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Siobhan Lily

Siobhan Lily joined our family on Monday 11/7/11 at 10:32pm. 8lbs 20.5in. Exactly one week past her due date as I predicted. The day she was born I had an OB appointment in the morning and was still 3cm as I had been for the last week or so. Having no contractions at all. Watched my friends daughter for a couple hours. At 3 pm I slipped and fell in the laundry room and fell flat on my back. Hurt my ankle alittle but nothing else. At 6pm Juliet pooped in the bath and I got to clean that mess up. At 7pm I had one tiny contraction, wasn't even sure it was one. Followed by two more that hour.
At 8:30 I called the OB since they were about 5-10min apart by then but still rather faint and I wasn't sure if and when to go to the hospital. She said I needed contractions 5 minutes apart for an hour that are strong enough so I can't walk or talk through them. Called grandma & friends to be on call for the night. Grandma headed over to spend the night. Contractions came less frequently then & I thought is was a false alarm and tried to go back to bed.
At 9pm they were coming every 3 minutes but still not unbearable so called the OB again and she said to come on down if I wanted to. Dilly dallied around at home making a few calls and tidying up. Told my sisters not to rush down, we'd get a room and give them a call. Figured I'd be there all night.
Got to the hospital just after 10pm and the contractions were pretty strong by then and still 3 min apart. Decided I wanted the epidural. They said they'd get right on it. And they were talking about maybe calling in the OB. Got checked in and checked and I was 7 cm! Walked me to my room and got in bed and my water broke(10:20?). Treeva arrived, Tasha thought she had time for a shower first.
Asked again about the epidural, they said it would be there in 10 minutes or so and I told them I didn't think I had that long. The doctor is still not there. I start pushing and they go frantically looking for the doctor. OB runs in just in time to catch her head. 2 pushes and she was out. So 3.5 hours from first measly contraction to holding my baby. No pain meds, and really it wasn't so bad. The contractions were strong, but not for long. So yeah, if we would have waited any longer I would have been having that baby in the car or lobby! Juliet was just about 24 hours from start to finish. Next time I know to hurry!

Juliet loves baby sister. She is so sweet with her, if alittle too rough sometimes. I love seeing my little girls together.

Siobhan seems like an easy baby. I think it's cause I actually know what I'm doing this time and can better anticipate her needs. Also feeding her more, instead on on a schedule or something like I thought I needed with Juliet, whenever she squeaks I feed her. And then she sleeps. She is so cute when she sleeps, and nurses, and looks around. Oh I just love a newborn. So floppy and soft and silky. Cute little squeaks and noises. So much fun!

How do you learn how to parent?

I am feeling like a bad parent lately and not sure what to do. Juliet can be a very troublesome child and I honestly don't know how to handle her. Sometimes I feel like all I do all day is punish her. Do I expect to much of her? I don't know. If she can understand what I want her to do why does she choose to do the opposite...over & over again no matter the consequences? She throws tantrums. I feel like I can't take her out in public because I can't control her. Is it her personality or is it my parenting? I feel completely lost sometimes. How do you learn how to parent? What are good resources? There are other kids her age I observe behaving so it must be possible. I get mixed reviews from the grandparents. My parents always chastise me for not disciplining her more & letting her get away with too much. Dan's mom is always saying I'm too hard on her and that she is doing great for her age. I don't think she is the worst kid I've seen, but I'm very unhappy with her behavior and my inability to do anything about it.

I love her so much and I just want to be a good mommy to her and love her while also teaching and molding her into a good person. How do I learn how to parent?

I want to have a baby!

Ok maybe not today, Halloween would be an unfortunate birthday I think. But anytime now, I'm ready and willing. My big sister pumpkin is very excited to meet baby pumpkin. It's so bizarre not having any lead up this time. No contractions, no swelling, not feeling hugely pregnant. Totally not complaining here, I'm very thankful I feel great. Last night I was dreaming I was in labor, everytime I had a cotraction in my dream I would wake up all exctied only to realize, "oh I just have to pee" or "darn it was only in my dream". Too funny. I keep looking around, watching my back, like labor is sneaking up on me and gonna get me if I don't keep a lookout. I'm seriously so excited though!!! I was alittle scared going into it the first time with Juliet, you'd think I'd be just a bit scared this time knowing what I'm in for :)


Juliet makes a cute little pumpkin don't you think?

39 Weeks

39 weeks already. This pregnancy feels like it has flown by. Can't wait to meet baby sister. Juliet sure is excited about it all. She will be such a sweet big sister. Still haven't picked a name or even narrowed it down to a good handful. Oh well, it will come, and so will she...soon I hope :) So excited!

Juliet-isms

I just want to jot down some Juliet sayings so I don't forget.

Anything she doesn't like or is scared of she will say is or has spiderwebs.

She likes to brush my hair to "get the bugs and spiderwebs out", not sure where she came up with that.

She calls things fatty-meaning big, pretty sure she got it from me. "the big fatty tree", the "fatty dog", "it's a fatty one", thankfully she has't called anyone a fatty. She says it very properly too, "fah-tee" so it makes it even funnier.

Her fire alarm once went off in her room because of the humidifier & to this day she is always on the lookout for fire alarms to tell me they are too loud.

She still kinda says things are "too gay", for the longest time I couldn't figure out what she was trying to say. Turns out she meant "too scary", she pronounces it better these days but sometimes it still sounds like "too gay".

When you ask her how a chicken pushes an egg out she squats down with a big grin and pushing face and says "EEEEEEEEE!"

One night the neighbors set off fireworks after she was asleep and it woke her up. She said "that's too loud, wakes Juliet up, thats not very nice"

When she wakes up in the morning she frequently says "I all done sleeping, I had a good nap."

She likes to "nuggle"

She likes to play a game with me where she she puts me in a bed and tucks me in then tells me to "close my eyes and go to sleep" and then as she is shutting the door she says "don't cry mommy" (but she really wants me to cry) so she can come back in and ask "do you need some cheese mommy?", or "mommy you need tuck-tuck?" She once even got daddy to get mommy some cheese for her, she was very insistent.

When you tell her to smile for a picture she does so with a big hissing sound.

She will frequently say "silly Juliet" or 'crazy Juliet" to herself when she is doing something. She jumped off the curb and said "whoa! crazy Juliet!"

When she spins around she says she is getting "busy" (dizzy)

She knows what a wedgie is and will let me know if she gets one.

She mostly refers to herself in the third person.

Everything has a mommy, daddy, and a Juliet(or baby). In Goldilocks there was the daddy bear, the mommy bear and the Juliet bear. Once she had a bunch of babies out at grandma's and there was a daddy baby a mommy baby and a Juliet baby. Since we had Haruka stay with us she usually adds a Haruka to the mix too: "daddy cup, mommy cup, Juliet cup & Ruka cup"

She frequently says things or people or animals are "sad, they miss their mommy", even inanimate things like the "tree is sad, it misses its mommy tree", occasionally substituted with daddy, but ususally mommy.

When telling me about things she likes to say "alittle bit". "I was sad in nursery, I cried a little bit, but the nursery daddy held me". Or "I missed you alittle bit". Lately she has also been using "so much", "I miss you so much".

She will sometimes say "I so drinky" instead of "I so thirsty", combining I want a drink with I'm so thirsty.

Thats all I can think of for right now, I'll add more as I remember.

Dying to know?

Yep, we are having another baby girl! Juliet is going to be a big sister.

Real Adventures in Potty Training

The idea of potty training has always really intimidated me. I really had no idea where to start and I was getting alot of misinformation/exaggeration so I felt very overwhelmed. So I am going to write about my saga for a couple reasons. First to document when and how it all went down. And second to maybe give comfort and info to other first time moms who are approaching the potty training bridge.

So ever since I had Juliet everyone and their dog began telling me "my child was potty trained by 2, by 18 months, by 1 year old..." For real! I think parents sometimes get a faulty memory about just when landmark events occurred. Sure you may have started potty training me at 1 year old but it says quite specifically in my babybook that I wasn't completely trained until 2 and a half. Yeah. Not to say there aren't some kids trained early, I saw my sister do it at 18 months with her first boy and have a couple other friends who also did it earlier than usual with their girls. Being a stay at home mom helps with this I think. You can give the child your attention 24/7 without having other caregivers to make it more complicated. I will test this theory with my next child when I am at home full time and I will of course have that child trained by 18months stat! ;)

My other misconception is people's definition of "potty trained". To me it meant "uses the potty on their own, doesn't have accidents anymore day or night". But I am gathering other people have more loose definitions. "I potty trained my child in one hour." one book said. Um yeah, he probably barely had time to use the potty once in that time and you are already patting yourself on the back? In the second hour I bet he has an accident and he becomes un-pottytrained again. So the child just knowing that a potty is for pottying in can mean their child is "potty trained". Or staying dry during the day, but needing a pull-up at night could also mean "potty trained". So I take people's assertions of "potty-trained" with a grain of salt these days because they everyone has a different definition.

I bought a potty chair for Juliet when she was 6 months old. I put her on it; I hoped she would use it. It sat collecting dust in our bathroom for the next year and a half.

At 18 months it was summertime and alot of people I talked to liked the buck-naked potty method. So I had Juliet running around pants-less most of the summer and she loved that of course. And I cleaned up tons of poop and pee off the floor. The thing I didn't get about this method(and maybe it would have worked if I had) was that you actually need to watch them closely and run them to the potty when they signal or begin to start going. We were in the middle of a huge construction project then and so I wasn't paying faithful attention to potty training and so we failed again.

At around 2 years old Juliet first used the potty on her own. We were all in the room, I was sewing I think, and she took off her diaper and went and peed on the potty all by herself. We got excited, we praised her. She was happy. She never did it again.

For the next few months I would occasionally put her on the potty at random times and sometimes randomly she would go. Nothing consistent. I figured she knew what to do so why didn't she just do it?

Then I decided last long weekend(May 28th-30th) to really buckle down and focus. Still not having read anything on potty training. We put her in undies, but no pants. Every 15 minutes or so I would remind her or ask her "are you was dry?" "do you need to go potty?" "remember to use the potty when you need to go?" Every 15 minutes, over and over and over. I didn't watch her constantly because, again, I was working on the never-ending construction project and couldn't. But she did great. She would go when I reminded her and sit on the potty and do her thing. She would get excited, we would get excited, and she would be supplied with a delicious sugary treat. She didn't stay dry during her nap that day.

That first night we did just undies for bedtime too since she had done so good in the day. Had her go pee before bed. Put her down. About 4 hours later she woke up calling to me because she wet the bed. Changed the sheets, had her sit on the potty. Reminded her to keep her undies dry and use the potty. Repeated two more times that night.

Church the next day went great. She wore undies. She told me she had to go potty during sacrament meeting and I rushed her to the bathroom...at the other end of the building...! She didn't make it, but I praised her for trying. New undies. She tells me her tummy hurts and she needs to go potty. Took her again. And she pooped on the potty big time. I was seriously so excited! I loudly praised her alot, and then felt alittle silly as I noticed some lady was sitting in the next stall over. Ah... new moms, they're so silly. I had no idea I could get so excited over poop. She stays dry until we get home from church. She goes pee on the potty when I remind her. She stays dry for her nap.

Next day(Monday) she goes potty alot, mostly on her own, but also when I remind her. She tries to get treats for just sitting on the potty. Denied! But I thank her for sitting on the potty and for staying dry. Have her go potty before we leave to go to the store. Go to a couple hardware stores (about an hour trip) and she did great. No accidents! I was nervous and reminded her often to stay dry and we even trying going potty at Lowes but she didn't have to go. She stayed dry for her nap this day.

Fast forward a couple more days of similar progress, her going more and more on her own, doing more successful pooping in the potty, averaging one wetting accident a day/night.

Then June 2nd(day 6) she stayed dry the whole night!!! Yay! 24 hours straight with no accidents!!! I woke her up at midnight to go potty and she got up herself early morning (4am-ish) and peed on the potty and called for me to empty it. And then again when she woke up dry at 8am she went potty on her own.

SO proud of her!!!

6/9/11 Update: It has been a few weeks now. She never wets herself during the day anymore, but does sometimes during her nap. We can go out and about and I don’t have to worry about an accident. Weirdly, she now will not poop on the potty for some reason, and will do it in her undies, usually right after being put down for nap. So we are working on this. Also she stays dry at night every third night or so. But all the other nights she has at least one wet accident in the night. I won’t give her back the diapers though; we clean up the mess and move on. I put on a mattress cover and bought a bunch of extra twin sheets at Goodwill so I can change the bedding as needed. She will get it eventually; we have to overcome 2 and a half years of habitual going freely in her diaper, especially in her sleep. That is a big change. People tell me it’s worth it. In some cases it really is, but in the middle of the night and I am sleep deprived because of potty training and cleaning up messes I wonder why I even bother.

I love my little girl. It is so fun to learn and grow with her. To teach her new things and experience her joy and delight in the world.

Chickens & Trampolines & Babies

We have been keeping busy. I'm so so nearly done with our house renovations. Just one closet and the flooring to go. Yay! Work is going good, can't complain. We aquired 5 baby chicks at Coastal a month ago when we went there to let Juliet look at the baby critters. They were giving away free ones so we ended up getting some "temporarily" to give to my mom after they got too big. But we got attached and so we buildt them a cute little coop this weekend. Juliet loves critters of all kinds, including her baby chicks.
We also aquired a free trampoline on craigslist that needed a few tabs sewn back on. Did that and now Juliet loves hopping around on it. Mostly naked for some reason. I guess clothes just get in the way of a good jump?
Juliet is a sweet, smart little girl. We love her so much. She loves: babies and animals, the letter "O" (as in "go ducks"), counting things, reading her books, helping herself to things(her catchphrase is "I do that"), building towers with legos or blocks, coloring/painting, and nuggling with mom & dad while watching "baby cows"(ie: videos of baby animals on youtube). We are working on potty training, but I obviously don't know what I'm doing so we aren't making alot of progress.
Dan is working hard. Puts in alot of overtime most days being the head machinist now. It's hard work but he enjoys it and does it well. It sure is handy having a hubby who can make or fix anything, or even make a tool to do the job :) I love him so much. He is a great husband and such a sweet daddy.
And finally, we are expecting baby number two November 1st! I am 4 months along and get to have my ultrasound in about a month to find out what we are having. Everyone is betting on a boy, I don't really care either way. Juliet loves the idea of having a new baby and has been very understanding on mommy feeling sick for the past couple months. I should start showing here soon and then I can post some belly pics :) Being pregnant is so fun, for the most part.







16 weeks(or 4 months) pregnant :)

Too much time on Facebook.

Well here it is February. Lots went on, just not alot posted since as I stated in the title, I spend to much time Facebooking. Oh well. Today was lovely. I am feeling much better & the weather is beautiful so I took the girls out in the back yard for playing in the sandbox and also a picnic lunch. SO fun! I hope the weather stays nice. I don't care for winter & rain much. Rather have snow or sunshine.




Oh yeah, and I was there too :) Smiles!