20 Months and start of the Third Trimester

Dear Nathan,
My my, how quickly these past few weeks have gone by. This week you are starting to talk a lot more. You have started to use the phrases "Oh no," and "No, no."  It seemed like before, you just nodded when you agreed, but now, you are telling me "no." I bet that feels pretty empowering huh? I also forgot to mention in the past few posts how well you are producing sound effects. Sometimes we don't know if you are screaming or if you are mimicking a machine of some sort. Most of the time, you are mimicking, but this past week, you have become pretty sensitive and will whine or scream if things don't go your way. For example, you threw a huge fit when we were finished playing bubbles and you weren't ready to put them away. Eventually you will learn that things will not always go your way.

We've gotten lots of heavy rain recently. One morning we went to the grocery store to pick up some crawfish for a boil. As we were unloading the car, you started to wander out into the driveway. My first instinct was to pull you back in to keep you dry, but since it was a warm day and there wasn't any lightning, we decided to let you run around in the rain for awhile. I'm glad we did because you had so much fun splashing around in the rain.

Afterwards, nice and dry you decided to push Daddy around the house.

 Today, we met up with your BFF at a park nearby that I never knew existed. It is pretty much in the middle of a neighborhood. It's basically a large pond with lots of ducks and turtles swimming around. You guys had fun feeding the animals. I was surprised at how well you could throw bread. (Must be all the practice that you've gotten with throwing other things around the house lately).

On Saturday, Daddy wasn't feeling to great. So we hung out for a bit and you helped cook. You have gotten quite good with the knife. I had asked you to cube the tofu, but you gave me small chunks instead...which by the way, still tasted awesome.

Then, that afternoon you had a pretty bad accident. You had fallen on top of the dishwasher drawer and one of the pegs punctured your cheek. The bleeding was pretty bad at first, but then it got better. When I took a picture of the wound, you even smiled for me. We weren't sure if we should have taken you in to see a doctor, but since you were in good spirits and I read online that puncture wounds heal pretty well, we used some butterfly bandages and liquid bandage to close up the wound. I am just thankful that you didn't puncture your eyes.

This week you have also experimented with biting. At first, you would be hugging my leg, and then I would feel your mouth brush against my leg and then a light bite. I flinch away and tell you that it hurts and I don't like "ouches." Sometimes you continue to try to bite, sometimes you find something else to bite. Not sure what's going on, but let's stop this soon.

So at 20 months, you are still not eating vegetables. I've decided that this is no longer a phase and that I need to do something about it. I don't know what yet, but I will figure it out somehow.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I'm thinking about making a huge change: transferring to a hospital to give birth instead of the birthing center. Here are the main 2 reasons: 1) Cost. A hospital birth with our insurance has us paying $280 out of pocket. The birthing center is not covered under our insurance (but the midwives are) so we are paying a little bit over 10 times the cost of a hospital birth. 2) Jaundice worries. I found out that our second baby will have a higher chance of developing jaundice. After the experience with Nathan, I don't want to repeat that again.

But, having a natural, unmedicated birth is important to me. If it was necessary to receive drugs or to get a c-section, I would accept it. But a part of me (based on statistics) distrusts labor and delivery doctors. C-section rates have increased so much since the beginning of time and I don't want to have one if I can avoid it. With Nathan, the midwives used various massage techniques and birthing positions (as well as psychological threats) to help me push the baby who had a fist stuck under his chin. I think if I were to have birthed in a hospital, I would have been induced with pitocin (since my water broke with no contractions) and then ended up having a C-section because the baby's heart rate was dropping when I was pushing in a certain position.

Ideally I find a doctor who is knowledgeable and supportive of natural births, or I deliver at a hospital that allows midwives to deliver. I will be praying for God's blessing.

On another note, Steve and I will be going on our first official date night, babysitter and everything this Friday. I'm a bit nervous about how Nathan will fall asleep, but we'll see how it goes. Perhaps it will go smoothly, perhaps it won't.

Nursery update: I think we have everything we need for the nursery now. The room is painted with a customized gray (I mixed a bunch of old paint that we had around the house already), We have the furniture that will be needed and I've ordered a recliner for the room. I'm have a bunch of tissue paper pom poms to make. I'm trying to decide whether or not to hang them from the ceiling, or to stick them on a wall to create a 3-D wall art. The theme is going to be chrysanthemum and dahlia flowers with sheep. Colors: Gray, purple, light bluish green accented with pale green. I'll be sure to post pictures when I have more things put up.

Wow, what a long post. Until next week.

Love,
Mommy

 

The mystery illness of Week 86 and 26 for the little one.

Dear Nathan,
I am writing this post a bit late because we have been out of town and you've been a bit under the weather. Let's rewind back to last week. Right after you got up, we packed into the car and drove down to visit the zoo in San Antonio. We arrived around 10:00 and stayed until about 2:00. That was plenty of time to see all the exhibits and have lunch. I thought it was neat for you to finally be able to see some of the animals from your books in real life. You seemed to really enjoy it. It was the perfect weather too.

You seemed to have overcome your fear of reptiles. You pointed out "sss" (Snakes) without wincing at all.

It was also cool to finally see real ducks.

At the aviary, you enjoyed swinging on the bars.

You also saw a lion for the first time. I'm glad you were able to point it out despite the lion laying really still.

You also got a chance to get a view of prairie dogs in the museum's new children's area. Sadly, I couldn't fit through the tunnel, but you got to go in with Daddy.

Towards the end of the trip, this was your preferred mode of transportation.

By the end of the day, I realized that I didn't have any pictures of us together, so I had Daddy take one in front of the flamingos.

Later that evening, we went to church for a special MOPS (and pops) event. You hung out with the other kids and when we went to pick you up, you were sitting so nicely and watching the movie that they had put on the screen. You were so cute!

Monday, after Chinese class, we drove up to Plano to go visit your grandmother and great-grandmother. The trip up was nice. We got there in about 3 hours (after lunch) and you were asleep for about 2 hours of the trip.

This is also the first day of your mystery illness. You woke up with a runny nose, but I attributed it to teething because you had been drooling a lot lately, and chewing on random objects.

That night we went to a restaurant and you ate so much food! I was a bit embarrassed because now your grandmother thinks I don't feed you enough. But I was proud of how much you ate. You even ate cabbage and liked it!

Tuesday, we went to the mall to pick up some things for your great grandmother. While we were there, we went to the indoor play area that they have for little kids like you. You had lots of fun climbing up and down the structures as well as riding in the mechanical rides (which we didn't put any money in because you were happy to just turn the steering wheel). Other than a runny nose, you were still your normal self.

Wednesday, we went to Ikea to pick some stuff up for your little sister's room and you were very fussy and clingy. So instead of eating lunch out, we decided to bring lunch home and you had none of it. Not even soup, which you love. I put you down for a nap and then you woke up feeling really hot. When I took your temperature, it was 99.3 degrees. You pretty much just watched sesame street for the rest of the afternoon and ate nothing for dinner.

Thursday, you woke up, had your usual milk, a few blueberries and then threw everything back up. You were super clingy and ate breakfast on my lap. Around 9:00 we were sitting on a chair and you fell asleep on my chest. You never fall asleep on me. So I held you for a bit until I had to go to the bathroom. I tried putting you back in your pack and play, but you just cried and cried. So instead, I put you on my bed and laid down beside you. Within minutes you were asleep. You slept until 11:30. When you woke up, you asked for a banana, ate it all and just wanted to cuddle. At 12:30, you were showing signs of being tired, so I put you back down to go to sleep. I tried to go get some Chinese groceries while you were napping since both grandma and great-grandma were there, but at 1:30 grandma called me to come home and give you some medicine because your fever was pretty high and you seemed pretty miserable.

When I got home at around 2:00, you were dozing off on grandma. I gave you some medicine, we read a few books and then you took another nap from 3 - 5. You woke up happier, we played until dinner, where you ate nothing again. After dinner, I gave you a bath and you went to sleep at your normal 8:00 bedtime and slept until 7 the next morning.

A-zho (Great-grandma) and us.
You were finally feeling better to take a picture. 

Friday we were able to make a quick trip to Target (to get great-grandma a few things) before heading back home to Austin. We left grandma's house at 11. Drove for about 45 minutes and had lunch in Dallas. You had some milk, and a pouch of baby food. After a quick lunch, we were back on the road at around 12:30. You fell asleep pretty quickly, but didn't sleep long and around 2:00 started to become very fussy. I would reach my hand back and stroke your head to calm you down, but that quickly got uncomfortable. Luckily there was a stuffed dinosaur that I could use as an arm extender that worked for a bit, but soon you discovered my ploy and took my gadget away. You just needed to be held. Once we reached Waco, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up some more pouches and to walk around. Around 2:45 we were back on the road and you were back to being happy.

We didn't get home until 6:00. Traffic was horrible, but I am so proud of you for being so patient and content with playing with your toys in the back seat. You were happy to see Daddy and Teddy. We had dinner, which you again, ate nothing, except for a few sips of smoothie and your vitamins.

So being the web-crazed mom, I tried to diagnose your illness. It came down to a bad cold, the flu, or hand foot and mouth disease. You were not eating, had a fever, and feeling bad in general. In addition to the recent outbreak of hfam disease in Austin, I feared the worse and kept on checking for sores. Thank God that they never appeared.

Today, you are eating a bit more, but you are acting like yourself once again. I am glad that this is over and you don't have to feel so crummy anymore.

Your great-grandma thinks you are a genius. She couldn't stop commenting on how many things you can do as an almost 20 month old kid. You were also able to pick up calling her A-zho pretty quickly. You would want her to do things with us. You wanted to show her your toys. You really liked her.

Still no new developments in language, but you are able to communicate exactly what you want through signing and pointing. It's also neat for you to be able to understand 2 languages. I really hope you don't reject chinese when you get older.

That's it for now. Oh, updates on your little sister. I can feel her kicking my bladder now. Yesterday during the car ride, I could feel something round (either her butt, or her head) jammed right under my rib cage. That made driving pretty uncomfortable. Other than that, things are pretty normal and I'm feeling pretty good. It's a bit scary to think that in 10 weeks she will be considered "at term." That day will come sooner than I know it.

That's it for now.

Love,

Mommy

Week 85.25

Dear Nathan,
I can't help but admire how much you've grown every time I look at you. Sometimes when you are playing, or working on something, you become a little boy. Not the little baby that I held in my arms just a few months ago. They say your kids grow up so quickly, and I'm just now understanding the truth in that statement.

You have been babbling a lot more. You will babble to us as if you are telling us something that we should understand. I'm sorry if we don't understand you, but in time we will. You have not been able to make the "p" sound yet, but since you can make the "b" sound, I'm not too concerned.

When we talk to you (in both English and Chinese) you seem to understand us pretty well. You nod "yes" a lot as if you understand, but I know sometimes you are just nodding. At least you are positive.

Cats are very fascinating to you. Other things that you really enjoy or will point out are school buses, the moon, birds, dogs, reptiles (especially snakes), and flying insects. Hopefully one of these days we can take you to the San Antonio Zoo, where you can see all of your favorite animals (except for dinosaurs).

Artificial noises still scare you. If you don't know what is creating a sound, you don't like it and will shake your head to let us know. But other than that, you are quite fearless.

This week, you've been climbing a bit more. (And falling quite a bit too). In the pictures below, you are playing with a roll of foam that I got for a cushion that I made for our upstairs playroom.

 Not only were you rolling it around, you figured out that it would be fun to climb on top too.

 This morning, I found you sitting in a colander. You were quite proud of this achievement.

Another thing that you've been doing is climbing on top of the coffee table. Sometimes you do it so that you can throw things like balls off the edge, but sometimes you just climb up and stomp around. You have also figured out how to climb on top of the pool table. 

 This morning, you wanted to play the piano on a seat so you pushed the little ottoman to the other ottoman and climbed up. By the time I had grabbed the camera, you were already working on climbing up.

  

Sometimes it seems like you favor Daddy more. Like this morning, you and daddy were playing under the table, when I asked if I could join you, you shook your head and pushed me out. Other times you have pushed me away is when you are washing your hands. You are pretty insistent on washing your own hands now at home. You don't want any help from me at all. You are actually pretty good at washing your hands, you can pump soap, rub, turn on and off the faucet and everything. I just intervene because you like splash around sometimes and take a long time to wash. One day the novelty will end and hand washing will become a chore. Then I'm sure I will be wishing for these days again. 

Things with your baby sister are going well. We just had our 24.5 week check up and everything seems great. in about 3.5 weeks, I will be going through the glucose tolerance test. I remember feeling woozy and pretty much passed out afterwards. This time the birthing center has me going straight to the 2-hour test. We'll see how it goes. I didn't have gestational diabetes with you, so I'm hoping that I won't have it with your little sister. 

Another thing we talked about at the appointment was jaundice. The midwife told me that the chances of babies getting jaundice increase for each baby that you have. They will be monitoring the situation, but I really hope we won't have to spend any more time in the NICU this time around. 

That's about it for now. Love you lots! 

Mommy (not Dada, which is what you sometimes call me)

Wanting to Love More

Since Nathan has been going to bed at a reasonable time, I've had the evenings to myself. I usually fill the time with curriculum planning, guitar, or "Nemo's Reef," a silly game that I'm glad that crashed and forced me to start over so I'm not playing it anymore. Recently, I've found myself a bit bored in the evenings, so I decided to start reading again.

I don't know if it's the lack of mental stimulation, or something that God has put on my heart, but I really yearn to know and love Him more. Recently, church has been uninspiring, and so I tried to find a book that may help me out. I'm in the middle of reading this one:

Without going into the details of the book, because there are several professionally written reviews about this book, I'm just going to share how I have been inspired so far. Almost halfway through the book, Chan describes the "lukewarm Christian." And I happen to fit the description perfectly: my life is relatively going well; I attend church weekly; I am somewhat involved at church; and I have a general plan of what I want to do with my life. My prayers have mostly been prayers of Thanksgiving, and I haven't really had to pray to God for anything. In other words, I haven't had to depend on God. 

But what really hit me hard was when I read this scenario that Chan paints of Heaven. Imagine a place where you get to be with all of your loved ones. Things are pretty much perfect. The only thing missing is God. Would you be ok with that? 

I honestly thought to myself, actually, I think I would be ok with it. 

But I don't want to be OK with it. 

Chan suggests that we pray and ask God to help us learn to Love him more. So, I guess if you are reading this, I'm asking for your prayers in this matter. I want to genuinely love God because He is so worthy of our love. I want to understand this love so that I can guide my children into loving God, and knowing Him in a personal and relevant way. How awesome would that be? 

In college, I met a girl who was truly in love with God. You could just tell and if she weren't so genuine about it, it probably would've been border line annoying. To her, God was not an idea or someone she mentioned only at church or when discussing religious matters, God was the reason she would say things. Almost everything that came out of her mouth exhibited an adoration for God's works. It was inspiring to be around her. 

So, I know that it is possible. To truly know and love God not lukewarmly, but passionately, and intentionally, all the time. May God help me. 

Week 84.24

Dear Nathan,
I want to start off this post by announcing that you ate vegetables yesterday! First it was at HEB. You ate 2 bites of zucchini at the samples station. And then at dinner, you had a whole slice of veggie quiche (Which had spinach, zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes, but you didn't like those). So then we had it again for lunch today and you took only a few bites and was not interested. But you weren't really hungry in general, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this trend continues.

Nathan helping to make veggie quiches. Added ingredients and mixed them with the egg. Great job!

Clapping (or signing "more") for yummy veggie quiche!

There was a moment this past weekend where I was very proud of you. We all went to one of our friend's birthday party and there was really only one other baby there. Since she was younger, I asked you to show her how to play your piano. You took her hand and showed her how to bang, I mean, play the keys. You even looked at her to watch for a reaction. You are getting better at sharing and it seems like you are throwing less tantrums than you were last week. So, that's good.

Thursday night, you woke up right as we were about to go to sleep and it took us about 1.75 hours to finally get you back asleep. The normal bedtime routine re-do just didn't cut it, so Daddy had to step in and he tried rocking you to sleep. After about 15 minutes of rocking and you still not falling asleep, he put you in your crib. You cried for about 5 minutes and just as I was about to go upstairs to give you more cuddles, you stopped crying and in a few minutes, fell asleep. It turns out you were feeling pretty bad because the next day, you were coughing like crazy. Luckily, it didn't last too long because after a night of turning the humidifier on in your room, your persistent dry cough progressed to a very occasional loose cough the next day.

On Monday, I decided to do a test run on potty training. Here's a picture to document this momentous occasion.

First try

Cute Training Whitey Tighties

We even got you a few training underwear, a new potty and a potty book. For one afternoon, I had you just wear the training diapers and throughout the afternoon, I would ask you if you needed to use the potty. I found out that the training pants don't work too well for you because they feel too much like your cloth diapers, so you just went #1 in them. Luckily, this happened while I was mopping so I was able to easily clean everything up.

Afterwards I just had you run around sans diaper for the rest of the afternoon. While we had many successful pees, there were a few accidents. You would start to go and then I would whisk you onto your potty. You would finish, point, and insist on pouring the contents into the big toilet. (you do this by pointing to the potty and then pointing to yourself).

Final verdict on potty training readiness. I think we still need to wait a bit for #1. You are starting to get better at telling us when you need to go #2, but you still need to understand the sensation of having to go #1. You can hold it once you realize, but I think you need more bladder control before we go down to intense potty training. For now, I will just continue to have you go #2 in your potty and depend on diapers for the other stuff.

As far as naps go, you are down to one 1.25 hour nap each day. You will go down at around 1:15 and wake up around 2:30. This doesn't give me much time to get things done, but it seems like it's easier for me to do chores while you are awake these days anyways. You usually play by yourself, or you are helping me.

Yesterday, we met up with your cousin at the library. Unfortunately, there was no story time, but we were able to go to the park and play a bit before lunch time. You cousin is very affectionate and was hugging and kissing you on the cheek the whole time. Sometimes you enjoyed it, sometimes you pushed her away. It's not nice to push.

It's so amazing to see how big you are getting. When I take a peek at you through the baby monitor, I no longer see a little baby, I see a little (or to me, big) boy.

Well, that's it for this week. We'll see how things go this next week.
Mommy

Update on Honeybun II: Things are going well. I'm getting more energy and recently have desired to nap less. I'm still taking Zumba classes 1-2 times a week and have resumed lifting weights once again. The prenatal yoga class that I went to was not challenging enough for me, so I'm going to a body flow class at the gym. Many of the poses that we do are great for pregnancy. I'm thinking I will be going to this afternoon class from now on.

I'd have to admit that I'm not eating as healthy as I was when I was pregnant with Nathan. I've definitely upped my sugar intake (with Nathan I avoided sugar like the plague), but I think I need to reduce it for the little one's sake. I'm eating more junk food like chips and ice cream, but I'm also making sure I'm eating healthy foods too...so I guess that's ok. So far, I'm up about 9-10 pounds from when I started.

The new nursery has not even been painted. I need to go and find some fabric to help me coordinate the colors of the nursery. I'm hoping to do a purplish sheep room, but not too girly. We'll see if I can make it happen.

Here's a bump pic from today, at 23.5 weeks

The same shot from Nathan's pregnancy at 22 weeks. 

It's cool to see how I'm carrying lower this time around. Even though these pictures are one week apart, this belly is a bit bigger.

So, my goal for this week is to consume less sugar... after I finish this papaya smoothie.