Aedan: 31 Months, Week 2
In the middle of the night on Monday, I woke up with really bad pain in my foot. It was so bad that I had to get up to take medicine and then it took me awhile to fall back asleep again. I must have pulled it somehow playing in the snow on Monday with Aedan and then both kids in the evening. The area where my little toe meets the joint below hurt really bad, so much that I couldn't put any weight on it, and it even hurt when I was trying to rest it. I had no idea what happened and didn't even remember when it got hurt. Since my foot was hurting me so much, Aedan and I just hung around the house on Tuesday morning, and I tried to stay off my foot as much as possible. I got a few things done, but I was feeling pretty miserable.
As I was putting clothes away in Aedan's room, we decided to get out Aedan's big boy underwear that Daddy bought for him recently. Aedan really wanted to try them on, so after I changed his diaper, I let him pick some to put on. He picked Buzz Lightyear underwear and was super excited to wear them. (I blurred out the picture a little bit since I am posting this on the internet.) He really loves Woody and Buzz right now. I would have loved to leave him in his big boy underwear, but he just shows very little interest in using the potty. He never asks to sit on it and never tells me if/when he has to go. Some days I do a better job than others in remembering to put him on the toilet a few times a day, just to get him used to it, and in hopes that sometime he will just accidentally go in the potty and see what it feels like. So, after letting him run around for awhile in his new underwear, I put him back into a diaper.
It's always amazing how different each kid is. We potty trained Samantha at 25 months, and she was daytime potty trained in one weekend. It took her a little longer to stay dry during nap and bed time and to learn how to go number two in the toilet, but she was pretty easy to teach. She showed interest in sitting on the potty even before she was two years old. Aedan, on the other hand, shows very little interest in becoming potty trained. He would rather hide in the corner when he needs to poop, and he doesn't even show much interest in wanting to sit on the toilet and try. Most people say that boys take longer to learn than girls, but I also don't know how much I should be "pushing" it more, or even just making him go cold turkey by taking his diapers away. It's hard to know what to do, and I feel like he's not showing signs that he's ready. I don't want to push him before he's ready, but I also would be so happy not to have to clean up his poopy diapers every day. I'm going to have to talk to some more people with boys to see how they approached potty training with them. Anyone that reads this and has any suggestions, I am certainly open!
I tried to relax as much as possible after putting Aedan down for his nap that afternoon. He fell asleep in my arms like normal but then woke up when I stood up to put him in his crib. He never ended up going back to sleep, which I felt bad about. He has been a lot more finicky lately with falling asleep at nap time. It isn't as easy as it used to be to rock him to sleep. He plays around a lot more and sometimes I have to be pretty stern with him to lay still and go to sleep. However, most days he does still fall asleep in my arms. Only occasionally does he not fall asleep or wake up after falling asleep in my arms. I really enjoy cuddling with him and watching him fall asleep, but I'm hoping that doing this with him doesn't come back to bite me and make him stop napping earlier because he isn't used to falling asleep on his own. I am always hesitant to just lay him down in his crib because I don't know if he would go to sleep on his own, or it might take him a long time to fall asleep and then I'd have to wake him up so that he wouldn't sleep too late. But, maybe I need to start training him to fall asleep on his own at nap time, just like he does at bed time.
Elevating my foot during nap time didn't make it feel much better, so I asked Ben if he would come home when he was done with his obligations for the day so that I could go to the walk-in clinic to get it checked out. I hate going to the doctor and don't want to spend money for no reason, but I was in a considerable amount of pain. I was at the doctor's office for close to two hours and unfortunately, they said it was just a sprain/strain, so all I could do was take ibuprofen, ice it, and elevate it several times a day. I was glad it wasn't anything worse, and after the kids were in bed, I decided to lay on the couch with my foot propped up and use ice on and off for the rest of the evening.
Since my foot was still hurting some on Wednesday morning, Ben volunteered to take my place in Samantha's class that day. Aedan and I went to Walmart to pick up a few things and then spent some time at the library playing and checking out some new books and movies before going back to pick up Ben from Samantha's school. They didn't have story time, but Aedan enjoys playing educational games on the tablets as well as playing with some of the toys in the library. It's fun for him to get out of the house and play in a different environment.
On Wednesday afternoon Aedan actually napped which was much better than on Tuesday afternoon. In fact, he was even asleep past when Samantha got home from school. I was able to use my free time in the afternoon to design possibilities for our Christmas card since they were 70% off on Snapfish. Samantha even helped me pick the design and told me which pictures she liked the best. Wednesday was a big day for Ben because it was the day of his last two late classes. At dinner that night, the kids and I talked about how glad we are that Daddy won't be gone in the evenings anymore. He will be home for dinner and bedtime every night from now on, and that makes everyone in the family much happier. :)
My foot was feeling almost back to normal by Thursday morning, so I decided to go ahead with my plan for the day of cleaning the house. It's not a very exciting day for Aedan, but it's just something that I have to get done, so he has to tag along with me. In fact, I must have started earlier in the morning than I usually do because I was done by the time Samantha got home from school. I don't necessarily enjoy cleaning, but I love it at the end of the day when the whole house is clean, picked up, and smells good.
It snowed for most of the day on Thursday, so I took this little video that morning of the snow falling outside our front window.
Sometimes it's difficult for me to get Aedan to play by himself on days when I am trying to get cleaning and work done around the house. Sometimes he just follows me around and plays with things in each room, but lately, he has been causing more trouble and making more messes because he is bored. So on Thursday while I cleaned, I tried to get him interested in playing with different toys. For example, we cleaned off this table, and I set up train tracks for him. He played with this for quite some time while I cleaned downstairs in the basement. He had never shown this much interest in playing with trains before, even though Samantha loved trains when she was this age. It was great watching him playing and engaging in something fun on his own without having to have someone else with him.
Thursday was Ben's last day of classes for the semester, and we both had long days so we decided to go out to eat that evening at Zorbas, a local Greek restaurant that both Ben and I like. We decided that even though we are doing Weight Watchers, we can allow ourselves to go out to eat every once in awhile, and when we do, we won't count our points and just enjoy our meal out. The kids did pretty well at the restaurant that night, and it was a nice way to relax and not have to make food or clean up dinner and still come home to a clean house.
My day subbing in fourth grade went pretty well. The man I subbed for left me pretty detailed directions of what I was supposed to do with them throughout the day, and the kids were pretty respectful and attentive. I enjoyed getting to know them, talking with them, and teaching them while I was there.
As the week went on, I got my hopes up way too much that this month I could possibly be pregnant. With tracking my cycle, I am pretty in tune with things, and this cycle was different than many of the previous ones. I was trying really hard to not assume anything, but it's so hard to not get excited and wonder if I miraculously got pregnant after so many months of trying. In fact, on Friday it was day thirty of my cycle, so I decided to take a pregnancy test to check and see. I had one test left from a previous occasion, but unfortunately, as I should have expected, it came back negative. I was really disappointed because I was really hoping that it might just happen when I least expected it to.
The biggest event of the week for Aedan happened on Friday. About a week ago he went down to one paci because he chewed his regular one up so much that it had holes in the sides. Well, his extra paci was also beginning to break on the sides, so on Friday Ben decided that he would try to put Aedan down for his nap without his paci. Aedan got his blue elephant blankie to cuddle with, but no paci, Ben followed their normal nap time routine of reading books, singing songs, praying, and rocking him to sleep. He said that he whimpered a few times before calming down, but he did calm down and fell asleep, taking a pretty good nap. It was a little shorter than it normally was, but we were both so surprised that it was so easy for Aedan to sleep without his paci for the first time. We were curious how he would do at bed time, but again, he went to sleep just fine with no crying or whining about it. He went to sleep like a champ, and we made a big deal about how he is such a big boy now. Ben and I couldn't believe that he basically stopped using his paci "cold turkey" and didn't seem to be that impacted by it. It's one more important step in growing up, and I'm glad that it seemed to be easier than we expected.
As I thought about Aedan growing up and giving up his paci, I realized that I think I have been holding on to him being younger and more baby-like. I don't know if it's because I am assuming that I will never have another little baby of my own or what, but I realized that I have been perfectly content with Aedan still wearing diapers, still using a paci, and still being rocked to sleep at nap time. I haven't felt the urge or desire to push him to give these things up that would make him act more like a big boy and less like a baby. I think I may be clinging to him because I'm afraid he will be my last baby, and I want to cherish and linger in each phase, not wanting him to grow up too quickly.
On Saturday we had a fun day planned for the kiddos. The kids helped us make cookie dough on Friday evening so that it could sit in the fridge overnight. Then, after breakfast on Saturday we rolled out the cookie dough and the kids helped us cut out and decorate the cookies. They were eager to be a part of process, and we love having them help us in the kitchen.
We got all the cookies cut out and baked before ice skating lessons that morning. Then, we stopped our cookie making process to take the kids to their lessons. Here are a couple videos from the morning. Do you see how well Aedan is walking across the ice? He was doing it with no assistance, and he was even bending down, picking up ball, and throwing them at pins on the ice. Samantha has really improved on her speed, her confidence on the ice and not falling down as much, and her swizzles. We are proud of how much both kids have learned over the last several months of Saturday lessons. Now, if we can try to find more times to practice other times during the week, I'm sure their skills will improve even more.
When we came home from ice skating, we had a quick lunch before letting the kids help us decorate the cookies. Ben iced them all, the kids decorated them with sprinkles how they wanted (sometimes with some assistance from me, especially for Aedan), and then Ben I wrapped them in plastic wrap. Both kids decorated a special cookie for themselves and one for Ben and me. The kids really enjoyed decorating the cookies this year, more than they ever have in the past, and it was really fun to watch the creative ways they came up with decorating. Overall, they did a pretty good job of spreading the sprinkles out and not always putting them in the same place. They turned out really well, and of course, they were very yummy.
The other fun plan we had for Saturday evening was a trip to the pool in Canada. The kids didn't nap how we would have liked, Samantha not really napping at all, but I was tired of always having to change or cancel our plans because our kids didn't nap or were cranky. We weren't going to have many more chances to go swimming in Canada for awhile, and we had been looking forward to going for quite some time, so we decided to go anyways. We probably started swimming around 6:30, and the kids had a blast. Samantha spent the first twenty minutes or so just going down the slide over and over again. Aedan went down the toddler slide and floated around in the middle sized pool with his floatie on for awhile, then we went back into the pool with the zero depth entrance and the kids played with the water toys and water features while Ben and I enjoyed the ninty-four degree water while we sat, talked, relaxed, and watched our kids. It was a really fun evening together, and for awhile afterward Aedan kept talking about wanting to go back to the pool in Canada again. It's definitely a fun family outing, especially during these cold winter months.
Saturday and Sunday were really hard days for me because I found out for sure that I was indeed not pregnant. I really should just expect for it to not happen at this point, but with my cycle lasting longer than usual, I hoped and prayed that I would be pregnant and got ahead of myself thinking about wonderful a Christmas present that would be for me. I found myself just crying at the drop of a hat Saturday night and most of the day on Sunday. I still just don't understand how nothing can be wrong with Ben or me, and we can be trying for so long and not get pregnant. It is disappointing and frustrating, and this infertility is really taking a toll on myself and my family. So, I decided that from now on I am going try my hardest to stop thinking about it. I'm going to stop charting my basal temperature, which I have been doing for almost a year now. I am going to try to stop keeping track of my cycle and just go about life as if we weren't trying to conceive. All our efforts for the past 20 months have not done any good, so I need to let go of my hope and desire to become pregnant. If it happens at some point, it will be a total surprise, but I need to stop wishing and hoping and being consistently disappointed each month.
Ben and I took advantage of some of our time together at home over the weekend to begin prepping for our home visit and our eventual taking in of a foster child. Ben did much of the work in moving our guest bed downstairs into the office room and getting it set back up again. Then, on Sunday afternoon Samantha and Aedan helped us put together the crib in the third bedroom upstairs, since we need to have that set up for our home visit. It was a productive weekend, and I felt good about the progress that we made.
Monday was back to our normal routine, but Ben's schedule was a bit different that week because it was finals week at school. He had a late final on Monday night, so it pretty much just felt like a normal Monday during the semester. Samantha went to school, Aedan and I went grocery shopping, and then there was nap time for Aedan and time for me to get some work done around the house. That afternoon I decided to take the kids sledding at a small hill near Project Playground. The weather was going to be the warmest it would be in awhile, and we had several inches of snow on the ground, making it a perfect amount of snow to play in. So as soon as Samantha got home from school, we got ready to go sledding. The hill was the perfect size for them to climb up without getting too tired out and steep enough that we got some good speed going down the hill. Samantha was super excited to try it out and had no fear going down the hill over and over again. Aedan, on the other hand, wasn't so sure at first. I finally convinced him to go down on the sled with me, and he seemed to like it okay, but didn't want to go again for awhile. Instead, he preferred to push Sissy and me down the hill from the top. Samantha was trying out different paths and even went down just riding on her knees a few times. She didn't care if the sled tipped over; she was having a blast, squealing and laughing the whole way down the hill. Towards the end, I convinced Aedan to go with me again down the hill. He didn't really want to go, and I kind of forced him because I knew he would like it, and I didn't want him to have an irrational fear of going down hills on the sled. We got going pretty fast and pretty far, and he really enjoyed it. After that, he decided on his own to go down with me a few more times.
Samantha suggested that they sit on this stump for a picture, which was a great idea, because they pictures turned out great of the two of them together. We are blessed with some pretty special, adorable kids.
Once the kids had their fill sledding on the hill, I asked if they wanted to play on the playground for a few minutes before heading home for dinner. It was fun to see them climbing around on the playground covered with snow, but the best part was when they slid down the slide. They went down so fast because it was wet and slippery from the snow, plus their snow suits made them slide even faster. I love the little video I got of Aedan going down the slide. In fact, he went down so quickly that I hardly got it on video, but he just slides down and plops into the snow. Once it started getting dark, we headed back home after an hour of playing outside in the snow and sledding down the hill. I'm glad we were able to get out and have a fun time together while Daddy had his late final. We will definitely have to do it again sometime, or even better, go ride tubes down the tubing hill when it opens.
(Blog about December 6-12, 2016)
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