She made it!

Well, in our excitement over the toddler bed, we decided to try her in it last night. Sam and I were like two kids with a new toy at Christmas--we just wanted to play and see what would happen! Anne did not go down super-well last night, but I think it had more to do with Sam being gone than the bed. She kept asking "Ah Daddy? Ah Oma?" (Oma had gone for a walk with us earlier) It was probably a good 45 minutes and one visit from Mom before she was actually asleep, but she didn't get up/sit up/try to get out of bed, which was good. I don't think that is ever her mindset--to think to climb or move herself somewhere. It just doesn't enter her thought process.

Here she is, finally asleep. She's like her mom--moves and kicks a lot during the night. And no, she was not sleeping with all the lights on. We apparently have a very powerful flash on our camera.

(To decipher what you see, here's a guide, starting at the bottom of the bed: Eric Carle quilt, yellow flannel blanket, brown heart-print pajamas, fuzzy blonde head, and pink DeeDee)
And here's a clue as to what she looks like these days. We've been pretty lax on the pictures lately.

Okay, sorry...

...I promised pictures of Annie's cute new bed, but we didn't get the furniture set up last night. Instead we went to Urgent Care to have Anne's lungs listened to! We were there for 2.5 hours only to be told "Yeah, she's maybe a little croup-y. Nothing we can do--virus, blah, blah, blah...use her humidifier and give lots of fluids."

Yeah, thanks for that keen medical advice.

Note to childless people: an ER exam room is not designed for your active toddler. Bring lots of toys/distractions if you want to keep your kid from digging in the trash or attempting to open a drawer labeled "sterile speculums" (gross!)

So pictures will be here soon--we're planning to put the bed in her room tonight while Nana is over. If nothing else it will get the bed out of the garage, the mattress out of the basement, and get Annie used to the sight of the bed. Maybe one day she'll sleep in it...we'll figure it out as we go :)

Advice Needed!

All right, veteran moms. Time for you to chime in and tell me what to do!

Since Baby 2 will be here in 4 short months, we have been talking about getting Annie out of the crib and into a toddler bed. I thought we'd be looking all summer for a bed, but one happened to fall into our lap over the weekend, and now it is waiting in our garage. (We'll get it all set-up tonight so you can see how cute it is...)

So, how do you move your toddler to a toddler bed? Here are my thoughts/questions:

-do we set it up and let her "get used to" its presence? I don't want to freak her out, but I don't want it to be a place to sit and play.

-I've read you should try naps in there first, then nighttime sleep. But she doesn't nap at home anymore...

-She can probably roll out of it, but she can't climb back in. How do we make sure she stays safe at night?

We're just looking for any insight you can give. I'd really like her to be secure in her bed before the baby comes, even though we're a good 6 months from the baby going into the crib. We'll put a plan together and once school gets out really go at it. Thanks for your help!

Long Week

For my teacher friends, here's a list of things I've said out loud this week:

"Please don't dig through the trash can."

"Please stop making farting noises."

My favorite: "You all need to stop picking at your scabs."

I actually had to stop reading out loud, put the book down, and say that last one.

Gotta brag (then be humble)

I get an email every week from BabyCenter.com called "Your Baby This Week." It is usually a brief overview of what Anne should be doing at this stage in life, though I continue to find that the 18-month-olds they are talking about bear little resemblance to my kid.

Case in point: This week's email said (I'm paraphrasing) "Your child should be putting two words together now." Uh, yeah. She's been doing that since she started talking! She said "Bye, Daddy" at 13 months when we were in Vegas. Last night she wowed us with "I want more cheese, please." Of course, it sounds like "I wah mah chees, pees." But we knew what she meant!

Sidenote: As we say at our house: Nothing trumps cheese. That kid loves the stuff. No toy, person, tv show can compete for her attention when the potential for cheese exists. Anytime we go near the fridge we hear "Ah chees pees?" We started hiding it in the crisper drawer, but she's on to us now.

So, to summarize, Anne has very nice verbal skills. Now, to knock her down a peg, I'll say that we passed our neigbor Landon as we walked by the park yesterday. He walked up all of the stairs on the playground to the top of the big slide, not even talking baby "two-steps," but walking full-on like an adult. Why is this significant? Because he's 14 months old. When Anne comes to a flight of stairs, she's like a wind-up toy stuck in one place, just banging her shins against the steps. Hello! Step UP! Lift those feet!

To my siblings: Annie was a living Dimitri Martin act last night. She used to say "bee-nah" for "banana," then it evolved to "bana" and then last night it was "ba-na-na-na" I was laughing to myself thinking "How many 'nas' are on this thing? Bana. Bana-ana. Damn."

Reflections on Boys vs. Girls

I'm sitting at school (on a Saturday!) needing to kill some time, so I'll blog for you.

**Why am I at work? I'm at the Prom! Waiting for kids to take pictures and get the heck out of here so we can all go have dinner. And my feet have swollen around my strappy shoes and look disgusting**

I have not had much time to reflect on this new baby and how he will affect our little family unit. Turns out when you're pregnant and have a 1 year old, you don't have time to "appreciate" your pregnancy as much as the first one. It is more that you cruise along, noting the big points, like when your pants don't fit anymore or when you stop throwing up your dinner. None of this leisurely reading of baby books--doesn't matter anyway, because you know those books are 90% useless. I do, however, find myself thinking about the differences between boys and girls, sons and daughters, and how that is all going to work out. Here are some surface-level things that will be different:

swim trunks instead of swim skirts

buzz cuts instead of hair bows/clippies/ponies/"pretties"

2 pairs of shoes instead of 5 or 6

socks in white, blue, and black instead of pink, purple, white, lace, red, yellow, etc.

slacks and a shirt instead of frou-frou dresses

Any more I'm missing?

Weird morning

A weird parenting "first" this morning. First vomit!

As I was getting dressed this morning, something stunk. I would get a whiff of it and gag because it was so gross. I called to Sam, who was in the middle of his work conference call, "Something smells! Find it!" So he hunts around and sure enough, Mikey had pooped in the house. After a clean-up and a brief dog-beating, we commenced our morning. Except, it still smelled so bad! I was ready to yarp all over the place because it reeked like crazy when Sam went to check on Annie. He found her laying in a pile of milky puke. It smelled really bad and we felt really bad--had she cried in the night? We never heard her. Was she still sick? When did this happen? He got her out of bed and out of her jammies while I stripped down the bed. She had rolled around and her hair smelled terrible, so into the bathtub she went. A quick scrub and shampoo were in order, then she got dressed and we dashed out the door. All of this happened in a 20-minute span, and all the while I'm thinking "Should I stay? Is she okay? I can't call in--I have an observation today!" Lots of emotions as I weighed my options, and later, after the madness, lots of "What if she had choked? Was she crying? Did she feel sick last night? I let my child throw up in her bed. Alone. What kind of mother does that?!?"

Sam called me at work later in the morning to check in and said "Poor kid, having the two of us for parents." Today I couldn't agree more--not our most shining day in child-rearing.

And kudos to Oma for telling me that Annie would be fine and reminding me that "If she was at any other daycare they wouldn't let her stay" to which I said "Yeah, I probably wouldn't have told them!" We're grateful for the "come as you are" atmosphere at Oma's house :)

Easter Pictures

Here's Anne's 2nd Easter. She had a very cute white dress with pink lining and wore her fancy shoes and socks. Her hair is just crazy these days--wispy, curly, out of control! She had a "pretty" in earlier, but it fell out somewhere between church and nap time.

Chewing her hands--a favorite pastime lately. I try to pull them out, but back in they go!


A response to "Annie, show me your dress!" (At least she didn't pull it up!)


Partaking of Mommy's carefully prepared Easter feast. Too bad she didn't actually eat any of it--it was really good.

More pictures if you click "Annie's Photobucket Page" in the Links column to your right.

Disturbing News Coverage

I hope those attending Tea Parties yesterday have blogs or Facebook or something, because if I didn't know any better I would think that none occurred here in MN. I haven't found any news stories this morning that actually involve people who were present at rallies in the state yesterday. WCCO had a meaningless AP feed story, but no coverage given to anyone who was at the capitol or anywhere else. Maybe peaceful protests are not interesting news; maybe nobody showed up. I don't know. But I was a bit surprised to see that none of my go-to news sources had any information about turn-out or events or anything. Too bad.

Yes, I still have a family and they're doing the same old stuff. Nothing new to report on Sam, Anne, or Little Guy. Just hanging out, enjoying the nice weather!

Disturbing News Stories

Has the whole world gone mad? There have been some news stories lately that make you stop and say "Huh?"

From the Chicago Tribune:

The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration, or their spouses.

Now, as Wednesday's tax deadline looms, some Americans are wondering why they should comply with the arcane requirements of the Internal Revenue Service when top administration officials failed to do the same. Even some IRS employees are upset at what they see as a double standard.

The most criticized example has been Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who admitted not paying $34,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes, saying his failure to pay was an oversight. Five other nominees disclosed similar tax issues, including one as recently as two weeks ago when Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama's pick for secretary of health and human services, admitted she didn't pay $7,040.

"Our members are upset and angry," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up within the IRS over unusually strict rules that can cost agents their jobs if they make a mistake.

In some cases, IRS employees have lost jobs for simply filing a late return or failing to report a few hundred dollars of interest income.

Personal comments: Due to reasons I still don't really understand, Sam and I are paying-in taxes this year, not getting a refund. I would never think to not pay them, even though it is not going to be easy to pay them (financially or morally). How does anyone think "Oh, I don't feel like doing that. So I'm not going to."? Especially if they work in government? Idiots.

An email from Education Minnesota's President that came to my school inbox this week: (Look away, Dad, you face might melt if you see this!)

There is some really bad legislation at the Capitol right now. It drastically changes the way a teacher can become licensed. Here are the quick details of the bill.

1. It allows anyone with a 3.00 GPA and a bachelor’s degree to enter a program after taking a couple of tests.

2. The program is only 5 weeks.

3. There is no student teaching.

4. When the participant is hired, he/she will be assigned a mentor. The mentor will not be given training or standards.

5. If the mentor recommends to the MN Board of Teaching that the participant be granted a license, the Board of Teaching MUST grant the license.

Um, what? I haven't read anything about this in the mainstream media, but I don't like it. I worked my butt off at Bethel to get my teaching license, and I still didn't feel prepared for my job. Only now, 3 years into it, do I feel like I know what I'm doing. And a person trained in the above manner is not going to get a lot of support from me as a parent. No way would I want someone like that teaching Annie's kindergarten class. It just furthers the idea that anyone thinks they can teach (the existence of this idea, however, points to larger problems with the image teachers have in the public.)

Some things to think about on Tax Day 2009. And good luck to Ginger, who is attending a Tea Party at the state capitol today. You'll become a full-blown Republican yet!

More proof of toddlerhood

We went to Culver's last night. Our church youth group was having a fundraiser and we said "Hey, that's a good reason not to make dinner." We met our friends Karl and Christine and had a nice little dinner. Annie further cemented herself in toddler land when she dipped a french fry in ketchup, sucked it all off, and then repeated the action several times. What is it with little kids and ketchup?!?! Why is it their most favorite thing? Of course she didn't touch any of her other food--just fries and ketchup, and water with a straw. That kid loves a cup with a straw.

To Oma and Opa: We would have gone to eat with you, but Sam didn't come home until 6:15, and our delivery came at 6:30. We passed you by Menards as you were leaving and we were coming!

Easter pictures coming soon. Our camera had no batteries, and there were no batteries in our house, so Oma had to rescue us and snap a few pics. I'll share them when I have them!

Wow. Just, wow.

So, my baby became a toddler over spring break. I'll spare you the long narrative and just give you some numbers (these run Thursday to Sunday)

Number of times she splashed in the toilet: 3

Number of times she splashed in the dog water: 3

Number of times she had a screaming meltdown in her crib: 3

Time she finally went to sleep Saturday night: 11:00 pm

Number of mugs broken while "helping" with the dishes: 1

Number of bruise-leaving bites on my arm: 1

Number of foot-stomping, screaming "I'm mad" fits: too many to count; probably 8 or 9

Number of mornings awakened by a crying Anne: 4

Number of times she threw her blanket out of the stroller or carseat: Again, too many to count

Number of time-outs and swats on the rump: 1 of each

Number of times she laughed when I told her "No": 3 or 4 (want to induce some Mommy-rage? Keep this up.)

Number of times she knocked over our floor lamp, which she knows not to touch: 2

Number of meals dropped to the dog: 3 (can a child live on milk and animal crackers?)

I love you, baby, but this weekend was too much. I was not too sad to come to work this morning! Hopefully tonight we will get along a bit better.

She knows what counts

Annie has a great book titled The Easter Story that I brought out last week. It is a little board book that she got as a gift last year (thanks, Oma and Opa!)

She wasn't too interested in it until I read it through once and showed her Jesus on each page. Now she brings it to me and says "Deezus!" and we read it. The amazing thing is, she'll sit there while I read ALL the words, beginning to end. Most of her books we don't really "read" anymore--we just point to pictures and she tells us what things are. This one, though, she wants to hear again and again. It is so nice to read it to her and know that some way, somehow, the importance of it all is sinking in. And how sweet to hear her say "Deezus!!!" on the page when he appears to his disciples. Almost like she understands what a miracle it was...

It is a great book with a simple vocabulary and a clear message. Buy it on Amazon by clicking here. We highly recommend board books from Candy Cane Press--easy to read and understand. They also make a great version of the Christmas story. Happy reading!

The baby boom has begun!

We went to visit our friends Neil and Meg last night to welcome their daughter, Beatrix Amanda. It was fun to see her and big sister Audrey. (Readers who were at our wedding--Neil was the best man.)

It was very fun to see a newborn again. You forget how small they are! We also realized that she is 2 lbs and 4 inches smaller than Annie was at that age, so she seemed really minuscule. Annie played well with Audrey--as well as a 1 year old can play with a 4 year old--and I was proud of her for not being shy or crying. We also enjoyed talking about what it is like for them to have 2 kids now. They've only been home on their own for a few days, so it's still pretty new, but I'm glad they are venturing into that territory before we do. That way we can ask them how to do it! Two kids can seem very overwhelming at times, so I'm glad we'll have them to help us figure it out.

Beatrix is the first of four babies scheduled to arrive among Sam's old softball buddies. Next comes Brian and Nikki's 2nd boy (inducing this week!), then our little guy, and then Karl and Christine's bambino in early October. So in the span of 1 baseball season these guys will all have babies to tote around with them. Babies everywhere!

I'm a bad, lazy mom...

...I'll be uploading new picture eventually. Here's Annie last April when she was 6 months old. Yes, it was warm enough for shorts that day!

18 month word list

I'm trying to put together a comprehensive list of Anne's words as she turns 1.5. I've been working on this for a few days, so I hope I've got them all.

Names of People
Annie
Daddy
Mommy/Mom
Oma
Opa
Nana
Todd
Nic
Lucy
Elsa
Karl
Manny

Foods
Milk
Bunnies (mac and cheese or crackers in bunny shape)
Cookie
Couscous (so funny!)
Fruit
Pizza

Parts of the Body (says)
Toes
Eyes
Nose
Teeth

Parts of the Body (points to)
Toes
Hands
Eyes
Nose
Hair
Teeth
Belly
Legs

Concepts
Please
More, please
Hello
Bye-Bye
All done

Animals
puppy
kitty
pony
cow
pig
"baa" (sheep)
bunny
tiger
fish
bird

Animal Sounds
Puppy: oof, oof
Cow: ooooo
Pony: neigh
Kitty: mah-ow
Wolf: ah-ooooh
Bear: rah

General Stuff
pants
shoes
socks
dress
poopy
book
toy
car
tools
spoon
snack
up
in
house
where is he?
where
on
baby
Dee-Dee
no
hockey
"patty" (asking to say pat-a-cake)


She also has a book that has a chinchilla in it, and she calls it "mama" Normally I would think nothing of that, but it is the only thing she calls "mama," so I figure it is her way of saying "chinchilla"

Our Son

Well, here he is! Two pictures of his profile--head on the right, legs to the left. In the first one he's waving, the second one he's trying to suck on his foot :)


We had a very nice time with the ultrasound tech yesterday. She was very relaxed and funny, and we weren't taking things too seriously, either. Something about doing it all for the second time makes you much more relaxed. As predicted, she asked us right away if we wanted to know the gender, and we said "yes." That was the decision we had come to. So she proceeded to swish around and measure the different things she needed to measure--spine, skull, femur, etc. We saw the stomach and kidneys and little lub-dub of his heart. She showed us the face and watched the arms and legs move around quite a bit (he was very active!) She asked us what we thought it was (Me: boy, Sam: girl) and Sam said "Well, do you have any idea yet?" and she replied "Oh, I'm pretty sure it's a boy." I'm thinking "Have you even looked yet? How can you tell?!?" And as if reading my mind she swished over slightly to show us that yes, in fact, it is a boy. We have a nice picture of his, ahem, "business" with a big circle around it and the label "Gender: Boy" Sam thinks that one's pretty funny.

If you have not had a baby in the last 5 years or so, let me tell you how cool that ultrasound machine is. It is like a big computer, and as the tech moves around she clicks on different points on the baby and measurements are calculated. For example, she took a picture of the top of his skull and clicked on the outside edge on one side and the inside edge on the other and it calculates the gestational age of the baby based on that distance. Then she repeats for other bones, like the spine and the femur. She can also check to see that the heart has 4 chambers and that the eyes/nose/lips are all in the places they should be. It is amazing what they can do and tell you with that fuzzy picture.

Because they measure everything in pregnancy down to the day now, the same goes for estimating baby's age and size. So yesterday the doctor said I was 19 weeks, 5 days but I say I'm 19 weeks, 1 day but the baby averaged out to exactly 20 weeks. So either I'm off (I'm not off) or I'm in for another beastly 9 pounder. Please, God, not again!

All in all we are quite thrilled with this announcement. We would have been happy to have another daughter, but we're happy to have a son. It is a little scary because you start to think "But I know how to take care of a girl--I am a girl--I know girly things!" I'll have to start studying up on dump trucks and dinosaurs, Matchbox cars and mud, hockey skates and how to make that helicopter noise with my mouth...Good thing we've got a manly daddy at our house!