Joy

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Trauma of Being a Toddler #2

Poor Claire.....

This morning, she was joyfully snuggling in bed with me and Josh. She said she was hungry and ran out of our room. We told her to wait and she did...until I got about a foot away from her and she decided to take the first step downstairs by herself and fell. She land two steps down on her mouth and there was blood and tears everywhere.Elmo and some snuggling helped ease the pain but even hours later she keeps bumping her mouth with her hand or drink and the crying and sadness starts up again. I am letting her play in the water today because it is keeping her mind off the lip. It is looking worse as time goes by.
On a positive note.... she took a nap without a diaper and woke up with a dry bed!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Trauma of Being a Toddler

This.....

is how Claire woke up from her nap this afternoon...


and it was hard to get unstuck.

A Sigh of Relief, a Prayer of Thanks

I am finally out of my first trimester and I am so relieved! Baby 2 has a strong and healthy heartbeat!

There is nothing worse to me than those first few weeks of not knowing if you'll miscarry. This is something I always have worried about but in the back of my mind thought it would never really happen to me.... I was wrong.
Not knowing if it might take a little longer to conceive, (Claire was the first try) we tried around Thanksgiving and surprise I was pregnant! We were excited and planned to tell everyone at Christmas. I had Claire's Big Sister shirt all ready to go but 3 days before Christmas, I miscarried. I was only at 6 weeks so it wasn't a big deal and I didn't go to the doctor at all. There is nothing they can do that early on anyway.

Some of you might think this is terrible, but I always pray when I first am pregnant that if there is something terribly wrong with the baby that I would miscarry early on and if I'm going to miscarry, that it be before we tell anyone. Seeing how most miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities and seeing how it happened days before the big announcement, I felt God has answered my prayer exactly how I had asked Him to and I really am so thankful.

My biggest concern was when we could try again and after reading thousands of mixed opinions we decided to not wait, so two weeks after the miscarriage, we tried and here we are today with a seemingly healthy 12 week old. I am so thankful to God that He's blessed us with making it easy to have children. I never want to take that for granted. I know too many people that do not have that luxury.

I can't wait until I can feel the baby moving around for that constant peace of mind (a month between appointments is a very long time.) I do however have the joy of hearing the heartbeat whenever I want because I have a fetal heart doppler. After an embarrassing, tear-filled trip to the doctor because I hadn't felt Claire move for two days, I decided to invest in one. It only cost $150 and I must say, it works really well because I was able to hear the heartbeat at just 10 weeks and 3 days with it. If you are a worrier like me, I highly recommend it. I also let people borrow it when I am not pregnant - so after October, let me know if you want it. Here is Baby 2's heart rate today. It's been between 176 and 165 since I've started listening.Next week is my first official appointment with my midwife and I am stoked. I plan on sharing in great detail (well, within reason of course:) about this whole midwife experience and home birth. I seriously could not be more excited about it and I can't wait to go into labor! (when the time is right:)

Ephesians 3:20
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

News!

That's right! Come this Octoberish, Claire will be a big sister! She is so excited.... well, she would be if she knew what that meant.

Josh and I are excited, of course, but I am especially looking forward to the birth since we will be having it with a midwife at home. It's going to be so great!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Dyeing Easter Clothes

My mom found Claire the most adorable Easter dress at Savers for $3.00. It is from Old Navy and it looks so adorable on her. However, it is sleeveless and even though I always think it will be warm on Easter, we always FREEZE all morning at church. I set out to find a sweater to go with the dress, preferably purple. Apparently, now that I decided to let Claire wear purple for the first time, there are none to be found.

(Not to give it away before Easter!)



I had this cute sweater in my sewing scrap pile. It fits her but after one time of washing it, it came out of the dryer with all these brown mystery stains that will NOT come out. I even bleached them and nothing. Also, the stranger thing is, the more I wash it, the darker beige it gets. It was barely cream colored when I got it. (from Target)

So today, I had a revelation and remembered this post from my favorite craft blog. I bought some purple RIT and decided to give it a try. What did I have to loose?

I didn't really follow any directions - after reading several online, it pretty much came down to put some hot water in a bowl, add some dye. Stir until you feel good about it. Wash and dry. I did throw some salt in there for good measure - a few people suggested it but didn't give a reason.
Here it is minutes after putting it in. Yeah, I was worried about those dark spots too but they went away.

After an hour.
I knew it would get lighter when I rinsed it so I let it go a few more minutes and then lost my patience and pulled it out.

I rinsed it a billion times and then washed it with detergent in the sink and threw it in the dryer.

This is how it came out....
I am pleased as punch! It came out evenly dyed, with no blotches of color.
Hurray for dyeing! I plan to do this more often.
(this may be especially good for onesies that have are boring white or have drool stains.)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Claire....

will be 21 months on the 4th of March....

is an outdoorsy girl and will play in the backyard by herself for long stretches of time...

got a new chair which she loves and likes to carry around the backyard....

makes an angry face on command...and shrugs her shoulders when told.... she can't shrug without grinning....often yawns when I take pictures of her...
loves to color ON her table....

is decidedly right-handed....

shows great interest in her Little People house and loves to make the people sit in chairs and eat the crackers I give her...pretends she knows how to do puzzles....can ALMOST do a forward roll! (She flops sideways at the very end)LOVES to read books. Her favorite right now is this vintage nursery rhyme book I got from church. She likes it because I sing the songs to her rather than just read them... (and she gasps every time Little Miss Muffett gets frightened by the big spider)

Sucks her middle two fingers and brushes her eyelashes when she is tired...

shows no interest in potty training...is growing up so fast!