Times are Changing

They won't stop growing! We will start potty training Jeffrey in a couple weeks...this will start with just introducing him to his little toilet :)I'm excited about it, he's been giving me some "cues" lately - tugging at his shirt and pants like he wants to take them off and then getting into a specific cabinet when he poops. lol! So no pressure, I don't care if he pt's or not right now, but if he's ready, we're ready. We'll see!

I think he went through a little growth spurt, because all of a sudden he is reaching things he's never been able to reach before. Trouble! And with that, he's tall enough to get into the dining room chairs by himself. This leads to me walking in to the room to find him dancing in a chair, which is TOTALLY funny, but not allowed. It's hard not to smile when he looks so darn cute up there.

Along with all this, I'm considering instituting a "time out" area. I'm asking friends and reading up on strategies. He isn't a bad toddler at all, by any means, but I feel like I should be doing more than just saying "No" and removing him from the situation. I don't feel like it's getting us anywhere because he just goes right back to it.

He says "Doggie" (or "Daaahh"), "Sissy (or "SShhhSS"), "Juice" (or "Deuce"), "Trash" (or "Tassh"), "Oh no!" (or "AH NAH"). LOL And of course mama and dada.

He is now sleeping in his big boy bed :) I can't believe it! It took a couple weeks of him sleeping on his floor with his HUGE stuffed doggie for us to put 2 + 2 together. We put the doggie in his bed and now he sleeps there with the doggie.

Seeing him grow up so fast really makes my skin crawl because I have no control over it and he's just becoming more and more independent and needing us less. I know he'll always need us, but in different ways.

Adrianna is rolling, and loves playing with her feet. She's so beautiful! She started eating solid foods a couple weeks ago. She does fine with that. Quite a piggy actually! I think I will make her baby food - all it takes is fresh fruit/veggies and a blender, so it's no trouble at all, and should be a good $$ saver. Meanwhile, I've got a nice stockpile of store bought food in the cabinet already.

We think she's teething. She's drooling & biting. The next step is a lot of crying in the middle of the night, and I am NOT looking forward to that! Our medicine cabinet is prepared.

She's been sleeping through the night since mid-March. She may wake up a couple times, but I just replace her pacifier or put her on her tummy and she goes back to sleep. She's very talkative! :) She continues to be an excellent nurser.

It's the sweetest thing to see Jeffrey kiss her and hold her and hug her. It's awesome!

Meanwhile, Jeff & I are still chugging away at our school work. I will be done in Jan '10 - as long as I don't take a single day off between now and then. GEESH. All this work and all I will get is a piece of paper and a ton of loans to pay back. Alright I know I'll get more then that, but I'm working my butt off and it's taking forever! And, I don't have any "career plans"...it all revolves around the kids, because as long as they are home, so am I. I don't get a high salary, or even daily showers - but we feel very strongly that it is the best thing for the babies.

We are also discussing Jeff's future career plans. Lots of options.

I think that's it. Next time I update, Jeffrey will probably have conquered a ton of new things!

We need an update!

Sorry it's been about 2 months since I've posted anything. Those 2 months have been crazy, with the holidays & packing & moving & school work & adjusting to having 2 under 2! It never ends around here. We've moved into a much much bigger place and are very happy here! There's room for our family here. Now that we're here, I can't believe how long we stayed in the condo, and how small it really was.

Jeff continues to excel at everything he does...he finished up his last college class with a 100 average, and is at this moment returning from a formal school he took in NC, where he performed so well yesterday that the teacher told him he didn't have to take the final exam today! He makes me sick ;) We're almost opposites in that respect. He over-achieves, while I do just enough to get by. Not because I want it that way, of course. But because that I can't afford to put any more time into anything else around here! I just can't hold myself up to those standards anymore.

Jeffrey is a full-blown walker now. Almost as soon as we moved in here, he just took off. I guess children really do need ROOM to grow, and that condo just didn't have enough room. Makes me sad because I feel like it's my fault, and that I slowed him down. Oh well, no biggie I guess. It's a lessons learned. He's definitely understanding what we're saying now. I can ask him if he wants to go potty with mama and he walks to the bathroom. :) No, we're not potty-training yet, but it's never too early to introduce it I suppose. He's a picky eater, in my opinion. Some of his favs are PB&J with milk for lunch, grape juice, fruit parfaits from McDs, ckn nugget kids meal from McDs, stuffing, and cheerios for breakfast. He shovels them in by the handful!

Adrianna is smiling, cooing, and just being a happy little girl :) It was very difficult for me for the first 2 months...she seemed to cry for no apparent reason, Jeff didn't take any middle of the night feedings because I'm breastfeeding - so I got crappy sleep, and trying to take care of Jeffrey during the day was just plain hard. But now that we're moved and we have room, we're all much happier, and it's much easier! Adrianna has her own room with her own crib and dresser. She sits in Jeffrey's old bouncer (of course, we got her a new, expensive one that she doesn't seem to like near as much!) and talks to the fish that move around when she kicks. She's an excellent nurser, and I typically only have to get up twice in the middle of the night to feed her. The 2nd feednig is so close to "wake up" time that I might as well not even go back to sleep...

There are little playgrounds all over the place here in the community, and we have a nice sized fenced in back yard. I can't wait for summer and spring so that Jeffrey can experience the outdoors as a toddler. Lord help me.

Adrianna Rose =)

Born November 11th, 2008 @ 2:44am
7lb 4.9 oz 19 1/2"






















In the NICU:

















Out of the NICU:















3 Weeks Old:

Doc Appt 11/6

Dropped my pee off (I'm sure I looked ridiculous carrying a starbucks in my left hand and a jug of pee in my right), had my NST. The stupid monitor wouldn't continually pick up her heart rate so after 1.5 hrs of trying they sent me to L&D to monitor me there (I was supposed to have my reg OB appt after the NST but they decided to have me skip it). So I went to L&D, where their monitors picked it up just fine. They checked my cervix...still just 2 cm dilated.

My bps were good, but my protein from the pee test I dropped off a few hrs earlier had gone back up (it was 380 last Monday when they wanted to induce me, dropped to 178 that Thursday when they said I'm "not sick anymore", and today it was 301). Apparently 300 is where they start to consider inducing. So they said they want to see me twice a week now and I have to go back Monday for an NST and to "discuss" inducing. I got the feeling that they don't want to let me go to 39/40 weeks like they said a couple weeks ago. I'm getting good at reading what they're not saying.

I get that feeling because they didn't tell me to do another 24 hr urine...and they've been having me do one practically every few days over the last 2 weeks. So I don't think they're just letting it go. I just keep reminding myself that my body is much more prepared for an induction this time, and that it won't be as horrible and we won't have a tiny baby that's immediately taken away from me. It's gonna be different. It's really mentally exhausting. It makes it easier to remember it's a disease, so I don't feel like such a failure. I'm anxious to get this over with!

Jeffrey's Goofy Grins 11/5

I love his silly little face :)

Playing in the leaves

I took Jeffrey to the park yesterday so Daddy could have some alone time to wrap up some school work. We're trying to take advantage of the few "park weather" days we have left before we're stuck in the house with a newborn for the winter. He had to taste test the leaves of course ;)I can't believe we made such a beautiful baby.

I think he's mastered the art of the sippy cup. Or at least he's on his way...he's finally drinking from it instead of chewing on it or rolling it around like it's a toy. Boy does he love apple juice! He's learning how to be impatient and demanding, so it's an important time to show him who is boss. But I still smother him in kisses...and he's smothering little girls in kisses. At the park and at play-dates - he seems to understand that boys are to play with and girls are to kiss.

The solid foods he happily eats now include: chicken (nuggets or baked), hot dogs, toast, peas, mac n cheese, pancakes, banana in a mesh feeder (it looks like a pacifier but the part he puts in his mouth is mesh and I put fruit in it for him to chew), french fries.
The ones he just picks at and occasionally gets into his mouth are: broccoli, pasta, and cantaloupe in a mesh feeder.









I'm still feeling decent, although my right foot has looked like a marshmallow for a couple days. So I've been trying to do housework in one run so I can sit down and elevate it for a while. Jeff has got November off from school, and I will have a little over a month off beginning around Nov 5th.

The doc I saw last week said that they want to induce me at 39/40 weeks. I totally didn't expect that, so I questioned it and he explained that being as the baby will be ready to come out and be healthy at that point, there's no sense in keeping her in there when she's putting a lot of strain on my body by increasing my blood pressure. I can't really deny that, I know high bp is dangerous, and she will be big and healthy at that point so I don't think I'll fight their decision. 40 weeks will be the day before Thanksgiving - and I'm NOT spending Thanksgiving in the hospital. So I think I'll give them the go ahead to schedule an induction for 39 weeks, which will be Nov 19th. That way we'll both be out of the hospital for Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that I'll go into labor by myself before Nov 19th. If they do induce, I don't expect it to be the nightmare it was last time, a lot of things are different this time around.

35 Weeks - Doc Appt

Jeff and Jeffrey came with me, because I was getting an u/s and Jeff wanted to see her. The NST went good...the whole time I was laying there relaxing, I could hear Jeffrey out in the hallways going "DADADADADADADADADAADA!!!" lol

The u/s went really good...they say she weighs 6lbs now! When they said that, let out a few tears. Just the thought of having a "normal" weight baby makes me so happy!!! They were going to confirm that she's "still a girl"...so the guy doing the u/s (he was a student) was looking for her lips - yes - that's what he called them. Not labia, her lips. Jeff squirmed in his seat lol
And they took a 3d pic of her face for us.

Then for my doc appt - apparently they want to induce me at 39/40 weeks, which took me by surprise because no one ever mentioned it before, I kinda assumed I was on the right path for a good, "normal" delivery, but they said that being as the baby is the cause of the high bp, as long as she's healthy and ready to be out, they want to take her out. Everyone kept saying "So we're inducing at 39 weeks..." and after a few times of hearing that, I said "Well you know, there IS a chance I can go into spontaneous labor!!"

And they want me to do another 24 hr urine test. Yay, because I really enjoy collecting it the 4 times I go during the middle of the night and keeping it in the fridge!

So hopefully I'll just go into labor like a normal person would...I don't know, I've never made it that far before! I'm not having any ctx or anything yet, but hopefully next week we'll get rolling!