So much to do, so little time!

I can hardly believe it, but our SECOND baby girl is almost here!! About 8 weeks left to go, and we are soo not prepared! By this point with Addison, we had pretty much everything finished in the nursery and stocked up. So far, all we've done for Avery is get her room painted. We still have A LOT to do, and while Addison is visiting family in New Brunswick this week with my parents, we are hoping to get a lot of our checklist completed.

Here's the list of things we need to get finished before baby girl arrives:

• Touch up the ceiling paint in Avery's room 
• Finish staining and sealing our staircase (this should have been done months ago, but I would'nt let Ryan do it with Addie in the house)
• Iron all the baby clothes that I have washed from storage, and hang in the closet
• Write birth plan
• Finish the mobile I am making
• Make the bookcase I want to make
• Make plans for Addison during my c-section
• Buy and set up crib and dresser
• wash all the baby blankets and put away
• Inspect breast pump and buy replacement tubing ect.
• Set up baby swing, bouncey seat and get carseat out of storage
• Do another hospital tour (because the hospital has a new labour/delivery wing and I want to check it out before I go in to deliver
• Call insurance to confirm private room coverage
• Organize our hall closet and bedroom closet (just because I need to capitalize on these nesting instincts)
• Fill my freezer with freezer meals!! (I was sooo sorry I didn't do that when I had Addison!)
• Renew Addison's health card. So much easier to do toting ONE baby down to the office instead of TWO!

And since this is my running list to go by, I am sure there will be more added as we go along. 

But then there is also the list of things we need to BUY for Avery. We really haven't bought anything for her yet. This is what we still need"

• Crib/crib mattress
• Dresser
• Curtains/Blinds
• Crib bedding
• Cloth diapers (we need to add some smaller fitting ones to our stash)
• Swaddle blankets
• Baby book
• Glass bottles
• Double stroller
• More newborn clothes (since I know she's going to be another little peanut like her sister)
• Co-sleeper
• Change pad cover
• Bottle warmer (something I wished I had bought with Addison)
• Diaper bag (my old one is falling apart!)
• Bottle drying rack (love the Boon grass ones!)
• Ear thermometer
• Clothes hamper
• Night table and lamp (two more things I am still missing for Addison's room)
• Newborn size pacifiers
• Newborn diapers for the hospital

Quite the list eh? ya... So far all I've bought the poor girl are 3 cloth diapers, a newborn sleeper, and some hangers. But, I am almost done the mobile I've been making her, and am hoping to get the sling book shelves  made next weekend. 

Y3W: My Sick Baby

Is there anything sadder than a sick baby? yep. YOUR sick baby. It breaks my heart that my girl isn't feeling well right now, and isn't her regular happy, energetic self. Poor baby. She's been all snuggled up on the couch asking for "snuggle"(s) for the past two days now. The only change is when the Tempra kicks in and she has a half hour run of forgetting she's sick. Then comes the crash and we're back to sick baby.

Speaking of Tempra, this stuff is amazing. We've tried Advil and Tylenol, and they both make Addie gag. The banana Tempra tastes more like juice and Addie slurps it right up. The only problem seems to be that I can't find the banana flavour anymore. I have been to numerous stores and can only find cherry (which she refuses entirely, and I cannot even bribe her with chocolate to take it).

Does anyone know if they stopped making the banana flavour?

29 Week Belly Update

                                                  Here is my 30 week picture with Addison

                                                        And 29 weeks 1 day with Avery

I'm not seeing much difference either. Good, I was still relatively small at this point with Addie and hadn't gotten fat and swollen yet. Not there with Avery yet either thank God!

How far along: 29 weeks 1 day
Baby size: Butternut squash 15-17 inches long and 2.5-3lbs
Total weight gain: 29lbs according to my scale.. ouch!! My Dr. appt for last week got bumped out to the 22nd, so we'll see what their scale says then.
Belly button: still an innie
Stretch marks: none yet!
Maternity clothes: definitely, and starting to get a little tight in the size small's!
Sleep: sleeping ok. I do sleep fairly well at night, but once I've been up for an hour and a half, I find myself exhausted again.. oh the joys of third tri.
Symptoms: aside from being exhausted constantly, the baby brain is really getting to me these days. I am forgetting everything that I don't write down, and if I forget to make a list.. forget about it. Other than that, nothing I can really complain about.
Aversions/cravings: no oatmeal, craving sweets a lot now
Best moment of the week: Avery is MUCH more energetic than Addie was when she was an inside baby. Avery moves all the time, and I love feeling her poke her feet out one side, and her head out the other side of my belly. Oh ya, she is definitely breech again, so hello c-section #2.
What I miss: Being able to get my boots on and off without all the huffing and puffing. Is it flip flop season yet?
What I am looking forward to: My next Dr. Appt. Feb 22nd! It is my first appt with my OB this round, and I am eager to ask him if we can go ahead and book the c-section date now that we know for sure I will need one.
Nursery Progress: We have painted the nursery. It is a very pale pink. I would post a pic now, but there really isnt much to see. I am working on a mobile for her that will match her bedding. It has owls, trees, stars and a moon hanging from ribbons. I just started it last weekend and it is turning out really cute so far. As soon as I am done that, I am going to make her a bookcase and do her name letters. One project at a time. We still don't have furniture for her yet, but we are saving, and hopefully we will have it before she is born. I'll post pics as I get the projects done. Getting home at six, then making Addie dinner, then us dinner, then starting the bath/bed routine plus my exhaustion limits my time to work on things. I have the best luck when Addie is either at her grandparents on Thursday nights, or during her nap on the weekends.

Potty Training Progress Report

Do you remember back in July, when I posted this blog post about potty training?

I thought I would give you an update on how that all went.

Well we started off REALLY well. I mean she got the hang of it really quickly, as in was having only one to two accidents per day after day 3, and was excited about getting all the applause and attention from everyone. She was doing so well in fact, that everyone thought she was going to be fully trained in a matter of weeks.

 What we didn't account for, was that we started potty training during her daycare's summer vacation, when Addison was with her grandparents for two weeks straight. Once I brought her back to daycare, her daycare provider refused to commit to training and so we came to the compromise of letting her wear "pull up's" at daycare. I was super hesitant about the idea, but I didn't really have much choice, unless I wanted to find another daycare (which I didn't considering that this daycare is amazing otherwise) I would have to deal.

Guess what. Picking up Addie at 6pm and trying to train for an hour before bed (when she also has to eat dinner and is at her crankiest) and trying to catch the one morning pee before daycare didn't go well. It went exactly as I assumed it would. Addison saw the pull ups as diapers (cus that's exactly what they are) and her daycare provider pretty much stopped even trying, so Ryan and I playing catch up just wasn't working. We stopped trying in October and relented that we would have to wait to try again. We tried in the morning, and we offered and asked  her if she wanted to go to the potty, but we left her in the pull up's.

Towards the end of Novemeber, Addison really started to pick up an interest in the potty again. And since she was showing interest on her own, we started putting her in underwear at home, and even taking her out in underwear to the grocery store and other shorter errands. By the middle of December, she wasn't having any pee accidents at all anymore at home or at Grandma's, and we knew she was totally ready to train. So I told the daycare provider that she was taking a week off at Christmas, and would be returning in underwear. I didn't give an option, and the daycare provider didn't argue. Perfect.

So on December 27th, we took away the bottle (it was time for that to go anyway) and started full time potty training. Addie has done wonderfully. She held pee right away, and would hold it until we took her (which was about once an hour) but she didn't start asking to go until this week.

This week, she has even been getting up in the night to ask to go to the potty.

She is still working on poop though. She doesn't like going in her underwear and comes immediately when she has an accident, she knows poop goes in the potty, however, she is having trouble with the timing. She will come tell me she has to poop either immediately before she goes (as in she is going as I am running her to the potty) or she tells me immediately after. I have just upped her motivation by giving her chocolates for poop in the potty. It would be much easier if she was a really regular kid, but she poops at completely random times so it's hard for me to catch.

We are still on the journey, but I am thrilled with the progress we've had so far. The trick was definitely taking away the pull up's. If she is in a diaper, she will pee in it every time. She does not like wet underwear though. We took her to the mall for two hours last Saturday morning and she was out for a total of 3 hours and stayed dry, then in the afternoon, took her to a birthday party for 4 hours and went twice at the party and came home dry. I am so proud of my girl, she is officially "pee trained". The poop training will follow.

At what age did you potty train? How'd it go? Was it a quick weekend project, or a lengthier process like ours? Any tips and tricks?