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Walked into Isaac's room the other day and this is what I found.
His explanation? "I was just trying it out, Mom."
Oh, btw, I am not blogging from a hospital bed. As of last Wednesday's appointment, I was 1cm dilated, and Isaac and I are doing great. The doc said that he was "not too small, not too big", and she emphasized that being "average" is definitely a good thing in this situation. She said that I had a really good attitude about being pregnant (I save my whining for Timothy) and about my expectations for the labor and delivery process. She ended the appointment by saying that I was just one of those people that was "made to do this", referring to being pregnant and such, so that's a pretty good endorsement coming from an expert on the subject.My next appointment will be this Wednesday at 3:30...if I make it that long. I'll keep ya posted.
I "had a moment" (aka "bawled my eyes out") tonight when Tim reminded me that this was the last night that he and Alex and I would be alone together as the little family we have come to know over the past three years. Tim's folks are coming to town tomorrow, and my mom will get here on Sunday and stay until after Isaac is born, so it was the last time that we would "officially" have Alex all to ourselves, without other people around, and without his little bro in the mix.
It really marked the end of an era, and it made me especially aware of how time passes and you just can't get it back. That thought just tears me up, and I wish that I could document every second of our lives so that I can relive all of the wonderful moments at any given time because I know so many of the memories will fade away.
I'm also hoping that that realization will help me appreciate the difficult times instead of being so caught up in how hard they are. Like earlier today, for example, when Alex pooped in his underwear at the park and didn't tell me, and we ended up in the Porta-Potty, trying to change his pants without letting them touch the nasty floor and managed to get poop all over his shoes, socks, the floor, and my hand. Bending over for more than 6 seconds is hard enough when you are 9+ months pregnant, let alone when you are trying to remove a three year old's poop-filled underwear in a Porta-Potty that is no less than 100 degrees and reeks like death that's been dipped in a hot vat of human excrement.
So yes, I'm hoping that I will gain a new perspective on how precious even those awful moments are. But right now I am just sad and emotional and I just want my baby to stay two-and-five-sixths forever. I may be singing a different tune tomorrow morning, when I spend twenty minutes getting Alex's breakfast order exactly right, slave over the hot stove to cook it, and serve it only to have him declare, "I need something else". But for now, I can't stop thinking about how life is going to be so different for him and for us, and while I know it will be wonderful and just as special and I am so excited for how the dynamic in our family is going to change for the better, I think I am mourning the passing of this amazing life we have been living over the past three years.
So that's where I am this evening. I plan to sleep off the sad, and by tomorrow I will be ready to start fresh and continue to prepare for the next wonderful phase of this life. Family of four, here we come!!
We moved Alex into his "big boy room"...I don't know...6 months ago...? And I am just now getting around to posting pictures of it. Imagine that.
We decided to go all out with a train theme, hoping his excitement about living with trains would thwart any anxiety over moving out of his old room (and more to the point, over letting his little brother move into his old room). Luckily, A is really good at adapting to things and has transitioned really well to almost every new thing we've thrown at him. This was no exception.
About 60% of what came out of the playroom went into Alex's closet. I am trying desperately to prevent Alex from being a complete slob, to convince him that cleaning is fun and important and that each of his things has a "home" that it belongs to and "friends" that it wants to be with. To that end, I have added little tags to many of his toy bins and his drawers so he will look forward to cleaning up because I am sick.to.death of doing it myself. So far, it has worked, but I am just waiting for the novelty to wear off and I'll have to go back to cracking the whip.
Isaac's room is finally in move-in condition, too, so I wanted to post a few pictures before he takes up residence and it's never seen in this pristine condition again. We wanted to recycle the green furniture that my dad had made for Alex's room, but I didn't want to do the same old dots and stripes stuff that we did for Alex. So we decided on a vintage cowboy theme (when in Texas...) incorporating greens and browns instead of traditional red and blue bandana paisley and fringe. Yeehaw.
So each boy officially has a space to call his own, although I'm sure they will be encroaching on each other's territory before we know it. With any luck, they won't take cues from Murphy and start peeing on their own door frames to keep the other one out...but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
I know, I know, Easter was, like, two months ago, blah, blah, blah, but my choices are to post these pictures now or not at all, so here goes.This year, instead of doing a "traditional" Easter egg hunt, the Easter Bunny left Alex a series of clues that contained riddles he had to solve in order to find each of his eggs and baskets. It was super fun and Alex loved it, so if the Easter Bunny agrees, I think this may become a new tradition for the Evans family. I had Timothy take video of the event (which I haven't uploaded yet, of course) because I was too busy reading clues and running from room to room with A to take any pictures. I wanted to post some pictures of the clues so the whole scenario would make more sense (which is the main reason this post has been on the back burner for so long), but I never got around to taking any. And that's the story of my life these days...We were running late after all of that morning's shenanigans and had to rush off to church before we could get any pics of A in his Easter clothes. We convinced him to pose for a few when we got back, just so we'd have some record of the day. By that point, he was hungry, tired, and not entirely cooperative as evidenced by his grumpy face. But hey, beggars can't be choosy. 
His mood improved a little when we let him show off one of his Easter basket finds.
It was a good Easter, and I wish I had posted about it earlier so I could remember more details. Maybe I'll do better next year. Ya know, when I have two kids to chase around...
I have heard people talk about letting your kid run around outside naked while you're trying to potty train, and while I don't entirely understand how letting him pee on the grass accomplishes anything other than training him to pee on the grass, I decided not to argue with Alex a few weeks ago when he wanted to run around outside without any pants on. I also let him pick out the rest of his outfit, and apparently he felt as if one should compensate for one's lack of pants by adding a hat.
The only way that I found the "potty training outside" method effective is that I was able to get Alex excited about the prospect of watering the bushes and trees, so at least he was able to recognize when he had to go and run to the tree in time to pee on it. At the time, I considered that to be progress.Unfortunately, Alex didn't think that "watering" the tree was sufficient, so he decided to "fertilize" it, too. Yours truly had to handle the cleanup, and that right there pretty much ended our outdoor potty training efforts.p.s. This incident occurred quite a few weeks ago. Since then, A has taken great strides when it comes to going "pee-pee on the potty". He is now able and willing to pee into the pot whenever he has to go, and he can keep his "big boys" (aka big boy underwear) dry all day. "Poo-ing" in the potty has proven to be more of a challenge, but we are confident that he'll catch on...eventually. 'Til then, we decided we'll just let him out to do his business in the backyard like Murphy so we don't have to change dirty diapers.
Alex has never "loved" the sprinkler (or pools or water in general) but he LOVES to be outside, and he is slowly warming up to the idea of playing in the water to cool off after running around in the yard.
As opposed to most women's attitude towards being pregnant in the summer, I actually love it. In my opinion, the less clothing you have to wear while pregnant, the better. Here's another recent "belly picture" for those interested in such things. 
Tim came home, took one look at me and said, "1991 called. They want their Umbros back." My response? "They're Mitres, butthead. If you're going to insult me, at least be accurate."
