The Green Room

The thoughts flying through my head before baby #2 comes... because clearly I should be updating my defunct blog instead of tackling my to-do list.

Miriam is the sweetest little girl ever. Every morning when she wakes up she hugs and kisses my belly and says "Good morning baby sister." If her little sister is even half as delightful I am going to be in big trouble.

Even though it's another girl, the seasons they're born in are completely off - which means I have to buy new clothes because I'm not going to need a snowsuit for this baby at 3 months. Which is actually awesome because now I can buy matching everything for my girls! Oh yes I am that mother. I refuse to buy any new clothes unless I can get it in both the baby's size and Miriam's size. Loving it!

We're using a birth center this time! I am so excited about this. We'd actually decided this was the best option for us after the first birth, but there weren't any in the area we moved to. Then, halfway through this pregnancy, they opened one only 10 minutes from our house! I'm not gonna lie, part of me feels this is very providential. So we switched to the midwife there and have been pretty happy with it. The other day she asked me if I had a birth plan. Um, nope. Coming here is the birth plan. To trust that my provider has the same philosophy towards birth as we do and then go with whatever happens!

I had back pain in the second trimester and it's really returned in the last week or two. So I'm finally going to a chiropractor this week for the first time. Better late than never, right? Although I'm afraid I have my hopes up too high - so many people swear by chiropractors that if I come away from this one appointment with anything less than complete pain relief and baby facing the right way (she's sunny-side-up now), I'm going to be disappointed!

Remember how I did so much research when it came to all kinds of parenting choices with baby #1? I'm so glad I did that then, because now I can just take what we learned and modify it. And since I never got around to updating on most of those things, here's the briefest of summaries:

• Breastfeeding: Awful doesn't begin to describe the first six weeks. By a couple months we'd finally gotten the hang of it. By about eight months I loved it. I finished weaning her at 18 months, and that really felt just right for us. (I'd originally wanted to let it happen naturally when I was pregnant with the second, but that didn't happen.) I can't remember exactly when we switched from nursing on demand to nursing on a routine, but that made me a much happier mama. I felt like I had never learned how to distinguish her cries because every time she made a peep I'd shove a breast in her mouth. (It did work, though!) So I imagine this time we'll get into a routine (not a schedule) much sooner.
• Elimination Communication: Miriam has been dry during the day since she was 19 months old. I was a bit upset that it took that long, but I think part of our problem was transitioning to training pants - next time we'll go straight from diapers to undies. I'm not sure if she's technically nighttime potty trained yet or not (is there an official definition of that?). She doesn't have accidents anymore and is in underwear, so I guess so. We go in and potty her when we go to bed around 10:00 each night, and then if she wakes up we'll go in and pee her again and put her back to sleep. We're not in any hurry to quit pottying her at 10:00 because neither of us can go 8 hours without waking to pee, so we don't know how a toddler is supposed to make it 11-12 hours!
• Sleeping: Speaking of sleeping, or really lack thereof... painful. Especially around 3 months. Until maybe 15 months. Approach this time: more prayers.
• Cloth Diapering: Yup. Really happy with that choice. Have I mentioned we use family cloth now, too? (Well, Miriam and I do.) So we're still in a laundry every 2-3 day routine, so washing diapers again shouldn't be a big deal.
• Babywearing: I took a walk with Miriam in the sling every day until I was pregnant with this baby. We both loved it, so we're definitely doing that again. I've even toyed with the idea of trying some new carriers - any suggestions? I loved the Moby for little bitty, and the ring sling (Maya wrap) worked well enough when she was bigger, but it wasn't comfortable for longer walks. Maybe a Mei Tai next time?