Recent videos

Here are some videos of things that Elise started doing in month 26. She loves to "spell" words from her books and create letters/numbers/shapes/animals by moving pieces of food, books or small toys. She typically does not like to perform for the camera, but we finally got a few clips for the grandparents.

Elise spelling from Stephanie Powell on Vimeo.

Making letters out of cheese from Stephanie Powell on Vimeo.

No caption needed

26 months!

Wow, it is hard to believe that there will only be one more monthly post for Elise before Jack arrives! This has certainly been a challenging month for us with the whole potty training fiasco and the simple fact that she is a two-year-old. Here's hoping that next month goes a lot more smoothly!

Sleeping: She's still sleeping and napping well. She sleeps for about 12 hours at night and 2-2.5 hours for her nap. I'm still playing around with the right time for nap and bed since daylight savings time. She always falls asleep quickly for naps, but for bedtime, sometimes she's asleep in a few minutes and other times she talks happily in her crib for up to an hour. The routine goes the most smoothly if we get ready for a nap right after lunch and get ready for bed right after dinner. During the potty training, she started waking up at night when she needed to pee and letting us know about it (and insisting on a trip to the bathroom and a new diaper). Thankfully, now if she pees in the middle of the night (I can hear her stirring over the monitor), she goes right back to sleep. Though, as soon as she pees in the morning, she is standing up in her crib and ready to be changed. She used to stir and go back to sleep or stir and talk in her crib for a while, but those days were gone as soon as we attempted the potty training. It takes us a little more effort to get her settled down before she goes to sleep. We used to just read books, pray, and lay her down, but now we have to make a few trips to the bathroom (she doesn't want to sit on the potty though... just an excuse to not go to bed yet) and distract her with a choice of blankets before we lay her down.

Eating: She's still a very good eater and this was has not been affected by potty training or the onset of the terrible twos. She is picky about meat but will still eat a good variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, cheese, beans, etc. She's become a big fan of yogurt lately and that is almost always her afternoon snack. Here is a sample "menu" of the foods that she ate yesterday. You will notice that these are all "a la carte" things... she still won't eat exactly what we eat, but she will eat parts of what we eat. For example, we had sandwiches and salads for lunch, and she got a bunch of the salad toppings, sliced cheese from the sandwiches, and leftover sweet potatoes from the night before. For dinner, we had spaghetti with egg noodles, asparagus, and rolls, and she ate the plain egg noodles, asparagus, roll, and leftover black beans. It doesn't take much extra effort on my part to set a few things aside for her as I am preparing meals.

Breakfast:
strawberries
blueberries
dry cereal
yogurt

Morning Snack:
raisins

Lunch:
sweet potatoes
pecans
cheese
cucumber
yellow bell pepper

Afternoon Snack:
banana
walnuts

Dinner:
black beans
egg noodles
asparagus
small roll

I am definitely glad that I introduced her to a bunch of different foods and tried to maintain a good variety before she entered this stage. It seems like she is picky about EVERYTHING except food, so hopefully we will bypass the picky eating stage that is so common at this age. I will certainly make the same effort with Jack. Now, this doesn't mean that she doesn't have an opinion about what she eats... she definitely does... but if it is time to eat and I put a plate of food on her tray that is made up of several different things that she is familiar with, we don't have any issues. I learned a while back not to ask "What do you want to eat?" unless I really didn't care what she answered. I also don't ask "Do you want ___ today?" because the answer is almost always no, whereas if I just put it on her plate without asking, she will eat it with no problems. If I want to give her a choice, I have to say "Do you want ___ or ____?"

Personality:
It is very interesting to see her personality develop. She is:
-not adventurous (doesn't like to try new food, do new activities, play with new people, etc)
-caring (she gets very concerned when she hears someone cry or sees someone get hurt and wants to give them something to help them feel better)
-stubborn (as evidenced by the potty training and the fact that she wants EVERYTHING to match... dishes and utensils, bows, clothes and even the cloth diapers!)
-funny (she knows what will make us laugh and says the funniest things)
-imaginative (she loves to pretend)

Big Sister Readiness:
She definitely understands that there is a baby coming soon and that he is in Mommy's tummy. Based on her comments, we can tell that she isn't just reciting memorized answers to questions, but she really believes there is a baby in there. We never modeled any pretending to her with the baby, but she initiates doing things like feeding him milk from her cup (by putting it next to my belly button), picking out clothes for him to wear, pretending to take him out of my tummy to put him in his car seat or in the stroller, changing his diaper, etc. She will tell us that she dreamed about him and will ask what he is doing. This definitely doesn't mean that the transition will be easy, but I don't think she's going to be surprised when "Baby Gak" comes home. In fact, she often comments that she can see my tummy and that it is very big. A few weeks ago, she was going a little crazy before bed and I was trying to get her to calm down, so I randomly asked her if she had talked to Baby Jack that day. She pulled up my shirt, kissed my belly button, and said "Goodnight Baby Gak, I love you!"

Learning/Playtime:
She loves listening to music and reading books. She isn't into many toys right now, which is quite frustrating sometimes. Most of the time, she would rather sit in her booster and watch me make food instead of play by herself. She climbs into her booster and buckles herself in, which is really nice for me. I hear some variation of "Mommy, I really want to hold you for a few minutes" at least 50 times a day. She requests songs by name and will occasionally sing along with them. She loves all books and is content to sit with one of us and "read" for a long time. She is recognizing more and more words and will "spell" them for us as she looks at the word... capital words, lowercase words, mixed words, it doesn't matter. She is pretty good at spelling short words without skipping letters but if it is a long word, we usually have follow the word with a finger as she spells it so that she doesn't skip letters. I think the longest word that she has spelled without me pointing to each letter is "orange". I need to get this on video.

She does like to pretend and has a vivid imagination. She will chatter away and carry on one-sided conversations with Boss, Baby Cookie Monster, her Duplo people, and Lucy (her doll). I really need to get this on video because it is so funny!

She also started rearranging things to form letters or shapes. The first time she did this, I was really confused as to what she was doing since we have never modeled it for her. That time, she took a board book and made an "L", a "Y", and a "T" by opening it and bending the spine backwards to reposition the pages. Today at lunch she rearranged her kiwi pieces to form a diamond and then attempted an octagon. I do have a good video of this that I need to download and post.

She has learned several Bible verses and I just bought her this book to give me some direction on which verses to teach her because she is so willing to learn right now. Our church does a new verse in the preschool program every month, but she picks up on it very quickly (waaay more quickly than the class of 3-4 year olds that Mike and I teach) and I think we might try to do a verse each week at home. Hey, it would be good for me to do too :)

Potty Training:
I did a few previous posts on our potty training experience that I am not anxious to relive by retyping here so I will just briefly summarize where we are at right now. We're back in cloth diapers. I refuse to buy another box of diapers because I feel like one day she's going to wake up and decide that she's ready to go on the potty again. I did buy a few new cloth diapers that fit her better than her old ones, but I'll be able to use them for Jack or at nighttime so it isn't a waste. The new ones are also easier for me to send with her to church or the in-home daycare that I take her to when I have an appointment. After about a week of not sitting on the potty at all, she has initiated sitting on her little potty several times (hasn't done anything on it, but has at least overcome the "I don't want to sit on the potty" phase). She wears panties around the house sometimes and has always kept them dry, but will ask for a diaper when she needs to go.

Funny sayings:

(after thinking she needed to poop and going to the potty but just tooting... sorry for the extra information)

E: "I need to flush my toot!"

Me: "Elise, you are too cute. Who else thinks you're cute?"

E: "Jesus!"

(flipping through her little pink Bible in the car... doesn't have pictures, just text)

(points to a page)

E: "Look! There's John 15:12!" (one of her memory verses from church)

(puts the Bible back in it's box and puts the lid on)

E: "I cover the Bible. It is warm now."

(sitting on the couch in need of a new diaper)

Me: "Elise, do you want to go see your new blue diaper?"

E: "Mommy, I would like to watch a movie."

Me: "No, let's go try on your new blue diaper."

E: "Mommy, I would like to watch a movie I said. Mommy, I SAID I would like to watch a movie!"

(runs into the kitchen when she hears Mike open the freezer to get out some M&Ms)

E: (in a very playful tone with a playful smile) “What are you doing, Daddy? Don't eat that, Daddy!"

32 weeks

I had an appointment on Friday and it went well. I've started feeling lightheaded and shaky more often (though not nearly as bad as it was with Elise) but all of my numbers look good, so I will just have to ride it out. The doctor thinks it is caused by my body not producing blood fast enough to keep up with Jack's rapid growth at this stage. This is exactly what Dr. Fothergill told me during my pregnancy with Elise. Hopefully it will get better in a few weeks. Anyway, I'm just thankful that it doesn't happen as often this time!

At almost 32 weeks, my fundal height measured 29 weeks, which was up from my last appointment but still small. The doctor says that as long as the fluid level and baby size are good, then it isn't a big deal...the measurement is likely off because I am carrying lower this time. They did an ultrasound to check and everything looks great. Jack measured almost 33 weeks and my amniotic fluid level was 13 cm. The fluid level isn't considered low unless it is under 5 cm. I got the impression that they will do a few more ultrasounds as we go just to monitor this. It is fun to see the little guy moving around! This time he kept sticking out his tongue. His head is down and his butt is under my ribs on my left side, just like I thought. I gained about 2 lbs in the past 2 weeks, which puts me at +11 from prepregnancy weight (or +19 from my lowest weight at 16 weeks pregnant).

This picture didn't turn out too well because of the shadow on the wall and the black shirt, but you get the idea.

Elise's new furniture

The lighting in these pictures is terrible, so I apologize. Here are Elise's new crib, dresser, and mirror! I'm going to get her crib skirt back out of the garage so that it will hide the wooden ledge that the mattress sits on. We are very thankful that she was excited about the new furniture and didn't mind one bit that we moved hers into Jack's room.

Bye bye, panties...

Well, after 6 relatively successful potty training days (after the first day, we only had one daytime accident every day for the 5 following days), the 7th and 8th day were disasters and we're going to take a break. We really thought we were almost there after the 5th and 6th days, and then she shocked us and turned it around. I don't know if we will try again before Jack is born or wait until later this summer. It will likely depend on her desire to go on the potty, because we've learned that she can do it, but we cannot force/bribe her to do it.

The positives of the last week:
-She learned to ask to go to the potty when she needed to pee pee and poop, and got better and better with going the first time she sat on the potty (instead of sitting on the potty for multiple times before going, though she usually would make multiple trips to the bathroom before wanting to sit on the potty).
-She learned to wake up in the middle of the night or after her nap when she needed to go potty and would stand up in the crib and call for us (but wouldn't go on the potty and would have an accident in the crib and then call for us again... this was our first clue that it was going downhill)
-She learned to use the little potty that I kept in the car if we were out somewhere and she had to go. We had zero accidents while out of the house and we left the house at least once every day starting on day 2.
-She liked wearing panties and was proud of herself when she did go on the potty.

Then day 7 rolled around, and she peed on the potty until lunchtime, and then all of a sudden, she refused to sit on the potty and would hold it until she couldn't hold it any more. She had 4 accidents during the rest of the day, all in the bathroom because she would go in there and wouldn't get on the potty. She would ask to go to the bathroom multiple times before the accident happened but would refuse to get on the potty until she started peeing in her panties. This morning (day 8), I dropped her off at a childcare provider's house on my way to my class, and she had an accident there and then another one right after we got home. It was so sad to see her hold it and hold it and hold it until she couldn't hold it any more. Believe me, we tried as many bribes in the past 2 days as we could think of to get her to sit on the potty... new toys, M&Ms, coins for her piggy bank, etc. She is totally physically ready for it and it is very obvious that she understands her body's signs for both #1 and #2. Even after putting on a cloth diaper for the rest of the day today, she was still telling us when she needed to go potty and wanting to go to the bathroom (but not sitting on the potty) and then telling us when she actually did go potty in her diaper shortly afterwards. We're not sure if we went wrong somewhere or if her frustration and defiance would have happened anyway. The last two days were the most stressful parenting days that I have ever had (and this is even after being a single parent while Mike was deployed for 12 months!), and I am very relieved to put it aside for a while. Even when she was willingly going on the potty, I never felt like we could do our normal activities because she would only go potty if she had to go, not if we were about to leave the house. So, tomorrow we are going to go for a nice long walk to the park and enjoy the time together without making sure that we are near a bathroom.

On the positive side, Jack's furniture was delivered today and she had no problems with us putting her furniture in his room and the new furniture in her room. Since the new crib has a flat front, it is much easier for me to lay her down and I think I'll actually be able to continue doing it throughout the pregnancy, unless she decides that she is ready for a toddler bed before that. I'm fine either way. I am really pleased with the new furniture and will take some pictures soon. We won't be doing a ton of decorating in Jack's room until we move to Baltimore because the big sleigh crib is sandwiched in there with a queen bed and big dresser, but I plan to get a few shelves for the wall and paint some wooden letters for his name.

She just woke up and called for me because she needed to go pee pee. We went in the bathroom but she didn't want to sit on the potty so I put her back to bed. A few minutes later, she called for me again saying that she peed in her diaper and needed a new one. Hopefully she doesn't wake up and do this every time she pees in the middle of the night! I had to tell her many times today that it is okay to pee in a diaper since she was so conditioned to thinking that she couldn't pee in her panties. I'm going to try to make the cloth diapers work until she is ready for panties again. She's definitely growing out of them even though they are supposed to go up to 35 lbs and even told me today after her nap that "My diaper is too tight on my legs, Mommy." I don't want to go back to disposables because she won't be able to feel the wetness as easily and I don't want her to get too comfortable in diapers, so we will try to stick this out and maybe get a few bigger ones if necessary.

How's that for a cheerful Thursday? :)

Potty products

Well, we had a much smoother day today. I tried to really make an effort to stick to Elise's meal/sleeping schedule and fit the potty around that, and it worked! We didn't have any of the "attitude" issues at all... not with eating, sleeping, or other transitions. We took her to church (but she and I left after the first service) and she did great and kept her panties dry in the classroom. When we got in the car, I asked her if she wanted to use her "car potty" and she said that she did. We have about a 35-40 minute drive to church, so I wanted to make sure that she had the opportunity to go before driving home. After a few minutes of sitting on this potty, she peed and was very proud of herself. I originally intended to use this one in the house and we've actually had it for several months, but then I decided that I would rather not clean a potty after every use. It makes a great car potty though and I was pleasantly surprised that she peed on it while sitting on it for the first time since we started potty training. For the house, I bought this and this. It fits the toilet very well and Elise can almost climb on the potty without assistance. I just have to help her scoot back far enough. I definitely recommend using a potty that fits over the regular one so that you can just flush the mess away. She was very excited about her new blue "potty stool".

Anyway, on the way home from church, we stopped at Barnes and Noble for a few minutes to play in the kid section and then drove home. When we got home, she said she wanted to take a nap before eating lunch, so we read a few books and then she asked to go to the potty. She went within about 10 seconds of sitting on the potty, which was a record! We've decided that for the nap/bed routine, we will let her go one time after doing the reading routine, and then after the potty, we don't sit down in the glider to rock or read more books, we just pray and go to sleep. It worked like a charm and she slept in her crib (she also slept in her crib last night).

Unfortunately, she woke up after about an hour and 45 minutes and was wet. I think she tried to tell me on the monitor, but I had left it in the kitchen while I was doing a few things and didn't hear her until it was too late. About 20 minutes later, she asked to go again and then peed within about 10 seconds of sitting down.

So then, the plan was to eat dinner a little earlier than normal so that we could start the bedtime routine and make sure we had plenty of time to read a bunch of books and sit on the potty and still get in bed by 7. All went very smoothly until she didn't need to pee. She hadn't gone in 4 hours and I was thinking that the timing would be perfect... she'd pee right before bed and we'd be good. Unfortunately, she didn't pee and wanted to go to bed first. I even tried bribing her with yogurt bites (a big treat in our house) but it didn't work. She's in her crib right now just rolling around and I am trying to decide whether I should go in and take her to the potty again or not.

Mike went to small group while I stayed home just to keep the potty transition smooth (since she hasn't peed for anyone but me), so that is why I am putting this out to the blog world while I keep glancing at the video monitor on the desk. I think the verdict is to take her to the potty again. Hopefully she'll go back down as easily as she did 45 minutes ago!

Update: I went to get her and took her back to the potty but she didn't pee and wanted to go back to bed. Here's hoping that she asks over the monitor before she goes to sleep! We want to stick with panties at night at least for a while longer (even if she wets the bed) just to avoid confusion while she is mastering the daytime training.

Potty training so far...

Well, it has been an interesting and tiring three days. If you don't have a toddler, you will probably be very bored with this post, so feel free to skip it.

As far as the 3-day training program goes, I would say that she is potty trained during the day at home. We have not tried using a potty at another location yet and we are definitely not waking up dry in the morning. Overall, we have come a LONG way but I still feel like we have a ways to go before we are flexible enough to leave the house when we want to be somewhere at a specific time.

When I started PT on Thursday morning, Elise had never peed or pooped on the potty (and didn't even want to sit on it). She started asking to pee on the potty by Thursday afternoon, and since then, we have only had two daytime accidents. However, we've been focusing so much on PT that it has been hard to stick to her normal schedule and we've had some other issues crop up that may or may not be related to the potty training. She used to be SO easy to put down for a nap or for bedtime, but now she screams, climbs out of her crib, and bangs on the door while asking to go to the potty (whether she has just gone or not). We finally put Jack's mattress on the floor and now we can give her the choice of sleeping in her crib or on the floor. (Thanks, Mom, for ordering it last week. I bet you didn't think we'd be using it this soon!) Then we lock the door and eventually she goes to sleep. That may sound cruel, but we do have a video monitor that allows us to make sure that she isn't going to hurt herself. There is no way that we are going to start a bad habit of laying down with her until she falls asleep or something else of that sort... I can't imagine trying to break that habit with an older child! So, for right now, locking the door and watching the monitor until she lays down is the best option. Thankfully, she still sleeps through the night and takes a good nap. Hopefully the "putting to bed" process will get back to normal very soon. The same thing happened in mid-January and she was back to normal a few days later.

I got off topic... Here's what happened for those who are curious or who might be doing PT in the near future. We went cold turkey and are using only panties, even for naps and nighttime.

Thursday - Day 1:

7:30 - wake up - announced that she had pooped and peed in her diaper

7:45 - breakfast

8:00 - throw away all diapers and put on panties

9:45 - first accident - peed and announced "I pee pee" as she did it - picked her up and ran to potty

9:55 - second accident - pooped (and I wasn't next to her because I was cleaning up the first accident, so we ran to the potty but she was already done)

10:45 - third accident - pee - picked her up and ran to potty

11:40 - "I need a diaper. I need a diaper. I will pee pee later."

11:55 - She went in her room and searched in her closet for diapers (thankfully, I had hidden the one unopened package in my closet so that she wouldn't see it!)

12:05 - says she needs to pee pee and has a few drops in panties but doesn't go in the potty... gets a sticker for keeping panties dry

12:15 - fourth accident - put down for a nap - climbs out of crib, runs to the door and pees

12:20 - after changing her clothes, she says "Put me back in crib Mommy" and goes to sleep

3:00 - starts stirring from nap - rush in to get here and she is dry! gets a graham cracker

3:15 - says she needs to pee and does a little dribble in panties but nothing in potty - paces back and forth from living room to bedroom to bathroom and asks to sit on the potty about 10 times 3:30 - she pees on the potty for the first time! gets a graham cracker. calls daddy and the grandparents.

7:30 - pees on the potty after pacing for about an hour and asking to sit on the potty at least 25 times (I am amazed that she held it for 4 hours... even with increased liquid consumption!)

*Doesn't pee again before bed but asks a million times to go... figured out that "Mommy, I really have to go pee pee (or poop)" works as an excuse to not go to bed - finally decided on no more trips to the potty and shut her in the room - she went to sleep on mattress on the floor around 8:45 pm (7-7:15 is a normal bedtime)

Friday - Day 2:

3:30 am - I woke up and checked her - wet - changed her and put her back to bed - did not want to sit on potty

7:15 am - starts stirring - rush in to get her and she is wet

9:45 am - pees on potty after 15-20 trips to the bathroom (started asking to go around 9)

11:15 am - pees on her 4th trip to the potty (HUGE breakthrough!)

12:30 pm - repeat of yesterday's nap issue - pees on the floor by the door (this is after going to the potty many, many times before the nap)

3:45 pm - wake her up from nap - dry

4:15 pm - pees on 2nd trip to potty!

7:00 pm - pees on 2nd trip to potty!

7:20 pm - in bed... screams for about 5 minutes at the door and then goes to sleep on her mattress on the floor

Saturday - Day 3:

6:45 am - starts stirring - rush in to get her - wet

9:45 am - pees AND poops on the potty on the 4th or 5th trip

11:30 am - randomly pees on the floor while I am at the gym - we are shocked that she didn't ask Mike to go to the potty since she's asked me every single time since Thursday afternoon and even walks into the bathroom by herself

12:45 pm - put down for a nap in crib

1:30 pm - still awake 45 minutes later so I went to take her to the potty and she peed on the first try, yay! fights going back to bed and sleeps on mattress on the floor

4:00 pm - wake her up from nap - dry

5:15 pm - pee on 3rd trip to potty

5:30 - 6:30 pm - first time leaving the house via car... kept panties dry

7:15 pm - start the nightmarish nighttime process again... we took her out of her room and to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes since it had been so long since she had last peed

9:00 pm - finally pees and then goes to sleep in the crib - will be interesting to see if she can hold it for the rest of the night.

My thoughts:

1) We are happy that, when she needs to during the day, she asks to pee and poop on the potty and does so on the 2nd or 3rd trip to the bathroom (compared with the 25th trip on night #1!) She has come a long way in just 3 days!

2) We are frustrated that she can't yet "pee on command" and won't go on the potty until she really needs to go. Until she is able to make herself go before her nap, bedtime, and before leaving the house, this will be a big challenge.

3) We are happy that she wakes up dry from her naps.

4) We are frustrated with the "Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" issue at naptime and bedtime.

5) We are happy that she doesn't not want to wear a diaper anymore - right before she peed tonight I was going to put a cloth diaper on her since I knew she would pee shortly after going to sleep and then be wet the whole night... but she refused to put the diaper on and asked for her panties again. A few minutes later, she sat on the potty and peed and is now asleep in the crib.

6) We are happy that she is very proud of herself when she goes on the potty and wants to do it.

Sooooo, the bottom line is, I am VERY glad that we are doing this now instead of after Jack comes. It takes a lot of time and effort and right now, I can devote all my attention to her. We will stick it out and I am hopeful that in the next few days, she will figure out how to go on the potty before naps/bedtime/leaving the house. At that point, I don't think we'll have the "going to bed" issues because she will have already peed on her own. The author of the e-book recommends potty-training around 22 months, and I think we might have been able to avoid some of the other issues if we had started at that point. On the other hand, at 25 months, she understands more than she did at 22 months and was naturally going longer stretches between peeing. Who knows? By the end of the week, if she isn't able to go all night without peeing, I will look into some cloth training pants to use for overnight panties. The e-book recommends waking them at night to take them to the potty (if they are waking up wet) and not using diapers/pullups/training pants, but I don't want to do anything to interfere with her (or us) sleeping through the night, especially with a baby coming in about 2 months.

I'm sure that I have other thoughts but I am way too tired to try to organize them. We're going to take her to the church nursery for one service tomorrow and see how she does. I'll do another post later this week with more thoughts and updates.

30 weeks

5 weeks ago at the Montgomery Zoo...

This week! (29.5 weeks)

30 weeks with Elise

I have definitely grown a lot over the last month! I'm feeling pretty good for the most part. My back gets stiff pretty easily, especially if I haven't gone walking or to the gym, so I try to make those things a priority. I occasionally have spells of being lightheaded but they aren't nearly as bad as they were when I was pregnant with Elise.

I had my week 30 appointment on Tuesday. My fundal height measured 27 cm and I was 29 weeks and 2 days, so I am still measuring a little small (fundal height is supposed to correspond with the number of weeks , but the doctor wasn't concerned since it had grown 3 cm in 2.5 weeks. He has commented on my last two visits that I am carrying low, and I can definitely tell a difference based on how my clothes fit. I am also a lot more comfortable than I was a month or so ago. Jack must have changed position and I am guessing that he is head down with his butt on the left side of my belly (looking down at it) because I don't have the pressure in my ribs or across my stomach anymore. I have mild heartburn that usually strikes in the evening, which has been successful in thwarting my mint chocolate chip cravings :)

At 30 weeks, I have gained about 9 lbs from my prepregnancy weight (or 17 from the lowest point which was 14 weeks ago), which is almost exactly the same that I had gained with Elise at this point. You would think that I would be about the same size, but I am way off. I tried on my maternity shirts this week and half of them are too short! My maternity pants/capris are all too baggy in the legs/butt area and won't stay up. Talk about frustrating! I'm going to try to make my regular shirts work as long as possible but I bet that I will end up having to buy a few things at the end. I caved and bought new maternity jeans and I wear them pretty much all the time that I'm not wearing workout clothes. I can still wear my normal jeans with a button around the loophole, but it isn't comfortable anymore unless I am just standing up. I'm going to sell or give away all of the pants/capris/jeans that I had with her (and the shirts that are too short) because they won't work for me during this pregnancy. Let me know if you are interested and I can send you pictures/size info.

Stay tuned for a potty training update!

Here goes nothing...

We are going to throw away all of our diapers tomorrow morning and start day 1 of potty training! I am super excited and cautiously optimistic. Elise is showing a lot of signs that she is ready to potty train (aside from the obvious one, which would be actually using the potty, ha). She goes several hours between peeing, accurately answers the "Is your diaper dry?" question, wants a new diaper right after soiling the current one, and didn't want to put a diaper back on after I let her try on some panties the other day. She actually woke up the other day saying "My diaper is dry!" In fact, it wasn't, but she hadn't peed since she woke up and did so a few minutes after putting a new diaper on (and then asked for a new one).

We've stocked up on a new potty seat that goes over the big potty, a new stool for the potty, a bunch of new panties, some disposable potty covers for public toilets, and extra paper towels for cleaning up accidents. I'm going to follow the method from this program that was recommended by my friend Jenn, who just potty trained her daughter last weekend. Thanks, Jenn and Aubrey! I hope we have as much success as you did!

Sweet Home ________?

Well, after living in Alabama for less than 4 months, we are already planning our next move for the first week of August! Mike will be starting graduate school for biomedical engineering in the fall with a follow-on assignment as an instructor in the math department at West Point. We had the opportunity to choose between three outstanding biomedical engineering programs: Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Georgia Tech. We visited all three campuses in November and December and were all for living in North Carolina (a.k.a. attending Duke) until last month. The Lord totally changed our hearts over the last 4 weeks and we both felt that God was leading us to Johns Hopkins, which had fallen from our first choice to our third choice after visiting Baltimore. The research opportunities at Johns Hopkins are phenomenal and will certainly outweigh the possible con of living in Baltimore. Mike will get to work on the specific type of project (neuroprothetics) that initially attracted him to the biomedical engineering field. We accepted their offer early last week, which shows you how sure we were of our decision because we had not yet received Duke's acceptance email.

I can't say that we are thrilled about moving with a 2 1/2 year old and a 3 month old, but we'll make it work :) Mike, we are so proud of you and excited for the upcoming transition!