Time Keeps on Slipping… January 25, 2013

The other day while driving home, I pulled up behind a school bus that was dropping off kids at a daycare by our house. One kid came out in the same one piece snowsuit that Henry own. He couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 and he was carrying, in both hands, various arts and crafts projects he had made at school. As I watched him proudly scurry over to his daycare provider, I got a little teary eyed. I know I’m a tad more emotional these days, but hear me out. Seeing this kid in his suit made me realize “that’s going to be my kid very soon!” How can they grow up so fast? Why must they? In less than two weeks, my little guy will be 2 years old. Where did this past year go? How did he go from this:

Hello World

 

To this:

CHEESE!!!

I was so worried about him those first few days, looking at him while he slept, making sure he was breathing, holding a little mirror up to his face to see if it fogged up. He needed me for everything back then. Now he’s walking, talking, dancing, singing, doing so much on his own.  On top of that, he’s going to be a big brother. I often find myself thinking lately “he’s too young to be a big brother! Will he understand? How do I make sure he knows that I love him just as much, if not more than when he first arrived?” and then I start thinking “how do I give my second one all the same chances and opportunities and attention that I gave to Henry?”

I’m convinced I’ll wake up one day to a house full of teenage boys thinking “where did my babies go?”

Sorry if I sound sappy, maybe it’s just the mood I’m in. Or maybe I’m forcing myself to think like this so that I can handle more properly those moments of toddler meltdown. Yes, Henry’s been a tad whiny and dramatic this week, desperate for his mommy and daddy, crying for no reason, dropping to the ground and screaming bloody murder for a reason we can’t quite understand since he can’t tell us what’s frustrating him yet. Thinking how quickly my kid is growing makes me put those bad moments into perspective. Yeah a toddler freakout sucks, but they won’t last long and soon I’ll be longing for the days when Henry would cry because he wants to be held by us tightly.

hey ladies

Road tripping with a toddler January 22, 2013

Last weekend Chris, Henry and I went on a last minute road trip down to Watertown NY to do some cross border shopping. We had been talking about it for a few weeks and decided to just go. We knew going there and back in one day would not be a great idea for Henry and it wouldn’t give us our duty allowance of $200 each for over 24 hours so we decided to overnight there.

Now if you don’t know me well, let me fill you in on something about my personality. When it comes to travel, I’m an overplanner. I try and anticipate everything. I’ll write up lists and then more lists of things to pack, places to go, how to break up the day/handle the travel. I get a kick out of it. You can imagine how crazy I go for planning travels with Henry. I even have a board on pinterest for family travel tips. I’m obssessed with making things go smoothly. Heck, I’m already planning Henry and the baby’s packing list for a family trip we’re taking  on my mom’s side in December 2013. I’ll email Chris with new tips or packing items and I’ll get a “woah there!!!” response.

Anyways, I was a bit under my comfort level when we decided at the last minute to go to Watertown. Everything turned out great but we learned some tips on the trip that I thought I’d share with you.

1. Drive around nap time. Sure Watertown is just 2 hours away but that last 20-30 minutes was tough on the little guy. He cried from the border until Watertown, just tired of being in the car. We had planned the trip around his nap time. We took Henry to his gymnastics class at 8:30 and usually all the energy he spends there just wipes him out that he’s asleep by 10am. Well my little guy likes to be contrarian so of course he stayed up and chit chatted with us for as long as possible. Eventually sleep won, but it was definitely not long enough. I can just imagine how rough a drive it would have been had we gone during his “awake” time. I’d also suggest here that if you’re travelling during awake time, try and stop every hour-ish so your kid can just run around. It’s good for you to stretch your legs as well, especially if pregnant.

2 . Splurge more on a suite and bring duct tape (ok, so this is my friend Courtenay’s suggestion, the one of Price Matching fame, but it was such a good tip, I have to share it). Henry goes to bed early. Usually by 7pm he’s out. We didn’t want to have to hide out in a hotel bathroom from 7pm onwards, whispering because our little guy was sleeping in the room. So we did a bit of research and Courtenay actually suggested that we check out the Hilton Garden Inn, since their suite description said “separate bedroom” .  When we got there, they told us that there is a separate bedroom area but no door. It’s basically a living room, then mini hallway with a kitchenette and bathroom then the bedroom. We decided to take it anyways since it was the last suite and we didn’t want to drive around looking for something else. We also got lucky and got a rebate simply because we work for the government. We didn’t even have to be on official business, she just said if we have a card saying we worked for the government, she’d knock $20 off the room. Score! So the duct tape part comes into play if you still want to cordone off an area. Given there was no door, we duct taped a blanket to the living room entrance and voila! Instant seperator. When Henry went down for good, we still had access to the bathroom, fridge and bedroom without having to tip toe around. It also helps that we brought our sound machine to help him sleep as well.

3. Shop in stages. Basically, make sure that one person can devote their energy to your kid while the other one shops. Chris wanted to find shoes so I made sure Henry was distracted enough so that Chris could focus on his quest for the elusive size 14. And then when it came time for stuff I wanted, Chris took care of Henry. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of Henry the entire time on my own, as the day progressed, that short nap was becoming more and more apparent as Henry got crazy manic in a few department stores. Chris ended up letting him run around in aisles just to burn off some energy.

4. Sometimes it’s best to order room service at the end of a long day. This is a lesson Chris knew ahead of time but I needed to learn the hard way. He suggested that we stay in after our long day of travel and shopping and just order room service. I had wanted to go out for dinner. We compromised and went down to the hotel restaurant. BIG MISTAKE! Henry was too far gone by then. He wouldn’t sit still, wanted to run around, he just was at the end of his energy rope. I had to go ask our waitress if we could actually take our order in our bedroom. Luckily the staff there was very understanding and brought up our meals right away. We ended up eating in our room watching Aladdin and Henry settled down quickly. Then Chris and I spent the rest of the evening glued to cable tv watching Storage Wars. Ahh the perks of cable! (something we don’t have).

5. Plan an activity for your child. This is something we didn’t really do, unless you count running around like a maniac in Target an activity. I think it would have been good to bring Henry’s bathing suit for the hotel pool, just to get him to do something exclusively for him. Well, next time we’ll know. I’d add plan quiet times as well. We were in go-go-go shopping mode at one point and it got to be too much, so having just some one on one quiet time to unwind for Henry would also have been good for him.

6. Pack snacks, drinks and perhaps a toy or two. We never bring a bag full of toys for Henry. He’ll always find something to play with. This time he played mostly with the hotel stationary, his new hat and a pen. But occasionally he got bored with these so I brought a train and a ball for him to have fun with. I imagine as he gets older, I’ll have to put a bit more thought in the toys we bring but for now, anything he can get his hands on is interesting to him. As for the snacks, well, Henry can be pretty difficult food wise, so having a variety of foods was good for us since he seems to be off Shreddies and back on cheerios.

Both Chris and I forgot to bring our cameras. I took one picture with my blackberry of Henry and the hat he chose (and refused to take off for the entire weekend) but then had to turn it off since the battery was dying. Highlights of the trip, Chris got two pairs of shoes and a kindle for pretty cheap. I got some shoes as well and some maternity clothes. We got a bunch of spring/summer clothes for Henry for uber cheap at Kohls. Got some fabric even though Chris said I couldn’t buy anymore until I got rid of my current stash. Chris got some beer and when we crossed the border and he declared he had 7 beers, they let us go through without paying duty which was pretty sweet since Henry was fast asleep and having to be referred to secondary would have definitely woken him up.  We ate at Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans while there and got to sample the deliciousness of buttermilk biscuits. I wish more restaurants in Canada offered those. They’re like crack! I also kind of fell in love with Target and can’t wait for it to get to Canada. At first I was unimpressed but as we progressed through the store, I warmed up to it more and more. They have such nice things!

Anywho, a bit of a long post. But thought we’d share those tips for others planning a road trip.

Check out my awesome new hat! (ignore Chris in the background trying to figure out his new kindle)

I’m With Stupid January 15, 2013

Thought I’d do one more post today since I haven’t done any in the past two days.

Lately I’ve been having severe boughts of baby brain. It’s been pretty bad. I know people joke about it but I took it to a new dangerous level the other day when I completely forgot to put my seatbelt on while sitting in the passenger seat. I only realized when we got to our destination and I went to unbuckle myself only to realize it was never buckled. I had a mini freak out imagining all the damage that could have incurred. I seriously need to focus more!

A few weeks ago, we were watching Modern Family and the running joke was how bad Gloria’s baby brain was. I remember telling Chris “that’s just freaking insulting! Pregnant women aren’t that affected!” and then since then, it’s been a steady slow decline for me mentally where I will stand in one spot, frozen, trying to remember what the hell I was doing there in the first place, knowing there’s something in particular I was hoping to do but for the life of me cannot remember.

I like to think it wasn’t this bad with Henry. Well at least I don’t remember it being this bad, but like I said, I don’t remember much these days.

Some examples:

–          I’ve put away milk in the cupboard

–          I’ve filled the ice cube tray then gently placed it in the pantry

–          I’ll be starring at my kindle and wondering aloud “Where’s my kindle?” with Chris saying “you’re kidding right?”

–          I almost walked out of our local coffee shop without paying and had to be reminded by Chris that “we can’t leave without paying!” as he struggled to put Henry’s boots on.

–          After dropping off Henry at daycare last week, I then proceeded to drive myself halfway home before remembering “oh no wait, you have work today!”

–          I’ve driven myself halfway to the park n ride before remembering Henry’s in the backseat. Luckily, if we miss the turn for daycare, he usually speaks up. I’m saddened to say this has happened more than once.

–          I’ve tried jamming our Toyota keys into the Accura and freaked out that the “KEYS DON’T FIT ANYMORE!!! HOW AM I GOING TO GET HOME!!!”

Like I’ve said, this doesn’t count the number of times where I’m just frozen in place wondering what I was about to do. I’m trying to make sure I don’t leave things on that could burn the house down. I don’t iron any clothing anymore (ok, I rarely ironed before, but now I’m making a point not to in case I leave it on). I have to check and recheck what I write or do at work to make sure an email I’m sending out doesn’t include my grocery list or something. Chris says that I should have a piece of paper pinned to my clothes with my name and Chris’ cell phone number just in case I end up wandering lost somewhere.

Oh and I let this happen on my watch:

 

 

I thought the dishwasher would look better in pink

I was making food and knew Henry had a highlighter, knew he was being too quiet and also knew he was leaning up against the dishwasher. Despite all this knowledge, I didn’t clue in that this was what he was doing…

Sometimes You Wanna Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name

I find those lyrics so true. I’d love to find a business where I can walk into and they say “MELINA!!!” I used to dream of becoming a regular in a local pub, where the bartender knew my order and it would be waiting for me. Well nowadays, I’m refocusing those efforts on a local coffee shop near our house. About a 3 minute drive from our place is the “Sippy Cup Café”. It’s a coffee shop/children’s play area. The front is all swanky and modern and great for adults. The backroom is filled with toys and stuff for kids to climb on. Henry loves it and so do we. Henry’s a bit of an early riser on weekend. By the time regular stores are open, say around 10ish (11 on Sundays), Henry’s been up for hours and itching to get out of the house. Luckily the café opens at 8am on weekends. The owner, Preston I believe, is usually there and always cheerful. He’s great with kids too. While we were there on Sunday, there was a little girl who was very very shy, he asked her if she’d like a special stamp on her hand to make her feel better and she said yes. Once she got the stamp, she just loosened up and was playing with Henry and this other little boy.  It’s great that we get to order swanky coffeehouse type drinks and snacks and still supervise and play with our kids since you can order anything from the kid’s side as well. It’s like the best of both worlds.

We were also told that they’re going to be installing a new “date night” program where you can drop your kids off in the playroom with a babysitter and then sit down on the “adult” side and have a 5 course meal and just relax knowing your kid is 20 feet away.  If anyone’s tried having a meal with a toddler in a restaurant, you know that this is a pretty sweet deal.

I’m not at the name recognition phase yet but I saw some regulars get their name called out as they popped in to pick up a coffee for the road so I’ll work on that. Anyways, just wanted to write a post to promote a great local business that “gets” children and their needs but also know that parents like to chill out with a nice latte or hot chocolate before tackling a very long day.

look how delicious this looks! That cinnamon bun did not last long!

the play room.

 

Tunnel time! Henry used to be terrified of this toy, now he loves it.

 

Train time!

 

swinging from the play structure.

Hope you can make it out there one day!

 

 

Adventures in Price Matching and Food Making January 12, 2013

Today I took a giant leap and did price matching at the grocery store. I’m now one of those people. I used to get so annoyed being stuck in line behind people who did this but they’re onto something. The discounts are very real.

It all started a few weeks ago when my friend Courtenay was telling a few of us over lunch how she’s started doing this. She gets her flyers on Thursday or Friday, she then goes through the flyers to see the good deals and meal plans for the week around these savings. Usually by Sunday morning she’s off to the Real Canadian Superstore on Eagleson and price matching away. Last weekend she saved $50! I was sold! (and so were a few other people around the table).  We asked Courtenay for a sort of crash course on price matching. On Friday, she printed out flyers for us and at lunch she gave us a bunch of tips.

1- Join the facebook group “Ottawa Coupon Swap & Price Matching”. These people do most of the work for you. Every week, they upload a spreadsheet which lists pretty much all the deals in the Ottawa region, including Gatineau. On this spreadsheet will also be applicable coupons and whether or not the deal is “hot”. Courtenay gets this list every week and trims it down to what she wants.

2. It’s good to go through the flyers yourself to see if there are deals missing from the spreadsheet. If you just get local flyers delivered at home (or in our case, we get none), you can download the iPhone/iPad app “Reebee” that will upload all the flyers for Ottawa (minus the Gatineau ones which you’d have to go to their own website to check out their flyers)

Getting ready to get my Price Matching on…

My trimmed down spreadsheet. Henry helped decorate it for me. I added the remainder of my grocery list at the bottom.

 

3. Most foods you can price match at the cash but if you want to price match meat, you have to bring the flyer to the meat counter and they’ll print out a new sticker for the item you selected. I did that today with a pork shoulder roast. I found a deal selling it for $1 a pound. The roast was originally $10.93 but with my new found price matching skills, I got it for $4.05! How awesome is that!

4. When you go to pay, pick your cashier carefully. I chose to go with a bored looking teenager who didn’t seem to care one way or another whether I was price matching or not. She was so bored, I didn’t even have to show her the flyers individually, I just read off the spreadsheet the sale price and the store it was matching with and she just punched in the new price. It was so easy. Sometimes you’ll get a hard ass who insists on seeing every single flyer but I got lucky. I told Chris afterward “jeez, it was so easy, I should have told her everything was like $0.25”.

5.  Courtenay mentioned something called “Scanning Code of Practice” which the Superstore honours. Basically if you purchase something on sale at the store and the scanner doesn’t read it properly and charges you the original price, if you point it out, they have to give you the item for free. How cool is that? I was watching the sales items we were buying like a hawk but alas, no scanner error.

Anyways, with all these tips, I ended up getting about 9 items to price match since I had done a fairly large shop a few days earlier at Costco. Anyways on those 9 items, I save almost $22! It was great! Such a high feeling.

When we got home, we went into freezer meal making mode and made a ton of food. I can wait to try these:

Chicken Tortilla Rollups

The filling inside the rollups. Chicken, cheese, yogurt, salsa, corn, green onions, garlic. All equals YUM!

 

We also made some crock pot ready meals to freeze including Chicken Alfredo, BBQ spare ribs and Teriyaki Pork Chops. Add this to the pizza dough, lasagnas and meat balls we made last weekend and we’re on quite the roll!

Look at all those ready to cook meals!

 

Here I am showing off my “Price Matching” receipt and all the meals we made. The pink highlight is for everything we price matched or that was on sale at the store already (and apparently some free promo for Shreddies, Henry’s new favorite snack)

We have more meals we plan on making tomorrow including Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Pasta Shells, Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Casserole, Cinnamon Buns and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

I’m looking forward to more price matching endeavors in the future!

And now, since this blog is supposed to be about kids, here’s a pic of Henry reorganizing the pantry.

Oh eh, how’s it going. The way you have these cans set up are really not Feng Shui

You and Daddy look a little parched. Have a club soda!

 

 

Adventures in poop (by chris) January 9, 2013

So Melina wants me to recount my evening with Henry:

Before going to bed I asked Henry if he wanted to go potty and he said yes.  So I sit him on the potty only to discover he already has a dirty diaper.  I sit him on there anyway.  He is happy and has a bowl of shreddies to munch on.  He then grabs some toilet paper and decides to shove it in the toilet.  He changes his mind and pulls it out.  By this point it has been smeared in poop so he decides it would be perfect to use to wipe his nose.  I yell no and he then changes his mind and shoves it in his bowl of shreddies.  It was then I decided it was shower time.

The really funny part is after I had put Henry to bed I am recounting the story to Melina, when I finish Henry all of a sudden says Noooo from his bedroom as if to say thats not what happened at all.

In other news I decided to treat Henry to a true Canadian experience tonight:

It started off with fun in the swing in a snowsuit

And then moved on to some BBQ in January

The yummy results

Big Time Nesting January 8, 2013

The nesting phase of my pregnancy has hit me pretty hard and fairly early this time around. With Henry it started after the holidays as well, but I had about a month left of my pregnancy at the time. I’m not sure if I just mentally prepared myself for “after the holidays” again.

I’ve become obsessed with rehauling the entire way we live. I want to organize everything in the house, make Martha Stewart proud. I think my post the other day about all the stuff I wanted to do kind of spurred me on. Only problem is that I don’t know if I can wait until I’m off work. This weekend, I’m hoping to go through our pantry and fridge and make an inventory like I did for our freezer. I want to make sure we’re not always getting more of the same stuff we never eat (I’m looking at you Breton crackers!).

Another thing I’m hoping to do is start price matching when grocery shopping. I think I’ve managed to convince my friend Courtenay to show me the secret world of Price Matching and Coupon Using. She has an entire process that she goes through in which I’m hoping I can tag along and take notes. Heck, maybe I could convince her to do a guest post? (you reading Courtenay?).  I’ve always been interested in trying this out, but I think the nesting feeling I’m having, plus the fear of knowing that someday in the near future, I will be feeding two teenage boys has made me want to save as much money while grocery shopping.

 

I’ve mentioned wanting to prepare Henry’s new room. Which I will wait until I’m off work since I’d like to only work on it once new flooring is in. Only problem is that right now, it’s a guest bedroom/dumping ground. We’ve been using the closet in there for years as where we store our luggage, fans, boxes of office crap, my wedding dress. It’s also where we put a bunch of tools and supplies while doing the bathroom renovations. So basically, the whole room as to be emptied before we prepare Henry’s room. Meaning we have to make room for all that stuff elsewhere.  We have a storage room in the basement, we just have to organize it. Like Tim Gunn from Project Runway would say, we have to “Make it Work!” I know we can do it, we’ll just have to be smarter about our storage solutions.

We also have a closet under our stairs on the main floor that’s kind of awkward to get in and out of. It’s where we keep our cleaning supplies, dog food, random stuff. I’d love to be able to turn it into a workable space. Put things there that we rarely use. Heck, maybe we could put our luggage there?

I was at Staples a few days ago and wandered into the Martha Stewart section and she had so many things to create your own “organizing binder”. I was in love, until Chris pointed out “that’s kind of useless, that’s time you could spend on actually organizing your life”… I think he saw the lust in my eyes and wanted to stop it in it’s tracks.

This photo has nothing to do with nesting but its too cute not to put in

Ahh Canadian Winters January 6, 2013

Henry’s learning this year what it means to be Canadian. We’ve decided to no longer coddle the boy and make him earn his keep.

Heave Ho! Heave Ho! (ok, part of me wants to start singing that song from les Miz “Look Down”)

 

Ok, not really, he just saw his daddy doing it and wanted to copy him. I looked everywhere while off on holidays for a little toy shovel but it seems like every other parent in Kanata had the similar idea of putting their kids to work. Luckily we have this emergency shovel that we got a few Christmases ago from my mom that is perfect Henry height.

Why do we push snow from one place to another? Also, why do our neighbors have a giant tractor to do this job?

 

Wait, are you taking pictures of this for your blog?

 

That’s it, we’re done here. My lawyer was quite clear on the whole picture thing mom.

 

It wasn’t all work though, we were clearing the driveway so that we could mosey over to Ikea and return a mirror I had bought. It was way to big for our bathroom, so Chris is going to have to wait a little longer until we find the perfect mirror/vanity combo for our freshly renovated bathroom. While there, we decided to reward Henry for all his hard work this morning.

So you’re saying this is dairy? Why the hell do I keep drinking milk like a sucker?

 

every time he’d pull away with a bite in his mouth, he’d get really vocal and say “hmmmmm” like he was in frogurt heaven.

 

I guess I could update on what we’ve done this weekend as well. Chris made some lasagnas and meatballs to freeze for when the baby arrives. We also reorganized our freezers to make more room since I plan on making a few more dishes (thank you pinterest for all the inspiring freezer meal ideas).

Chris and I had wanted to see Les Miserables since we saw the preview for it a few months ago online. Chris’ parents offered to come over and babysit Henry to give us a night out. We went to Mongolian Village (yummy!) and then went to the movies. I forgot how crazy busy theaters are on Saturday nights and how little parking there is at Kanata Centrum. Such poor urban planning there. We were pleasantly surprised to be sitting one chair away from family friends the Highams and The Lennys who had tried to go see Lincoln but it was sold out. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the movie since I’ve never seen the actual musical. I knew there would be at least one sad song given the preview but I didn’t think I’d be repeatedly punched in the emotions for a solid 20-30 minutes after her “I dreamed a dream” song. There were quite a few times I had to hold myself back from sobbing. I like to blame it more on the pregnancy hormones though rather than I’m an overemotional buffoon. I would highly recommend it to everyone but bring Kleenex.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 weeks of work left, but who’s counting? January 4, 2013

For the longest time I had planned on taking only 3 weeks off of work (using my annual leave) before starting my maternity leave. My reasoning was that with Henry, for whom I had taken a whole month of leave, I was climbing the walls with cabin fever by the end of week 2. I used to think “Thank god he came 8 days early!” So this time around, I thought that if I take 3 weeks, if the baby comes early, I’ll have two weeks off and might not suffer the same cabin fever.

Well after the Christmas holidays, I thought I’d come back to work all refreshed, ready to work until March 22^nd. That feeling lasted all of 3 hours before fatigue caught up and a bad case of numb bum! Sitting in an office chair all day can cause serious numbness! I’m constantly shifting from side to side in my chair and the padded cushion I have to sit on is doing nothing. I get up and walk around as much as I can, but if I sit longer than 10 minutes, that feeling returns. Anyways, after the 3^rd or 4^th bout of numb bum (I just like saying that), I pulled out my annual leave report and started doing some heavy math. After some deliberation, I’ve decided to take an additional week off, totaling 4. So now my last day of work will be March 15^th.

I feel a lot better having made that decision. I kept telling myself to save some vacation time for when I return since I’ll be coming back to work when Little Bean is 11 months old (since Chris is taking a month of parental leave at the beginning with me). My plan was to tack on an additional 2 weeks at the end to return when he’s 11 ½ months. But then I started thinking “will 2 weeks really make a huge difference in his adaptation to daycare?” I don’t think it will. Henry adapted so quickly to daycare that I quickly realized I was the one who had hang ups about him going there.

So now that I have an extra week, here’s what I’d like to do with that time.

1- Prepare Henry’s new big boy room. I’ve been going a tad crazy on Pinterest looking for inspiration. I want to find something he can grow up with, that won’t look ridiculously childish in a year or two. I’m leaning toward a woodland type décor, mainly because I bought a really nice duvet at Ikea for his bed and want to use that as a launching board for the rest of the room.

Isn’t it cute? It’s also reversible

2- make some baby stuff for Little Bean. Right before Henry, I had made all these knit clothing and little sewing projects for him. I’d like to do the same for Little Bean. I want him to have things made specifically for him.  I’ll probably make him his own quilt as well.

3- remove all the carpet in the house and replace it with hardwood or laminate flooring. Right now, the only carpeted areas left in our house are the stairs and the 2^nd floor. The carpets are white and worn down. We’re planning on hiring someone to do it (In case you thought my 8 month pregnant self would be doing this) but someone would need to be home while it’s happening. I’d like to actually have this done in the first week off.

4- Cook a bunch of meals to freeze. I had made a few last time and my mom really went above and beyond and brought us so many frozen casseroles that were great on those days where you just wanted to plop something in the oven. I’d like to make a huge batch of casseroles (and hope my mom will make some more… hint hint… 🙂 )

5- SLEEP! I got so busy nesting last time, I didn’t take as many leisurly naps as I could have. Now I know you can’t stock up on sleep, but at least if I take full advantage, I won’t have as many regrets about not having slept before.

6- Sort through baby gear. I’ve already kind of started doing this. On January 1^st I went through all the baby clothes and seperated them by age, weather etc. I had so much fun doing it, I’m looking forward to doing it with toys etc.

7- sneak in a movie or two at stars and strollers –pre baby. I figure if I’m pregnant, they can’t kick me out right?

Speaking of bellies, check this baby out!

Things I had vowed never to do, until I did…. January 3, 2013

I remember when I was pregnant with Henry, I had made this list of things I would never do as a parent. Things that I always secretly judged other parents for doing. Now I’m one of those parents who’s probably being judged by others. Oh well…

My first broken promise: Never bribe your child to get him to do something.

Yeah that one went out the door pretty quickly. I’ve resorted to so many bribes, it’s crazy. Like “hey, if you let me put this giant puff marshmallow snowsuit on you, I’ll give you some chocolate”…. So, pretty much Henry’s entire advent calendar went towards convincing Henry that that snowsuit wasn’t out to swallow him whole. I’m actually slightly panicked about how we’re going to convince him to wear it now.

Second broken promise: Never blackmail your child to get him to do something

If you haven’t noticed yet, there’s definitely a theme to my broken promises. Most, if not all were to get Henry to do (or stop doing) something. I’ve used this one often when we’re heading out in the morning and all of a sudden, we get to the door and he turns and runs back into the house. I’ll say “Ok then, bye bye, have a good day!” and start walking out anyways. He comes running back, freaking out but it gets him to follow me to the car without kicking and screaming.

Third broken promise: Never give in

I try and stick to my guns as often as I can. But sometimes, it’s just sooo much easier to give Henry his milk then listen to him cry for 30 minutes while I calmly try and explain that he’s already had his milk for today. I’m working on this one pretty hard since Chris has been able to stick to this one so I often feel like I’m being a bad parent by giving in. Again though, Henry has a pretty persistent stubborn streak in him (I have no idea where/who he got that from) and if he wants that damn milk, he’s going to let the entire neighbourhood know that he wants it.

Anyways, I’m sure there’s more but these are the three big ones. Please tell me you’ve done the same….

Why would anyone believe you have to resort to these things mom? I’m freaking adorable!