It'a a Girl!

Can you believe it? We are having a girl! I was shocked when they told us. Part of me is afraid they will tell me at the next one a mistake was made and it was a boy. I haven't rushed out to buy anything but a few friends have already bought something and another friend is giving me stuff from her two girls. My husband is over the moon. He has big plans for daddy's little girl already. He wants to build her a princess bed and do whatever she wants. Ugh.

Today is our last day in NYC. I am very sad to be moving. My son is going to miss his friends at school a lot. I am going to miss my friends too. Our apartment is big enough for the 3 of us but 4 will really push it. I know others do more with less but we have to move. I'm stressed about the commute and how it will affect daycare. I don't want my son in daycare 11 hours a day because I am commuting. I've already asked to work from home on Fridays and I'll try to work on the train other days to leave at a decent hour. My firm seems willing to work with me on this so I hope it works out.

I had found someone to do a basic pre-moving in clean of our house. I found them on Craigslist and I was pretty nervous about letting someone in without us being there. Come to find out, the person I chose is our neighbor and babysits also. She seems to be pretty nice. I think its crazy of all the people we could have found I stumbled across the person right behind us. I have been very worried about not having a backup sitter in case of emergency and this feels like divine intervention.

I have lots to do today, including picking up my car. Crazy, I have a car again. Until later...

Half-Way There

Well, I'm 20 weeks pregnant now. We find out the gender on Thursday. I'm very excited to find out. The baby actually kicked my finger and at that one moment I thought it was a girl. But, all along I've been saying it's a boy. We'll see.

My son had he second birthday on April 26th. We had a party at the park and I hired an Elmo person to come. All the kids had fun. My son son was sick with a stomach bug and ear infection so he didn't feel that well but I saved him a cupcake for later. His development continues to surprise me. I know all the books say that this is a period of major growth for them but to see it in person is crazy. I got him a puzzle that I thought was way too advanced for him. He does it on his own. He counts, speaks in 4 word sentences, knows his shapes and sings. What a change from 18 months. He is growing up way too fast. I am going to cry when he no longer wants to cuddle with his mommy or give me kisses = ( At this point, I can't imagine how I could love the next child as much as I do my son. He fills my heart up so much and I am so smitten with him that I just don't see how I could love another as much. My son is so sweet (ignoring tantrums, etc.) and fun to be around. I really hope I'm not messing things up by having another child.

We are moving out of the city in less than a month. I think we will love the space but I'm going to hate the commute. Hopefully we can work it out okay with work. Lots of people do it. So can we. I grew up in the South where I drove everywhere so it's not like I'm a stranger to living away from things but the city has really spoiled me for having everything close. We are car hunting now and that's just one more headache. I haven't had a car in 5 years - they are much more expensive than I remember (haven't bought one in 8 years). Good news is we can probably get some money off with the way the economy is right now.

Have to go now - we are off to the park to meet up with my son's friends. Trying to get as many play dates in before we leave. Happy Memorial Day!

13 Weeks and Two Years

I am in my 13th week of pregnancy. We had a great ultrasound on Monday for the Down Syndrome test. I got a good view of the profile and nose. It's crazy. I keep thinking its a mistake and I'm not really pregnant but the more pictures they show me and the larger I get (gained 2 pounds so far) the less I can deny it. I am getting a little more excited but still afraid. Oddly enough I'm not that afraid of labor this time. It can't be worse than last time. I still have been a little queasy until recently but haven't gotten sick. My face is breaking out more and my hair is awful. Its dry, lifeless, and flat. I hate it. With my first my hair was awesome (could this be a girl?). A lady cutting my hair said she could tell by looking at people's faces and that I'm having a girl.

My son is so wonderful. He's been singing the ABCs in his own version. He says double r whenever he forgets a letter. It's so cute. He is growing out of his shoes really fast. He's having the get new ones every few months. Also, he's been kicking them off while we are out and I don't notice it right away so all we are left with is one shoe. He is speaking in longer sentences now and always wants to watch Yo Gabba Gabba. He gets tantrums and throws things when he is mad but is so darn sweet afterwards. I think he is learning the art of manipulation.

Congrats Sandra! Please let me know if you plan to get pregnant again as I don't plan to but since we see to get pregnant at the same time I'd like a little notice. = )

Here We Go Again

First let me start by talking about my son. He is 22 months. Wow, what a big guy he is. I still call him a baby but he is full on toddler (terrible 2s sometimes even). He is speaking in two word sentences and is my little parrot. He repeats everything we say. It is amazing how much he has developed in the past few months. He won't eat veggies other than sweet potatoes and corn (can you count hummus?) but loves anything bread or starchy like crackers. He melts down easily and hits me when he is mad (just me no one else). I'm tyring the time outs and they work okay but he still does it. The biggest thing is for me to stay clam because I get frustrated easily when he acts out. We are both works in process.

We just went to Cayman with him and took him to see the dolphins. He liked it but was still a little young for it. He ate a lot of sand. I thought they would try it and stop but apparently sand is tasty. He didn't eat the sand in St. John back in November.

Moving on, you may have guessed from the title of the post that I am pregnant again. It only took two months of trying. I can't believe how fast it happened. I figured it would take a lot longer like before and I would have more time. I actually expected to get pregnant in the summer, not be due in the middle of October and be hugely prego during the hot months. Because I wasn't expecting it yet I'm still not that excited. In fact I'm very nervous. I'm wondering if we did the wrong thing by doing this now. Should we have waited? Can I really handle two kids? I am much stronger that I give myself credit for so I guess it will work out. I know though that once the second baby comes I will have no free time. Truth be told I am very selfish about my time. I like to sleep and watch tv and read a book. With one, its much easier to distract them or do what you want when they nap.

What if its a boy? That would be okay with me but my husband wants a girl so much I'm afraid he will be disappointed. According to the Chinese Birth Chart we will have a boy. My son would probably love to have a brother, not that he understands the concept yet of a sibling. I really wanted to give my son a brother or sister so he could have someone. I was an only child. I was very lonely growing up and I don't want that for him. Ironically when I found out I was pregnant I cried thinking I was depriving my son of having all of our time. Hormones, right?

As for the pregnancy I don't have any real symptoms other than fatigue and I'm not really sure that's from the baby. I have been wanting to go to bed at 8 which is abnormal. I was hoping I would have morning sickness since they say that's a sign of a girl but so far, nada, just like the last time. Maybe I will be one of those people who never get sick during pregnancy.

Obviously now we have to think about moving to the suburbs. My unborn is already on the wait list at daycare (the lists are insanely long). It will be soooooooo expensive to have two. An illegal nanny would be a better option money wise but we would only hire a legal worker and they would still need classes and preschool so that would be money money which would get us back up to the daycare total. By the way, I didn't bother applying for preschool. He is fine where he is until elementary. We'll cross the bridge of not getting into the right school later. Anyway, back to the suburbs. It would be nice to have more space but I don't want to commute. What we can really afford is an hour by train each way. I would do it if I could work from home 2 days a week but with the economy I don't want to be the person doing that. They have already laid off people and cut back on others hours. Because I am a mom I feel a target sometimes but I'm hoping its my imagination.

Wow, this post was really a ramble but it appears I needed to get it out.

18 Months

Wow. I'm really bad about writing in this blog. I think about doing it but I'm too lazy I guess. Anyway, there has been a lot of developments with my son. In my last post I was talking about how I loved the new room he was in at daycare. He really enjoyed that room and learned so much. He knows all of his body parts and says a lot of new words. He also follows directions so well now its amazing to me. I'm not even sure how many teeth he has, 16 I think. All of the other parents seem to think that is a lot. He eats pretty well (except veggies but we are working on it). My only real complaint right now is that he hates to have his diaper changed. I try distracting him but he just hates it. The only time he'll really be cooperative is if he pooped. I guess he wants to help the environment by not changing diapers that are just wet = )

Next week he moves to the next room at daycare for 18 month to 2 year. In that room they have a computer. He will love that since he is always trying to play with ours. They teach him how to use utensils in this room also. Right now he can pick up food with a fork but takes its off the fork with his other hand to put in his mouth. I hear this is a good room to so I hope he continues to learn at such a fast pace.

As far as the ear tubes, they were the best thing we could have done. He hasn't had ANY ear trouble since. We have a checkup next week to see if they are still in place. I'm so glad we had them done. At first I was scared but it really was for the best and not a big deal at all.

Today we had a Halloween party (my son was a polar bear) at our house with a total of 5 kids and their parents. In a two bedroom NYC apartment we may have been pushing it a little but everyone seemed to have fun. The kids weren't sharing very well though. Everyone kept fighting over the same toys. I imagine that for my son it was difficult to have so many people here playing with all his toys. Usually we just have one other kid over for a play date, not four others. It will be easier to have parties once everyone is a little older and can do structured activities. As it was it was slightly controlled chaos.

Well I need to go. As I type he is whining to play on the computer so I should just stop this entry. Until later....

Weaned

I've mentioned before that the new room my son is in at daycare doesn't allow bottles. It gave us a good reason to go ahead and wean him from the bottle. I was worried because I had heard horror stories about kids giving up their bottle. I must say it was really easy. We just put it in a sippy cup and he drank it. No problems.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about daycare. I am really pleased about this new room he is in. He does so many arts and crafts and other activities I would never get with a nanny. His teacher told me that they were painting and he started painting his legs and face. I think its good for him to experience this stuff. Honestly I would never let him get that messy at home so I'm glad he has a place to do that.

I hated taking him to daycare when he was very little. I always felt like they could have done more. Instead they just seemed to feed, change, and let them play on the floor. I never really saw them do much art or anything to stimulate learning. I don't want to make it sound like they didn't take good care of him because they did. I do feel so much happier though now.

Tubes

My son got tubes in his ears today. He has had 8-10 ear infections (currently has one), his right ear drum has ruptured 4-5 times and his left has ruptured once. He also has (or hopefully now had) hearing loss of 10-20 decibels. The doctor said the fluid had been in his ears so long it had congealed and would never had healed on its own. They said it was unusual to do this surgery during the summer since most kids don't get ear infections at this time of year. I was very nervous and scarred for him to have go through this. We arrived at the hospital at 6, he was operated on a little after 7:30 and he was brought to us by 7:50. He was crying when he first woke up then he fell asleep in his father's arms for about 30 minutes. When he woke up we gave him juice and then crackers. He was smiling and happy like nothing had happened. It was not at all what I expected. He doesn't seem to be in pain either. I am glad it went so well and that he will hopefully be able to hear better. We have to go back in about 10 days for a checkup but I'm confident it will go well.

In other news, my son is now in the next room at daycare full time. He loves it there. They do arts and crafts everyday, have a music program, and teach them a lot more stuff. The teacher is so nice. I really like her. I feel like my son will learn so much more there. I even got to see him sleeping on a cot. It amazes me how kids less than 18 months all sleep on these little cots without walking all around.

His new thing he does is "talk" on the phone. He uses his play phones and our phones to put them at his ear and pretend to have a conversation. I love it. He really is growing so fast.