You win some, you lose some…

Our day yesterday, in poop:

Jacey potties in the morning and scares herself pooping. Yay!!

She immediately seems to need to poop more but vehemently refuses to try. Sigh.

At dinner at Red Lobster, she is forced to try multiple times, loudly protesting, to no avail. Sigh.

She poops in her panties. Still at Red Lobster. Boo.

When she goes to get cleaned up, she poops in the potty. Yay!!

When we get home, she potties again, and accidentally poops. Yay!!

Then we put on the new Pull-Ups we bought as a reward for the morning poop. She goes to put up her stickers from her poo-poo chart and toots loudly. “Mama, we need change my new Pull-Up,” she says. Boo.

Go to change Pull-Up- no poop! Just gas, apparently. Yay!!

~~~

You just wish your day could have been as fun as mine.

8 days left

And I have a stomach bug. Kellen is mostly over his flu–still congested but not feverish, thank goodness–but he’s still sleeping on the couch, just to be sure I don’t get sick. And I woke up at 5 am to go to the bathroom. Then again at 7 am to throw up, and it was so violent and sudden I couldn’t even make it to to the toilet in time.

Yuck.

I’ve spent most of the day sitting very still. And running to the bathroom. I’ve only thrown up once, though, which is good because I HATE throwing up. And this evenign I was able to eat a peanut butter sandwich, so the baby’s getting some protein, but my stomach is again bubbling ominously.

Kellen has been up to some light household chores today– mainly dishes and folding laundry. He also went out this evening to get a laundry hamper for Rylan’s room (I tried to do it yesterday… long story, but after 20 minutes it turned out that the people at Babies R Us really didn’t know what they were talking about and I had no hamper when I went home) and a quick trip to the mall, mostly just because he could. Poor baby. He’s been housebound for four days!

Thank goodness for grandparents, because they’ve had Jacey most of the day. They gave her my old, little, red suitcase that says “Going to Grandma’s,” and she is over the moon about it. They took her out for pizza and to see Gnomeo and Juliet, and now she’s spending the night at their house. Kellen helped her pack the little suitcase, and she refused to put it down. “Suitcase too heavy!” she told me as we waited for Mimi and Gramps to come pick her up. “Put it down!” I told her. “Mimi and Gramps can carry it when they get here.” But she refused. She’d just grunt and heft it a little higher. She’s sleeping on her princess bed (the Disney princess air mattress she got for Christmas) in my parents’ room tonight, and I’m hoping it goes well, because she’ll be right back there in just eight days when I go into the hospital to have her little brother!

So now I’m even more sure that our house will not be how I want it to be when Rylan comes home. But I’m trying hard to be okay with that!

And in the meantime, I’m just trying not to throw up.

Second thoughts

Yesterday I had one of those times that made me think–wait, why do I want a second child? Except, of course, it’s way too late to do anything about that!

So I was giving Jacey a bath after lunch. She was playing so happily that I decided to just let her go, and I went and sat in the hallway (the carpet is softer than anywhere in the bathroom!) and watched her play. I kept asking her if she was ready to get out, because the water just had to be getting cold, but she’d say, “No. Bath.”

She laid down in the water on her tummy and drank it. I told her no, because it was dirty and soapy (usually I don’t care but she was drinking a LOT), and that she should drink the water in her cup, and so she grabbed the cups that came with her bath play toys which we use to wash her hair and drank out of those instead.

Finally, I asked her to push the drain button so she could get out. “No,” she said, “Bath.”

“Okay,” I told her. “You can push the drain and stay in for a couple more minutes, or you can get out right now.” And, because she does very well with choices, she immediately lunged for and pushed the lever to open the drain.

Well. A couple of minutes later I went to get her out when I assumed the water was mostly gone. And then. Oh my.

So. Much. Poop.

She had pooped what would have been a very full dirty diaper out into the bathtub. And apparently didn’t realize it, because when I said, “Jacey Dae! Poo poo! In the bathtub!” she turned and looked, got scared, and dove for the back of the tub and stood up back there, looking warily at the poop up at the front of the tub.

Because I had let almost all the water drain out, the poop and several of her toys had sunk to the bottom of the tub. The toys were IN the poop. Jacey tried to rescue them, but, thank goodness, she went for the ones at the back of the tub, away from the mess near the faucet.

Oh goodness. What do I do?

To make matters worse, she had knelt in the poop without realizing it. Gross, gross, gross! Kids are gross!

I made her stand still and ran for the wipes. I wiped her up as best I could, which included laying her down and wiping her bottom like a little baby’s, then had her run to my room for a shower. (I had to run back to her bathroom then for her no-tears soap and shampoo, and she followed me, and I was yelling over my shoulder, “No! Stay there! You have poo poo on you!” because I wasn’t sure she was clean, and it was just a fiasco.)

Finally, she was re-cleaned. Got her dressed, pull-upped, hair brushed, read to, and in bed for a nap. Unfortunately the hubbub surrounding naptime made her very reluctant to go to sleep, and I immediately had to go to the bathroom right across the hall from her room and clean all the poop up. So she stayed awake for a lo-o-o-ong time at naptime today.

Now, realize that, by this point, it had probably been at least 20 minutes since she pooped. That bathroom was stinky. Now imagine that stench through a pregnant super-nose. And a more-sensitive-than-normal gag reflex.

Thank goodness I have gloves for cleaning. I got online and figured out how much bleach it’s safe to use on kids’ toys, then Clorox-wiped them all off before I soaked them in bleach water. And then I had to pick up the actual poop. Which had been completely saturated with water by that point.

Oh, yuck.

I cleaned up the shower mat and the tub itself, then rinsed the toys off and set them out to dry, then closed the drain again and poured the bleach water from my bucket into the tub and just let the tub and mat soak. Took all the baby wipes and Clorox wipes and poop out to the trashcan. And collapsed.

Seriously, kids are gross. Why do I want another one, again??

Oh, right. He’s cute. And he’ll make me happy.

I just wish he wouldn’t poop in my bathtub!

Sure, I can go to Bonham by myself…

When I’m still in my first trimester… with a potty-training toddler in tow…

So ‘way back at the beginning of September–it was Labor Day–I took Jacey Dae up to Bonham to see Nunu and Papaw. It was the first week of the new quarter at church, and Kellen was teaching a class, so he didn’t want to miss that first week. He decided to stay home, but Jacey and I hadn’t been to Bonham since Memorial Day, and Aunt Karen (Kellen’s aunt) was going to be in town from Florida, so we decided that I would take the baby up to visit. Both babies, because, of course, the youngest one, while not yet visible, was definitely making his or her presence felt!

Getting up there went pretty well. We stopped at Buc-ee’s to go potty and get snacks, and then I think we made it all the way to the north side of Dallas before we stopped for dinner. There were a lot of movies, and, towards the end, a lot of whining for Nunu, but we finally made it!

Late Friday night, Mr. Jeff and Ms. Cindy, friends of Nunu and Papaw’s from Katy, got there, too.

Saturday, Papaw and Mr. Jeff took off in beautiful weather for an extended motorcycle ride. Ms. Cindy, Nunu, Jacey, and I headed to the nearest town with a Hobby Lobby to do some shopping. And that’s when the trouble started.

I thought Jacey was just tired, and I was certainly tired and not feeling my best thanks to baby number two. A certain little girl whined so much that I was about pulling my hair out, and she got to wear a dress that Nunu wasn’t even sure she was going to buy right out of the store, because she refused to take it off after we tried it on her. And sometimes, when they’re just that tired, it’s just not worth the fight.

Jacey didn’t really nap as long as she should have, and she was overly exhausted by bedtime. Cindy heard her crying as I was sitting out in the living room before my bedtime, so I went back to comfort her. And she was screaming. And crying. And so very upset.

I slowly got her calmed down, then put her back in her bed and went to get her a cup of milk. It calms her down still to suck on something, and I figured her teeth wouldn’t rot right out of her head from one night of going to sleep with milk, right?

And still she woke up right after I came to bed, and I brought her to bed with me, and she slowly calmed down. I noticed she felt warm then, and felt guilty for leaving her to put herself to sleep earlier in the night because maybe she was sick.

Then, laying on her back next to me, right as she calmed down, the crying started again–and then the vomit came. Curdled milk throw-up. All over Jacey Dae, her pajamas, her hair, the bed. Everywhere but me because she was laying with her feet towards me!

I’ve heard so many experienced parents talk about racing for sick kids in the middle of the night because it’s easier to clean up the kid than the mess they make. Well, poor Nunu. She never had a chance. I had to wake her up in the middle of the night to go clean up our bed, and Jacey was far too upset to be held by anybody but Mama.

Of course, that meant that, all night long, I was up with her. Sitting on the couch, watching Nick Jr. on tv, trying to soothe her to sleep despite a very high fever. Surrounded by towels in case she threw up again. (She never did. I think the fever was just so high that it curdled the bedtime milk before she could digest it so it had to come up.)

About two in the morning, Nunu and Papaw made an emergency trip to Walmart for Children’s Tylenol and Motrin, along with some Popsicles Jacey could suck on after the medicine. She enjoyed the taste of the treats, for sure, but she was so hot that they were too cold for her and she’d only get a lick or two before she quit.

Sunday morning, the fever finally dropped long enough for Jacey and me to go to bed–maybe around 6 am? We slept for a few hours while the rest of the family was at church, then woke up as the fever spiked again to take more medicine and watch more Nick Jr. GG, GPa, and Aunt Karen came over for lunch, and then we spent the rest of the day with a pretty miserable, very clingy little girl. And a pregnant mama. Who was tired and sick WITHOUT staying up all night, and hormonal on top of it all.

Later, when everybody had to go to church again–the new youth minister’s housewarming/baby shower was that night, so nobody could stay home with me!–I broke down sobbing, because I was going to be all alone and I felt like I just. couldn’t. do it anymore.

But, of course, I’m a mama, and I had to.

Overnight, after a last dose of Motrin, Jacey’s fever finally broke for good. When I got her up Monday morning, her bed and clothes were soaked through with sweat, which I took as a sign that she had finally sweated the fever out. And she seemed fine all Monday. Well, very clingy and tired, but completely un-sick.

After “lunch,” which, for me, was cheesy potatoes (my favorite of Nunu’s dishes!) pulled half-cooked by the spoonful out of the oven while Jacey whined and demonstrated just how sleepy she was, we headed home.

I was about 20 minutes away when I realized I left the potty behind.

Of course. The one thing I can’t wait until next time to get back.

Eventually, we made it home. It was most definitely not the best trip ever. I was less than proud of the parenting I did in the midst of my combined pregnancy- and sick-child-induced exhaustion.

I am glad we went–I’m glad for every opportunity Jacey has to see her non-Katy grandparents! But I don’t think I could say I’m looking forward to my next solo trip to Bonham.

I’m just not cut out to be a single mama!

Potty training

It is not my favorite thing right now.

A while back… maybe right after her birthday?… we started putting Jacey Dae in Pull-Ups and helping her go on the potty. And, after a short time, she’d tell us, “Pee-pee!” (which really sounds like “Bee-bee” and is very similar to how she says “Baby” which occasionally led to some confusion) and we’d run down the hall and help her sit on the potty and she’d get really still and start to half-smile, and she’d pee, and then she’d grin all-out and say “Pee-pee!” very excitedly and clap for herself. And I was happy, because clearly we were in for big girl panties sometime very soon.

But. Lately, she seems to have forgotten how to tell us when she wants to go potty–unless, of course, we’re in church and she wants to leave the auditorium. Now that’s a fun trick. Especially because she’s afraid to sit on the big potties at church and is absolutely terrified of the loud flush they make, so she won’t go on her own if I do take her and I have to sit her, crying and begging “No!” all the while, on the potty, and then she only goes if she’s been holding it for a while.

Whoops, got off topic there. Anyway, right now, she won’t tell us when she needs to go, and if we don’t remember to take her anyway, she just pees right out of every Pull-Up we put on her. I don’t remember the last time she ended the day wearing the same clothes she started out in.

I want to spend a weekend at home with her wearing big girl panties or no bottoms at all, because as one woman at church put it, “There’s just nothing like pee running down your leg to teach you when to go.” But we’ve been so busy lately,we haven’t had a weekend to stay home! And I don’t want to stay home and clean up puddles of urine all day long all on my own, so it’s not going to happen on a weekday.

I’m seriously considering putting her back in diapers until we have the time to do some serious training, but I’m afraid we might undo the progress she made in those first few weeks–even though she’s ignoring that progress now.

Sigh. This is one of those times I wish kids had a switch you could flip. Like, “Wakes up all the time” to “Sleeps through the night,” and when the child is old enough to not need to eat all night, you just flip the switch and it’s all better. “Sits in own filth” to “Fully potty trained,” with one simple push of a button… wouldn’t it be nice?

TGI Friday’s

Yesterday I went to TGI Friday’s for lunch. I’ve been craving the Strawberry Fields salad there, which is seasonal so I eat tons of it over the summer because then it’s gone come fall. We just ate there on Sunday, so I knew nobody else would want to go there–but Jacey Dae wouldn’t mind! So off we went, $8 coupon in hand from my Give Me More Stripes card rewards.

I decided to order a half-order of potato skins, because they just sounded good and I’d have leftovers for a snack later that day or the next. For Jacey, it was a cup of Mandarin oranges; for me, of course, the salad I’d been wanting.

It took forever for Jacey’s milk to get there, and our meals showed up before the appetizer. As I said, “Oh, we ordered…” the waitress said, “Yeah, the skins are taking a while. They should be out soon.”

Sigh.

When the skins FINALLY got there, I asked if we could get a discount on them because they were so late. She came back a few minutes later with the check, and the appetizer had been removed AND she’d given us a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert the next time we come. She’d doubly fixed it!

“Well, that was nice!” I thought. And I felt kind of bad for being annoyed at her for, I assume, forgetting to put in the appetizer until after she’d brought us our lunch.

So we ate our potato skins. I cut pieces off for Jacey, and she just adores putting salt and pepper on anything. So I put two pieces on her plate, let her shake the salt and pepper shakers on them (even though they’re the grinding kind, so she doesn’t get much out!), and make her eat them. After that, she gets more to salt and pepper.

Well. Turns out she really really wanted to use the salt and pepper again, and, when I told her she had to eat the potato on her plate first, she shoved two very large pieces in her mouth at once. And it was too much for her. She started to spit some out on the table.

“No, no,” I told her, “If you don’t want it, put it on the plate. Not the table.”

But all she heard was, “No, no.” So she shoved the bite of potato back in her mouth. And gagged.

She chewed a few more times. And gagged again.

“Okay,” I thought. “She’s choking. What do I do.” In the midst of a very long gag, I went around to Jacey’s side of the table. As I got there, she got hold of herself again and started to spit out the potato. I grabbed a napkin and held it under her mouth…

And then she threw up. Everything she’d just eaten. The oranges she’d inhaled, the cup of milk she’d drunk, and the most-of-a potato skin.

It looked like potato soup. But it smelled worse. And I’m pregnant, and I was gagging at seeing it.

And, right at that moment, the waitress walked back up. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“Um, no, but she just choked and then threw up,” I said, not knowing how this girl was going to handle it, and I was shocked.

“Oh, no! My son has done that before, too,” she told me, having already told me she has a two-year-old son. “Let me go get something to clean that up.”

As I used the three extra napkins on our table to clean Jacey’s mouth, hand, and shirt as best I could, the waitress walked off and came back with gloves on and proceeded to clean up the table and booth all by herself. “I’m so sorry!” I told her. “This must be the grossest thing you’ve ever had to clean up here.”

“Well, I’m trying to be a nurse, so I better get used to it!” she told me, far more cheerfully than she should have been acting after cleaning up a stranger’s vomit.

Jacey Dae, incidentally, was perfectly fine. She was a little freaked out by the throw up on her hand, but once I wiped her down, you’d never know anything had happened. She sat on my side of the booth and played with the stuff on the table like she had been doing it all along.

But she smelled abominable, so we got to-go boxes and cups as fast as we could and headed home to change her clothes. I made it a point to tell the manager how well the waitress had handled the situation, and I thanked the waitress herself profusely.

The bill came out to less than $5 between my coupon and the free appetizer, and I had $6 in my purse, but I put it on our debit card. Because that girl earned herself a big tip.

I told her she’ll be a good nurse someday. And then I got us home to get the gag-inducing clothes off a very tired little girl and put her down for a nap.

What an eventful mother-daughter lunch.

The beach: collecting

Almost done, folks. I think there are three more posts from the beach pictures.

When you go to the beach, you just have to do some collecting. You collect seashells:

Even though at first you’re not quite sure what they are or what you’re supposed to do with them, and you’re a little bit wary of them and maybe even grossed out. So family shows you what to do.

And then you get the idea, and you start quite the little collection.

There’s something so special about dimpled little hands finding perfect little shells in the sand!

Then there was the OTHER thing we collected. It took quite a lot of preparation.

See those two kids there? One of them found this weird thing out in the waves. Kellen saw it, too, and ran back in for Jacey’s bucket, then ran back out to pick it up. We couldn’t figure out what it was, so we made it a pool to see if we could get it to swim. And we all crowded around and watched.

And there it is. It looked like a snail with no shell. It was folded over in layers like a rosebud. It was squishy like a jellyfish.

We never did see it swim, but we did see its eyes move. We finally let it go, and looked it up later when we had internet access. We decided it was a sea slug.

All in all, I think collecting the shells was much more picture-worthy!

Shoo, fly

Jacey’s face when she sees a fly buzzing around:

Eloquent, isn’t it?

If you give a one-year-old an applesauce…

she’s probably going to want to feed it to herself.

And if she feeds it to herself…

you’re going to have to do some laundry.

Until I get around to getting pictures…

Because I STILL haven’t gotten the Easter pictures off the camera, so you’re STILL waiting for news of our egg hunts, I’ll give you a quick little interim post to tide you over until I do what I need to do.

Yesterday, I fed the little girl I baby-sit peas for lunch. (She’s 15 months old and I still have to spoon-feed her baby food. She has teeth. She’d rather self-feed. Don’t get me started.) Jacey came up next to her and opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. “Oh, do you want some?” I asked.

“Yeah!!” she said. She gets so excited now she sort of yell-grunts her “Yeah!”s.

I laughed, because I knew she wouldn’t like mushed peas- there’s no way!- but I got a separate spoon and gave her a teeny tiny taste of it.

She eagerly licked it off the spoon… then made a surprised face… then immediately started trying to spit it out, but it’s baby food! If there’s not enough in the mouth, it sticks to the tongue, and you CAN’T spit it out! She was shaking her head frantically, scraping her tongue on her teeth, but to no avail.

I died laughing. You should’ve seen her face. She looked vaguely offended that I was laughing at her discomfort. As I went back to feeding the one who sort of likes the peas, I heard Jacey Dae gag and cough. “Nah!” she told me, pointing at her mouth.

Apparently, peas are so bad they made her throw up in her mouth a little bit.

Yes, I know my baby. I knew there was not a chance that she’d like those peas.

And there you go. There’s another vomit-related post for you- just what you were hoping for while you waited to hear how Jacey’s first real Easter went!