tot school - st. patrick's day edition - 33 months

I had intentions of posting this last week to have it up on time for St. Patrick's Day but life had other plans. My husband came down with some awful flu that kept him home from work and kept Ethan and I holed up in my mom's house praying we wouldn't catch whatever he had (we didn't, thankfully!). Somewhere in all of the chaos, I never got around to posting this on time or swapping out our tot trays. St. Patrick's Day Tot School officially ends today in our house, but it was a good two weeks! Ethan had a lot of fun with all of these trays and celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

1. St. Patrick's Day Discovery Bin

I ran through Deals, my favorite dollar store, and grabbed a whole bunch of St. Patrick's Day items to pair with some random green items we already had at home. Ethan had fun trying on the leprechaun hats and using the green spoons to scoop out the smaller green items.

2. Shamrock Tracing

I used a print-out from Twisty Noodle and paired it with a green dry erase marker for Ethan to have fun tracing the shamrock. He's been really into all of the dry erase activities lately and really loved this one. The first few times he did this tray, he would make a vague outline around the shamrock without going into the little crevices. The more he did it, the more detailed and accurate his tracing got. It was cool to watch him really work on the details and getting it!

3. Gold Coin Number Recognition & Counting

I found a pack of 20 shamrocks for $1 at Deals and they were perfect for this week! I wrote out the numbers 1-5 on 5 of them and paired the shamrocks with some gold coin cut-outs I made from some gold gift bags. Ethan got to recognize the numbers written on each shamrock and count out the coins accordingly. He really liked this activity! Normally he isn't too much of a fan of the counting activities, but I think because this one was festive he was really into it!

4. Lucky Charms Sorting

I picked the rainbow and shamrock marshmallows out of a box of Lucky Charms and hoped Ethan wouldn't know they were edible for a while. The plus is, it took a day before he noticed they were edible and we got a lot of use out of this tray before the discovery! I put some tweezers and a shamrock tray and Ethan got to sort the marshmallow shapes out.

5. Shape Shamrocks

This tray was Ethan's favorite for the week! He absolutely loved it. I cut out some shapes and glued them onto some shamrocks and then added the same shapes to the hats of some leprechauns I found on a free clip art website. Ethan got to match up the coordinating shapes. Going into this, he knew all of the shapes he was matching, but he still really loved this activity.

LINKING UP WITH:

16 week bumpdate

How far along? 16w6d. If I'm posting this before tomorrow, it still counts as sixteen weeks and I didn't miss it (...right?). Also, I forgot to take a facing forward picture but I'm still posting this sort-of on time, so...
Due date: August 30th, 2014
Baby is the size of an... avocado!
Baby's development of the week: Per Babycenter: The patterning of his scalp has begun, though his locks aren't recognizable yet. He's even started growing toenails. And there's a lot happening inside as well. For example, his heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, and this amount will continue to increase as your baby continues to develop.
Maternity clothes? Still pants and some shirts, but still some regular shirts, too.
Sleep: This has not been my week for sleep. I've been dragging all week.
Best moment this week: Well, I wound up in the ER after jinxing myself that I hadn't been yet this pregnancy (and had been three times by this point with Ethan). I had some stomach pain and everything was fine, but I did get to see baby on ultrasound and that part was awesome.
Food cravings: I've been eating a lot of peanut butter on crackers, but it's hardly a craving. More like tolerable.
Food aversions: Nothing in particular.
Baby's Sex: I think it's a girl. My husband finally made his guess, which was boy.
Baby's Name: Is still a secret!

And for fun, here's 16 weeks with Ethan:

know what ain't nobody got time for? scrooges.

The day after a holiday, you're bound to read a handful of articles or Facebook statuses complaining about said holiday. Specifically, about us moms. The ones who they want to tone it down. They want to do away with the elves on shelves, the bunny dust from the Easter bunny, the reindeer food for Santa's reindeer, the pie on March 14th, all of it. Everyone is quick to applaud these articles and snark on the moms who have "too much time on their hands" (um, spare me). The thing is, know what doesn't take an ungodly amount of time? Putting a drop of green coloring in some scrambled eggs. You know what does? Devoting an entire day to criticizing people who use this opportunity to make magic and memories with their children. Everyone has their own family traditions and, you know, everyone has their own idea of fun. As a non-drinker, I never celebrated St. Patrick's Day before I had children. There was no bar crawling and green beer and dressing like some sort of trashy leprechaun. But I have a child now and suddenly this is one holiday that suddenly seems fun. I mean, if I devote four minutes to putting paint on a sponge and making footprints from the front door to the bathroom, my son can wake up with this gigantic smile on his face and giggling with the excitement that a leprechaun came to his house! If you would have asked me ten years ago if stamping paint on my tile was my idea of a good time, I would have stared at you like you were crazy. But truth is, I find this stuff fun.

So, I spent four minutes with some green paint and food coloring and my child got a kick out of the leprechaun who made green pee pee in his potty. He told everyone he encountered that day about the leprechaun. His day was made and I'm not entirely sure he even knows what a leprechaun is (for a while he was insisting it was a frog). I love this stuff. This is my idea of fun. Make fun of me all you want, but I get a kick out of this stuff. Everyone's complaining about those parents who hide gold coins in the front yard for their kids to find and I get all giddy and think about how I need to remember that one for next year. Because there won't be an endless amount of next years. Because one day they won't be little anymore and the magic won't be there anymore and then what? But like I keep saying, I do it because it's fun for me. If it isn't fun for you, don't do it. Think the elf is creepy? Then keep him off of your shelf. Think homemade Valentine's Day cards are absolutely ridiculous when they make boxed cards for a reason? Go buy those box cards proudly. But lay off the people who enjoy this sort of thing. Because we're not making fun of your hobbies. We're not trying to implement some rule where no one can have any interest different than what their neighbor has because, good grief, we all must do things the same.

I've read all sorts of crazy things today. I've read about how moms do these sorts of things to make motherhood a competition. That is wrong, and the only person in the competition is the one who created the idea of it. I've read about all the time I allegedly have on my hands (again, spare me). I've read about how this just confuses other children who didn't have leprechauns come to visit or makes their parents look bad. I believe in teaching our children that everyone celebrates the holidays differently. This doesn't seem such a crazy concept to me, perhaps because I grew up in a mixed religious area where not everyone had Santa or a Christmas tree. There were a lot of kids who, with Hanukkah as their primary holiday, had a Hanukkah bush and Hanukkah fairies and all sorts of things that as a Hanukkah-and-Christmas celebrator, I never had. It was never confusing. I never thought my parents should be imprisoned for not implementing some magical Hanukkah fairy. Everyone has their own traditions and holiday rituals. Everyone has their own way of celebrating love and magic and the holidays -- even the silly ones. My sister's good friend grew up celebrating Diwali and I don't seem to recall a time my sister ever stomped her foot crying that she didn't get a Diwali celebration. It is what it is. Everyone's family celebrates their own way. I'm sure there are tons of families out there with holiday traditions that Ethan will never experience and that's okay. Because that's their business.

Magic milk that turns green, courtesy of the leprechaun who came to visit

For as long as the magic is alive in my child's heart, I will go nuts with the holidays. We will craft. We will celebrate. We will wear silly outfits and get giddy over imaginary animals and imaginary seasonal visitors. For as long as that glimmer is alive in his eye and the smile takes over his face when he sees the magic in front of him, I will find this sort of thing fun. And maybe it's a silly thing to find fun, but I've never been cool. And I'm okay with that.

15 week bumpdate

How far along? 15w4d
Due date: August 30th, 2014
Baby is the size of an... apple! And since it's my baby, probably a big honeycrisp apple! Just saying.
Baby's development of the week: Per Babycenter: She's busy moving amniotic fluid through her nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in her lungs begin to develop. Her legs are growing longer than her arms now, and she can move all of her joints and limbs.
Maternity clothes? Definitely pants, but I'm still able to get by with longer tank tops or t-shirts and haven't moved onto 100% maternity just yet.
Sleep: Sleep is made possible thanks to my Snoogle.
Best moment this week: Finally feeling the first little flutters of movement this week. I don't remember feeling movement until a lot later on with Ethan. (I just looked it up on my past updates -- I was 18 weeks along when I first felt Ethan wriggle in there!)
Food cravings: Still no "must have now" cravings, but I am still drawn to red meat. Which grosses me out as much as it satisfies my cravings because I really don't like to have (or feed Ethan) so much red meat. By dinnertime, most other food just seems impossible to swallow.
Food aversions: My dad had a glass of red wine this evening and I couldn't even go near him. The smell made me feel sick to my stomach! But I'm still just fine with food, unlike my last pregnancy.
Baby's Sex: I still completely think it's a girl, but I did reference baby as our boy's name in my head the other day and it made me smile a little. I keep imagining that I think it's a girl and we are surprised that it's a boy, but obviously my priority is just having a healthy little baby regardless of what sex it winds up being!
Baby's Name: Makes my heart go pitter-patter when I think of it (both boy and girl).

And for fun, here's 15 weeks with Ethan:

homeward with heaven above me, old road behind me, a door up ahead

If you've ever wondered what it would be like for your child to projectile vomit all over the grocery store bakery, allow me to tell you how the worst moment in, oh, my parenting career so far went. Ethan was fine. He was great. Monday mornings are our grocery shopping days, a routine we've created happily after compromising on a mandatory park visit beforehand and a cookie and a balloon once we get to the grocery store. It works. I pushed the cart into the bakery area in the center of the store to get Ethan his free cookie and then it happened. Everywhere. And then it kept happening. He was screaming, I was crying and trying to cup my hands around the vomit pouring all over the place, filling up the cart and splattering across the bakery floor. Just about every shopper within eyesight tore off running in other directions while giving me some fearful look of death in the process. Eventually a male manager came over with a roll of paper towels that he handed to me and walked away swiftly while I stood there trying to figure out where to begin: the floor? The bakery display? My child who was still screaming at the top of his lungs? The shopping cart which was filled with puke? It was horrible. Eventually another female manager came over and assured me it was okay, we all had children, it happens, the main priority is getting Ethan cleaned up and comfortable and to make sure he was okay. I don't think I uttered anything other than "I'm so sorry" in between sobs but she just kept insisting it was okay, to take him home and get him cleaned up and leave the mess for her. Leave the mess for her. In case I needed another knife through my heart. I insisted I would mop it all up but she wouldn't even hear it, probably because my kid was still shrieking and drawing attention to the whole messy debacle. Eventually I grabbed Ethan, stripped him of everything but a diaper, and ran out of the store with us both sobbing.

And then, you know, I made mental plans to find a new grocery store because I am in no way ever stepping foot into that one, our usual one, again. Ever.

We got home, had a bath and he continued to seem fine. He begged for food, he begged for water, and then promptly puked up his water and Saltines. The puke kept on coming but no other symptoms followed suit. No fever, no change in personality, no loss of appetite or desire to run and play. He slept just fine except for waking up to ask for water -- which he kept down all night -- and woke up this morning completely fine. Again.

At this point, I'm not convinced he has a stomach bug and it wasn't just something he ate, since we did go out to eat on Sunday. Or it could be some mild strain of a stomach bug that has hopefully run it's course since today he's easily kept down his homemade Gatorade and Pedialyte popsicles, water and Saltines. Either way, I've been chugging a ton of grape juice in hopes that it actually works to keep the stomach bug at bay. Not that there is ever a good time for the stomach bug to hit, but this has got to be the worst time. For months, Ethan has been counting down the days for my aunt to visit from Pennsylvania. The two of them have been Facetime chatting and bonding in preparation for this epic day that Ethan has been waiting for since she last came to visit around the time he turned two. That day, of course, was today and instead of picking up my aunt with my mom as planned, we're spending it muttering prayers of Please Don't Vomit.

But -- deep breaths -- silver lining, right? I've been stressed to the core thinking about how close Ethan is to reaching the rear facing weight limit of his Radian and, well, he just bought us some time. (Kidding! Sort of.)