James' First Swimming Lesson

Last Tuesday was James' first swimming lesson at the YMCA and he was not a fan! I don't know if it was the newness of being in a pool (we are mostly beach people), how cold it was (the water was 74 degrees with a lot of wind!), or general crankiness but he cried and said "No mommy!!!" almost the entire 30 minutes! Since the lessons are in the afternoon, Anthony came with us and sat on the deck behind us and James desperately kept trying to crawl out of the pool towards him. I felt so bad for the little guy! I also felt a little bit like a crazy person because I kept manically laughing and smiling, trying to convince James it was fun and not scary. Didn't work.

Here we are walking to the "deeper" side of the pool. I'm pretty sure James could still touch over here, but he didn't care. It was still too deep for him.

 They were trying to get him to "dig" in the water with his hands, but all he would do was splash me. As long as he isn't crying, we will take it!

He absolutely hated being pulled into the water! They had us count to three and then lift them up and put them in the water with a big splash (all the while holding on to us). As soon as I would start counting James would scream, "No mommy!!!" and once he was in the water he would say over and over again, "wall, wall, wall" (since he wanted to go back to the edge)

Here he is trying to escape to Anthony:

Getting him back into the pool. Look at that face!

Trying to get him to lean back and float a little. Definitely hated it.

Swimming back to the wall. I think the only reason he doesn't look too unhappy in this picture is because he is on his way to safety :)

After the official lesson was over, he had a lot of fun circling the entrance to the pool and splashing his feet. He definitely didn't want to get back in the water, even to play!

Right before we left he decided he was comfortable with ankle depth water so that he could get some good splashes in.

The next day of lessons didn't go much better. He didn't seem as terrified, but was just as uncooperative. Today was our third lesson and he was light years better! He loved almost every part of it!! He still didn't really care for trying to float, but when I would count to three and put my arms up to lift him into the water, he would actually lean towards my arms like he couldn't wait! He laughed so much and seemed to really enjoy himself, so I am totally relieved that the next few weeks aren't going to be miserable torture. Today was also the first time Anthony didn't come with us, so I don't know if that made a difference. I guess we will have to test it out and see sometime this week, although I am hesitant to jinx it. I definitely don't want to go back to a fighting uncooperative toddler in the pool!

*As a side note, I think it was poor planning on my part to sign us up for lessons that require me to get into a bathing suit every. single. day. while I am in the "squishy belly" stage of pregnancy. I have to stop myself from telling every stranger that is in the pool that I am pregnant so that they don't think I just have this lumpy gut!*

Yay for #1!

We have splashdown! James went #1 in the potty for the very first time!! It was so strange how it all started. At some point in the morning he kept talking about going to the potty in the "big potty" and when I was changing his diaper he started to cry and say "diaper off!". So I decided to let him run around naked for awhile and give him some opportunities to go on the potty since he was asking for it. We did that for about 3 hours and it was exhausting! Every 10 minutes or so I would ask him if he needed to go to the potty and then we would go. The only problem was that he wanted to sit on the big potty (even though we didn't have a seat insert yet), not on his child size one, so once I sat him on it he would get scared and want to get down! It got to the point where he would cry and scream when I would suggest going to the potty, but then he would throw just as much as a fit when I would suggest putting on a diaper. Finally I had enough, so I went ahead and put him in a diaper for the rest of the afternoon, even though he didn't like it.

After James woke up from his nap, Anthony wanted to go to Walmart. While we were there I went ahead and bought a cars themed seat inset for the toilet to see if that would help things. Once we got home, James was dying to use his "cars potty"! I couldn't get it out of the plastic fast enough. As soon as we put it on the toilet and got him on there he started peeing instantly! He thought it was so funny :) We clapped and cheered and did a potty dance for him. About an hour or so later he did it again right before bath time. I was sure it would take him forever to warm up to it, but I guess not!

I still plan on taking a relaxed approach to potty training. We made a potty chart where James gets to put a sticker on the chart when he goes in the potty and since that happened about a week ago, he averages going in the potty about twice a day (with many more attempts, but usually nothing happens). When he asks to go potty I always let him make an attempt and I am trying to give him more suggestions when it is convenient (like when I am changing his clothes already or something like that). Other than that, we aren't really pushing anything, just letting him take the lead. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months!

Cell Phone Pics and James' first visit to the Dentist

James definitely has opinions on what he wants to wear everyday and this day he wanted to wear his bunny ears from Easter. He had them on him in some fashion almost the entire day. Which of course is extra amusing when you are in public:

 The ears were getting in his eyes, so he decided to hear the headband like a belt:

 I had been thinking about taking James to the dentist for awhile, just to get him used to it. I got to talking to my orthodontist about it and he recommended a great pediatric office, so I made James an appointment. I've seen first hand how comfortable James is with going to the doctor since we visit Anthony so often, and he totally loves the orthodontist so I figured this would be a good time to get him used to the dentist.

Here he is being crazy in the waiting room:

 It is so hard to get a non-moving picture of this kid! He did great at his dentist appointment. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, since he hates having us brush and floss his teeth, but he actually let the hygienist brush his teeth (but not look at them. He did not want to open up). Then when the dentist came over, we had to hold him down a little bit so he could look at his teeth. He looked a little scared/worried, but he didn't cry and afterwards kept saying "Cool!" and gave the dentist a high five so I think he had fun :) The dentist gave him an A+ for his teeth and was really impressed with them, which gave me some mommy pride. Yay!! We are doing something right!! :)

Here are some pictures I took of James yesterday. He came out of our bedroom wearing my shoes and I thought it was too cute not to get a picture of!

This is him saying "Cheese!"

 I flipped the camera around on my phone so that he could see himself, trying to get a good smile picture and instead this is what I got. What a goofy kid!

 Another version of "Cheese!"

Easter Treats

After we got home from church, the Easter Bunny came! :) His basket was stuffed full of toys and special treats. He got some new snack containers, filled with some munchies, a coloring book with stickers, some new sippy cups, bouncy balls, a plastic snake, and few other little toys:

Playing with flubber...or flart...or some kind of silly putty stuff:

The favorite gift from the Easter Bunny by far was this toy keyboard! It came with a stand, a kid sized stool, and a microphone. James loved it!!! He would sit there and play and sing his own little songs. He loved singing and talking into the microphone, he couldn't get enough!

It is still one of his favorite toys, although I need to put new batteries in it already. He loves to have it on all the time and when it automatically turns off, it makes this little noise. Of course, that reminds James that it turned off, so he stops whatever he is doing and goes to turn it back on! I didn't plan on getting him anything big for Easter, but I had a coupon for Bealls Outlet that was going to expire so my mom and I went to see what we could find. We found the keyboard in the toy section for 70% off! Not only that, it was Friday where everyone 49 and under gets an additional 15% off their purchase. Put that all together with my coupon, and I ended up only paying around $4 for it! Of course, for $4 we had to think of an excuse to buy it so it was lucky for us Easter was around the corner :)

Easter Activities

The week before Easter we started our Easter activities. First, I hosted an Easter egg hunt in our backyard for the playgroup in our ward. It was a lot of fun! We counted how many eggs we had and told all the kids how many they were allowed to get, so everyone got an equal amount. It was so adorable, when the older kids found all of their eggs, they would go around and help the little ones find more eggs. They would go to James and say, "Here James! I found you an egg!" and put it in his basket. So sweet! James loved the candy. He has had candy before, but this time he was a little crazy about it. He would try to stuff it in his mouth, wrapper and all and if you took it away from him, even just to take the wrapper off he would give you this angry cave man yell!

The day before Easter the city was putting on a large egg hunt, so I thought it would be fun to go with James. It was huge! They had an entire large section just for 2-3 year olds, so that is where we waited. James did not want to wait. There was a small ribbon barrier keeping him from the eggs and having to look at them but not go get them was torture for him! At one point he threw such a fit I thought we might have to just pack up and go home before it even got started. Luckily he was able to calm down. Once it started, it was chaos! They allowed the parents to go get the eggs with the kids and it was every man for himself! Seriously, it reminded me of stampedes on Black Friday where people just lose their minds. I was trying to let James go find his own eggs, but apparently I didn't get the memo because all the other parents were just scooping as many eggs as they could grab into their kid's basket. 

The red arrow is pointing to the one egg James was able to get into his basket. By the time he bent over, picked it up, and put it into his basket, the rest of the eggs on the entire field were gone. He didn't understand that of course, so he kept walking around looking for more eggs. I was watching all the other parents and their kids and saw toddlers James' age and size with 20 eggs. 20!!! Like they could physically pick up 20 eggs in 10 seconds. It just really bothered me! Not that James really needed more candy or anything, but what is the point of an egg hunt for toddlers if it becomes an egg hunt for grown adults?

James came back to this bush where he saw eggs before, hoping they were still there. Nope. Sorry kid :(

Later that afternoon, we bravely tried our hand at dying eggs. James loved it! He didn't have patience for the little dipping spoon, he would just reach his little hand right into the water to get the egg. He and I both ended up covered in dye! He also didn't really understand the concept of waiting for the egg to turn color. As soon as we would put one in, he wanted to take it out and see what color it was.

Helping me put an egg in:

Sunday afternoon he got to do an egg hunt with his cousins, using the leftover eggs from the playgroup. Aunt Robin did a great job of hiding the eggs, she made the "tricky" ones for the older kids and the easy to find ones for James. See Dallas? He is ready to find some eggs!

We had fun all week just throwing eggs down in the yard so James could  run around and get them, so he knew exactly what to do!

One of the eggs popped open and some candy fell out so he was momentarily distracted:

Finding more eggs:

Look at the kid! Doesn't he look determined!

Dallas and Nevada, diligently looking for the tricky ones:

More eggs!

So now I know for next year, friends and family egg hunts: that's where all the fun is at!

Pregnancy Journal: 17 Weeks

Picture taken at 16 1/2 weeks

This pregnancy is really moving along! I feel like the weeks are just flying by. Even when I was miserable I felt that way, but now that I am feeling so much better it feels like it is going even faster! Don't you love the baby head right near the counter in my picture? :) A few seconds before this you could see him in the background, naked except for his diaper, playing with the blinds. Yeah. Didn't want that picture going on Facebook.

There really isn't much to report, except for the fact that I am feeling better. I pretty much feel like my normal self, except a little more squishy (not really a baby belly yet). I am still really sensitive to smells, so I have been going crazy trying to clean everything when I get a chance because if I can smell it I can't stand it! Case in point: I noticed while driving today that I need to wash James' car seat cover ASAP. I started to feel the baby move for the first time sometime last week and I have been surprised at how different it has been from when I was pregnant with James! With James, I can still vividly remember the first time I felt him move (at around 16 weeks), it was so forceful and felt like a solid kick, definitely not butterflies or fluttering. This time it was so soft, like a tiny nudge, that I wasn't sure what it was for a few days. Even now, I don't feel like I am feeling the baby move nearly as much as I did with James. I'm not sure why. Either this baby is more mellow (which would be awesome!), or maybe it is because I typically wear more comfortable and looser clothes than the work clothes I wore with James. Maybe wearing tighter clothes makes it easier to feel the baby kick or something? It's a mystery!

Last week we had our 16 week appointment with the midwife. It was nothing special, just a quick listen to the baby's heartbeat and that was about it. I forgot to ask her what the actual heart rate was since I am compiling all of the old wives tales about determining what gender your baby and seeing what they predict so that I can compare it to what the ultrasound says. One of them says that how fast or slow the baby's heart rate is is supposed to predict the gender. Our next appointment is going to be the big one! The day after memorial day we have our ultrasound appointment and will hopefully get to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. We are planning on having them not tell us right away and put the gender result in an envelope so we can open it up with my mom and Anthony's parents that night. That way we can all find out together! I seriously can't wait for this appointment, I am ready to find out!

A Three Hour Tour

Yesterday we had the worst boat experience! Anthony finally got the insurance check from the person who rear ended him a few weeks ago and got his bumper fixed. He was itching to take the boat out, at least for a drive. The weather was overcast and I was feeling kind of tired and blah but Anthony really wanted to go so I said yes. We got out on the water and everything seemed fine. Anthony wanted to see how fast the boat could go, so he gunned the engine. I hate it when he goes fast, so I looked at the ground, held onto James and waited for it to be over. After about 30 seconds, James' hat flew off and he started crying, so I yelled at Anthony to slow down. All of a sudden the engine cut out and we lurched to a stop. That is when it all started to go bad.

Anthony fiddled with the engine for awhile, and just couldn't get it started. He tried all sorts of different things and I even looked up the manual for the engine on my phone to see if there were any instructions in there for what was happening. James was being pretty difficult, wanting to check out everything Anthony was doing, try to put his feet over the edge of the boat, and press all the buttons. After at least 45 minutes of Anthony trying to get the engine started with no success, we were both really frustrated. Anthony looked at me, exasperated, and said, "I don't know what to do. We don't even have a way to get home". That's when I almost lost it. I distinctly remember the last time we were on the boat I told him that he needed to get some paddles on the boat just in case... Right then James decided to press a button he wasn't supposed to for the 10th time, and Anthony snapped at him really loudly to "Stop!". Now you have to understand, Anthony doesn't ever get frustrated enough to talk like that, especially not to James. If it were me, James would have just ignored it because I've definitely snapped at him before but this was Daddy! The poor thing, his feelings were hurt and he started crying and crying. He let me hold him, which he doesn't normally do, and Anthony felt bad and apologized to him.

After some discussion, we decided to try to get the boat as close to the boat ramp as possible and try to figure something out from there.Where we were was pretty shallow, only a few feet of water, but to get to the boat ramp we would need to cross the channel which is really deep and we had no idea how we were going to do that. Anthony got the pole out and started trying to pole us closer to the boat ramp, but the wind was pushing us back and we kept getting stuck on the sandbar. So he decided it would be easier to just get out and walk and pull the boat behind him. The entire time we can see the boat ramp in the distance but it never seemed to get any closer. James broke the line in his fishing pole which caused a lot of crying and hysterics, so I was trying to fix it when all of a sudden I hear a splash. Apparently James leaned over the side of the boat too far and fell in! (We had been telling him nonstop the entire time to keep his feet in the boat and not to lean too far). Luckily we were only in a few feet of water and of course he was wearing his life jacket. Anthony was already in the water, so he just rushed over to him and picked him up and put him back in the boat. He was okay, but totally drenched and definitely traumatized! He couldn't stop crying, he was hysterical!! He didn't know what he wanted, if I picked him up he arched his back and wanted to be put down, but if I put him down he clung to me like he wanted me to pick him up. He finally ended up half on, half off my seat with his head on my stomach, sobbing.

At this point, Anthony is still walking the boat and he got out his cell phone and started calling around to people we know who have boats who might be able to come to the boat ramp and tow us across the channel. James hasn't calmed down one bit and I started to tear up too. It was all just so horrible! After what had to have been 20 minutes of crying, Anthony heard a motorcycle go by and said to James, "Did you hear the motorcycle?" James stopped crying, looked up like everything was normal and went "Yeah!!". After that he was fine! I kept hugging him and snuggling him and telling him that I loved him. He kept saying things about the "wadder" and "fall" and "cool", so I'm still not sure if he remembers it as a bad thing... When we got close enough to the boat ramp to cross the channel, it was about 6:30pm (we got into the boat around 4:30). Thankfully (definitely an answer to prayer on this one), someone was putting their boat in the water as we got close. We waved and waved and they came over to see what was wrong and agreed to tow us. They were so nice! Once we got the boat tethered to the dock I could not get off that thing fast enough!!! I was tempted to kiss the ground! What I really did was visit the bathroom :) A pregnant lady cannot be without a bathroom for that long!!

So we came through relatively unscathed. Anthony isn't totally sure what happened with the boat, but this was his first time using the boat's built in gas tank instead of a separate small tank, so he thinks it has something to do with the fuel line. All I know is that I won't be getting on that thing again until he gets it fixed, takes it out a few times to make sure it is fixed, and invests in some paddles!

Accidents and Near Misses

A few weeks ago Anthony finally got an afternoon free to take the boat out for some fishing with a friend. The plan was for Anthony to pick him up from his house and then drive him to our house to pick up the boat. As Anthony was turning onto the street to go into his neighborhood, he got rear-ended!! Luckily no one was hurt in either car, but Anthony's bumper (which has the hitch for towing the boat!!) was smashed:

This is what the other car looked like:

So Anthony had to wait for the police to come and take an official report and he got the insurance information from the other driver. Of course, now there was no way for him to take the boat out. Bummer! We called the insurance company and played phone tag for awhile before they scheduled an appraiser to come out and assess the damage. The insurance agent suggested Anthony get an independent quote for repairs, so he got a recommendation of a good place from a mechanic friend and got a quote for about $350. Once the appraiser came, he assessed the damage at about $440 so we ended up getting a check for a little bit extra. When Anthony called the body shop (who quoted him $350) and told them he had the go ahead to get things fixed, they said they had to take back their original quote and charge him what the insurance company gave him! Can you believe that? Anthony told them no way! He called his mechanic friend back to ask for another recommendation and he said that he thought he could fix the damage himself for much cheaper, so that is what we ended up doing.

Around the same time (maybe even the same day?) I had quite the day with James! In the morning we went to a local park to try to get some of his energy out. The park has a lot of trees surrounding the playground and a very large and deep retention pond with a fountain in the middle. When we got there, there were city employees trimming some of the trees and they had their big trucks parked near the playground. Of course, those were all James wanted to play with! They warned me to keep far away from the trucks since they couldn't predict where the limbs were going to fall so I kept pulling James back to the playground and telling him that if he didn't want to play on the playground that we would have to go home. At one point, James started walking towards the retention pond and I told him to come back towards me. He stopped, looked at me and smiled. Then he took off running towards the pond! I was across the park, so I followed him as fast as I could telling him to wait for me but it just made him go faster! There is a steep bank that leads to the pond and it is covered with dead leaves and I was sure that he was going to trip and fall. By the time I caught up to him, he had jumped feet first into the pond and was covered with mucky, muddy water. I was so frustrated, I just picked him up, kicking and screaming and put him into the car.

Later that afternoon James was playing in the living room and going back and forth between the house and the back yard. Our back yard is fenced in with a really tall fence and when the weather is nice, we just leave the back door open so James and the dogs can go in and out. I was starting to get dinner ready when all of a sudden our door bell rang quickly, three times in a row. Anthony opened the door to find our neighbor from across the street, telling us that James was pushing his toy car down the road!!! I was shocked!!! How in the world did our gate get open?? The latch is large and heavy and at the very top of the fence, so we know it couldn't have been James. We always make sure to close it because of James and the dogs. The only thing I could think of was that a pest control person or something left it open because sometimes they come by without telling me that they came, so I don't know to double check the fence (which I always do because one time our landlord came to cut some bushes and left it open and I was able to close it before anyone got out). Of course, I was grateful that our neighbor happened to see him and come tell us but I was also mortified and felt like the worst parent in the world! The next day I went to Walmart and got a lock for the latch on the fence so that now nobody can open it without me or Anthony knowing it. Can you believe our kid? It is nice that he is so independent, but at times like this I wish he were more attached to us :)

A Visit to the Zoo

Since September we have had annual passes to the zoo, but we haven't used it all that much since it is about an hour away. I hate making the drive by myself and by the time Anthony gets home and we drive there it would only be a few hours before closing time. I'm trying to make a goal for myself to go at least once a month so that we can get our money's worth out of the pass. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to go and invited my friend and her two kids to come with us. It was great to have someone to talk to during the drive and James loved seeing all the animals with his friends! It made me even more determined to go more often. So the next week I was brave and made the drive by myself, just me and James!

I have always had a hard time driving on the interstate, but this trip really made me realize why. When I don't have anyone to talk to or distract me, the entire time I anxiously think about crashing or running off the road, or the car getting a flat tire. I constantly have a video of all the different crash scenarios running through my brain, my heart rate skyrockets, and I have to keep talking myself down. It is definitely a lot better than it used to be (just getting on the interstate used to do that to me, now it is just long car trips to unfamiliar places by myself. See? Progress!) but I am really proud of myself for forcing myself to do it last week. We had a blast!

We got there 10 minutes after they opened, and the place was basically ours. James wanted out of the stroller most of the time so he could run around and look at everything. All the exhibits were "Whoa!!" and "Cool!" and "Oh yeah!!!" :) We saw the rhinos, the giraffes, tons of birds and walked through the aviary. We saw gators and crocodiles, deer, tons of different types of monkeys, and we even got to see the otters this time! (They seem to never be out the last few times we have gone) We saw the jaguar which was neat, but there was a huge crowd in front of the viewing glass and everyone was going "Awwww" and I couldn't figure out why, so we just moved on. Come to find out, they just had a baby jaguar cub and I missed it!!! Next time I want to see that cutie pie!

We rode the train and James loved it! He couldn't get over that he was on a real train! At one point, there wasn't really anything to look at and James randomly giggled and said "Ha! Nee! (Train)" We got to see Lemur island, the ostriches, and the camels, which you can only see from the train. The ostriches got crazy close to the train, close enough to make you a little uncomfortable :)

After a few hours, James was getting stir crazy and seemed to be done looking at things so we headed over to the wade pools/splash park for the first time. He was really hesitant at first, but after watching the other kids and getting used to the idea he loved it!! He didn't want to leave!

We had so much fun, we will definitely be visiting more often, especially since the weather is getting so warm. Pretty soon that drive will be so familiar it will be a piece of cake for me! (Hopefully :)