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21 Weeks Down, 19 To Go

Published by dee on November 17, 2007

Baby G is growing quite well these days, as evidenced by the hugeness of my belly. My sister even commented today on how much bigger I am looking.

As the baby grows, I feel her squirming around more and more. Moves that were only small flutters a couple of weeks ago now startle me as I’m not expecting such strong motion. She tends to move around more when I’m being active. She also appears to like country music. When we were at the Garth Brooks concert last week, she was the most active I’ve felt her so far. She was kicking and squirming so hard that I even felt the movement on my hand for a few seconds.

I’m glad to finally be past the halfway point in this pregnancy. Things will be very busy between now and Christmas so the time will go by fast. Then we’ll have just three more short months and my precious baby will be here. It is almost hard to believe that it’s coming up so fast.

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Lunch with Toddlers

Published by dee on November 16, 2007

Today I got the pleasure of going to school and eating lunch with Zach. They had a parents luncheon for Thanksgiving where all the parents got to come have lunch with their kids. It was chaotic to say the least. Sitting at a table with 8 two-year-olds was an experience that I’ve never really had before. In between every bite I could shove in my mouth were requests for more juice or mac and cheese, which were the two most popular things at our table.

The food was actually quite good but the dessert table was the most impressive. I had a hard time choosing between the many cakes, pies, and cookies spread out. I ended up with samples of peach cobbler, apple pie, some kind of brownie/cookie concoction, and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie.

I was also impressed with the table decorations, although I have to say that candles, tablecloths, and toddlers don’t really mix well. The kids had the candles blown out within a few minutes and the tablecloths barely managed to stay on the table.

The whole thing really was fun though. I loved seeing how excited Zach was when I showed up for lunch. Only a couple of other parents showed up for his class so they were all calling me “mom” for a while. The hard part came when I had to leave and go back to work. Zach wasn’t at all happy that I was leaving and didn’t want to let go. Eventually a teacher had to come peel him off of me so I could escape.

I’m really thankful that I have a boss that is so flexible and allowed me to take an extra hour at lunch so I could be with Zach. I really had a great time and I know Zach enjoyed me being there.

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Late Night Ramblings

Published by dee on November 15, 2007

I’ve had a post in my mind all day that I want to write, but somehow I can’t find the words to write it quite yet. It certainly doesn’t help that I had to spend an hour fighting with my obstinate son just to get him to go to bed. Somehow in the process I lost all of the thoughts that were written out in my head. Hopefully that post will still be coming but I just don’t have it in me to write it tonight.

Instead I’ll let you contemplate on just how in the world this boy with such an adorable little face can turn into a demon every night when bed time comes around. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get him to bed, depending on what kind of mood he is in. We have a routine set in place, but no matter how hard I try to stick to the routine, he’ll always find a way to break it up. I’ve even gone so far as to use Super Nanny methods of keeping him in bed but so far it hasn’t worked. Perhaps I’m just not strict enough.

One of his biggest excuses for getting out of bed is that he’s scared and with the recent onslaught of night terrors and bad dreams, I can’t seem to let that go. How do you really know if a 2-year-old is scared or if he’s just trying to convince you to let him stay up a little longer? I want to believe him and comfort him, but I don’t want to let him totally play me either. On top of that, I really need to get some sleep myself and the recent routine has really thrown my evenings off.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I know there is no magic answer and I know that I’m just going to have to be firm and wait out this phase. I just hate it when I get to the point where I feel like I’m losing control and I’ve gotten to that point more than once lately. And now I’m rambling on when I should be getting myself to bed and getting some sleep.

Please just tell me that this will end, preferably before I have my hands full with an infant.

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Did You Ever Notice?

Published by dee on November 14, 2007

Time has really gotten away from me today and I won’t be near a computer tonight, so here’s a real quick entry so I don’t miss my NaBloPoMo post for the day.

Monday night Hubby and I were watching How I Met Your Mother, one of our favorite shows. Basically, during the show Ted was dating a girl he really liked, but the rest of the gang didn’t like her. When he finally convinced them to tell him what it was about her they didn’t like, it ruined the image of perfection she had about her and he suddenly didn’t like her anymore. In her case it was that she talked all the time. He hadn’t noticed it before someone pointed it out. As the show went on, they continued pointing out little annoying habits about each other. The thing is, once that one annoying little thing is pointed out, you can’t get past it.

This morning as I was driving Zach to school, I noticed a tree that had the branches cut out of the middle so that it formed a “V” shape to allow some power lines to go through. Once I noticed that one, I couldn’t stop looking at trees the rest of the way to work to see if any others were cut that way. As it turns out, there are several along the same street. Now I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking at trees as I drive. It is something so simple, yet I never noticed it before.

So, I’m curious to know if anyone else does this. When you notice something for the first time, does it stick with you to the point where you can’t think of anything else? Does it ever go away and just become the way things are?

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The Rule of Six

Published by dee on November 13, 2007

It’s funny how you can twist and turn and wind around this great big thing called the internet. A few days ago instance, I received an e-mail notification of a new follower on Twitter. I didn’t recognize the name, so I followed the link to her blog to see who it was. As I scanned through the posts, I discovered a post about the Rule of Six. It looked like an interesting concept, so I kept following link after link until I finally got to the original source.

The concept seems to be discussed mostly on homeschooling sites, but it got me to thinking about how I might incorporate it into my own family life. Basically, the Rule of Six is a list of things that you feel should be part of your child’s life on a daily basis. It can be something as simple as “read a book” or something a little more meaningful such as “spend time in prayer”. It can be anything as long as it is important to you and your family. Oh, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be six things. Your list can be as long or as short as you like.

I’ve done a lot of thinking on this and would like to share my own Rule of Five (Yes, five. The number suited me better than six.). I have kept it pretty general because the way these things are expressed can change greatly. I think we do most of these things on a daily basis already, but I hope that formalizing it a little more will help me on days when I’m feeling a little lazy.

I’m sure as time goes on and my children get older that some items on the list may change, but for now these are the things I want to focus on. If you decide to join in and make your own list, please let me know so I can check it out. You might also want to add it to the Rule of Six blog carnival going on here.

Here’s my list:

Responsibility
Prayer
Affection
Kindness
Gratitude

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I Never Thought I Would Be Helping My 2-Year-Old With Homework

Published by dee on November 12, 2007

This here is Zachary’s very first homework assignment. When I signed him up at his day care/school/whatever you want to call it, I certainly didn’t expect to be doing homework with my two-year-old. I’m not complaining, because it was just as fun as it was frustrating.

The project was intended to incorporate the family into the classroom. I guess it was supposed to be a way to get parents involved with their child and interested in what they are doing at school, which I’m all for. Plus, it will get to hang in the hallway by his classroom so he can show it off and be proud. I just hope he appreciates all of my hard work.

From my understanding, the project was supposed to show a little bit about who the child is. One of the suggestions was to use pictures, so since I take a million pictures anyway I chose that option for Zach’s project. I chose some recent pictures of him, pulled out my old scrapbooking supplies and went to town.

The hardest part of the whole project was trying to give up my perfectionist ways and let Zach actually help. I wanted him to be part of it and to enjoy the process with me but it was so hard when he wanted glue stars on top of the pictures I had just cut out and framed. It was really hard to keep myself in check and more than once I let out a “No!” when he tried to put something in the wrong place. I don’t know why I couldn’t just let him do it.

The final project came out pretty good. It isn’t like he’s being graded on it or anything, but I really felt those straight “A” perfectionist tendencies coming out in myself. I still want to go fix a few things when I look at it, but I have to remind myself that it is Zach’s project and as long as he’s happy with it, I should be too.

I suppose I might as well let go now because I’ve got another 15 years of overseeing projects and homework with this one.

As I get further into the month, I’m finding that my 30 Days of Thanks posts are getting harder and harder. I am so blessed in my life that it should be easy to find something to be thankful for, but some days I’m just not in the right frame of mind I suppose.Today, what I’m the most thankful for is my Hubby. Last night, when I was at the end of my rope with Zach because he wouldn’t go to bed for the 20th time, I told Hubby it was time for him to take over. I was quickly losing my temper and knew that things were not going to get better if I continued trying to coax Zach to bed. Not only did Hubby manage to get him to bed, but Zach actually stayed in his own bed all night and I got a fairly decent night’s sleep. It may not seem like much, but it was exactly what I needed at the time.

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Author: dee

21 Weeks Down, 19 To Go

Lunch with Toddlers

Late Night Ramblings

Did You Ever Notice?

The Rule of Six

I Never Thought I Would Be Helping My 2-Year-Old With Homework