Bad rain mommy and the joy of new boots

We bought Fay some new rain boots since spring is here and it will be raining a lot. She is a size 7 in shoes but she has been in that size for almost a year, so I feel like she will be growing out of 7s soon. So we bought the boots in a size 8.

This morning we left for school and started walking to the bus, Fay with her umbrella and rain boots. Shortly out of the door Fay wanted to be picked up because it was just too windy and horrible.

So I put down Fay's Dora umbrella (recent gift from grandma), and shove it under my arm. I pick up Fay and hold my umbrella over both of us. We are walking towards the bus.

Fay says "boot fall off!". And I reach down to grab one of her boots just as it is almost off her foot. Phew. We make it to the bus stop and I set Fay down. She already looks like a wet rat. I discover that I do not have the Dora umbrella.

I tell Fay and the entire bus stop that we dropped the umbrella. I pick Fay back up and trudge all the way back down near our building entrance where I have dropped the umbrella.

On our way back to the bus stop Fay's boot falls off. I pick it up and hold it, and Fay, and the Dora umbrella.

I make it to the bus stop, throw the umbrellas to the ground and put Fay's boot back on before setting Fay down. Fay says "up up!". The bus arrives right then (thank God) and we struggle onto the bus. I get Fay in her seat and go pay the fare.

We make it to the school bus stop. I have secured the Dora umbrella in the plastic bag I'm carrying and I set out to carry Fay to school. She wants to walk.

So we walk with her umbrella up, and 30 feet before the school entrance she stumbles in her boots (which I now know are way too big) and falls flat on her face. Her pants are soaking wet and she is crying.

I get inside the school and Fay's teacher is right there at the entrance to witness the mess of Fay and mommy.

We go to the classroom and the teacher pulls out a new pair of pants and offers to put Fay's shoes on.

Mommy exits.

a hint of things to come

Earlier that day

Yesterday Fay got some kind of 24 hour flu. We were having a toddler dinner at my friends' house with about 6 toddlers all eating turkey, strawberries and green beans. After eating for 15 minutes, Fay declared that she had a boo-boo and pointed to her tummy. She was standing on the floor in front of me while I asked her if her tummy hurt, and then she threw up all over me and my friend's rug.

One point of interest. Regurgitated strawberries are like red wine; they stain. I brought Fay to the bathroom in case she vomited again and I heard all the moms in the other room talking about how to remove the stain from the rug. By the time I came out, it looked like the rug had a permanent red circle on one end.

Fay and I went home and about 1/2 hour later, she threw up the other 1/2 of her dinner. I got her in a bath and quickly to bed because it was obvious she was very tired as well. About 90 minutes later, she threw up even more strawberries, all over her bed. Man! How many did she eat?

Ryan and I ran around cleaning bedding and towels and getting Fay's bed set up for a vomit filled night (sheet/towel bedding combo). We finally got her settled in again at about 10:30. And this is where I loose track of time.

Poor Fay was up every 90 minutes with the same sequence of events. She cried out for water, drank a healthy portion of water, laid back down, and 10 minutes later, threw up the water. After the first one of these, Fay needed some serious comforting, so I decided to sleep with her in her twin bed. Not the most comfortable decision of my life. I'm 5 months pregnant so I'm already into the phase where I have to shift positions 2-3 times a night. And Fay has not mastered the technique of sharing a bed. She pretty much passes out using as much of the bed as possible. Or, worse! She tries to snuggle up to me so that my nose is buried in the back of her head.

Anyway, she stopped waking up around 3am I think, and we both slept until 7am. For some reason, Fay was perky and awake and ready for mommy to be awake at 7am.

She managed to keep her breakfast down, so I knew we were pretty much in the clear. But, man, was I tired. She finally wanted to nap around 11am, and I got a nap in. But until then I was just a zombie mom. I thought, "oh no! this is how I'm going to feel every day when the new baby arrives". Fay will be in school some of those days. But on the days when I have two, it will be zombie-ville for sure.

Sigh of relief

Our genetic counselor called today. She called with some results to the Amniocentesis we took about 3 weeks ago. We did the Amnio for two reasons: 1) because of my "advanced maternal age" which puts my new baby at a higher risk for down syndrome, and 2) we found out I am a carrier for the SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) gene. I've kinda been holding my breath ever since I found out I was a carrier. Its a recessive gene, so Ryan would have to be a carrier as well, but we didn't have him tested before the Amnio because we knew we were going to do the Amnio anyway. Then, it turned out, we needed Ryan's blood for the SMA test, so we had to draw his blood regardless.

The genetic counselor called to say that our new baby does not have Down Syndrome, Trisomy, or any of the other common genetic disorders that an Amniocentesis tests for. And she said that they tested Ryan's blood to see if he is a carrier of SMA, and he is not. The test for carriers is 99% accurate, so they will still call us with the results of the Amnio to confirm the health of the baby. But I am very very relieved. As I received the news I all but started crying on the phone. And I profusely thanked the genetic counselor, as if she had something to do with the results. I imagine she has fantastic calls to make, like this one, and horrible calls to make. That would be a tough job.

So, now, as my mom reminded me, I am more prepared to start blogging about the new baby. I think some belly shots may be forthcoming as well as a potential baby name. Ryan and I have narrowed it down to one boy name that we both like. And I think we may just run with it. But I'll leave that for another post.

Potty training attempt number one

Fay is 2 years and 4 months, and the new baby is about 5 months away, AND Fay has been showing signs of not liking her droopy diaper. So we decided it was time to attempt some potty training. From what I've read, the fastest approach (train your kid in 2 days!) is based on letting your kid run around naked for two days and getting them on the potty when they have to go (and for occasional sit downs just to see if they have to go).

I love all the articles and forums I've read where people say "pull-up" diapers are evil. Not exactly sure what that means, but the implication is that they do not help in potty training. I can see the point -- the kid will not feel the pee or will not be as uncomfortable by the pee if it is safely deposited in a pull-up diaper rather than running down his/her leg. But I don't think a kid will be fully potty trained so quickly, and accidents are bound to happen. I've decided that whenever we are home, Fay can wear regular underwear, or go naked. This will help her know when she goes pee so she can begin to associate it with the "before I go pee feeling". And when we are out, we'll wear pull-ups or diapers. Once she has convinced me that she really gets it and is really happy about going pee in the potty, I'll put her in underpants while out of the house. I'm really not overly concerned with speed.

I may eat my words as the new baby due date approaches. But we'll take that as it comes.

On another note, we *finally* got Fay to accept sleeping in her big girl bed. We got it over 2 months ago and Fay has wanted to sleep in her crib instead. Last week one of the bars on the crib came out (needs to be glued back in). So we declared the crib broken and told her she had to sleep in the big girl bed. She had one night of protest crying, and has been happy ever since. Phew.

It's a.....

We had an amnio today and everything went smoothly. Besides being a little nervous about the procedure, Ryan and I were excited to possibly find out the gender of baby number two via the sonogram. We are using a midwife this time around who is not keen on a lot of sonagrams, so we've only seen the baby once at 10 weeks.



See if you can guess the sex!

first snowman

Last weekend we got a nice amount of snow on Saturday morning. It wasn't a TON of snow by my standards (I grew up in MN). But, it was the perfect kind of snow for snow balls and snowmen. I wasn't really sure if Fay and I were up to the challenge. I can't remember the last time I made a snowman. Perhaps never.

We went to our "backyard".....wait this deserves a little explanation. Our co-op consists of 4 buildings -- 2 sets of 2 buildings separated by a street. Each set of 2 is separated by a couryard with grassy circles and winding sidewalks. The grassy areas are mostly fenced off so as not to let little feet mess up the lawn or the flowers. But last summer my co-op decided to to a "trial run" of de-fencing ONE of the grassy circles. This is where we decided to make our snowman.



Fay helped find the sticks for the arms and helped stick them in. She also helped push the balls of snow a bit.

Real Life Swiper

One of Fay's favorite TV shows is Dora the Explorer. Each episode follows the same pattern. Dora and her friends have a mission: to find something that's lost, or deliver something to someone. Whatever the mission, Dora has to travel to 3 different locations to get to her final destination. Along the way there are puzzles to figure out, problems to solve, colors to identify, etc. ALSO, Dora has a nemesis who may attempt to thwart her plans....Swiper. Swiper is a fox who shows up each episode and tries to "swipe" something from Dora. Then she has to find it again.

Over xmas break while Ryan, Fay and I were waiting in multiple airports for our planes, we started playing the Swiper game. Ryan would talk about how he just saw Swiper and then WHOOSH! something that fay was holding would disappear behind Ryan's back. Fay would have to say Dora's signature line "Swiper, no swiping!" in order to get it back. Fay really loves this game.

Last week I was at home with Fay and we were getting ready to go to our co-op's playroom. I was looking for her sippy cup ( A Dora cup! She calls it Dora Water), which was no where to be found. But I had just seen Fay carrying it 30 minutes earlier. So I asked Fay where it was. She didn't know. I looked for it EVERYWHERE. We don't have a large apt, so I was really surprised when I couldn't find it. I asked Fay again...."Fay, do you know where the Dora Water is?"

Fay said "Swiper!"

Pretty good answer. I'm not sure which is scarier... The fact that she may have an excuse for anything that goes missing, or the fact that she may live in a world where Swiper actually exists."