One thing I do NOT recommend while 8-11 weeks pregnant is driving. Across the entire continent of North America. With a husband and toddler. For two weeks.
Okay, let me rephrase. If you decide to do this, oh-pregnant-one, YOU will be doing most of the driving, just to avoid the nausea associated with being in a car that you are not busy controlling. We took a 4,000+ mile trip from the state of Georgia to the state of Alaska. It took us about 13 total driving days. It was brutal, exhausting, uncomfortable, and most of all - just not much fun.
Additionally, the confusion of being uprooted from home and subsequently spending one night in a different hotel or house along the way has completely rebooted our toddler's potty-training skills to zero. If we are persistent with getting her on the potty at set times of day, sometimes we get lucky and get a pee or poop in the toilet. Mostly, we're spending our precious pennies on more and more Pull-Ups. We had gotten her down to just two per day. Now, it's a good day if we only use six.
Regression is a big part of toddlerhood when significant emotional events occur. By "significant emotional event" I mean anything from moving homes to moving rooms, switching to a big kid bed from the crib, birth of a sibling, or loss of a close relative (even though they are too young to understand the permanence of death, kids are very perceptive and understand the sense of loss felt by those around them). They don't really have ways of dealing with emotions other than the typical toddler outbursts and... well, wetting or pooping themselves.
To be fair, as frustrating as it is, it's hard to really feel angry about it. I mean, for the first two years of her life, it has been perfectly okay for her to poop and pee in a diaper. The Pull-Up, for all intents and purposes, probably doesn't feel any different to her. The major difference is that she steps into it rather than having us fold it up around her, and even that isn't required because they detach at the sides. So, once we get in a house (still in a hotel now), we intend to put her in cotton training pants that will very clearly feel different to her hind parts. Wetness will be no secret. And, to our dismay, neither will be the poop.
As for my ongoing pregnancy, we're at week twelve now. Hoping for the nausea to subside. I have been able to eat a little more. Still mostly soup. The joys of soup! So complete a meal, and I don't have to chew it. That makes such a huge difference to a woman who feels nausea emerge just because of the surge in saliva that accompanies pregnancy. But, last night I had a dream that our ultrasound revealed a boy. A whole new wave of emotions will go along with that one! But that is for another time.
Happy driving, training, and whatever else you might be doing!
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