tell us when he needs to go.

Potty Training- Day 1

So I finally decided it is time to start potty training Simon, we have kinda done the letting him go on the potty/trying to get him to go on the potty thing, but I decided it's time to do it for real. I kind of judge things by when my sis does them with her son because he is just a couple months older than Simon, and since B did potty training around Christmas, well, now it's a couple months later so it's about time for us to do it too! Plus, I am only working part-time now (which I love by the way- more on that in a seperate post if you are lucky) so I actually have one-on-one time with my son where I can be the one doing the training, otherwise I would have had to say, yeah I am gonna do this, and then make my daycare do it (which is Steve's mom, and that's just not fair to do). So we started yesterday. Basically, we just try to get him to drink tons of liquids, have him running around in underwear and a shirt, and whenever he starts to go to the bathroom tell him no gross, yucky, etc., and run him to the bathroom. We also added in a sticker chart for some extra incentive which he is digging. He gets a little sticker for pee and a big sticker for poop. Last night before he went to bed he was kind of telling us if he had to go, and today he has told us a little more than half the time already, but by the time he realizes it he is already starting to pee. I think he is getting it pretty fast though, it's supposed to work in three days. We have tarps covering the living room floor right now to protect our already-needing-to-be-shampooed carpets. We are "cheating" at night and putting him in pull-ups because he normally ends up in bed with us halfway through the night and I definitely don't want to deal with that (pee) in my bed. So anyways, so far it is going good, and I hope he gets it, I am nervous to send him to daycare on Wednesday because I don't want him to pee all over Cindy's carpet, so I am thinking about doing pull-ups for daycare too. Wish us luck! I'll update and let you know how it goes. It definitely takes a lot of vigilance, you can't be doing anything else except watching the kid and making sure their underwear are dry and praising them when they are.

boogers

How do little kids fit so many boogers in such tiny little noses?

routine

I was talking to my SIL Mel today, and I told her that after almost 2 years, I finally feel like we have some sort of a routine and our day-to-day life has become somewhat predictable. It is quite nice. I feel like I get to spend enough quality time with Simon everyday, I make dinner most nights, get Simon into bed by 9 now (or earlier some nights!) instead of 10 or later, and even have time for myself. I still need work on spending enough quality time with Steve, but this past week we have been playing lots of Halo together, and that has been really fun. But most nights I do something for myself while he is studying and then we crawl (or I get carried) into bed exhausted. I have even been doing pretty good at keeping the house clean. The kitchen gets cleaned about 3 times a week, the living room 2 times a week, and upstairs... well does that really count as part of the house? We pretty much just go up there to sleep anyways. and laundry... well that gets done about once a week-and by done I mean we wash it all normally once a week or whenever we are out of whites or scrubs and then it goes into a huge tote in our bedroom.
I feel like things are finally under control around here, life doesn't seem as hectic, and I feel like I get a lot of good quality time out of the 3 hours a night I get to spend with my son. I really enjoy being a mom, and I can't wait until I get to be a stay at home mom.