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!