30 weeks - A comparison

I don't have very many pictures from my pregnancy with Corinne. That makes me sad, but there really isn't anything I can do about it and so I've tried to learn from that experience and have more pictures of myself from this pregnancy...not a lot, but more. When I was about 29-31 weeks along in my pregnancy with Corinne, Brett & I went to Arizona to spend some time with his parents and I have several pictures from this vacation. I've included a front-view comparison and a side-view comparison below.
I don't see a huge difference between the pregnancies, do you? With Corinne I was able to take advantage of my relatively light responsibilities and rest as much as I felt I needed; I would come home and take a nap after work most days. With this baby I don't have quite as much freedom; I can't exactly expect Corinne to fix/feed herself a healthy dinner or give herself a bath in the evening! The down side to this is that I am exhausted and put myself to bed shortly after Corinne goes down in the evening. The upside is that I seem to be staying in pretty good shape! I gained exactly 30 pounds over the course of my pregnancy with Corinne. Currently, I am on track to gain 20-25 pounds with this one.
With my first pregnancy, I worked right up until the week Corinne was born. I plan to do the same with this pregnancy. Wish me luck!

Meet Finn

Brett & I got Corinne her first pet! Since Brett is allergic to cats and we're not quite ready to take on the responsibility of a dog since we'll be adding a baby to our family in just a few months, we decided that a fish would be a great place to start. So, the week after Christmas Brett ran around and picked up all of the necessities (tank, filter, gravel, etc.) and set everything up in the basement for Corinne to find, she was so excited when she noticed the addition and soon after we all piled in the car and drove to the pet store so she could pick out a fish.

Then, about a week later we left for vacation - oops. We were both pretty nervous that we would come home to a floating fish, but we got lucky and he survived our abandonment. He's a hearty little guy.

This is Finnegan or "Finn" - he's a fantail goldfish and he's really dumb...but really cute. And, he begs! No joke. I'll be sitting on the couch and he will swim up and down in his tank, just watching me and hoping I'll open his jar of pellets and toss a few in for him. Honestly? Sometimes it works, it tugs at my heart and creeps me out a little to have his fishy eyes staring at me.

Eventually we'll probably get him a friend...I feel bad for him, I think he's lonely. Brett takes really good care of him and Corinne just adores him. They have a big fish tank with 8-10 fish at the entrance of her school and she tells them "good morning" and "bye-bye" almost every day so we were pretty certain that she would enjoy having a fish of her very own. Yay!

29 weeks

I don't have many pictures of myself from when I was pregnant with Corinne, something I really regret and had vowed to do differently with this pregnancy...but I haven't been doing a very good job. This morning as I headed out of the house for the day I tossed my phone at Brett and asked him to take a couple of pictures of my 29-week-pregnant self. Here are the results!
And here is a side view so that you can see how much I've popped! This baby is officially out of room horizontally and has started to push my belly out in a major way. I've had several people comment in the last week about how quickly I have popped and that I just look like I swallowed a basketball (funny how when I was pregnant with Corinne in the fall everyone associated my belly with a pumpkin and now that March Madness is almost upon us, all of the comments are basketball related!)
Overall, I am still feeling much better than I did during the first trimester when I was pretty nauseous and exhausted. I cannot lay flat on my back and when I do I almost immediately have severe pain in my lower back and find it difficult to even move to get myself up off the floor!

I'm going to try my best to do another pregnancy update with photos next week, I'm determined to have at least some documentation of this pregnancy!

Back to Reality

We returned from vacation and have had a couple of decent snow storms to welcome us back to the Ohio Winter.
Corinne has gone from dresses, bathing suits and shorts & t-shirts to boots, layers, coats, hats & gloves!
Her snow boots make her feet look huge! But, they keep the cold and snow off of her feet. She has learned the difference between snow boots, rain boots and 'fashion' boots; whenever we are walking outside she will ask me about her footwear to see if it's alright for her to stomp around in the snow.Over the weekend we were over at Grandma Chris' house when Corinne decided she wanted to play outside (which she refers to as "out Kio's side" since we use the side door and play in the fenced backyard where Kio roams) for a little while. We got her all bundled up and braved the frosty weather. She played on the rings and laughed herself silly when she would drop to the ground.

There was even a dry swing so she requested to be pushed for at least 10 minutes. I was surprised at her endurance considering the temperature and the fact that the swing was creating wind right on her rosy cheeks!
Corinne and Uncle Scott started packing the snow to throw snow balls. I decided to head back inside to warm up. They came in soon after me; Corinne's gloves are not water proof and her poor little fingers were cold! She's a much better sport about playing in the cold and snow than I am, thank goodness she has other people around to enjoy the winter experience with!

Hawaii pictures

As a continuation from yesterday, I thought I would share a few photos from our vacation to Hawaii with Brett's family. This is the beach where Corinne first dipped her toes in the Pacific Ocean, she liked the waves coming up to roll over her and eventually got a little too adventurous when a big wave caught her in the face and delivered a splash of saltwater to her mouth & eyes. She quickly recovered from that hit and we moved on to building a sand castle complete with a moat that she helped me fill up (although the water just kept seeping back into the sand so it was a never ending project). Around lunch time Corinne decided she had endured the sand long enough and became very unhappy with her sandy hands, legs, face, etc. so we headed back home for a nap.
We were able to enjoy lunch on the patio looking out at the ocean on a very sunny day. Brett realized we hadn't lathered C in sunscreen so in an effort to protect her face & neck he wandered into a nearby store and bought a souvenir bucket hat which Corinne enjoyed and we all thought was very cute!
During most of our vacation, the optimal hours for pool time ended up coinciding with Corinne's nap, but there were a few days when she was able to float around and jump into the water. She is a thrill seeker and was constantly asking if she could go in the pool or even just lay near the edge to splash her hands.
We ventured out to a botanical garden and grabbed lunch at a 'local' joint that John picked out on the way back. Everything we ordered was fabulous! I shared a chocolate shake with Corinne and we agreed that it was quite yummy. After everyone had finished eating Corinne wandered down to the other end of the table to visit with Aunt Lindsey and "Uncle Jam"
Just a random picture of Corinne on the porch at the house...not sure what she was doing? Maybe she was looking for the geckos we kept noticing all around the house, and once even in the house!
Corinne was very excited to be given the daily chore of feeding the fish in the koi pond at the house where we were staying and thought it was the greatest thing ever when they would swim over to retrieve the food pellets she thew into the pond.
Overall, it was a great vacation and I think Corinne enjoyed getting to spend so much time with Memaw & Papaw, Aunt Lindsey & Uncle Jam and our very special guest, Pauline (Jamie's mom!).

Redesigned with Renewed Intent

The blog template I had been using was about to expire, so that motivated me to make a few changes and post an update:

I haven't posted since October, and I guess I never got around to announcing that Brett & I are expecting to welcome our second child at the end of April! We know the gender, but I will refrain from posting that here since I know of at least one close friend who wants the birth to be a surprise. Corinne is excited to be a big sister and seems to understand much more about the concept that a baby is growing in mama's tummy than I thought she would. She is not quite as excited about the fact that my growing belly means that I can't/won't carry her around as often or that I am not willing to participate in more physical play with her - daddy and Uncle Scott are filling her rough-housing quota so I'm not feeling very bad about our calmer activities.

Some of Corinne's favorite things to do right now include playing with play-doh, reading and doing the activities from her Highlights for Children subscription, painting with watercolors, going on pretend vacations in airplanes and doing creative imaginary play with Baby Stella and her stuffed animals. With play-doh we have a "one color at a time" policy that Corinne happily adheres to - I get a little OCD about cleaning up all of the tools and the play area before we move to a new color and I was heartbroken when a little bit of brown got mixed in with the white, but now we have tan so Corinne is learning new colors!

For a week in January we were able to escape the frigid temperatures and get away for a vacation with Brett's family in Hawaii. Corinne was a trooper on all four flights, she is such a great little traveler. I, on the other hand, had to wear compression hose due to my pregnant state of being and was not entirely amused with the experience. While we were away Corinne slept in a portable toddler bed (thank you Aunt Tina!) which I was worried about since she has always slept in her crib - recently modified to toddler bed - at night, but she never questioned her sleeping arrangements and slept soundly the entire trip. The weather was a huge improvement over what was happening in Ohio while we were gone and we were able to spend time in the pool, at the beach, exploring farmer's markets and Brett & I even got away for a day of whale watching while Memaw & Papaw babysat. We had a great time and now Corinne like to get out our luggage (which she likes to call her packages), pack up her toys and take an airplane to Hawaii. Our pretend plane rides are complete with overhead bins, tray tables and turbulence. Love that kid!

She was very excited to return to her normal schedule, go to school and see her teachers & friends and sleep in her room. However, after about a week she came down with a pretty serious cold/virus and was out of school for 3 days - throwing her schedule off again and surrounding her with people willing to cuddle her all day. The transition back to school has been a little bumpier this time, but we're getting there. She is definitely happy while she's at school, she just doesn't want mama to go to work during the day. I'm guessing that by the end of next week she will be back to her normal departure; a hug & kiss for mama after removing her coat and then picking out a book to read with her teacher...never looking up to see if I have left. I love that I feel so great about her care during the day!

Potty Training

Corinne is potty-trained! This is a bit of a late announcement since she has been wearing underwear for quite some time, but I wanted to wait just in case she backslid and reverted to relying more heavily on the diaper. Also, fair warning for the rest of this post: there is frequent mention of toilet-related words - read at your own risk!

We had a good frame of reference to start the process with because, ever since Corinne was tiny we have been emptying her BMs into the toilet, saying "bye-bye poop" and flushing the toilet together. She has also always accompanied me on my trips to the bathroom so the concept wasn't completely foreign to her. Memaw got her a potty book and a little potty for the playroom so that we would have a place for her to go on every floor of the house.

We started to introduce the idea over the summer and at first it was a challenge just to get her to sit on the toilet. If she showed any interest and would spend more than a few moments "trying" we would reward her with an m&m. That worked well to help abate any tentative emotions she had about the potty, but it didn't do much to teach her to use the potty. We had a really difficult time getting her to the bathroom at a time when she actually needed to void.

After limited success and much stress for all involved, we decided to take a break from potty-training. When everyone was much more relaxed we blocked off an entire weekend to spend at home and really focus our efforts. Corinne spent the weekend sans pants so that she would be sure to feel the results of any urge she may have. We also kept her sippy cup filled with liquid to ensure that there would be many teaching opportunities. After only a couple of accidents she started to show signs (or maybe I started to recognize the signs she had been showing all along!) when she needed to go and we got her to the potty in time to get some of her pee in the toilet. We made a huge deal out of this success with lots of cheering and clapping, Corinne was very proud and by the end of the day on Sunday she was doing great.

Monday we kept her home from school and she spent one more day training at home with GG who is a potty-training expert! She had a great day with GG and an evening of success when I got home from work. On Tuesday I sent her to school and talked to her teachers about her successful weekend and they agreed to work with her during the week. That first week she had accidents on a fairly regular basis so we went back to diapers for school and worked on the potty training at home. After a couple of great weekends and evenings at home we were ready to encourage her to use the potty at school.

At this point she is regularly in underwear all day, every day with the exception of nap time and overnight...but she's even starting to wake up during nap or in the middle of the night to use the potty, especially if she needs to have a BM. We have also nixed the m&m reward and instead incorporated a potty chart where she gets a sticker for a successful trip to the potty. She loves this and I have fun getting all kinds of different stickers - right now we have pumpkins for Halloween!

For a while I would put her in a pull-up if we were leaving the house for an extended period of time so that if she had an accident we wouldn't have to change her pants, we could just take off the pull-up. But now she is so comfortable using the potty that she will hold it until she can go in a toilet and when we are somewhere unfamiliar (restaurant, grocery store, etc.) one of the first things she wants to do is go to the restroom to check out the potty, find the wipes, flush the toilet and wash her hands. Then, if she needs to go while we are there she is confident in their facilities and comfortable enough to use their bathroom.

We are so proud of our little girl, way to go Corinne!