Last night I dreamed that Mick Jagger was at my house helping to take care of Liam for me. He seemed very young (picture a 1970s version of himself without all the drugs and booze) and he was great with Liam. He even brought a Poloroid camera for Liam to play with and they had a ball.
You don’t think I need a vacation, do you?
[Scene: Liam and I are sitting on the couch and he’s “reading” books to me. He turns and rubs his hand across my belly.]
Liam:Â Mama?
Shannon:Â Yes, Liam?
Liam:Â Baby Sister’s growing in dere?
Shannon:Â Yep.
Liam: Baby Sister’s gonna come out soon so I can meet her and I’m gonna read her “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and we’re gonna play trains and I’m gonna be her big brother. When’s she coming out? She’s coming soon to meet me?
Shannon:Â Soon enough, buddy.
Liam: I’m gonna be a GREAT big brother! [pauses to contemplate] Right Mama? Am I gonna be a great big brother?
Shannon:Â You sure will, buddy.
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Maybe he’s processing more than he’s letting on about the whole baby situation. September’s gonna be interesting either way.
We continue to be semi-trapped by the potty training. I’m not sure how to describe whether there’s progress or not, but I will say that my rapidly deteriorating patience would indicate that there’s not been too much of it lately (or it could just indicate that there has been some progress in Operation: Baby, we’ll never know…). Here are some more pictures of “Connolly House Arrest 2010″ and a couple of our first out-of-the-house venture to Grammie and Pop’s to celebrate Grammie’s birthday:
I think they call this multi-tasking:
Visitors make house arrest so much nicer!
Especially when they’re this cute!
On the long (and growing) list of things I’d never have thought to do with my child for fun (but which he immensely enjoys when his Daddy thinks them up):
Don’t you enjoy having ice-water thrown at you from a Nalgene bottle?
Sometimes you just have to try things for yourself to truly understand their awesomeness:
Liam’s first encounter with a sprinkler:
Contemplating…
“Ummm…I don’t think so.”
“Save me, Mama!”
Playing piano with Grammie:
Here’s hoping we get to leave the house again this week (otherwise Matt may be looking for a maternity straight-jacket very soon…)!
Your 2.5 year old child can tell how much trouble you’re having getting off the floor and comes over to hold your hand while saying “Oh Mama! I’m’a help you up, Mama! Let’s get you up offa dere!”
In case anyone was wondering, Peanut Butter M&Ms are not a remedy for painful contractions. Who knew?
There’s not much to say this week on the pregnancy front (since all my energies have gone towards the excretion containment front). I’m exhausted (still not sleeping), I’m having trouble breathing (I can’t tell if this is the result of Baby Girl pushing on my lungs or exacerbating the reflux), and I continue to be swelteringly hot ALL THE TIME. I continue to have Braxton Hicks contractions when I’ve done too much or pushed it too far. I have far too much to do for this to stop me, so I’d really appreciate it if my mind and my body could strike some sort of a deal on this point. Basically, I’m 30 weeks pregnant in Georgia in July. On with the pictures:
30 weeks pregnant with Liam (The last shot is a bonus for those of you who enjoy terrible pictures of me as much as my husband does — which would be very difficult. I distinctly remember when he took it because I was so tired that I fell into bed and didn’t feel particularly inclined to move, possibly ever again — thus giving him ample time to break out a camera to commemorate the situation, since I was also too tired to care about anything besides becoming one with the bed. The other ones are starting to get impressive…):
(The most impressive thing about this picture is all in the perspective: I am lying on a Queen-sized bed. It looks like a toddler bed in comparison to my body…)
Week 30 in this pregnancy with Baby Girl (This is the week where I’ve reached the point of no return. I am now officially bigger than last time and I have photographic evidence. The completely unfair thing is that I weigh a good 20 pounds less than I did at this point last time despite starting out 10 pounds heavier and I’m STILL BIGGER. How is that even possible? No wonder everyone was being so nice to me while we waited out the rain delay at the concert last night — they were afraid that one forceful thunderclap would send me into labor!):
I’m toast.
Due to the potty training house arrest we’ve been under we haven’t left the house in days and days. As a result, Liam has tried out just about every inside activity that doesn’t include television (he did watch 45 minutes of Sesame Street this morning, but it resulted in pee on my bedroom carpet so that won’t happen again for a while). The other result of being trapped in the house for days on end with a toddler and his bodily functions is that I’ve taken quite a few pictures to document the experience. We’re by no means finished with the process, but if I don’t get some of these pictures up now, it will take me untold hours to sort through them all when we are finally finished (or he turns 18, goes to college, and his urinary habits become his roommate’s problem, whichever comes first). So, here goes:
Brooding pantsless artist:
Caught with his pants down:
Giant pregnant woman admiring the brooding artist’s work:
Smooches!
Caught with his pants down. Again.
Sheer concentration while tracing his foot:
“I see you!”
Pay no attention to the boy behind the trains…
Sandy feet:
Tortured artist:
Oh, the torment!
Tough guy:
I rounded the corner to find this:
Contradiction:
Seriously. Could my kid be any cuter?
Today went very well. We went back to the all-naked-all-the-time approach with the hopes of trying out the big boy underwear again tomorrow. Liam went to the bathroom, unprompted, without accident or incident for the entire day. This even included two poop incidents (these were the real coup).
There was only one hitch…
Today I decided that Liam needed to learn to wash his own hands (unassisted) so that for now I can use that time to clean out the potty chair and later I can check one more thing off the list on the road to Liam being self-sufficient in his bathroom endeavors. The nuts and bolts of the hand washing went well. This was not a huge surprise because he loves playing in the sink (especially when we don’t want him to do so).
The problem is:Â Liam’s not dumb.
He quickly put two and two together and over the course of the next 30 minutes he “successfully” peed in his potty chair 5 times (by successfully I mean he squeezed out enough to show up in the bowl). This, of course, meant that he also got to wash his hands 5 times in 30 minutes (you gotta respect his logic). It also meant that the semi-painful contractions I was trying to stop by lying on my side continued on until Matt came home and I could lie down.
The positive spin to this is that he has enough control of his faculties to pee on command (only his command, mind you, but on command nonetheless). Plus, it’s impossible to get irritated with him when I round the corner amid cries of “I peed in the potty, Mama!” to see him beaming with pride from ear to ear.
Fingers crossed that the hand washing loses its allure by tomorrow morning…
I’m not even sure of the stats yesterday. It was a long day for everyone at the Connolly Ranch. There was a lot of commotion and it probably wasn’t the best time to try out Liam’s big boy underwear. Today I’m looking for a do-over. Fingers crossed.
Today went pretty well and I’m hoping that within the week Liam will really have the hang of things. Here are the stats:
Peed in the potty:Â 11
Peed in the potty of his own volition (without any parental prompting):Â 11
Pooped in the potty:Â 1
Pooped in the potty of his own volition (without any parental prompting):Â 1
Accidents: 1.5 (1 was while he was in his chair eating dinner and didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late — thank goodness for the booster seat! The .5 was when he was playing with trains, started to go, and then stopped himself midstream to run to the potty chair and finish his business.)
Number of times pee landed outside the potty during a successful potty attempt: 5 (This was generally the result of not having his parts pointed in the right direction while seated, but twice it also involved attempts on his behalf to “pee like Daddy” while standing up. He’s really not ready for that quite yet!)
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Reading “The Little Engine That Could” for inspiration:
Let’s just hope that his learning curve keeps improving as his (and my) cabin fever also increases. I think he did fantastically well for his second day and have my fingers crossed that today is even better!