First, the day started out with a hair cut for T. I went a little shorter this time around, but I don’t think it’s too bad. Of course he now looks like he’s in high school and that makes me a bit sad.

After we cleaned up all the hair, we put on our hot weather clothes (yay for tank tops and shorts!) and cleaned up the back yard a bit. Paul has a bit of a bad habit of not cleaning up after himself whenever he works on the pond, and we’re supposed to be getting our huge locust tree removed today, so I thought it would be a good time to get some of our debris taken care of.

Once the tree is gone I want to get rid of all the rocks and ugly bushes back here and finally have a little space for grass and maybe a garden next year!

Then T and I picked up his new balance bike ($15 Craigslist find!, but it needs a new tire before it’s really rideable). Unfortunately, his first ride didn’t go very well :(

When we got back home, I quickly prepped for dinner and made our lunches. My salad: spinach, strawberries, feta cheese, chickpeas, almonds, and poppy seed dressing. Yum!

Then we packed up the bike and headed to the bike shop to get a rear mounted seat installed for T. While the seat was being installed we walked over to the park to eat our lunch. On the way I stopped to check out one of the Little Free Libraries our local library has set up.

When we got to the park, I realized that T had fallen asleep, so I ate my lunch until he woke up. When he woke up he played for a bit, ate lunch, and then we set off to pick up the bike and head home.

Back at home T (eventually) napped while I worked on some things on the computer. Paul came home a little early to work on the basement. T had a little trouble waking up from his nap, so I let him watch “Dinosaur Train”. He loved it and kept shouting “orange dino door!”

Then we went outside for a little while to work on our watering skills. T watered what he could and I read a book.

After that, I wanted to try out T’s bike seat (I still had the trailer hooked up on the way home from the shop, so I was afraid it would be a bit unsteady) and we needed to pick up our CSA share, so we took a family bike ride downtown.

On the way back we put T in the trailer and Paul hauled him home. Even with an extra 50lbs he’s still faster than me!

Paul made Greek pizza for dinner (amazing!) and we put T to bed. We watched a little TV and around 9:00 we decided to call it a night and went to bed. All around a pretty good day!

It’s finally the time of year when the sun room is warm enough in the morning that we can eat breakfast out there. Yay!

But generally, things are pretty much the same day-to-day around here. I think I’ve moved on from most of my cravings (we’re back to no chicken in the house, because it was really more work than it was worth). I guess I have a few favorite things that have been my go-to lately, but I wouldn’t really call them cravings. Mostly it’s things that sound refreshing like raspberry lemonade, fruit with yogurt and granola (homemade yogurt and homemade granola, because nothing compares, ever), and toast with cream cheese (or quark) and pickles. I guess you could technically count that last one as a weird pregnancy craving, since it was another pregnant friend’s craving that sparked my interest, and I probably never would have found the combination appealing had I not been pregnant.

One thing I’m a bit disappointed about is my hair. I really can’t remember if my hair grew a lot with T or not, but this time around I don’t think I’m benefitting from the extra estrogen. Maybe it’s because we’re having a girl and she’s taking all the estrogen I have. I really don’t know what the problem is. What I do know is this: the biggest pregnancy side-affect I was looking forward to was my hair growing and other than my hair seeming to expand outward, it doesn’t seem to grow in length. I’ve always had super thick hair, but this is ridiculous. I just got it cut last month and I already feel it needs to be thinned out again. I feel like I have a huge bird’s nest on my head. It also seems to be really oily. Like I didn’t manage to get all the shampoo out or something. It’s really starting to drive me nuts and I don’t know what to do about it. Most days I just pull it half up and hope nobody cares. However, I care, so I’m pretty frustrated about it.

I think it’s probably fair for me to say that running isn’t going to happen much anymore. Between bad weather and being sick for what seemed like forever, I just never got back into it. Now, it’s just not part of my daily routine. I never think about it and when I do, it’s always at a time when I don’t actually have the time to fit it into my schedule. I know I stopped running with T when I was just about 5 months along, so I’ve already made it past that point (barely). I feel good enough that I could run if I wanted to; it’s just getting past that mental block and actually doing it that I’m having trouble with. It’s not very interactive either, so it’s a lot easier for me to justify biking to the park with T than running around the neighborhood.

On the less negative side of things, besides occasionally being tired (which is typically due to how well I slept the night before or how hard I push myself) I feel really good! I think I feel better this time around than I did with T. I’m pretty sure a lot of that has to do with how active I am. With T, I didn’t have much of a reason to get up early, or do anything physically demanding most days. Expecting to sit on the couch all day now is a bit of a joke! Especially since the weather is so nice we have no reason to stay inside all day. I feel better the more I get out and do something.

I’m still going to yoga every week and biking as much as I can. I have definitely noticed that I’m getting slower on my bike, especially when I have to take the trailer with me, which is most of the time. Little hills can seem like mountains, and I will often go out of my way to avoid them. Paul recently put new handlebars on my bike, giving me a more upright position. It feels a little strange having cruiser-style handlebars on a mountain bike, but it’s taken a lot of pressure off my back and given me more room as I expand forward.

I’m looking forward to Mother’s Day this weekend! I don’t know exactly what our plans our, but Paul’s parents are coming into town, so we’ll probably do something fun :)

If you need us, we’ll be at the park. Forever. Because spring has arrived. Or maybe we’re just going to jump right into summer. Either way… we’ll be spending most our days at the park. Hallelujah!

Our town has a great bus system, thanks in large part to the local university. I took the bus all the time as a student, but as a graduate, I’d almost forgotten it existed. T has reminded me (daily) that there are busses in town though, so I thought we should plan a ride sometime.

We got our opportunity on Tuesday (during a brief flirt with spring, before the snow piled on again). I made plans to meet a friend at the mall (not that either of us wanted to go to the mall, but when you need clothes and you’ve tried everywhere else in town…) and I had planned on biking there. The mall is only about a mile away from our house, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal to bike there under normal circumstances. However, I had biked already that morning, and we were having such a windy day that I was completely wiped out. I didn’t think it was a smart idea for me to ride again that day, even a short distance.

So, I checked out the schedule, and when T was up from his nap we made our way to the bus stop. He was so excited! I think he wasn’t sure that we were really going to get on the bus when it stopped. I could see his eyes get big when the bus stopped, but he was immediately wary of how big a bus really is and was a little timid when I told him we were going to get on. But once we were on he didn’t seem to notice and loved the ride.

The ride back was even better because I made sure to get him a window seat. He’s been into cars and trucks and wanting to know the name of every single thing that drives by our house, so he enjoyed being able to see everything for once. I think we’ll have to make bus trips a regular thing this summer.

However, for a long while we fought every night to keep him in bed. We put him to bed and before we’d get down the hall he’d be up by his door. So we put him back to bed. Sometimes we’ve just waited till he finally falls asleep and move him, and sometimes we try to put him back before he’s totally asleep.

It’s a very pitiful thing when you think about it. I don’t want my kid to feel like I’m putting him in jail or anything, but we all need sleep at some point.

I wouldn’t have a problem with him simply sleeping on the floor, because it’s probably just a phase that I’m sure he’ll grow out of. The problem is that he wedges himself in front of the door, making it impossible to open the door without waking him. I’m more concerned about how long it takes to get him up when he’s like that. In case of an emergency, I’d rather be able to grab him quickly if we need to.

Another problem we’ve been having is early wake ups and trouble napping. The napping problem is similar to the bed time problem where he’d rather sleep by the door than his bed. Paul’s been getting up with him in the mornings and getting him breakfast, which I very much appreciate (because he usually gives me an extra hour to sleep). However, 6:30 is about the earliest wake up call we can take. Some mornings he’s woken up at 4:30 or 5:30 though. At 4:30 it’s still dark enough to convince him it’s still bed time, but 5:30 is too bright for that. So instead he sits by his door and bangs on it until someone comes and gets him.

So, I did a bit of googling to find some advice on getting T to stay in his bed. The results were half “let him sleep on the floor; he’ll grow out of it” and half “it’s appalling and mean to allow that and it creates bad habits; put him back in his bed to reinforce that his bed is where he’s supposed to sleep”. Not the most helpful, but I was able to find some decent tips that I was willing to try.

1. Get some really cool sheets that he’s into to entice him back to the bed. T’s really into cars and trucks, so I found some sheets with construction trucks on them. He’s been going on about “ment trucks” (cement trucks) ever since. (However, as much as I love Target, why oh why do generic sheets have to cost $30?)

2. He may be sleeping by the door because he’s scared and he can see the light under the door. We tried two things in order to conquer this. First we moved his bed so it’s now directly across from the door and he can see the door better from the bed. Secondly I bought a night-light. I don’t know what the deal is with night lights these days, but when I was a kid a night-light was a tiny thing that plugged into the wall and you turned it on at night and off in the morning. Cost two bucks. Now there’s a whole range of fashionable lights that are at least $10 a pop. For a night-light. But at this point, anything that lures T back to his bed is great. So we started with one that projects an image (safari animals) on the ceiling. I have a few problems with these lights. First, you’re not supposed to look directly at the LED bulb. Good luck keeping a toddler from doing that. Second, there is no timer, so it’s on all night unless you unplug it. Ultimately T had more trouble going back to sleep in the middle of the night because of it. And third, but probably not a huge deal, safari animals could possibly be scary. These weren’t cartoons, and I’m pretty sure I’d need a diaper change too if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a rhino on my ceiling. I ended up returning the thing after one night of trying to convince him to stay in bed at 2am. I almost ordered one of those turtle night lights that projects the stars on the ceiling. It seems like a less frightening thing to display on your ceiling at night and they shut off after 45 minutes. However, they’re at least $25 and that seemed like a lot to spend on a night-light.

3. If he’s going to sleep by the door, at least make him comfortable. There’s not a whole lot we can do without waking him up after he falls asleep by the door. But I did move the rug in front of the door, so it’s a little softer there. I’ve considered getting a camp pad, because we need one anyway, but I think he’d probably play with it. I’m not sure if it’s worth training him to use that now on top of everything or just to wait until summer when we’re traveling. Either way, that’s another $30.

4. Get really great curtains to darken the room. Totally the opposite of getting him a night-light and much more expensive. However, I wanted to change the curtains in his room anyway and I figured it would help during nap time too. With the way the windows in our house are set up, there’s no way to put up curtains without making custom curtain rods. Unfortunately that makes the whole thing well over $100, which is more than I want to spend on curtains, but I guess they’re done now and will never need to be changed.

5. Do the super nanny sleep separation technique and stay in the room until he falls asleep. I’m generally opposed to this, because it didn’t work for us before at nap time, but it might be easier than running back to his room every five seconds. Actually, what’s the difference? (And it’s free!!)

The results have been mostly positive. After two nights of doing the sleep separation technique, darker curtains, and totally awesome sheets he seems to be back on track. Finally he’s slept through the night again, in his bed, and hasn’t woken us up until 6:00 at the earliest. (Oh by the way, every night since just before Easter he would wake up coughing and need some water and a diaper change. So frustrating. And I always seem to have trouble falling back asleep for hours afterward. That also has stopped since we made these changes.)

Nap time is a whole different situation. It seems there is a delicate balance between getting him in bed at the right time, planning enough time before hand to run around, and not letting him fall asleep in the car or bike trailer before hand. Even in a darker room he still manages to find toys to play with and crawls out of bed to sleep by the door. I’ve had the best luck letting him sleep by the door for about 15 minutes or so and then moving him to his bed. I have to wake him up to do it, but he’s usually groggy enough to go back to sleep on his own.

For now I’m hopeful that we’ll figure out a solution to the napping situation. I’m also just grateful that we seem to have gotten back on track with bed time. I just hope I’m not putting my foot in my mouth by posting this!

Today is our last day babysitting T’s friend Coco. We made good of our time biking to the park and getting cupcakes. We’re really going to miss her!

I know I complain a lot, and lately my two biggest complaints were illness and the weather. There isn’t a whole lot I can do about the later, but I finally decided I needed some time to recharge my batteries. We’ve taken on remodeling our basement and Paul’s been working on it just about every weekend since January. This means I have essentially been the main parent on T duty every day for almost 4 months. That’s a pretty long time. I am in awe of single parents. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do it.

Anyway, I finally realized that I hadn’t been able to fully recover from whatever cold/sinus problem I caught from T because I had never really had any time to myself. My priorities were always T first, dinner second, clean the house third, myself last. So, I finally put myself first for once and booked a hotel, hair appointment, and massage.

It was wonderful! The first thing I noticed was that once I made it to Des Moines and was walking aimlessly around town, was how much it reminded me of being in Europe. Not that Des Moines can ever compare to Europe, but I traveled a lot by myself when I studied abroad. I haven’t been on a trip by myself like that since. And that was 5 years ago. Ever since I got back from Germany I’ve been all about Paul and I as a couple, and I most definitely prefer that to being single, but I just hadn’t realized it had been so long since I had truly felt alone.

I won’t go into details about the rest if the weekend, because although I insisted on treating myself to some extras (a hair cut, a massage, and room service), they were just things I wanted to do for myself. I felt the best part of the weekend was just having that time to myself to breathe again. For the first time in weeks I slept through the night without any interruptions. No babies, snoring husband, urge to pee at 2 am, or sinus issues keeping me awake. And I slept in until 8:00! Had you asked me two years ago if I considered that sleeping in and I would have just laughed. Any other parent will probably agree that 8:00 counts!

As a mom it’s so easy to forget that we’re people too and that how we feel matters. As soon as I had booked my hotel I started feeling better. By Wednesday I started to feel guilty about leaving for the night because I was feeling back to normal again and I didn’t know if it was really fair of me to insist on spending the time (and the money) away from Paul and T. It’s definitely something I’ll remember and recommend to any mom, because it’s exactly what I needed!

We had fun this morning. Obviously :)

Anyway… I realized that if I got off the couch and actually did something active I felt so much better. Yoga or some short meditation also helps relieve stress. I can’t imagine anyone with an 18 month-old who doesn’t feel stressed out at some point. I usually use these free videos online, and they also have a few prenatal routines, so I thought I’d try there first.

I have to say, I’m not a huge fan. I like the other videos I’ve tried, but there’s a whole “say thank you to your mother and your grandmother and all women and connect to your baby” aspect that I find just a little too crunchy for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (or that I shouldn’t be doing it), I just find it distracting. When the program is only 20 minutes to start out, I don’t want to waste any time.

Juggling yoga with T is a challenge. I’ve tried getting him interested in trying the routines with me. He is especially good at child’s pose, but he doesn’t really understand the concept of staying off my mat (or off my back for that matter). I’ve had better luck distracting him with activities that are best done at the table while he’s strapped into his booster seat. To give myself an hour of uninterrupted relaxation once a week, I also signed up for a local class.

It’s nice to get out of the house and be with other women of similar… um, girth. The instructor is amazing too! She’s great at listening to our joys and concerns and catering the routine to fit our needs. She’s got a perfect blend of holistic thinking without being overly hippy-dippy.

I’m so glad I signed up for the class! I already feel that it’s making a huge difference in how I feel on a day-to-day basis. It helps with my energy levels a lot. I really feel that it will make a huge difference when I get to the end as well. However, I haven’t even started to think of the whole delivery process. It seems still far off, but I guess I’m already starting to count down the weeks so I probably should!