All About Baby Boy

Okay, so maybe this post should be more accurately titled "All We Wish We Knew About Baby Boy." It's been an increasingly time-consuming pastime, these past few weeks, musing and wondering who this little boy is going to be.

After the super-relaxed and fairly absent-minded beginning and middle to this pregnancy, this pastime has been a new and welcome change. Instead of being preoccupied and inattentive toward our impending arrival, I'm finding myself researching this product and that, sighing over little boy clothes, and cleaning and organizing like a crazy lady.

One of our favorite things to do, though, is play the "I Wonder" game. We wonder if he will look like Cambrie. We wonder if he will sleep or nurse well, or if he will be shy or outgoing. We wonder, constantly, who is this little person going to be?

Here are the things we do know:

He is definitely coming. Here are two gratuitous baby belly shots to prove that point. These are from a week ago, at 34 weeks along. Please ignore my blinding white skin.

He is a boy. Umm, we hope that doesn't change on us last minute. Yikes.

He will be arriving within a few weeks of June first. I guess this is a "probably," too, but its a pretty safe bet.

He will have a mother and a father who are basically already in love with him, and an older sister who, though she may not know what she's getting herself into, is all set to be Mommy #2.


That's about it as far as the givens. Here are a few things we're looking forward to discovering:


His name. We've had a semi-favorite name, our "probably it" name, for a while. Unfortunately, it's been a lot more difficult to commit on a name this time around than it was with Cambrie--Patrick and I have both admitted that we still don't know if our name is really it. We may be bringing a baby name book to the hospital; there we can see if our little boy's sweet face will persuade us to fall in love with the name at stake. Otherwise, it'll be back to the drawing board.

His temperament. I know it's ridiculous, but I find myself assuming Little Brother will be one of only two ways: just like Cambrie (proving awesomeness runs in the family), or the exact opposite of her in every way (super cuddly, awful sleeper, act-first-think-later kind of kid). I know it's not fair to see him in terms of Cambrie rather than as his own person, but I'm sure it won't take long for him to claim his own personality, completely independent of Big Sister.

His little face. This is a fun and less intense one to think about. Just for fun, let's look at the gene pool Little One has to pull from. We'll do some sibling comparison, too.

Here's little Daddy:

Hehe, looks like Patrick's sister is none too happy to have to "play nice" with her little brother. I bet we'll get a few pics like this, too.

And here's baby Mommy:

Yes, that's me, even though I'm in a blue sleeper with no signs of girly-ness.  But check out that cute smile! ;-)

And finally, who can resist pictures of baby Cambrie?

Okay, here's a recap of possible facial features to look for:

I'll be excited to come back with a new picture to add, showing where the resemblances really do lie! Until then, we'll just have to keep wondering and waiting.

For Those Who Care About Potty Time

The Problem
So, as I hinted in this post, I've been terrified of potty training for a while. I have no idea why--of all the challenges of raising a growing child, I've been fine with almost all of them. I never dreaded diaper blowouts, baby slobber, or squished worms the way I did teaching Cambrie to use the potty.

My only theory, and it's a weak one, is that right about the time we first decided to try, I was brand-new-barely pregnant. Maybe my impatience level was just a little too high at that point? I also couldn't get over the convenience of diapers. No matter where we were, what time of day or night, what sort of situation we were in, there was no rush, no panic, no desperately hoping that my little kid could hold it because we had no extra undies or clothes. No problem. That's what those fabulous diapers were there for.

I think both Patrick and Cambrie would have been ready to make the switch months ago. She has a little potty which she used, with intermittent success, whenever she felt like it. That amounted, eventually, to once every few days. She got a single M&M for every potty use. Still, every time I thought about losing the diaper safety net (and the nice amount of mess-free control we had over her potty-life), I just about broke into hives.

The Plan
My foot-dragging had gone on long enough. Last week we bit the bullet. We declared a Panty Day.

Yes, those are panties. And yes, she's playing in a vacuum cord. Those things are apparently great fun.

From Panty Day forward, all diapers would be banished except for naptime and nighttime. Cambrie was excited and picked out some girly little monkey panties at the store to prepare. We stocked up on M&Ms and little apple juice boxes to help keep the fluids moving. (But man, those M&Ms kept disappearing a lot faster than she was actually going potty...)

On Panty Day morning, we explained that for pee in the potty she'd get an M&M and a sticker. For poo in the potty, she'd get two M&Ms and a sticker. She's been running around in a t-shirt and panties (no pants or skirts) just to keep things simple, and aside from Church on Sunday, we didn't take her on any car trips.

The Results
She caught on pretty quickly. For the sake of all interested parties out there (I'm assuming anyone who doesn't really care about my daughter's bathroom habits tuned out long ago) and for posterity, here's a run-down of those first few days:

• Day 1: Four accidents, one "mishap" (on the potty, but with some aim issues), six successes
• Day 2: One accident, eight successes
• Day 3: No accidents, five successes
• Day 4: One accident, one "mishap", eight successes

Since Day 4, NO FULL ACCIDENTS!! (We're letting one little leak yesterday slide because she stopped it and held the rest in until she reached the potty) Here I've had a little potty genius this whole time, and my trepidation has just been holding her back! She even loves to go on the big potty, with no helper potty-seat involved (thank you to her four-year-old cousin Carleigh, for inspiring that feat).

We had leftover label-stickers from a garage sale we had back in Virginia. Guess what are now Special Potty Stickers?!

Yesterday she blew us away--fourteen successful potty trips! And the vast majority of those were her telling us she wanted/needed to go. Woohoo! (We're just hoping the sheer number of trips doesn't mean she's caught on to how to get more M&Ms in a day... *grimace*.)

Moving Forward
Starting tomorrow, she gets a new potty chart. We're removing one incentive (probably M&Ms) and she has to start wearing skirts/pants again. We'll also have to brave the outside world sometime soon--we'll see how her little bladder holds up to a car ride.

See? Almost done with the chart! Ready to move on!

I'm so glad this went easier than I was anticipating! My only other goal is to keep her so excited about being a "big girl" that when Little Brother comes along, she doesn't decide she wants to revert back to being a (diapered) baby herself. We are cutting it a little close. I guess we'll have to wait and see.



**A Note For Tween- or Teenage Cambrie**
I guess there might be some small chance you wouldn't want something like this written for the world to see. Here's what I have to say regarding that: first of all, the world in general doesn't really know or care that this post exists. Second of all, if you aren't already embarrassed enough by other things your dad and I do/make you do as your parents, then we aren't doing our job right. Thirdly, if for some reason this post goes viral or I become a famous blogger right at the time when you're old enough to know the difference and care, let me know. I'll come back and change your name. ;-)

Bits and Pieces

*Go ahead and skip to the bottom if all you care about is pictures.*

I feel a little scatterbrained, lately.

Not, for those who know me, like that is something new. I'm a little chaotic, with random bits of selective organizational tendencies. At any given time I have this running list of things in my head that I could do, would like to do, need to do, and it takes a discipline that I'm still trying to develop to keep everything straight and prioritized.

My desk is cluttered. My closets are a joke. But I can find time to record cute Cambrie stories, make a fancy dinner here and there, and hyper-organize the incoming loads of cute, little boy things. This is all normal, for me.

But I feel it a little more lately--my "managed chaos" is fraying just a little more at the edges. If people ask me to do something, no matter how much I'd like to, I think twice about agreeing because I'm afraid I'm going to forget. If a number, or an item for a shopping list, or some essential project for the next day isn't written down, there is little hope of it being remembered. This is a little less normal.

Though a little frustrated with my constant struggle to keep it all together, I'm not really worried. I know pregnancy hormones have to do with it, and there's been a lot more for me think about and a little less sleep for me than normal lately. My plan is that it's temporary. But it still bugs me.

The reason I'm sharing this now is that this same extra dose of...jumble?...means I'm a lot less likely to think in  stories. This makes it harder to think of posts I want to share. A year ago I would have had a number of cute ideas centered around fun stories or poignant moments or sweet pictures, but for now, all I can manage (within the realm of effort I usually spend on blogging) are little fragments.

Well, if fragments are all I can manage, then, for now at least, we'll just go ahead with the "something is better than nothing" philosophy I sported earlier.

First, did you know that Patrick turned another year older? Imagine a fun, food-centered post here. He requested cookie pizzas. I made one chocolate chip with cream cheese icing, and one with both chocolate and peanut butter chips. Cambrie, of course, helped, and then colored a piece of paper to wrap his present in. Evidence:

Next, after months of feeling gross and unkempt because my hair was tootootoo long, I finally got it cut. Verdict? I love it. I should have gone this short before. Even on do-nothing days it is easier to deal with and looks slightly more presentable than it did when it was long and in need of a trim. Soooo I'm happy. And you should all be, too, because I hate posting pictures of myself. Enjoy:

By the by, the bottom left picture (and the similar one below) are at about 32 weeks pregnant. Sorry I haven't done more belly pictures--I guess it's just not as exciting the second time around. That and I feel considerably less "cute" this pregnancy, as compared to three years ago with Cambrie.

Finally, here is the small selection of Easter pictures I promised. Cambrie had fun in her new dress, but, as you can tell by that bottom picture, she was pretty pooped by the end of the day. It took her about five minutes of Pocahontas to be out cold. I don't know why, but my favorite part of that picture is her owl PJs under her Easter dress. It's just classic Cambrie.

So there are a few more fragments. I make no promises of posts to come, because we all see how well that usually works out. However, I do hope to keep posting something, even if infrequently and with scatterbrained content. Hopefully things will get a little clearer and in control (even if busier and more complicated) within a few months of baby boy making his debut.

Thinking of Spring

I'm not sure how to begin or shape this post. Many of you already know that our family has had a sad and exhausting past few weeks. Patrick's grandfather, with whom we've been living, passed away almost two weeks ago.

I don't feel the need to go into very many details about that here. All I can say is how grateful I am to have gotten to know that great man while I could and how amazed I am at the wonderful legacy he has passed on--I am truly proud to be a part of his family. It is overwhelming to think of the love and support that has been poured out upon Patrick's family--especially toward his grandmother. It's been as uplifting as it has been difficult.

As I was deciding what to include in this post, nothing seemed to really fit. So I hope these pictures of an early spring afternoon will do. After all, what better time than after a death of a loved one to be thinking of spring.

Cambrie really discovered dandelions this year.

Her obsession with them (blowing and pulling off the seed puffs) is what planted this dandelion field.

Every time she spotted a new one, she would stand straight up, do a dramatic gasp, then run to pluck it.

I love to watch her just as much as I did a year ago.

Finding a treasure...

...finding green. We're glad you're here, spring.