Awkward times

This is the one thing I don't like about pregnancy (actually there are many)... the clothes. I'm at the stage where I no longer fit my regular jeans. Last pregnancy, I was able to wear 1 size bigger and not turn to maternity clothes until 7 months... But this time, I dug out my big jeans and they still don't fit! I had to resort to my bag of stored maternity clothes.
A gf of mine who gave birth 7 months ago also let me pick and choose from her stash.
Monday April 23 was the first day I put on maternity jeans. I am currently 18 weeks pregnant. If I remember correctly, I didn't get to that stage until 28 weeks last time around.

This weekend, I will start storing away my regular clothes, since I might not be able to fit into them again for another year or so. They will be missed. :-(

Looking for a nanny

We currently drop our son off at his babysitter's house in the mornings when we go to work. I'm a fulltime working mom who is out of the house 11 or so hours a day. When I first had Tristan, I took about 5 months off, then worked from home several days a week until he was 9 months old before I had to start finding a sitter for him. With the new management in this company, I won't have that opportunity with the second baby.

I expect to take 3 months off and return to work, so I felt I needed to make sure I planned out who will be watching the little ones. I spoke to the sitter about watching a second and she said one of the kids is leaving, which means she is unsure of her plans to continue babysitting. I might lose her all together, or if I'm lucky, she will watch both my kids. We still did not sit down to discuss anything since she's undecided. I hope to speak to her soon and maybe give her an offer to come to my house to watch the kids, but my husband is hesitant, since he believes children should not be stuck at home 24/7.

For those who have 2 or more children and are not stay at home moms, what do you think is the best childcare option?

Edamame

I got my son to eat edamame over the weekend. That is the ONLY green veggie he is currently willing to put into his mouth without spitting it back out. I guess it's a bit of progress!

I was snacking on it in front of the tv and like all foods, he runs up to me saying he wants he wants. That's the thing with toddlers... he can have the same exact meal in his bowl but he would want to eat what's on my plate. I squeezed out the pea from the pod and made this "boop" sound to kind of make it fun. He popped it in his mouth and asked for more. I was actually shocked since Tristan is not a veggie eater. He would only eat corn and pototoes, which I don't consider real veggies. For a while I minced all his veggies very fine and mixed it in his congee which he would use his tongue to find and spit it out or put it in his little fingers and hand it straight to me. I tried to hide peas in his food over the weekend, which I thought he did ok eating, but a day later, I found dried peas all over the living room floor... I guess he spit them out and left a trail.

Edamame will be the new snack at home now. I read up on it and seems like it has most of the nutrition he needs - Vitamin A, protein, fiber, iron and calcium all in a little package!

First kicks

I'm currently 17 weeks pregnant with baby #2. We were extremely excited with the first one, but this time around, seems like there isn't much talk about her (yes it's a girl). It's probably because we went through all the excitement first time around, or, it can also be because we're extremely busy with our toddler nowdays to even think about #2.

My morning sickness came and went, and now we're in our second trimester. I noticed my pants getting tighter about a week ago... with my first, I wasn't in maternity pants until 7 months! This morning I had trouble getting into my jeans... I know I have to go pick up maternity pants soon at the Gap.... sigh.

I also noticed some little kicks earlier in this pregnancy. About 2 weeks ago, I already felt some fluttering but I've been ignoring it... it's too early I say to myself. But this weekend, during one of my many sleepless nights I have nowadays, I felt some distinct kicks so decided to place my hand over my tummy. It was a dark and quiet night, so this time I was sure. I was able to feel a kick and this time it wasn't gas. :-)

Toddler's eating habits

My son was never a good eater.
It's Friday and what am I dreading? What to cook for him this weekend. During the weekdays, the sitter takes care of his meals and "claims" he's a pig and eats everything from congee to rice to noodles to cookies to bread.
At home, he's constantly turning his head to everything except for cheerios. I can't have a toddler eating cheerios and milk 3 meals a day!!!
Well, I might be exaggerating a tiny bit. He does eat apples and bananas too, in addition to his cereal diet.
He was an ok gerber baby food eater as an infant, but around 9 months or so we started making him "congee" which is a chinese staple for babies. It's just soupy rice cooked with chicken or some type of meat. I like to mix in minced veggies, which he golfed down as an infant. But once he hit 14 months or so (I just threw in a number, who knows how long it's been), he decided he doesn't like congee anymore. He's constantly turning his head and dodging the spoon.. you know, what toddlers do best.
In fact, it seemed like he enjoyed taking his cough medicine more than his congee. So since then, I gave up making a separate pot of congee for him since it goes down the garbage disposal at the end of the day anyway.
So what do you serve a toddler?
I thought kids loved chicken nuggets, pizza and burgers... NOOO my son wants nothing to do with that... *more head turning*
He also hates mac & cheese. We realized that he doesn't like cheese like his daddy does. I try those campbells soups with the Dora characters on it... *head turns*

I envy those moms who say.. my kids eat everything on their plate! Please help me.

First Post

I can't believe I'm starting a new blog now. I've been in the internet world for 10+ years now. Some of you might know me as the girl waiting to get into a club at 3am on a Friday night, but no more. Going to sleep by 10PM is the norm. I cannot even remember the last time I picked up a drink. But it's ok. I am now in a different phase of my life.

My son is already 21 months old. Time does really fly. I remember the day he was born back in the summer of 2005. I was several days late and the doc sent me in to get induced. Literally 5 hours later, with 2 hours of painful contractions (yes only 2 but did I mention painful?) Tristan was born and changed my world.

We are way past discussing his infant milestones, but he's growing up quickly, walked by the time he turned 1, we weaned him off the bottle by 18 months and for the last couple of months, he's already learned to read 1-10 and all 26 letters of the alphabet. Who says too much tv is bad for kids? If it wasn't for cartoons, my son would not be so smart. :-)

OK, now I'm going to start invading your blogs. ;-)