The Secret's Out!

Well, now that I don't have to keep being preggers a secret anymore...I can post a few things that I have been documenting during these past 12 weeks...

* I stand by my statement that the MAN who coined the phrase "morning sickness" should be shot. A coworker of mine suggested that we've had it all wrong--it's supposed to be "mourning sickness." Makes a little more sense.

* I don't know how I got through my first pregnancy without an iPhone. Seriously. The "What to Expect" app is fan-flippin-tastic. It gives me day-to-day updates on what fruit my little baby is closest to in size and also helpful tidbits of info.

* Things I have been craving/able to keep down: bean burritos, char-grilled cheeseburgers, chicken noodle soup, freeze pops and ice cream. Oh, and pickles. And Cadbury caramel eggs.

* I already have a feeling that Little Bean is a girl. (Sidenote shout-out to Ali for the nickname. Holla!) Call me crazy, but I am just throwing out my prediction now. I almost went out on a limb and ordered nursery bedding that is soooo not gender-neutral. But I fought the urge.

* I really want to find out the sex of the baby this time. Brad? Not so much. Still working on this one...

* Ben is absolutely adorable already--he talks to the baby, says he hopes it feels better and that he wants it to "come out soon." Then he gets frustrated that it won't talk back to him.

* Awesome places where I have thrown up: in my car, in the front yard, at work, in a beautiful cabin in Georgia. ;-) Brad takes the prize for throwing up on the actual hiking trail in Georgia...I think he just wanted to show me up.

* I am already in maternity clothes. All you mommies out there who have had more than one little bambino were absolutely right--you show soooo much faster with the second one...and I am welcoming my spandex-waisted pants whole-heartedly.

And last, but not least...

* We are so freakin' excited. :D

Stay tuned!

Hail to the Chief

Outside of Ben's classroom, there is a dry-erase board on which Ms. Cathy and Ms. Monique post things that parents need to know. There's a schedule for when they have P.E., what day show-and-tell will be and then there's usually a paragraph letting parents know what the kids did that day.

In their studies about the continents and their respective countries, they have moved on from Asia and are now discussing Africa and its 54 countries. (I think that's right--I'm even learning stuff from the board.) I wish I had been there to witness this firsthand...

Today, we learned more about Africa. When asking the children if they knew where Morocco was, one student said, "In the White House!" Apparently, our President's name is Morocco Bama.

Baby Got Back

"Mommy--Aiden said 'poopy butt'...but I don't say 'poopy butt' because that's not a nice word."

Nice try, kid--you just said it twice.

We have reached the stage where Ben is exploring his verbal boundaries and expanding his vocabulary...and it's amazing some of the things our little parrot has picked up on...either at home or on the playground.

"Poopy butt" was the word of the day (insert Pee-Wee's-Playhouse-type screaming here) for quite some time...and every day when I picked him up from school, I would get to hear about how Aiden had said "poopy butt" and how he's not supposed to say "poopy butt" and right, Mommy? isn't "poopy butt" a bad word?

We tried to not really react to it, because all the books and experts say that kids are just looking for some kind of reaction--so, we just tried to subsitute that with "bottom" or "heiny"...and it really has worked...until now.

Ben came home yesterday and announced, with his silly little grin and furrowed brow..."Mommy? You know, you know, you know what Maddox says? He says 'buttocks.'"

Apparently, my kid has become a reformed offender, and now he's the bad-word hall monitor. (Trust me--I can't get away with saying "Oh my gosh!" without a stern reprimanding from Ben..."Uh, Mommy--we don't say 'oh my gosh'...we say 'oh my goodness.'" He's right.)

Uh...the books in all their infinite wisdom don't really tell you what to say when your 3-year old comes home with a very medically technical term for his rearend...so I just had to wing it.

"You know what, Ben? You can just say 'gluteus maximus' if you want to!"

The confused look on his face tells me that we'll just be sticking with "heiny" for now.

En Garde!

Well, he did it! He got his 10th star this morning, and has FINALLY received the coveted pirate sword. (I think the faux leather tassels distracted him from the fact that it doesn't look like the pirate sword from Peter Pan.)

Here's how it went down...I told him last night that I had the sword, ready to give to him, and all he had to do was to stay in his bed until the sun came up. He went to bed, and I thought I would try something different...risky to mess with a sleeping child, I know, but I thought that if I tried to wake him up to use the potty at 11pm, that might reset his sleep pattern and then he would sleep longer. Well, whatever it was...he slept until 5am!

When he came into our room, I reminded him that he was only about 2 hours away from getting the sword. He didn't seem to care--he just wanted to 'nuggle with Daddy...which is incredibly adorable, but I had to remain focused!! No cutie-patootie-ness was going to distract me from the finish line that we were sooooo close to crossing...I wanted him to get that last star more than he did.

So, I pulled out the big guns.

"Ben--do you want to see the sword?"

Well, that perked his interest right up. (I'll leave out the fact that I asked Brad to go out to my car to get the sword and his response was "Are you kidding me?" so I had to throw on my Uggs and head on out to retrieve it from my trunk...again, I'll leave that part out.) When I got back in from the freezing Florida pre-dawn air and showed it to Ben, exclaiming how cool this thing was, his first reaction was "Awh...it's not gold." Of course it's not. I should have known he wanted a gold one. So, I did what any other sleep-deprived, desperate parent would have done--I lied. "Of course it is, Sweetie--you just can't see it because it's dark. And look! It has tassels!"

It took a little more coaxing and promising that he could have the sword for his very own in a few hours and the piling of 6 more blankets on top of him, but he was finally tucked back into his own bed by 5:15, snug as a bug in a rug...and he stayed that way until 7:30!! Woo hoo! He got his last red star (which he complains about not really being red--I guess I grabbed a different red crayon and he thought I had given him a pink star...geez, Mommy...) and the sword is now his to "fight" with.

Great...it's all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out.

The Star Chart Update #1...

...well, I am happy to report that Ben has earned 9 stars! (I'm going to go ahead and let you applaud us/him for a second...go ahead...)

Unfortunately, I could have posted this 5 days ago. That's right--we've been stuck on Star #9 for that long.

ARGHHH!!!

I thought he was getting it--I really did! He was so proud to show Hailee (via webcam) all his stars, and he still totally gets that if he gets to 10 stars, he gets his pirate sword...but he just won't do it.

For the past 4 nights, he has gotten up and doesn't seem to care that he only needs one more measly, hand-drawn star to get the prize he so desires...so I've made an executive decision. Digsby suggested that, perhaps, since right now the actual sword is intangible, Ben might not fully get it. So, I went ahead and bought the pirate sword.

This was no small feat, even at Party City. There were giant swords, swords that glow in the dark, swords that make a LOT of annoying noises, swords that have fake blood on them...but I could not find the one I am pretty sure Ben is imagining. Which I have concluded might look something like this:



So, I chose the one that looked like it could have the least amount of potential to harm him/Kitty/Mommy or break something in our house...and of course there's no picture on the website. Let's just say it doesn't look like this.

Tonight, the plan is to explain to him that the sword will be in his tiny little man hands in the morning...IF he spends the whole night in his own bed.

We'll see how this goes...

The Star Chart

I'm happy to report that we have been paci-free for weeks now...thank you, thank you. We almost suffered a damaging relapse when Ben found the missing blue and orange paci in a basket while Mommy was in Vancouver...but luckily, the Paci Fairy knew that there were some extra Star Wars toys in the closet and lo and behold...crisis averted.

We had about 2 seconds to bask in the glory of this when we as parents were faced with another challenge...the middle-of-the-night awakenings.

For some reason, Ben started this fun little habit of waking up between 1 and 2 am...which would be fine if he would just stay in his room. It was getting to the point where he wouldn't even wake us up as he was crawling over us to get under the covers in our bed...and that was another bad habit we wanted to nip in the bud.

Enter creative parenting technique #2. The patent-pending Star Chart.



I have to completely give Brad credit for this one...I guess he was the one getting kicked in the middle of the night by our little sleepwalker. Here's how it works: every night that Ben sleeps in his bed, he gets a star drawn in one of the boxes. If he makes it through the whole night without an accident, which means that Mommy doesn't have to change his clothes and sheets in the middle of the night, then he gets another star. When all 10 boxes are star-filled, he gets a prize! (When we introduced this concept to him, he quickly announced that he wanted a pirate sword. Valerie said "Well, at least he didn't want a fairy wand." Touché, Val...we consider this a huge success in itself.) Here's how it's working out:

Night #1 - After pumping Ben up about the whole idea with lots of "Star Chart Rah Rah!" pep talks, he was completely ready for the challenge...while we were cautiously optimistic. He woke up, as usual, around 1:15, but when he came to our room, I whispered to him, "If you want a star in the morning, you need to go get back in your bed..." The kid must have been dreaming of that pirate sword because he turned right around and got back into his bed! Woo hoo! Success and 2 purple stars drawn on the chart! (Of course he picked out the color.)

Night #2 - I still consider this a success even though no stars were awarded. I'm not making excuses, but when he has a little bit of a cough, he likes to sleep with a cup of water next to his bed that he can sip on throughout the night...so last night was interrupted with an accident. The successful part? It didn't happen until 3am! (Who would have thought I would be thrilled to be woken up at 3am?!) Well, this means that he's changing his sleep pattern, which is the ultimate goal. So, no stars on the chart, but still progress in my book.

Night #3 - Last night was a prime example of how parenting is totally a trial-and-error, make-it-up-as-you-go endeavor. Since Ben didn't get any stars on Night #2, I channeled the wanna-be teacher in me and gave him an extra credit opportunity...take a bath, get a star. Now, I know I shouldn't have to bribe my child to bathe, but unless you've been locked up in a tiny, bungalow-style bathroom with a stubborn toddler who WILL NOT get his cute little tush in the bath because he has a boo boo on the bottom of his foot that he refuses to get wet...don't judge me. So, squeaky clean with a blue star added to the chart and ready for bed, Ben announces that he won't get out of his bed...and he doesn't until 5am. Again--small steps towards the overall success! No accidents + an almost-full night of sleep = 2 green stars for Ben.

Stay tuned...we're halfway there...

Dude looks like a lady...

That's my boy.

As his imagination kicks into high gear at age 3, it's only natural that part of pretending is to play dress up. And, I have to admit, that for over a year, he's donned just about every Disney princess gown there is...and on several occasions, I've caught him putting on Mommy's dresses and heels at home.

I'm perfectly OK that my son is already in touch with his feminine side. When that feminine side of his encourages him to look at my wedding picture and say "Oh, Mommy--you look like a princess!", who wouldn't be OK with it?? To this day, any time I wear a skirt or a dress, he thinks I'm dressed up like a princess...and there's no way I'm going to tell him otherwise.

My point is this: someday...far, far, FAR into the future, he's going to try and woo some lucky little lady. And he'll know right off the bat to compliment her outfit.

Some things you just can't teach.