Second Kid Stress

So here I am, trucking along into my 25th week of pregnancy with Baby #2. That puts us into viability range, which of course, is a nice relief of a milestone. In only a few short weeks I will be pushed over into the Third Trimester. I am starting to feel the stress of having two children creeping up on me.

I'm sure all toddler and newborn moments
 look like this, right? RIGHT?!?!

I know very well I won't be the first to do it, but I am spending more and more time lately trying to wrap my preggo-brain around the logistics of the first few days/weeks/months of my newborn's life while intermingled with my toddler's day-to-day needs. Looking back on my experiences with my first born, I think about how easy it was from my perspective now (go back and read some old posts and see how much I am rewriting history here) and if I was going to be a first-time mom again (which is impossible), I'd be SO. READY.

But that's not really the case here. As much as I know all to well how it works to have a baby, I know NOTHING about what it is like to have a baby AND A TODDLER. And my freakouts are getting a little bigger by the day.

Of course, we must plan for the hospital stay, and my toddler will not likely enjoy or understand that experience and is best left at home until the baby has arrived. This requires planning, especially since we have no family nearby, are new to our new country and therefore have a limited social network, and well, Bugga has never been away from both her parents at once for longer than an hour in her life. And though I "lucked out" last time by only being in labor during daylight hours, there's always that chance that I will need to call SOMEONE to high tail it over to the house at 2AM to watch my daughter as we go speeding off to Labor & Delivery.

Once we get home, then at least we will have a couple weeks of man-on-man coverage with both kids since my husband will be home (thanking my uterus for birthing babies during end-of-the-year holidays once again). But once I am left to my own parenting when he goes back to the office, I am trying to wrap my brain around how I will juggle two severely different nap schedules, nursing, and toddler entertainment and activities that will likely require getting out of the house. Did I mention I'll be doing this in the wintertime? In Canada? Yeah, think snow - lots and lots of snow. I'm not even going to entertain my husband's jokes about nursing outside.

What tiny advice I have obtained here and there is that baby #2 (and any baby after that, should we be crazy enough to go for more...uh....forget I typed that) will be required to be much more flexible then we ever gave baby #1 credit for. Gone will be the eerily quiet household when the baby is sleeping. Gone will be the peaceful nursing sessions in the dark in the glider. And a myriad of other things too, I'm sure.

I'm trying to collect more information on how to plan for the changes, but I'm still coming up short for my own comfort. I found an e-book (The ABC's of Baby #2) last night and devoured it at the gym today - helpful but brief. If anyone out there in internet land has any tips, or resources, I am ready!!!

Toddler Bedroom Inspiration

Since we have moved to Calgary, I now have a blank slate for both Bugga's room, and the nursery for Baby #2. I plan to document both, but I won't post the nursery details until the baby is here since my friends and family don't know the gender yet!

For Bugga's room, I want to incorporate some trendy patterns, and add in little themes here and there of things that she likes. Also, we are putting a lot of emphasis on learning the alphabet lately, so I wanted to add letter details throughout the design. 

The catches to the room:

1. We are renting. We have permission to paint the rooms, but everything has to be within "reason". Ha.
2. Bugga will be in this room from age 1.5 - 5.5, so the plus here is I don't have to think too far ahead and not make it too "young" since we'll move after that and have a whole new clean slate to work with.

As I'm putting things together, I will post any DIYs or progress. Until then, here are some design inspiration ideas!

Color Pallette:

A lilac/lavender color, with silver/gray and white as the neutral base. I might throw in another miscellaneous pop of something like baby pink or lime green depending on what the decor calls for.

  

Wall design:

 

I am currently obsessed with stripes. And the idea of the gray and white is a nice neutral that will be great with a pop of color on top of it. I also like the concept of a solid wall painted in the color of the darker stripe. Not sure if I have the patience to paint the stripes though, so I might go the decal route.

Wall decor/curtains:

   

 

 

  

 

Some obvious points to note: There will be chevron. This is definite. I need to put an alphabet somewhere around the top of the room, and/or in a frame. I love the chevron canvas idea with color pops on top that tie to the theme. I also love the silhouettes and need to find a way to fit those in - perhaps sticking to something Minnie Mouse or flower related (Bugga's faves). Oh and glitter. If I can incorporate glitter into this effort, this is something I must do.

Furniture/Accessories:

  

  

I will need to transition Bugga to a "big kid bed" before the baby arrives in December to prevent the need for two cribs. This is currently freaking me out because a) she sleeps pretty darn well in her crib so why mess with something that isn't broken, and b) a big kid bed means she is growing up and I'm just not ready for this! I would love to get her a beautiful white canopy bed but I'm not sure her teeny 11'x11' room will allow for this. But I'll try to keep inspired by the concept at least. A trundle bed would be great too, then if we have problems with the twin bed transition, and a toddler rail doesn't work (crossing fingers once we get there), then a lower trundle mattress might prevent too many major crashes. And it would be good for sleepovers down the road.

I found the link above for a DIY rag rug that I think would look beautiful in Bugga's room. In fact, I've already started it with lavender, silver, and white satin fabric. The thing is, I'm pretty sure this project is going to take the rest. of. my. life. No joke.

I would love a reading nook/area in her room if there is space, but not sure it will happen. Oh, and the Minnie Mouse sheet options out in the world are for the most part pretty tacky, but a set of these sheets or something similar (subtle-style) would be a nice surprise under a purple comforter. We'll see if I can track any down as these appear to be previous year's style.

And the design process is ON! Please check back as I post progress!

Toddler Oatmeal Variation with Warning

A short while ago I posted a recipe for Toddler Crockpot Oatmeal. (You can find the recipe here.) Since we are now living in a colder climate, our mornings are chillier than the steamy Houston mornings. So obviously, oatmeal is a nice fixture to my morning. And being pregnant, this kind of breakfast is also an easy way to get a healthy protein with plenty of fruit into my body before the day barely gets started.

Being a crockpot recipe, I take literally 5 minutes to toss everything into my slow cooker right before I go to bed, and the house smells amazing by the time we wake up.

If you try this recipe around your mini-mes, I feel like I have to warn you. If I straight up ask my toddler what she wants for breakfast, everyday, without fail, she shouts, "WAFFLES!!!" (I have been feeding her the natural organic brand - the one with Cookie Monster on the box - from Whole Foods and she devours one each day. Unfortunately, the best I can do is the boring natural wholegrain style, as the organic version with blueberries are nowhere to be found up here (get with it Canada!)...anyway.) On mornings I know we have oatmeal, I offer some to her, and always get an immediate, "No." Fine by me. Now I don't have to share. Or so I think.

Without a doubt, the second I get an oatmeal-laden spoon into my mouth, Bugga is all over me with her "Bite, bite, bite!" chant. And then proceeds to eat at least half my bowl, waffle long forgotten.

It's good for her so I really am not complaining - but sometimes a pregnant mommy wants to eat all her breakfast too!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

My latest version of this recipe, adding a LOT of blueberries and sliced bananas. Yum!

International Food Resources

Now that we are getting settled in Calgary, my mission has been to learn more about our neighborhood and what it has to offer. This includes the best place to buy groceries for my family. Until this point, my goal has been to slowly evolve my kitchen into all organic products, or at least as much as possible.

Food shopping in a new country is always an adventure. I think I have had the assumption that since Canada shares such a major border with the U.S. that just about the same items would be available here as we are accustomed to. Oh, how so wrong I am. (Sad face.)

For starters, due to the location of Canada, fresh produce is harder to come by, and what you can purchase does not last as long as the produce we are used to buying in Texas. Combine that with the already-shortened counter life of organic produce and you pretty much have to eat everything within a couple days. OK, I can handle this.

Then there are the different stores. There is a familiar grocery chain, Safeway, but the selection severely varies in many categories. There are also many, many other smaller specialized chains, similar to a Trader Joe's size, where they can have great finds, but you certainly cannot find everything you need. For example, I tried a chain called Sobey's yesterday, and they don't sell black beans. BLACK BEANS. I thought these were a pretty basic pantry staple, but perhaps I am wrong.

The next choice when shopping the aisles are the brands. I am fine with trying new brands, but I am concerned that the primary U.S. brand I seem to see everywhere is Kraft. As you may or may not know, Kraft is currently infamous for the artificial coloring, hydrogenated oil additives, and GMO ingredients in their products. And a lot of this isn't even on their labels so you are none the wiser. So I am VERY hesitant when it comes to purchasing Kraft products.

The scariest part: the prices! I am not joking: yesterday my husband saw a gallon of organic skim milk for $13.00. THIRTEEN DOLLARS!!! Are you kidding me?!?! The sad thing is, the cheapest I have seen it so far here is $9.00 which is still outrageous. But unless I plan on taking care of our own dairy cow in our teeny backyard, we will be shelling out the nine bucks. Sigh.

At this point, we have been here a couple weeks, and I have tried three different grocery stores. My next adventure will be to an organic market called Market 17, and the Yelp reviews look promising. I am not giving up my healthy plans yet!

Officially an Ex-Pat

Well, we made it to Canada - and so did almost most of our things. I have to say that Bugga was a champ through all the changes, far more so then we expected. We lived in a hotel for a few days in Texas as they packed up our house. Then we had a day of travel that included a 4 hour flight and an hour in Canadian Immigration to get our residency. Then we headed to another hotel until our new home was ready.

A fun little wrench in our plans: a few weeks prior to our arrival into Canada, Calgary was inundated with flooding throughout the downtown areas and many other places along their main rivers. Downtown also happens to be where most of their hotels are, like any other city. Oh, and Stampede (Calgary's annual 2-week rodeo event) was also in full swing once we arrived so the city's population was abnormally inflated. So of course, we pull up to our hotel at 8pm at night (already past my daughter's bedtime in OUR time zone) and it is completely closed. No phone call, no rebooking to another hotel - nothing. Awesome.

Apparently their computers were in their flooded basement and therefore they had no way to know who had reservations to contact for rebooking. So, oh well for us! I'm still not sure how this International Hotel (literally their name) had the only electronic records in their specific building, but hey, what do I know.

So we scrambled, and drove down to the Westin and checked into their only (and smallest) available room for one million dollars a night (well it was a lot). Oh and no bathtub - which is great for a toddler. This was going to be a long 10 days.

Fortunately my husband's relocation contacts felt horrible enough about their mistake (not checking on our reservation before our arrival) that they found us a corner suite at our preferred hotel and we happily moved over there the next day.

And there we lived for 10 days. It was fortunately near a few parks, playgrounds, and even a splash pad (which Canadian kids will still play in during much colder weather than us!) and the little routine we established worked for us. I also brought along several of Bugga's favorite toys, a couple colors of homemade play dough (post coming soon), and even a basic plastic cup and spoon would be treasured at times (especially near water!).

So we have now moved into our new house and are getting used to the Canadian life. The house is still a hot mess, but we'll get there!

*Our dilemma from the floods is absolutely nothing compared to what many Calgarians have gone through, and are still going through. If you would like to donate to the Alberta Flood Fund through the Red Cross, please click here.

Things People Say

When you are pregnant, you get the full gamut of surprisingly inappropriate comments from strangers, let alone people you work with, are friends with, and are even related to. Especially when you TELL them you are pregnant. I have heard the most infamous from other people, the ever-cringe-worthy "Was this planned?"...I mean really! My response to that would be, "Nope, can I borrow some money for diapers?" or something along those lines. I'll let you know if I hear that one.

My personal winner for what I hate to hear once I announce my pregnancy at the 3 month mark? "Oh, I KNEW IT!" You did? Really? Then I'm so glad I was stressing out for the past few months trying to keep this on the D.L. just in case we had a miscarriage and wouldn't have to tell you the bad news. I'm SO GLAD you watch the little details of my life so closely that every little movement I make is potential gossip fodder for you and your manicurist.

Yes, I have someone in my life who did this to me this time around. And it bothered me to no end because I knew this was going to be the first thing they said way before I even announced, primarily because of the gossip going around behind my back with other mutual acquaintances. So now I'm not thrilled about this person being a part of my good news, when they otherwise should have been. Grr. Yes, this deserves a growl.

What annoying things have you heard from others while pregnant?

Big Changes!

Okay, so if you are a reader of my blog, you might have noticed that the last couple posts have been pretty........spaced..........out. Not my finest example of my writing discipline, but I swear I have a good excuse! Well, excuses really.

For starters: We are moving to Canada. From Texas. Which at a glance did not seem like it was going to be a huge deal (other than the violently different weather, but I'm sure I'll have more posts about that later...). It turns out, it is actually QUITE a big deal because, after all, it is an entirely different country. With that comes all sorts of nightmares around customs and importing things like, I don't know, our FURNITURE and our CARS and all sorts of drama. Throw in some loonies and some toonies (yep, that would be the sophisticated name of our new country's currency) and our lives will pretty much be a-changin'. But to be fair to the Calgarians we will soon call our neighbors, everyone up there at first glance appears to be super friendly and at least I can say they have beautiful weather in the summer. I'm going to hold on to that thought as long as I can...

And then there's excuse #2. 

Our Required Facebook Announcement

I'm pregnant. Oh yes. Believe me I have wanted to type many a blog about how miserable I was during my first trimester, but since we didn't tell a SOUL until Father's Day when he hit the safety zone of the second trimester, I couldn't very well publish it all over the internet. Which I think is a total scam. Expectant moms are typically very ill during the first three months, and it just isn't fair that we aren't allowed to publicly whine about it, only because we are trying to do the responsible thing and spare our extended family and friends the grief should there be some complication or what not.

So because I had to suffer in silence (except for my husband, poor guy), you can at least forgive me for being a blog slacker. I swear I'll do better just as soon as the morning sickness cuts me a break - I swear I can see the horizon!