Quick update on pregnancy and Carolina

This morning I woke up with some cramping and then intermittent intense pains. Still nothing regular happening, so must still be Braxton-Hicks. Carolina and I spent the weekend at my parents place for Easter (Papa joined us Saturday afternoon), and when we went to the mall to get the baby and her some new clothes we rented a wheelchair for me while my dad pushed both of us. It actually was necessary. Walking around has become pretty tiring and difficult for me.

I don't remember it being this tough last time but then again, I wasn't going anywhere at this point. I'm not sure if it's my "advanced maternal age" or the fact that I'm already a mom and, man, is this tiring. I'm going with the latter as my aunts with multiple children seem to agree on that point.

We were recently invited to see some friends families (with their kids) on the 21st in Bay Ridge and then to a friend of Carolina's party on May 6th. I honestly can not do these events. It's just too much. Ismael seems to think that going to Bay Ridge is a good idea with Carolina while I stay at home. I have a feeling it'll be fine but as she'll miss her nap, I told him to bring cab fare. Oh, and be ready to come back at a moment's notice since it'll be closer to the due date. But I won't mind the small break, actually.

If my mother-in-law is right and the first major pain you have is two weeks before the baby is born, then 2 weeks from today is a very early April 24th. Our niece's birthday. I'm hoping he waits as that will be 36 weeks and I'd like our son to have his own birthday day.

I think I might also be coming down with a cold since my throat is killing me. Time for some soup and tea!

And, last thing, before we went to my parents place for the weekend, there were 4 days of all pee and poop in the potty (except for that one time at the park) and then pretty quickly it went back to diapers all the time (not even pull-ups!) and now we're on diapers still. I think she'll warm up to the potty again but clearly a change of location was a trigger. It's all part of the process :)

Potty training updates and pregnancy progression

So, first things first: potty time! Something must have happened in Carolina's head yesterday either emotionally or cognitively or both because in the morning, she resisted a little bit but then peed in the potty as soon as she got up. And then two more times during the day, after TELLING ME she had to go! This is huge. She only peed once in her diaper ALL DAY!!!! Until the last few days we were only getting warning about poop, but now it's everything. ¡Excelente!

Sometimes "I have to go potty" is a delay tactic for not going down for a nap or bed or leaving the apartment to go shopping -- whatever reason. But she's started to tell us, sit down, goes, looks very proud and then goes to wipe and wash her hands. I heard this is how it really starts but had no idea when it might happen. I always make sure to say "Hooray!" and that I'm proud of her and smile. Sometimes if she sees that I'm going to the bathroom, she will say "Hooray!" and ask to see it and always wants to flush. That's actually how her interest in the potty got started, she'd flush for me but that was it. (Note to friends without kids: once you have a kid, going to the bathroom is not a private affair the first 3 years. After 2/2.5yrs, it should be for the parent of the opposite sex. And around 3, or before, depending on your tolerance, is when doors should be closed.)

And, as other parents told me, it's "just one day he/she decides 'I'm ready' and that's that." So of course we're very supportive, and if she's feeling ambivalent about it and REALLY won't go, then we let her keep the diaper on.

I'm going to have to ask her teacher if they have a potty there at school. I have a feeling this is a big victory at home but will take a bit longer with other potties in the world. She has let me know when we were at the park that she had to go, I said "let's go potty here." And she smiled and just said, "no." I think she just peed in her diaper and kept playing. So I think the idea of going in the grownup public toilet at the park is possible but not appealing. She didn't really want to go at my parents' place last month but maybe when she and I go tomorrow, she may feel more brave since she's doing it more at home.

On the other front: pregnancy. Ismaelito has been kicking less and less but moving just as much. I can tell he's much bigger. Besides the fact that my belly is bigger (putting shoes and socks on is HARD WORK!) he's just clearly filling up more of the space. Sleeping at night has turned into a few hours of rest in between bathroom breaks, with him kicking me awake fairly often. So on the days I can relax enough to nap, I nap for 1-2 hours, just like my daughter. I'm eternally gratefully she's still a napper otherwise this would be extremely difficult for me.

Now I'm on to these kids' shenanigans beforehand, so I'm keeping track of his more common times to kick me awake to get an idea of what his awake/feeding hours will be during the night. So far he's on Carolina's schedule but we'll see when he comes out. Inside is not the same as outside.

I have a feeling he'll be a bit early and bigger than Carolina, but not by a whole lot. What am I basing this on? Not much. I also think he'll look more like his Papa and be much more rambunctious than his sister, although they'll both be active kids. I'm guessing this last part on the fact he's a boy. I've yet to meet a boy that isn't more active or "destructive" than most girls.

Today we're 34 weeks: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fetal-development/PR00114/NSECTIONGROUP=2

If he was Carolina, he'd be born 3 weeks from tomorrow. So I'm getting his bed and clothes ready. I just finished the last wash of baby clothes from ones we have and ones we've been given (Thank you, Aunt Julia!). I'm going to the outlet stores this weekend with my parents to get some more baby things for him since I'd given away quite a lot of infant clothes to a few families, in particular a woman whose husband left her at the hospital just after she gave birth and he didn't come back. And the woman only spoke Spanish. One of the nurses is a mom in our neighborhood and posted the story on the mom message board. I felt I had to help her since Carolina was about 9 months at the time and we didn't need ALL the infant clothes.

Anyway, shopping!

First few weeks of school

The two most standout things about Carolina going to school are these:
1. She doesn't cry or get upset or wave goodbye when we leave. She just walks right in and goes to the teacher to have her coat taken off.
2. She's agitated when she gets home, like she's a total fidget. It has taken as long as 1.5-2.5 hours for her to quiet down to take a nap after she's had some lunch and we've read 3 stories.

Since I'm thinking that this agitation is part of adapting to going to school for the first time, I'm spending more time with her reading and figuring out how much on a daily basis. Right now, if she's going to fall asleep within 30-60 minutes of me leaving her in her room-- I need to spend time with her for about 1-1.5 hours. And I've found that tickling her is a great way for her to expend some energy and relax.

I tried letting her watch a single Caillou episode (~10 minutes) today after lunch to see if that would help. I'm not sure if it did and I know it didn't make it worse. She comes home each time telling me how tired she is but she's also really wound up. Apparently this is normal. I, of course, have no idea.

On her non-school days, I'm pushing the time we go into her room to start reading a little earlier and spend more time reading. That seems to be getting nap time on non-school days to be a little more 'regular.'

I would say that she's starting to give up naps except that when she sleeps, she still sleeps for 2 hours. So depending on the day, I give her until 3 or 4 pm to get her rest. If it's not 2 hours, then tough noogies. Ha! If I let her sleep past then, she's not tired enough for bedtime at night.

It's only been a few weeks so I'm sure this will all eventually stop being "something" and she and I will know what we need to do so she gets the rest she needs. (And the rest I need as most days I need a bit or a lot of a nap as this pregnancy goes on.)

And she always comes home with a clean diaper. I know they support potty training but I still don't know how on a daily basis. I actually called the director to find out. She's about 90% pooping in the potty all the time and getting 10-20% of pee in there, too. Since she is proud of herself when she does go, and she goes when she wants, I've backed off a lot and don't do a lot of encouraging. I just ask, and if she wants to, I'm there! If she doesn't, I don't always try as hard as before just to get her to sit down, especially now that I know she wants to when she is ready.

The teacher's aide told Ismael this morning when he dropped her off that Carolina is very mature. That if a kid pushes her, she just turns around and says, "Don't do that" and the kid will stop. She doesn't push back. He took it as a great compliment, I just thought "Don't push my kid you little rug rat!". That's why it's good I'm not at school with her. I'm actually not too surprised at her reaction. She's not very aggressive but she is confident, and she'd only push if it was too much for her to handle. I'd like to say my parenting has anything to do with it, but I really think that's just who she is and I encourage her to be herself.

Speaking of my parenting, I have to say that I'm ready for her brother to be born. I'm uncomfortable a lot of the time, more so than I remember being with Carolina. We're still weighing our opinions about circumcision as we REALLY need to know what we want before he's born. For me, the only thing that I agree with in terms of being pro-circumcision is that he will not remember it and it'll heal REALLY fast in comparison to any other time in his life.  I feel that this is a big deal and I'd like him to keep all his parts, assuming they all work correctly, because they all serve a purpose.

I have a sneaking suspicion, like his sister, he'll let us know what he needs right away. So we'll see.

Naps change, again, but I'm nothing if not persistent

Yesterday, after school, she was TIRED. So going to take her nap at 1pm wasn't a big deal.

Today, we were both tired in the morning and ready to lie down and read and such by about 11.30am, after her music class. So we got the pajamas ("ja-mamas" as she calls them) and pacifier and changed her diaper.

I left her room at 12pm and about 45 minutes later she was still talking to herself and then called out "Momma! I pooped!" So, I went in to change her and, again, told her to close her eyes and be very quiet.

"I can't be quiet. Want Mary to talk."
(She has a little Virgin Mary figure next to her bed and recently has taken to holding it in her hand for naps in order to fall asleep. When I explained that Mary was tired, too, she told me that Mary had a snake. I told her Mary is stepping on the snake, so there's nothing to worry about. She then said that Mary can't sleep. I explained that Mary is a mommy and made Baby Jesus take a nap, too. She insisted that wasn't true. So I just went blunt and told her it was time to take a nap, and left.)

Over an hour later she's still in there talking loudly and moving around. So I go in again, now it's nearly 2pm. I had considered just letting her get up and forget the nap, but I know better now. If I keep at this, she'll eventually go to sleep and in a week or so we'll go back to "normal". If I let her give it up, she'll be exhausted AND I'll be exhausted, and more importantly, she's not ready to give it up. (I've seen what happens when a parent lets the kid give up a nap before they're really ready to give it up for good. They're the twirlers and/or whiny and/or super-hyper ones at the park. With parents that often look befuddled. I'm not befuddled, I have a newborn on the way who is going to need some sleep, a toddler that's going through another adjustment phase, and a family in a two-bedroom apartment to keep happy.)

At this point, she looked EXHAUSTED. So I told her it was time to be quiet and close her eyes. She said, "Oh, okay, mommy. Have good nap." and rolled over on her side.

Then, quiet. Finally.

Of course, I haven't rested much but at least she is. I think we'll make some strawberry muffins today as she asked for a lot of them yesterday and then didn't eat them. So I have a big bowl cut up and no cream to eat them with :)

First Day of Nursery School

Well, as usual, it didn't go as I had expected. Nothing ever exactly does. Actually, it went a lot better.

She was nervous this morning before we left the house, even though she'd been asking for WEEKS since she first saw a school, that she wanted to go "play with the kids".

We brought her off a little early since we had to bring a bag of clothes and diapers and wanted to get her set up before her day began. When we walked in, she was happy to say 'hello' to the director, whom she knows, and then to the teacher. This was a good sign as she's become more shy around people she doesn't know and often will not say 'hi' to people she does know casually if she's not interested. The teacher immediately started showing Carolina around the classroom and all the toys to play with, even before I took off her coat.

Essentially she was ready to start playing and we just needed to get out of the way!

When I asked her to kiss me goodbye she said, "You leaving?"I told her yes, that I was leaving and she would stay with the kids and her teacher. I would come back soon after her snack and we'd go home to have lunch and a nap. She thought about it a second and then said, "Ok." And kissed me goodbye.

We walked out of her classroom and on to the sidewalk and I started to cry a little. Ok, more than a little. I couldn't believe it! I was upset and she wasn't. I didn't want her to be upset at all, in fact I didn't think she would, but I REALLY didn't think I'd be bothered. I composed myself (thank you, husband) and he went off to work and I went home. Well, first, I went to a store to look around since I had the feeling that I've needed to get something but CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT IS. Walking around the store without having someone talking at me constantly was how I remembered what I needed. And finally bought.

I then spent the morning cleaning the apartment. It was dirtier than usual after the guy came on Tuesday to fix the glazing on the bathtub and I hadn't had a chance to do it while she was awake since we got back yesterday afternoon. Needless to say, my son wasn't too happy about me being so active, but I got it done.

I realized I still had 2 hours left and I could do some laundry. Without having to get her ready to go outside to the laundromat every 30-40 minutes to bring it, come home, take it out of the wash and put into the dryer, come home, and then get it out of the dryer. It went a lot faster.

When I got to the school to pick her up, just before 12, she was on line at the door with the teacher who told me she was a dream to have in class. That she was very well behaved, she danced and played with the other kids, and ate her snack and didn't give her any problems. I could tell that the teacher doesn't have a lot of 'easy' kids in her class, so she seemed to be more appreciative that Carolina was so good than anything. The teacher told me that Carolina didn't like her bananas in her cereal. I said I wasn't surprised as she is not supposed to eat bananas, it's like an allergy. And then the teacher told me, "Oh SHE'S the one with that problem." (I had expressly written a note on her form, and told the director, she can't have dairy, nuts or bananas.)

I didn't get mad but explained that she doesn't like them and they are a problem. And I made sure they only gave her a little bit of milk. Any more, or even a little, and she gets sick to her stomach with really bad diarrhea.

Carolina then told me on the way home that she had cereal. And she "loves bananas". I told her that she shouldn't eat bananas since they hurt her belly. She then told me she wanted more of the "purple cereal" for lunch. I asked her what that was and she just kept saying purple.

THEN she mentioned it was also orange and yellow. A light bulb went off in my head and I said, "Ohhhh. Is the cereal circles with purple, orange, and yellow?"

She looked at me a smiled and said, "YES!" And I just laughed.

Ah, they gave them Froot Loops, which I would NEVER give to her. That's just my choice as it crosses the line of sugar vs. nutrition too far in favor of sugar. I explained that cereal is only at school as a special treat, we don't have it at home. This seems to be an acceptable explanation.

After a lunch of toast, by request, we read some books and she was off to a nap by 1pm. She was yawning right about 12.30.

3 hour glucose test

I forgot to mention that I passed the 3 hour glucose tolerance test. I refer to it as the glucose challenge as it was all I could do not to throw up for over an hour.

The baby was rattling around inside me the whole time. I kept imagining him saying to me, "Mama! What the hell is going on? I don't like this. Never eat sugar again. Ever!"

I don't wish it on anyone. My advice to any pregnant woman going for the one-hour test is:
Schedule it for first thing in the morning
Fast all night/morning
Don't eat any sugar NOR carbs the night before

Pray to your preferred diety that you pass.

If you can't get a first appointment, still avoid carbs and sugar. Carbs turn into sugar and, honestly, unless you really have gestational diabetes, you do NOT want to do the 3 hour test.

Gratefully my parents could babysit that morning. As they had a nice lunch waiting for me upon my return. I had responsibly brought a sandwich. But I didn't want to eat or drink much for a few hours afterwards. I did but not much.

You feel very rough indeed.

Potty training and more talking

So, well, potty training continues. It's expectedly hit or miss. We're getting more action on the poop front as I get SOME advanced warning when I hear, "Mommy, tummy hurts."

Peeing, I've noticed she's able to sit down for a while, ocassionally pee in the potty, but is mostly now holding it. So her post-nap and post-bedtime diapers are FULL. When before they were dry. She will even not pee in the potty and then when we put on a diaper to go outside, she'll pee then.

I hear this is pretty common, so we're just moving along. I'm still having to gently cajole her to sit on the potty at regular times. And when we're staying at home in the afternoon, she gets "nudie time", whereby she only has on underwear and gets to run around without clothes. She likes this a lot. Although it doesn't encourage her to tell me she has to go. She might hold it all or just go in the undies.

Honestly, she's never been a baby or kid to complain about a wet or soiled diaper. UNLESS it was stinging her skin. Otherwise she could wait. So, alerting me isn't forthcoming.

It'll take more time and I'm sure she will work it out one day when she is ready. Hopefully that is before she starts mornings-only during the weekdays at school this fall.

A few funnier things she's said recently:
1. I can't like that. (For anything she doesn't want to eat.)
2. Who deez people eatin my fruit rope? (When my dad tried a tiny piece of her fruit rope before I gave it to her.)
3. Not cool! (Anytime she doesn't like or doesn't want to wear something. As in, this barrette is not cool. Or those shoes you are wearing mommy are not cool.)
4. My eyes are crying or I have crying eyes. (Often told to me when I've accused her of whining. She will tell me it's not whining but crying, so I should take it more seriously.)
5. What (s)he doin? (An all-time favorite about anyone on the street, in a book or seen within eye shot.)
6. No, da baby in heeah. (Accompanied by her pointing at my belly when asked if she is going to have a brother or sister. Often followed by a big hug to the belly and telling it "I love you baby.")