Cross-continental driving and toddler regression

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!

As if I didn't know better....

My previous pregnancy had me yukking it up on a plane at eight weeks (not in the sense that you're having a good time cajoling and whatnot with your neighbor, but rather that you are experiencing what lunch tastes like in reverse).  I should have learned my lesson then.  However, silly me, I've chosen to be on airplanes yet again.  At seven-and-a-half weeks, I managed to survive all the way through take-off and landing a few times, but alas... did not survive the last landing without tossing it.

During the last pregnancy, I vomited eleven times total.  I'm pretty sure I can survive without as many pukings this time.  Of course, the large part of it is managing my intake of carbs and other sugars, protein (ah, blessings), and not doing silly stuff like texting or reading while passengering in a car.  Motion sickness (turns out) plays a rather large part in the general nausea.  I've read that if you are prone to getting motion sick, you will also have the pleasure (probably) of experiencing morning sickness.

Morning sickness is not an automatic sign things are going swimmingly, so if you don't get it just count your blessings (and fetal kicks, when you can feel them) and be happy.  About 50% of women have both nausea and vomiting, 25% have just nausea, and 25% have neither.  Ginger helps, but B6 is even better (although you can't have too much of it because it could cause problems).  One thing I swear by is taking the prenatal vitamin close to bedtime.  As long as you've eaten within the past 2 hours, your stomach still has enough gunk to help it break down without irritating your stomach.  It's always good to take it with a glass of milk if you're able to do that.  The extra calcium is a bonus, plus milk soothes the tummy as well.

Tummy soothing is about the best thing a girl can ask for these days.

Six-and-a-half weeks

Week six is upon us. I'm happy to report that I have no morning sickness yet, but just to be prepared I bought a jar of sushi ginger to chew on. Ginger is the best way to combat the nausea. Okay, second-best. EATING is the best way to combat the nausea. Eat a little and eat it often.

At six weeks, "Deuce" (our nickname for our number two baby) looks like this. Kind of like a manatee. The neat thing about that site is if you have Java, you can click on a 3-D rotatable image as well. Or, you can pop on a pair of 3-D glasses and look at the image like that. Pretty neat.

We are starting to think of baby names now, and my mother will be glad to know that we've decided to find out the sex of this baby. If it's a girl, we shouldn't really need anything new besides diapers and wipes. If it's a boy, we'll need a whole new wardrobe. I'm hoping to count on my husband's brother for this one since they have two boys.

No matter what, we're looking forward to being parents again. It will be an adventure to say the least. Aside from the poop, pee, vomit, crying, lack of sleep, and complete dependence of the baby, we'll also have the jealousy, anger, betrayal, acting-out, and behavioral and emotional regression of our older child. Ah, but such is life.

Sleep, how I love thee

"Pregnancy Brain" has already set in. This is when you forget where you've put your keys because you're holding them in your hand or you write everything down because you know you can't remember ANYTHING... and then misplace the paper/notebook/etc. where you wrote it all.

Being in the military means you have to pull out your ID card for every little thing. To come on base, to pick up prenatal vitamins from the pharmacy, to check in for an appointment at the hospital or clinic, to eat lunch in the dining facility, to buy stuff from the commissary... really, EVERYTHING. So my first experience with pregnancy brain came when I checked in for an appointment. The clerk took my ID card AND GAVE IT BACK TO ME while we were holding a conversation about said appointment. I asked him for my ID back, and he just looked at me with the, "Are you really serious or are you just messing with me?" face. He calmly replied that he already did, so I had to check my wallet. It, of course, was there.

That's not the end. I sat down and flipped through a magazine and got the sudden intense feeling that I had misplaced my ID card (which I would need again when I saw the people in the lab downstairs to supply them with six tubes of blood and a cup of urine for various tests). So I pulled out my wallet AGAIN to check for it. Perhaps ten minutes had elapsed between checking the wallet for my ID.

I guess there is a lot going on in our lives right now, so that is part of it, I'm sure. Pregnancy brain is a huge thing you deal with while pregnant, though. I couldn't remember from last time that it started this early. Another thing I forgot about was how early I went to bed.

Apparently, during my first pregnancy I went to bed between 8:30 and 9:00 routinely. I questioned my husband about this when he made fun of me for it the other day. Now, during Game One of the NBA finals, I approached him and said, "I'm tired. I'm thinking of going to bed." He laughed and pointed at the clock. It was 9:10. I'm now toughing it out so I can try to pretend I will watch the game until half time. But for the most part, I'm probably half-asleep as I write this, and will not likely make it to the beginning of the second quarter.

Now, where is my ID card?

Potty-Training Continues

E has been working on using the potty for a couple of months now. We at first intended to use Toilet Training in Less than a Day by Azrin and Foxx. It is a clinically-researched method to train (believe it or not) profoundly mentally retarded adults into being able to use the toilet unassisted. The authors did further research with both mentally retarded and normal children and found the tactics worked really well. It involves using a doll that wets with its own toilet (those things are EXPENSIVE) and lots of praise and treats.

We did the effort for a day or two but found it really frustrating when she simply refused to participate. We decided instead that she could figure it out on her own if we just kept encouraging her. And she has gone 3 full days without pooping in her Pull-up and is now down to just two Pull-ups a day. Almost time to start using big girl panties! We're so excited. However, potty training in itself has been an adventure.

Things I had NO idea I would be dealing with when potty-training a two-year-old:

• Intense fear of the automated flush-toilets in public restrooms
• Intense fear of the hand dryers in public restrooms
• Musical potty - the inability of the child to decide whether to use the child potty or the "big potty"
• Being cheered on by my daughter when I used the bathroom
• The crazy comments I would hear

To elaborate, E screams like you are trying to kill her if there are hand dryers in the bathroom. She has now begun calmly stating, "We don't use the dryer," instead, which is a relief. However, the flush toilets cannot be bargained with. She abandoned my mother in a public bathroom when the automatic flush activated while Mom was still using the toilet. E unlocked the stall and left my mother, pants around ankles, with the stall standing wide open.

She alternates between using the "big potty" - the one that is generally found in bathrooms - and her training toilet. Sometimes she wants to sit on the toilet rather than the potty, which often requires some adult supervision, if not full on support. However, her interest in doing well is taking over, so we adapt. The most alarming things have been when she comes in while I'm on the toilet.

She has said the following (either to me or about her own efforts):

• "Let me see, Mama." (when I've been on the toilet)
• "Good job, Mama!" (when I get up)
• "Ooooh, that's a Biiiiig Poop!" (for her own efforts as well as... yes, mine)
• "We go pee in the potty and not on the floor." (internalizing our comments to her after she peed on her bedroom floor one night)

Overall, it's been quite a fun ride. I think she'll get better and better as we go along, and I am so glad to know we won't have two in diapers at the same time!

The Deuce

We haven't really decided what to nickname our "number two child" but we ARE expecting again, and it's such a delight to know I get the privilege of reliving the experience. We only just discovered we were growing a new little sprout, so we're expecting a February delivery.

E has been informed that she will become a big sister, but of course, as it often is for 2-year-olds, reality has not yet sunk in. We're looking forward to coaching her into the idea along the way. Especially as Mommy's shape changes!

The first thing that really came to mind when I first learned of the pregnancy was how incredibly exhausting the first few weeks really are. I've taken naps nearly every day for the past week. I first had an inkling when, in the shower, I noticed my breasts were really firm. As we age, the tautness of youth tends to... well, not be there anymore. So anyway, it was pretty different. Then of course, the frequent urination was another hint. And of course, the more obvious missed period. Although, to be honest, I was already sure by the time I was two days late (TWO DAYS!!!) and took a test.

So here we are, and blood tests confirmed it. The online EDD calculator I found at BabyCenter gave us a 2 February date, but since it is an inexact science, I'm thinking it will be about a week or so later. We'll see!!!

With parenthood, marriage, and career all hanging in the balance, I don't know how dutiful I will be to updating this blog, but I will surely do my best to keep the notes coming. Every pregnancy is different (not just for each woman, but for each pregnancy), so I'm looking forward to the changes that will come with this new life.

Intelligence

So you never really know what you're dealing with as far as intelligence goes until it is demonstrated so plainly that there is no question. We're dealing with a genius. No doubt about it. This child is incredibly smart. By 18 months, she already knew her alphabet. She knew all of her primary, secondary, and tertiary colors by 22 months, as well as how to count to ten. My sister even taught her the shapes beyond the typical circle, square, triangle (stuff she knew since about 18 months) and taught her octagon, hexagon, and trapezoid.

Tonight, she yet again wowed me with her ability to think in more abstract ways. I told her, as per our usual bedtime routine, to go pick out ONE book.

She chose the one with five stories in it. Little stinker!