November Check In

[shauni27]

I cannot fathom that it is already November. The leaves here are all gone, we have snow in the forecast and it is crispy cold every morning. 

S still wants to be outside all the time, so the cold doesn't bother him, though he hates gloves. He did well with the time change.

We are "gearing up" for the holidays...which are tricky this year because we bought a new house and move in literally 10 days before friggin Christmas. I start panicking whenever I think about it, lol. I have been getting quotes on movers and need to coordinate work on the house so we can get it done ASAP when we move in. I have resigned myself to thinking that we will not do a Christmas tree this year...but of course it is G's first Christmas off in YEARS and we had talked about hosting a big brunch with our parents and my sister/BIL. Fortunately they are all understanding and would not mind at all if the house is half in disarray, but I will need to learn to unclench a little and know that living in the chaos will be temporary, lol. 

Anyone have fun upcoming Thanksgiving plans?

[loira]

Congrats on the house, Shauni! We already had Thanksgiving so are free to concentrate on Christmas prep.

It's my 10 year anniversary this month and we've got nothing planned. I'm so bummed. We'd originally thought about taking a big trip, but now we're saving up for a property. So then I thought about maybe a little trip up island, but my mum seemed reluctant to look after A for a weekend. My sister is coming to visit this weekend and said she'd babysit so I guess we'll just go out to dinner or something boring. At least it's a step up from what we did last year, which was nothing.

[shauni27]

loira, happy anniversary! Sorry no fun plans, though. Ours is next year and the plan all along has been to go on a nice trip just the two of us, but now with the new house I am not sure that will be feasible, which makes me so sad.

[scm1011]

Congrats on the house, shauni27!! That's exciting, even if the timing is less than idea. I'd probably still do a tree (i mean, if its important to you), and then just leave it up a bit longer than usual. Growing up we never got one until the week before Christmas anyway (unlike adult me, who buys one the Saturday after Thanksgiving lol).

loira, we didn't end up doing anything for our 10 year last year either. We had planned to take a big trip, but ended up starting the FET process a few months prior and scrapped it. I ended up being newly pregnant and feeling like garbage once the anniversary rolled around. It was definitely a bummer.

[pandora89]

Congrats on the new house shauni27!

Happy Anniversary loira!

Not much here, DS got a bug from daycare, shared it with me and now I have the worst first trimester cold that will just not go away. 7 days and counting.

[scm1011]

We're doing pretty well! DS turns 3 a week from today (HOW?!) and we're having his party this Sunday at our house. It's the first time we've done a "friends" party, and we invited 6 of his little buddies and their families. Its going to be a bit chaotic in our modest-sized apartment, but hopefully C will enjoy it. On his actual birthday we're going to head to the Museum of Science with his bestie's family.

Darby is 5 months old now and continues to be the world's happiest baby. She is always smiling, it's the best. She's still not the greatest sleeper (we're averaging about 3 MOTN wake-ups a night), but it's mostly manageable.

I ran my first pp half marathon yesterday. It felt good to do something for me, and I am actually pretty proud of how I did considering the lackluster training.

[shauni27]

scm1011, I cannot believe you already ran a half. You are so inspiring! also, sorry that D is not sleeping well. If I remember you had issues with C waking up a lot too, right? Speaking of C, I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS TURNING 3!!!

pandora89, I am obviously not pregnant, but I just had a cold that lasted 10 days and was so terrible. I was sure it was the flu I felt SO awful. I was the worst parent. I am sorry you are sick, it sucks.

also, scm1011, for the house I grew up also with my parents putting up a tree literally within a few days of Christmas. Now that they are older they put it up on the 23rd every year, lol. Because of this, my Jewish ass puts up a HUGE (12'!) tree the weekend of Thanksgiving every year. However, last year I did not get into the spirit because of all that was going on in the world, and it has kind of continued anyway, so it is a nice excuse to not have any Christmas spirit. I am sure we will end up with a little tree, but it seriously might be for like 5 days.

[scm1011]

shauni27 C was a WAY worse sleeper, so honestly 3 wake-ups feels really manageable most of the time, ha. Add in that she just wakes up SO happy instead of miserable and crying like C did, I can't complain. She really just wants to hang out and smile at me lol.

Feel better, pandora89! 

[thoseareradishes]

Congrats on the house shauni27 !
Happy Anniversary loira

E had a language explosion and has so many words. We are working on putting 2+ words together now. I just love her speech therapist, she is so much better than her previous therapist who just acted like E was annoying (grr). Potty training went really well and she's even staying dry at night, which I wasn't expecting.

I actually don't love love love Christmas, so I'm trying to get a head start on some things so I don't feel so overwhelmed in December. So far I've picked some gifts for E and H, and bought craft supplies for E to make some stuff for her grannies and aunts. I feel better already.

[shauni27]

thoseareradishes, encouraging about the potty training! We bought S some big boy undies this weekend and will work on potty training this weekend. We do have an event for a few hours out of the house on Saturday which I forgot about, but we will give it a try and worse case we can try again at Christmas when I am off for 10 days.

[kellikans]

Congrats on the house shauni27!
Hope you feel better soon pandora89.

We've had a rough last few weeks in our house. We put our dog down 2 weeks ago (she was 17, so it was expected, but still sad), Emmie caught a GI bug at daycare last week and was vomiting all day Tuesday, then gave it to me, and I was vomiting all day Halloween, and now poor baby has croup. Leo has had a cold for 2 weeks now and his nose won't stop.running. I've been dealing with vertigo and I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow about it. I just want everyone to be healthy.

We're doing photos the next two weekends, next Sunday is a pajama session with just the kids, then the following Sunday is family photos. I'm stressing about what we should all wear.

We've totally outgrown our 2 bedroom/1 bath house and are trying to figure out whether to remodel or move. We've talked to a few design/build firms and they've given us a rough estimate of $450-500k to remodel. Yikes. So now we're debating on whether or not we should move since it'll probably cost less. But I love our neighborhood and I'm worried I'll regret leaving, because there's no way we'd be able to buy back into it (we bought our house 10 years ago and houses have more than doubled since then). I don't know what to do.

[thoseareradishes]

shauni27, we used the Oh Crap method and I read the book cover to cover before we started. It gave me a lot of confidence going in. Going out of the house was definitely a little nerve-wracking at first, but I made sure I had her portable potty and a hand towel (she hates the electric dryers). And post-it notes to cover the automatic flusher sensors!

[knx9211]

I can’t believe how big all of these babies are getting. Ridiculous.

Congrats on the house Shauni!

They’re breaking ground on our house soon. Eeeeek. It’ll be ready in March. I’m so excited. I need to start clearing out our house and getting it ready to list. Sounds exhausting.

C is a month old already, which is insane. She is a pretty darn easy newborn once we got out of the first 2-3 weeks. Only one wake up last night, although the wake up always lasts 60-90 minutes- I’ll take it. P is almost 2 and a half and... an animal. Haha he’s a pretty good boy, but acts out and pushes boundaries A LOT. He is a chatterbox and so, so funny. Potty training is NOWHERE IN SIGHT. It’s a little frustrating because he definitely knows when he has to go. He announces it. But refuses to sit on the toilet. Whatever. He’s still little. I don’t have the energy to push it.

[shauni27]

kellikans, I am sorry about your dog and all the sickness. Losing a pet is awful. Also, Sage had Croup 2 weeks ago. SUCKS. Hugs, lady.

thoseareradishes, care to sum up the oh crap method for me? I was just going to have him be naked basically (his favorite thing anyway) and stay home as much as possible. I will set a timer every 45 minutes to pee. And if he has an accident I will clean it up and still bring him to the bathroom to try again. Maybe rewards, but no punishments, etc. Look for queues of having to poop, etc.

knx9211, exciting about the new build! I am really jealous. kellikans, I understand your feelings; I feel the same way! Before we bought the new house we looked at building because it is LITERALLY CHEAPER TO BUILD than it is to buy, but the money you need up front is more than what we have, so instead we bought a more expensive house, that needs a bit of work, because we had 60K down and not 75 we would need to build. Crazy, right??

[thoseareradishes]

shauni27, no pants for the first day or two. Watch like a hawk, try to figure out his pee and poop cues. Rush to bathroom at the first sign of pee or poop. After they are consistently peeing on the potty (with or without prompting), can put on pants. She encourages no undies for a while, but I put E in hers to go to gym 5 days in and she did fine, so I kept her in them. I like being able to say, don't pee/poop on Elmo and Abby!

Her biggies are no rewards and don't overprompt. She says rewards will eventually backfire, and kids need to use the potty because it's what you do as a human being, not to get a reward. Overprompting - toddlers like to be contrary, so if you overprompt they will get fed up and stop cooperating. Get them to go at transition times - before and after eating, before and after going out, before and after sleeping, etc. I kept an eye on the clock and encouraged her to go about every 1 - 2 hours, which usually coincided with a transition time.

Pooping can be difficult. E didn't really get it at first - she'd just squat on the floor and go. Using an example from the book, I explained what it felt like when you have to poop. I didn't think she would get it, but she did and still talks about it (usually at the dinner table, yay). The little potty helps a lot with poop, because they need their feet on something so they can bear down. So far E doesn't care about me being in the bathroom with her, but some kids need privacy.

The Oh Crap author has a website, a lot of the blog posts are the same as chapters in the book. She also has some YouTube videos.

[G22]

I had baby #2! DD was born 2 weeks ago (tomorrow) by emergency csection. It was a whirlwind thing where I was just went to a 2nd opinion appt with MFM about a fetal arrhythmia my OB had found, to having the baby 4 hours later!

Because she was 3 weeks early, she had some preemie issues and spent 11 days in the NICU. We just got home on Monday and its so good to finally be out of the hospital. She has a rarer heart arrhythmia that we'll have to continue follow ups with a pediatric cardiologist, but she's doing well for now.

DS is in love with her. He literally wants to hold her all the time (but only for 30 seconds at a time 😂). He melted down because he wanted to sit next to her in the van last night and I had them in different rows. She is such an easy baby compared to DS at the stage, partly due to her NICU stay I think. Not only will she actually let me lay her down to sleep but she loves being swaddled and eats on a pretty strict 3 hour schedule.

[G22]

scm1011 congrats on the half! That's awesome!

shauni27 congrats on your house!!

[shauni27]

G22, I am so glad that Z got to come home and you are both doing well! She is adorable <3