Securing confidence in potty training has been a longer journey than I initially anticipated. We have had several showdowns in which Evangeline has gotten lazy about using the potty and hopes somehow she is going to sneak by and go in her panties because she doesn't want to be inconvenienced. It results in bottomless afternoons (which she really detests) in order to prove big girl panties or pull-ups are privileges, not crutches. She was doing fairly well, but when she spent the weekend with her grandparents she decided that like most other rules at the grandparents house, the potty ones were off. This was not at their encouragement, of course--perhaps more at their expense. She is very capable of using the potty, knows when she needs to go, and very much acknowledges that the times she hasn't used the potty it has been by personal election. Overall, we are moving forward. We have been on a 5 day winning streak of no accidents. She has also been keeping her pull up dry at night and during nap time. Hopefully we will rest confidently in her potty skills prior to April.
I've been baking up a baby and we cheerfully entered the final trimester together. My belly isn't cumbersome yet, but we are quickly approaching that phase. Getting up and down isn't quite as easy as it used to be. That being said, I actually still enjoy the belly part quite a bit. I forget it is so prominent until people ask me about my pregnancy and for a minute I wonder how they knew. It has become progressively more difficult to haul around a two year old, especially to carry her up the stairs. Overall I am still feeling great and trying to treasure the nights I only wake up to roll over, not change diapers and nurse a baby.
28 Weeks: (Josiah's pregnancy on the left, current on the right)
31 Weeks (Josiah's pregnancy on the left, current on the right)
For several weeks the baby was sitting breech, and it caused quite a bit of anxiety for me. It was a good thing for me to walk through, as it reminded me that neither I, nor my ability to bear a child, are self-made. Despite such eye-opening revelations, I, of course, wanted the lesson to be over and for her to turn. Initially the midwife reassured me that she still had plenty of time to turn on her own. I sat on my hands for a week, willing her to turn. All the while, the baby enjoyed letting my bounce her head under my belly button and kicking me so low on the right side that I often thought she had figured out how to sneak down into my leg. After a week, another midwife gave me the freedom to start the breech turning exercises, so I did. I found myself like this:
Upside down on an ironing board. I inched her bottom out of my pelvis so her whole body was resting in the top of my uterus. The first day I did this she didn't want to turn. The following day I inched her bottom up to the other side, and she eased her head down into my pelvis. I would love to say I felt an instant sense of relief, but the movement didn't feel drastic and I was skeptical that's what had happened until further evaluation. For four days I obsessed about whether she had actually turned. I poked and prodded her so much that she will probably feel sympathy for bobble heads the rest of her life. I hope not. Once it was confirmed that she had so easily complied all I could think was, "of course she did." She still occasionally runs her feet down my side so low that I begin to wonder if she has flipped again, but on the last check she was indeed still head down and just having a stretch party with her legs.
We did some really fun things in the month of February. We took the kids to the circus, which they loved. We also took Josiah to a Hawks game, and he and Jonathan went to the Monster Truck Rally.
Evangeline wore her hair in a heart for the month!
A typical day in our house...
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