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I'd heard from several people, even perfect strangers, that three was actually worse than two. Maybe it's because I'm in the thick of the threes, but right now, the "terrible twos" look like a warm sunny day at the park.
Do I really have another half a year left??
Ok, that might be a teensy bit on the extreme side, but right now it seems like this hellish nightmare will never end. I feel like I'm always repeating myself (who's the broken record?) and even though my little boy knows he's not supposed to do *insert fill in the blank here*, he just can't seem to help himself. Add to that a side of open defiance, a dish of kicking and screaming and a dash of you can't make me, and it's a recipe for disaster.
We are working hard at being consistent and making sure we follow through, but what seemed to work fine and be effective ... even two weeks ago ... just is not cutting it anymore.
When we discovered we were pregnant, I signed up for the weekly pregnancy emails at babycenter.com and since they asked, I shared Stephan's information with them as well. This means that I also get several emails about the rambunctious toddler. Every once in a while something turns up useful, and sometimes, even at just the right time.
Being that I'm about ready to pull my hair out, Christmas is around the corner, and I really do want to enjoy my last break before the business hits and baby comes in the spring, I was thankful for this series of articles on time-outs and toddler discipline. (I'm a little freaked that they are geared toward threes and fours, but eventually something's got to give, right?
- Time-outs: How to make them work (ages 3-4)
- What to do when time-outs don't work (ages 3-4)
- Moving beyond threats (ages 3-4)
- Alternatives to threats (ages 3-4)
Each of these builds on the other and provides some great ideas and strategies, and provided some small changes that will hopefully make a HUGE impact.
My biggest issue is keeping my cool. I'm already frustrated and stressed about the whole situation and really will need to work hard at keeping that out of the equation. No sense adding to the drama. I'm hopeful gaining some additional tips on discipline now that he's changing things up a bit will make all the difference.
So here's to a better tomorrow!
The past week has been BUSY! Last weekend my little brother came to visit. We very much enjoyed having him out to hang with us for a few days. Rock Band got a lot of air time :) When we dropped him off at the airport and drove off, Stephan kept asking, “Where’s uncle Eilert?” and then we talked some about him, and I, being sad that uncle Eilert had to go home. He’s such a sweet little boy, already planning uncle’s next trip out!
I also made the apple pie for our mini "Turkey" feast.
After Eilert left, I endured my one and only workday of the week, rushing home to get down to the Pepsi Center so we could shoot some hoops before the Nuggets game. Unfortunately, we only ended up with five minutes because we got there so late and they booted us off the court earlier than I’d expected. We then walked across the parking lot for dinner and went back for the game. At halftime Stephan was part of the “High Five Squad” and got the chance to high five some very tall NBAers. Due to a mix up, he did not get to see the Nuggets up close, and some of the other kids parents were jerks, but he did get one Nets player to come up and give him a high five, which I tried to play up for his sake. He was disappointed to only high five one player, but that’s more than some people ever get so it was still pretty darn cool!
That afternoon I’d called my OB’s office and found out the preeclampsia labs she did all were fine. Still going to check my BP on Tuesday and see if I’ll need to start meds, but what a relief to know that it’s not preeclampsia, just the high blood pressure right now.
Wednesday Andy and I took Stephan to daycare and spent the day together. We went to see Pirate Radio (not a bad flick, but not the comedy I’d expected from the previews) and he took me to Red Robin for lunch. Also stopped at Sam’s for tp, but otherwise an official date mid week, something that doesn’t often happen.
Turkey day we went to Mimi’s Café for lunch with my in-laws. I’m not a huge turkey fan, so I just got a breakfast frittata that was pretty good and shared Andy’s pumpkin pie. Even though it was a pretty small meal, I didn’t eat much the rest of the day. We sent Stephan off with nana & papa and had another afternoon to ourselves before heading to the Bronco game. So glad they actually won again. A little chillier than I like, too bad the game wasn’t played in the afternoon when it was 60 and sunny out. On the way home we drove by Best Buy and Ultimate Electronics to see where we might have the most luck getting Andy his PS3 deal. I decided to ask him if he wanted that as his Cmas/Bday/Anniv gift this year and after combing the ads, those two stores were the only ones with deals. Best Buy looked NUTS already at 9:30pm so we decided to skip that and go for Ultimate since there were only about 15 people waiting there. After going home and getting a few hours of sleep, we got up at 3am to head out for …
Black Friday. This is only the second year we’ve done the BF thing. When we got to Ultimate, there were about 40-50 people in front of us and we plopped down in our camp chairs and bundled up in our blankies for a couple hours. When the store employees finally started walking down the line with vouchers we luckily got one for the PS3, 7 of 10! The deal there was that they were going to sell 10 PS3s with a bonus $100 gift card. With that bonus we were able to get the BluRay remote and a game for Andy and I got a game for my DS too since they were already sold out of my Mario game. Oh well, it’s on my Christmas list along with Wii Fit Plus! After the hour long wait to check out, we drove over to Target to see if they still had a couple toys in the ad for Stephan. They did. Andy was unsuccessful at finding his Psych season, but got a season of Monk instead. So far a pretty good morning. We stopped at McD’s and then went to Kohl’s to see what was left there after them being open for 3 hours or so. There was a toy I wanted to get for Stephan, something to hang on to and give him from the baby in the hospital, and some frames, and Andy said he’d wanted to have me pick out some earrings for my Christmas gift. We found everything and while the cheaper earrings that were in the ad were all gone, they probably looked kinda crappy anyway, and I found some pretty diamond earrings to coordinate with the necklace he and Stephan got me a couple years ago for Mother’s Day.
We went home and got everything inside. I decided that while Andy was setting up his PS3 I’d pull out Stephan’s presents and get them all unboxed and ready to go and then wrapped them so he wouldn’t discover them AND know what they were like he did this year before his birthday. Took a while, but now his gifts are not only purchased, but wrapped and ready to go under the tree and in his stocking. Good thing too, cause he’s already found them and asked about them and wanted them. Sheesh.
After waking up a little with showers, we headed up to nana & papa’s to get the kid and stopped along the way at Dick’s to see if we’d get lucky there too. While they did not have the plum Crocs I wanted (don't even think they stock that color), they did have my size in the cute emu ugg boots so I snagged those. I’ve been wanting a pair but holding out since so many are made in China and not Australia. I did not want to spend a ton of money on a pair of boots that are probably made for ¼ the cost or less. These were 60% off and have a cute button accent so I decided to give them a try and see if I like them enough to maybe order some that are really made in Australia.
I crashed with Stephan when we got home and had a lovely nap that got me through dinner and more Rock Band with some friends we haven’t seen in years, not since just after Stephan was born. We enjoyed catching up with them and just hanging out.
This morning Andy woke up feeling crummy after so little sleep yesterday. After he drank some water and ate some he started feeling better and we were off on our last errand of the weekend. Went to the mall and the Christian bookstore. Their deals were good for three days and not just three hours so I didn’t want to stress or feel like I needed to rush there yesterday. We got a couple Veggie Tales DVDs and CDs for Andy and I, Stephan picked out a Veggie ornament for his tree ... and we picked up a DVD and doll for my youngest niece.
WE ARE DONE WITH CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!! YAY!!!
One tradition left to go. Andy and I buy stocking suffers
for each other last minute. Have for years. We go to Target and make a game of avoiding each other in the store and seeing how much
we can get for the other person’s stocking for just $25. Fun challenge.
If Andy’s still feeling better he might go down to the garage and dig out the tree and all our other Christmas stuff. Right now of course, he’s shooting up somewhere in Warfare land on his Christmas gift. I’m glad everything worked out.
Tomorrow, we’ll head to church and then probably rest the afternoon away.
I only worked 8 days in Nov + one day at a conference. There are 12 up in Dec, three whole weeks and then Christmas break. I feel a bit spoiled. Hard to believe that come January I’ve only got about 10 more weeks till baby’s here and then I’ll have most of the rest of the year off before summer. This year has been QUICK.
Stephan LOVES Christmas. He sees the displays go up in stores and gets excited. We were walking through Kohl's a couple weeks ago and he saw their Christmas area and exclaims, "mommie, it's Christmastime here!"
Friday night I was out with a friend and we stopped in Target (the one near me is attached to the mall), I found a small tree that was $9. Didn't quite want to get it right then, but I knew that Stephan would probably love to have "Christmastime" in his room. I talked to Andy about it and we both agreed the tree was worth it. So after nap I said I wanted to go to the store and get a surprise for Stephan. He of course wanted to know what it was. When I told him I wanted to get him a tree for his room he didn't seem super enthused about the idea.
However, as he realized what I was saying he got a little more excited about things. When I showed him the little tree he got very happy and decided he wanted colored lights. We usually have white ones on the big tree, and I figured the colored ones wouldn't be as bright to leave on at night when he's going to sleep. We found the tree, the lights, a mini tree skirt and a few ornaments.
When we got home, the first thing we had to do was set up the tree, and put on some Christmas music. Stephan's a riot.
Everything always seems so much livelier through the eyes of a toddler.
I haven't done this in FOREVER, so here's a few at least.
- Thankful that our ultrasound went well yesterday. From what the tech said, baby is healthy. We enjoyed seeing the baby and trying to pick out all the organs she was showing us. The heart is by far the coolest.
- Thankful Andy made it safely to work. He had to go out in this awful snowy mess and not only made it all the way to work but it only took him an extra 15-20 minutes, which isn't bad when it's almost a 60 mile trip!
- Thankful Stephan seems to be napping. Most of the sledders out there aren't being too loud and I turned his music up pretty loud and have the wash going, just hoping he's able to get a good two hours before something wakes him up!
- Thankful for my new phone. While I've yet to find a shopping list program I'm in love with, and am still using my old Palm with HandyShopper, I like everything else about it, well everything except that the battery life isn't the greatest, but I'm working on figuring out how to make it last longer.
- Thankful I've not had to worry about work. We are on fall break, so now bonus snow days, but at least I don't have to worry about whether or not they are going to close my school for the day.
That's pretty much it. I've got to get some lesson planning done. Sunday I'm teaching our class. Going through the book of Esther. I worked on it some yesterday, but need to get my thoughts better organized still.
We started the day with lots of snow and of course, a SNOW DAY! Stephan's preschool was canceled. I already didn't have work as we are on fall break. Andy stayed home instead of trekking to Boulder.
While bummed that I was not able to spend time with my friend Natalie this morning or April this evening, and Stephan missed his show'n'tell that we'd prepped for last night, we did end up having a pretty good day.
This afternoon we all bundled up and braved the nasty drive to McDonald's for lunch. The main roads were not great, but not horrid either. We were pretty happy since our big 20wk ultrasound was this afternoon and we knew we'd not only get there, but also not have to leave super early.
Here are our pics of baby Stone #2. The first is my favorite, followed by the others she printed for us.
After we were done, we went upstairs to get flu shots. I'm still debating on the H1N1 shot, but it's not out yet anyway so we just got the seasonal shot. Stephan gets the mist up his nose and did AWESOME! He didn't even flinch. I was so impressed with him, such a big boy!
I got a call from my friend cancelling our girls night dinner plans, so we all headed over to Noodles and snagged some dinner. We'd gotten a "brave the weather and get a free bowl" coupon and decided to take them up on that. I got a couple pics of Stephan eating and then one of the outdoor patio furniture covered in snow.
My new phone ROCKS! I'm super glad I waited and that T-Mobile shipped it to me earlier than the "release" date. Andy ordered it on Monday and it came today. I've never had technology this new before, which is kinda fun. I'm a bit overwhelmed setting it all up, but that's life with something new. The one thing that sucks is I've no idea how long till I can find a case and haven't a clue if you can even have a case with the slide out keypad. Maybe, like all my other gadgets, I'll just have to make something with my scraps of flannel.
Much of the time I feel like we are in our routine and doing our best to keep plugging away. We have our big ultrasound next week and are all looking forward to that. We might all get the flu shot while we are there as well, though I'm still debating. So far things with the pregnancy seem to be going well. I'm feeling baby move pretty regularly, and Andy's even felt the baby kick too, something he was never patient enough to feel with Stephan. The other day in the car Stephan asked me if he could hold the baby when she came out of my tummy. He's such a sweetie. He thought he could hold the baby in the car, and I assured him we have a special seat for baby.
Last weekend on my birthday Andy took me up to Estes (we dropped Stephan off at nana & papa's) and we enjoyed a nice evening watching All About Steve, which ended up being a great movie. Saturday morning we had a yummy breakfast at The Egg & I and after checking out of the hotel we wandered around downtown Estes for a couple hours before we ate an awesome pizza lunch at Bob & Tony's and drove back to Loveland to do some more shopping and pick up Stephan.
The first "big" thing I figured out how to do in Photoshop is stitching photos together into a panorama. With no clue where to start, I ended up searching the web and finding a step-by-step process. When I started that I noticed that when you create a new file in Photoshop, there are these "Photomerge" options, one being panorama. Um. Yeah. Can you say easy? Here's my Estes pano:
Stitching photos together is a great thing when it comes to scenery, so I'm glad to have found a simple way to make that happen. I think as I figure it all out, I'm going to love Photoshop as much as my sister.
I very much enjoyed playing with my GPS on the trip, and that my mom was able to order it with her Amazon prime so it came in time. Also great that Amazon sold the GPS for $100 cheaper than just about anywhere.
More birthday deals came in the form of a few dinners out and I was able to use the gift card from my in-laws to get a chain for my necklace pendant. I don't know if I ever blogged about it, but one day a few weeks ago when I was picking Stephan up from school I noticed I had a chain, but no pendant. Freaked me out since it's the necklace Andy & Stephan had gotten me for Mother's Day. I freaked, figuring it could be anywhere, but then, as I was leaving the school with Stephan looked down and saw my pendant on the floor. I decided not to wear it again until I got a new chain! Thankfully, I was able to find a chain with the right length at Kohl's and it was on sale on top of our coupon and my gift card paid for just about the whole necklace.
My parents both sent me some money and pooling that, I was able to order Photoshop. I've been wanting a new photo program and HP sent a deal for $20 off after we got our new printer. After ordering, Adobe gave me a rebate for another $20 since I downloaded it, another added bonus! While I have no clue where to start with the program, in time I'll figure things out. Next week is fall break, so I should at least have some time then.
Today we are stuck waiting around the house for UPS. While I sincerely loathe having to wait around for them ALL DAY, I'm very excited to be getting my new phone, so aside from being a little impatient, I'm dealing with it. Yet another new thing for me to have to figure out, but as long as I can find a solid replacement for my beloved HandyShopper program on my Palm, I think I'll be one happy camper. I've got one I'm going to try and start with that I've read some positive reviews on, we'll see if I like it or need to go on a hunt for another one. I'm pretty much over carrying around my PDA for just the shopping list program.
The last thing I just want to whine about a little is work related. We have to create two objectives every year and this year my department is mandating one, the other we do with our school. I feel overwhelmed most of the time with what I have on my plate right now and don't want to be adding any more to that, I think I should be able to create these objectives around what I am already doing. On top of that I'm out in March when the baby is born. I'm feeling pretty stressed because they are saying we need to do these with 30 students and I just can't add that kind of additional work to my already loaded plate. No idea how to finagle my way out of this, but I'm sure going to try. The one thing that helps is knowing that it's not tied to my pay, like it is with some people. That would probably make me really freak out. At least the one at school I can work around the student amount. At least I think I can, we'll see.
Of course, the authors of the book dislike the sugar and other aspects of Nutella and suggested Dark Chocolate Dreams as a better substitute. Since I enjoy a sandwich with PB and Nutella every now and then, sometimes with slices of banana, I decided to give the pricey alternative a chance.
I spread some on a few graham crackers today to try it out, and am sold. I'll buy this stuff again for sure.
Just thought I'd spread the word :) Every [pregnant] woman needs to know about this stuff!
I've spent the whole afternoon uploading pictures to Flickr. I looked through all of our pictures from August and September, cropped and edited the ones I liked and then uploaded them and just now finished captioning most of them. Phew. I should never wait two months to do that! If you'd like to see what we've been up to the last couple months, check the pictures out here.
I'm going to go play with Stephan. He's been a little neglected since he woke from nap.
Oh, here's one picture I'm proud of. I took several and stitched them together to make this awesome panorama of my favorite view of Denver and the mountains.
Every once in a while I think about how I've not posted anything in a while, but I never get around to doing anything about it. Probably because there's nothing too exciting going on. However, it's been a couple weeks, so I figure it's about time to update this :)
After our camping trip, we focused on getting back into our routine. Then next Saturday Andy took Stephan to the "Day Out with Thomas" and they both had a blast. I enjoyed sleeping in and a very relaxing and productive morning!
We've also had some fun with car repairs in the last month and a half or so. Why is it that with cars everything needs to be repaired at once? Transmission fluid, brakes, the battery. Yikes. Hopefully, nothing else with my car for a while!
On Thursday after work I'm trying to get to the store and do our grocery shopping for the week. I've had a few trips with Stephan on Friday mornings that were not enjoyable in any way and am trying to avoid taking him with me if at all possible, especially when the trip is longer and there's more opportunity for toddler boredom!
Christmas came early and we have been enjoying Rock Band Beatles for a little over a week now. The game is all Stephan can talk about some days and we have had some interesting moments dealing with his excitement for the game and his lack of naps and general crankiness as a result. I've started telling him that if he doesn't talk about anything else, we'll just put the game away for a month! We do have a blast playing and singing together though.
For the most part, life goes on as usual. Work has been busy this year for me and I'm still getting used to my new school and the new responsibilities at my other school. Hopefully I'll be well into the swing of things before March!
Right now, I'm looking forward to heading to Breck at the beginning of October and having fun in Estes on my birthday. Trying to figure out what to put on my birthday wish list since the one thing I had wanted, I'm not so sure I want anymore.
So far, the baby front is going fine. I'm perpetually stuffed up and thus my ear is always popping, sleeping is getting to be uncomfortable, but March will be here before I know it with a whole new adventure. We have another appointment in two weeks, will be interesting to see if Stephan gets us another ultrasound. I doubt it, since the 20wk one is coming up at the end of October, but who knows. He's pretty cute and persuasive!
