New Baby Video Update from Abigail

Since I can't seem to find the time to blog about either Abigail or my pregnancy here is Abigail's take on the pregnancy and becoming a big sister. Oh yeah and she just gave the new baby's name away but good luck understanding her. :)

A Lazy Mom's Christmas Tree

My Prince and I have always had great intentions when it comes to getting a Christmas tree early and picking just the right one....but it never really seems to work out. We always wait too long, the trees are all picked over and we end up with either no tree at all or one we are not happy with. Buying a fake tree is just not something I'm willing to do....at least not yet, I just love the smell of a fresh tree. So this year I came across the perfect solution as I was flipping through the Williams-Sonoma catalog. I don't even know why I get this catalog because I have never ordered one thing, but I do enjoy looking at all the fancy schmancy kitchen stuff that I would never really use or remember to use. So you can order a fresh-cut tree delivered right to your door! I know what your thinking...."isn't picking out your own tree part of the fun?" I would have to agree, picking out a Christmas tree has the potential to be great fun, but this year, being almost 8 months pregnant and hosting Christmas at our house I am looking for any and all ways to cut corners. So no we will not be bundling up Abigail and heading out to our local Christmas tree farm...at least not this year. This year our tree will arrive right on our doorstep and I can't wait to see it. I hope I don't regret this decision.

"Oh...just go in your diaper!"

Over the course of the last few weeks I have heard myself say "oh Abigail just go in your diaper" numerous times when she told me she had to go potty when we were out and about. Each time I said it I knew it was not the right thing to say but I seriously didn't think she was ready to actually potty train. But while we were in Florida Abigail spent a lot of time naked since we were constantly swimming or going to the beach and I told Abigail that was fine as long as she tried to pee in the potty....and what do you know, she ended up using the potty A LOT while in Florida. So when we got home she continued to go potty quite often at home and I was just kind of following her lead still putting diapers on her whenever we left the house. Then the other day while we were at "lunch bunch" at the gymnastics gym Abigail asked to go potty and actually went potty twice in one hour. Soooo with some advice from some friends I decided to give potty-training a trial run...knowing it may or may not work considering her age. So Abigail has been in big girl underwear since Wednesday morning. Day one went great, we went to music class, went potty three times while there and had a pretty good day with just a couple accidents. Thursday we hosted playgroup and didn't have the best morning, I think there was just too much going on. I also went out and I let Abigail pick out a big bag of candy as rewards and that seems to be motivating her (since she's only had candy like twice in her whole life!) She was dry all morning and we even went to a friends house all morning for playgroup. Sooooo we'll see I guess....I don't want to push her but she has been pretty into it so far and I am all for not having two kids in diapers come January!

20 + 30 = ouch!

I'm 33 weeks pregnant this week, have gained about 20 pounds and up until Sunday morning had been doing great....but throw in a 30 pound toddler who is quite attached to her Mama and you get one sore lady, who's carrying around 50 extra pounds at times! I don't think it was one thing in particular that caused the pain but Sunday morning I woke up and could hardly move. The muscle pain in my lower belly was crazy!! I had never experienced pain like this during my pregnancy with Abigail and was a little scared at first. It hurt just to change positions in bed. Thank goodness Abigail slept till 8:00 and we laid in bed till 9:00 watching TV. My Prince stayed home most of the day to help out and by midday I was feeling much better. So I have been trying to slow down a bit and not lift Abigail up quite so much but this is quite a challenge because there are many times throughout the day when I just have to lift her up: to get into or out of the car, to get into or out of her crib, to get into and out of her booster seat.... The pain is much better now but still there and I'm hoping once those muscles have stretched out a bit it will get better because otherwise it's going to be a long 7 weeks!

In other news I realize I've been neglecting my blog terribly and I hope to do better in the next few weeks but I have been busy trying to cross things off my "before baby #2 arrives list!"

Babymoon

My Prince and I have been meaning to slip away for months and months to a rental house we own with some friends in Florida but we kept putting off. We have owned it for almost a year and never even seen it in person. So last week we were able to slip away for a quick four day getaway. We were able to get some super cheap plane tickets and thought if we didn't go now we wouldn't be going for quite a while! I bought the tickets about 4 weeks ago when I was still feeling great and if I were to do it again I would probably not have traveled 31 weeks pregnant. Although we didn't have any delays or anything the traveling was exhausting and even with My Prince along I still ended up carrying Abigail too much and my back has been aching ever since. I also now know what it's like to be pregnant in the summertime....HOT!!!! The weather in Florida was unseasonable warm with temperatures in the 90's! The first day we made the mistake of thinking Abigail would be able to nap in her stroller while we lounged on the beach and it backfired big time. It was just too darn hot for her to sleep comfortable and we ended up with one crabby girl. We learned our lesson and headed back to the house during naptimes from then on. I don't know what it is about not staying in a hotel but it was sooo relaxing...no cleaning ladies knocking on your door, no set meal times and no children sleeping in your room. Overall it was great to getaway for a few days as a family and it felt good to check out the house and the area so we can plan future vacations. We are thinking it'd be a great place to have a extended family get-together like Christmas or Spring Break.

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Wordless Wednesday

First Trip to ER

After being up two long nights coughing and coughing My Prince and I decided to take Miss Abigail into the ER yesterday afternoon just to be safe. With so much stuff going around we didn't want to go into another night not know what was going on with Abigail. She'd had a minor cold for a week or so but her cough had been getting steadily worse peaking Saturday night when I hardly slept for fear she would stop breathing or something. Her cough sounded so painful and she had a hard time breathing back in after coughing. I was also a little concerned about H1N1 since several of Abigail's playmates had it last week and she and I had been exposed.

We were heading back from a short day trip and stopped at an ER in a nearby town and got right in no waiting! I was very impressed! After a short consultation with a very kid friendly doctor, she first discovered one ear infection. She also ordered an influenza test and a chest x-ray. Both of these tests resulted in a Abigail screaming bloody murder but as I explained to Abigail they would be very fast and then she'd be "ok". She was so stinking cute as I would explain what they would do she would say "Abbie sad, Abbie cry, Ohh-tay, happy." The flu test included spraying saline up her nose and then suctioning it out, about 30 seconds. The x-ray caused a bit more drama, I think it was a combination of things including, a dark room, daddy wearing a funny apron, mommy standing in the window (since I'm prego), and wearing a heavy apron herself. That girl is strong and put up a good fight. When we finally got to go "out there" (in the hallway) she was fine. We then did have to wait quite a while for the test results but I was impressed they gave us a little goodie bag with fun things to do inside including a coloring book, toy slinky, stickers and a little pinwheel. We of course also had doggie and minnie along to help help keep her entertained.


Abigail's first trip to the ER took about two hours and we left with a prescription and a little peace of mind knowing what the problem was. I am also pleased to report she slept much better last night and I was able to get one 5 hour stretch of sleep and then another 3 hours and it's now 8:10 am and she's still sleeping!!!! We need to follow up with our regular doctor in a week and I'm going to give her a call this morning to talk about the possibility of tubes for Abigail's ears, it's only October and with a new baby coming I really don't want to go through winter fighting ear infections! I'm a bit torn with putting tubes in....what do you guys think? Did your kids have tubes? Did they help? I always love to her advice from other moms!

Random thoughts of a lazy blogger....

So I haven't had any great things inspire me to blog lately but I do have some random things to share with my good ol' blogging friends out there:

• I came across this great website this afternoon and am excited to try some things with Abigail. I love the idea of doing some more organized activities with Abigail as she gets older and think it'll be important for me to have some specific things to do with her once baby #2 comes along to help her feel secure and not threatened by the new baby. Check it out:
  

• One of my girlfriends sent me the link to this cool website that repairs jeans and also converts your regular jeans to maternity jeans and then back again...how cool is that! I don't know if I'll do it this pregnancy since I think I have enough jeans but I'll keep it in mind. Check it out at denimtherapy.com.

• I never thought I'd say this but sometimes I really think I want to buy a minivan!!! I said I'd never drive a minivan and I recall a conversation years ago between My Prince and I where I made him promise to never make me drive a minivan....but seriously those things look so convenient! I currently drive a midsized SUV and thought it would for sure work with two maybe even three kids but after taking it to Chicago a few weeks ago I don't know how well it will even work with two kids. At one point I rode in the back with Abigail to help entertain her and I thought I was going to go crazy! I was scrunched in the middle with her car seat crowding me on one side and the driver's seat crowding me on the other side. I was trying to imagine sitting in the middle with an infant seat next to the other window and just didn't see that working....at all! When I see mom's easily putting infant car seat into minivans as their toddlers climb into the van all by themselves I think they look great! So we'll see what happens when baby number two arrives this January.
  

That's all for now....hopefully I'll have some more interesting things to blog about soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Abbyisms

My Abigail is talking non-stop and it's so fun to hear! Everyday she says new things and new sentences. She has also developed several saying that she says often that I have come to refer to as Abbyisms. Here are a few of the cutest ones:

• Abbyism - Translation

• "hold her"- hold me
  
• "I'm watching" - watch me Mommy
• "doin' there?" - what's that doing there (what she says when she sees something where it's not supposed to be there)
  
• "go-go" - go hawks go
• "I you"- I love you
  
• "up up ceiling" - throw me up to the ceiling (the first words out of her mouth every time her Daddy come home)
  
• "hold her baby" - hold me like a baby (she's regressing and the baby hasn't even arrived yet)
  
• "ohh-tay" - O.K. (often said after she falls or trips meaning "I'm OK")

Wordless Wednesday