Tuesday, May 9, 2023

update

20 week scan is done, baby is still fine. He did not cooperate at all for the scan and kept his arms crossed over his chest the whole time, making it difficult to see his heart. They kept me for nearly an hour to get all the information they wanted, but everything looks good. 

I'm getting better at telling the doctors to leave me alone. During the scan they wanted to do an additional, more invasive, procedure — something to check my cervix for risk of preterm labor. Given that I could not get the baby out at all last time, preterm labor does not appear to be a problem for me, so I politely declined. No one cared. 

The last couple weeks have been extremely annoying: it rained nonstop, everyone in the family came down with some kind of hacking lung disease, and then I found out I need to replace the transmission in my car. I have also been extremely busy at work, which normally I like but is less fun when I am dead from coughing all night long. So I am tired, sick, poor(er), and overworked. Not a great time. 

The good news: I am no longer nauseous! And gosh, it's glorious. I am still ravenous every 2 hours, but I no longer throw up if I don't get food immediately and in the exact right proportions. And I'm not yet at the stage where everything hurts, so we're in that nice middle period where I can eat and climb stairs. 

And I am somewhat sad to report that Jonah has started to move out of the baby talk stage. "Walla" is now "water." And for a long time he would say, "help you!" any time he meant to say "help me!" which was very, very adorable. But now he understands his personal pronouns. He also speaks in complete sentences, so if you ask if whether he wants dinner he will say, "Yes, I do." It's almost disconcerting, really. 

That's not to say he's always intelligible. He will get very excited about something and try to tell me about it, but the words that come out of his mouth sound like, "um yeah then trashcan and then um cheese whale ocean show swimming." I know he knows what he's talking about, which is cute, but no one else would have any idea. His friends at school appear to speak in this same toddler language and understand each other, so I'm glad he has them. 

He knows that "big boys poop on the potty" but that's as far as we've gotten with potty training. I'll be honest, I just really, really don't want to do it. It seems like so much work and there will be poop everywhere and I'll need to nag him constantly about going to the bathroom! Could I just ignore this until the daycare teachers take care of it? That's totally a parenting strategy, right? 

6 comments:

Alex said...

I'm glad you and everyone is feeling better?

Wait, how old is Jonah? We did not attempt potty training till just before 3, and only bc I thought they were going to start public pre-k. Then, pandemic and home for almost two years so problem solved... And even with that generous timeline, H would not poop in the potty for about a year after.

Julia said...

Jonah is almost two and a half. I guess I feel like people potty train around this age? Not that I'm doing it, I just feel like I should be thinking about it? If you're saying I don't have to, then great.

My mother says that one day I woke up and refused to wear diapers (even at night!). I successfully potty trained myself in a day, she says. This seems entirely impossible to me, but I'm hoping it's genetic and Jonah just wakes up one day and informs me he's potty trained.

Emily Hale said...

Good work saying no!! Glad you're not nauseous!!

Alex said...

People definitely try to do it earlier than I did, and it may be easier now than before the baby comes? Every kid is different, etc etc

Miss Self-Important said...

I think Americans do potty training later than most people? But both my kids also did it closer to three. It's also not really messy b/c they wear pull-ups for a while before they actually switch to underwear. And I think most kids keep wearing pull-ups for naps/night for a while past initial potty training, so potty-training doesn't result in more bed-wetting either. Unless you opt for the 48 hour naked training method!

Alex said...

We did the three day cold turkey method with no pull-ups after that, except for naps and overnight. And long car rides!