ME: 365d Pregnant. I gained 8 lbs in the past two weeks and am at an all time high for my weight. Dr thinks the most recent bout of weight gain is mostly swelling. I knew I had a little swelling, but did not realize just how much until she started poking my legs. We all are fighting a cold, and for me that is harder since I do not want to use PTO and I can't take most meds. For some reason, it seems all of the pregnancy safe cold meds are the drowsy ones, nothing to use during the day. I swore off pants last week and am living in leggings, skirts and dresses. Baby is head down and, I believe, engaged in my pelvis. She had been resting on my right hip bone for awhile, but when I had a chair massage last week the little bit of pressure I put on the top of my belly for 15 minutes (leaning against the chair) was enough to pop her into place. It is always hard to get her heart rate on the monitor, I am told this is partially due to an anterior placenta, but I have to think its also just a bit of her being stubborn haha. I have signed up to do the puzzle derby on 3/4 despite 3/5 being my due date, and I am hopeful I will be able to attend, but you never know! The ammt of faith I am putting in, as DH puts it "two data points" to indicate this pregnancy will go overdue is probably a bad idea, but I really can't help it. I did pull the baby clothes out last night. We have a carseat purchased, but not installed, hope to do that this weekend. I have been approved for some work from home during my maternity leave so that I don't lose TOTAL touch with the office for 8 weeks, which with my current level of responsability would be a disaster. Mostly I am just surviving the days and enjoying feeling the kicks.
BEN: I cannot express what a 180 we have seen from this boy. We went from horrible reports at daycare, aggression, being mean to other kids, etc, to perfect reports, "he was the most helpful" "he was so friendly all day", "he was engaged and smiling all day". It all changed from one week to the next and we have now had 3 weeks in a row of excellent behavior. As mentioned in the last post, what we did was take away ALL violent toys initially, even ones that dont seem really violent like Battleship. We also took away his screen time initially, and then we started encouraging him to have the daily goal of "doing five helpful things" and I would remind him of this every morning at drop off. I am not sure which thing worked. After one week of great reports at daycare, we gave him back screentime. After two weeks of great reports, we gave him back battleship. That one made me nervous because it defo changed the tenure of his play! He went from hardly any violent play to talking about guns and explosions again, BUT as we have seen no relapse in his behavior (only in his imagination), we are allowing it. Now he has had three weeks in a row and we may let him start playing pokemon again, as long as the focus is not on battling. We will see how it goes. This boy wants to be the BEST and has a very competitive nature. He now brags when you pick him up "I WAS THE BEST KID". Haha... well as long as he is trying to behave I will put up with it. We took him to Saturday morning at the races and he didn't push anyone (Like he did at the last summer races in August), so I guess we are making progress. He has also recently started playing a lot with playing cards, both actual games like Solitaire, Pyramid, and even Kings Corner, but also just a made up game where he creates families within suits that need to do certain things to survive.
FELICITY: Oh, she is certainly two. Terrible terrible two. Daycare described her as "sassy" at one pickup. She knows what she wants and tries to get it. With Ben's behavior so improved it really emphasizes how often she melts down or is naughty! (For example, spraying grape juice all over grandma's house). I am sure she will outgrow it. She hate us brushing her hair and putting it up, and claims to want a haircut, but I dont think she really understands what that means so I am putting it off because I like her long hair, even if it is tricky at times. I have been trying to be more consistent at brushing it and putting it back when I can so that it gets less knots and so she is more used to it. She has been playing on the kindle a lot, she likes the game where you clean the house! LOL. She likes to clean stuff in real life too, so that makes sense. She also likes to be helpful, carry things too and from the table, get something you need from the other room. She is now OFFICIALLY TALL ENOUGH TO REACH LIGHT SWITCHES. Holy moly. She is getting big. Her least favorite thing in the world is being told no. Her favorite thing in the world is taking a nap on Grandma's lap, with her pacifier in her mouth and a blanket (she will tell you all of this).
