28 weeks

Tomorrow (Monday) I'll be 28 weeks. I delivered Ryan at 28 weeks 5 days. Needless to say I've been pretty emotional lately. I've been seeing my high risk doctor every 3 weeks and having ultrasounds then as well and my risk of delivering early seems to be low. My cervix looks good, they've been doing testing & cultures & my fluid looks good too. Basically since the beginning, this pregnancy has been an emotional roller coaster so this week should probably be a cake walk compared to the last few months but I doubt it will be for me. I'm really trying not to stress about things and think positive but it's so very hard.  For reasons I'll share later, we already know sweet pea will be in the NICU so that makes it even harder to be positive. It's even more stressful too since I have no one in real life I can talk to about it. And those that I do, don't really see the big picture or truly what NICU life entails and how stressful it will be this time, especially since we have a 3 1/2 year old to take care of. I guess for right now, I should have small goals to work towards. And for this week, it will be just to make it through the week! Oh yeah, and to pass my 3 hour glucose test on Friday :-)

A Couple Challenges

I love my little boy so much. My preemie prince as I call him. But sometimes he just gives me (and Dean)challenges in which I just throw my hands up and say "I don't know what to do". Now I will say, this is probably a cake walk compared to what other people might go through with their child (or children), for instance children with autism but I wanted to blog about it for the reasons I blog about everything else...so I can look back and see what Ryan (and us) have overcome.

We've had this issue with him not wanting to go to bed for a while now. He could be ready to fall asleep downstairs or just snuggled up with Dean or I in the recliner but as soon as he gets in his room, he's wide awake and ready to play. We'll let him potty, brush his teeth & then read books and then it's lights out. Not 5 minutes after we close the door, he's out of bed, opens the door and the procrastination starts. He needs to potty again. He needs a tissue for his runny nose. OR it's nothing at all.  It all started around November when we fell back an hour for daylight savings time. Luckily for us, this was around the time when Christmas and "Santa" was everywhere. So, eventually every night when we put Ryan to bed, we would tell him that he needed to be a good boy and stay in bed if he wanted Santa to come and bring him presents (yes, I know bribery is probably bad but we were desperate). This worked mostly every night. Now that Christmas is over, he's at it again. Sometimes it's a full hour after we've turned out the lights, that he finally settles down and goes to sleep. We're at the point of starting the bedtime routine at 6:45 if we can, since it takes at least 15 minutes to potty, brush teeth and read 100 books (okay maybe not that many but sometimes it seems like it). Going to sleep prior to 8 pm wasn't an issue before he started daycare since most days my mom would come watch him so he didn't need to be up early but he goes to daycare 3 days a week so he needs to be up by 6..6:15 at the very latest. So when he doesn't go to sleep when it's bedtime, that makes for a very difficult & stressful morning since he doesn't want to get up. If he does get up on time, then it's a slow go. I'm hoping this is just another phase and it ends soon or that other mama's will have suggestions for me..hint hint!

So now that Ryan is potty trained, he refuses to wear pull-ups. Now that makes us so estastic but I thought we'd be able to keep him in them at night since he's not night trained. He doesn't wake up at night..until it's too late. We haven't had to get up every night to change his sheets but it's more nights than not. His teacher suggested GoodNights which are similar to pull-ups in the amount of moisture it holds but is suppose to be closer to underwear in the toddler's eyes. I guess we'll be trying those and hope they work. I'll definitely post once we try them out.

Update

We've all been sick here and I still am. Ryan started to not feel good last Thursday so he didn't go to ST and we kept him out of daycare Friday because of his fever. Over the weekend he would seem like he was fine but his cough sounded croup-like at times and he started saying his left ear hurt. Since I had off Monday because of the holiday, I decided to take him in to the pedi just to get checked out. Turns out he had the flu and a slight case of bronchitis. He got a chest x-ray just to rule out pneumonia. So, we've had to give him puffs of an inhaler all week which has definitely helped. During all this Dean got sick too and Thursday evening I started getting sick. Ours is more of a cold, with the congestion, coughing, achy & sneezing. I pretty much just have to deal with it since there's only so much I can (or really want to) take.

My next doc appt is Monday so if I'm not feeling better by then, hopefully he will give me something to break up the congestion a bit. I have the glucola test then as well which tests for gestational diabetes and I am certainly not looking forward to that, especially since I'm not feeling well. I can't believe as of Monday I will be 27 weeks. I have already been more emotional lately and as I get to the 28 week mark when I had Ryan, I'm becoming even more anxious & emotional. If I could just get to 37 weeks this time, it would be fabulous. It's not going to take off the stress that will certainly come after the baby is born but it will certainly help her outcome.

Since we've been sick and haven't done anything outside the house, I'll post a couple videos I took of Ryan right after the new year. He was still singing Christmas songs and kept asking us if Christmas was over..silly boy. Oh and he picks out his own pj's now and dresses himself, hence the mismatched pj's..hehe

Finally!!!

YES! Ryan is now FULLY potty trained! No more pull ups for this big boy! Well, I say that but in actuality we still make him wear one over his underwear for bedtime. He does wake up dry but it's my clutch I guess. Those darn toddler bed sheets are a pain to change in the middle of the night ya know..hehe. We'll just finish the pack we have and then won't buy anymore.

We started the potty training process last February! Even before that time we would occasionally sit him on the potty. He did pretty well at first and every once in a while would tell us that he needed to go to the bathroom. Then it got to be that he just wanted to either flush the toilet, play with the toilet paper or play with the water in the sink. That went on for a while so we just stopped pushing the PT-ing issue. He's never been fearful of the potty, he just likes to play. Throughout the summer he'd go every now and then. We could have pushed but I just saw no reason too. He didn't have to be potty trained to go into the 3 year old classroom at daycare and I felt that once he was around other kids using the potty that it would probably help him more than us pushing him. I was right. Once he started daycare in September, he started poopin' on the potty and loved to use the potty anywhere outside the house; stores, restaurants & other people's house. At home he was going more and more but would still get preoccupied by playing that he wouldn't go. In November I noticed I didn't have to bring in anymore pull-ups at daycare and by last month, we knew it was time for underwear when he woke up dry in the morning. So I guess you could say that was our Christmas present and it started the new year off pretty well!

Snow & more snow

So as I stated in the last post, we got snow beginning in the evening on Christmas. It lasted the whole next day and we ended up with about 14". What we thought was going to be a productive week off from work, turned out to be a lazy week off. We were going to declutter the closets, especially the one in the spare bedroom/playroom that will be the new baby's room. I was going to take Ryan to daycare so he would still have that structure and get his energy out. Instead, we stayed home and played with all of Ryan's new toys. My sis & BIL did come over in the afternoon and we went outside to play in the snow for a bit. It was really cold outside so we didn't stay out long. Ryan had a fun time since they brought their dog too.

helping me brush the snow off the truck

making a snow angel

playing with Auntie

Then we went out the next afternoon and he got to build a snowman with Daddy

 and eat some snow

 and pose with Daddy

 and then with Mommy

The local theme park that we have season tickets for during the Spring/Summer started "Christmastown" last year in which they open the day after Thanksgiving & open every weekend through New Year's Eve. A couple months ago they offered a fantastic steal on tickets so I got 2 sets of tickets. Now, usually the weather is chilly around here during December but not bone chilling cold. Well, this year was different and it's been pretty darn cold so we never had the opportunity to go until the week after Christmas (still cold but I didn't want the tickets to go to waste). The first night we went , we took Dean's mom. The park only has a few kiddie rides open so it's mostly Christmas type shows & most of the park is open and filled with trees decorated with lights and in two areas of the park they even have "snow" blowing around. Ryan LOVED all the lights & displays and we had a great time.

enjoying some hot chocolate

 Dean, Ryan & Grandma

New Year's Eve we went again. My godson who loves to play those games that just take your money (ha!), decided to play for a huge Frosty the Snowman. Dean and him bought 20 balls and the object was to get it into the middle cup (out of probably 100 cups). Dean and him threw most of the balls but Ryan threw a couple, my friend threw a couple and then when there were 3 left, I got my chance to throw one. And to mine & everyone's disbelief I WON! I got it in the magic cup! Frosty got to ride in the stroller for the remaining time we were there and drew a lot of attention (apparently not many Frosty's had been won and I was only the 1st one that day). We even debated taking bids from people to see if they wanted to buy him but alas, he went home with us and will stay around the house for a while.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Christmas 2010 was so exciting for us this year. It was so wonderful to experience Christmas through a 3 year old's eyes. He loved every minute of it and all the days leading up to it.

Christmas Eve we usually spend with Dean's Mom & Brother. Before Ryan was born we used to try and visit both my family & Dean's Mom on Christmas Day and would even eat 2 meals! Of course all that changed when Ryan was born. We decided it would be best if we celebrated Christmas Eve with Dean's family & Christmas Day with my family. It's so much easier and less stressful when they come to our house so we don't mind cooking at all. Ryan happened to take an early nap this day so he actually went with Dean to go pick them up and bring them back to our house. Lots of food was eaten and then we opened gifts. Ryan loved all his gifts but especially the Disney Cars car launcher:

and the Nascar playmat his Uncle David & cousins gave him

After playing for a while it was time to get in his Christmas jammies and set milk & cookies for Santa.

He went to bed with no problems since I told him Santa wouldn't come until he was asleep. Santa came soon after & left many toys & filled Ryan's stocking. Christmas morning was just like any other morning at first though. Ryan actually didn't realize it was Christmas day when he woke up and came into our bed. When asked who came last night, he just said Grandma & Uncle Dennis..hehe. Once we went downstairs though, he knew Santa had come! Santa brought me a new camera so there are way too many pictures to post but here are my favorites:

Later on Ryan & I got to lay down for a nap and then it was time to go to my parents house. My sis & brother-in-law had come into town and brought their sweet dog and my brother & his girlfriend brought their 2 dogs so it was a pretty festive house. Ryan sure had a great time! It was time to open presents and Ryan couldn't get enough. Sheer excitement is all I can say.

Monster Truck!

 Monster truck ramp

As I posted before, one of his favorite gifts..A Strider Balance Bike

It was surely a Christmas to remember and it was topped off with SNOW! It started snowing soon before we left my parents house. I don't remember for sure, but I don't think it's ever snowed on Christmas in our city. If so, I doubt it's been more than once. We ended up getting about 14" that night & all of Sunday..the 3rd highest record snowfall! I can only imagine what Christmas next year will bring with a 4 year old (and a baby)!