#2?

So lately we been seriously leaning toward having a second baby. I think if I had my way, I’d wait another year, but I’m not getting any younger and I’m feeling like I want to do it. I’m going to make an appointment with our RE to have an initial discussion. EEP! Edited to add: Meeting with Dr. Q next Wednesday at 10:30A.M. OMGOMGOMG!

I’m hoping to get some feedback from those of you with more than one child under the age of 3 or 4 to weigh in on a few things that I’m wondering about:

• We co-sleep and I’d like to continue that. I’m thinking initially we’d sidecar the co-sleeper for the newbie and keep Monkey between us.  But what happens when the baby is too big for the co-sleeper but still too small to expose to Monkey’s wild sleep antics? Bed against a wall with Monkey between DW and the wall and baby2 between me and DW?
• How do you handle naps when you’ve got 1 napping mid-day and the other napping twice a day (one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon)? Are you stuck at home all day every day? Monkey would go nuts! He has to get out at least once a day, but I’m wondering how you do that with the whole nap thing.
• I’ve told DW she will need to become a pro-babywearer as that seems to be the best way to handle having a newborn and a toddler. It’s what I see all the moms in this situation doing.
• How will I ever wean Monkey if I start nursing a newbie?

If we end up going for it, I’m figuring we have about a year before there is a newborn to worry about. We are also thinking about signing Monkey up for pre-school starting next fall (we’d initially thought we’d wait another year). That would help. Of course, I still don’t even have my period back, so who knows…

montessori

I’ve officially fallen off the Nablopomo wagon, but I will still attempt to post more frequently than I usually do. With Thanksgiving coming up, I doubt I would have been able to keep it up anyway.

One of the parenting sites I follow posted this blog post on setting up your toddler’s environment in a Montessori way. I finished feeling guilty because we definitely restrict Monkey’s access to certain areas in our home. It made me wonder how many parents are actually doing things this way.

We keep Monkey completely out of the kitchen using a baby gate. There are two reasons for this:

• The litter box is in there (far from our food prep area – it is next to our washer and dryer at the far end of the kitchen). The thought of him messing about with litter or worse just makes me queasy. Toddlers and litter boxes do not mix. And no, there is no other place in the house for it. Our 2 bathrooms are too tiny to hold one and when we did our remodel, we had a space fashioned specifically to hold the litter box.
• The oven is in there. One of my major Mama paranoias is scalding by pulling a pot of boiling liquid off the stove. Even though Monkey isn’t in there, I am in the habit already of pointing the handle to the inside of the stove.

We also keep him out of our office, but we are readying that room to be Monkey’s room in the coming months, so that will soon be a non-issue. We used to close our bedroom door, too, but he can open it now, so that’s free territory. To put things into perspective so y’all don’t think Monkey is closed off in a single room, he has free reign of the living room, dining room, and entry (and now our bedroom and master bath). He also gets taken out to Monkey-specific activities (park, Gymboree, indoor playroom, swimming when the weather permits) twice a day, and naps for about 1.5-2 hours each day. So he isn’t really “stuck” in one spot for hours and hours.

Still, this post got me thinking about ways in which I might make things more interesting and interactive. I’ve been feeling bad lately, too, that we have no space to do things like set up a water table or more sensory-type activity play areas. We have outgrown our condo, but aren’t going to be moving until DW can get back to working part-time (we’re thinking when Monkey starts pre-school next year).

Do you have your kids shut off from certain areas of your house? How do you handle things like litter boxes or other icky or dangerous items? Any of you living in small spaces able to do the Montessori thing successfully? Inquiring minds want to know…

babyisms

Well, sorry I missed yesterday, folks. Figured I’d jump back in today with a few cute things Monkey has done/said recently.

• The other morning, I woke up and Monkey was awake and whispering something. I watched and listened. He was pointing to me and whispering, “Mama.” Then he was pointing at DW and whispering, “Mommy.” Just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

• The other day, DW was singing a bit of a song from Yo Gabba Gabba. She sang, “So be careful cause – we don’t want our balloon to…” Then Monkey would chime in with, “Pop!” ❤

• Monkey loves bees (at least, pictures of bees). When he spots one, he joyfully calls out, “BEE!” The other night, he pointed to the ceiling in our bedroom in the night and yelled, “BEE!” The light coming through the blinds was casting a yellow and black striped pattern on the ceiling. Smart boy!

nablopomo

I didn’t realize until today that November is Nablopomo, and since I actually did post on November 1, I’m going to try to participate. So hopefully you’ll get daily posts from me this month. Whether or not they will excite you, on the other hand…

Monkey has been up for the day at 4:30AM for about 5 days now. We were getting used to 5-6AM being the normal wake time, but what can you do? Our attempts to get him on a regular sleep schedule have failed. He is so crazy tired by 10-10:30AM that it seems cruel to force him to stay awake. Guess we’ll just wait and see what happens.

To the commenter who asked, Monkey thoroughly enjoyed trick or treating. He loves steps and knocking on doors so this was truly his holiday 🙂 He didn’t really care about getting candy, which works out since we didn’t want to give him any. Mommy was smart and brought along a pack of Annie’s Bunnies so that when he did attempt to eat a candy bar (with the packaging still on), she pulled out a bunny for him and he was more than satisfied. Bunnies and stickers are our go-to “treats” to get him to get in the stroller, carseat, etc. when he just isn’t having it.

Monkey is really talking up a storm lately. He is picking up words all the time, though others might not understand some of them. Like Ganka vs. gonkin, for example. That would be Bianca and pumpkin. Haha! It is crazy cute and I love how he picks up the inflection in our voices when he mimics. Ridiculously adorable.

My wife is making chocolate chip cookies, the baby is napping, and I am working/blogging. Life is good.

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halloween weekend

We have all kinds of fun stuff planned for the weekend. We started last night by making DW’s family recipe brown sugar cookies, all decorated for Halloween. This afternoon we are going to carve pumpkins and let baby help by digging out the guts (ew!). Tomorrow we are going to a Halloween fair at our local mall. Buzz Lightyear and Woody will be there – Monkey loves character visits. Sunday we go to Boo at the Zoo. Then, of course, Monday is Trick-or-Treating, a first for Monkey (Mama and Mommy will be eating his treats, so let’s hope he gets some good stuff). We are going to a local neighborhood that decorates all up so it should be fun. Monday or Tuesday I will have a Halloween picture post, so let me know if you need the password 🙂

What are all of you doing?