No worries, Momma!

E doesn't take naps much anymore...I'm very lucky if I can get her to take two a week. But, I insist that she 'rests' for an hour or so in her room. At 39 weeks pregnant, I need the nap and downtime!

A couple days ago, I was dozing when I heard her door open. The next thing I heard was, "No worries, Momma. I wash my undies out in the toilet!" She proceeded to go into the bathroom. As I hoisted myself out of bed, I could hear her swishing her undies in the toilet. Needless to say, I was not thrilled that she had an accident, but she did have the majority of the mess in her undies cleaned out when I got into the bathroom. After cleaning her up, I got her back into her room to finish her rest time and I found that she had gotten most of the bm into the little potty in her room. It must have been a juicy toot that ended up in her undies.

But, now I cringe whenever I hear, "No worries, Momma!"...it usually means some sort of mess awaits me. I never realized that I said, "No worries" to her...but I must because she's saying it an awful lot these days.

Falling off the Blogging Bandwagon

Wow! Its been more than a month since I've blogged anything. It certainly isn't because we are sitting around the house doing nothing! Well, the weather turned colder and rainy a couple weeks ago and E and I have been around the house more...but we are keeping busy doing this and that!

Baby will be here any time. I hit the 38-week mark tomorrow. E came within that week...so I'm trying to get everything ready. Last night I got my 'E sub sheet' done for E's grandparents that will be watching her while I'm in the hospital. I also finally got our birth plan typed up ready to give to the doctor. We've been taking Bradley method classes since August prepping for this birth...I'm hoping to avoid another C-section. We'll see how that goes shortly.

I also finally finished E's first year scrapbook last night. So, I can finally finish cleaning all of my scrappin' stuff out of the baby's room and finish getting that ready and organized.

E is getting more articulate all the time. She says the funniest things. Her imagination is really taking off too. It is fun to listen to her play with her dollhouse and Little people.

She just said, "You want to take pictures of me on the TV, please?" as she crawled up on my lap and said, "I need you!" She loves kissing my belly and talking to her baby 'sister'...I'm a bit worried that if baby comes out as a boy that she's going to want to send it back for a sister. Hopefully, she'll make that adjustment. I think she'll be a great big sister. I'm a bit concerned that she will be overly helpful and bossy. But, I'm sure she'll do fine. However, she does LOVE to boss the cat around. Hmmm...she definitely exhibits first-born characteristics!

Potty-training is basically completed. She has a few accidents now and again but generally, she's figured it all out. We even spent the day shopping on Tuesday and came home dry. She's growing up so fast!


E helping to get the car seat ready for 'baby sister'. I can't believe how big she's gotten and how little a newborn is going to be!!!

E's first haircut

E is 27.5 months old and was finally ready for her first haircut today. Well, maybe I was ready to get her hair cut today. We will be seeing all Jut's family tomorrow and I thought that she might look a bit better with a touch of a trim. She was looking a tad bit shaggy these days. So, I called Penney's and they could fit her in this afternoon. I made a big deal about talking the experience up and getting her excited for it (the same strategy that I used for the 1st dentist visit)...and she did very well.

Arriving and getting settled into her chair


Discussing the options

Look I have bangs! I can see again!!!

Bye-bye mullet!

Random Photo Shoot

The weather has been beautiful this week to send all the teachers in the state back to work. E and I enjoyed it by having an impromptu photo shoot on Monday. It reminded me why I'm glad to be home enjoying my time with her instead of heading back to work!

We ended our shoot with these final words...Gotta' love potty training! (We are almost at the end of that journey! Yipee for E!!!)

The Holland Beach

We traveled last weekend to Holland to visit Jut's folks. While we were there, we couldn't resist taking E to the beach. She thought the walk up the dunes was fun, but it took both of us holding her hands to get her to the top. It was tough walking!


We went to the Riley beach and let E experience some waves...They were really rolling in Thursday afternoon! She thought that they were pretty neat, but kept a tight grip on her dad's hand for the first minute or so.


The waves were very chilly on her feet, but she loved it!



Sitting down and letting the waves wash over you was a lot of fun, also. However, once a wave splashed her in the face, there was no more sitting!

She was freezing after 5 minutes, but that didn't stop her fun. She kept playing and playing and shivering and shivering....

There was a little inlet that had been filled with the waves. It was significantly warmer than the lake. She'd go 'warm up' in that and then go play in the waves again. She loved playing in the water!!

Jut couldn't resist the big waves, either. He played out in them for awhile.

I finally convinced E that she needed to warm up. She snuggled right in to the towel and didn't move for a few minutes.

Walking up the dunes to head for the car.


E needed a helping hand up the dune...

A very unhappy girl once she realized that we were going back to the car...or maybe it was because we pulled her away from a berry bush that she was harvesting for the birds. But, she was not happy to be leaving!!

However, I did remember why I don't like going to the beach. We got E back to the car, stripped of her swimsuit and found oodles of sand...then we took off her swim diaper and found even more sand. We took her back to Jut's folks' house naked...and still ended up with a ton of sand in the car. However, I am glad that we didn't get pulled over or in an accident on the way home. I wouldn't have wanted to explain our naked child to a cop!

Where does brilliance end and stupidity begin???

The past few weeks were frustrating. E wasn't napping...well, she might take a nap every 4th day or so, but I'm needing one every day and it just wasn't working out well. She was waiting until I put her in her room to nap to poop. So, every day I was cleaning up poopy undies because she wouldn't use the little potty when left alone in her room. I tried keeping her up later from nap to get her to poop before putting her down...but nothing was successful.

On Tuesday, I had a brainstorm...(or some might say a case of insanity). I started potty training her commando...so maybe she needed to be commando to be poop trained too. Our only pooping successes happened when she was commando running around the house.

When I left her room at naptime, I stripped off her shorts and undies. She didn't care. She strips them off when she's playing around our house all the time anyway. I went across the hall and waited. She giggled, closed her door and I could hear her talking and playing with her animals. I could just see her and every so often she'd run to the potty. I'd ask if she'd need wiped and she'd reply "no". However within 20 minutes, she called out "I pooped. Need wiped!".

I entered her room and she said, "Mommy, big worm in the potty!" Sure enough, there was a huge log sitting in the little potty. Yipee. I cleaned her and the potty up. Put her back in her room and she eventually fell asleep.

We have repeated this scene for the past 2 days. She plays then poops and then very peacefully lays down for her nap. Fortunately, she is also staying dry while she is sleeping. Brilliance or stupidity??? I'm not really sure, but it has worked wonderfully!

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Just a side note: We put up the crib and changing table today in the baby's room. E thinks it is great fun to scale up the crib and play in it. All of her bedding ended up in the crib this morning. She's such a goof. She's taking her nap right now in her true 'big girl' bed for the first time. We let her sleep on a mattress for several weeks. Then, we added the box springs and today she has the real headboard and bedframe underneath her. She thinks she's big stuff! ;-)

First Prayer

We were putting E to bed tonight and Jut said, "Can we pray?" E bowed her little head, laid down and said,

"Dear Jesus,
Thank you for today.
Thank you for the stars (or maybe it was "storms"...Jut and I don't quite know).
Amen."

She was pretty adorable!