Do you want to go to bed?

I used this threat tonight when Lainey didn't have her listening ears on. She was outside and it was time to come in. She didn't want to come inside. I've been trying to use counting to three less often as it has become a bit of a crutch, but I don't like just dropping a consequence without at least some kind of warning. So after asking her to come inside and telling her I needed her to listen, I pulled the bed card. "If you can't listen you'll have to go straight to bed. Do you want to go to bed?" The funny thing is, she said yes. So off to bed we went and she didn't complain once about the going to bed part. She lost out on helping feed the dogs dinner and that was a little upsetting to her, but she knows that she lost a "pivilege" for not listening. She's answered yes to this question one other time with the same result. That time was even more shocking though because we were at Pop-Pop and Noni's house and it was an hour before bed time. I never expect her to say yes, but I guess when you're tired, you're tired!

Perida

Lainey has named her first doll. Perida is her name. I have no idea where the name came from or how she came up with it, but it's definitely this one doll's name. And it's kind of funny because if you change the spelling it becomes a Spanish word... Perrita. It means small female dog if you translate literally, but it's usage is more along the lines of the term for female dog in English slang. There's no changing it now, so hopefully we don't offend any Spanish speaking people in the next few years. We'll just be very careful not to roll the "r" and pronounce the ending with a D, not a T. :)

Tinkerbells

We are planning to go Christmas caroling with some friends this weekend. There are going to be two kids, Lainey and Landon. Landon is 3 and knows a lot more Christmas songs that Lainey does. So we chose three songs to practice this week. So far, it's been very funny, but not very accurate. :) Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Jingle Bells, and Away in a Manger are our three songs. Lainey knows the tune for Hark, but won't sing the words. I just get a mishmash of Dees, Dahs, and Nahs to the tune. That's probably because the Peanuts Christmas album starts with the kids humming the song before they sing the words.

But the best so far has been her rendition of Jingle Bells. I'm trying my best to capture it on camera, but have been unsuccessful thus far. Here's how she sings it, "Tinkerbells, Tinkerbells, all the way in a manger." It's so funny! No matter how much I enunciate Jingle, she still says Tinker. We'll try again tomorrow for some video action. Hopefully she'll perform for us.

Considering a new blog title

Life here is going to be more than Living with Lainey. I'm going to need a new blog title! I thought about starting a whole new blog since babyhudginsnews doesn't quite seem to fit. But, I think I'll stick with the blog url and just change the title. Any suggestions? I think I'd like to encompass our whole family. If I'm blogging about more than just the kids, I may actually post more often. :)

Preview of our Christmas photos

We took family pictures with my Mom yesterday. We got a couple of proofs back last night and this one is my favorite so far!!

31 weeks 2 days

We had another check up for little Miss Brooke today. All is well! Her heartbeat is strong and was very easy to find. I've been having a lot of rib pain on the right side and was asking the doctor for ideas on how to relieve that pain. He said it's pretty common for the baby to be pushing toward the right side because the bowels tend to move to the left. He thought she might have a foot or something stuck under my rib. And because I am carrying her very high, there really isn't a lot to be done. When he went to measure me to make sure she's growing appropriately, he couldn't. Apparently I'm carrying so high, that my uterus and child are actually under my ribs. Not just a foot, probably both feet and part of her legs too. No wonder I'm in pain. You can visibly see my right ribs sticking out as compared to the left. The good news (or bad depending on how patient I can be) is that most babies begin to drop by about 34 weeks. So I have roughly 3 more weeks of this and then she should drop enough to relieve the pressure. I might even be able to breathe a bit and eat a normal meal without heartburn. But the trade off will be more bladder pressure (can I really pee more than I already do?) and possible pelvic pain.

Oh well, it's all worth it in the end. And I am so grateful to have this little one doing so well. I've really had a pretty good pregnancy all things considered. It has been more difficult than Lainey's, but hers was really a walk in the park. They are all different! Less than 9 weeks to go!

On another note, Lainey got to feel Baby Brooke moving around last night. She was really active while Lainey was brushing her teeth. I stopped her and had her put her hand on my belly. Her eyes lit up when she felt Brooke move. I don't know if she really understands what it means when I say Baby Brooke is in my tummy. She may have had a small epiphany last night. She keeps telling me that Brooke is getting ready for her birthday. She sure is!

T-minus 67 days to Brooke's due date

Holy cow this pregnancy seems to have flown by!! Am I ready? I've been asked that several times and the answer always seems to be the same. Yes... and no.

Am I ready physically? Yes. I'd love to be done with the pregnancy induced fatigue, the weird hormone swings, and the heartburn. I know that without pregnancy fatigue, I'll have new baby fatigue, but somehow that seems more fun. :)

Am I ready materially? Pretty much. We do still need a crib, but if she came today, she'd be in the pack'n'play anyway. Other than that, we really have all we need. I'm being blessed with two baby showers in the next few weeks and I'll be so thankful for the extra stuff. It will be nice to have some new things so that Brooke has some things all her own, but we really don't need much of anything.

How am I not ready? I'm not really ready for the prospect of managing a toddler that is used to being the center of attention and a newborn. When I hold other people's babies, she gets jealous and that's only for a few minutes! How is going to work when her sister is here all the time? She's also in the lovely stage of being a 2 year old. Meaning she doesn't listen to pretty much anything I ask her to do... or more specifically things she's told not to do. She's a good little girl most of the time, but she's really been testing the limits in the last few days.

I know that all of these things will work themselves out. And I'm not really too terribly worried about how, but it is on my mind. I just keep thinking about how fast 67 days will fly by, especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas in the mix. Ready, set, go!

Lainey's Birthday

I've been very behind with this blog. Lainey's 2nd birthday was October 31st. We had a wonderful party with lots of little kids here. It was a Rainbow Happy Birthday! Lainey loved having all of her friends to play with and of course, the balloons. She's asked me for "another Happy Birthday" almost everyday since the party. Here are a few pictures from the big day!

Decorations and yes, the World Series. :)

Appetizer spread- Rainbow veggies and rainbow fruit kabobs. We also had rainbow goldfish crackers, 7 layer dip, and blue chips. :)

M&M Rainbow Cake and rainbow cupcakes.

Making rainbow necklaces with Froot Loop cereal.

Happy Birthday dear Lainey, Happy Birthday to you!

Yummy cupcake!

The inside of the cake is rainbow too!

And finally, a video of the super awesome balloon drop!

Lainey's Ninja Skills

"I be a good minja!"

Just some stuff

I have random thoughts tonight and I think I need to be writing down more of the funny things Lainey says and does.

A few nights ago we were on our way out for a quick Culver's custard run. Lainey is doing really well with potty training at home. Out and about it's not as good, so we put a diaper on her to go to Culver's. As I lifted her into the car I could tell that she'd just peed. So I asked her why she didn't tell me she had to go and she could have gone on the potty. Her response? "No, I have a diaper." Ha! Why bother with the potty when you know you can just pee in your diaper? Sound logic I suppose.

Another funny thing that's become a recent trend is that most sentences from Lainey are now followed by, "OK?" As in, "Stay there Mommy, OK?" or "I can have some peaches, OK?" Apparently I say OK a lot and she's just repeating it back to me. I had to laugh though when she and I went out to visit our family in California a few weeks ago. We got up earlier than we are used to for the flight and then we ended up at my Dad's house for nap time. We stayed in Dylan's room (my step-brother). His room has a lot of windows and Lainey is used to sleeping in nearly complete darkness. I knew getting her down would be a challenge. I tried having her nap with me on the bed, but that just wasn't going well. I was very tired too and I was struggling not to drift off leaving her with free roam of a room filled with a drum set, fish tank, and push pins in the walls. I think Lainey knew I was tired. "Mommy, lay down your sleepy head, OK? It's been a long day. Close your eyes, OK?"

And last in the random list is to mention that Lainey has finally cut her eye teeth on the top. They are about halfway in and started their descent about a month ago. Her lower eye teeth are also threatening to make an appearance, but so far only the teeniest tip of one tooth is poking though. Who knows when the two year molars will decide to come in, but I've been told the longer teeth take to show up, the healthier they are!

The Cinderella Song

Lainey loves to sing the Cinderella song. For a while, it was all she requested at bedtime. It's been quite the challenge to catch her singing it on video, but here's a pretty good one. She is not singing it in the higher octave anymore, though we are hoping she goes back to that because it is so stinking cute. Here is our mildly distracted, but higher octave version of "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes."

And here is the current version in her lower octave. :) She is a bit more focused in this one, complete with head shakes for emphasis.

You Are my Sunshine

Chatting with Lainey

Let's do this!

John loves to teach Lainey funny sayings. She is now saying, "Let's do this!" all the time. He's also taught her to respond to "How old are you?" with "I'm one!" She has also learned, "Sucka!" I'm not so sure I approve of that one.

Potty training is going so well! She's having fewer accidents and more successes. The potty chair moves around the house with us so she doesn't have far to go. And now she gets an M & M each time, so she's very motivated to get her "choc-it."

She's starting to show an interest in the alphabet, so we sing and sign that frequently. She tries to sign and fingerspell too and it's really cute. A new thing in the past couple of weeks is that she is now singing along to songs in the car. It's fun to hear her sing/shout the lines she loves the most. We're going to try to get some of these on video to share soon!!

She got me!

I forgot to post about this when it happened about a week ago. I was taking Lainey with me to the grocery store and we have a water and ice shop that also sells Thrifty ice cream. I happen to love their Chocolate Malted Crunch, so I thought I would treat us to a cone on our way into the store. Lainey is really big on doing things for herself these days and she always has to "hold it." So of course, she wanted to hold the ice cream cone. I decided to let her hold it, but being a chocolate ice cream cone in the hands of a 17 month old, that led to chocolate drips all over the place. I tried to take it back from her and she didn't want to give it to me. So I said, "Lainey, it's Mommy's turn for a bite. You need to share." She let me have it and I cleaned up the cone a bit, but decided I should hold the cone from now on. When I offered to let Lainey have another bite she said, "Hold it!" and refused to take a bite of it while I held it. I tried to explain to her that she was making a mess and I needed to hold it for her. Her response, "Mommy share!"

Potty training update

Just wanted to post a quick update about potty training so far. Lainey is doing pretty well actually. After the second day when I spent the whole day wiping up messes and changing clothes, I decided that a gung-ho effort without diapers all day was really unrealistic for me. It takes an intense amount of supervision and I just wasn't cutting the mustard. Plus, Lainey doesn't understand the concept of trying to go when she does sit down. So we had lots of times when she would sit on the potty for a while, then get up because I didn't want to force her to stay and she'd potty soon afterward. So, my new plan is to go for a few hours each day with her training pants on, but not be so strict as to eliminate diapers all together. Yesterday afternoon went really well. She seems to understand now what we want to have happen and she tries because she wants the chance to flush the toilet. :) We had three successful potties yesterday. Hopefully we continue the trend today!

More words, more teeth, and the official start of potty learning

Lainey is a learning machine these days. I went away for the weekend (my first trip away from her overnight) and I couldn't believe it when I got back. She learned combined consonant sounds while I was gone! She went from saying "cothes" to "clothes" and from "bocks" to "blocks". I told her that she isn't allowed to grow up at all if I'm not there. She's also cutting another molar. The upper left one is popping through this week.

We also are officially beginning an earnest try at the potty. I ordered 12 pairs of cotton training pants in the 18 month size from Amazon. You can't find that size in stores, so we had to wait for them to arrive. Lainey is no longer wearing diapers at all during the day. She wears one for a nap and one for bed. We've spent the last several months sitting on the potty when she wakes up and before naps and baths. So she has a positive association with the potty. Now we are sitting on it every chance we get. We've had a lot of accidents today, but I think it because we got into a bad rhythm this morning in addition to me being a little more distracted than I should be. Potty learning is not a time to put off going to the potty for any reason! I thought today that after lunch I had time to get the dishes in the dishwasher before we went potty. Nope. Oh well. Lainey is napping now and I hope when she gets up we can have a more successful afternoon.

Some of you may be wondering why I went straight for cotton pants instead of pull-ups. The reason is that all disposable diapers, including pull-ups, wick away moisture from the skin too fast for the child to know that they've gone. With cotton pants or cloth diapers, the baby knows right away that they are wet and are more likely to make the association between urinating and getting wet. The goal is to help them learn what it feels like when they need to go so that they are more likely to use the potty. The good thing about today is that despite all of our "accidents," Lainey told me every time that she had gone potty and I could change her immediately.

Some good books on early potty training/learning are: Diaper-free Before 3 and Early-Start Potty Training. Even at 17 months, we aren't that early to start as both of these books advocate sitting on the potty as early as 3-6 months and in cotton pants by 12 months. But we are earlier than most people so I'll be sure to share my experience with it. Supposedly the earlier you start, the earlier you are finished and the less diapers you have to buy! And that's always a good thing. :)

More teeth!

Lainey is cutting some more teeth. We definitely have a molar popping through on the lower left side. We may also be getting the lower left eye tooth, but it's hard to tell with the redness and swelling from the molar. She was pretty grumpy and not very interested in eating for a few days, but now that the molar has popped through the gums, she's much happier.

She's picked up a few new phrases, like "hold it" as in, "I want to hold the whole bag of blueberries Mom, not just the few you give me." Or she'll say that when she wants to feed herself with the spoon or fork. She's getting really good at feeding herself these days as well. She fed herself about half of her macaroni and cheese last night. I was impressed! My favorite new phrase that she just started in the last few days is, "Hold you!" with her arms up. When she wants me to hold her, that's what she says. It's my favorite little kid thing. They don't understand pronouns yet, so instead of "Hold me," we get "Hold you!" So cute!

Fun with words

Lainey is turning into quite the conversationalist these days. While we were in California last week, she was putting on a show for all of her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. We had a great time. One day at my Mom's house, Lainey found Jasmine, my mom's cat, sleeping on the ottoman. She walked up to the ottoman, crossed her arms on top and rested her chin on her arms. Then says, "Hey Kitty, whatcha doin'? Takin' a nap?" I didn't get to witness it, but Grandma and Daddy said it was spoken very clearly and was very funny to watch.

Last week we were riding around the neighborhood in my next door neighbor's wagon with her twin girls. All three girls were having a great time. When it was time for us to go home, Julie dropped us off at our house. When Lainey got out of the wagon, Maisey started to cry. She wanted to come in too! Then Lainey did the same thing she did with Jasmine. Crossed her arms, rested her chin on her arms, all on the side of the wagon to be eye to eye with Maisey. "What's wrong? Whats-a-matter? You cryin'? You wanna eat?" I about died. It's so funny to watch her learn new things and surprise us with what is going on in her little mind. I can't wait to see and hear more moments like these.

Teetheing is no fun.

Lainey is cutting her lower lateral incisors right now. Poor kid. You can tell she's sore with the swelling and drooling. She had a really hard time falling asleep tonight. She's also got a bit of a cold, so that's not helping. On the plus side it makes her extra cuddly with me. There's nothing better than Lainey snuggling up with me on the couch while we watch Care Bears together. Even Daddy got to join us for a little while.

I want to try to keep track of when she's had each tooth come in, but I'm already behind and we're only on tooth 7 and 8. But, here's my best estimate of her teeth so far...

Tooth #1- Lower left central incisor - 10 months
Tooth #2- Lower right central incisor - 10 1/2 months
Tooth #3 & 4- Upper left and right central incisors - 12 1/2 months
Tooth #5 & 6- Upper left and right lateral incisors - 14 months
Tooth #7 & 8- Lower left and right lateral incisors- 15 months

Blogging is not my thing it seems!

I am not good about the whole blogging thing. I am going to keep at it though. :) Lainey is growing up so fast. Each day she does something new that just makes me think that it is all going by so fast. It's the little things... like she blew her nose for the first time yesterday. That will be nice because I won't have to use the sucker much anymore.

She makes me laugh everyday. Her new thing is standing up on the couch or her rocking chair and saying, "Sish-dow" (Sit down). Then she turns around and sits down and says, "Guh girl." She's definitely a parrot now. She tells the dogs to "Beat it" when she's in her high chair because that's what John says to keep them from begging. She knows most of her aunts', uncles', and grandparents' names and faces. We have fun naming them from our digital picture frame.

She's a love and a great snuggler. She gives the best hugs. We love our Lainey!