You've really been letting yourself go lately
(Mommy Blog)
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
"You've really been letting yourself go lately. "
Yes, my husband actually said that to me a couple weeks ago. I kindly reminded him that I'm pregnant. And that he did it to me.
Of course he was only joking though. We share a bitterly sarcastic sense of humor. So after barking back at him, how could I help but to laugh at the absurdity of it all?
I weighed 115 before this all started. Then at 17 weeks (left picture) I probably weighed a bit more.
Now at 32 weeks I'm 139 POUNDS!! (right picture). It's a bit uncomfortable. Can't lay on my back anymore (even though the doctor said it's OK to do that until I feel uncomfortable.) That's been refreshing to know since during my first pregnancy I was paranoid of laying on my back.
See, I love to lay on my back, and if I lay in any other position at night I wake up with stiff, tingly limbs, a wicked neck & backache. But now that my little parcel is getting heavier I can feel instant circulation restriction somewhere in my body when I lay on my back. So now I shift from left to right, enduring the stiff tingly limbs and wicked neck & backaches throughout the night and every morning. Ugh.
Can't wait to squeeze this parcel outta me. But soon enough I'll be carrying it around in my arms and it will not let me sleep peacefully for the next three years. My little boy has just recently started to sleep through the night. Now here we go again. By the way, I am a mega sleep connoisseur. So this sleep deprivation thing is no laughing matter to me.
Anybody want to babysit a baby every night for the next few years? Haha. Don't y'all volunteer at once now.
Well I got myself into this, so I must face the consequences of raising this child for the next 18 years, plus the rest of my life when the child has trouble adjusting in the adult world and insists on living at home until the age of 30 or beyond. Y'know kids these days. Sheesh.
But of course there are huge joys. I experience them every day. I love my little dude that we already have. He's made me a better person. And he sure is neat.
Now I'm 32 weeks pregnant. So how much longer...? SEVEN MORE WEEKS! Yup, in shortly over a month I will be a repeat offender as a mother. Let's hope I've learned something from the first go-around that I might be able to apply to the next baby.
One thing I'm going to try is POTTY TRAINING FROM THE AGE OF ZERO. Yup, apparently it can be done. And if I'm patient enough to get through it, it should save us a mint on diapers.
My sister-in-law did it with her little boy. He just turned one, and according to her, he rarely, if ever, soils a diaper. He's conditioned to wait until he's sittin' on the potty. She watches for his signals, is familiar with his potty cycles, and takes him to the loo frequently.
Now that he'll be walking soon, I bet she's looking forward to having him walk his own sweet self to the toilet. And one day soon he just might pull down his own drawers and wipe his own tush. Then voila! It will be a potty training success.
Sure, that method of potty training takes two years or so, but again, my aim here is to avoid the expense of diapers. THEY'RE EXPENSIVE!! And I want to avoid changing nasty diapers as much as possible. I can't tell you how many times I've lost my lunch during diaper changes. Just can't bear to go through that again.
Another thing I'm going to aim for with this child is to really push VEGETABLES! See, the error that we and millions of other parents have made is being so concerned that the wee kid turns his nose up at anything remotely healthy, that they give in to the child's natural liking for sweets and breads. After trying for what seemed like FOREVER to get our 9-month-old to take anything besides formula, my husband finally got him to down the greater portion of a jar of sweet potatoes. Then he fell in love with jars of peaches. As for vegetables...? He'd spit out peas like he was Linda Blair. Thankfully his head didn't spin around. But we gradually gave up on vegetables. It was too painful and wasteful. And heck, I don't really like 'em either.
But vegetables do make me feel good an hour or so after I've eaten them. It's a feeling so good that it's definitely worth the comparatively bland taste of vegetables. But how do you explain that to a baby? You can't. You can just offer them nothing but veggies. Once they master the veggies, ever so cautiously introduce the fruit and hope to God that the child will ever try another vegetable again.
Sigh.
Yesterday I tried to make vegetables fun for Michael...Hubby & I spent over an hour concocting open-face egg salad sandwiches with veggie funny faces on top. I kinda guessed he wouldn't actually eat them, so I made sure to at least take a picture.
Sure 'nuf, he loved helping me make them, and then he loved LOOKING at them, but he refused to put a single thing in his mouth. Except for an olive slice. He loves olives. No problem there.
So my plan for introducing veggies to our baby, when the time comes, is to put some yummy avocado into one of these thingy's:
My all-or-nothing plan there is to refuse the child any other solid foods until it takes to veggies. Yup. That's my idealistic, unrealistic plan!
Another plan is to never ever EVER give the child juice. See, once my son got a taste of juice, he's never accepted anything else. Then his teeth rotted and we had to take him to the dentist, get him sedated, have at least 7 cavities filled, and all that cost over $600. Thank goodness nowadays dentists can fill cavities with tooth-colored enamel. No more of that silver stuff. BUT CHILDREN SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT!! Since I'm an all-or-nothing type of gal, I say, NO JUICE OR SWEETS EVER for our second little munchkin. EVER. Ha.
By the way, we really aren't sure of the child's gender. That's why I've been referring to it without regard to gender. Since my pregnancy has been going peachy, we don't get any more insurance-covered ultrasounds. The first and only ultrasound we had done, the babe was laying with its feet curled up, covering the crucial area. The techinician worked for a long time to get the baby to scooch a little...and at one point we saw something like a little hot-dog-bun type of genitalia...y'know, like a little girl, but it was such a fuzzy image, even the technician wouldn't tell me he was sure of anything. My husband said if it was a girl we would have been able to see the ovaries, but I'm not sure if the technician had it zoomed in that far inside the baby.
Hope it's another boy so we won't have to go shopping. I hate shopping.
But either way it will be OK. If it's a girl we'll just buy her a pink bow to put on her head, then dress her in all the stuff we used for Michael. We were rich back then but we're peniless now. So we'll just have a little tomboy until we get rich again some day to buy her all the pink frilly things she's expected to wear.
On that note, I have a way of questioning everything. I say, why on earth should we fall prey to buying the kid all kinds of baby paraphernalia? I learned last time that all the baby really needs it to be kept warm, fed, safe, happy, and very very loved. I can do that. And it shouldn't cost much. All the baby toys we bought for Michael, he scarecly touched until he was much older. So I ain't falling into that trap this time. Babies do NOT NEED all those bright, colorful, EXPENSIVE toys. They'll develop dexterity, visual acuity and intelligence just the same way people have been developing it since the beginning of time: by existing.
On questioning everything, I don't even believe we need a separate bedroom for the baby or even a crib. We didn't even use a crib for our son. Don't get me wrong: we HAD a crib for him, but he never slept in it. He slept with us. We all slept a lot better that way. We're just odd I guess. But we're happy with that arrangement, and couldn't imagine separating the kids from the parents. People did it in the olden days, and some primitive cultures still have "family beds." So call us primitive. When I think of putting a baby in a crib it makes me sad because it's like a prison. We don't have pets, and our house & bed is safe (no frame, headboard, or footboard). So there's no need to imprison the poor child in a crib. Oh, and I don't plan on rolling over and crushing the baby. Even in my sleep I'm well aware there's a baby near me. I'm already familiar with such nay-sayers as Dr. Sears.com, and this one too. We've had no problem with co-sleeping before. Our lifestyle and family style is suited to such a choice. We'll just get one of these thingy's:
We've already got a bouncer and a groovy exersaucer that my son totally loved, and still loves. We've got baby backpacks, papooses. ...
I ain't doin' any more shopping. Sorry kid.
OK, maybe a little. Like a wet wipe warmer. Twenty or thirty bucks though. What a scam. But it will be winter time when this little child is born, so cold wipes on a tush can't be any fun.
And a soft foam baby-contoured mat for taking baths.
You know what? I'm so glad we've got a Wal*Mart now. And a Target. Oh, the stuff they have for babies! Our last baby was born in Germany and there were so many things we needed that just simply didn't exist at any store there. And I'm not a big online shopper. It can be dangerously addictive and way too easy to spend way too much money. And paying for shipping....? Forget it.
'Nuf rambling. Bye now. "
Yes, my husband actually said that to me a couple weeks ago. I kindly reminded him that I'm pregnant. And that he did it to me.
Of course he was only joking though. We share a bitterly sarcastic sense of humor. So after barking back at him, how could I help but to laugh at the absurdity of it all?
I weighed 115 before this all started. Then at 17 weeks (left picture) I probably weighed a bit more.
Now at 32 weeks I'm 139 POUNDS!! (right picture). It's a bit uncomfortable. Can't lay on my back anymore (even though the doctor said it's OK to do that until I feel uncomfortable.) That's been refreshing to know since during my first pregnancy I was paranoid of laying on my back.
See, I love to lay on my back, and if I lay in any other position at night I wake up with stiff, tingly limbs, a wicked neck & backache. But now that my little parcel is getting heavier I can feel instant circulation restriction somewhere in my body when I lay on my back. So now I shift from left to right, enduring the stiff tingly limbs and wicked neck & backaches throughout the night and every morning. Ugh.
Can't wait to squeeze this parcel outta me. But soon enough I'll be carrying it around in my arms and it will not let me sleep peacefully for the next three years. My little boy has just recently started to sleep through the night. Now here we go again. By the way, I am a mega sleep connoisseur. So this sleep deprivation thing is no laughing matter to me.
Anybody want to babysit a baby every night for the next few years? Haha. Don't y'all volunteer at once now.
Well I got myself into this, so I must face the consequences of raising this child for the next 18 years, plus the rest of my life when the child has trouble adjusting in the adult world and insists on living at home until the age of 30 or beyond. Y'know kids these days. Sheesh.
But of course there are huge joys. I experience them every day. I love my little dude that we already have. He's made me a better person. And he sure is neat.
Now I'm 32 weeks pregnant. So how much longer...? SEVEN MORE WEEKS! Yup, in shortly over a month I will be a repeat offender as a mother. Let's hope I've learned something from the first go-around that I might be able to apply to the next baby.
One thing I'm going to try is POTTY TRAINING FROM THE AGE OF ZERO. Yup, apparently it can be done. And if I'm patient enough to get through it, it should save us a mint on diapers.
My sister-in-law did it with her little boy. He just turned one, and according to her, he rarely, if ever, soils a diaper. He's conditioned to wait until he's sittin' on the potty. She watches for his signals, is familiar with his potty cycles, and takes him to the loo frequently.
Now that he'll be walking soon, I bet she's looking forward to having him walk his own sweet self to the toilet. And one day soon he just might pull down his own drawers and wipe his own tush. Then voila! It will be a potty training success.
Sure, that method of potty training takes two years or so, but again, my aim here is to avoid the expense of diapers. THEY'RE EXPENSIVE!! And I want to avoid changing nasty diapers as much as possible. I can't tell you how many times I've lost my lunch during diaper changes. Just can't bear to go through that again.
Another thing I'm going to aim for with this child is to really push VEGETABLES! See, the error that we and millions of other parents have made is being so concerned that the wee kid turns his nose up at anything remotely healthy, that they give in to the child's natural liking for sweets and breads. After trying for what seemed like FOREVER to get our 9-month-old to take anything besides formula, my husband finally got him to down the greater portion of a jar of sweet potatoes. Then he fell in love with jars of peaches. As for vegetables...? He'd spit out peas like he was Linda Blair. Thankfully his head didn't spin around. But we gradually gave up on vegetables. It was too painful and wasteful. And heck, I don't really like 'em either.
But vegetables do make me feel good an hour or so after I've eaten them. It's a feeling so good that it's definitely worth the comparatively bland taste of vegetables. But how do you explain that to a baby? You can't. You can just offer them nothing but veggies. Once they master the veggies, ever so cautiously introduce the fruit and hope to God that the child will ever try another vegetable again.
Sigh.
Yesterday I tried to make vegetables fun for Michael...Hubby & I spent over an hour concocting open-face egg salad sandwiches with veggie funny faces on top. I kinda guessed he wouldn't actually eat them, so I made sure to at least take a picture.
Sure 'nuf, he loved helping me make them, and then he loved LOOKING at them, but he refused to put a single thing in his mouth. Except for an olive slice. He loves olives. No problem there.
So my plan for introducing veggies to our baby, when the time comes, is to put some yummy avocado into one of these thingy's:
My all-or-nothing plan there is to refuse the child any other solid foods until it takes to veggies. Yup. That's my idealistic, unrealistic plan!
Another plan is to never ever EVER give the child juice. See, once my son got a taste of juice, he's never accepted anything else. Then his teeth rotted and we had to take him to the dentist, get him sedated, have at least 7 cavities filled, and all that cost over $600. Thank goodness nowadays dentists can fill cavities with tooth-colored enamel. No more of that silver stuff. BUT CHILDREN SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT!! Since I'm an all-or-nothing type of gal, I say, NO JUICE OR SWEETS EVER for our second little munchkin. EVER. Ha.
By the way, we really aren't sure of the child's gender. That's why I've been referring to it without regard to gender. Since my pregnancy has been going peachy, we don't get any more insurance-covered ultrasounds. The first and only ultrasound we had done, the babe was laying with its feet curled up, covering the crucial area. The techinician worked for a long time to get the baby to scooch a little...and at one point we saw something like a little hot-dog-bun type of genitalia...y'know, like a little girl, but it was such a fuzzy image, even the technician wouldn't tell me he was sure of anything. My husband said if it was a girl we would have been able to see the ovaries, but I'm not sure if the technician had it zoomed in that far inside the baby.
Hope it's another boy so we won't have to go shopping. I hate shopping.
But either way it will be OK. If it's a girl we'll just buy her a pink bow to put on her head, then dress her in all the stuff we used for Michael. We were rich back then but we're peniless now. So we'll just have a little tomboy until we get rich again some day to buy her all the pink frilly things she's expected to wear.
On that note, I have a way of questioning everything. I say, why on earth should we fall prey to buying the kid all kinds of baby paraphernalia? I learned last time that all the baby really needs it to be kept warm, fed, safe, happy, and very very loved. I can do that. And it shouldn't cost much. All the baby toys we bought for Michael, he scarecly touched until he was much older. So I ain't falling into that trap this time. Babies do NOT NEED all those bright, colorful, EXPENSIVE toys. They'll develop dexterity, visual acuity and intelligence just the same way people have been developing it since the beginning of time: by existing.
On questioning everything, I don't even believe we need a separate bedroom for the baby or even a crib. We didn't even use a crib for our son. Don't get me wrong: we HAD a crib for him, but he never slept in it. He slept with us. We all slept a lot better that way. We're just odd I guess. But we're happy with that arrangement, and couldn't imagine separating the kids from the parents. People did it in the olden days, and some primitive cultures still have "family beds." So call us primitive. When I think of putting a baby in a crib it makes me sad because it's like a prison. We don't have pets, and our house & bed is safe (no frame, headboard, or footboard). So there's no need to imprison the poor child in a crib. Oh, and I don't plan on rolling over and crushing the baby. Even in my sleep I'm well aware there's a baby near me. I'm already familiar with such nay-sayers as Dr. Sears.com, and this one too. We've had no problem with co-sleeping before. Our lifestyle and family style is suited to such a choice. We'll just get one of these thingy's:
We've already got a bouncer and a groovy exersaucer that my son totally loved, and still loves. We've got baby backpacks, papooses. ...
I ain't doin' any more shopping. Sorry kid.
OK, maybe a little. Like a wet wipe warmer. Twenty or thirty bucks though. What a scam. But it will be winter time when this little child is born, so cold wipes on a tush can't be any fun.
And a soft foam baby-contoured mat for taking baths.
You know what? I'm so glad we've got a Wal*Mart now. And a Target. Oh, the stuff they have for babies! Our last baby was born in Germany and there were so many things we needed that just simply didn't exist at any store there. And I'm not a big online shopper. It can be dangerously addictive and way too easy to spend way too much money. And paying for shipping....? Forget it.
'Nuf rambling. Bye now. "
, you must have read my article from last night called "I Love You"!! 
I kinda hope you have a little girl like me so we can be in the same boat again, hehe.