Spoiled

The problem with having just one child is that they get spoiled.  Despite our best efforts, we inevitably spoil our little Nicole.  Sometimes, it is just easier and less loud to give her what she wants than it is to fight her on it.  I'm thinking that these things will change a lot when baby Boy comes.

Last night Nicole did not want to go to bed, she did not want to brush her teeth and she threw a huge tantrum over it and threw herself around and bit her lip and made it bleed.  Ugh.  So, I set her down on the bed with me in my room while Matt did his homework downstairs.  I thought maybe she would get sleepy, but I was ready for sleep before she was.

I kept asking her, "Nicole, you want to go night night?"

Her response, "No Mamma, no night night."

Eventually, I had to tell her, "Nicoley, Mamma is tired.  Will you go to bed for Mamma?"

Her response, "Okay Mamma, so tired."

Then she went to bed.

It is sad when I fall asleep at the same time as my one year old.

Grandpa Kimball

Ralph Kimball Sr. (Grandpa Kimball) passed away this morning of complications from prostate cancer.  His passing occurs just a month and a half after his son, Ralph Kimball (Dad Kimball).

We will miss Grandpa Kimball very much.  We will be attending his funeral in St. George this weekend.

28 Weeks

Yay!  I am 28 weeks along and officially into my third trimester.  That means that I am 2/3 done with this pregnancy.  Hazah! 

I had my first bought of "nesting" this weekend where I suddenly felt that the baby was coming very soon and we were very unprepared for it.  I decided it was time to clean the whole house because it was a wreck.  Matt, was very kind and helped me in my endeavor even though I sounded like a crazy person talking about getting the house clean immediately for the baby that won't come for another 12 weeks.

I also began registering for baby stuff on Target.com even though my baby shower isn't for another two months.  It is possible that I am a little crazy.  We also went shopping on Saturday so that I could look at double strollers.  We went to Burlington Coat Factory that has a surprisingly large baby section at the back of the store.  We saw a few double strollers, but none of them are the one that we want.  There was a really nice one that had seats that could face forward or backward, but Nicole was too tall for the seat.  Her head was almost brushing the canopy.  In six months, she wouldn't even fit into it.  Who designs these things?  We tried the InStep Safari Double, but when folded it was huge!  No way was that thing going to fit into either of our cars.  Perhaps, a double stroller is not in our future.

Yesterday I was feeling stuffy and coughy, so Matt told me to stay home from church and rest while he and Nicole went.  I'm sure glad I did because baby boy FINALLY turned while I was taking my nap.  This whole time he has been feet down and I was starting to get worried that he wouldn't turn before he got too big to turn.  So, now I get kicks to the ribs, but it is overall WAY more comfortable than having him kick down.

I am feeling really good still.  I have bad pregnancy days where I get a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions if I am too active or if my body just hates me, but it is still a lot better than my Nicole pregnancy.  I still have energy, though not as much as I did a few weeks ago.  Something about the third trimester just makes me extra tired. 

I am starting to get the swelling of the feet a lot more now, something that I was mostly spared in the second trimester.  Now, if I stand for too long or sit for too long then they will just begin to swell.  Elevation is key.

I am working with Nicole on getting her to realize that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy and that it is her little brother.  Sometimes she remembers and sometimes she thinks that Mommy is a jungle gym, just like Daddy.  But, last night, she said to me, "Baby Brother in Mama's tummy?"  It made me a happy mommy.

The day is swiftly approaching where I will not just be a mommy to one, but two!  It is exciting!

Sick Family

Husband sick, daughter sick, and a tired Mommy.

This week has been long, even though it was short.  I have a sick family at home, and I'm just a tired pregnant lady.

Oh well.

The Things I Want

 This beautiful changing table/chest of drawers from Target.

 This super cute turtles crib set from Target.

 This Phil and Teds Explorer stroller (watching KSL for a deal!)

Or, this very light and functional City Mini Double stroller (come on KSL!).

These are the big items that I want for when the baby comes.  But, it is very likely that I will get none of them.  But, I can dream, and window shop online.

New Schedule

With the new school semester, Matt and I are on a new schedule. Matt is taking like 16 credits this semester, so he has more school than he did last semester.

His classes start at 4pm and run until 7 or 8 pm Monday through Thursday.  Since he has class an hour earlier than he did last semester, and I don't even get off work until 4pm, we have made arrangements to drop Nicole off at a relatives house 4 times a week. (Thanks Marie and Momma Kimball!) Nicole gets to spend an hour at the drop off location, and then I pick her up when I get off work.

It isn't the ideal situation, but we are glad that we have found a system that works so that Matt can go to school and I can go to work and Nicole can still be watched by one of us the majority of the day.

Getting off at 4pm means that I have to go into work at 7am.  This is not an easy feat.  Getting up at 6:15am to get to work by 7am is difficult, especially when I am pregnant and tired all the time.  But, I do it so that I can have more time with my daughter later in the day.

Even though I get about 5 hours a day with Nicole, I only get to see Matt like 2 hours of my day.  I miss him a lot! (Not to be confused with Alot.)  Plus, he has a Saturday morning class.

Every semester will be a new adventure.  We miss each other, but we are happy and content with our little family.  We anxiously anticipate adding our little boy to our family, which will change things even more... I am sure.

Attitude

Yesterday, Nicole's cousins came for a visit and Nicole picked up some "attitude" that I wish she never would have figured out.  First, Nicole heard her cousin using "potty words."  So, Nicoley started chanting, "Pee, pee, pee, pooh, pee."  Ugh!

Later, after the cousins had left, Nicole asked for cous cous for dinner.  I set her down in her chair, gave her the cous cous and went to do some dishes.  Not three seconds later, I look up and she is pooring spoonfuls of cous cous into her hair and saying, "cous cous head."  Then, while I am attempting to get the cous cous out of her hair, she pours more on the table (my fault, I should have thought to move her bowl out of her reach) and spreads it around with her hands and says, "cous cous mess!"  I tell her to stop and tell her that I am mad at her and that she shouldn't make messes.  She takes a handful of cous cous, shoves it in her mouth and says, "Meths," and spits cous cous everywhere.  I'm still kicking myself for not moving the cous cous after she put it in her hair.

Nicole has never done anything like this before.  She doesn't even like messes.  When her hands get dirty, she cries and holds them up for me to clean them off.  She has never played with her food like this, so it shocked me and I just didn't know how to react or what to do.

Then, after I had cleaned up the cous cous, she asked for rice (which is what was for dinner) I put her back in her booster, and gave her rice.  She tasted it, then violently pushed the bowl away and said, "Yucky!  I don't want it!"  Again, I was floored.  She has never acted like this.  I didn't even know that she knew what "don't want it" means.

Having still not eaten dinner, I asked her if she wanted anything, she asked for goldfish crackers (fishes).  I gave her some.  She put some in her mouth, chewed them a little, then stuck both hands in her mouth and stuck out her tongue and shook her hands until the half eaten fishy crackers went everywhere.

I was done by this point, no more food and time out.  She normally stays in time out when I put her there, but she refused and kept coming off the stairs.  Normally, she even cries in time out.  This time, she sang a time out song (that she made up) and just kept coming of the stairs.  Every time that I tried to use my stern voice with her and showed my mad face, she laughed at me.  This is just not my sweet, tender hearted little girl.

Then, Daddy came home and she knew that she was in trouble.  Why is it that she responds to Matt and not to me?  She finally stopped her attitude and naughty behavior when Dad came home and was a sweet girl the rest of the night.

Is it me?  Is she testing me to see what she can get away with?  Did she just discover yesterday that she can play with her food and wanted to try it out?  Will this attitude continue?

I'm just... frustrated and tired.

Finger Smash

Nicole had her first "real" injury yesterday.  Nicole has bonked her head and had minor scratches that she inflicted on her self throughout her life, but nothing that causes pain for more than a few seconds.  Yesterday, she smashed her finger in a door and it cut one of her fingers.

She could not get over this injury, probably because she has never been hurt like this before.  Most bonks are healed with a kiss from Mommy and Daddy, but it did not work with this finger.  When I picked Nicole up after work yesterday, the first thing she did was start to cry and show me her finger (she was not crying before I arrived).  It was like she was reliving the whole experience again and had to tell me all about her pains and woes.

She insisted that I kiss the finger, so I did, but then she kept wanting me to kiss it and kiss it and kiss it and she cried about it for an hour.  I couldn't get her to give up talking about this finger.  So, I put some neosporin on the cut, put her very first band-aid on and she seemed to chill out... a little.

Until, she started obsessing over the band-aid.  She kept wanting to take the band-aid off.  In fact, she got the first one off, so I had to replace it with a new one.  She wanted the second one off, but she couldn't get it off.

Oh, and did I mention that she told me that, "Daddy smash finger"?  Which, he did not, but she likes to blame us for things if we were there when it happened.  But, she also told me that "Daddy kiss finger," and "Daddy fix finger."  She is such a little scoundrel.

She did eventually stop crying about the finger when I turned on Kialan for her, but I did have to kiss it for her multiple times before bed.  I thought that maybe having her able to communicate with us more would lesson her crying fits, but it just allows her to tell us why she is crying.

Last night, when I was trying to watch something that I wanted to watch, Nicole came up to me and said, "Watch Kialan show Mommy?  Okay."  (She likes to ask us questions and put the response to the question right there for us so that we can't disagree.)  When I told her, "No Kialan," there was another crying fit.

Hopefully, today will be a day with less tears and less drama.  Do the terrible twos sometimes start before the child is two?

Christmas

This year we had the opportunity to spend Christmas with my family.  For the past three years that we have been married, we have spent Christmas with the Kimballs, which was a lot of fun, but I was glad that we got to be with my family this year.

On Christmas Eve we went up to my parent's house and settled in as we planned to stay the night.  I helped my sisters and my Mom do a Christmas craft.  Now that I am writing about it, I probably should have taken a picture of the craft... but I didn't.  It was a banner on a ribbon that said, "Let it Snow."  I thought that it turned out really well.

Later that day, we all went over to my brother Jake's house for dinner.  Jill, Jake's wife, really decorated the house and the tables beautifully for Christmas dinner.  The food was delicious and there was more than enough to eat.  After dinner we exchanged gifts among the kids and then amongst us siblings.  Those of the siblings who weren't spending Christmas at the Parent's also received their parental gifts.

We went back to Mom and Dads and put Nicole to bed as she was melting down at Jake and Jill's.  We were the first to leave.  It seems like we are always the first to leave because Nicole gets crowd anxiety.  Sarah, Mark, Marie, Anthon, Johnny, and Krista all stayed the night at the parent's on Christmas Eve.  So, in true Derington fashion, we stayed up really late playing games.  I knew when I had stayed up too late when I started crying over a card game, then it was time for bed for this pregnant lady.

Christmas morning, we got up and made breakfast together, as Dad loves to do on Christmas morning.  Then,we all headed upstairs to do presents.  Since there were no small children anticipating the gifts (unless you count Johnny), we were able to wait to do gifts until like 10am.

Nicole got these Monkey Pajamas the night before.  They are her Christmas pajamas.  I wanted her to have cute pajamas for me to take pictures of her for Christmas morning.  She loves them!  She never wants to take them off once she has them on, so we went back to Costco later and got her two more footy pajamas to wear.

Nicole got a band in a box for Christmas, which included a harmonica.  She loves music and plays her harmonica for us all the time.

 Nicole's big present this year was her push car.  She absolutely loves it!  She tells us all the time that she wants to drive her car.  Here she is on Christmas morning driving her car and reading a book.

Here we are are together as a family on Christmas morning.

Sarah and Mark holding Nicoley's book.

Mom and Dad with their Christmas Gifts

Johnny, Krista and Damon.  Johnny and Krista neglected to bring gifts for themselves, so all they had were these awesome stockings.

Marie, Anthon, and Damon with their new clothes.  Anthon's new clothes were Ditch.

Matt thought it would be fun to decorate Coley's bum with bows.

We had a lot of fun opening presents with Nicole.  She is certainly one spoiled little girl.  Matt got me a new ring to wear while I am pregnant since my wedding ring does not currently fit and it is a beautiful silver puzzle ring.  He also got me a winter coat which was very much needed.  I got Matt some awesome sweaters and an extension cord reel.  I love picking out gifts for my little girl and my husband.

After gifts, we ate "dinner" with my family, then headed over to Mamma Kimball's.  We spent the rest of the night with Matt's family and had Christmas dinner number two.  We were very spoiled by our parent's this year with many gift cards.  Matt and I are already planning date nights.

It was a good Christmas this year.  I especially loved watching Nicole open her presents.  She didn't really get the concept last year, but was very excited to open them this year.

25 Weeks

Bet you all thought that when I finally wrote again that it would be my Christmas post... but it isn't, that is yet to come... still.  I want to include all my pictures and I have as of yet to get them off of my camera.  So, as far as you know, Christmas did not happen!

In reality, this is a pregnancy post.  I have been very lax in writing about this pregnancy because there has not been very much to post.  This pregnancy is a breeze!  I am now 25 weeks pregnant and I am feeling pretty good.  Which is very different from pregnant Becky last time.  Remember my 25 weeks post last time?  It was a list of complaints and grievances.  Nicole really was a mean fetus.

Baby boy is really treating me well.  I am more tired during the day than I would like, but I don't have the constant pain, discomfort, and nausea that I had with Nicole.  His little kicks like to keep me up at night and they don't feel good, but they are not nearly as painful as the last time.  This is perhaps due to the fact that my body has done this all before and my skin isn't ripping with every kick like it did with Nicole.

I hate to say it, but my Mom was right, my second pregnancy is better than my first.  I am sure that this is because I know what to expect this time around and I know what I am getting out of the deal.  This baby boy will be worth every pain that I am experiencing now (well, if I love him as much as I love my Nicole).

I am especially grateful that this pregnancy is not as trying as the last as I am currently the breadwinner and I have to go to work everyday and prove my worth to my employers so that I may keep my job while I am gone having the baby.  Plus, with all the other obstacles that Matt and I have faced recently, we don't need a crazy pregnant lady hanging around all the time.  I am only slightly emotional at times, but not full on crazy like I was last time.

But, as I suppose it is with every pregnancy, I feel a greater gratitude to my mother for enduring this for me.  Thanks Mom for being pregnant a fifth time in order to bring me into the world.  I just don't know if I would do this 5 times.