Gramma's comin' home and so are we!

MUCH thanks to all of that have prayed for an inquired about my gramma's health.

The very good news is that gramma is flying home this weekend! She's stable enough to fly and from all reports has recovered quite well. She's talking and joking, eating solids, off all medical equipment, and her scans are clear. YAY! Praise the Lord for caring for her and sticking right by her side during such a lonely and scary situation.

Upon her return, gramma will go directly to the hospital for assessment and then we'll learn a lot more.

Chloe and I are flying "home" to Milwaukee early tomorrow morning to try to help out and to smother my gramma and mom with hugs and love. I can't wait to give my gramma a big kiss!

We'll be staying in Milwaukee for about 10 days and I'll have computer access so I'll try to keep things posted so I don't lose my faithful readership. :) Please pray that we have safe travel tomorrow, that Chloe transitions well to the new surroundings and is flexible, and that Matt will get lots of studying done while we're away (and also that he doesn't break any of my dishes trying to cook for himself).

Anyone have a private jet and a visa for me to borrow?

Please join me in prayer for my dear gramma. She's in China right now on vacation and is suffering from some sort of infection or virus. I wish I could just hop on a plane and be a medical advocate for her!

We're finding out the details slowly and still unsure of her condition. Please pray specifically that she'll be able to see a doctor asap while in China and that they'll be able to give her appropriate medicines.

Thank you! As you can imagine, we're all feeling very helpless right now. But I know that my gramma is cradled in the Lord's hands and I trust Him for her safety.

A red-letter day for me

This seems like such a silly thing to post but something's telling me you might identify and empathize with me on this.

I'm usually a consistent stainer of my apparel. This clutzy tendency of mine seems to heighten during pregnancy due to the presence of my food-catching burgeoning belly.

Two days ago I rifled through my maternity wardrobe (which is much bigger now thanks to my dear marmee!) and chose a cute baby doll white shirt. I hesitated as I pulled it off the hanger. "WHITE shirt, Alicia?", I thought to myself, "Are you crazy? You'll have this puppy stained in less than an hour."

Not so, daddy-o! I managed to keep my shirt stain free until bedtime!!! (I did manage one teensy-weensy toothpaste liquid stain that was hardly noticeable so I'm not counting it.)

I think Chloe's inherited my stain-affinity. Seems like every day I'm spritzing her clothes with spray-n-wash or soaking something in oxyclean. Now I'm curious, what do you use for stain removal?

(By the way, I did NOT wear the shirt pictured above. I just think it's hilarious. Kelly should get a math-kick out of it.)

A partial evening of quiet

Tonight, Matt whisked Chloe away for a special date night. Yay for some peace and quiet so I can get some computer work done! And eat some homemade brownies. :)

This past summer Matt attempted to give me one Chloe-free day a week. It was great to have a few hours to myself to sew, to work online, or to read in a quiet house. Of course, I also smiled inwardly at those Chloe-free mornings. I was still the one to wake with Chloe, feed her breakfast, and get her ready. Matt then took her somewhere for a few hours and then came home for lunch. And inevitably Matt would forget something and be back after they were already out the door. :) Not that I'm complaining, it just makes me grin to think of how much I do automatically that Matt isn't used to thinking about.

Does your hubby give you some kid-free time regularly? It's been very sweet to see the relationship between Chloe and her daddy blossoming. As she gets older, I'm going to totally push for them to have a weekly bonding time. Something special that is set aside just for them.

Calgon, take me away

Somehow, today zapped me of vim and vigor. Chloe and I both slept late (8:30!) and after a slow start, got ready in a hurry for storytime at the library. After that we went to a park, then a pal's house for lunch and a playdate. Then we headed home for naps. I say naps because I was as much in need of some zzzz's as Chloe was.

But sadly, Chloe is entering a give-up-napping phase and today she slept a mere 45 minutes. I was such a grumpy bear when I was aroused prematurely from my siesta!

Thankfully, I have a loving and understanding husband with a flexible teacher schedule. :) He was home this afternoon and pushed me back into bed to finish my nap. We had an easy supper of leftovers and a nice family walk to conclude the evening.

And now I'm ready for a bath and an early bedtime. Ahh . . . The simple luxury of an aromatic bath puts my whole self at ease. I'm itching to get up there and do a crossword puzzle as I soak in the sudsy bubbles.

What do you treat yourself to when you've had a long day or need a special pick me up?

Smiley faces

I've realized lately that I've strayed a bit from the focus of this blog - Chloe Abigail Horn. Oops! It's been way too much fun chatting with you all about pregnancy and organic deli meat.

Besides saying "no" to everything she possibly can (I'm getting a wee bit tired of this negative phase), Chloe's been very into drawing lately. Her latest challenge is to draw a smiley face. Not sure where she got that idea, but recently every drawing she does is a smiley attempt.

I was so impressed with the smiley face she drew on her easel yesterday, that I was compelled to take a photo of her with her smiling masterpiece. (I know, I'm an over-zealous-photographing- first-time-mom. But I couldn't help it!)

But wait - it gets better still! I dashed out after supper last night to do my swimming and when I came home, Chloe had drawn me a special picture. You guessed it, a smiley face! Matt said he had suggested that Chloe draw me a picture and she proudly announced, "I draw smiley face for mommy!" and then went to work. Awwwwwwwww.

What do your kids like to draw/color/paint these days?

And the winner is . . . .

Jenny Muth! Jenny hit the nail on the head with her guess of $29.99 for the box of 30 personalized fruit roll-ups. Way to go, girl! With shipping these customizable fruity snacks would have cost 38 bucks. What a crazy extravagant world we live in.

Thanks to all of you who guessed at my silly contest. It was fun to see how low most of your guesses were. :)

Pregnancy update

Here's my personalized pregnancy cartoon courtesy of BabyGaga. Thankfully we don't come into contact with too many strangers these days so I don't get nearly as many pregnancy questions as I did with Chloe. I think God helped increase my patience meter during those overly-personal-questions-from-strangers-days. Why do people think a pregnant lady is open territory for interrogation? I remember one co-worker asking me after every doctor's appointment how much weight I had gained. And another stranger stopped me one time to tell me all the gory details of her breast-feeding experiences. What weird questions have you had from strangers who gaze at your pregnant belly?

Yesterday I had my 6 month appointment though I'm technically just 23 weeks. Everything's right on so far and the baby is looking healthy. My weight gain has been normal but I'm measuring 3 weeks ahead (boy was I shocked when the tape measure read 26!). Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I'll deliver 3 weeks early. Aw, shucks. According to my midwife, measuring big means:

1. I'm carrying high,
2. The baby is still in breech position (as he was at our ultrasound last week) and throwing off the measurement, or
3. I'm carrying a monstrously huge baby again.

Did any of you measure big/ahead?

I'm feeling good though much more tired with this baby than with Chloe. I've been taking naps galore and sleeping as late as possible. I'm still swimming laps 4 times a week and am feeling stronger. I'm guessing I should add some more laps to my regimen, but I want to be careful not to overdo it.

We're pretty much decided on the name now but I'll leave you hanging until another post . . . bwoo-wah-ha-ha! I'll give you a hint, it begins with a C. (Karis: you're not allowed to tell yet).

How much would you pay for customizable fruit roll-ups?

I know, strange question. But, I recently won a free box of these crazy things via GoodyBlog and after punching in my coupon code, I was astonished at their regular price.

Here's the deal, you go to the My Fruit Roll-ups website, and you can choose various graphics (and there are loads to choose from) or type messages to have printed on your fruit roll-ups. You can choose a color/flavor also. Each box contains 30 of your personalized fruity snacks. A clever idea to be sure!

That's the info, now for your price guesses (no fair peeking at the website first). How much do you suppose a box of 30 costs? For the lucky blogger with the closest guess, I'll send you one of our butterfly/lady bug roll-ups! If that isn't motivation, I don't know what is. :)

Another grocery question

Many thanks to all who commented on my last grocery shopping question! It was extremely interesting to read your comments and to observe how many of you buy the same grocery staples as I.

Since so many of you listed "deli lunch meat" as a weekly staple, my little brain started pondering a new question. How many of you purchase nitrite/nitrate/antibiotic-free lunch meat? I used to, but soon found it to be too expensive. (And now that I'm in my second trimester, my strongest snack cravings have been for good old-fashioned salami and cheddar cheese. Guess this boy needs his protein and fat!) I mean, at $9 a pound, we just can't afford to buy the good natural stuff every week.

So, what do you opt for at the deli counter?

Grocery list mainstays

While grocery shopping the other day, the notion struck me that my grocery list is pretty much the same each and every week. (You all probably already realized this about yourself; I'm just a slow learner).

Constants on my weekly list include: spinach, carrots, broccoli, avocados, pretzels, yogurt, wheat crackers, and bananas. Regardless of the season, we always get those items weekly.

Now I'm curious. What are your weekly grocery staples?

Taking a potty break

This week seems like the beginning of mine and Chloe's fall school semester. :) This week our weekly Bible study starts up and we go back to swimming four times a week. We also have an outing planned for Wednesday - a desperate last attempt to find second-hand shoes for Chloe (if anyone knows of any online deals for toddler shoes, please enlighten me!). So, potty-training is going to take a backseat on those days.

Many thanks to all who posted pottying advice and encouragement! Last week was a long haul and my mind is ready to stop analyzing this pottying madness.

Overall, I'd say last week was trying yet profitable. It seems this potty-training jazz is going to be a month-long process so I'm happy that we had a strong start. Chloe sat on the potty oodles of times and actually went on the potty thrice during our 4 day stint. Having diarrhea didn't help matters and made for uncomfortable and messy accidents. She definitely knows now when she's going and can verbally tell me so. We just don't always make it to the potty on time! We did most of our training without a diaper/pull-up/undies on. That seemed to help Chloe identify when she was going and I certainly saw the accidents quickly. :) What's funny to me is that when I put a diaper back on her during our "break" days, she didn't talk to me at all about pottying. It was like she reverted back to diaper days thinking. Her mind was free to focus on the important toddler issues of life - namely playing.

Another negative in our training process has been Chloe's recent extremely negative attitude. Just last night she spurted out the dreaded phrase, "I don't want to". NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I thought my angel child would never say such things to me! Ok, I know I'm in parenting denial right now but that is one of my bug-a-boos. She's also discovering the beauty of the word no lately and forgetting her "no" manners (she's supposed to say "no, thank you" or "no, sir" or "no, mom").

Chloe's much maligned potty chart is pictured at left. I guess I put it too low on the fridge because she's obviously been at those stickers and one heart is missing. Toddler angst I guess!

Drumroll please . . .

Amidst our potty-training madness, we had our ultrasound yesterday afternoon! Truthfully, I was in such a potty-training-fog that I didn't focus on the excitement of it until I was belly up on the the ultrasound table.

Matt and Chloe came along and I'm SO GLAD I prepped Chloe ahead of time. She did a fabulous job and was so adorable as she parroted the ultrasound tech. "There baby head!" she'd say seconds after the technician pointed it out. And then Chloe would point to her own head. Needless-to-say, she didn't totally get what was going on.

I guess I was less moved by this ultrasound just because we've already been-there-done-that. And I always feel like I'm squinting trying to figure out what alienish shapes are which baby body parts (and usually I guessed wrong). Why don't ultrasound techs tell you every thing they're doing?!? We did ask some questions but I almost felt sheepish as if I was interrupting the tech's work by doing so.

Long story longer, we found out our baby's gender! And boy, were we surprised!

That's right, we're birthing a little baby boy this time around (did you figure that out already?)!

Since I am carrying this baby just like I did Chloe, Matt and I thought we were certainly having another girl. We had even picked out a girl's name. So, now we have to do a mental shift. The more the idea sinks in, the more excited we're getting! Of course, I'm clueless as to what you do with a boy. Be assured, I will tap into you bloggers for boy advice!

On the way home from the ultrasound, we started talking about boys' names. (We're mostly decided but we're still talking it through). From the backseat Chloe piped up, "How about Sue?" I suppose we could call him Sue and then teach him to fight as the song goes . . .

Just something silly

I'm not going to complain about the ups and downs of our potty training day #3. Instead I'm going to show you this silly video that made me laugh and decompress after a hard day's work. (Warning: the music is not mac & beth lynch style).

The title of the song is "Here it goes again"; very appropriate in describing Chloe's bodily functions today. :)

Click here to see the lego version.

The good, the bad, the messy, and the impatient

And so begins the saga of our potty training adventure.

I decided over the weekend that we'd dive in to potty training this week. My gym's pool is closed for cleaning all week so this week was opportune. I decided to keep the calendar free of play-dates and outings so we could focus hard core on potty training.

Full of naive excitement and hopeful expectation, we began our potty quest on Tuesday morning. I let Chloe play sans-diaper and I watched her like a hawk. I put her on the potty seat every 20-30 minutes and tried to make it a fun time for her. We read books, sang songs, played games, did crafts, colored, you name it we did it on the potty! After 2 accidents, Chloe finally did her business on the potty right before naptime. I made a huge deal of her success and explained at length what she was accomplishing. We've been watching a dvd from the library called Potty Power so Chloe knew just what to do after going potty. She waved at her production, flushed, and then we washed our hands.

After this initial success, I put her in undies after she woke from her nap. She proudly styled her Nemo undies and kept lifting her shirt to look at him. It was so cute! She held her potty in until bedtime and then it was diaper time again.

Day #2 was not so successful or rewarding. In fact, it was really really hard. Seemed like everything wasn't going our way today. I gave Chloe a bit more "freedom" from the potty seat, put her in undies, and instructed her to tell me when she had to go. BAD IDEA. She proved to me she's not got enough control over her bodily functions to move to that step yet. Five accidents later (some very messy), I was in tears and ready to throw in the potty towel. It was obviously a frustrating day for Chloe as well. She did a lot of crying and whining when she had an accident or had to sit on the potty. Did I mention I was thoroughly exhausted, frustrated, and empty of patience by the end of the day?

Looking back on the days events, I can see now that Chloe is certainly ready for potty training. Several times she'd tell me she had to go potty and then as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she'd go. So, I had little or no time to get her to the potty chair. But, the step forward here is that after only one day, she's recognizing that she has to go or is going. I think that's a step in the right direction! Even though it was a frustrating and messy day, that is a definite positive.

Tomorrow I'm going back to my plan for day 1: naked bottom and regular potty sitting intervals. The undies were just too hard to get off in time. And hopefully with more potty sitting, Chloe will have more success than accident (notice I did not say failure). :)

My, oh my, this is hard work! I'm not giving up yet. I'm one stubborn cookie and I'm convinced that Chloe can do this with the proper encouragement and consistency on my part. Am I being a bit too naive here?

Survey says . . .

Saw this fun thingy on Sarah McDaniel's blog and was compelled to try it for our family.

When Chloe was younger, people would constantly say she looked just like me. Indeed, Chloe and my coloring match perfectly. And I didn't get my chub-tart nickname in elementary school for lack of cheeks. :) But, as she grows, more and more folks say she looks like Matt. Her square face and jawline look just like my Matt's.

This look-alike software decided Chloe is an exact 50/50 blend of me and Matt! See how your family rates here at myheritage.com. Happy comparing!

Big day today and big week ahead!

Boy, is Chloe growing up fast! It's awe-striking how she puts thoughts and words together so quickly now. And she continues to amaze us with her memory and powers of observation .

Today was a big day because today was Chloe's very first day of Sunday School! I know, she's still only two so Sunday School is not that huge a deal. But it seemed like a milestone of sorts as we walked past all the nursery rooms to the "classrooms" to drop her off this morning.

The teacher and mom in me was filled with curiosity as I closed the door to the classroom. What do they do with 2 year olds in an actual class? After the service, we headed to Target and I drilled Chloe about her class.

Surprisingly, Chloe answered my questions with unexpected clarity. She told me two of her teachers' names (she must really like Mr. Jim because she had several pretend phone conversations with him tonight), that Mr. Jim played the guitar, that they sang Jesus Loves Me, and that they watched a movie with songs. She also came away with two Bible coloring pages to do during the week.

This week will be a big week for our family as well. Tuesday is reading comprehensive exam #3 of 4 for Matt. He's been studying and reading like a mad dog! I'm sure he'll do a fabulous job but he's in that last-minute-cram-everything-possible-into-your-brain mode right now. So, tomorrow Chloe and I will disappear so he can have as much quiet studying time as possible.

This week is big for another reason; we finally get our ultrasound done on Thursday!!! I'm about 21.5 weeks along now and I'm a-quiver with curiosity to know our new baby's gender. I'm also ansy to pick out a name, get out the boxes upon boxes of baby clothes, and kick our Chloe-preparations into high-gear. We'll be able to bring Chloe in for the ultrasound; did any of you do this? How'd your child/children react to the ultrasound experience?

How's your week shaping up?

(p.s. Forgive my excessive use of hyphens in this post. Matt assures me I used them all correctly.)