07/26/09

Well I am 15 weeks pregnant, 2nd week into the 2nd trimester and no signs of my sickness going away. In fact it seems to have gotten worse. I have forgotten what it feels like not to be nauseous. I feel really bad for Korben though because he is stuck inside all day with me, the heat is just too much for me to take and I feel more sick when I am out in the heat. Poor little guy only gets to get the mail with Daddy & go to Walmart sometimes. I am hoping this eases up before our Disney trip! I have my next dr's appt. this Wed. and I am going to ask the dr. if there is anything else I can take for the nausea as my medicine doesn't seem to help for very long (just long enough to eat sometimes, since I don't even want to eat now) and you can only take it every 6 hours.

I am really glad now that I do the Mommy's Day Out (MDO) program since Korben gets to play with other kids. We still have the 2 - one yr olds and the 2 yr old comes a couple of time a month. The other little boy I was watching stopped coming. This last Tuesday in the middle of the day somebody knocked on our door and it was our neighbor from 2 doors down and her son - who is a month younger than Korben. They wanted to see if Korben could play but Korben was taking a nap but I told her to come on in & her son could play with the other kids. She didn't know that I did the MDO program there and was so happy to find out that I did because she had been looking for a playgroup since her son is not in daycare either (they both work but work opposite so they don't have to pay for daycare.) So they are going to start coming down and she said she would like to hang out and chat & help me too so that is nice. Today when we got back from running to Walmart we saw her son playing outside so we decided to walk down & say hello. They were in the process of putting together a big plastic play fort with slides on it and her husband told me that it was funny that we came down there because that was for us for all the kids that come to the MDO program! He saw it out on the side of a nearby daycare (all taken apart) and he went and asked if they were going to get rid of it and they said yes. They told him once one part gets a crack in it they have to (by law) get rid of it and they are not allowed to sell it either so they told him if he ever sees anything out there he can take it. There is a few cracks in it but nothing some duck tape won't fix right up. Brent helped him out a little putting the pieces together - no instructions so it was like a giant puzzle. Us ladies watched the little boys play together and talked. They told us they have 2 swing sets in their backyard and they are going to take one down and give it to us as well - he got both those for free too. So that is very generous of them. I just wish we had more shade in our backyard. I plan on putting the lawn chairs under the only tree back there and sitting out there to watch Korben play. Hopefully then we can get out more with out me having to run around and chase him. Right now he just likes to run in our backyard but part of the backyard has bricks and stuff we don't like him to play with so we still have to chase him back there. Hopefully the play equipment will keep him entertained enough that I won't have to keep going back there to chase him. So I am excited for that!

On this past Wed. one of the local TV stations picked their top 5 cities in Oklahoma and they had a little festival type thing for it. Everything was free including the food - the Moore fireman grilled up hotdogs. So we decided to go out there for dinner once Brent got home. We had called my parents and they met us there too. They had free snow cones and free bouncy things and a giant blow up slide (Korben didn't go down the slide the line was WAY too long for that.) We ate and walked around a bit and then we let Korben jump. He had a lot of fun in there, not really jumping but running around. A couple of the kids in there were jumping and then falling down on purpose and then Korben would imitate them, it was really cute. The funny part came when time was up and the guy running it told all the kids they had to get out to let the next ones in, all the kids got out except Korben & one other kid. Korben would start to go towards the exit but then say no and go back to jumping. He did that 3 or 4 times before he finally listened to me when I told him I was going to send Daddy in there after him. He had a blast in it! Sometimes I wish Korben's birthday was in the summer so we can do things like that - my sis in law had rented a bouncer for Skylar's birthday one year and we all had a blast playing in it. Now the new baby is going to be born around the same time, I guess I just have a thing for winter babies. :)

Korben is getting smarter by the day. He now will sing the ABC's almost all the way through. Sometimes he will skip one set of letters, the next time he sings them it will be a different set, once he figures out how to put it all together he will know how to sing them. We think that is because of his new Elmo video that he likes to see every night. We also sing him the ABC's a lot. Friday morning - or maybe it was Thursday, I can't remember now - anyway Korben woke up early because he had leaked out his diaper and he came to lay down with me in bed while Daddy was changing out his sheets but Daddy had to get ready for work shortly after that. Korben was yelling for Daddy to come "lay down" so Daddy did but kept telling Korben he had to go to work and Korben did not want him to go so he kept trying to butter up Daddy. Korben kept giving Daddy kisses & hugs and grabbing Daddy's arms and wrapping them around him and saying "snuggle, Dada" it was really cute and he was being such a ham. Of course he NEVER does Mommy that way and he didn't want to have anything to do with Mommy then either. He got upset when Daddy did have to leave and now when we tell him Daddy has to go to work he says "ohhhhh, money" because Daddy had told him one time that Daddy has to go to work to make money to buy all Korben's toys. It is really cute the way Korben says it though - I need to try to get him saying that on video! One day last week Korben also started saying "Seattle" over & over again. I have no clue where he picked it up, the only thing I can think of is maybe he overheard Brent & I talking about Seattle although I can't recall us talking about Seattle recently but he picked it up from somewhere and has been saying it a lot now. Since he started saying it I have been trying to teach him that is where his Grandpa & Grandma S. live but he still just tells me "E." :)


We got Korben some new cloth diapers that were on sale and they were even cheaper than our normal brand of cloth diapers. I bought a med. & lg size, Korben can only fit into the lg but the med. will be for the new baby. I am thinking of going back and ordering a small as well for the new baby since they are such a great deal, the sale ends next Friday. One cool thing about it is that when they first ran the deal you had the opportunity to get your own discount code for it and whoever had the most people use their code they win a trip to OR where the gDiapers headquarters are located. What I was excited about is that anybody who has their code used 10 times then gets $100 gift card to their online store. I posted my code on Craigslist but not just for OKC but also in communities that I knew were more environmentally friendly - like Seattle, Portland, etc. I would look up on Craigslist and search for cloth diapers and when you search in OKC I come up with a listing maybe once a month but upon checking out these other cities I had lots of cloth diaper listings pop up. So I have 15 uses so far on my code so I get the gift card!!! The highest one at last count had 109 uses. What is nice about these diapers is you can also buy disposable liners (no chemicals in them & no plastic so they can either be flushed or thrown away and if they are thrown away they decompose in just 60 days rather than the 100's of years it takes for the regular disposable diapers) for them instead of just using cloth liners. We have been using the cloth liners so far and they work great but since it is looking like we won't have Korben potty trained before Disney I think the flushable liners are going to be our solution rather than having to put him in the disposables that make his bottom bleed. They are a little pricey though - I think like $52 for a pack of them - so that is what I am going to spend the gift card buying. The other nice thing about these diapers is that you only need to change the inside liner (either cloth liner or the flushable liner) when it gets wet and if poopy leaks out it only usually goes on the plastic liner that is in the diapers and that unsnaps and you just snap a new one in so you don't need as many covers (the orange diaper part you see in the pictures) and therefore have less laundry to do. We will bring cloth inserts and some diapers too for night time and the car & plane rides but the flushables should work great at the parks! Sorry to go on & on about diapers, I am just excited about them. Korben loves them too & will sometimes even ask (and throw a fit) to wear his "G" diaper, today I tried to put a yellow one on him and he said no and wanted the orange one on him! They also velcro in the back to prevent babies from taking them off - it didn't take him very long to figure that out but he actually likes to keep these ones on. They are also less bulky so his bottom doesn't look as big in them.


Here he was showing me his new diaper.

Where did the "g" go Momma? He was looking for it.

Ohhhhh there is the "g" it is on my bottom.



Then he decided he only wanted to wear the diaper and nothing else. Surprisingly he didn't even try to take the diaper off, he really likes them!



He has got very broad shoulders like Daddy & you can see them in this picture.

Well one of the little boys that come to our MDO forgot his paci one day so I dug one of Korben's out and let him use it that day (after sterilizing it of course) then after I cleaned it up and was going to put it back up Korben got a hold of it. We just let him have it in his bed and he was using it to chew as his molars are coming in. I went into his room to check on him while he was sleeping and found him sleeping with the paci in his mouth!!! We are NOT going to let him get addicted to one now! The next day I took it away and of course he never noticed - thankfully! These pictures look so weird to me though & make him look younger I think.


Hiding from the camera.



Here are some more of Korben's lovely photography. He picked up the camera while sitting with me and I sat and watched him press the on button and then start taking pictures - he knew exactly which buttons to push and didn't push anything else - amazing to me.




Wonderful shot of Mommy.

Korben's great shot of Daddy!


LOVES his bubble baths!



Korben jumping.

Korben & Daddy went to get the mail one day and they took a pretty long time, so when Brent opened the door I asked if everything was ok & what took so long. Brent said that he let Korben play a little in the front yard and then he brought Korben over to me. Our little man had his first taste of dirt and apparently liked it because he kept trying to lick his hands while I took the pictures - yuck! I hear that is a very common thing but I can't recall ever eating dirt.




Cheeeeeese!

Korben received a package from Grandma & Grandpa S. and he had to put on one of the new outfits immediately after opening it. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR EVERYTHING!!!!! He also received a card in the mail that day from his Mimi and Grandad which he also loved. :) Thank you to everybody that sends him mail - he loves it!


Daddy let Mommy sleep in today and got up with Korben and took him to the zoo. Looks like they had a great time. Daddy took the camera & got several videos too.

Well the beginning of the week started off pretty uneventful. The only thing that had been going on was Korben was constantly hungry, asking for food every hour and kept saying he was hungry. I tried to distract him first to make sure he was truly hungry & he usually was. He was also waking up hungry in the middle of the night & seemed in pain & kept sleeping in bed with us. This was his 2nd week doing all this. I told Brent I was pretty sure he was going through a growth spurt since they are only supposed to have them every 6 months at his age and his last one was right around when he turned 2. Well when one of the little boys came over for Mommy's Day Out I could see a difference! That little boy will be 3 in Nov. so he is a few months older than Korb, they were the same size and on this past Tues. Korben was at least a full inch taller than him! We hadn't seen the little boy in 2 wks since we had canceled the week before when Korben had a cold. Talk about growing, no wonder why our little man was hurting so bad! We had to even buy him more clothes - well just shorts really, he has moved up to a 4T but when he wears his big boy underwear he can fit into a 2T - those cloth diapers really make his butt big! Anyway we happen to go into our favorite baby consignment store and they had tons of clothes on clearance for only $1.00 so he is stocked up for a little while now!

Korben is quite comfortable in Mommy & Daddy's bed or as he calls it "Mama's bed"


I don't know why this picture rotated itself - I can't figure out how to fix it, sorry!

So things had been going fine until Thursday morning. He had been enjoying his mail from Grandma & Grandpa S. & from Grandma L. Wed. night Korben had slept in his bed all night long and the next morning when he woke up I went to get him and I was half asleep. I stood him up on his changing table to take off his pants and that is when I noticed he was covered in something. I thought it was poopy at first and I couldn't figure out how it leaked out of a onesie and his pants. Then I realized it was vomit and his bed was covered in it. We had the monitor on all night long and he never made a peep. I feel like the world's worst Mommy for letting him throw up all over himself and sleep in it and I didn't hear it & didn't help him. :( It still makes me so, so, so sad to think about. So naturally I was very concerned, esp that he didn't wake up and I called Brent then I called Korb's doctor's office so a nurse could call me back as I wasn't sure if I needed to bring him in or not. Brent is such a great guy, knowing how nauseous I have been he came home for his lunch break and cleaned up Korben's bed for me. Korben didn't run a fever until later that evening but he did start having diarrhea. The nurse I talked to said it sounded like a stomach flu and not to force food on him (he had barely touched breakfast or lunch that day) and once the diarrhea started I had already started the pedialite which she said to give him (or water) instead of fruit juice or milk which would make it worse. Today is Sunday and his poopy's are just now starting to be normal again. I guess I had a touch of what Korb had the 2 days prior to him getting it but I chalked it up to the pregnancy. This weekend Brent got it but seems to be doing much better now. So we didn't have the greatest of weeks around here.

Korben loving his mail with stickers in it from Grandpa & Grandma S.

He would tell me which sticker he wanted and tell me where to put it.

"Mama shirt please"

With all the stickers on him.

Look Daddy I got a card too!

Other than our horrible sickness around here thinks are going pretty good. Korben is being as cute as ever! He is SO lovey and one day when Brent got home from work Korben walked up to Daddy's speaker and hugged it and said "I love (he says wuv) you speaker" then he hugged the DVD rack and said "I love you movies" then hugged the tv "I love you tv" then back to the other speaker. It was really cute. He has been counting objects now instead of just counting, like if you ask him how many books he has, if it is two or three he doesn't even have to count he will just look at it and say 2 books or 3 cars or whatever. He really is very smart, I don't mean to keep bragging about him but he really knows more than every other 2 yr old I have ever known. He is doing very well with his colors too but a lot of times if you ask him what color something is he won't even look at it and will just say "pink" I had a friend tell me that means we are having a girl! Haha! He also has been loving watching this video on YouTube with Daddy that is Elmo singing the ABC's and now he is trying to sing them. He sings A through G and then he finishes off with singing Twinkle Little Star, he figured out that they are the exact same melody. I don't know if I have mentioned before or not that Twinkle Little Star is his favorite song (Mommy has sang it to him almost every night since he was born) and he knows all the words to it and likes to sing it all the time. Yesterday Korben cracked me up because he took one of his stuffed Mickey's and laid Mickey down on his table and said "shhhheeww stinky poopy diaper" he pretended to change Mickey's diaper then he carried the pretend diaper to his rubbermaid toy box (which he had previously emptied) and said "trash can" he threw the diaper away and then went back to Mickey and put a new pretend diaper on him and told Mickey "new diaper - all clean" he proceeded to do this to 2 other Mickey's that he has, it was REALLY cute! Speaking of diapers, no new progress made on the potty training. He started not wanting to get his diaper changed because Mommy had put him in some disposables and he got a horrible, horrible rash again. :( I just don't know what we are going to do when we go to Disney World. I don't know how we are going to carry dirty cloth diapers around until we can wash them but if we put him in disposables his bottom bleeds and it is SO heartbreaking.

Korben got a new "big boy" laptop that has a mouse with it. We didn't intend to buy it for him now, we were going to wait and use it as a car toy for when we drive to Disney World in Oct. We showed it to him in the store and he refused to let go of it. Normally we will show him a toy in the store and he will play for it a bit and then be fine with giving it back to us but not this one he wanted this one very badly. We were bad & gave in but he loves, loves, loves it. He lined up his chairs and other laptops and said that was his desk, one chair & computer were for Daddy & the other for Mommy. His favorite activity on there (it has 30 different activities you can do) is the song playing one. He LOVES music and plays his pianos for me every day.


Korben has been just so helpful lately. I had my camera on top of the entertainment center after taking the laptop pictures and later that same day we were getting ready to go grocery shopping. Korben just had a poopy diaper that Daddy was cleaning up and I was grabbing the grocery list. Korben was left alone in the living room for just a few mins. When Daddy went out there Korben had my camera in hand, managed to turn it on and took the following pictures of himself! I am still laughing about it - he is so smart!






When we got home from grocery shopping that same night Daddy went to turn on the tv for Korben while we unloaded & put up the groceries but the remote was no where to be found. I had it last and left it on the arm of the couch (before Korben had gotten left alone in the living room) so I started looking for it but couldn't find where Korben put it. The next day Daddy finally found it, Korben had stuck it on top of the entertainment center (where we normally keep it) but it was behind a picture frame so we didn't see it. I guess he then got distracted by the camera. Korben getting the camera was the 2nd time he had gotten something down from there and we couldn't figure out how he got it. We quickly figured out he climbs up Brent's sub woofer and then can reach up there. Sneaky - I mean helpful little boy! I have a little box that my Grandparents made me up on top the entertainment center and it is in the shape of a seashell & inside it I have some shells from some of my trips to the beach and Daddy found those shells all spread out today on the top of the entertainment center. I have one big shell in there but it was missing and I asked Korben where it was and he said "oh, movies" and then pointed to where he had stuck the shell on top of a row of movies. He is really getting very chatty too & he has a great memory! He still thinks Grandma & Grandpa S. live at the "E"! :)


I was doing Korben's laundry and was switching out the changing table pad when Brent brought Korben in to change his diaper. Korben decided to hide from Daddy. We thought he looked so funny we had to grab the camera.



Korben's hair is already growing back - the top has one little area where it is starting to curl up now - you can see where it is in this picture.

07/11/09

We hope everybody had a great 4th of July - we did. The day before the 4th we did something we have never done before - we let somebody we didn't know watch Korben, it was actually a daycare type place. I had found out near our house is a hourly drop-off childcare place we decided to try it out because I am going to have to start sending Korben there during my doctor appointments. Brent uses up his sick time for our appointments as soon as he gets it and now he is digging into his vacation time. If we want to go to Disney World with both our families this year we have to change something. It is a WHOLE lot cheaper for me to send Korben to this place than to "pay" for Brent to be home. I try to make our appointments on Mondays where my mom could watch Korben but my OB/GYN doesn't do appointments on Mondays as that is the day he does his surgeries. So we thought we would go to a movie (we saw Transformers) and try it out. Brent is going to now just try to make the ultrasound appointments and he will definitely be coming to the next one on Aug. 31st since that is the one we find out what we are having. Anyway back to the daycare (click here if you would like to their website) we weren't sure how Korben would react to being left as he has only been left with Grandparents and a lot of times he screams and cries when we leave. We got there and they have to buzz you in the front door, we filled out the paper work and then they asked him if he wanted to go in and play. They let us go in there with him to look around and Korben just took off and was already on their little indoor playground going down the slide. We looked around real quick as we were getting close to the showtime. I told Korben we were going bye - bye and he ran over to us, I thought for sure this was going to be our problem but nope he waved bye, gave us kisses and ran off to play again! Mommy had a much harder time with it than he did! I felt so guilty leaving him and I started to tear up a little after we left and through the whole movie I just kept checking my phone to make sure they didn't call. Of course we just so happened to see what felt like the longest movie (it was 2 hrs & 40 mins long) ever! By the time we picked him up he had been there a little over 3 hours. We were buzzed in the front door and he was standing next to the lady that buzzed us in and he was saying "again" to her. I never did find out what he was wanting her to do again but he was laughing when he was saying it so I guess she was cracking him up whatever it was. Then Korb spotted me and got so excited. He grabbed my hand and started showing me all the toys and tried to get me to climb up on this little loft area they had. We were heading to my parents house after we left there so we didn't have any problems getting him to leave once we asked him if he wanted to go see Grandma & Grandpa. He seemed to really have fun, the only bad thing was the next day he ended up with a cold. He had a horrible runny nose, coughing and sneezing. I am hoping that since he has now been exposed to the germs there that it won't happen next time but we will see. I always hear that kids that don't go to daycare get more sick their first year of school and when around other kids because they haven't been exposed to as many germs earlier in their life. When Korben was sick is was pretty funny because he kept getting frustrated with his runny nose and kept yelling "NAPKIN" at me wanting me to wipe his runny nose. After he yelled it he would run to where I had the box of tissue on top the entertainment center and wait for me to get there. Poor little guy!



Korben was being sorta pouty while waiting for dinner so Daddy hid around the corner to take this picture.

More poutyness from Korben

Korben loves his bubble baths & will even play in the bath tub after the water is gone. Here he kept laying down in the tub & saying "night-night"




On the 4th of July we just hung out at home being sorta lazy during the day and then around 5 we went to my parents (my mom had to work that day) for a yummy cookout. I think this was the quietest holiday we ever had, it was just the 3 of us and my parents since all my siblings now live out of state. They cooked so much food that we still are eating the leftovers they gave us. Korben ate a cupcake and that was a big mistake as he ended up staying up until 2 am that night. He loved it though but hated being messy. We couldn't decide if we wanted to take Korben to see the fireworks or not but then it poured down rain so that made our decision for us. We ended up renting a movie and watching it at my parents house. We don't normally watch movies while Korben is still up but he did really well since we had gotten some of his cousins toys out for him to play with. As we were driving home (by then it had stopped raining) we saw lots of people shooting off fireworks and we kept pointing them out to Korben, since we had the radio on & we were far away from most of them they weren't loud so it didn't bother him. However people were also shooting them off down our street & behind our house so he was able to hear them then. He didn't freak out or anything but just kept saying "bye-bye fireworks" like he wanted them to go away. Ever since that night when he hears a loud noise he gets scared & runs over to me and says "bye-bye fireworks" so I am not so sure he likes them. I don't know how he is going to react at Disney World.

Korben eating a cupcake on the 4th of July.


Our last 4th of July as a family of 3. :) Korben LOVES flags (he pulled this one out of my parent's yard) and we taught him to say "American flag" he wouldn't let go of the flag so we just took a picture with it, fitting though for the 4th of July. :)


While we were at my parents for the 4th they had told us they were going to Tulsa to see my Grandma and they talked us into going with them. They came and picked us up the next morning in their van and we went to eat at a new (to Brent & I) breakfast place that opened up near us - Jimmy's Egg - they have actually been around for awhile, we have just never gone since there was not one near us. It was good food. Korben had a little mini fit when we sat down because all they had were tables available and they gave us a highchair without us asking for one he didn't like it at all but Grandma quickly distracted him with some creamers. Korben did great on the drive down there, although he didn't nap but Mommy and Daddy did since we all had a rough night the night before. We got to Great Grandma's and he ended up with her American flag too and she let him take it home with him. We went and had lunch at Cheddar's and then we headed home. We had a nice visit, although short. On the drive home Daddy passed out in the very back of the van and Mommy tried to but Korben was being so loud he was driving me nuts and I couldn't sleep. When we were about 15 mins from home Korben fell asleep - of course, it happens every time. He woke up when we were down the street from our house and that was the end of that very short nap.


Korben loves to wear his Disneyland hat that Grandma & Grandpa S. got him. He always wears it sideways though.


I guess the biggest news we have this week is that we actually decided on a boys name and we already had our girls name picked out. So the names we decided on are: Aniala Rain for a girl and Reed Chance for a boy. :) Now we just have to wait until the end of Aug. to see if it will be an Aniala or a Reed, we can't wait!!!

We FINALLY took Korben in for his 2nd haircut today. Daddy really wanted to wait until Disney World but it was really getting out of control plus Korben got called a girl 3 times and I think that made Brent finally give in to cutting it. I think it will be better this way because his hair will have grown out by the time we go to Disney and those cute curls will hopefully be back. He really looks like a completely different kid and I was not prepared for that and keep having to do a double take when I look at him. He looks so handsome though! He did very well although a bit squirmy. I had taken the Disney reward sticker/color book Grandma & Grandpa S. had sent to him but that didn't distract him for too long. The lady that cut his hair had Spongebob Square Pants cartoons on her phone so she turned it on for him and let him hold her phone. He was more thrilled at holding the phone than the cartoons since Daddy never lets Korb hold his phone. He got a sucker (only the 2nd sucker he has ever had) afterwards and we let him have it since he did so well.

Korben's crazy hair before we got it cut.



Heading out the door to get his hair cut. If you look closely on the door (right by his face) you can see where Korb colored on the door. We couldn't figure out how he kept doing that on the door and the walls because we only let him use crayons when he is sitting down with one of us and come to find out the paint off his blocks does that. So we are going to have to paint that room before we move out because it won't wash off!






I kept cracking up because Korben kept making this face.

Look at that short hair!

Our little handsome man eating a sucker after his hair cut!