Siblings and new babies

I am 38 weeks today and I am scheduled to have this baby by C-section next Tuesday morning. It's a bit odd to know this time around when the baby is coming, but at the same time, sort of nice to be able to plan and not have this big unknown event hanging over me waiting to go off like a time bomb. I saw my Dr. yesterday and this baby still has not dropped, she said its likely this baby would not be born naturally either (my first labour failed to progress likely because my son's head couldn't/wouldn't drop down).
 As we live in a small town, our Hospital won't do VBAC's and if I had wanted to go that route, would have to have our baby in North Vancouver (an hour away), meaning all my prenatal appointments would have had to be there as well, meaning more time off work etc. etc. I did consider a Midwife as we have 1 in Squamish, but when I called her at 9 weeks pregnant she was already full for all of September (My due date was the 8th). She would have had to deliver the baby in North Van as well, but at least all of my appointments could have been closer to home. We are getting 2 more midwives, but they won't be practicing until October. Squamish is having a bit of a baby boom, for example my own Dr. had 10 babies due./born in August alone.

Anyways I guess I just provided all this back ground info on why I am not going for a VBAC, as people usually assume you should at least try. I am a little sad about not at least having trial labour, but based on the above I think this is the right choice for us.

Things that are occupying my thoughts this week are mostly about my first son, who is VERY excited about the baby. He now sleeps with his doll instead of his 2 puppies and wakes up every morning asking about his baby brother. We don't actually know the sex of the baby, but his friend Caleb has a baby brother so I think he just goes with that. At 2 (26 months) I am not sure he even gets the boy/girl thing (the concept in general), we remind him it may be a sister and that we have to wait and see.

Things we have done in preparing out first son for the new baby:

6 weeks ago we moved him into his room full time (he was co sleeping) into his own twin bed (I will blog about this process some other time).

Read stories about new babies. Mostly ones from the library; not just books about bringing a new baby home, but about babies in general. I did buy him the New Baby Little Critter  book, which has a little sister, I try to keep it gender neutral and just say "baby".

A doll- I bought him one at Christmas when we were first planning this baby and it is just a cabbage patch doll that actually ended up in the closet for a long time, but now we change it's diaper and swaddle it together.

Remind him about the routine for the day the baby is born: he will go to Nana's house, Mummy will go to the hospital and the Dr. will take the baby out from my tummy, and then Nana will bring him to hold the baby (he is very excited to hold the baby). Side note: We have been using this routine trick in other parts of his life as well, such as bed time or leaving somewhere, talking about 3 things that will happen so that he know what is coming. For example," we will read a story, then sing some songs, say our prayers, and then Mummy will leave the room for you to sleep",  we remind him during the routine this is what we are doing and we find that it works really well in avoiding melt downs.

I have also stocked up on little gifts for him so that when the baby gets gifts, he doesn't feel left out.

I know that Kris and Jill have blogged on this topic ages ago, but I can't find their posts (will look harder later), but I thought I would share my thoughts and see if anyone else has any tips to add.

Mother's Day Reflections

Being Mother’s day in a few days I have been reflecting on being a Mother and on my own experience. I have to say I thought it would be easier. I am the oldest of a family of 6, my youngest sibling is 15 years younger than me. I figured I had a ton of “mothering” experience, also part of the reason I was in no hurry to have my own children. We got married at 22, but did not start our family until we were 29.

In the first weeks, months, now years I am continually surprised in how much work it is to be a mother, and a wife and all the other roles required of me in my life.

To work 40 hours a week, stay on top of groceries, laundry, house work, spend enough time with my husband and child, requires so much more of me than I thought.

I always thought I would be a really laid back parent, but I find I worry about all sorts of things I never thought I would. More and more I realize that being a parent is learned, it is not a natural thing. Like most people I am sure, I like to be good at what I do, I avoid things that I can’t pick up relatively quickly, I hate to make mistakes, and as a parent I do….daily.

Anyways what I wanted to get at is that I like to feel sorry for myself, to think that I have so much to do, and not enough support from my husband. I catch myself when I start to do this, because I cannot help but think how good I really do have it compared to the majority of woman around the world. If I think about what my life would look like it I was a woman in Afghanistan, India, Africa, or any number of any countries where woman are barely considered human  I cannot even compare my complaints to what their reality is.

I read stories such as these here, and feel wretched that I ever complain about the lot I was blessed with in life. These women are faced with unbelievable treatment for circumstances that are fairly beyond their control, yet they persevere and do not give up in order to provide the best future for their children.

Really as a mother in North America, I have nothing to complain about.

Oh, they grow!

My darling preemie daughter is now wearing her 'big girl' clothes. She has officially passed the 7 pound mark and out of preemie wear. And so begins another chapter of sorting through clothes. Our girl will most likely be our last baby, so this is the first clothes sorting that is not just putting away clothes, but giving them away. At the same time, my second child is growing out of a 3T and into a 3x/4T size. Now that we know the 3rd child is a girl, I am looking at the stacks of boy clothes waiting in the basement, knowing that most of them will be passed onto children that aren't my own. Oh, sure there are some gender neutral wear items in there, but let's be real, most of it is pretty boyish. So yes, I have a big job ahead of me. I do need to sort through what I have and start donating away (I'm up to the 18 months size currently), but I do so with a sentimental tear. This is hard evidence that my kids are getting bigger. And I'm not ready for them to be older yet. I love them the age they are at (although the same could be said at every age they have been). I want to take more videos and more photos. I want to write every moment down, but I know I can't. I know that I'll forget things (and I already have). You only have to listen to the radio to know how common a theme this is. Make the moments you have with your kids matter because soon enough they will be grown. My own mother can't believe that her babies are 34 and 32 in a blink of an eye. I do look forward to tomorrow and seeing what kind of people they grow into but I'm really enjoying the people that they are now.

Thoughts on Thursday

(Bear with me as I fill in for Kris for a moment.)
This past weekend was my oldest son's 5th birthday. He was born on Labour day (seriously, what baby could resist?) and so his birthday often falls on a long weekend, right before the first week of school. This year, we invited about 8 kids to his party, but many of them were going away or had already made plans for the weekend. The day before the party, after I had baked a cake, I learned that only two guests were likely to show up, and only one parent confirmed that their child was for sure coming. I knew that my son would be disappointed with a smaller party, but at 29 weeks pregnant, and with my part time job and assorted lessons starting the following week, I really didn't feel I had the energy to change the day and do all the inviting and planning a second time.

What would you do? Have the birthday party anyway, with the possibility of only one guest, or change the day and re-invite everyone to the party two weeks later?

I am not as clever as Kris, so I don't know how to do the survey thing. Please leave your opinion in the comments section. Thanks.

Thoughts on Thursday

Happy Thursday everyone! I'm up to my ears and eyeballs in boxes packing this week! We move house on Monday and it's been quite a challenge packing with two busy boys around (I can't wait to get my hands on the rest of their toys!).
Last week I talked about a situation when a child hurt my son at a public playplace. The parent was oblivious to this. I wondered how you all would handle it. The responses were varied (and I'm so pleased at how many people stopped by and took the time to respond!) The majority of you (60%) are a lot braver than I am and would speak to the parent about it. I'm just so bad with confrontation I guess. Good for you though! That really would be the appropriate thing I think. I am just scared of getting into something with people. That's just me though!
Onto this week's topic:
This is a 'hot topic' and I know can get some people's gears up. I was thinking about bed sharing with your kids. My husband and I didn't intend to share a bed with our children at all. It is something that happened out of necessity to sleep. Both our boys have crawled into our beds at one point or another. Our oldest has been out of our bed for a few years now and our youngest still will crawl in around 2 or 3 in the morning at times. It seems like this is North America's big no-no. Yet, many people swear by it (just like rocking their kids to sleep - guilty!). I read a post by an older parent recently who stated she rocked, cuddled and slept with all 5 of her now grown children and they all turned out well. Other people are turned off completely by this. They believe it is wrong. Babies sleep in cribs on their own and that is that. Where do you stand?

Do you bed share with your baby?

• yes
• no
• sometimes

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Thoughts for Thursday

So it appears that I am in the minority according to last week's poll. Most people (76%) do find out the sex of their babies before they are born, the rest are people like me. Very interesting, I think.

So onto today's topic and it is another one of those what do you do with other parent's type poll. It is based on a real life situation that happened to us last weekend. Our boys were playing in the McDonald's playplace. Yes, we keep an eye on them in there and it's a good thing too. Our oldest (he's 5) started crying in pain. We called him down and sure enough another boy had grabbed him on the face and pinched and pulled (leaving large scratch marks down his cheek). I guess my son had been playing with one of the cranks up there and the other boy wanted it now and wouldn't wait his turn so he reacted physically. My son was pretty good about it considering and calmed down fairly quickly. He then went to tell the boy that he didn't want him to do that and that he was hurt.

I could see my husband go through those emotions that all of us go through when something like this happens which is anger and wanting to confront the parent (who was oblivious and continued to let her child play), but he maintained his cool and worried about our son.

So what would you do? This isn't the first time I've seen parents be completely oblivious to the behaviour of their child in a public play space. Do you say something. Lose your cool with them? Speak to the child yourself? Let it go? Something else completely? I'm interested, let us know!

How do you handle it when a parent is completely oblivious to the behavior of their child in a public play space?

• Say something to the parent
• Yell at the parent
• Say something to the child
• Ignore it, let it go
• Take your kid outta there, commenting loudly on your way out
• Something else entirely

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Thoughts on Thursday

I'm moving the Monday Mama Musings to Thursdays (and therefore have to change the name). I quite enjoy participating in the 'Not Me Mondays' but still wanted to do this. Last week's poll involved nursing your baby in public and the results showed that those who nurse, are comfortable doing so in public.

Today's parenting post is a topic I've seen quite often around parenting message boards. When you were pregnant, did you find out the sex of the child ahead of time? This is an interesting one to me. I didn't realise how many people do find out beforehand. My husband and I liked the not knowing (because we'd know soon enough). I also have known a couple of people who found out, only to find out that they were told the wrong sex (it really does happen). I'd hate to get ready for a little girl just to have to take everything back and buy new for a little boy. Okay, so you know my bias, but I think I'm in the minority these days. Let's see :o)

Did you find out the sex of your child before they were born? (or plan to)

• yes
• no

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