Big Steps for a Little Guy

Well, we're going on two weeks now and I still don't know how I feel about it. LOL I guess you could tell how I feel about it by the fact that I have not yet moved all his toys and things over into his "new" room. However, with mom dragging her feet or not, The Boy is sleeping in his "big boy bed" at nights and doing really well. The first 4-5 nights went off without a hitch. He went to bed with no problems and didn't ask to get up for anything. However, then one night he had to go to the bathroom a couple of times and I think he caught on that if he had to go potty, he could get up and see his daddy. He usually calls for his daddy because daddy is more of a softy than mommy is and he can get away with more. Then we had a rough couple of nights with a lot of "I have to go potty!" , "I need a drink!", "Somebody help me!" It was funny at first, but then it got OLD QUICK!

He shouldn't need a drink because I send him to bed with about 2 oz of ice water every night, so I just ignored that request without out feeling badly. It was the potty one that got me. He is 100% potty trained during the daytime. I can't even remember the last time we had any kind of accident. He's gotten really good at holding it. You will often find him doing the "potty dance" to avoid having to leave the fun to go to the bathroom. However, we were nowhere near sleeping through the night dry. Sometimes he was even soaking through his diaper. So we cut back on liquids an hour before bed and only give him a tiny bit to take to bed with him and we go to the bathroom like 3 times in the hour before bedtime. So my dilemma with getting up to go potty after he's already in bed is that is what I want him to do. I want him to learn to get up and go to the bathroom, so we can move toward sleeping through the night dry. So we were letting him get up to go to the bathroom and sure enough he would "go" each time, even if he had to squeeze it out. LOL But rarely during the day does he need to go to the bathroom 3 times in an hour, but that was what he was doing after getting it bed. FRUSTRATING! However, I didn't want to leave him to potty in his diaper, because that is one step backwards. Plus he is yelling for 3 minutes straight, "MY POTTIES ARE COMING OUT!" That gets old, too.

Well, after 3 nights of awful sleep for all of us - he wasn't falling asleep until after 10pm, even though he was in bed at 8pm, and then he was waking up crying a couple of nights - we found a solution. He would say he had to go potty, I would go in and get him, but say nothing, when he came out, Will wouldn't even look at him. I wouldn't engage in any conversation with him while he went potty and then I walked him straight back to bed. Worked like a charm. Now we are 3 nights in a row with him getting up once or not at all to go to the bathroom and back to being asleep before 8:45. Yea!

Last night he did wake up crying, but his diaper was dry and he was incoherent. I read that sometimes they will have nightmares or wake up partially when they need to go to the bathroom. So I walked him to the bathroom, he went, and got right back in bed. This morning he was dry. We're on our way . . .

Why am I dragging my feet? Well, my baby has grown up. Right under my nose. I am enjoying the journey, but I don't like how fast it is going. He still naps in his crib and so I still get to read him a story and rock him "for a little bit" - as he says. But bedtime he's big now. He gets in bed, I read him a story, sing I Am a Child of God, and he's all set. ::sigh:: I should be glad. Most parents make it their main goal to get their kids to fall asleep without them. And don't get me wrong, there were nights I wished I had worked harder to do that. However, I have enjoyed every rocking moment. Every twiddle with my hair. Every verse of I Am a Child of God. Every second. So I'm holding on by my fingernails, knowing in the back of my mind, it's time.

I also know there is another baby coming along, but it just won't be the same. There will be now be two little ones that need their needs met and still just one mommy to do it. So, I know I won't have the time to rock and rock like I did the first time around. So it will be different and that's good and we'll have just as much fun, but I am resistant to change (much like my preschooler) and so I'm dragging my feet. I'm not promising anything until after his Halloween costume is finished, but I will do it:) I know you'll be checking every day to see if I've done it.
One of the fun things about him getting bigger is that he can do so much more with me. Last night we made cookies and he cut them all out and did and fabulous job. He wore his new cool apron that Grandma T sent him for a Halloween treat. When he pulled it out, he immediately exclaimed, "I wanna make cookies witcha!" So we made Halloween sugar cookies. We only made about a 1/3 of them last night, so we have more to bake tonight and then we get to frost them. Yahoo!One funny thing he says, that I can actually remember long enough to write down, is, "I'm not fighting you!" Often, when he's in one of his sassy moods, I will say to him, "Please don't fight with me." So, he'll make a preemptive strike sometimes and before I can even say it, he'll shout, "I'm not fighting you!" as he runs off into another room. I think it's pretty funny. He also refers to me as Smee quite often. That is because he's Captain Hook and I am his right hand man. He'll come into the kitchen and say, "Smee, I need a drink please." And I'll reply, "Here you are, Captain Hook." He thinks it's the best thing ever.

**Pregnancy Update**
I'm doing fantastic. I am keeping the swelling at bay and my feet normal most of the time. When I did all the walking at Disneyland, Sea World, and the Wild Animal Park, I was swollen and it took a few days to return to normal, but other than than, they are fantastic. Here's a picture, taken as I blog, to prove it.

I am 30 weeks right now and starting to slow down just a little bit. My 2nd trimester burst is starting to wear off and I'm usually tired by the end of the day. However, when I was pregnant with The Boy, at about 36 weeks I got another big burst of energy when the nesting/clean everything set in, so I look forward to that.

I'm still planning on being induced on December 27th if the baby hasn't already been born by then.

No, we still haven't settled on a name. But we're narrowing the possibilities. If you ask The Boy, he'll tell you, "She's my sister Wendy" - as in Wendy from Peter Pan. LOL

And here's a belly shot taken about 3 weeks ago. I feeling pretty good about weight gain. My doctor wanted me to gain around 25-30lbs this time. My goal was 40 and I'm still on track to be there or under. Phew! None of that 60lb stuff like last time. I've also stayed a lot more active with aerobics and walking, so it won't be such a shock to step back into again after she's born.