14 months and almost a big brother!

I can't believe another month has gone by and I'm sitting here again writing another monthly update on Isaac. I'm also a little terrified that by the time his 15 month post rolls around, I'll be writing updates on my two precious babies! I'll also be doing a post about our holiday, but I want to wait until after the New Year, that way I won't feel like I missed anything. So just hang tight:) Hopefully I won't also have a birth story to write by then... Only 19 days left until we're due.

Here is what Isaac has been up to in his 13th month!

-popping out two new teeth, including a molar-NOT fun

-walking and crawling backwards

-learning gymnastics... he likes to have his back face the wall, put his hands on the floor and use his feet to walk up it backwards. Yes I'm serious. This has happened several times.

-runs everywhere 

-is a stair master (he has no stairs at home to practice on...)

-drinking from a regular cup except when not at home

-signs "please" and "more", says "ah duuuuuhhhhhh" (all done) consistently and lots of time without cueing

-occasionally says "bah" for ball and "daw" for "dog"

-likes to do "ready, set, go" with his car

-will shake his head if you say "no"

-can identify most objects after hearing the name a couple times

-has two volumes: loud and louder. He acts like everything is life and death, which means lots of  dramatic tantrums complete with flailing, screaming, kicking, hair pulling... I've been doing lots of reading about how to best go about setting limits and boundaries and curb tantrums this week. Hopefully some of the tips will prove useful and keep my hair from greying too fast.

-points to his head and belly, in addition to his ears and mouth (and nose sometimes)

-will point to my belly (or anyone else's haha) if I ask "where's the baby?"

-can plug and unplug things-NO this is not something we let him practice, it's something he figured the first time he found an available outlet and plug at grandma and grandpa's. I taped over the offending outlet but he sat there and picked the tape until he could rip it off...

-can follow simple commands (whether he will is a different story...)

 

 -loves books

-loves to help clean and can pick out the swiffer, vacuum or broom depending on what I ask him to do

-loves showing off

-loves cuddling with stuffed animals

-loves being outside 

-loves exploring and making messes

-loves animals

-loves being a boy!

And we love him!

36 weeks...WHAT?

How am I 36 weeks already? Christmas day I'm full-term, and 3 weeks after it's d-day. I'm perfectly happy for little girl to stay in until at least 39 weeks. We don't get back from Christmas until I'm 38 weeks so I'll need that week to finish up a few last minute things and enjoy some mama and Isaac alone time before we make it a family of four. I'm a little sad (and may have cried recently...) over the fact that it won't just be him and I at home anymore. As much as I'm excited to be a mother of two, it's hard to imagine splitting my love and attention between two babies as equally as I can.

Generally I feel pretty good pregnancy wise. My only complaint is that I've been having nausea again for the past two weeks, which after having morning sickness up until 20 weeks is kind of a kick in the butt. It was so severe the other night I ended up sleeping in my armchair because the horizontal position was not doing it for me...especially not with baby girl kicking me in the stomach. She's sitting so much higher than Isaac so I'm not used to the intense pressure on my stomach but it's nice not to have to run to the bathroom every hour like I did with him at this point.

Sleeping is pretty challenging at this stage, it's just hard for me to get comfortable. Plus for a stomach sleeper the choices of left side or right side are not appealing, especially not when you have to do a three point turn and wrestle with repositioning a pillow every time you roll over. On a positive note, I have no swelling, stretch marks, heart burn or pimples (for the entire pregnancy!). And I still manage to fit into my winter coat which is pretty fitted when I'm not pregnant. Must be a tender mercy. I should have outgrown it weeks ago!

I'm trying to workout at least 3 times a week-core, arms and legs- and I found these great prenatal workouts on youtube which makes it a lot easier than adapting my normal workout to make it pregnancy friendly. Baby girl likes to kick my ribs or stretch like she's going to burst out of my stomach if she pushes hard enough. She certainly feels a lot bigger than Isaac did. Maybe I've just forgotten how big he felt, but I have a feeling she's going to beat Isaac in the weight category. By this point with him, I'd had two extra ultrasounds because I was measuring small and this time I'm right on track. So we'll see. I'm guessing high end of 6 lbs. Isaac was only 6lbs5oz so lots of room for her to beat him. The picture on the left is me with baby girl and the right is me with Isaac at 36 weeks. I guess it'd be more fair to compare if I was wearing the same shirt, which I happened to pack since it one of the only ones that fits nicely over the belly now. So maybe I'll have to post an updated picture in a day or two!

We have a short list of four names we like but we're still undecided at this point. I kind of want to wait until she's born and see what she looks like... At least we're not placing all our hopes in one name like we did with Isaac.

Not much else to report so far. I'm 1cm down as of my last OB appointment, but since I was 2cm almost two weeks before Isaac was born and it took 34 hours of labour to get to a 3, it's not that exciting to me haha. We're just hoping and praying she doesn't make a surprise (since that's obviously her style!) arrival before we get back home after the New Year, but we managed to pack an emergency bag and the car seat just in case.

That is all for updates for now. Stay tuned for Isaac's 13 month post. Have a merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

3 little rants

Over the past few weeks I've had lots of opinions that I feel strongly enough about to share, usually brought on by some news story, FB post, radio announcement etc. I don't feel like consecrating a blog post to each, even though I probably could, but really who wants to read rant after rant? I know you're all just reading to hear about Isaac anyway... *wink wink grandparents*

1) My first rant came about because of the backlash for this picture and this separate article about a similar picture. This is not about "fat-shaming". It's about "fit-shaming". Why is it suddenly acceptable to criticize these individuals, but intolerant and cruel to criticize those who struggle with weight issues? I think it's great that these women have had babies and have been able to keep in shape. This is something I'm trying to do as a mother. I don't feel the need to look like these women. Their pictures are not going to hurt my self esteem. I don't believe their pictures are trying to wound my self-image. I believe they are proud of their accomplishments and that is the motivation behind these photos. If she was fully clothed and holding a college degree with the exact same question, would the offense taken be the same? I feel like the people who claim these pictures hurt their self-esteem and feel like this is a personal assault, already have deep-seated confidence issues that would exist regardless of these images. Let's be happy for people and their achievements!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/soccer-wife-post-birth-pictures-criticized-article-1.1533715

2) Last month I heard on the radio they were getting rid of the honour roll in schools. Why? They claimed it lost its meaning for the students who always made it and damaged the self-esteem of the ones who never did. So what about the students who set a goal to make the honour roll and achieve it? What about the ones who never did? Could they not learn the valuable lesson that sometimes one won't get external praise and validation despite their best efforts, and they have to rely on their internal knowledge that they did put their best foot forward? Or the valuable lesson that everyone has different gifts, and although academia may not be theirs, they can pursue many other wonderful talents? The after-grade-12-world doesn't deal in the "no zero policy" or "no matter how poorly you do, we'll still keep shuffling you through system". We're truly turning into a nation of wimps, scared to challenge young people to rise up instead of cruising along on the same mediocre path.

3) My last rant is about a fairly common experience (I'd imagine) for a mother. Luckily I had the positive end of this experience. Isaac was throwing a fit in Superstore (aka flailing everywhere, trying to climb out of the cart, grab all the groceries on the belt, randomly screaming) while we were stuck in line, with the till experiencing technical difficulties and needing to be rebooted. I almost opened up the box of cheerios I was buying just to get him to be quiet, but I have a thing about not feeding kids to stop emotional outbursts. Instead of making some snarky remark, rolling his eyes, or losing his cool, the gentleman behind me came up and asked if he could bag my groceries so I could tend to Isaac. I was so grateful. It was just the tender mercy I needed. Unfortunately I know that this is usually the exceptional response from strangers. So if you don't have kids, you're thinking about having them, or you've forgotten what it's like to have them, listen up!

Kids throw tantrums. They throw them at the worst possible times, in the worst possible places. They throw them for no reason or for any reason. Their behaviour doesn't mean they get away with whatever they want at home. We are not bad parents because our child happens to be choosing a less-than-agreeable time to be less-than-agreeable. We are, however, parents who need help. We can't always do our grocery shopping without our babies (but heaven knows I try!), and we're not going to just shove in a soother or buy them that cookie they're screaming about just so they'll be quiet. So if you see a desperate parent with an equally desperate child, let them go in line in front of you, try and distract their child (lots of strangers have done this for me), ask to bag their groceries (if they're bagging their own). Just do something besides thinking to yourself "If my kids ever behaved like this..." or "My kids never behaved like this..." because I can guarantee that they will or they have. We will remember and appreciate your kindness for years to come.

13 months

Our little boy turned 13 months last week. Since his first birthday, it seems like his learning has exploded and I can't believe how fast he is leaving the baby world behind...

New Skills

-clapping

-pointing (usually accompanied by a "mmm?")

-kicking and throwing his ball

-turning the TV "on" and "off"-this resulted in a piece of duct tape over the button since he would just stand there for 10 minutes and turn it on and off a million times

-building block towers

-opening doors- I found him escaping up our stairs one morning

-pointing to parts of his own face (ears, nose, mouth)- he has been able to point to parts of my face (ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hair) for several months but would never point to his own until this month

-Isaac word translation "uh"="up", "ah duh"="all done", "doh"="no" (And a whole bunch of other words haha). Yesterday before church I told him it was time to get dressed and he yelled "doh!" at me and ran away.

-mimics lots of the words we say "duh" for "duck", "at" for "hat", "bah" for "ball" etc, I'm just waiting for his language skills to explode.

-can do all ten shapes in his shape sorter in under two minutes (I show him the shape and he puts it in)

I found him like this one day...

New Habits

-putting stuff in random drawers or cupboards for later use- I'd been looking for his cup that I put water in for over a day and one day he just went to a rarely used cupboard opened it and pulled it out. A few days later I watched him put a plastic coat hanger in there, didn't take it out, and the next day he went to the cupboard and pulled it out to play with.

-has started to put things back where he got them -there's hope for me to have a clean house again!

-will come up and give random cuddles

-running to the coat closet and hiding when he's in trouble-usually after he's hit the TV with some toy or object-he usually throws the evidence as far away as he can while he's running

-likes playing the piano

-one nap a day

-wants to feed self 95% of the time, including his cereal and yogurt

-good at drinking out of regular cups

Isaac has a super silly, goofy side. He'll run around the house flapping his arms like a bird yelling "doh! doh! doh!" (which is why it must mean more than "no") or literally run into furniture and walls, bounce off of them and giggle his head off. His favourite "toy" that he's not allowed to play with is the toilet plunger, so we keep the bathroom door closed. I had left it open a crack one day and he went up to it and pushed it open a foot. First he had this look of disbelief that it actually opened,  second he got his mischievous look, snuck around the open door (he didn't open it the whole way and walk in, just squeezed around it), and shot me a smile before closing the door with the lights all off. Then he opened it a smidge and grinned at me from this inside. It made me giggle.

Mmmm lemon!

There was nothing but the peel left once he finished

He also has a nasty temper which often results in falling to the ground, throwing his head back (which results in more crying when he smacks it) and flailing around. Gordon and I have dubbed it his "floppy fish" manoeuvre. If I pick him up to remove him from something he'll try and scratch my face, pull my hair and throw his head back against me. I've been bashed in the nose, cheek, ear... Now I just carry him around like a football, tucked under my arm, when he's throwing a fit. It's a lot less dangerous for me that way.

Despite our challenges with him, he is our greatest joy and we can't imagine our lives without him!

And now some pictures of our Christmas decorating!

Getting our tree!

 

Instead of telling him he couldn't touch the tree, we let him touch it all he wanted when we put it up before the decorations were on. If he knows he's allowed to do something, he quickly loses interest. His favourite things to do are the ones he's not allowed to. So he's hardly touched it since we've decorated it. Score one for mum and dad!