Potty Mouth

T and I never definitively talked about what we would tell our children their anatomical parts are called. Consequently, when E was potty training I never called it anything and then one day T somehow told E that he had a penis.

Great. Not exactly the dream word I wanted floating around in the mouth of the boy who never forgets anything and has no social filters. And believe me, he has not forgotten that word. I tried to continue to be discreet, but E would let me know outright what it is. So I was forced out of my prudishness and I try to be comfortable, though still constrained, with the enhanced vocabulary.

Which brings us to sacrament meeting today. About half the children in our ward weren't in attendance today, (Not an exaggeration. I serve in Primary and literally half our seats were empty.) and our sacrament meeting was quiet. Excruciatingly quiet. You can hear the deacons' pants brush each other as they pass the sacrament quiet. E took his piece of bread, chewed, swallowed, and broke the silence by asking me in a normal volume voice:

"Does Jesus have a penis and a bum-bum?"

I think my face went even redder than T's. I couldn't even think of what to say and just as E was about to restate the question I grabbed a tic-tac and popped it in his mouth. The remaining time the sacrament was being passed was occupied by me liberally supplying E with tic-tacs.

Tic-tacs. Apparently they even freshen potty mouth.

REAL Pictures

I promised my mom I'd upload REAL pregnancy pictures by this morning. Yesterday's fake photo threw her off a little too much for comfort, I guess ;o)

The Shirt
The last time I posted pictures I received a lot of comments about the shirt. It's a Shade shirt that they don't carry anymore. It's not a maternity shirt, but when I'm not pregnant there's so much material that it goes to my knees. I thought I should wear it for my pregnancy pictures because it reveals, without concealing, my pregnant tummy for what it is. Sadly, I'm not sure it'll keep fitting for all my pregnancy pictures.

Ka-Whump

I hit a wall. Yesterday morning I really didn't have the energy to go to the gym, but I decided I should anyway. I usually do about 25 min. on the elliptical machine, but yesterday I was positive my work-out was about over so I moved my book and found out I'd been active for a whopping 8 minutes and 36 seconds. The rest of my work-out didn't improve. On the treadmill, usually 15 min., the same thing happened but I refused to look at the time until I was absolutely certain my work-out was nearly over. 7 minutes 27 seconds. It was a joke. My stomach felt overly bulky, I was having a much more difficult time breathing, and I had to decrease my intensity on everything. I was incredibly frustrated.

The worst part is that it didn't/hasn't improved. I feel pregnant. Extremely pregnant. As pregnant as I felt a couple weeks before E was born. Want to see how pregnant?
Okay, that's not actually me, but it's precisely how I feel. (It's an anonymous woman who took the shot when she, too, was 27 weeks pregnant with twins.) T even came home from work and said, "Whoa! Did your stomach totally grow today?!" He can get away with saying things like that because I love him so much.

Today I took E grocery shopping and I am spent. Pushing that cart about did me in and when I had to lift the multipack of detergent into the cart at Costco I about flagged down assistance. I'm telling ya, if this doesn't subside I don't know what I do. I know this sounds really whiny, and it is, but I just had to share it.

Other, More Uplifting Pregnancy News:

• My sweet sister was inspired and sent me a lovely, perfect babies' gift that arrived yesterday. It was the silver lining to my day. Thanks!
  
• Two weeks ago I had yet another ultrasound and they finally gave me baby weights: Babette A weighs 1 lb. 10 oz. and Babette M weighs 1 lb. 5 oz.
• Kaiser registered me for their "Preterm Birth Prevention Program" for mothers of multiples and I've never felt so medically monitored in my life. Our doctor during my pregnancy with E was uber laid back: each of my 14 visits were about 5 min., and I had two ultrasounds. We're more than making up for it with the girls. I have an OB appointment every 2 weeks, an ultrasound every 4 weeks, a weekly call from a perinatal nurse that logs and monitors my daily contractions and kicks, two upcoming birthing classes, and a consultant geneticist.
• I had an encounter with a belly rubber! T and I went to JoAnn's Fabrics and were waiting at the fabric counter when the woman in front of me turned around and said, "You look about as pregnant as my daughter!" To which I replied, "Well, I'm probably due a little after your daughter. When is your grandbaby's due date?" She said, "The beginning of April. You?" I said, "Well, our's aren't due until the beginning of June, but there are two in there." At this point, the woman gasped, smiled, struck her arms toward me and started massaging my belly with both hands while making all kinds of squeals and giggles. I looked up at T who was staring, open jawed at the lady's hands and realized that his reaction was the exact same as mine. She rubbed on to her heart's content and then said, "Oh, I'm so excited for you!!!!" and moved on to other baby related small talk, though I don't recall a word she said. When she walked away T looked at me and said, "Did that really just happen." "Yeah," I said, "I think it did."
• I haven't taken any pregnancy pictures since my last ones, but I promise to take some soon and post them.

Follow-up to our parenting dillemnas:

• With the smoking issue... When it arose I calmly told E that we don't smoke because it hurts our bodies and our bodies are a gift from Heavenly Father. I used the word "hurt" instead of "sick" because I've been "sick" lately and I didn't want E thinking they were at all related. After reading your advice I've felt better about what I said and I'm sticking to it when it continues to arise during his imaginary play. I also want to thank my BC friend who emailed me and told me that they point out to their kids that it's a bad choice, not a bad person. That made it so clear to me and easier for me to explain to E.
• As for the potty... Last Friday, E and I picked T up from the airport (Michigan again) and we went to Ikea. We were enjoying a picnic in the car before heading into the store when E had a waterfall accident standing right there in the car. His underwear and pants were soaked. Luckily, there was a Wal-Mart right next to us, so I went in to get him some underwear and pants. I was looking at the underwear and saw the cotton boxer briefs and had an idea. I bought them for E, came back to the car and told him since he's growing so big he gets Big Boy/Daddy underwear as long as he can keep them dry. It's working! To quote my sister: We've been accident-free for five days now! Thanks for all your great advice!
  

What Would You Do?

In the past two weeks we've come up against a couple parenting "dilemmas", if you will. We're in need of advice.

Situation #1: "Joe Camel"
Our neighbors across the street are wonderful people with grown children the age of T and I. We frequently take them treats, go over and talk with them, and other such good neighborly associations. They're both retired, they adore E and have offered to watch him at any time for any reason. When my unexpected second ultrasound came up, they watched E and he had a blast. Here's the catch: the man of the house smokes. Never inside, only outside, and he walks away to a corner.

Fast forward to last week, E and I were playing with his toy kitchen and he put a toy carrot in his lips, pulled it out and exhaled, and repeated. I said nothing, but just looked at him thinking, "Is this really happening?!?!?" E then looked at me and said exuberantly, "Look, Mommy! I make smoke like "Tim"!"

I did say something, though I won't say what yet because I don't want your advice to be tainted. However, it's recurred about three times now and yesterday the driver in the car next to us was smoking and E told me how they were just like "Tim"! (with an "Aren't they cool!" tone of voice) What would you do?

Situation #2: Potty-Not-Training
E potty trained last spring because he brought it up. We were downstairs and he told me "fush"! After hand motions from him, I realized what he was talking about and the games began. He's never been night trained, though he does wake up dry from naps. In the last couple months, he's regressed big time. We were having change the underwear, but not the pants accidents up to 5 times a day. So T and I discussed and offered E an incentive; if he could stay dry all day he could have a cookie after dinner. Worked like a charm for about a week. Now instead of little, frequent accidents, he'll have one huge accident. After the accident he'll say, "Oh no, now E doesn't get a cookie. But I can try again tomorrow!" At least he's an optimist! Here's some other particulars that may factor into your advice.

• Taking away big boy/cotton underwear isn't really a punishment. He thinks pull-ups are equally cool, and diapers are pretty cool now too because that's what we keep buying for the babies.
• We do ask him if he needs to go potty from time to time. He always says no. Sometimes an accident occurs two minutes later.
• When he has an accident, E says, "Mommy!!! Potty!!!" and stands there frozen as the faucet begins to leak.
• We still help him get on the potty and wipe about 75% of the time. He can't unbutton pants and he's not super coordinated at doing it himself unless he's wearing elastiband pants. On top of that, he can't flush himself because our handles are pretty stiff and he can't reach the water faucets to wash his hands even when he's on his step stool.
• I want him at the the point where he can take care of it all by himself. I'm a realist and know that when the girls arrive, my hands will be pretty full so helping E go potty all the time is kind of unrealistic.

HELP!

Everyday Life

As the picture indicates, the love of cowboy hat is still going on strong. The morning we picked T up from the airport, we were headed home on the freeway and saw that right at our exit is the local junior rodeo grounds. They happened to be having a little exhibition and there were REAL cowboys, horses, tractors, you name it. We pulled off and went to show our little cowboy. He was quite impressed, though hesitant to actually touch a horse.

The wind was whipping us and little cowboy E nuzzled into Daddy for some protection. I loved it.

E caught me doing my pilates arm exercises one morning and was quite insistent that he be allowed the same opportunity. I was honestly shocked by how well and how long he lifted the weights, especially considering he was lifting 1/7 of his body weight.

The sun graced us a couple weekends ago and so we set to work organizing our garage. E found the box containing all our dress-ups and ran around the neighborhood as a tiger, rooster, and bumblebee. Here's our busy bee playing with sidewalk chalk.

This past Saturday was my honey's 29th birthday! He started his day with a 12 mile run and when he came home, E and I had breakfast cake (definition for non-Beans: coffee cake) in the oven and decorations all around. E was genuinely thrilled that it was Daddy's birthday and it made it so much fun. He couldn't wait for T to open presents or blow-out his candles. It was tender for T and I to watch how much E wanted Daddy to have a great day without thinking of himself. When T laid down to ice his knee, E ran to his bedroom to bring him a toy to play with while he laid down. T entertained both himself and E with our monkey puppet.

We went out to dinner on Saturday, so we didn't have T's traditional birthday dinner until Sunday. We ate french onion soup and for dessert we had the most decadent cake I've ever made. It's a peanut butter cake, with chocolate peanut butter ganache between all the layers, cream cheese/whipping cream frosting, and broken Butterfingers scattered atop. The ingredient breakdown:

• 3 sticks of butter
• 1 C. peanut butter
• 3 C. heavy cream
• 1 lb. semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 lb. cream cheese
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 C. buttermilk

We barely made it through 1/5 of the top cake layer. Intense.

Stay tuned for more pregnancy pictures being posted this week. I'm looking more and more pregnant and getting more and more reactions from friends and strangers. But that's another post...