Nick is Getting Ready. . .

. . . to meet his little brother! Doesn't he look handsome?

We both went for haircuts today, and Nick was incredibly well-behaved. He sat the entire time for his haircut, chatted with the stylist, and then played with combs and hairclips while I got my hair cut. Nick used his indoor voice the whole time! He even tried picking up the pieces of my hair that the stylist cut and started putting them in the trashcan. No yelling, no crying, no demanding--Nick was the perfect two-year old during this very long salon visit.

It was weird, because Nick has been kind of a stinker during the last few weeks. I hesitated to go in for both haircuts at once, because I was afraid he'd run for the hills or start screaming and pulling stuff from the shelves. He did none of that. Nick even climbed into his car seat on his own, three separate times. This is excellent, because I'm under strict orders not to lift him after my c-section. I've been trying to train him, and I think he's got it.

It's kind of like Nick was letting me know he is ready to be a big brother. I certainly feel better after today.

Yesterday I had my last IV iron treatment, did some last minute grocery shopping, and repotted about ten more plants. Today was my last day of school, my last NST, and my last obstetrician's visit. It was also Nick's last day of daycare. They played with bubbles, and apparently had a blast. He told me about it on the way home. "I play with bubbles. Bubbles go up, up, up. Bubbles in mine eyes."

Tomorrow I'll post my last pregnancy update, and then, after Thursday, I won't be pregnant anymore. Instead I'll be very tired.

Nick's Last Hurrah at Choo Choo Johnny's

His last hurrah as an only child, that is. On Saturday, I took Nick out for a Mommy and Me kind of day. I had errands to run, but I purposely picked places to go that I knew he would enjoy. We ate our lunch at Choo Choo Johnny's, a train-themed restaurant on the south side of Naperville.

I pass this restaurant everyday on my way to and from work, but we've never tried it. Nick was literally jumping up and down with joy when we went inside. "I see trains!" he said. Yup. In fact, a train actually delivered our food! Nick's eyes got really big when the train came, bearing a hot dog and fries for him. That's like every little man's dream!

While I cannot say much about the food other than to describe it as your typical hamburger joint-type fare, Nick has never enjoyed a meal so much. the picture below is out of focus, but it perfectly expresses Nick's state of mind.

We enjoyed our meal and then Nick got to play with the train table and some of the games. This place takes the train theme really far--the employees all wear conductor's uniforms, train-themed music plays, and a train goes around the ceiling.

This day was all about Nick, and I know he had a blast.

Besides our trian-themed lunch, we also went to garage sales looking for clothes and toys, visited Costco for some samples (Nick loves their samples), and went to the PetSmart to see the birdies and fishies.

We got a surprise when they had an adoption event. Nick wanted to take some kitties home with us, but I told him we had enough cats. We have 3, but they don't play with him like these kittens did. They actually enjoyed his attentions!

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Pretty Good Birthday

The beginning of June is always going to be pretty crazy for me. My birthday is on the 5th, my wedding anniversary is on the 8th, and now our new little boy will have his birthday on the 9th. It ended up being a pretty good birthday, though.

We went to my mom and stepdad's house for lunch and a delicious chocolate cake. Nick's Gigi and Aunt Mandy were there, too, and everybody gifted me with baking supplies from the Wilton Tent Sale. I got cups with straws (for iced tea), new baking pans, cookie cutters and sprinkles (for cookies, of course), and a pan that will make whoopie pies. I can't wait to try them out. I suppose I'll have to wait a few weeks, though.

Nick got to play in the pool and with the hose. Grandpa Ray sprayed him and Nick asked him to do it again and again.

He was thrilled to be out in the sunshine, and ran around for literally hours.

Nick enjoyed sitting in the pool and dumping out all of the water.

He also chased his daddy around the yard, trying to get him wet. He can't run quite fast enough yet. But soon, very soon, Nick will be able to catch his daddy.

There are a family of robins living in one of my mom's bushes, and the babies flew away for the first time today. Here's one of the babies, sitting on the fence. He wasn't sure what to do, since flying was so new to him.







































You want to know what my birthday surprise was. . .? We went to Barnes and Noble, and Greg bought me a Nook!

It's the 2nd generation one, with something called E-Ink display. I had hesitated to get an Ereader, because I spend so much time looking at screens already. But this one looks just like a book page. I will have to play with it, but so far, I love it. It's small enough to fit in my purse, and I already found a bunch of books for free and for $0.99.

I think it'll be great for when I travel (or go to the hospital), because I won't have to carry a stack of books with me. I am a notoriously fast reader, and I'm always running out of things to read. I love how I can read with one hand--this thing is so light! It weighs less than 8 ounces, apparently.

We were in the store for awhile, so Nick spent his time playing with the trains and moving books from one shelf to another. He got to pick out a new book, too.

I had a great birthday, and now I'm going to go play with my new toy.  :)

Nesting, Part Two: Upstairs

Did you think that all of our downstairs organizing was the extent of my nesting horomones? Nope. We redid our entire upstairs, all for this new little guy who will be arriving Thursday morning. Let's start with the boys' room. I have to put the apostrophe after the "s" now, because this room no longer belongs to just one boy.

Here's Nick sitting on his new big-boy bed. His doll is next to him, and you can see the changing table/dresser on the right. Those drawers will now be for Nick's little brother. Instead of buying another dresser, which would've been prohibitively expensive, I got this storage cube thingie from Target. It's anchored to the wall, so he can't pull it over on himself, but he can pull out the fabric drawers to get access to his clothes. My eventual goal is to take a picture of each kind of clothing, laminate it, and then velcro it to the outside of the fabric box, so Nick can learn where to find socks, shirts, pants, pajamas, etc. Then again, this organizing bug will probably leave me as soon as this kid is born, so my picture idea may never come to fruition.

Moving to the left, you can see that Nick's book rack ($20 at http://www.napervilleyardsales.com/ last year) has been moved upstairs. Grandpa Mike and Grandma Patty brought him his own rocking chair last week, so he has a place to sit and read. We had enough floor space to set up Nick's train set in his room on the floor. The door you see open is the walk-in closet, which Nick will still be sharing with his daddy and (now) his little brother, too.

Nick has so many clothes that I had to buy this fabric organizer for out-of-season stuff. All of his winter pjs, jeans, and sweatshirts are in here for now. The shelf holds random baby items that we're not sure if we'll use yet. I didn't take a picture of the five giant-sized boxes of diapers (sized newborn through 2) on the other side of the closet, but I'm sure you get the picture. You can see the 1,000 pack of baby wipes, though. We're stocked, but I'm sure we'll be out in a few weeks. It's so easy to forget the days of going through 8-10 diapers every day.

For toy organization, I bought one of those bin organizer thingies, also at Target. I'm figuring that once our new little boy starts moving around, we're going to have to keep him away from some of Nick's smaller toys. The solution? Keeping those toys in the bedroom. I'd love to attach pictures of which toys go where, so Nick can learn to clean up. We'll see if that happens. While the crib is still in here (behind the door on the far left), our little guy won't be able to escape it for some time. In fact, we probably won't even have him sleeping in the crib until he's sleeping through the night. He'll be in a bassinet in our room until then.

I've gone through all of the baby clothes in sizes preemie through 6 months, folded them, and organized them. This is not normal behavior for me. I've also spent a lot of time and money hunting down adorable summer newborn clothes on ebay, because many of Nick's baby clothes had snowmen and reindeer on them. They were also long-sleeved and fleece, which just won't cut it in June. I did find some stuff I could salvage, though, and everything is clean and ready. . . just waiting for the baby.



Onward to the loft. Grandma Toni used to sleep in a full-sized bed in Nick's room when she spent the night. She spends every Tuesday and Wednesday night during the school year with us and needs a comfy place to sleep. We bought her this futon, complete with a real (upgraded) mattress, not one of those foam thingies, and she's been pretty comfortable so far. You can see Greg's easel to the left. He has dreams of painting again this summer. I hope he finds the time. Oh, and one of my classroom plants is next to the window. I'm crossing my fingers that the cats won't eat it.

In about a week (when I'm discharged from the hospital), our bedroom will become baby central. Thank goodness we have a fancy bassinet/pack n' play with a diaper changing station. We also moved the rocking chair and ottoman into our room, so we can actually, you know, rock the baby at night. Our bedroom is kind of small, but this will work for the summer. Hopefully by fall this little man will be sleeping through the night, in his crib, with his brother. (Hey, I can have dreams, right. It is possible, though not likely, that I'll have a second child who sleeps through the night consistently at 8 weeks.)

The rocking chair is actually very comfy. I use it for reading sometimes, when not rocking babies. Notice another of my classroom plants next to the window. It's more likely to survive in here, where cats are forbidden, because I'm allergic (to cats, not plants). You'll also see my new diaper bag, packed and ready to go to the hospital. I am bringing outfits in preemie, newborn, and 0-3 month, all because I have no idea what size this little guy will fit into. Nick was in preemie clothes for several weeks, but the OB estimated that this baby will be at least 7 pounds, so the newborn stuff will probably fit him better.

Either way, our house is ready for baby. As for me, I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore.

Nesting, Part One: Downstairs

So have I told you my peonies are blooming? When I saw the first one start to flower, it freaked me out just a bit. For months, I've been watching the peonies grow up from the dirt, knowing that once they bloomed, this baby was not far behind.

Um, well, they've bloomed. We never did get around to tying them up, but they're still pretty. See Nick helping me repot plants? Well, mostly he dumped dirt on the sidewalk and tried to steal my scissors.

That brings me to the nesting instinct. This is the urge that pregnant women get to stock up, organize, and get the home ready for the baby. I read somewhere that when the nesting instinct kicks in, a baby is not far behind. For me, that means I only have a few days left. This baby is being born on Thursday, and I'd better be ready. When Nick was born, I was only 37 weeks and I never had the full-fledged urge to organize. Frankly, this urge has got to be biological, because I am normally the least organized person on the planet. But in the last week or so, we've been cleaning and organizing like mad. Starting with my plants. . .

As I've mentioned before, my classroom is a jungle--I believe I had something like 30 plants there this year. Previously, I've just left them in my classroom over the summer and gone in to water them every week or so. There's a very nice janitor who checks on them for me and waters them if they need it, in between visits. However, the roof on my school is being replaced, and I won't be able to get into the building, so all of the plants have to go. Some of them were root-bound pretty badly, so Nick and Grandma Toni and I spend a few hours on Thursday splitting and repotting them. We'll see if they survive.

We got a lot accomplished this week, thanks to that nesting instinct. Greg did a lot of the heavy work--he cleaned out the screened-in porch, installed the car seats, set up my plant stand, found the vibrating bouncy seat, and located/cleaned all of the baby bottles. That's just what he did downstairs!

This may well be the first (and the last) time you ever hear of me voluntarily cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, but I did it. Blame it on the nesting. I started with the one where the baby and toddler stuff is kept.

I put all of Nick's stuff on the left, and the new baby's stuff on the right. The top shelf is for wine, beer, and booze-related items--Greg can darned well reach to the top shelf for those. Notice how I have several kinds of formula stocked. I'm rather proud of my strategy. A couple months ago, when I started going for regular NSTs (non-stress tests) at the OB's office, I grabbed a baby formula sample. The nurse saw me and said, "You know, you can take one of those any time you come in. They bring us more all the time." So I did. I've been grabbing a formula sample during each of my bi or tri-weekly doctor's appointments, and stockpiling them. I have tons more under the counter, too. Several times, I asked the nurses which formula they thought was best. "Take one of each kind," they said. "Then you can decide for yourself." I didn't turn them down.  :)  By the way, I'm going to try to breastfeed again, but I had a breast reduction back in '96, so I will definitely have to supplement with formula.

Then I moved on to my drawers. I wish I'd taken a before picture. This drawer (above) had to be slammed shut each time because there was so much junk in it. I pulled out the whole drawer, washed it, and reorganized everything inside. It is very nice to know where all of my measuring spoons are at the same time. For weeks, I've been doing funny things like measuring 1 1/2 tsp. with a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon, six times. . . because, you see, I could only find that one spoon.

Onward to the freezer. Greg and I had our cleaning lady come out and scrub the house top to bottom. She cleaned the fridge, pantry, and freezer so that I could stock up. . . and stock up I did! I go to a place called Simply Homemade in Naperville, where I made 17 of my own meals. They filled the freezer, but at least we won't starve in the next few weeks. The brilliant part of this place is that I actually assembled every meal myself, so they'll be home cooked when we make them.

My pantry will only look like this for about a week. I still have more pantry stocking to do, but I'm pretty sure we're good for food. I even made cookies. Okay, those have nothing to do with nesting. I just like cookies.

Getting Nick Ready

I've thought deeply about the best ways to get Nick ready to be a big brother. For months now, he's talked about the baby in my tummy. It still isn't really connecting, though. I've heard that it helps if you give a child a doll before the baby is born and show them how to take care of it. We decided to give it a try.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a baby doll for a little boy? Everything I found was pink and explicitly designed for girls. But I was determined. Nick has carried around his Elmo doll for some time now, so I know he would be interested. Even though Nick is a very boyish boy, he does cuddle his stuffed animals and talk to them.

Still, doll hunting was an exercise in frustration. I finally found this one on Amazon, and his name is baby Sam.  I think he's rather cute, just the right size, and appropriate for a little boy who will be having a brother soon.

He comes with a removable binky that connects to his mouth, and a dinosaur onesie and diaper that both fasten with velcro, so they're easy to get on and off. I also gave Nick a baby blanket just for his doll.

I decided to let him play with a real baby bottle so he could feed his baby. We showed Nick (using Sam the doll) the bouncy seat and bassinet where his new brother will sleep. Nick fed Sam a bottle, and covered him with a blanket.

Nick's doll has been sleeping in his bed with him, and he likes to cover him up and take his binky in and out. I'm thinking this doll will be perfect for when the baby comes, because Nick loves to copy us--when Greg sweeps the floor, Nick has his own little broom. When I garden, Nick has his own little shovel, rake, and gardening gloves. So we figure he can feed his baby and even change his diaper.

We'll see if this helps with the transition to big brother. Nick sure seemed interested, although I'm sure he'll be more interested once his brother comes along. I've also started making him a shutterfly book (a story about him) with all of his baby pictures, so he can see what he looked like as a baby and as he grew bigger. I'm waiting to make the last page Nick holding his new brother.

Wordless Wednesday: Uh-Oh