Patience... or lack of.

While I was wasting time on Pinterest, I mean looking for inspiration and recipes and ideas for things I will never do, earlier today I happened upon this article from parents.com. It was really what I needed to read and hear. It's called 10 Ways to Stop Yelling. I have really been losing my cool with Simon very easily lately and I don't really know why. I can't figure out what my deal is and why I am getting so impatient with him, and is very upsetting for me because myself and how I am acting and it is not good, I feel like I have been losing control and don't know why or how to get back to being my normal self instead of this "grouchy mom" I have become. I suspect it might be a tiny bit depression, part cabin fever/SAD/not-going-outside-enough-and-getting sunlight, part exhausted from a retarded sleep schedule (why have I been staying up past two every night!), part tired from having a baby who demands being held and nursing tons this week (see post below). I think mostly just tired, you can blame it on whatever you want.

I think another part of my deal is that I have unrealistic expectations of my three year-old's behavior. And on top of everything else about a week and a half ago he regressed with the potty training and I have been handling it very poorly. Today was a good day, but man, I lose my cool so quickly when he has an accident, but everything I read says it is perfectly normal, and the more upset I get about it when he has an accident the worse it will be.

Right now I am really trying to get a handle on things and be better. I am always trying to be a better parent and wife, but right now it has become more important for me to be better. I know there is something wrong, and I'm trying desperately to fix it, I am just kinda having a hard time right now, and I don't get to see Steve a whole ton, which is hard too. This week my main focus has been on getting Simon to bed at a reasonable time and watching less tv. I introduced Simon to Lego video games, and boy was that a mistake. We only have demos for a few different games, but that boy is an addict! So this week I combined the potty training regression with the too much tv. If he has an accident, he doesn't get to watch anymore tv until he can show me that he can go pee on the potty. And then it's just one or two episodes. We watch way too much tv in this house. Way too much. It's hard though because I spend so much time sitting on the couch feeding Desi it is just easier to turn on the tv so Simon can sit by me and watch tv together, but earlier in the week I decided to sit on the floor and feed Desi and play toys with Simon, or at least just keep him company and it has been working. Tv watching has definitely decreased this week and decent bed times have also been happening! Correlation or causation? Tv: brain over-stimulation: staying up late? Perhaps... Tonight Simon crashed on the couch and was was out before 8:30. My goal has been to have him in bed with lights out by 9:30, and we have done it on average this week. We have had some nights earlier and some later, but it has averaged out to that and it is so exciting for me! (And I know what you are thinking, you have been telling me for 3 years that Simon shouldn't stay up so late) Simon has been staying up way way too lately because by the end of day I am exhausted and getting Simon in to bed always seems to clash with Desi needing to be fed and I postpone it, let him watch "one more 'movie'" and before we know it is late late late! But it has been working out this week, and I am going to stick to it, I need to stick to it, and then I get a few hours of quiet every night to myself which is very nice, very nice indeed.

Anyways, I am just going on and on and I should probably stop. There is tons more I have to say on this subject, but if you are still reading by this point you are probably about bored to death. Although I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog anyways, it is nice for me to be able to word-spew about how I am feeling lately, because I have been a little down and hard on myself, and unsatisfied with my performance as a mom. Here's to doing better, being better, not being so harsh on myself, and focusing on the brighter parts of my performance.

Teething

Desi-boo is teething. I am so not ready for this yet. He is only 4 1/2 months old! And it may take a while before they pop out, but who knows. Simon didn't get his first tooth until he was over a year-old, which I really enjoyed since I breastfed him til he was over a year old and I didn't have to deal with the whole nursing and teeth thing. One of the joys of Desi teething is that he has been nursing almost non-stop around the clock for the past couple of days. That is great if I have nothing to do, but not-so-great if I want to go run errands, or go on a date alone with my husband, or go to work. Yep, none of those things are happening this week. Instead, I am sitting on the couch nursing this baby constantly and showering very late in the day while baby screams in the bouncy seat just so I can be clean. Oh, what, I forgot to mention didn't I... That's right, if he isn't nursing he wants to be held. And not just anyone will do. Only mom will do. Hooray! (Note the many layers of sarcasm in this post.)
Last night Steve was holding Desmond while I was stuffing diaper inserts into diapers so Steve wouldn't have to deal with it while I was at work- the diapers would be all ready for him. The whole time Steve was holding Desi, he was rocking, bouncing, shhhing, swaying, patting, etc., and Desi just sat there screaming and staring at me, he would track me around the room, staring into my soul and crying. It was a very painful three minutes, and heartbreaking.
Don't get me wrong, I love holding my baby, and cuddling him, and nursing him, but I also love getting other things done too, especially when I am actually in the mood for doing other things like picking up the living room and cooking meals for my family for Valentine's Day. Meals like our breakfast (and by breakfast I mean lunch, it was at 1 that we ate our bacon, little Kari's little-a eggs, pigs in a blanket, and fruit) this morning with it's little heart-shaped pieces of fruit, and the dinner I want to make tonight for my husband with little heart-shaped roasted potatoes. It's gonna be soo cute, if it actually happens. Which at this rate, is probably not going to happen.
But anyways, teething- yikes. When he isn't nursing he is chomping on whatever he can get his hands onto and get into his mouth. And it doesn't feel like front teeth are coming in, its all jaggedy further back, like canines and molars are starting to come in. Ouch, poor little baby.

Cloth Diapering

Since before Desi was born I thought that I really wanted to do cloth diapering with him, but the main thing stopping me (and that I was using as an excuse not to) was that to do laundry we have to go outside our back door, down cement steps, unlock a door, go down the hall and unlock another door. Three sets of doors to open, and if we are coming from up stairs in our place where the bedrooms are, then two sets of stairs also. Ugh. And then doubling or even tripling that for each load of laundry. Yes, I am a lazy bum. I would tell myself that if we ended up buying a house, that is when I would start. And then something wonderful happened. I had some cloth diapers on my amazon list, and my sister Heather bought them for us as part of our Christmas present this year. Then another thing happened, it was a Saturday evening and we were almost out of diapers, not quite enough to make it to Monday morning, and I didn't want to go to the store, especially with both boys (I think Steve was working or about to leave for work). So I opened up the diapers, washed them, and started using them. And I didn't look back.
So far I love it! It has only been about a month. The ones my sister got for us are BumGenius 4.0 with snaps. They are amazing. Then I bought an Econobum cover that came with a prefold, and a Flip diaper which came with an insert both with snaps. I hate the Econobum, and especially it's prefold that is just awkward when placed inside the cover. I like the flip diaper, you just switch the insert with every change unless you get poo on the cover which was happening almost every time, but I still liked the concept and that each cover will last a little longer. The BumGenius call themselves an All-in-one, meaning it's most like the disposables most people use, but it really isn't, it is a pocket diaper, which just means you have to stuff an insert into a cover. After that I bought two Thirsties Duo-Wrap covers, and started a sewing project sewing my own inserts to use inside of it. I had some prefolds that I can just fold and place inside them, but I hate prefolds. Some of you may remember after Simon was born we had diaper service for a week, and I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't- I just hate prefolds, they are not for me, but they are A LOT cheaper to use. Well the day after my two new covers came and I started my sewing-inserts-out-of-scrap-fabric project I went to help my friend Jenn who cloth diapered her two boys, and she lent me her BumGenius hook and loop diapers! 21 wonderful BumGenius diapers. So no need for my covers right now because I currently have a stash to get me through with a few extras between wash cycles. But I am sure as Desi gets bigger I will love those covers and will probably use them more, especially since he is a big boy I hear he will outgrow the BumGenius and end up needing something else towards the end before potty training.
Needless to say, I am pretty excited and am loving cloth diapering. Desi hasn't had diaper rash like he was getting before, and I am not throwing hundreds of diapers into landfills. A lot of people don't like cloth diapering because they say it isn't cheaper because of the cost of buying the diapers and washing and drying your diapers, but I don't care as much about it being cheaper, I care more about the environmental impact of throwing out diapers that don't decompose. So maybe a silly update especially since I haven't posted in over four months, and surely there must be other mom things going on in my life since I have had a baby since my last post, but this is what I am most excited about. Love my cloth diapers, and the extra bulk in the diaper bag doesn't bother me too much. Oh and P.S.- I may be washing diapers every two days, but Desi hasn't had a single blow out since I started using the cloth diapers and he would have 1-3 a day in his disposables, so I might be using energy to clean my diapers, but he is also not going through as many outfits each day, so it's more diapers to wash, but less clothes!
Oh and I am also going to be switching from disposable wipes to cloth wipes, but haven't done it yet. I need to sew all my wipes. I have a couple of old flannel receving blankets I cut up and I just need to hem the edges of them and then make a wipe solution to put them in and figure out if I want to do a spray bottle or wipe warmer filled with solution- I will probably just do the solution in a spray bottle because it is cheaper and I don't have to worry about keeping something plugged in by where I change diapers because there really aren't any unused plugs nearby. Happy Diapering, and wish me luck!

Spoiler Alert: This blog contains info that may be disturbing to some readers- things about girl parts and labor and stuff

I can't figure out if pregnancy posts belong on my mom blog or our family blog, so this one is going on the mom blog because its contents could be disturbing to some people.

I hate my cervix. I had a doctors appointment earlier this week. My dr was going to do a cervical check and strip my membranes to get things moving with the whole labor process. She went in to check my cervix, and it is so tightly closed she couldn't even strip my membranes. Stupid cervix, closed up tight, and not even angled properly for birth giving. It is still pointing back instead of forward where it needs to be for the baby to come out. Did you even know they point backwards and then change angles at the end, I didn't until the night before my dr appointment when I read it in my book. My family all talks to my belly and tells the baby to come out. My sis-in-law Krit was doing it on Wednesday and I told her don't talk to the baby, talk to my cervix, she pretended to move my legs, it was pretty funny.

This appointment was on Tuesday, I have to go every week and the next opening my dr had was for the Thursday of the following week, the 22. My due date is the 24th, and the c-section is scheduled for the 26th, "just in case." I am really starting to lose hope that I am going to be able to do a VBAC. I want to so bad, and it's so important to me. I never thought I would care so much if I had to have a repeat c-section, but I don't want one. So badly I don't want one. I want to be able to have this baby naturally, I want to experience all the stages of labor. I want to know what it feels like to push a baby out of your body. I don't want to be high and drugged up and numb when my baby is sliced out of me. I want to be able to see the baby as it comes out of me. I even want to see the placenta after it is delivered. Is that weird? I have a child, and I've never seen a placenta, and I am really curious to know what it looks like. I don't want to be laying on a table shaking when my baby is cut out of me. I don't want to be laying in a recovery room for an hour or more before I can hold my baby. I don't want to be stuck with a catheter in and not be able to move from my bed (although when I had Simon it was nice not having to get out of bed to go pee, but that's because my abdomen had been sliced open and walking was nearly impossible). I don't want to have to yell at my husband and wake him up to shut the door every hour after the stupid nurse left it open after she checked my blood pressure. I would like to be able to get up myself and shut the door. I want to be able to laugh without it being extremely painful. I would like to be able to walk upright immediately, especially since I have stairs in my house. I can't remember how long it was after I had Simon before I felt like I could walk standing up straight, or even stand up straight.

I want and don't want a lot of things. But most of all I want a natural delivery and at the very least a vaginal delivery. I don't want to have another c-section. I want to prove to myself that I can do this, that my body can do this, and that I can have this baby in a normal way. I am just really losing hope. Every day that goes by without a single contraction is a day closer to that deadline I am trying to beat. That day the dr set that the baby needs to come out by.

I think if the baby hasn't come by my appointment next Thursday I will have Steve help me fight her again about the scheduled c-section date. I know that the due date of the 24th is wrong anyways and it's so frustrating. If you do the reverse from the due date to estimate the conception date it's December 25th through January 1st. Funny, my last period started on the 25th, so I know for a fact I was not having sex, and abstinence is 100% effective for birth control. It is impossible for us to have gotten pregnant then while I was on my freaking period and we were not having sex! But if you go with a due date of October 1st, well then it is possible and makes plenty of sense that we got pregnant then. Hooray for vacation baby made in Belize! So it just really sucks knowing we are getting shorted a week on the due date, and that this baby really has to come early, like almost a week early to make it out before the c-section. Which is possible, babies are born early all the time, but they are also born late all the time too. Simon came 5 days early, but that doesn't mean this one will. And even if he does come 5 days early, early based on when his due date SHOULD have been means a day after the scheduled c-section date. Sigh...

This was a good little vent for me. I have been majorly stressing about all this and it's nice to be able to type it all up and get it out. Steve hears it from me all the time, feels the same as I do, and is also giving up hope like I am, which makes it hard. How do you keep hoping for something that you want to badly, but your dr is basically setting you up to fail at?


On a side note, all day yesterday and this morning Steve and I both noticed the baby was moving considerably less than normally and we were kind of worried about it, so we called the dr office and talked to the nurse about it. She was rude and condescending but we went in to the office anyways and got hooked up to some monitors to listen to the baby's heartbeat and check for contractions. Heartbeat was fantastic, absolutely no contractions, the nurse was super rude to us and made us feel stupid for coming in, but the dr at the practice was really nice and told us it's better to come in when we are worried than be like a person who hadn't felt their baby for a week and didn't come in! The nurse even said to us, "You know the baby does need to sleep sometimes, it's not awake all the time and isn't going to be moving constantly." Uh yeah, we know it sleeps, but we also know how much he normally moves and that he was barely moving yesterday even after I ate tons of sugar and stuff, he would move a teeny bit if we were poking at him, but it just wasn't his normal movements and it freaked us out a little. And when we left the dr office the nurse totally said, "Bye Kari," in a very biotchy tone of voice and just seemed so annoyed with us the entire time we were there. She was the first person on that staff to ever be rude to us, except our very first appointment when the receptionist treated us like trash and told us we should go to the Pregnancy Center (a clinic for non-insured people and Medicaid) because I wasn't showing up on Steve's insurance yet even though I should have been. We just paid cash for the appointment and ignored her because we knew we had good insurance. So good in fact that it covers 100% of maternity- ha take that Stacy! Sorry for this last little rant, guess I am just a little annoyed and needing to express it, thanks for hanging in there with me for that!

Anyways, if you could please keep us in your prayers and if you want to suggest ways to ripen the cervix and get labor started go for it, though our dr says the only thing that works for ripening the cervix is sex. And I am doing evening primrose oil too and eating pineapple even though the dr says there is no point. And I'm not gonna try castor oil, sorry, but I don't think that I am going to be desperate enough to do that to myself.

funny Simon sleep story

Background:
Sometime last month Steve and I bought Simon a nice twin size bed (and nightstand) that we found on Craigslist. He has been doing pretty good sleeping in it, but still wants to sleep in our bed every night. We co-slept with Simon as a baby, and he just stayed in our bed after that. Steve and I were both fine with it, we loved it, and loved having extra cuddle time with our boy. Now that I am pregnant I am getting tired of Simon sleeping with us because he wants to sleep so close he is sometimes on you, and I just don't feel like tolerating it. And I also don't want him to be in our bed still when the new baby comes, because we plan on co-sleeping again, and I worry about Simon and the baby being in bed together. So I have been working really hard on getting Simon out of our bed and staying in his bed. Every night is a challenge, but he has been doing pretty good. It's normal for him to wake up around 4:30 to 5:30 and want to come into my bed, and I am normally so tired I let him, but the past few nights he has been staying in his bed all night! I have found that if I lay down with him, "just for a second" as he likes to ask, in his bed, he will stay in his bed, but I often fall asleep before him and wake up an hour or two later and head to my room. Anyways, now for the story.

The Story:

This happened Tuesday night.
On this particular night I didn't feel like laying down in Simon's bed with him, I was tired and I just wanted him to go to sleep in his bed and leave me along to sleep in mine. So I told him he needed to stay in his room. I said I didn't care if he played quietly as long as he went to bed in a little bit, but that he was not allowed to come in to my room and get in my bed. So we read our story, say prayers, say goodnight, and I remind him of the rules for the night. Don't come into mom's room or you will go to time out. So I proceed to my room to read for a little while in bed before going to bed.

About 10 minutes later I hear Simon fiddling with his bedroom door. He "snuck" out of his room ever so quietly, comes out of room, and then tries to quietly shut the door behind him, and pretend like he never came out of his room. At this point I am sure he is in the hall but I can't hear him or see him, so I keep reading and looking out in the hallway expecting to see him standing in my doorway, but not coming in- because then he will have to go to timeout. After about 5 minutes I hear him chattering out in the hall, so I climb out of my bed, and crawl across the floor to look out the open bedroom door and see what he is doing.

He was just sitting on the floor in front of my door playing with a ball and hanger and talking to himself. After a minute of watching him he looks up and realizes I am watching him, he got the biggest smile on his face when I caught him. I surrendered to his cuteness and asked him if he wanted to come sleep with me. Of course he said yes and climbed on up to my bed. Then I told him he was a turd, and asked if he knew he was a turd and he got a huge grin on his face, snuggled up to me and said yes! Little turd.
I am such a pushover, and if he waits til I am tired enough he knows I will just cave. But the rest of the week after that he has slept in his bed all night by himself and hasn't even came in the middle of the night!

potty training... again

I never mentioned before that potty training didn't work last time. Simon started to get really obstinate and had a lot of accidents and would scream anytime we tried to get him to go, so we switched back to diapers. I was actually OK with the switch back because he was having such a hard time with it and not doing very good, plus we had a lot of trips planned with a lot of airplanes, airports, and long car rides, and honestly I didn't want to have to deal with potty training on these trips. Especially since it was just him and I on all the trips and we were flying standby so we had to carry on all of our stuff- not the easiest to maneuver around the airport with and in and out of bathrooms with teeny tiny stalls.

Well, a week ago Simon and I were hanging out in the living room and he pulled off his diaper and said he wanted to go potty. So he pulled it off, ran into the bathroom and went to the bathroom on his little "Simon seat." Since then he wears underwear about half the day and diapers the other half. By the evening he starts having a lot of accidents, not sure why, maybe because Steve is awake and Simon no longer has my undivided attention? Right now I am not pressing the issue with him too much. He sleeps in diapers and when he wakes up and I take his first diaper off I let him he choose if he wants another diaper or underwear, he normally picks underwear. He will also go into the bathroom by himself, take off his underwear, go to the bathroom, empty his seat into the real toilet and flush it down, he is doing good!

We are just going to take it easy this time, and let him make the decisions instead of trying to force it. Wish us luck! Hopefully he will be totally out of diapers before the baby arrives, and hopefully he doesn't go back to diapers because the baby comes.

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!