The wild world of nursing, with a toddler in the house!

Well, I knew it would happen, the questions. Before Sloan was born Cassidy quickly noticed that mom was becoming blessed in a certain area. Amazing that a 2 year old noticed, but she did! She would often say something in regards to mommy's boobies. One morning before Sloan was born, I was getting dressed and she started in again, I decided to just talk about how mommy will feed the baby with milk that she makes in her breasts. Cassidy asked a few questions but to my surprise they were pretty quick and it seemed we were done with that conversation.

After the birth, Cassidy often would say that mommy feeds the baby with her boobies. She was on track and didn't say too much more.

A few nights ago we heard Cassidy leave her room, sneak down the stairs and peek at us a few times. We let her play her little game and about 15 minutes later Jason went up to check on her. To his surprise she wasn't in her bed. He instead found her in our room, on my side of the bed. She looked up at him and said, "Daddy, I'm nursing my baby, I'll go to bed when I'm tired". Sure enough, she had a baby doll there on her chest, under her shirt and was pretending to nurse! SO CUTE!! Then when we went up to bed, this is what we found, Cassidy asleep in our bed with her baby next to her. Apparently that night she was all about being like mommy. When she was picking out her PJ's she told daddy that she wanted to wear PJ pants and a "tankity" top like mommy, which I was in fact wearing!

She has done this a few times since, but after all she's 2 1/2 and discovering a new world with us so we're just enjoying this time and wondering what funny moment will come next!!

I had to include the next picture. This was the morning after when Cassidy woke up and had to bring her baby doll in to climb in bed with daddy and baby sister. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!

BIG Sister Potty Update

Well, as we expected we had a few bumps in the potty world road once baby came home. Thankfully I can say we have now made it a full week with no accidents. They only lasted a couple days.

However, one funny moment came in the past week when Cassidy told daddy that she needed to go "potty", so off to the bathroom they went. Dad patiently waited as Cassidy made her "twinkles" and then she said, "daddy are you happy now?". Daddy replied with, "I am happy, but I'd be really happy if you made poo-poo too", Cassidy replied: "I don't want you to be really happy daddy, just a little happy"!!!

That's our girl!

INTRODUCING...

SHE'S HERE!! Yes, Miss Sloan Romayne has blessed our world more than we could have imagined! It all happened Tuesday July 7th starting at 12:30 am. I felt those first labor contractions, woke Jason up at 1:00 am and we were quickly up getting our stuff together, getting our great neighbor over to sleep (thanks Elizabeth!) at our house so that we didn't have to wake Cassidy, and then it was off to the Hopsible (as pronounced by Big Sister).

We walked into Labor and Delivery at 2:51 am. Got to our room, got settled and soon after the Anesthesiologist was in. I was suddenly in my state of euphoria and happy as can be. Jason and I were soaking up the moments and loving every minute of what was to come. We were so happy with our Nurse's, they were great! Made us feel so comfortable and were having fun with us!

It was truly a beautiful experience. We were so comfortable with what was happening since we had done it before it wasn't so overwhelming! We were embracing the moment as much as we could!

We waited until 4 am to start making phone calls, we felt that it would look better for those we were waking than if they saw 3 something on the clock, they'd at least feel like they got a little more sleep :-)! Soon, we knew that Jason's dad, my dad and Jason's mom were on their way. The hardest call was to my mom. She was in South Carolina for our annual Family Fourth of July trip that we had to miss this year. We begged mom and the rest of the family to go without us, because we didn't want to ruin every one's holiday. Jason and I really believed that this baby would be born before July therefore mom would have been here, unfortunately we are not good baby predictors! Mom was so happy to be woken up in the middle of the night, what a sport! We missed her but can't wait for her to meet Sloan in just a few days!!

Papa Jeff and Nana Melodie went by our house to pick Cassidy up and brought her to the hospital. When she walked into Labor and Delivery Jason and Sloan were in the nursery getting ready for her first bath. Cassidy's words were, "Daddy, I want to go in there and tickle my little brother/sister's toes". Apparently during the recent days of being asked if she was going to have a little brother or sister, she put the two together and couldn't separate them. It took her a few days to understand that she had a baby "sister".

Once home, we saw what we expected, a Big Sister that was a helper! She has really been great with Sloan, loving on her every minute, a bit too much at times, but it's better than her trying to get her to go away, I guess!

We are pretty much into a routine now, and thankful for all the prayers and help and food. Life is definitely different but full and fun. We truly are blessed to have two beautiful healthy girls!

The Fourth of July came and went...

Well, we really didn't think we'd still be waiting to meet baby #2 on July 6th but who really knows how things are supposed to pan out when they aren't planned?
We welcomed the holiday weekend with open arms thinking that we would for sure see baby in our arms before Sunday came to an end. I guess you could say that it was our way of coping with not being on Sullivan's Island for the holiday, we thought, it's going to be OK because we'll have baby to focus on. Well, we're still waiting and still missing being on the beach, but we know that soon, very very soon, we'll meet baby and next year we'll get to celebrate his/her first birthday SULLY'S STYLE! How fun will that be?!?!?

I feel great, wish I could say that I was totally miserable and that baby must be coming at any moment, but I can't. Though I do still hold out a bit of hope that baby will come soon... :-) You can't blame me, can you?

We spent our 4th in the pool at a friends house, cooked hot dogs, hot links (Jason's way of trying to induce labor), Brats, eating Cheetos's Puffs (daddy's choice for Cassidy), homemade ice cream thanks to Jason, Rice Krispy Treats, Lemonade, and too much more to think about without making myself sick remembering! We loved every minute of our family fourth! While cooking dinner, a big storm rolled in and it poured! The wind was blowing so hard, there were sheets of rain coming down. We were thankful that we had made the decision to keep the evening low key at that time because we knew so many who were outside waiting for fireworks.
Once the rain moved on, we played in the puddles, then off to bathe! Cassidy put on her fancy nightgown and we jumped in the car and drove downtown to watch the fireworks at the ballpark. She loved it! On our way home she was watching out her window for more and she would see one and say "look mommy, look daddy! They're so sparkly". It was precious. But I think the most precious moment came when out of the blue she said, "Happy July Day Mommy, Happy July Day Daddy", Jason and I looked at each other and believe we'll cherish that memory forever!

Potty Training and Baby News...

Well, I am happy to report that yesterday it has been 4 weeks since we took on Potty Training full force and Cassidy has successfully been in BIG GIRL panties since! It was truly amazing how she was ready and excited to take on the change.

Now let's just pray that when baby arrives, she's still happy being the BIG sister and wearing the panties!

She tells everyone that she doesn't wear diapers anymore and that she is saving them for baby!
She even went to our neighbor the other day who is 90 and lifted her dress to tell and show him...he was cracking up!

As for baby arriving, we are anxiously awaiting him/her. Last night at 2, Cassidy woke up happy went to her door and said very clearly, "mommy". Jason jumped up, went to get her and took her back to her bed. He even laid down with her to try to get her to fall back asleep. It was so strange though, she wasn't up set, basically fully awake. She climbed out of her bed, leaving daddy there, crawled, yes, crawled into our room climbed in bed and snuggled as close to me as she could and fell asleep until 7. I couldn't figure out why she did this, then I thought, maybe she in sensing that baby is ALMOST here and she needed some mommy time, which I have NO complaints about! So, the waiting game goes on.....

Update on life...

I am sitting here with Cassidy while she is watching Cinderella. She is happy as can be even with so many things in our lives about to change.

We have recently made the decision to move our family (soon to be of 4) to Enid. We are VERY excited about this opportunity. Jason was offered a position at the Bank where he works that will take us back to Enid and to a community that we are thrilled to raise our family in. As many of you who have been faced with decisions like this know, we weighed many options and thought very hard about what it would mean to move from the "big" city to a "small" town and after much thought, list making and praying we realized that moving to a place where our children can grow up with family around is MUCH more important than activities that may be available somewhere else. So off we go. Oh, wait! Not until after we have a baby...

Yes, we have been having to remind ourselves that we are about to have a baby and that MUST come first. We are 1 week and 4 days from our due date, so we are anxiously waiting and realizing that any day now we could be welcoming #4 into our family. This is such an exciting time and we are so overwhelmed with the joy of it while also preparing to move our family.

The Move...
Well, we have been working on the odds and ends list to get our house in tip top shape to list while also trying to make trips to Enid to look at houses. We had the movers come a week and a half ago and pack and move some things to "thin-out" the house for listing. That was an interesting day considering we filled the truck! They told me they would bring an 18 wheeler to move the rest of the house. Do we really have that much stuff?? YES! Who am I kidding.

Well with the impending baby coming so soon, my trips to house hunt are over for now. We have our eye on one that we are excited to say we could imagine our family in for years to come. Jason is heading over in the morning to meet some contractors, plumbers, painters, etc to see what all it will take to get it up to par for us. It is in a Historic area that we love so we are hopeful that all will fall into place. However, we also know that if this one doesn't work out, it isn't right for us. So the waiting game goes on.

We laugh daily at all of the unknowns in our life right now: When will baby come? When will our house be listed/sell? When will we move? Where will we move? What will the baby be???

Life is fun for the Turnbows right now and we couldn't be happier!

A little FYI: When Cassidy was asked yesterday when baby will come? She replied "Thursday, later this week". We are wondering now if she is onto something, wait for the update on that!

Lot's of catching up to do...

I really can't believe it's been so long since I sat down to blog. I knew I would be slow but jeez!

Well, currently we are preparing for Baby Turnbow #2 to arrive. We have 5 weeks and 3 days till our due date, but I am thinking it will be sooner, only because Cassidy came 9 days early. Am I prepared? NO! :-) Well, yes and no. We have plenty of things, they're just in storage and need to come out and get washed, the bassinet needs to be reassembled, and Cassidy's name should probably be taken off of the nursery walls, but come on we'll get there!

Cassidy is excited to be a BIG sister and working on wearing panties. She has had some great days the past week and a half and some that we, yes, I blame me too, we have not focused and it's been much easier to wear Pull Ups/Diapers than to worry about accidents. However today we have really focused, stayed home, played, drank and ate lots and used the potty all day successfully. Here's to making it to bed time, CHEERS!

Cassidy cracks us up more and more everyday. For example yesterday we came home and a neighbor had people over so there were lots of cars on our cul-de-sac that we didn't know. She wanted to ride her four wheeler in the front yard but we said no since there were so many cars we didn't know, mostly b/c we wouldn't have been able to see her. She was a bit confused and said they were OK. Jason asked her if she knew who's car was the one with out a hubcap, she looked at him so seriously and said "Yes, Daddy, that is Susan's grandpa's", to which Jason and I both had to pick our jaws up and Jason then asked her who taught her to tell whoppers, to which she didn't reply. I am going to go with Aunt Donna on this one, after all, I know she'll be reading this :-)

She is very into talking about mom's growing chest, which is making me a bit nervous to hear what she will say to me when baby is here and hopefully nursing. Oh, the public humiliation!

Her favorite thing these days is Chapstik, a.k.a. Chalspik. She LOVES to be outside! We along with most everyone else are on summer break, or at least 2 week break. She will start back to her music classes in 2 weeks, but I am so glad we are getting this time together, she has grown so quickly and I know things will be changing so much more so soon, so I am embracing these moments!

Last week she had her Music School program where she sang "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast with 2 other girls. They were the first song and up on stage and a theatre here in town. Jason and I were a bit nervous that she would freeze when she got up there and saw the audience, but to our surprise, she did GREAT!! She sang so loud and well, she even paused a few times to say "Hi Mommy" and "Hi Daddy"! It was adorable!

That is enough of a catch up for now, I will try to get better at this especially with the changes so quickly happening!

Cassidy is on the Left in both of these pictures!

Sweet Dreams

Well today was a big day in the Turnbow household. Cassidy's "Big Girl Bed" was delivered. We had not told her about it so when the delivery truck pulled up and strangers started in our house she was a bit intrigued. She was so funny and perfect, when told to stay out of the way she did! She stood in the doorway from our family room to the front hall just watching what happened. All she could see was the men going in and out and up the stairs. She was so ready to go see her new bed. She could hear them assembling it upstairs and she really wanted to see it. Once they were done she stood in the front door and waved to them as they drove away in their big truck then up the stairs we went.

She was a bit disappointed when she went into her room and didn't find a new bed. We tried to explain that when the baby comes she'll give her room to the baby. So then she was on the hunt, where would her bed be?? Down the hall to the current "playroom" and we found it! WOW she said, excitedly climbed up and was in heaven. Then dad pulled out the trundle and her world exploded! Another level to her new bed, could it get any better? She was so excited, we were thrilled!

It was definitely time for "quite time" also known as nap time. She wanted to have her quite time in the playroom in her new bed so of course we said OK. She decided that she had to put on her pj's and bring all her friends in from the crib to her new bed then she was ready. Well, after being told to get back in about 3 times because she was just so excited and loved to climb up and down from the bed and make sure mom and dad were having their quite time. :-)

After about an hour, Jason woke up and thought for sure he heard her downstairs. He got up headed down and then saw her in her new bed fast asleep. She was laying on a pillow and had even pulled a blanket up over herself, he said it was adorable. Tried to sneak back and get a picture later but she woke up first. Oh well.

When I went to see her, she was sitting on the trundle at the end. I asked her how quite time was and she said good. Then she said "mommy wants to say Cassidy get up now", so of course I did and she then climbed out of bed. Was she really waiting for me? If so, this is going to be better than I could have hoped!

Her one complaint was that her new bed was LOUD according to her. She then said it was windy. She was right, today was a very windy day and she can hear it a lot more in that room but it's just something that she'll have to get used to!

Bedtime came and we had to convince her that she needed to sleep in her crib again tonight because we don't have sheets on her new bed yet, and after a while of talking about it she was actually OK with that idea. We said our prayers, she climbed in bed and as I was leaving her room as I do every night I said "good night sweetie, I love you, sweet dreams". I usually hear a good night and an I love you, but tonight I heard "sweet dreams". This meant so much to me, I remember every night that my mom and dad would tuck me in it was very important for me to hear and say back sweet dreams. I remember nights that they wouldn't say it so I would and I would repeat it over and over until they finally said it. Funny the things that stick with you and become meaningful when you are a parent.

With that full day for you all, I will now say SWEET DREAMS!! :-)

A Hopeful Day

So to start out, last night I gave Cassidy her bath and everything was normal. She took her clothes off, sat on the potty (nothing happened as is typical) and she got in the bath. When she was done, I wrapped her in her towel and she started to her room to get dressed then detoured and said I need to potty. She went to the playroom where we have a plastic potty seat. She sat down and began reading her book "Ducky wears Diapers". I sat on our bed and watched the Grammys. 2 minutes later she came running in saying mommy I made TWINKLES (yes, that's how she says it and I admit its pretty darn cute, especially when she is so excited)!! Sure enough she did! More than I have ever seen her make in the potty, I was so proud. So we cleaned up got dressed and called the special treat fairy to let her know, unfortunately the 1 M&M didn't show up until morning, apparently the fairy was busy last night.

So we started our morning off with excitement of trying for a full day of pottying! We tried, visited the potty 8 times between 7:30 and 9:30. Unfortunately though, the only activity was in our Elmo panties.

I know that I should push through and keep supporting her but something about it seems that shes just not that into it today. Maybe 2 years 3 months is a bit early for my daughter.

Maybe mom should read some more books on the subject...life is fun with a 2 year old!!

MOTIVATION

Do you have those nights that you start thinking about all the things you need to accomplish the next day and you mentally tell yourself "you CAN do it"? Well if not, you are nothing like me. I had yet another one of those nights last night. All went good when I rolled right out of bed and into the shower and got moving until now. It's 3:27pm and I just want to sit. I don't want to unload the dishwasher, I don't want to fold the towels that are waiting, I just want to sit but I can't. I know Cassidy will be waking up any second so I must keep moving, and here I am, posting for you. Don't you feel honored?

I decided this would give me the few minutes that I was craving to do something different and I could fill you in on the happenings at the Turnbow house.

First thing first, before I forget the great morning my daughter gave me last week, I must put it down. Last Wednesday I had changed Cassidy's diaper and stood her up on her dresser to pull up her tights. While doing this she took her precious hands, placed them on my cheeks and said in her words, "Mommy, you're a cutie pie". My day was the brightest ever!! What a precious thing for my 2 year old to come out and say with no prompting, I LOVE HER!!

So a week ago Saturday we were all in Jason's car when it started jumping (almost literally), we drove it straight to the dealership but unfortunately the person who dealt with "that kind of problem" was not in on Saturdays. So we left it and moved on. We then began our week a one car family.
We loaded up at 7:30 Monday morning to drive all 3 of us to Enid for a funeral. This was a bit unnerving because a winter storm was to (finally, yes I needed a bit of Winter precipitation) be hitting Oklahoma this year and here we were going to drive out in it instead of sitting by the fire. You do what you have to though. The drive there was great, dry all the way just cold. We got out of the service to find the city of Enid America covered in a sheet of black ice. Literally in less than a mile we saw one car on its side and another had jumped a curb and run through a wrought iron fence of a cemetery. Well, slow and steady wins the race and we finally made it back to OKC where cars were banging into each other everywhere and sliding all around. Home is where we went and stayed. It actually turned out to be a fun storm, eventually it sleeted and a small amount of snow fell which allowed us to play, which was way too much fun!

She was worn out in this picture!!

Well to quickly run down the week, while pulling my car out of the garage it slid on the ice into the side, I got my car stuck on the ice on Thursday, fell on my rear then almost did it again 2 hours later in the exact same spot! (falling that is)

I was so ready for the week to be over, it was just one of those, you know? Then, yes, then...we are all once again loaded up to go to yes, once again, Enid, this time for a 3 year old birthday party. We are just outside of OKC, Cassidy is snoozing away and boom! We are getting pulled over. Jason pulls to the shoulder, which was only about 2 feet wide, so he pulls to the dirt, stops and we sink. Yes, we sink, right there in front of the Highway Patrol on the side of the road in the only car our family has in possession at the moment, oh and did I mention we are driving on a spare because there was a nail in the sidewall of our tire and we had been waiting 3 weeks for the new tires to get in that were special ordered???? The deputy came up to us and said try to get out of the mud first, so we did, it seriously took 10 minutes. He then walked up and with a slight smile said you were going 61 in a 55 but I'm just going to give you a verbal warning, I would say your car wash is going to cost you enough. He was nice about it and laughed at it with us but man was that an end to the week we were ready to put away.

Thankfully we made it to Enid and home safely and I can say it's Tuesday and we are going great now, still one car, hopefully will get #2 back this week but even without it we will survive!! Oh, and I finally have new tires.

Happy 2009!!!

So apparently I am not a professional blogger. I will try to catch you all up on whats been happening in our world with out boring you...

My last blog was about Cassidy's trip to the ER. Since then she has done great but does have a small scar on her eye, hopefully someday it won't be so noticable. I am sure this is the first bad scar of many to come, after all have you all seen my knees?? (car wreck in high school)

So we had planned to have Thanksgiving here at our house but had to cancel it when all 3 of us were hit with the stomach bug. I tell you that having a 2 year old with the bug is no fun and when mom and dad are hit with it too there is nothing fun about it!! So we moved Thanksgiving to Jason's dads in Enid. We debated going since we had been sick but had felt better since Monday afternoon so the family convinced us to join them and so we did. Unfortunately for them 4 out of 10 came down with the bug starting on Friday, we are still so sorry for that!!!

Luckily we got better and stayed that way through the new year. We weren't sure how Cassidy was going to handle the whole Christmas hoopla but we were hopeful that it would be great. Well our first run in with Santa was a random evening we went to the mall just to walk around and waste some time. She saw Santa in his chair and wanted to see him so we let her sit on his lap and pictures had to be taken. You've got to love the outfit, obviously not planned! When he asked her what she wanted she answered "presents". We were surprised since we had not talked to her about getting presents that she answered like this.

"Presents" became her common answer to the all too common question from everybody during this time of year. We went with it because we figured this way Santa couldn't go wrong, right?

She loved Santa and seeing him, we visited him many times here is one of my favorite pictures. Can you see how she is leaning in and snuggling with him?

So there's the end of our year and our lead to the beginning of a new one. We have been very thankful for all that we have been blessed with and are looking forward to what 2009 has to offer!! I will make a vow to my blog and those who care to read it, I will get better at this and I promise to quickly post those funny things that Miss Cassidy says, because she said something the other day I really wanted to post so you could giggle with me but now I can't remember what it was, motherhood I guess!!

So to you and yours have a blessed New Year!! (even though we are over halfway through January!!)