From my email this week:
Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.
I have no idea what a rutabaga looks like, but I know what baby fat looks like--chubby heaven! I love baby rolls and sagging baby cheeks. My first baby had the cheeks, but her arms barely could have qualified in the "wrist chubs" category. Plus, she had long, skinny legs and narrow, narrow feet--I don't think a baby shoe fit for at least three months because all baby shoes are made for short, fat feet, not long, skinny ones. So, I'm hoping for some more chubs on this baby. I'm SO curious to see how this baby looks--will baby ninja be a clone of my first child, or will baby ninja prove to look as different physically as I feel physically compared to my first pregnancy? If my eating is any indication of how fat my baby will be, I'm well on my way to producing a cute chubby bunny this time around. (BTW, I can't wait to kick this pregnancy weight in the head as soon as possible after the baby is born--My mom told me today they say in Weight Watchers, "Nothing feels better than feeling thin." I agree!)
This week has been a huge test of pregnancy brain and hormonal overload. I decided to potty train this week, which would give me a four-month buffer before baby 2 gets here. So I read my books (mainly followed Toilet Training in Less Than a Day), bought training pants and underwear (I was shocked that most people skip training pants and just use pull-ups--that seems like it'd be confusing because they're so similar to diapers), and loaded up on treats for rewarding my daughter for dry pants and going in the potty.
Well, the day before we started, our AC went out . . . again. Happens every summer, and we usually do a semi-cheap patch to get us through to the next summer; but this time I was done. We decided it was time for our 40+ year-old system to retire and a new one that actually cools our house to less than 78 degrees be purchased.
Being a the Type-A that I am, I decided that it'd be no problem to continue with potty training plans while sweating profusely at home and entertaining various AC salesmen trying to sell me a system that cost, hmm, about the price of my firstborn. Needless to say, sticky sweaty bodies means even more difficulty for my little one to learn the fine art of pulling underwear up and down, and an overheated pregnant mama does not make for a very enthusiastic and positive teacher. Again, determined to cross potty training off my list in the timeframe I had previously decided, I forged ahead.
We ended up moving in with my parents until we could sort out the AC thing, which meant I was not there 100 percent of the time for the training; so my daughter had two teachers, two houses to learn in, and, well, let's just say we weren't trained in less than a day . . . it's been a week, and we've just hit the crying, kicking, and screaming protests when we insist she go to the potty because she's doing the tell-tale tippy-toes dance on my mom's carpeted floors.
Sigh. I should've let this one go until the AC was installed, but now that I'm in the middle of it, I refuse to give up. I've been encouraged that the parents that are the most persistent are the most successful; plus, I've read more than once that starting and stopping potty training further delays progress.
I know, I know. There are tons of stories out there of people who stopped and started, and everything turned out just fine. I'm well aware of the fact that everyone's different. And, yes, I'd probably be fine if I threw in the towel and restarted at home. BUT, being a type-A, being less than four months from delivery of baby #2, and being stubborn, failure at this point is not an option. I will endure!
Well, for those of you who aren't scared off by now . . . back to pregnancy stories =) Got my first pregnancy-wake-you-from-a-dead-sleep-with-excruciating-pain charley horse last night. Whew, was that fun! Thankfully I'm not sore and hobbling the next day like I was with my first pregnancy. I've heard staying hydrated and eating bananas helps keep these things at a minimum--so I've got to up my intake of both H2O and bananas.
I'm really, really excited about having a fall baby. Holding my five-month-old niece and nephew and feeling their warm cheeks when I kiss them just makes me more excited. The nursery is nowhere near ready for this baby, but I know that really doesn't matter. But, we did take advantage of Memorial Day sales and bought a ceiling fan for the nursery. There's at least one thing I can cross off the list!
Off to eat a banana . . . that looks strangely similar to a brownie and ice cream =)
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