Sometimes You Feel Like a Goat

Or at least I do. Lately the little girl in my belly has developed quite the appetite. She's reminding me of her big brother already.

As I'm scouring the kitchen looking for new and interesting (who are we fooling—my only criteria is edible) things to eat, I'm reminded of this old but hilarious Onion article:

Hey, You Got Something To Eat?

So whaddya say? You gonna eat the rest of that?

It's a …

… girl!! We had the 20-week ultrasound today, and it looks like Sidamo is going to have a little sister! I was pretty much entirely convinced it was a girl, so it was more of a confirmation than a surprise. Still, it's pretty exciting to be able to officially start looking at girl clothes. :-)

Here are some pictures of the little muffin. She's incredibly cute and was doing some funny jabs and kicks (so then I started poking my belly and she did it more—mean mommy!). It's a good thing we don't have an ultrasound machine at home or the poor girl wouldn't get any sleep.

Profile view

Profile with hands up by face

Smiling for the camera

CREEPY!!! Don't you think she kind of looks like Greg in this one?

Please knock on wood before reading this post

I hesitate to even put this out there, because it seems just way too ridiculously good to be true. So knock on wood with me.

Okay, here goes: I think Sidamo might possibly be more or less potty trained. About a month and a half ago, he started telling us every time he had to poo, so we would take him to the potty and he'd sit down and do his business (or not—we also had a lot of false alarms). After the holidays, I decided to take his diaper off and just leave him naked from the waist down while in the house to see if he could figure out how to pee on the potty too. Well, he did, immediately. After about 10 days with no accidents, I put pants (no diaper) on him and explained that he needed to pull his pants down before sitting on the potty. With the exception of two small accidents, he's been doing it reliably for the past two weeks. In fact, for the past week or so, we've even been taking him out of the house without a diaper on, and he hasn't had any mishaps. He still wears a diaper to sleep, but that means we're only going through two diapers a day and I've cut my laundry by about 75 percent.

Doesn't this seem precocious for a 25-month-old boy? In other words, isn't our kid the brightest child ever to walk this earth?? (Okay, now I'll certainly be struck down for hubris.) I've always heard that boys potty train later, but that kids in cloth diapers do it earlier, so maybe it all averages out. I'm just thrilled with the idea that he might be diaper-free before el segundo comes.

Before leaving you, here are some cute photos—no, not of the boy on the pot (I fear retribution, unlike Heather!). Daddy bought Damo the Cars movie, and for the first time the little guy has decided that TV is pretty cool. Or incredibly, irresistibly cool. Here are the guys having a little movie night.

Nesting?

I haven't had any urges to decorate or shop for new baby yet, but I have been a teensy bit obsessed with diapering her (no, we don't know gender yet, but I'm thinking girl). We have one-size diapers for Sidamo, but despite their name they don't actually fit newborns. So assuming Sidamo keeps rocking potty training as he has been, baby numero duo will be able to use the one-sizes when she grows into them, but until then we'll need another solution. Enter my sketchy sewing skills:


The lavender one is a very soft terry exterior, and the orange one is a yummy velour. I'm planning to make about two dozen, but I haven't actually tested the pattern to see how it works, so I could end up with a bunch of very cute but entirely ineffective paperweights. Still, it's a fun way to keep my hands busy—because busying them with working, cleaning, or cooking would be way too boring.

Child labor

A couple pictures of Sidamo helping out (it all starts with his screaming, "I try! I try!). Something tells me he won't be quite so enthusiastic about chores when he actually has the strength and coordination to do them effectively.

That's icing on his face (this picture is from his birthday).

My toddler, the drunk

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Okay, so he's not actually drunk in this video, but he sure looks it.

Speaking of drunk, though, in one of our terribly poor parenting moments last weekend, Greg was sitting in the living room and turned to find Sidamo standing right next to him beginning to chug my brother-in-law's glass of wine. Oops! Luckily Greg caught it fast. Plus the glass was almost empty and the wine had been watered down pretty well with ice. We didn't notice a hangover the next day, and he was only a little loopier than usual that evening (and as you can tell from the video, he starts with the loopy bar pretty high), so I'd say he escaped unintoxicated.

Such a 2-year-old

You'll all be happy to know Sidamo is really embracing his identity as a 2-year-old. His absolute favorite word is no. He must say it a few hundred times a day—sometimes he even sings it. And of course, nothing is more fun than defiance right now. Yes, I get that it's a normal and necessary developmental stage, but for everyone's safety and sanity, Greg and I decided we needed some concerted discipline efforts. We (read: I) read a book (read: half of a book) called 1-2-3 Magic that offers up a simple discipline plan. Basically, it's counting to three when you want the child to stop a bad behavior. If he doesn't stop when you get to three, he gets a time-out or some other age-appropriate consequence (we use more of a time-in, since time-outs aren't recommended with adopted kids). Anyway, we've been doing this, and it's actually working quite well.

Or at least it was working quite well. A couple days ago, we were having dinner and Sidamo was using his feet to push against the table and tip his high chair back—one of his favorite games, and something that terrifies me and is expressly forbidden. Greg asked him to stop, and he didn't, so Greg looked at Sidamo and said firmly, "Sidamo, that's one." Sidamo looked at him, smiled, and continued doing it as he screamed, "TWO!" Greg and I tried so hard not to laugh, but we just couldn't keep it in, and soon the three of us were in hysterics. So much for discipline.

Cloth diapers for low-income families

I just learned about an organization called Miracle Diapers and wanted to spread the word. Too often, people in financially tight situations are unable to make the initial financial outlay that would, in the long run, save them money and resources. It spreads to all areas of life—healthful, organic foods; low-intervention, preventive health care; educational and developmental tools for children—but cloth diapers are a really good example of a product that costs a fair amount up front but leads to significant savings over time (and of course, is better for the environment and thus our community as a whole).

Case in point: When we outfitted Sidamo with all the diapers he'll need until potty training (by using mostly one-size diapers that can be adjusted to fit babies 7 to 35 pounds and buying them from the second-quality bin), we spent somewhere between $200 and $250. That would be a huge amount for a low-income family to come up with when preparing for a new baby. But with Sidamo only being home six months so far and only going through about six diapers a day, we've already more than made up the cost of the cloth in the amount we've saved on disposables. And now we'll get to use the same diapers for baby No. 2 with no additional investment. Over the course of their combined diapering lives, we will have saved thousands of dollars, but it required that initial chunk of money that we were fortunate enough to have at our disposal.

Miracle Diapers helps people who can't come up with the initial cloth diaper investment by loaning them all the diapers they need to diaper their kids completely in cloth. Their web site says they also provide other baby products and natural living items, but I'm not entirely sure what/or how. In any case, it looks like an interesting organization, so I encourage you to check it out.