Independence

Now that I am staying home with the boys without other children in the house, I have decided that it is time to teach them to do more things on their own, especially wth a new baby coming!  So far they have been completely on board, as both of them frequently use the words, "by myself."  As in, "I wanna turn the light off by myself!"  "I want to put my pants on by myself."  "I want to climb up this ladder by myself!"
Here are a few things we have implemented to promote independence and help our day go smoothly:

1.  Jackson now lets Lady out in the morning when we all go downstairs together and lets her back in.  He also gets a scoop of food for her, dumps it in her tray and then takes her tray to the bathroom sink and fills up the other side with water.  He is very proud of himself for taking care of our dog "all by himself"  and sometimes wants to feed her and let her out more than need be.  :)

2.  Sam changes his own wet diapers.  We are on the brink of potty training, I think. I have not been wanting to start since it was such an ordeal with Jackson, but Sam insists that he "need-a go potty"  all the time, so I bought him some pull-ups to encourage him to practice pulling his pants up and down "by himself," and he does.  He announces he needs to go potty, goes in, pulls the step stool up to the toilet, pulls his pants and pull-up down, steps up there and earnestly tries to go multiple times a day (without success so far).  Then puts his own pull-up and pants back on (with occasional help from mom).  When he is wet, he takes his old diaper and puts it in the diaper trash and gets a new one out of the diaper drawer.  When he is poopy, he is usually very grossed out and comes to tell me immediately, but just in case, I check him before he takes off his diaper every time.  He always announces it before he does this, so I have to chance to check him first.

3.  Jackson can get his own juice. (There is a limit to how many glasses of juice he can have.)  I bought a large container with a spout and put it on a low shelf in the fridge.  I keep it filled with half juice/half water mixture (and sometimes just water) and put cups for Jackson and Sam next to it in the fridge.  When he wants a drink (or his brother does), he serves it "all by himself."  Occasionally he does spill it a little when he gets eager to pull the cup out from under the spout, but I just put a paper towel on the bottom of the fridge and change it out ever so often.  A slightly sticky fridge is worth it so see how happy he is to be a big boy and get his own drink when he is thirsty.  The side issues this also helps with is a) drinking out of a big boy cup instead of a sippy cup, b) keeping drinks in the kitchen only (which in turn helps me not to have to clean up disgusting forgotten sippy cups from all around the house).

4.  Both the boys undress themselves for bath, and while I am dressing Sam after removing him from the tub, Jackson gets his own towel, dries off and gets himself redressed in bedtime attire I set out while runing the bath.  This has dropped 5 minutes off our bedtime routine.  Love it!  (I don't know why I didn't do this one sooner, but I guess I just got into the habit of dressing them both myself.)

5.  Both boys brush their own teeth.  I put the toothpaste on (non-flouride still) and turn on the toothbrushes, then I take a short "turn" after they are done.

6.  Jackson gets his own clothes out of the drawer and clothes for Sam in the morning.  He dresses himself and sets Sam's clothes out for me.  We are working on teaching Sam to dress himself too, but this is where we are at right now.  To make it easier for Jackson to do this, I have showed him which drawer his summer clothes are in, and when I put them in the drawer, I put them together in outfits that match so he doesn't end up dressed crazy.  Eventually, I will teach him how to find clothes in his drawer that match, but he's only almost 4 right now, so that lesson will have to wait until he is older.

7.  Of course, both of the boys are in charge of keeping their own rooms and the playroom clean.  They have to put their toys away at the end of the day, but we have been cleaning up our own messes as part of our preschool day for so long, that they really don't question it.  In fact, Jackson was up later than usual last night, and I was rushing through the bedtime routine and he noticed that he had left a bucket of Tinkertoys out on the floor of the playroom, and before I could read him his bedtime story, he insisted that he needed to clean up his mess.  Jackson also hates when there are toys on the floor of his room at bedtime.  I think they leave scary shadows that he is not used to, so before he will go to bed, he will pick them up himself and put them where they go so that everything casts normal shadows while he is trying to sleep.  :)

8.  Do you have two story house?  Do you find that you are constantly picking things up that need to go upstairs and storing them on the stairs for members of your family to put away?  And how often does that happen?  ;)  In my house, our stairs were always a mess, and I was the only one who would take things up and put them away.  So I instituted a basket system.  There is a basket for me, Ben, and the boys, and every night when we go up for the night, we have to take our own basket up and put the items where they go.  Right now we are doing some home improvements to our living room and dining room area.  Ben is going to replace our carpet with stained concrete floors and put in a mudroom area by our front door.  Our stairs are directly in front of the front door, so when the mudroom is complete, the baskets will be stored on a shelf instead of on the stairs.

Well, that is all I've got so far.  If you have any ideas, I welcome them.  I think one of my newest projects will include an incentive chart for good behavior and chores, but I am still figuring out how I want to do that.

Mother's Day weekend

Me: 16.5 weeks, Mom's Cousin Nancy, and my Aunt Sara

I know this is belated, but for Mother's day weekend a whole group of female members of my family booked a scrapbook retreat in McKinney, TX. We had a blast. The original purpose was to spend as much bonding time as possible with my mom. She has been fighting Stage 4 breats cancer for some time now, and although she is now cancer free again, just a few months ago she had so many tumors in the truck of her body that she had a nasty cough and was really limping around. The chemo takes such a toll on her. Thank goodness she is now done with that non-productive clinical trial and is back in the hands of her miraculously capable doctor. Anyway, here are a few pictures to commemorate how much fun we had!!

The 3 generational group of beautiful ladies all stemming from the Whitis family. :)

And my mother, Mollie Conroy, hard at work, scrapbooking in the crop room.

13 weeks, 2 days, first doctor visit

Monday was my first doctor's visit with baby #3. I applied for pregnancy Medicaid (a joy of living off student loans - primarily) and was accepted, received all my welcome pamphlets and paperwork and was assigned a primary care physician and an OB, but I still had not received my card. I waited and waited and waited and still...no card. I had been waiting to schedule my appt because I can't afford to pay the office visit by myself and I needed my proof of insurance for the doctor to bill it to Medicaid. Finally I couldn't wait any longer. I had been having nightmares of miscarriages and twins and all sorts of crazy things. I needed to hear that heartbeat just to confirm that everything was okay. I went ahead and scheduled my appt hoping I'd get my card in time, and if not, well, I'd just eat it and hope Medicaid would reimburse me. It seems like when I had Jackson my office visits ran around $60-70 each. Nope. $165 for the office visit. OUCH. First visits at my clinic are always with a nurse practitioner and since I was so far along, there was lots to do. I had to have my girly exam first because I hadn't had one since after I had Sam. (I hadn't had insurance.) Then she checked for a heartbeat. After a few scary minutes she found baby, very low, almost behind my pelvic bone. That sound just made me melt. I couldn't help but break into a cheesy smile, and I almost cried. I hadn't realized how anxious I had let myself get. That is so silly because I had been feeling great and Ben had been keeping an eye on me, too, and I should have known everything would be alright. I guess that one miscarriage I had before Jackson always gives me a little panic attack. After a long visit with the nurse practitioner, she sent me to get bloodwork. This clinic does their own lab work, so I just walked down the hall. As I entered the lab and sat down in the designated blood drawing seat, the lab tech asked me, "How would you like to pay?" gulp. huh? "I thought I already did pay, up front." "No," she said, with a grimace, "this is separate. It'll be $240.00" Oh Crap. So what did I do? Shelled out my cc, got the blood drawn, and began my drive home, dreading how I was going to tell Ben what I had just done. Needless to say, he was.not.thrilled. Today's naptime agenda has me calling Medicaid to find out why they are showing that I am not active until May!? And pleading for them to backdate my active status so that somehow I can be reimbursed for the $400.00 I shelled out. I'm trying to look at the bright side: no more nightmares, and I have a confirmation that baby is fine, and so am I.

12 weeks, 2 days

11 weeks, 2 days (This picture was last week.)

I haven't been to the doctor yet. My first appt is on Monday. Those first few appts are uneventful anyway, and I HAVE an OB/GYN trained doctor in my household if I need one, although I am a little anxious to hear the heartbeat and just confirm that everything is fine.

So far I have just been really, really tired. I had some very bad nausea at the beginning, but I started taking my prenatals at night and problem solved. Right now my biggest concern is that I have gained TEN LBS since finding out I was pregnant 7 weeks ago. I always tend to gain more than I should in the beginning, but that still seems like a lot to me. I started exercising at home on my new elliptical at least three times a week for 30 minutes (I normally quit working out during pregnancy because I am just too tired and can't get motivated since I don't see results.), and that seems to have slowed down the weight gain, but it is still rising at a rapid rate.

Maybe I'm just paranoid because I'm overly concerned about gaining after having JUST lost all the weight from Sam? It seems like my belly is measuring a lot bigger than it should at this point tho. I started wearing maternity jeans this week. You could practically hear my jeans squealing in protest every time I squeexed myslef into them. It was becoming painful and I am just not a fan of the open top button/belly band thing. It feels slobbish to me. So it is either stretchy pants or maternity clothes.

Today I took the boys to a doctor appt. As I passed the doctor on the way to the second waiting area, he commented to my husband that he noticed I was pregnant again. Really? He can tell just in passing that I am big enough to be pregnant. Cuz people don't usually say anything unless they are pretty confident. Now I am a little more anxious to get the doctor to make sure I am not measuring too big for this age and if Iam, WHY? No twins, no twins, no twins...how could that even happen anyway? We have no twins in either of our families - the chances are slim to none. But it HAS been on my mind, on others' lips and in my dreams a lot lately. Sigh - well, come what may and love it, right? And I would, of course. Silver lining of twins? I'd get BOTH the names I like (well, if boy/girl). ;)

Samson Jay, 22 months

Samson trying his first Hot Tamale candy. The spiciness didn't even phase him. It was CANDY!

One of my favorite things to do is go back and read my blog to remind me what things my kids said and did at certain ages. It especially helped me to look back at Jackson posts when Sam was about that age so I could see what things I needed to work on with Sam. Sometimes I feel like poor Sam gets a little neglected. Jackson got a year of undivided attention from me before I started the preschool, and Sam never got that. I started working again when school started when he was three months old. Even breastfeeding shortly went by the wayside once other kids came into play. I can't tell you how excited I am to shortly have an abudance of time to just BE with my own kiddos! Sometimes after a long day with everyone else's kids, I have very little left for my own kids. I prepare a healthy dinner, bathe them and get them in bed at a proper time, but that is about all I can handle! This makes me sad because they are the reason I started an in-home preschool -so I could be with them and take care of them and teach them myself, but I have just spread myself too thin this last year and I know my family has suffered for it. Ben, too. Anyway, major source of guilt for me, but let's not dwell on that, shall we? ;) So...this post is to document some of the funny phrases and things Sam does so that when Ally (I am convinced baby Blake #3 is a girl) hits this age, I can compare. Funny Things He Says

• "Ah yoo okay?" (Are you okay?)


• "Mmmm...like it!" (when trying something yummy)


• "Wuv yoo!" (randomly, but a lot of times when he WANTS something, like to sit with me)


• "Mama, I unna te-yoo sumting!" (and then random babbling afterwards, this is repeated as many times as he chooses or until I go crazy, lol).


• "Mama, whattawe havin' today?" (at snacktime, dinnertime, etc.)


• "I no-no" (complete with a cute shoulder shrug -If you ask him where somthing is, i.e. his sippy cup)


• "___ is hutting me!" (diaper rash, a scrape,a smashed finger...)


• "I ate AWMYDINNA!" (which may or may not be true, and may or not be dinner, but he likes to get excited about it either way.)

Funny Things He Does

• LOVES to get in his big boy bed!


• makes a scowly MAD face upon demand


• sings the ABC's pretty well - at least the letters kinda sound like what they should be, lol


• counts to ten


• LOVES to sing ABCs, the Popcorn Primary Song, Skidamarinkydink, and the Sunbeam song


• LOVES bubbles ("buggols") in the bathtub


• LOVES to play guns (grrr...) and falls down himself whenever HE shoots someone (not quite grasping the concept, but I'm ok with that)


• LOVES movies and will sit quietly for sometimes 30 minutes to watch (a nice treat while I'm cooking dinner)


• LOVES to swing in a big boy swing as long as someone pushes him. And he will swing high, too. He is fearless!


• He has very good fine motor skills for his age. He handles utensils and pens/crayons very well. Much better than Jackson at this age.

Not-So-Very-Fun Things He Does Sam is SO stubborn and persistent! He thinks he is just as big as Jackson and the other kids. Therefore, he wants to do everything they do, and sometimes that is dangerous for a little guy! Case-in-point: Last Saturday, Katy and I both brought our two kids to Garden Ridge to do a little shopping. Jackson and Bradley were REALLY good. They started out in my cart, while Katy pushed the babies in a double stroller. Soon, we needed the room in the cart, so we asked them to walk. As soon as Sam saw that the big kids got to get out, he wanted out, too. He proceeded to throw a level 10 screaming temper tantrum. I tried everything! I put him in time out right on the floor of the store, I swatted him twice...nada. Finally, I made room for him in the seat of my cart, and I had to pin his shoulders to the cart for 40 minutes, and the ENTIRE time we shopped he writhed around and screamed bloody muder. Finally, he decided to knock it off and he was fairly cheerful, but wore himself out and was asleep within minutes after we got back in the car. During the fit, a lady even stopped me and told me that if I put him on my shoulder, he'd probably fall right to sleep. I laughed and said, "Uh - no he won't. You don't know him." This whole incident was well before his normal naptime. Sidenote: Child expert yentas really annoy me. Why do people assume all children are the same and that they know what triggered your child to get upset!? This incident is just par for the course with Sam. His strong, independent personality can be a good and a bad thing. I just don't know where he gets it from! ;) (Actually, I think he got a dose from both sides, lol.) Also, Sam is a VERY picky eater. Most meats, fruits and veggies are a no-go with him. He will ocassionally eat grapes and he loves green beans and sometimes corn, but that is it. He will nibble at fish and chicken,but no beef. Hot dogs have just recenlty become do-able. Any type of bread is like candy to Sam, and he loves to drink anything but water. He asks me for a drink all day long. He'll drink 2 full sippy cups in minutes and ask for more, but give him water and it is temper tantrum city. How do I handle this? I refuse to give in and I refuse to make him his own special meal. I keep preparing healthy foods and putting them in front of him. When he doesn't eat them, he gets nothing else and he goes to bed hungry. When he does eat them, I go over-the-top on excitement in my voice and give him a treat for dessert. He loves fruit rolls-ups or fruit snacks, cookies, or candy, of course, but I only give them in small doses and only for a reward.

Match Day and Pregnancy #3!

I know I haven't blogged in so long, but really I have been so busy/worn out with so much to post about that every time I thought about sitting down to blog, it seemed like such a daunting task that I talked myself right out of it. We'll see how it goes today...

Firstly, I must tell those of you who may have heard a rumor going around that yes, it is true. I am pregnant with my third child. I am almost 11 weeks pregnant now (due in October), and so almost out of the sicky/exhausted/blah phase, YAY! We really don't mind if we end up with a boy or girl this time. After all, if it is a boy, we are set with boy stuff. If it is a girl, YAY! One of each!

With both Jackson and Samson we battled to the bitter end to agree on a name we both liked, but we have already decided that if it is a boy, he will be Anderson (Andy) and if it is a girl, she will be Allyson (Ally). Middle names are not completely decided on, but right now, it looks like James (my dad) and Anne (both my grandmas). We are VERY excited to welcome our new addition! One of us is VERY MUCH NOT excited to get fat all over again and have to bust it to get it all back off, but...as I tell Jackson when he has to do something he doesn't want to "This is just what we do," and I am willing to do it. By the time Baby #3 is here, Jackson will be 4 and Sam will be 2.5.

We moved Samson into Jackson's room last weekend. We broke down Jackson's bunk beds and made them into twin beds. Sam is very excited to be sleeping in a "big boy" bed and in the same room with his brother. Jackson is equally excited to have a companion. Sometimes they are a little TOO excited, and no one gets ANY sleep. :) Since Jackson was starting to not nap during the day, we extended his bedtime to 8:30-9, and we put Sam to bed alone at 8:00. This seems to work for bedtime, but naptime has been another story. On the weekends we do the same thing - put Sam down first since he usually falls asleep quickly, but during the weekdays when I have my preschoolers, this is a little tricky. I'm still working on a solution. I don't want to confuse Sam by putting him in his crib sometimes and big boy bed other times. And some days Jackson just plays around in his room and wakes Sam up.

The biggest news for us lately is that we found out that Ben matched to a residency program at his second pick. This is wonderful because a lot of times people match waaaay further down their preference list. For us, this is especially awesome because our second pick was to stay here in Fort Worth so we could stay in our house and that is what we got! Ben signed a contract with John Peter Smith, the Tarrant county hospital in the Emergency Medicine Program. He works 8 hour shifts, gets a great salary, and full dental, vision and health insurance paid for the whole family! Plus we have saved a bundle by not having to sell our house in this economy. I am excited because our house has PLENTY of room for us to grow into, and I was worried that if we sold our house, we wouldn't find a house with even half as much space for what we pay now. Ben finished his last day of rotations today (!!), so now he is done with all school work until he starts his residency in JULY! He has 14 weeks off to do whatever he chooses! He is so excited because how often has he had ANY time off in like the last 7 years that we have been married!? (Not often.) He graduates in May, and he will be Dr. Benjamin Blake, D.O.!! I can't tell you how proud I am of him, and how excited I am for our family!! In three short years, he will be finished with residency and we will be free!!! Free of school, free of being broke (except those pesky student loan payments), free to live wherever we want to, free to go on vacations, FREEEEEE!!!!!

When we moved to Texas when we first got married, I taught 3rd grade and Ben was finishing his undergrad at UNT in Denton. I knew we'd be here for those 3 years, but I never expected that we'd only be moving 30 minutes South to Fort Worth for another 4 years for med school and then get to stay again for another 3 years for residency. This is unheard of for med school/residency! We will have been in basically the same area of Texas for ten years! I love it! I love Texas. I was born here, and I'd be perfectly fine if we never moved out of Texas! (Of course, Ben does NOT agree...)

On March 5, Ben and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. Wow, it has been a wild ride and so much has changed about our family and our realtionship. But I can honestly say, there is no other man I'd rather be attached to in this life and for eternity. We are so blessed!

Where Does Heavenly Father Live?

Bowling after Christmas, 2010, with Ben's family. Jackson and I were playing around with the camera.

I have been trying to have more and more conversations about the Lord with Jackson (now 3.5) lately. We pray before every meal and at night we say prayers together kneeling in front of his bed, but I want him to develop a personal relationship with his Heavenly Father, and I don't think he quite "gets" who we are praying to or why. He just knows we do. It's part of our routine.



I have mentioned to him when we are in church that we don't run down the halls and we need to use quiet voices in the Lord's house. Also, at the beginning of January, he started Primary, and I have been trying to read the Sunbeams lessons ahead of time (or afterwards) and talk to him about what he discusses in Primary, so it will sink in or we can make a personal connection to it at home. Tonight after we said prayer, he asked me to tell him a story, which I did (about his Mario birthday party since that is what he pretty much requests every night). And somehow our conversation turned to him being sorry about something he did. I said, "Well, I know you feel bad, and you said you were sorry. I forgive you. Everybody makes mistakes. Even Mamas and Daddies make bad choices sometimes. Did you know that?" He looked at me kinda funny, but I continued, "But when you make a bad choice you just have to ask Heavenly Father to forgive you. You have to say you are sorry, and ask him to forgive you and try harder next time not to make the same bad choice. He will still love you and he will forgive you, just like I love you and I will forgive you, too."



I don't know if that really sunk in because then he mumbled something about where Heavenly Father lives. So I said, "Where DOES Heavenly Father live? Do you know?" And he sat, pondering for a minute, and then, as if it was a "DUH!" kind of answer, he said, "He lives IN HIS HOUSE!" I said, "Well, yes, that's right, but where is His house?" And Jackson said, "AT CHURCH!" I laughed and said, "Yes, that's right, and He lives in temples, too. Heavenly Father is special because he can be lots of places at the same time. He can be at church, and he can be in the temple, and did you know that he can be in your heart, too?" At this point, Jackson was looking at me, dumbfounded. He is very obsessed with hearts right now because for some reason he is into doctors and how they listen to your hearts with stethoscopes to make sure your heart is healthy (and also give you shots). So I said, "You know Heavenly Father is in your heart because He makes you heart feel happy and safe. You can feel how much He loves you when your heart feels happy."



At that, he just quietly laid down, with a thoughtful expression, and was ready to go to bed. I don't know how much sunk in, but I am so glad the opportunity arose to have that impromptu conversation about the Lord. I am so blessed to be both Jackson and Samson's mother. They bring such joy to my life every day.