bother

I threw up last night for the first time.  It was the first time and I think I am still feeling significantly better than when I was pregnant with Isaac, but it is still a battle.  I think I'll call the doctor on Monday and see if I can get any medicine.  I could probably tough through it, but why?

Saturday: goat legs

Every night the animals from our Nativity set take a walk.  This happened when I was growing up and my parents said it was "Christmas Magic" but Christmas Magic has not come to this house.  So I need to move the animals.  Isaac is delighted to find the animals every morning and dutifully puts them back in their place.

Yesterday he dropped the goat.  I was expecting this to happen at some point and had decided not to get upset.  (I decided that it was more fun to find the animals every day than to just look at them.)  Anyway, I was running to the mailbox when it dropped and when I got back Isaac had one leg and the body and was saying "broke, broke".  I glued the leg back on.  The problem is that two legs had broken and I could not find the second one, nor did I really know where to look.  (Also, the goat wouldn't stand up on three legs.)

But, Hallelujah!, the missing leg was found today.  The goat is still in the hospital until tomorrow, but should make an almost full recovery.

Friday: at home

So the car needed to stay at the garage overnight.  Annoying, but not too big of deal.  Until 8:00am, when the power went out.  And stayed out.  Which started to scare me because if it continued to stay out it was going to get cold in the house and I'd have no way to get to a warm place.  I called the parents and made alternate arrangements.  Ben was going to go by McDonald's and bring us back a warm breakfast, because cold, dry cheerios didn't sound good at all.  (McDonald's didn't have power either though.)

The power came back on a few minutes after Ben called to say McDonald's was closed so I didn't have to have a cold breakfast.  Hooray.

The rest of the day went fine.  It was a little annoying to not be able to do the errands I was planning on doing, but we did go out to shovel the end of the driveway.  Isaac drags his shovel behind him up and down the driveway and we saw the neighbor's dog.

Wednesday: snow

It's still snowing!  Ben and I shoveled about four-five inches off the driveway this morning, but it was super-light.  Isaac pushed his shovel around for a little bit and then got out a rolling toy that he pushed around.  It's not very helpful, but it does let Ben and I both shovel the driveway.  I shoveled this afternoon too, but it was rather pointless.  The wind must have picked up between 11am and 4pm because there was just a light dusting on the driveway.  I thought about going back inside, but it takes so much work to get Isaac in his snowsuit and me in my snow gear that I was determined to make the effort worthwhile.

It's beautiful!  And Ben lets me use the Subaru in the winter so I'm not as scared of driving in it.

7 week update

If I can make it one more day without throwing up I will have made it farther than I did with Isaac.  I've come really close a few times, but it's stayed under control so far.  I still have quite a bit of nasuea, although today was actually really good.  But I'm eating a ton.  One reason is when I'm eating I feel better.  I'm a little more hungry too, but mainly it's that I feel better.  And with Christmas right around the corner, there is no absence of food!  I did pick up some gum at the store today.  That seems to be helping, although I'm not a huge gum chewer and after a while just go blah.  But it is a nice alternative to putting more food in my mouth.

Wednesday: nope, it's Tuesday

It was a rather busy day.  Isaac and I had breakfast.  He did his robot bubbles which I find hilarious.  (E-E-R-E-O (in robot sounds) then a blow blow blow.  It's hard to describe.)  Then off to Bible Study (Dusty, there's extra banana pudding in the fridge for you).

Then off to work.  Today was the first exam and it went pretty well.  I goofed one thing up but for the most part I don't think it'll be too big of a deal.  I brought the car in to have something checked out only to find out that it needed a little bit more work done too.  Kind of sad, but I trust our mechanic too.  I'm glad to have a mechanic I can trust.

I got home and finished some grading while trying to get dinner ready.  Doing both at the same time didn't really work.  But we ended up with a hot meal.  Since it was snowing out I thought Isaac could have a white themed dinner because by that time I just wanted to eat...pasta with white sauce, cottage cheese, milk, and marsh mellows.  I know...I can't believe I let him have marsh mellows for dinner.  I should have given him an apple.  But...we'll try for a healthier dinner tomorrow.  And hopefully I'll get the marsh mellows in the cupboard so I'm not tempted to give him anymore.

Saturday: a tree event

We were invited to Tuesink's pony farm for some winter activities today.  Isaac and I went, although I wasn't sure how long we were going to last.  But there were animals.

We were there for about an hour...longer than I expected, actually.  We got to feed some animals.  (It was one bag of feed per family, but there was a lot of feed in the bag...I was rather impressed.  We actually gave the last bit of ours away as Isaac was done feeding animals.)  We looked at some barn animals.  We ate some donut holes.  We looked at all of the animals again.

It was a fun morning activity.  It was snowing, so that nicely set the mood.  But I was really glad Isaac was in his snowsuit as it was also cold.

Friday: Robin Hood and Christmas music

Isaac started watching Disney's Robin Hood today.  It is the movie Nathan and I watched the most as kids...I have it memorized.  I still have it memorized, 20 years later.  And it's still a great movie.  Isaac seemed to think so too.

Isaac has also been enjoying some Christmas music lately.  (And asking for it by doing his dancing motion...one hand up and down in the air.)  So we brought him to the Christmas music show at church.  However, it turns out that I wasn't thinking.  For some reason I thought it would be more of a moving around thing, but it was a sit and listen thing.  Very nice, but it didn't work so well with an extra-active toddler.  Isaac stayed in the sanctuary for a bit and Ben and I spent some time with him in the foyer, but we left early.  Isaac enjoyed it, even if he couldn't sit still for a second.

Wednesday: where did the day go?

Isaac woke up and we did our normal morning routine with Ben.  He proceeded to take 45 minutes to eat his breakfast - Crispex are delicious apparently.  We went to see Betsy and Ethan and had lunch with them.  We took a nap.  I woke Isaac up...I don't really like to do that, but I also want him to get up early enough that he'll fall asleep at night.  I did get some very nice snuggles as he woke up though.  We...I'm not sure what we did for the next hour and a half, but we did stuff.  Ben came home.  We ate dinner.  Isaac played a little bit.  He had a bath.  He went to bed!  I always close his door and feel a little guilty about how happy I am that he's in bed.  I played some games and did some sewing.  And now it's time to go to bed and read.

And just like that, today is done.

23 months

I only got the pictures a day late this month!

Isaac has a bunch of fun words this month, and they seem to be rather themed.  We have weather themed - wet, rain, snow, brrr, boots.  We have food themed - juice, wipe.  And we have Duplo themed - broke, fix, tower.  There's also been several times where Isaac seems to be saying something (over and over) and I have no idea what it is.  It's not the gibberish that babies say, but it is another language.

He's good at realizing that his tower is broken, but hasn't realized that he can just fix it without me asking if he can fix it.  I see a lot of broken towers in a day.

Isaac can move his highchair to the correct place by himself now (from the table to the living room).  He blows kisses.  He likes doing the robot dance, and I'm pretty sure we only read some books to see the robot picture and then do the dance.

Potty training is going well, unless he's at his Grandma's house.  Then he has about 300% more accidents than normal.  He likes his "nummy-nummy" after he does his business, but I've only been giving them to him if he asks.  He often forgets.

Sleep went well this month too.  I think between a growth spurt and sickness he was sleeping a little more, which was awesome.  He has one nap in the afternoon (usually at least 2 hours) and sleeps from 8 at night to about 7 in the morning.

He also has really enjoyed magnets and bottles.  He loves having a little water in a bottle so he can take the cap off, drink, and put the cap back on...but he'll enjoy the bottle even if there isn't any water.  We haven't had too many messes.

Monday: kisses

Isaac was in a very kissy mood today...

...the little bear before we left the house.
...the water bottle before we left the house.
...the blue monkey.
...me.
...the random baby that we saw in the store.
...Ben
...the blue monkey
...the cow in the bedtime book
...the sheep in the bedtime book
...the blue monkey again.

And those are only the ones I saw.  The Duplo dog, horse, and goat often get kisses too.

Sunday: last pickup

Tomorrow is our last diaper pick-up.  Isaac now (normally) has one or no accidents a day, and is staying dry through most naps, so it is time to be done with the diaper service.  I was quite happy with them, but I'm even more happy to be done with diapers.

So that I don't forget if I'm ever curious about what I did, here's the quick summary.  I have no idea if any of these things actually helped, but it's what happened.
1) Cloth diapers almost all of the time.
2) Around 18 months I tried putting him on the toilet a lot for a week.  It didn't work all that well.
3) Between 18-21 months I tried putting him on the toilet several times a week.  If he did go to the bathroom, he got some mini M&Ms and got to wear his training pants.
4) Around 21 months he stayed dry for an entire morning, so I tried pushing toilet training hard again.  Again, M&Ms for rewards...and flushing.  I didn't use the waterproof pull-ups, although I did bring some to daycare so they could use them.  If we went out I either put him back in a diaper or made sure it was a really short trip and he had just gone to the bathroom.  I put a TV tray by the toilet so that he could play/read more easily.  (He was happy to stay on the toilet if there was something to do and I found that he had a bowel movement if he stayed on the toilet for at least 5 minutes.)  I started by putting him on the toilet about once an hour, but we're up to about once every two hours now.

So that's the quick summary...and it's not like we're done yet.  We still need to work on communication (when he does need to go) so that I don't have to remember every two hours.  We're also working on Isaac  taking his pants on and off.  But, the main thing is that most of the time Isaac goes on the toilet!



...Potty training is a lot of work.

bathroom

I was doing aqua-aerobics today, partially to be in good health for the baby.  I even ate a nutritious breakfast for the baby.  Then I had to go to the bathroom before the workout was finished.  It was close the the end so I just stopped.  I sure am going to the bathroom more than I remember with Isaac.  But I'm still feeling pretty good.  I did the calculations and realized, if everything is the same, that I would start throwing up between Dec 3 and Dec 12.  (Thanks to the blog!)  But if memory serves me correctly I was already feeling a little yucky last time, so I'm getting hopeful.

Saturday: more happenings

We finished putting the tree up today.  I didn't take any pictures, but they'll come.  I had to get some more strings of lights and ended up with some LED ones...and now have colored circles on the walls and ceiling.  It's a little weird, but I do love lights.  I think if I could only pick one Christmas decoration I'd do lights.  And lots of them.  But not too many, because it should still seem dark in the dark.

Putting up Christmas decorations with a two year old is a ton more fun than with a one year old.  We took out the nativity set and had fun unwrapping everything.  He (and his cousin) helped with the ornaments, even though all he really did was bring them from the couch to the tree.  It was a lot of fun.

In unrelated news, Isaac has started to tell me he needs to go to the bathroom by pulling down his pants.  The problem is that this usually happens outside the bathroom.  We'll have to figure out how to fix that soon.  He also tried to put them on today.  (If you can't tell, they're backwards.)

Friday: some pictures

They're not great pictures, but they still give you an idea of the day...

Isaac has been in charge of feeding Flurry lately and today found the catnip spray.  So I sprayed it on a cat toy.  After that Isaac was sure that Flurry should play with her mouse and ran around for about fifteen minutes trying to give it to her.  They finally settled on Flurry looking at it while on the banister.

Isaac helped me with the wash.  He actually pulled the basket to my room, picked up all the loose clothes on the floor, and had most of them in the washing machine by the time I was back to it with another basket full.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese.  It seems just right for his age...well, more or less.  He doesn't really get the games, but there are lots of rides that he enjoyed.  I couldn't get any pictures of him smiling, but he did...  (He also wanted to do the jump rope game.  Never mind that he can't even jump yet, let alone understand the game.  I tried jumping while holding him.  It was a hard game.)

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving...it was a very nice day.

We started out by shoveling the driveway.  I was hoping that we'd be able to make a snowman or something, but the snow wasn't good for that and Isaac wasn't that interested anyway.  But he can move in his snowsuit now (an improvement from last year).  I gave him a trowel but think he needs his own little shovel to help us in the future.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with the large family...the food was delicious and it was nice to see everyone.  Larry and Isaac did some synchronized drinking.  (Cap on, cap off, drink.  Cap on, cap off, drink...)

We ended the day by bowling.  I broke 100 both games (amazing) and beat Ben both times (practically impossible).  The last game I just barely pulled it off by getting two strikes and a 9 on the 10th frame.

Isaac was exhausted by this time, but I wanted to get a little more food in him.  We got home at 7:30 and gave him some leftovers.  At 8, his normal bedtime, we asked if he wanted to go to bed and he could barely shake his head yes he was so tired.  I actually thought he'd fall asleep while eating.

And even though I didn't mention it, there are so many things that I'm thankful to God for.  He has truly blessed me.

Wednesday: You can't see me

While Isaac was eating breakfast, I went behind his highchair to do some stuff.  He got a little restless and called, "Mama!"  I calmly called back, "I'm right here.  You just can't see me."

I immediately wondered how many times God has said that to me.  And smiled a bit, because I knew Isaac would be fine and taken care of...and that God would take care of me.

Tuesday: Happy Birthday!

It was Ben's birthday today.  I had fun playing with his age. :D

(The 13 was for our nephew...it was a shared birthday party.)

Blue and white

Isaac knows that blue is a color.  (In fact, it's the color of Ben's car.)  But now whenever you ask him what color something is, it is blue.

With the snow all around I'm trying to add white to his color list too.  Except that he was more excited to see himself on my phone. :)


Today we were talking about his white horse and he said "Snow!"  He's getting it...slowly.

Saturday: well, I thought Isaac was smart...

The toy of the day was a water bottle.  It was empty, but he's figured out how to make the cap go on and off (as long as it isn't on too tightly).

Several times today he was doing this and I hear an urgent, "Please, please!"  I look and see that he can't get the cap on...because his other hand was in the mouth of the bottle.  A problem he could easily figure out using touch or sight, but no, he needed to be told how to do so.

Friday: boots

Cheryl and I have been trying to find boots for Isaac (size 7).  Seems like it should be a simple thing, seeing as how we're in Michigan.  But no.

We stopped at the children's store downtown.  They had tons of girls boots, but only two styles of boys...it is was more of a work boot than a snow boot.  We stopped at several shoe places downtown, but they had all stopped carrying kids' shoes.

Today we went to Kohls...again, several girls boots.  There were two boys boots, but one was very ugly.  The nice one only had size 10.  We went to JCPennys.  They had some nice ones, but the smallest were size 11.   (They also had several girl boots.) We walked across the mall to Yonkers and were about to give up hope of finding any in the mall when we spotted a winter rack.  They had some!  And they were small!

I'll admit...I'm really surprised that it was so hard to find boots.  (I did hear there are some at Meijer, and we didn't check Target).  But hopefully it will snow this weekend now. :D

Thursday: meal names

For the life of me, I cannot name meals correctly lately.

8am: "Let's have lunch! Er, dinner!  Er, Breakfast!  Yeah, breakfast!"
11:30am: "Let's have breakfast!  Er, lunch!"
6:30pm: "Let's have lunch!  Er, dinner!"

It has been happening all the time.  I think I've got some wires crossed in that part of my brain.

Wednesday: out?

I had been planning on going to the grocery store this morning.  Isaac, however, had other ideas.  Every time he came over to me I said "shoes".  He would quickly shake his head and run into his bedroom, alone.  (I had just brought out some puzzles that had been put away for a while.)

Since I had several things that needed to be done without his help, I decided that Isaac was right...we didn't need to out this morning.

Tuesday: getting out of the house

Usually I can schedule my time pretty well.  Today, though, I miscalculated.  I needed to get out of the house (5-10 minutes), pick up a prescription (10 minutes), drop Isaac off at day care (15-20 minutes), and go to Bible Study (10 minutes).

Instead it went like this: get out of the house (5 minutes). Go back in the house because Isaac insists that he has to go to the bathroom, which involves taking off his coat, overalls, and shoes (and then putting them back on) (and he didn't go) (10 minutes).  Pick up the prescription (20 minutes).  Drop Isaac off (20 minutes) (and oh, it was picture day.  At least he was wearing something nice).  Go to Bible Study (10 minutes).  I often have about a five minute buffer.  This time I was fifteen minutes late.

Oh well.

Monday: doctor

I brought Isaac to the doctor.  We were kind of on the fence about it, but thought it would be better safe than sorry.  He ended up having a slight ear infection and slight case of brocolitis.  (Or however you spell it.)  If he had just one of them we would have been told to just weather it out, but with both of them we were given an antibiotic.

The exciting thing was that Isaac got to use the big person scale because he wasn't wearing a diaper!  It also meant I didn't have to undress him, which was nice.  All told, he was 25.6 lbs.

Saturday: barking

Isaac has a terrible barking cough.  He seems to be doing ok most of the time, but he is more snuggly than normal so we can tell that he doesn't feel great.

He woke up during the middle of his nap in rough shape, but we inclined his mattress tonight so hopefully that helps.

Poor guy.

Friday: firsts

Isaac took his first nap in his training pants and stayed dry!  He's been dry most days this week during his naps so I thought I'd try it.  I wasn't expecting to do this for another six months.

Isaac also got to bowl for the first time. :)  He enjoyed it, but was getting pretty tired near the end.

Wednesday: a cycle

Isaac has been putting toys in the toilet when he is sitting on it lately.  (Which is why I only give him plastic toys that float or very large items now.)  They've been accumulating, so I thought that I'd make Isaac wash them.  I put them in sudsy water in a bucket in the kitchen and let him enjoy.  (I didn't link the washing to the toys that had gone in the toilet.  It's enough that I know he's cleaning up after himself.)

He of course got everything wet, so I let him play without clothes for a little bit.  But I was happy because I didn't have to worry about accidents!  But that is because he is sitting on the toilet and then he puts toys in the toilet...

In other news, he had his second accident free day today.  He even woke up dry from his nap, which he did several days this week.

Tuesday: hand washing

Today, after dinner, Isaac did a great job washing his hands.

Too bad it was in pineapple juice.  I cringed so many times as I watched it drip down his elbows.  But I wanted to finish watching the show we were watching and it was bath night.

Monday: racquetball

Today during one of our games Ben and I managed to hit all the cool number pairings.  2-2, 10-4, and 7-11.  We've been close before but never quite managed to get them.

I'm pregnant!

I found out tonight that I'm pregnant again!

I've been feeling a little weird the last two days.  I was hoping to wait until tomorrow to take the test, but decided that it didn't really matter.

I told Ben by building a nursery in Minecraft.  Kind of cheesy, but more fun than just blurting it out.

It had two cribs. :D  It only took him a few seconds to catch on.

22 months - a little late

Once again, I finally got the 22 month pictures and finally looked through them.  My selection was worse than normal...we had several grey days, it was a busy time, and Isaac didn't sit still very well.  Oh well, there's still a few ok ones.

He has several new words this past month - notably light, up (up-up), monkey, magnet, rock, and eat.

He's gained an affection for the blue monkey.  It can help calm him down when he's about to go all crazy.  When we leave the house, the monkey gets to sit on the kitchen chair, gets a hug, a kiss, sometimes a pat on the head, and is told good-bye.  It's rather cute.

As you probably know, we started potty training this month.  It's going pretty well.  There are still daily accidents, but I can also tell that Isaac is starting to understand what he's supposed to do.  Everything goes best if he is put on the toilet every 60-90 minutes.

He has several favorite toys, but currently the Duplo dog, horse, goat, and gas pump are among the biggest favorites.  Random magnets come in second.  I've started having him help me make food a little bit more often and he usually enjoys that...although I'm quite sure it is a huge mess waiting to happen.

Friday: unexpected consequence

Last night, around 11:30, Isaac started to get restless.  Ben went in to calm him down, but it didn't really stick.  At 12:30, after we were asleep, Isaac started talking..."Pee!  Pee!"  Ben and I consulted each other...do we get up and let him go?  Would he go to go back to sleep?  Do we just let him go in his diaper?  With some hesitation, I got up.  Isaac went to the bathroom, although he wasn't happy about anything.  (The lights weren't on.  There were no toys.  It came to tears.)  But he settled right back down to sleep afterwards.

I'm not ready for him to understand his bathroom needs at night.  Can't it only be an awake thing?

Wednesday: a busy day

We had a busy day today!!

I made some yogurt.  I haven't tried it yet so I'm not sure if it is any good.  Isaac could eat about three large containers of yogurt a week...which seems kind of crazy to me and there are only three flavors in the large tubs.  Most of mine is vanilla for now, but there is one cherry.

Then we got our flu shots.  Isaac didn't cry - I was very proud of him.  I was not so proud of the mess he made with is lollipop though...I took it away before he was done.

Then we came home and made soup!  I put too much rice in, as normal, because it never seems like the recipe calls for enough and I like my soup to be ricey.  So I just had to add some liquids as the day went on.

After a nap (it rained all day...perferct nap weather!) we went to exchange the old i-pad at Target.  If you have old or unused i-devices you may want to check out the deal...it's pretty nice.  After a quick stop at the pet store we headed off to the gym.  Ben won all three matches, but I made him work for it.

Lastly, I cleaned the house...or tried to make a dent in the mess...while Isaac and Ben picked up a new i-pad.  It seems very nice!  The rest of the evening has been nice and relaxing.

Sunday: monkeys and celebrations

Here's a video of Isaac saying monkey.  You need to turn the volume up a bit to hear him.  And yes, his monkey currently sounds like "Di-dis."  I've told him that doesn't sound like monkey at all, but he continues to say Di-dis.



In other news, we had an accident free day today!!  Our first one!!

Saturday: potty training update

Things still continue to go pretty well with potty training, if you look at it as a whole.  There are still days that don't go so well, but most days are going pretty well.  We normally have only one or two accidents per day.

He is starting to give signs when he needs to go to the bathroom, and is very good about going if we put him on the toilet.  He's also starting to go on toilets in other places, like day care and the gym.

The bathroom, however, looks like a disaster area.  I cleaned it up a little bit after this picture, but it is becoming a toy magnet.

Friday: fabric

I brought up all my extra fabric (i.e., scraps and pieces that currently have no quilt destination) for a friend to look through today.  I realized I have a problem...

I have a poor storage solution.  :)



(Ok, ok...I have too much extra fabric too.  I better get working on that scrap quilt.)

Thursday: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

We didn't do much for the evening, really.  We did pass out candy, but didn't get a ton of people since it was raining.  We dressed Isaac up in his Winnie-the-Pooh costume...could he be any cuter??

Ben and Isaac visited four houses.  I'm pretty sure that the highlight of Isaac's evening was playing with the candy.  He put it in his bag.  He took it out of his bag.  He gave it to Ben.  He gave it to me.

By the end of the night he had also figured out that he could get candy too any time people came to the door.  He never really got the "trick or treat" part down, but he was good at please and thank you.

(Here he was last year...not even able to walk.  The costume fit much better this year.)

edit: I just found out that the highlight of the evening was actually when Ben would open the umbrella back up between houses.  The pop of the umbrella opening after Ben pushed the button was super funny.