What a big girl!

Julia had her follow-up appointment Friday afternoon to make sure she was better and see if we could stop the breathing treatments. Julia normally HATES the pedi. She says "I don't like it" and cries as soon as the pedi walks in the room.

But this time while waiting on the pedi, I was explaining to Julia how the dr. was going to put something on her chest so she can listen to her breathe. I explained how it does not hurt and she have no need to cry. Something must have gotten through to her, because when the pedi walked in, Julia talked to her instead of getting upset. She even let the pedi pick her up! When it came time to listen to her chest, I told Julia it was okay and it will not hurt. She seemed to accept this and let the dr. listen to her chest without so much as a wimper! Then the pedi wanted to check her ears and throat. I forget to prepare Julia for this, but once I told her it does not hurt and she does not need to cry, she was fine. Just one wimper when the pedi first started looking at her ears and that was it. The pedi got out a tongue depressor to look at her throat, but I asked Julia if she could stick out her tongue and say "awwww", and SHE DID!!! That was all the pedi needed and she did not need to use the tongue depressor!!

Julia was just a big girl for the pedi. The pedi was really impressed at how well Julia is doing. She could not believe how well she was talking and how much she was saying. Full complete sentences.

THEN... once we got home, I brought Julia in the house and I went back out to the van to get the rest of the stuff. A minute later when I came back in the house, I could not find Julia at first. When I called for her, she answered from the bathroom saying she needed a new diaper and that she peed in the potty. Julia has been pulling her pants off, taking her diaper off and sitting on the potty for a few weeks now, but nothing ever happens. So imagine my surprise when I went in there and there was actually pee in the potty!!! YEAH JULIA!!! She did it all by herself, I was outside when she did it. I highly prasied her and she got several M&M's for her success! I think she is getting closer to potty training. Normally she tells us 2 seconds before she goes in her diaper or as she is going. So this is a big step in the right direction!

My little girl is growing up to be such a BIG girl!!

Nice neighbor!!

So we had a foot of snow and ice in the driveway. It would take forever to shovel it all out. So we have been careful and just hoping that we can get our cars in and out of it.

What did I come home after work yesterday and see?

Our driveway had been COMPLETELY cleaned out!!!! I can only assume it was our neighbor, he would be the only person that we know that would do it. He owns a tractor with a front-end loader, and used it to clean out our driveway at the same time he was cleaning his!!!

It pays to be nice to your neighbors!

We used to not like this neighbor because he would let his dogs run loose and they would chase/attack Jerrod and always get in our trash. I even called animal control on him once. But then a couple of years ago, one of our trees fell in his lane and we actually met him while cleaning it up. He introduced himself and his dogs (which turned out to be nice dogs). Then this year with all the trees we lost in the hurricane, we asked him if he wanted the firewood. (He heats his house with wood.) We talked for awhile and got to know each other a bit. So we left him stacks and stacks of firewood. I guess he is just returning the favor.

It is SOOOO much easier to get in and out of the driveway now!

Shy?

Julia really confuses me sometimes. Normally she is super shy, but then she does something that completely shocks me....

Like last night, we were in Red Lobster. Julia loves looking at the live lobsters in the tank because they are "icky bugs" to her. So she is looking at the icky bugs, and telling all the customers who walked past that they were icky bugs. She was also telling them to "look at my shoes". When did she become miss social and talk to strangers? But then one of them asked her what her name was and she clammed up again. Almost like she remembered that she is shy!

Silly girl!

How things have changed!

My, my, how things have changed.

When I first started taking Julia to daycare a year ago, she would cry every morning when I dropped her off. She did not want me to leave her there. It is a good daycare and she did seem to enjoy it once she got over the initial drop off. But it just tore my heart out that every morning for MONTHS she would cry for me when dropping her off.

She eventually got to the point that she was okay with me leaving her there as long as one of the caregivers was holding her.

Then it happened......

One day this week I was dropping her off and the other kids were starting an activity. I took her coat off and off she went to join in on the fun. No good-bye, not even a look back! I was left standing there waiting for my hug and kiss good-bye. The caregiver actually had to tell Julia to go tell mommy goodbye. Sniff... It is only a matter of time until she will not even want to do that.

What an independent little girl she is turning out to be!

Snow Day!!!

We are all snowed in. Both Jerrod's and I's work are closed. Before lunch we took Julia out to play in the snow.

She wanted Daddy to carry her because it was so deep it was hard for her to walk in.



She also REFUSED to keep her gloves on, she wanted to touch and eat the snow!!


Yummmm.....Snow is good!


Following in daddy's tracks makes walking in snow easier!


Jerrod showing Julia how to make snow angels.


All the snow to play in and Julia just want to swing!!




I think Daddy should have wore a hat!


Catching snowflakes on our tongue!



We only stayed out for about 20-30 minutes. It was still snowing hard out and Julia is finally feeling better and I did not want her to get sick again.

Unfortuantely, because Julia had her mittens off so much of the time, her hands started to hurt when we got back in the house. We gave her a lukewarm bath to warm them back up. We did not have any hot chocolate in the house, so we all had coffee instead!

Not obsessing

I was talking to my sister the other day, (the one that is due 10 days before me, not the one that is in labor as I type this) and we were talking how different we are when pregnant with #2 (actually #3 for her).

When pregnant with Julia, I was completely obsessed and focused on the pregnancy. Not a second went by that I was not thinking about it; would this be a viable pregnancy, what am I to expect next, what is labor like, what is going on in there, etc.. I would constantly pour over my baby development books and websites, I was constantly researching baby and pregnancy stuff.

This time, not so much. AND if I am actually feeling good, I might actually - gasp - forget I am pregnant!!! That is right!! I am so busy with Julia and stuff, that without the constant morning sickness reminder, I will occasionally forget about being pregnant!

Sure I still have a lot of the same fears and concerns, (after going through multiple miscarriages, I will always have that fear) but I am not obsessing over things. I don't pour over the development books every night. I still look at them, but mainly just when I enter a new week. I still know roughly how big the baby is (it is a lemon this week) and what it is up to. I am just not letting my life revolve around it this time.

This does not mean that this baby is any less wanted or loved, it just means that I am learning not to be an obsessive, over-protective mom.

Stickers and pig-tails

Julia's hair is finally long enough and she will hold still long enough for me to put pig-tails in it. I think it is so cute!!





Julia still loves stickers. The other night she thought it would be more fun to stick them on her, instead of the stick book pages. She even put a few on me! She was loving it until it came time to take them all off. See learned stickers on bare skin can hurt coming off!!!

Baby bump

Here is the latest baby bump. It was taken on Sunday when I was 14 weeks, 2 days pregnant.



Yes that is a maternity top! I have been in maternity pants since 7 weeks. I have very few tops that will still work at this point so I started to look through the maternity tops. I will continue to wear the few regular tops that still fit as much as I can, but I am going to start add a few maternity tops into the mix.

Migraines

I used to get awful migraines all the time. But after job changes and a few life changes for the better, my migraines had seemed to almost completely disappear! It would be VERY rare for me to have one. I think I might have gotten 3 in the last 4 years.

Well I got one this week. To make matters worse, I am pregnant and cannot take anything stronger than Tylenol. Anyone who has suffered from migraines knows that Tylenol does not do ANYTHING for a migraine! It started on Thursday and finally went away on Sunday. Combine it with morning sickness and I was feeling really bad.

I am not sure what triggered the migraine. In the past it has always been stress, but I did not think I was particularly stressed. Maybe it was a combo of Julia being sick and being pregnant. I have been having quite a bit of headaches in the first trimester.

Doing better

Julia is doing much better. So much so, that I started to space out her breathing treatments some. I really did want daycare to have to mess with them either.

She is hardly coughing now. She is sleeping MUCH better at night too!!

She is doing okay with the treatments. She cries and whines when she sees it coming, but we we talk to her and engage her during them, she does just fine. Julia has also held the mask to her face all by herself for the last couple of treatments. She thinks that is neat that can gets to do it by herself. Occasionally she will put the mask on Elmo for a few seconds, but I am okay with that; she still gets 99% of the treatment, which is more than she would be getting if she was still thrashing around.

The treatments continue until at least Friday when we go back to the pedi for a follow-up. Hopefully we can stop them after that.

Husbands

I think it is a very good thing that men don't have babies....

Julia woke up crying last night at 1am because of her cough. After about 5 minutes I accept that she is not going to go back to sleep and go down to get her and give her a breathing treatment. After which, she wanted held for awhile. About an hour later, I finally get her back to bed and go back to bed myself. Only by this time my morning sickness is getting the better of me and I need to stay sitting up for awhile. So I turn on the bedroom TV while my tummy settles enough to the point that I can lay down without vomiting.

So this morning I was telling Jerrod about giving Julia a breathing treatment last night. He seemed a little confused. So I asked him if he even knew I had gotten up with Julia last night. He said that he did only because my turning on the TV woke him up briefly.

How this man can be completely deaf to Julia's cries is beyond me. The funny thing is that he used to be a really light sleeper and I was the deep sleeper. Now it seems like that has switched.

Breathing treatments!

Julia has had a cough since Saturday. It has been getting worse and is now actually keeping her up at night. She would wake up in a coughing fit and just cry. BOTH RSV and Walking pneumonia are going around in her class at daycare. She did not have a fever and was eating and acting just fine, but since she was up most of Weds. night/Thursday morning from coughing, I thought I better take her to the dr to get checked out.

The official diagnosis is that she is wheezing. Dr did not really know what it was from. Said it could be a bit of asthma or even maybe bronchitis. I guess the wheezing is causing mucus, which is making her cough.

He put her on breathing treatments 4 times a day plus an additional treatment at night if she wakes up from coughing. I can gradually move the treatments to every 8 hours, then every 12 hours as the wheezing gets better. We go for a re-check in a week and at that time he wants me to still be doing the treatments at least twice a day. Poor little girl! Do you know how hard it is to give a 2 yr old breathing treatments?!! Luckily, she is getting better about taking them. She still cries, but at least she is not thrashing around to get away from it anymore. I literally had to put her in a bear hug and hold her head for her first treatment.

Apparently the pharmacist I saw does not have kids. I told him I was pregnant and wanted to be sure it was okay that I was breathing in this stuff too (the dr already told me it was okay, but I wanted to double check). He asked me why I would be breathing it in too. When I told him it was because I had Julia in my lap and she was fighting the treatment, so of course, I am breathing in some of this stuff too during the struggle. His reply....... "Can't you just distract her?"!!!! Sure, I can just distract her from the fact that she has to wear this mask that is blowing steamy mist and makes a lot of noise!!! I KNOW this guy does not have kids, not after a comment like that!!

Julia's cough already seems better, but I can definitely tell that she is wheezing a little before it is time for another treatment.

Second Trimester

I am officially in the 2nd trimester with this pregnancy. I am now 14 weeks pregnant today! Depending on who you talk to or which book you read, when you actually enter the 2nd tri changes. Some say at 12 weeks, some say at 13 weeks, and others yet say at 14 weeks. Since I am paranoid, I went with the latest number.

Now that I am in the 2nd tri, I was really hoping my morning sickness would be getting better. Alas, that is not the case. I even had to break out the Zofran again because it was getting so bad. I have spent all morning trying to keep down my morning pills and the 2 crackers I ate. I even took a Zofran this morning and I STILL feel like hurling. Lovely, right?

Speaking of pills, I feel like such a druggie with all the pills I take during this pregnancy! When not pregnant and not trying to get pregnant, I just take one multi-vitamin to help with my low iron. Now that I am pregnant, I take 6 pills at night, 3 more in the morning and occasionally add a couple of Zofran into the mix!!! Some of this pills are to help prevent another miscarriage and some are to help the baby grow smart and strong. Almost makes me jealous of the pregnant ladies who only take the one prenatal!

Remembering the historic day.

Whether you voted for Obama, or not, you have to agree that yesterday was a historic day for our nation. I try not to go into politics in this blog, but I thought we should capture the historic day. One day Julia will realize the significance of this picture!



Gavin even got in on the action.

Sharing at daycare

I love the fact that Julia has to learn to share with many other kids at daycare. I also love how daycare handles it. If you put a toy down, it becomes fair game. The other day when I was dropping Julia off, they were getting ready to do a craft. Some little girl stood up from her chair to get a closer look and Julia sneaked in and sat in her chair. I told Julia "I don't think that was your chair". To which the caregiver replied "You shuffle your feet, you loose your seat" and let Julia continue to sit in that chair. I think these simple rules reduces the number of fights and crying for them.

The bad part about sharing at daycare is that they all share colds and illnesses too!! When I told the caregiver yesterday at drop off that Julia had a bad cough, she replied that 18 of her 20 kids had the same cough! When I picked Julia up, she was spraying all the toys down with a mild bleach solution. This daycare is very good about washing toys, but get that many kids together, they are bound to share colds.

Oh, another reason I love this daycare... The caregiver said if I filled out a form and brought in some chap stick, she would apply it several times a day to Julia's cracked lip that I just cannot get to heal up. She also said if I filled the same form again and brought in lotion, she would also apply it to Julia's chapped skin around her nose and mouth where is is so chapped from her runny nose, constant face wiping and cold weather. The caregivers really do care about the well being of the children they watch. They don't want to see Julia suffering any more than I do.

She knows what she wants

Julia definitely knows what she wants.

On Saturday, we were helping Jerrod's parent's with a few things. At one point Julia, Debbie and I went to Wal-Mart while Jerrod and Jerry went to do something else.

While at Wal-Mart, we migrate to the toy department. Julia is checking out all the toys and is playing with the toys she already had at home. Then we get to the doll section. Julia has just discovered her love of doll babies. Debbie is trying to get Julia to want a baby Elmo, or a baby Abby, or any of the other cute baby dolls. Nope, Julia was not having it. So we continued on, only to have Julia walk over to the shelf and pull off a little infant carrier. She then sat it on the ground and walked back over to the self and picked out a $3 baby doll. She put the baby in the carrier, picked it up and started walking. All the cute and fancy dolls there, and she wants the ugly $3 doll! (I really think she picked that doll because it was the only one that was not in some sort of packaging.)

By that time Jerrod and Jerry were done, so we made our way to the check-out. On the way there, we passed a display of Swedish Fish. Without missing a step, Julia reaches over and grabs a bag and continues walking!! LOL She did not even slow down!!

She walked the entire way carrying the baby in the infant carrier. She in love with this thing! It even had to come into the van with us this morning, even though there was no baby in it!

"Blue shirt!"

Since Julia is all about "icky bugs" and likes acting like a frog, I bought her a shirt at the Newport Aquarium that had frogs on it. It was a blue shirt.

This morning Julia is still in her crib as I open her closet to pick out her outfit for the day. Immediately Julia starts shouting "Blue shirt, Blue shirt!". She had seen the shirt from across the room and wanted to wear it. I pull it out and she gets all excited saying "Julia's blue shirt". So she wore her blue shirt with frogs on it. She was quite pleased with herself.

The funny thing is that I almost did not buy the shirt because when I showed it to her in the gift shop, she did not take an interest in it. I bought it anyway thinking she will probably love it. I was right. I think she just gets so overwhelmed by new things, that me asking about the shirt was not important with everything else going on.

I really need to find more shirts/outfits with animals and bugs on them.

Facing forward!

We finally turned Julia's car seat this weekend. She can now see where we are going as opposed to where we had been.

Rear-facing is the safest way for young kids to ride in the car, so I purposely bought a car seat that would rear-face for a long time. Well, Julia finally outgrew the rear-facing limits and got turned around.

We really thought she would love it, but I am not sure she really does. She was mad that her feet no longer hit the seat back. She has also not attempted to try to take off her shoes and socks in this position, so it must be harder for her to do that forward-facing. But she is liking watching where we are going.

It is very odd to see her forward-facing after being rear-facing since she was born.

Morning sickness is weird

First off, whoever named it Morning Sickness must have never suffered from it, because it is more like All Day Sickness. It has been much worse this time around, but it is finally starting to let up some. But this morning is proof that morning sickness is just weird.

I stopped at McDonald's for a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel on my way to work this morning. Normally I really like this sandwich. I get my sandwich and it is tasting really good. Less than halfway through, though, my tummy decided it did not like the sandwich. It was so weird, because it was still tasting so good, but my tummy wanted to get rid of it.

This is part of the pregnancy I could do without.

Fun day out!

This morning we went to the Newport Aquarium. It was almost a year ago since the last time we went. That time, we went early afternoon and it was PACKED and Julia fell asleep halfway through! So this time we thought we would go on a Sunday morning soon after they opened hoping to miss most of the crowd. It worked!! We just about had the place to ourselves!! We were able to just put Julia down and let her run tank to tank, where ever she wanted, at her own pace.

Julia absolutely LOVED it!!! She would run tank to tank checking everything out! I did not get many pictures because it was dark and she would only linger at a tank for a few seconds before she would see another one to go run to see. She just had a blast being able to go where she wanted at her own pace.

Her favorite parts of the Aquarium were the 360 tunnels, although the see-through floor freaked her out some, and the lorikeet birds. The loud noise of the birds first scared her when we walked into the exhibit, but she quickly adjusted. She just stared and stared at the colorful birds. When in the 360 tunnels, she would see a fish swim overhead or see the rays and would say they were flying. I guess it does kind of look like they are flying.

Here are the pictures I did get. Julia always looks very somber when she is checking out new things and learning, that is why we could not get any smiles.

Just getting started.


This is how she spent most of the visit. Looking up at all the fish in the tanks.




You were allowed to touch these sea creatures, but Julia was content to just look.


She did really like the tanks that went all the way down to her level. She especially loved this one that had huge sturgeon in it.


Here, her and daddy were watching sharks swim by. You were allowed to actually touch the sharks, but Julia just like watching them and splashing in the water. Jerrod did pull her hand out when a shark swam by.


After we went to the Aquarium, we stopped by Jerrod's sister's condo. She lives in Cincinnati right on the river, so she was really close to the Aquarium. Julia loves her Aunt Ninnie and her cat Aby.


Aunt Ninnie fed Julia chocolate covered marshmallows!


Julia just had a BLAST today!! She was such a joy to watch too. We really need to find more things like this to take her too because she really does enjoy them. She just does not do well with crowds, so we have to find times were it will not be really crowded.

One thing that TOTALLY shocked Jerrod and I both was that as we were leaving the aquarium and walking to the car Julia asked "Where the horses go?". I had to think why she would think there would be horses here then I remembered it. WAY BACK in Oct., we stopped at the levee on our way to The Smoky Mountains to have dinner with Jerrod's sister. The restaurant was right in front of the Aquarium and there were horse-drawn carriages on the street offering rides. Julia commented on the horses then, and now MONTHS later, she remembered them being there and wondered where they went!! Jerrod and I were completely shocked that she remembered that! Makes us wonder what else that brain of hers picks up and remembers.