We're going on a trip...to see God

That is what Curt told Bodie yesterday as we were getting ready to go to Church. I thought it was kind of funny, but it didn't really get Bodie any more excited for Church. One funny thing did happen while we were at Mass. During the Sign of Peace (usually handshakes) I shook Bodie's hand, then the hands of the couple behind us. Bodie refused to shake Curt's hand, but then decided to give him a fist bump. Maybe that will be the Sign of Peace for his generation. The couple behind us found it pretty amusing, as did Curt and I.

We had a nice weekend, getting outside as much as we could. I found a slide at a garage sale, and thought it would be a great outside toy for Bodie. Curt and I have been throwing around the idea of getting a playset for our yard, but are a bit hesitant given the price of those things. The slide is a good start though, as that is his favorite thing to do when we go to the park.



Today I was surfing around babycenter.com and came across this developmental chart for 19-24 month olds. I noticed for 21 month olds it says they should be walking up and down the stairs. I don't know if they mean walking like I would walk, or crawling, but when I first read it I took it as walking walking. I am very touchy when it comes to Bodie and the steps. If he even looks like he might try to take a step down them, I ask him to either sit or turn around. Maybe because I've watched him tumble down the stairs one too many times for my liking. Well tonight I was doing the dishes after dinner while Curt and Bodie were "playing football" (Curt taught Bodie to stand on the landing of the stairs and throw the football up and down the stairs). All of a sudden Curt said that Bodie was walking down the stairs. It is probably good that it was Curt there to see this happen, as I probably would have stopped Bodie after one step (he did make it down without a single stumble). Curt is much more likely to let Bodie try new things than I am. Maybe I'm just not ready for my little boy to grow up yet.

Come and knock on my door

Last weekend I made myself a cleaning schedule because I was tired of getting stuck with all the housework and laundry every weekend. I figured if I could manage to stick to a written schedule of what to do when, with chores spread over the week, things would be much more manageable. So tonight when my parents dropped by unexpectedly I was more than happy to invite them in. For once my house was not embarrassingly messy or cluttered. Things aren't perfect but if you drop by unannounced I will be happy to invite you in. I don't think I am doing the pregnancy "nesting" yet (something I always wanted to - but never did - experience with Bodie). I think I am just figuring out the best way for me to juggle mommyhood, working full-time, and managing a house. One unfortunate effect of all this is I have gotten stuck with the dishes, which was Curt's one household chore (not that he doesn't do anything else, but that was the one thing I knew he'd do). I have no motivation to do housework with dishes piled around and Curt would consistently do them every few nights, and not empty the dishwasher right away, etc., so I now do them each night after dinner and it seriously takes less than 5 minutes. Hopefully I will keep up the new schedule and keep enjoying a pretty clean home.

Loooong Day

We had a beautiful Saturday which led us to spend most of it outside. While we were home, we played outside with Bodie. Curt and I took a bit of a break in the afternoon to attend the Spring Football game and Bodie hung out with his grandparents. All of this activity made Bodie a pretty worn out boy, and he slept in until 9am this morning! I was afraid he was getting sick, but he woke up in a pretty good mood. Curt was out golfing today so I thought it would be a good opportunity to use our zoo pass we received for Christmas and try out our local zoo with Bodie. Oh boy! Not a great time. Bodie was ok at first but when we hit the first set of animals he started fussing. I thought maybe he just wanted out of his stroller to walk, but that led to an even bigger meltdown and tantrum. Back in the stroller he went and we quickly made our way past the rest of the animals. Our zoo isn't that big or exciting but when you make it through in 30 minutes flat, you know it could have been better. My mom had come along with us and bought tickets to ride the train. That had to be the worst tantrum I saw Bodie have, maybe ever. We might have made a mistake in taking the stroller and our things back to the car while we were waiting for the train to arrive. I think Bodie must have thought we were leaving and when we headed back towards the zoo, without the stroller, he was pretty mad. The train arrived, he was still crying. The conductor even came to talk to him and tell him how much she wanted him to ride on the train and he just kept shaking his head and saying no. So we left the zoo, without a train ride, and headed to the park across the street where Bodie had a lot of fun playing. Even though he slept so late today he still took an almost 2 hour nap (great for us!) played a lot with his daddy, and went to bed pretty easily. I am hoping the zoo fiasco is similar to the trouble we had with swimming lessons, he just needs to go a few times to get used to it and he'll be fine...hears hoping!

It is hard being a dog...

I'm working from home this morning and here is how Tahj chooses to celebrate his no kennel freedom.

Bye Bye...

Bodie has decided he needs to say bye-bye to any object in his view. Last week when Curt was taking him up to bed, he came to give me a hug and a kiss and his Elmo chair caught the corner of his eye. He said "bye-bye melmo" then walked over to the stairs, he saw his milk cup and said "bye-bye no no". He always says bye-bye to Deuce and Tahj when he goes to bed, and when we leave in the mornings. At the park this weekend he said "bye-bye trees" as we were leaving. Last night he was very cute. When we got home from school there was a dog going for a walk across the street. Bodie stood at the edge of the garage and yelled "bye-bye dog" several times. This morning may have been the kicker. We were ready to leave the house, Bodie walked past the bathroom, saw his potty chair and said "bye-bye potty". Now if he would just use the potty so he could say bye-bye to it as he is leaving the bathroom.

Lots of updates...

1. Bodie is no longer afraid of the kitchen. Saturday morning he was all healed and had no trouble storming to the fridge in search of "no no" (his strange word for milk - I wish it was some sort of exotic foreign language but I think it is just something he's come up with on his own).

2. We had our last swimming lesson on Saturday. When it was over the teacher handed out certificates to all the kids and I joked to Bodie that he probably didn't get one since he definitely needs some additional lessons, and then the teacher didn't have one for him! Yikes! She said it was an oversight and quickly made one up for him. Hopefully we'll get to the pool this summer to help him get more used to the water.

3. Saturday afternoon we took our dogs to the dog park - a sort of belated birthday present to Tahj. Bodie was a bit afraid and didn't want to get down for probably the first 15 minutes we were there. He finally warmed up and ran around for awhile, and even petted a cute little puppy. On the way home we stopped for Blizzards at DQ (thankfully Bodie hasn't discovered the wonderful world of ice cream yet!). When we pulled up to the window to pay, Tahj stuck his nose out Curt's window and the employee quickly offered him a free doggy dish of ice cream. Tahj definitely knows how to work it!

4. Sunday we went to Mahoney State Park for an "old west cookout". The food was really yummy (again, Bodie hasn't discovered ribs or apple crisp yet so he feasted on a homemade lunch). Then we headed to a playground there to let Bodie run around and play for awhile. He really had a lot of fun and we cannot wait for the weather to be nicer so we can spend more time at the park.

5. I bought these nail clippers to trim our dogs nails and we tried them out last night. I have to say I am pretty unimpressed. Not only does it give the "green light" where it is pretty obvious you shouldn't cut (poor Deuce did get cut too short once) as a clipper they are tough to use. We are wondering if it is because their poor nails did get very long, and if we had clipped them sooner maybe we wouldn't have had such issues. We are going to give them another chance, and are definitely hoping for better results (so is Deuce!!).

6. We found out last week that Bodie will be the big brother to a little......BOY! I honestly had no feelings about what we were having this time around, so when the tech said boy, it was definitely a surprise. Everything is looking good with the baby. When we got there they had moved my due date up to 8-8, which is a little confusing. I did have an early ultrasound in which the baby measured a little ahead (not an entire week ahead) and at the time - and at all my subsequent visits - I was told my EDD wouldn't move. Then it did. I sort of wonder if it was because I moved my appointment up a week so the sheet could have been filled out to show what my gestational age would have been for my original appointment and not the new one I scheduled, although one would think the people working there would be competent to adjust the paperwork accordingly. I really shouldn't make such a deal out of it though, if I had my original due date the baby would be measuring about 1.5 weeks ahead, and now it is only a few days ahead (Bodie was 9 lb 15.5 oz, 10 days early, so I do grow them big). I scheduled my next appointment with my regular OB (I have to rotate through the practice) so I'll get some reassurance that the moved date is right next time.

The only news to come from the appointment is that I have a low laying placenta, which usually moves up but I'll get another ultrasound at 28 weeks to recheck it. I've read that if it doesn't move, and gets close enough to the cervix you can be diagnosed with placenta previa, and the doctor also mentioned that it can grow into my c-section scar, so hopefully when I am rechecked everything will be fine.

Scaredy Baby

Last week Bodie was sent home from daycare with a temp of 102. Curt took him to the doctor on Friday to find out he had a cold that was moving into his ears. This explained a lot of attitude, night waking, not eating issues he had been having all week (we blamed it on teething since, aside from sounding a little congested, he really didn't have signs of illness). Anyway the prescription he is on has caused him to have a lot of dirty diapers. The poor guy's bottom was pretty red for awhile, so on Tuesday night we let him run around - sans diaper - to dry out. Things went fine until about 45 minutes later he had an accident on the kitchen floor (which we expect would happen since we are not really close to potty training at all). So as Curt mopped it up, I went upstairs to get a diaper so we could Bodie ready for bed. All of a sudden I heard a clunk, Curt say "oh no" and a big baby wail. Turns out Bodie had gone into the kitchen, slipped and hit his head on the floor. Obviously he was pretty upset about it, and the rest of the night he just wanted to snuggle up with us (which I definitely didn't mind since he isn't much of a snuggler anymore). We gave him some motrin and he went to bed without issue, and has been fine ever since. Except for one thing. He is afraid to walk in the kitchen. It is probably a little mean of us, but Curt and I are finding this pretty funny. Especially when Bodie forgets he is scared of the kitchen, goes running in there, and then starts crying when he realizes where he is. Most of the time though he will just stop on the edge of the carpet before the linoleum starts, whines, and gestures into the kitchen at something he wants. We figure (hope) after a few days he'll forget his fear altogether. We did make a little progress this morning when he held my hand to walk through the kitchen to leave for school. The one benefit of his new fear is that he hasn't been digging through the fridge (yes, he can open it on his own) and I haven't been finding random things from the lazy susan in the living room.