"I wanna be Naked, Mom!"

Carter has known for some time how to take his clothes off, but it has been in the last few weeks that he has started taking them off in his bed.  We have gone up to bed and found him completely naked, sourounded by EVERY STUFFED ANIMAL that the kid owns.

He takes about 45 minutes to put himself to bed every night.  He is now fully accustomed to his "BIG BOY BED", never gets out, but has a ball with all of his animals every night.  Sometimes I think he looks forward to his special time with his "pets" (that is what he calls all of the stuffed animals).  We will listen to him on the monitor singing lullabyes, "Book of Mormon Stories", telling stories, getting after Pluto telling him it is time for bed, and so much more.  We needs reality TV when you can listen to your 2-1/2 year old in his bed!  We just giggle!  His imagination never quits and we love it!

Funny Things my Toddler says......

I don't want to forget these things, so I am taking a minute to jot them down.....here goes!

-"Mom, my tummy hurts...my baby brother is kicking me!"
-"Dad, no sneak up on me and say SHHHHHHHHH" (Chris leaned into his room when he was trying to go to sleep and said shhhhh to quite him down, scared the pants off him!)
-"I am going to name my baby brother Suzy!"
-"Super Debby" (His uncles taught him to call his Nana this at Christmas)

He has so many, I am going to keep adding to this post as I think of them!!!!  This kid cracks us up, gotta love him.  I don't want him to grow up, it all happens so fast.

Fetal Echo Results

                                    

 Monday January 18th I had my fetal echocardiogram at DCH (Detroit Children's Hospital) downtown Detroit.  Unfortunately my insurance would not let me get this procedure done in Ann Arbor MI (15 minutes from home) instead I had to travel over an hour to Detroit.  Nonetheless, I was glad I had medical insurance.

I waited in the waiting room for an hour and then spent about an hour with the tech and Dr.  The baby was very active as they were bugging him.  It was hard to "count the leaflets" as the Dr put it.  He suspects that his heart is totally normal top to bottom, however he did find something that made him hesitant to completely rule out a bicuspid aortic valve.  It is hard to explain and especially since I am NOT a cardiologist I will spare the details.  But end of story, he wants to see the new baby after a week of life and perform another echocardiogram just to make sure.  The Dr said he may be hypersensitive as he knows Carter has a bicuspid aortic valve and so they are trying to find one on this baby as well, but that he may not have one at all.  But the baby is fine and all looks good, no changes in delivery plans and nothing to worry about hopefully.  We will just see once he arrives and we can do another echo.

I am curious to see what my OBGYN has to say once he gets the report.  But I just pray that all is well and that we have nothing to worry about.  I also think to myself, maybe many of us have small abnormalities with our organs/hearts that we just never know about because we don't see any symptoms.  As Carters congenital heart defect is not bothering him at ALL and we don;t expect that it will, we just happened to look into a seemingly simple heart murmur.  And this baby is only getting his heart looked at because of his big brother.  I am just excited for this little guy to get here.

Carter's Many Changes - - - Big Boy Bear & Big Boy Bed

So after Christmas we decided we needed to transition Carter into his "Big Boy Bed".  We bought a bed on Craigslist and Chris repainted it blue and we put on it a brand new football quilt that Mema (great grandma) made for him.  He was very excited about the transition and watched his dad take down his "cribby" and put up his new bed.  For the first 2 weeks it was great.  We had the railing up and he would climb into bed and go right to sleep (just like when he was in his crib) no issues.  Until the day he found out how to climb out.  So we discovered how to climb out the one end and then we had to keep taking him back up to his bed.  That lasted a few nights until we put the other railing on the bed, overlapping the two, so there was no longer any opening for him to climb out.  Problem solved...he no longer climbed out..and all was going great until about a week ago......

WE LOST "NI-NIGHT" (PACIFIER") 

Carter has used a pacifier for only naps and bedtime for about a year and a half.  He could not carry it around the house and had to leave it in his bed before he could get out of bed.  Hence the name "Ni-night".  It helped him calm down for bed and fall fast asleep.  Well on 1/15/10 Friday at the babysitter's house he LOST it, our last one.  The babysitter said he took a good nape without it, so I decided to go with it.  He was told it was gone and that we didn't have it anymore.  That didn't make him feel better, but at least he knew it was GONE!  So first night...He screamed for 2 hours before falling asleep.  He was angry and me, yelling things like "GET BACK IN HERE MOM!!!"  and  "I NEED IT NOW!!!"  I told him that he was a big boy now and that we could go get a Big Boy Bear if he would go to sleep.  He was in a rage that night so I was not sure he would even remember what I had promised him.  I should have known he would remember because first thing the next morning was "Can we go bet my Big Boy Bear today?"  I kept my promise and we headed to Build a Bear for him to pick out the "BIG BOY BEAR" to replace his pacifier.  He told the girl at the store all about the traumatic night without the pacifier and that he was a big boy now.  He picked out his own bear and even named it witha birth certificate for "Big Boy Bear".  I have yet to take his picture with the bear, but here is the bear he picked out.

He loves his bear and he no longer asks about his "ni-night"  I wish I could say that he falls asleep as quick and as peacefully as he used to, but that is not the case.  He still naps and sleep by himself, but it takes a little longer.  Some times over an hour.  He doesn't get out of his bed, but he talks, sings, tells stories and rolls around in his bed until finally he passes out.  We always wonder what we will find when we check on him.  Sometimes he is asleep sitting up in his bed.  We don't care as long as he falls asleep and stays in his bed!  I just hope that 7 weeks is long enough for him to full DETACH himself from the pacifier before baby #2 comes along.  We shall see.

Carter has many more CHANGES to come, but I think he will do fine.  It may take awhile to adjust to not having mom and dad's FULL attention, but he will be a great Big Brother!  I am excited for the 2 of them to meet.

Cloth Diapering...anyone?

So I have been looking into cloth diapering for baby #2.  I have done a lot of research, attended classes, talked with friends and everything has been positive.  I even bought a few already on a SUPER deal I found.  The ones we have tried are BumGenius, Happy Heiney's and Blueberry.  So far I have been happy and I plan on moving forward with it.  Since baby #2 will hopefully not be our last I figured it was worth a shot to try and save some money. 

If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, or knowledge to share with me I am open.  I am learning very quickly everyone has an opinion and everyone likes something different.  I guess that makes sense since every child is different in size and bodily functions.  Let me know any tips if you have any to share.