surfacing April 16, 2008

Hello there! Oy, has my non-posting been hanging over my head. Busy, busy, blah blah blah. I just today caught up on most of your blogs, and also deleted some subscriptions on my Google Reader, so I am feeling much more capable.

My parents are visiting, and Sherman’s birthday party was this past weekend. It went well and the weather held out for the afternoon. Lauren has some great photos. I can’t decide which my favorite is.

I don’t even really want to talk about it, because living it is more than enough, but our house has been Tantrum City lately. I’m not sure if it’s gotten worse, or if Train and I were just used to it and now having the additional audience of my mom and dad has brought it back into glaring focus. Sherman now hates, with the fires of a thousand hells, getting dressed. WTF? It takes two of us to get him dressed (even to go “outside” like he wants). Lately he doesn’t want to get out of the bathtub. I try to give him plenty of warning…draining the tub (which has the potential to send him spiraling off into Freak Out Land), putting away toys, telling him “I’m going to put away the laundry and when I get back we’re going to get dressed.” Sometimes he gets out willingly but still has a shit fit putting on pajamas. The other night I got him in his fleece sleeper, just to have him ask to take it off half an hour later and run around naked with no diaper. ??? Then there are just the random fits that have no explanation. “Do you want the light on?” “NO NO NO NO NO!” “Do you want the light off?” “NO NO NO NO NO!”

I’m guessing this is the “Terrible Twos”, and like I said, I feel like Train and I had gotten used to it (we take a mostly wait-it-out-slash-ignore-it approach) but it is still…draining. It’s hard to watch your son scream and cry and have no clue what his problem is.

It’s got me thinking more about how in the hell a toddler and a newborn can co-exist in the same house. Surely these fits are going to wake up the baby. And surely the middle-of-the-night crying is going to wake Sherman. I don’t get it. I’m trying not to think about it too much. That worked well for me with my first pregnancy.

Otherwise, Sherman had a great 24-month checkup on Friday, with no shots (just a finger stick), and the doctor even told us we didn’t have to worry about his habit of banging his head on the floor when he’s mad. Just frustration from not being able to communicate. I’ve actually noticed a huge increase in his speech. Sherman is really trying hard to imitate and repeat after us. It’s so exciting!! I always notice a big jump when my parents visit, but that may because I’m around him more during their visits because I take time off work.

In other news, my nosebleeds have gotten worse, and I’m going to see an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist next week. I’m actually very, very excited. I had told Train that as soon as this baby was born, I was going to go get checked out and see if anything could be done (perhaps the blood vessels in my nose could be cauterized, if that was the source). But after a sudden, gushing, messy episode in the car between Kay’s wedding and reception, he encouraged me to make an appointment now. Turns out, according to my OB, most of what the ENT might do to help me will be safe during pregnancy. We’ll see. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, and I can get some real relief.

trading spaces, gestation edition February 29, 2008

In order to make room for Sherman’s new sibling, we plan to move him into a new room and give the baby the “nursery”, which is the smallest bedroom and right next to the master. We’ve decided to go ahead and set up his new room with a big boy bed and give him time to get used to it, moving him to the new room at night after my parents’ next visit in April (after his 2nd birthday). At first I thought we needed to do either the bed or the room first, then the other, but it worked for other people so I’ll give it a shot.

This weekend we plan to get everything out of our downstairs extra bedroom (that only get used when my parents visit in the winter, when my dad decides to sleep down there with the dog because he coughs so much) and move everything from our upstairs office into that downstairs room. I am so excited. We have been slowly clearing out the office and it will be so nice to have an empty room to paint and fill up with Sherman’s new furniture. Not that we have decided what exactly to get him yet, but anyway. De-cluttering! Organizing! Arranging furniture! I’ve been looking forward to it all week.

So here are some before pictures so you know what I’m dealing with. Notes in Flickr, just click on the photos.

This is the downstairs bedroom. I cannot tell you how sad I am that I am going to have to space-bag that comforter set. I absolutely love it. I bought it from JCPenney when we lived in our first house, literally the day that my aunt and uncle came to visit Washington for a week. We had just finished painting our guest bedroom the weekend before and I wanted things to be nice. I managed to find this set and it was just what I was looking for. I’m depressed that I won’t get to use it on a bed…like, ever again. I even bought it in a queen size so that I could use it for a bigger bed in the future, and put this full size bed up on risers so the comforter and skirt didn’t hang on the ground.

Barely visible behind the bed is our cedar chest. It’s full of stuff from mine and my mother’s childhoods. It’s too full to fit anything else in there. My mom keeps saying to throw her stuff out but I want to keep it. This may get cleaned out though, and if it doesn’t “work” in here it may move to our bedroom.

We are giving the two dressers and the nightstand to one of Train’s coworkers.

The closet. Half of this stuff has to go somewhere else because I have to put the stuff from the office closet in here.

This is the upstairs office that will become Sherman’s room. We’ll take down the shelf. Walls will be blue. Because really…what other options do you have for a boy? The nursery is green so that’s taken.

The closet and bookshelf. The bookshelf will go downstairs with the desk and sofa. The closet…I want to get most of that stuff out of there. I might be okay with leaving some stuff on the shelf of the closet but probably not. Sherman accumulates enough stuff I’m sure we will need the space.

The loveseat will go into the “new” office.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have “after” pictures of the downstairs room. Train keeps pressuring me to pick a paint color for Sherman’s room because I can’t decide between, like, 6 different blues. Usually it’s not a big deal but these colors are all so gorgeous. I ordered a dinosaur comforter which hasn’t come in yet, but it’s mostly blue too, so yikes. I’m thinking most of the other things in the room will be red and orange. I’m thinking bed, small bookshelf, dresser or chest, glider. Mom thinks we need to get, or at least save room for, a child’s table or desk, and she thinks he isn’t going to have floor room to play in his room. But he has the living room and family room where all of his toys are, where he spends most of his time now, so hopefully it will be fine.

random monday (with 20% more parentheses) January 28, 2008

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK REUNION? EEEEE!!

Seriously, I’m not sure if they are talking about a tour, or a single concert, or what, but wow, what a throwback. I remember my first concert ever, NKOTB, with my mom, her friend, and her friend’s two daughters. I was in third grade. I had to leave school early that day to get fitted for my retainer. But I had also just gotten my hair permed so that I would look good for Jonathan. It was at the Dean Dome. I got the tickets for Valentines Day. That would have been 1990. Every girl in my grade went to that concert and went home and slept on her NKOTB sheets. It’s hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago. Whoa. “Didn’t I blow your mind this time, didn’t I?”
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The 5 Most Wasteful Baby Products

Wow, I’m not sure who this woman is but…we have 4 out of 5 of these products. I don’t pretend to be “green” but I can tell you that we could not (and still cannot) live without the video monitor, END OF STORY. The sleep positioner was to try to mitigate the effects of plagiocephaly (”flat head”), and was doctor-recommended. Although we don’t have the Diaper Genie, we have (and love) the Diaper Champ (which does not use special bags). And the wipes warmer…yeah, I have no explanation for that. We don’t have the “motion sensor” (in fact I hadn’t heard of it), but the one thing I have repeatedly wished for is a poop/smell sensor…it’s hard to tell over the beloved video monitor if Sherman is having a hard time settling down because he’s got a nasty diaper.
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Train took Sherman to the pediatrician Friday for a phantom ear infection (i.e. he was digging in his ear Thursday but there was no fluid). She told Train we needed to take away the pacifier. Apparently Sherman is holding it on the left side of his mouth which is why his front top and bottom teeth don’t touch. Yuck. I had actually noticed that the teeth weren’t even but I figured they just weren’t done coming in yet. Except that the last of them came in about 8 months ago. So, whatever.

Weaning from the pacifier has really been the one thing NOT on my radar. I was focused on the impending room change and the transition from crib to bed. We say all the time that taking it away would probably allow him to talk more, and maybe reduce his drooling. And he really doesn’t need/want it until he sees it. But sometimes it is the quickest and easiest way to calm him down, so we don’t go anywhere without one.

So all weekend he did not have a binky during the day and of course he did fine. Nap time and night time are going to be a little tougher but (knock on wood) I think we’ll be fine. Typically, Sherman goes into the crib with a binky in his mouth, and then I give him one to hold once he is tucked in. On Saturday I was just going to give him one to hold, but he had a massive fit when I turned off Elmo for bedtime and it was the only way to calm him down. He did fine with just one binky. On Sunday I hid a binky in the corner of the crib during his nap and I’m not totally sure (it was hard to tell on the video monitor) but I don’t think he saw it until he woke/sat up (he had it in his mouth when I got him out of the crib). Last night I “hid” it again. Tonight I will either hide it or not put one in at all. And actually, it’s liberating. One less thing to worry about checking off a list of milestones. I am really proud of Sherman.
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This weekend my best girlfriends from college came to visit. It was so nice to have everyone together, most of them haven’t seen Sherman since last summer or longer. He had so much fun with all of them, and we got to go out for a girls-only lunch and to see 27 Dresses, which was amazing. As someone who sees a movie in the theater about twice a year, I am so glad we went to see it. It was hilarious, and who doesn’t like Katherine Heigl? It was truly laugh-out-loud hysterical and even more so because of who I was with. And some great previews…Fool’s Gold and Made of Honor! Lots of yummy guys on Saturday.
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My seriously-in-need-of-a-nail-trim toddler gave me a little scratch on the bridge of my nose at some point this weekend. I remember something stinging, but I usually have no battle scars from the daily abuse of motherhood, so I didn’t think about it until after my shower this morning when it was bleeding. It’s really not that big, but pretty much right in between my eyes. So now my nose is bleeding from the inside and outside.
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I finally saw Gone With the Wind this weekend thanks to Netflix (I just recently finished the book - my mom’s all-time favorite - after New Years). It was great, but I have to say those of you who haven’t read the book are totally cheating. I can’t get over how much they left out…most of all Scarlett’s first two children. Of course they couldn’t film the entire book, that would take days to watch, but I feel about this movie like I do the Harry Potter movies and books…you really can’t appreciate one without the other. The movie to give you faces and scenes to help enhance the book, and the book to give you the true background and inner thoughts of the characters in the movie.

first word January 12, 2008

We are considering “bubble” to be Sherman’s first word…it’s the one thing he will say on his own, when he sees it, without prompting (except in this video of course). Everything round is a bubble.