Potty Trained

Sarah is now officially potty trained, and has been for about a month. She doesn't even wear a diaper or pull-up at night while sleeping, and has not had an accident for a long time. Now I guess we have to look into basketball and soccer for her in the winter and fall.

Potty Training Update

I know, it's been way too long since I've posted. I guess part of that is wanting to avoid the obligatory "update" posting. Well, this is not that post, but an update none the less.

For the past several months, we have been on and off with the potty training for Sarah, nothing consistent. She was doing ok at school with going a couple of times on the potty, but it would vary from one day to the next. This past weekend, Sarah decided that she was ready to start again. We had a party for Grandpa's 70th birthday, and put her in "big-girl" underwear. We expected her to have a few accidents, but she had zero. She went the entire day, from wake-up to bed time in the same pair of underwear! Sunday was just as good, again, with zero accidents. She was very busy all day with her cousins and other company in town, but when she had to go, she told someone and made it in time. Monday was a day off for all three of us due to Presidents Day, so we decided to continue with the underwear. She only had two accidents on Monday, still a marked improvement over the past several months.

Tuesday and Wednesday at school was a different story, as she went through all of her spare clothes that we sent in with her, but did make it to the potty some of the times. We decided to just keep going with it and see how she does. When she is at home, she is in underwear, and mostly that way at school. I don't want to push her too hard, but she seems to be so close that I don't want her taking steps backwards either. We'll just keep with the positive reinforcement and see how she does.

Update: 02/23/07
After two days of accidents at school, Sarah went the entire day on Wednesday without any accidents, including a short shopping trip to a consignment shop for clothes and the evening at Grandma and Grampy's. Things are looking good!

Updates

It's been way too long since I posted last, and so much has happened. More so than should every happen to anyone, but that is another story. This is a happy post about how Sarah has been progressing and what her newest trials, tribulations, and achievements have been over the past few months.

Sarah still attends the same daycare/school that she has been at for over a year now, and it loving it. All of the teachers there love her too. She is very smart, helps clean up, helps out with the infants in the nursery when she spends some time over there, and just has an all around pleasant personality. Her daily reports read like a broken record, 2-3 hour nap, east mostly everything, about the same number of diaper changes, and her disposition is always cheerful, helpful, and happy. They could just take the one from the previous day back and change the date, and we would be none the wiser. Not that it's a bad thing at all, she is very good and even tempered at school. I just wish we could say that about her at home some times.

Early Christmas Present

Last weekend, Mommy, Daddy and Uncle E took me to That Fish Place and bought the supplies for one of my early christmas presents. This year, my big gift is a 20 gallon fish tank for everyone to enjoy. Daddy set it up on Tuesday night while I was out with Mommy. When we all got home, he showed it to me and I was so excited, I ran up to it, sat down in front and clapped. I was looking for fish, but couldn't find any. They must be hiding.
For some reason, the water is yellow right now, and Daddy tells me we can't go pick out any fish to put in there until it is clear. Hopefully that will be fixed so I can look at my new fish soon. I can't wait to go back to the fish store and help Mommy and Daddy pick out the fish I want.

My Halloween Party

Yesterday afternoon and evening, we had a number of our friends over for a pumpkin carving/painting party. There were 17 people in our house, half of them children. Sarah had a blast throughout the entire party. She got to see both Abigails, Jerry, Paige and Ben. Her and Paige had a great time towards the end of the evening playing together, just running around and making noise.

We decided to have people over thinking that we hadn't seen some of them in a long time, and we wanted to let the kids carve or paint pumpkins. Claire was great for supplying the painting supplies, including paint, egg cartons, brushes, and smocks for Sarah and Paige. Both of them had a blast painting (the pumpkins, the newspaper, the floor, and Sarah's hair). Everything washed out, so nothing to worry about there. Jerry joined the older girls when they were helping to scoop out the pumpkins and seperate the seeds out so we could roast them.

Sarah also got to show off her new cow costume, with the horns, utters, and even a tail. Dave of course loved this! Their Abigail will also be a cow, and Sean and Jami's Abigail will be a cute bunny.

After the festivities (which were caught on film and video), we all had dinner. It was great to see everyone again, it's been a while. I know the kids really enjoyed themselves as Sarah fell asleep in her high chair she was so tired from playing with everyone. We will definately have to do this again. Christmas is coming up quick.

Pictures are in the process of uploading and will be posted in the gallery. I have video and may some day get around to editing it and posting it online as well.

Welcome MoreHipThanHippie listeners

Welcome to everyone that is visiting after hearing out our natural ways of raising our child on the More Hip Than Hippie podcast. Read through the postings here about our Bradley classes, using organic food, and other things we do. Feel free to drop a comment if you have any questions or comments and enjoy.

All caught up

I've been feeling unproductive, so I took some time over my lunch break today to update the photos of Sarah. I had pictures all the way back to her first birthday party, and as recent as yesterday. They are all available in the gallery. I posted pictures from her first birthday, 13th month, 14th month and 15th month.

Sarah's $400 excursion to Babies 'R Us

This weekend, Sarah made out like a bandit at Babies 'R Us. She has outgrown her car seat, so we had to go and buy two new ones. We had a coupon for $10 off the puchase of each car seat over $40, which worked out nicely. That brought the price down from $100 to $90 a piece. Not terrible since these will support her up to 100lbs. We just can't use the harness then, but use a regular lap belt. We decided on the Graco ComfortSport, but I don't remember exactly which model/color we got.

We also found a really cool framepack by Snugli that we can use to take her on hikes and other such outdoor excursions. The picture with this post is what we bought, and links to the product information page. Now I we can take her outside and into the woods and get her exposed to that sort of thing. I put her in it last night at my parents and took her for a walk around their house. She was a bit apprehensive at first, but quickly warmed up to the idea and just looked around like she always does.

She also got about $100 in clothes, a few "beach" type toys, and random other assorted baby goods required for keeping her safe and happy. I think she made out well, although she won't get to "play" with much of it.

Just like a bath tub

On Sunday (6/12) Sarah had her first experience in Grandma and Grandpa Bishop's pool. She was such a trooper as she is with most new things. Initally she was not so happy but as she and I walked in the water she was noticably more comfortable. She was even splashing and puttinger her face in the water after a short time. She wouldn't have anything to do with me letting go though-not even to reajust her....

New bedtime

Ever since Sarah was sick last week, she has changed her bedtime. She used to be up until anywhere from 11 to midnight, which was great because I could spend time with her, but annoying in the same respect that neither Karen nor I had time to do what we wanted before going to bed. Sarah is now ready for bed anywhere from about 8:00 to 9:30 at the latest. I still get to see her for a few hours in the evening, and all day on the weekends, but she get's a good night sleep, and Karen and I have some time to ourselves.

Of course, she has also altered her nap schedule drastically with this change. She used to take a couple of long naps during the day, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Now it's just a few short naps scattered throughout.

She is definately getting bigger and changing every day.

So cute and independant

Last night, Sarah did not want to go to sleep. I was holding her and trying to give her a bottle, but she just kept throwing a fit, so I put her on the floor and let her play for a bit figuring she would tire shortly, and then I would try again. She was down there for about 10 minutes or so while I was watching TV, and the next thing I knew, she was laying on the floor asleep! I knew she was tired, but I guess she just wasn't ready and wanted to do it her way.

A trip to the park

This weekend was such a beautiful weekend, that we just had to take Sarah out to Longs Park. We loaded her up in her stroller and walked around the pond/lake/body of water and looked at all the ducks, swans, and geese that have made the park their home. The park is probably one of my favorite places in Lancaster to hang out, and now that I get to share this with Sarah, I am thrilled! She was so fascinated with the ducks. She just kept pointing to them, every one that she saw, and wanted them to come over and play with her. We were going to feed them, but the park commission has not put the feed dispensers back in from winter yet, and bread is so bad for them and the water. I can't wait to take her out more and even take her to the zoo this summer. My little environmentalist and animal lover.

Slippery

Sarah and mommy discovered that she is very Slippery when wet. She had her first shower experience on Sunday monrning. She did okay until she realized that she couldn't splash in the water like in her tub. After the actual washing part was over she did very well with getting her face wet and she even put her face in the water. She is getting to be such a big girl.....

Time flies....

It seems like yesterday that we brought Sarah home...now she can sit on her own, babble like crazy, hold her own bottle, sleep for ever some nights, and even put her feet in her mouth. She is such a big girl!! I was briefly thinking the other day what it would be like to have another one....but only briefly. There will be new pictures up this weekend from Christmas--I promise.

All I want for Christmas...

... is my two front teeth. As the old song goes, Sarah got her two front (lower) teeth for Christmas this year, along with all kinds of other goodies. Her first tooth came in sometime on the 21st, and the second one came in on Christmas day.

Other than beeing fussy dealing with the pains of cutting her teeth, Sarah had a wonderful first Christmas. We all know that she is spoiled as it is, but she was even more spoiled this year. I think she got 5 "First Christmas" ornaments, a "First Christmas" stocking, and we even used the "First Christmas" border on our Christmas cards that we sent out. Guess we shouldn't have any problems remembering what year it was :)

Her other gifts included the Little Touch Leap Pad with 5 (all different) books, Happy Ears Eeyore, a Tupperware shape ball, lots of clothes and socks, some really neat hand crafts from various people, some books, including a tag book since she loves the tags on anything we give her, various learning toys, "Elmo loves you" Elmo, and Potty Elmo.

She really made out well this year. And she knew something was going on. There was a lot of excitement the whole weekend, and she even "helped" unwrap all of her gifts. Of course, this involved us starting a corner and her pulling the paper up to her mouth, but she unwrapped them. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but I do have a bit of video. I will get those up in the gallery in the "near" future.

More pictures

Stacey has put up a few pictures from last week when she came up for dinner that are really cute of Sarah. Check them out.

Thanks Stacey!

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I posted about everything that Sarah has been doing over the past couple of weeks so this will be a long list :) Sarah is now about 1 week shy of 4 months old, and is doing really well. As for Karen and I, we both love being parents. She couldn't be an easier child to raise at this point.

She seems to be very advanced for her age, at least according to everything that I have been reading and hearing. She can pretty much sit on her own with only some help balancing, and she will stand with support. It's to the point now that she doesn't really like sitting, but wants to stand all the time. She should not be doing that this early.

Poor sick Boo-Boo

Well, only 3 months into her journey, Sarah has her first cold. She has been in daycare now for almost 2 months, so we expected her to get sick sooner or later, we were just hoping it would be later. It's just a head cold, and she has been really good about it. This hasn't changed her mood or altered her sleep schedule at all. She is an amazingly resilient child.
Karen has been giving her tylenon, which has helped a bit, but she is still stuffy and loves having her nose wiped so much.

Big Girl

I can't believe that Sarah is 11 weeks old already. She is starting to out grow her 0-3 month clothes which is good--new things to wear and mommy had to go shopping. Sarah also started "school" this week and it appears that she is doing well with the other kids and being away from mommy for a whole day at a time. We are starting to get ourselves on a new schedule to accommedate "school", work, eating and sleeping--it won't be long before the schedule will change again (as her needs for sleep and eating change).

New Photos up

I finally got a chance to upload the past 2 weeks worth of photos to the gallery. Take a look.

Ah, the power of the swaddle

Last night and yesterday were a bit rough. Sarah was up almost all day from shortly after I left for work until shortly before I got home, making her awake time a whopping 7 hours! She is never like this! Not that it is a bad thing, but she became overly tired and would not fall asleep last night. We tried feeding her and she ate a bit, but didn't want to continue. We also changed her and made sure she was dry and clean. I also tried to just lay her on my chest, which we found she really likes when she is sleeping. She slept for about 30 minutes, until I had to get up and go to bed. I laid her down, and she woke up.

This obviously was not going to work since I am fighting a cold, and have to get up and go to work. Also, it's unfair to Karen to have Sarah all night every night, and she was just tired. Karen suggested swaddling Sarah to see if that would calm her down.

It's funny, Claire and I were just discussing how to do this the "proper" way the other night. I've never really been a big fan of doing this, I thought it was cruel to an extent since I know Sarah loves to have her hands up at her face, and in order to properly do this, you need to wrap them so tight that they can't move.

I decided to give this a try, and low and behold, 5 minutes after wrapping her, she was sound asleep and stayed that way for most of the night. Guess I'll keep that in my bag of tricks for later use.

Oh the horrors!

We just got finished giving Sarah her first bath at home, and let me just say, it was very traumatic for me :) Some people are traumatized by birth, some by the shock to their system with a changing schedule, some even other things. Well, for me, it was hearing her scream while she was naked and being bathed. Not that anything was wrong, it was just "different" to her and she was telling me that. But she has to stay clean. Luckily, we only have to do that every 2-3 days, and not every night.

Countdown time?

I just got an email from Karen with some of her contraction times. There is no regular pattern to them, but they are averaging about 12 minutes apart. 2:25, 2:33, 2:42, 3:04, 3:11. Granted, that is only for about a 45 minute time span and anything could change, but there are other signs that things are getting close. Her spiderwebs the other night, her belly has been really tight to the touch for the past couple of days, and she just feels "different".

T minus 3 weeks and counting

Today, Karen has passed her 37th week of pregnancy. The baby is now medically considered full-term and can, in theory, be born at any time.

I keep teasing her that she has to wait until at least Tuesday, after I graduate from our child birth classes and become a "certified Bradley Method" coach, but that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. One of the other couples in our class "graduated" early by delivering, and they had it just the way it was planned. I hope they are there at class on Monday nite so we can see their bundle of joy.

In preperation for the ultimate experience, last night we packed some of the clothes and other such things to take to the hospital. We also went grocery shopping over the weekend and got food for me and some honey for Karen. Bottles have been in the freezer to use as ice packs, and other such items have been gathered or located.

As things get close (whether in reality or not), I've been getting more and more excited. I know Karen will do a wonderful job, I just hope I can provide her with everything she will need. I know the classes have helped ease my fears tremendously, mostly due to the educational side of things. I think I worry more about having to fight the doctors to get what we want than I do about how we will handle things. Only time will tell.

Spiderwebs

Last night Karen informed me that while at Star Glazers, she started to get the stringy, almost spiderweb like, mucous being expelled. While this is one of the signs of early first stage labor, we have learned through our Bradley Classes that this can happen long before the onset of labor, and doesn't mean anything is coming soon.
She "neglected" to tell me right away because, as she said, there is no point in making a big deal about it and getting excited. And from what she was saying, this is not necessarily her loosing her mucous plug. We'll see what transpires over the next few days.

Thanks to All

I want to thank everyone that came to my wonderful shower yesterday. Everything was wonderful. I was actually surprised--We got lots of very cute things. We have a lot of sorting to do over the next 2 months. Next weekend we are going to paint the nursey and then we will be able to actually put things away wehre they belong(for now). Again, thank you to everyone who came and shared the day with us and being so generous.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

I was laying up against Karen this morning with my back to her and I could actually feel the child kicking me (or punching me) in the back! It's only really been in the past few days or so that I've been able to fairly consistently feel movement, and it's exciting. Can't wait until this child comes out so I can play with Fern.

decor

Well we finally have the paint and I have had the border for more than a year now and I want to get started......but that isn't my job.. Doug is going to help the grandma's and Tammy paint then Grandma Bishop is all about the border....

Shopping

We finally had enough time to go and look at baby furniture and stuff like that on Saturday. I can't believe how much money we are going to spend on this kid before s/he can even enjoy any of it. We did find some things that we like but we should probably shop more before we make any quick decisions.......

I'm getting fat!!

I woke up this morning and I realized that I feel really fat and only one of my bras fit....this part sucks!!... People at work are starting to notice too, so I guess I can't try to hide it anymore.

How's That Work?

Thanks to staczilla for finding this article to answer our questions about the intestines. Turns out that they are not actually outside, at least not completely, but project into the umbilical cord. Neat!

Comments

Ok.. So I've been slacking off and actually doing real work so I haven't had the time to devote to this like I wanted to. I'm still working on getting a comments section put up on here, but for now, you can post your comments here.

Not Much New

Not much is going on these days--I guess that is good. I am starting to have more energy again. My only real complaint is that my clothes are getting tighter in strange places--guess I have to go shopping.

New Design

Well.. I finally got around to changing the design of the site. Thank you John for allowing me to steal what you had up and use it in the interim. It's now something that fits us, since we have decided to do the nursery in, yes you guessed it, Elmo.

The ability to add comments will be coming soon!! Please be patient.

Trip to the York Fair?

Last night we decided to tell our friends that we are expecting. We had it all planned out for John and Claire since they told us at the York Fair a year ago that they were expecting. We just asked them if they wanted to go to the York Fair last night... The look on Claire's face was priceless once she figured out what we were saying... :)

Bad Evening

Last night wasn't a very good one. We were supposed to go to a Holloween Party but I was not feeling very well--If I'm gonna be sick I would rather it be in my own bathroom. Since I had a rough morning also (I got sick in the shower) I figured that I should stay home. Until then I have been feeling relatively good all things considered.

Discipline

I just got a phone call from Karen telling me she wanted to rethink this whole pregnancy thing. There was a little girl sitting in the hallway at the courthouse screaming her head off for the past couple of hours while her mother (like 15 years old) was in for an appointment... I agree, the prospect of a screaming child doesn't thrill me either, but it all comes down to discipline. This child had to be spoiled or really neglected. Neither of which I *plan* on doing, although grandparents are good for spoiling :)