Pregnancy care: according to a 4 year old

I sit on our glider chair and pull my shirt up over my belly to let Bug and Gizmo have some time connecting with the baby.

"Wow! Big belly!" Bug declares.

For Gizmo, this activity mostly involves blowing big, slobbery raspberries. Bug, on the other hand, is much more mature about it. He places his little hands on my belly and rub it gently.

"What are we going to name the baby?" I ask him.

"Uhm, it's a girl baby."

"Yeah [you can keep thinking that, and I hope you won't be disappointed if you're wrong], but what should we name her if it's a girl?"

"Uhm, Mom. We already have a name for her."

"Well, what is it?"

"I don't remember. What is it?"

Then the baby starts wiggling, and I try to get the boys to notice or feel. I'm not sure that they do. But I point out where a baby butt is pushing out under my ribs.

"Where are the arms?" Bug asks. So I point out approximately where the arms would be, and then the rest of the body. Which leads to a discussion about why the head is down low, during which Bug announces that his head came out first. Yes, yes it did, son.

More raspberries and rough belly shaking from Gizmo. Whines from Bug about the amount of slobber. Wiping of the offending slobber. And vigorous rubbing from Bug.

"Do you want to talk to the baby? Sing a song? Or read a book?" I ask the boys.

"I think, 'Through and Through'!" (a favorite story for bedtime) So I recite the story, while Bug repeats after each line. The baby gets really wiggly at this point.

"I think the baby is tired." Bug coos. (We did just read the bedtime story, after all.)

"Nope, I think the baby just woke up! It's wiggling all over! Do you see my belly moving?"

"Oh, I think the baby is hungry!" Bug announces. I then explain that the baby is always getting food from my body and the food that I eat.

"Well, I think the baby needs some sunshine!" Bug then decides.

"But the baby is inside my belly, and can't get sunshine the same way that you do." I explain.

"You can go outside and open your mouth!"

"And the sunshine will go in my mouth to the baby??"

"Uhm......no. You open your mouth and breathe in air."

"And the air will take sunshine to the baby??" (I am getting increasingly amused and confused.)

"Uhm.....no. You open your mouth, swallow air, and the air goes down to the baby."

"Hmmm...well, that's kind of how it works, not really. Is that how you think the baby will get sunshine?"

"No." And then Bug gets exasperated with trying to explain it all to me and goes back to his attentive rubbing. And then I have to get up to go pee.

Bug Update

Next in line on the update list is Bug.

Bug is going to be 5 in just a few months. FIVE!!! That's supposed to be one of our big, birthday party years (since we don't do parties every year). But I am going to be -hugely- pregnant on his birthday. Like, ready to  pop any day pregnant. I'm really thinking that I will do all the planning, but the hubs is going to have to actually execute the party.

We'll probably have to do a super hero theme for Bug's party. Avengers would be ideal. Bug is absolutely obsessed with Iron Man. He has assigned the whole family their very own heroes from the Avengers. The Hubby is Captain America. I am Black Widow. Bug is Iron Man. Gizmo is the Hulk. Occasionally, he assigned other family members to fill the remaining slots. But really, as long as we have Iron Man, nothing else matters!

Bug is also quite skilled at working the Xbox. He and Gizmo play games together (which always leads to arguments). And most of the time, they are better than I am! And Bug also loves watching movies on Netflix. (The kids are getting way more screen time than they should, because this pregnancy is kicking my butt, and it's cold outside!) I take a secret pleasure in the fact that Bug not only enjoys Power Rangers and super heroes, but he also loves watching Strawberry Shortcake and all the Tinker Bell movies. I am so proud that his wide interest has broken past the typical gender norms! I hope it lasts.

Bug took so long before he actually started talking, that even though he has been talking for quite a while now, I still am amazed at the things he says. He is hilarious! Most of the time it is completely unintentional. He often reminds me that he is a "growing man". And I always crack up when he uses the word "fragile". Also when he says "girl", because he has a hard time pronouncing the word. It usually ends up sounding like "gorl".

Because Bug is a couple of years older than he was during my last pregnancy, he is showing a definite increase in understanding about pregnancy. I have pulled out a few of my pregnancy books to show him pictures that will help him understand what is going on inside me. He likes to try to feel the baby kick (but he usually gets bored before he actually gets to feel anything....which is actually much the same for the Hubs!) He -really- wants a little sister. He always tells me that he hopes the baby will be a "gorl baby". And he doesn't hesitate to tell others that I am having a girl. But we really have no idea what we are having yet, so I always have to make sure that people know that we really don't know! There have been a couple of times where I have watched a birth video online, and Bug comes up to see what I'm watching. He usually asks questions about the noises being made. I explain the birth process as best as I can, and make sure to point out how happy the mommy is after the baby is born, and that she isn't hurt. He's going to be a great big brother...not that he isn't already, I just think he will be a bigger help and much more interested and loving toward the new baby than with Gizmo!

I keep reminding myself that Bug is going to be eligible for Kindergarten this fall. I have been really waffling back and forth between home school and public school. I love the idea of home schooling, but I worry that Bug won't pay as much attention to his learning at home. Or maybe that -I- won't pay as much attention to his learning! We sometimes like to practice his alphabet and numbers, but he doesn't have much interest in them. And when he is interested in learning about them, his attention span is not nearly long enough! He has enjoyed learning how to write things, though. I will write out letters or words, and he will copy them. Or he will write out a bunch of letters that he remembers, and tell me what he thinks it says. I'm guessing that the interest will develop just as it should for him.

I have started to implement some different discipline techniques with Bug. I admit to being way less gentle as a parent than I wish. But I have found that I am able to use motivations other than spanking and yelling with Bug. He responds incredibly well to being grounded from things that he enjoys. I am so glad to be able to move away from the more violent forms of punishment. They have always made me feel so guilty afterwards, but I always struggled with eliminating them from my parenting. So I am beyond glad that Bug is starting to respond to more mild forms of punishment. (Although, I still end up yelling a lot. I'll just keep trying to cut out that bad habit!)

I love my boys! I have admitted to -not- enjoying the toddler stage. at. all. Give me a newborn any day! Now that Bug is preschool aged and moving into just plain old "young child" age, I am finding that this stage is pretty fun! (Now, I just have to survive the toddler stage for the rest of my kids....and hope that the teenage years aren't really all the comparable!)

Seriously. A tangent post.

For some reason, my blog has seriously taken the back burner in my life. And when I say back burner, I mean the back burner on some stove in someone's possibly abandoned house that I've never been to before. I've been turning into a ravenous crafter of late (and spending most of my online time perusing Etsy for ideas or Ravelry for patterns). I'm definitely more likely to have a crochet project in my lap than a new post idea in my head. Maybe because it's much more brainless? And I really feel like this stage of parenting has totally decimated my thinking powers. Some of the things I've had running through my mind lately have been: Why do toddlers like to eat crayons? And how do I get a specific one to stop? And speaking of eating and stopping, how do I get this toddler to stop biting? And how am I going to piece that reconstructed shirt dress together? And how do I get my kids to play nicely? And should I take a nap today? And how do I keep this crazy toddler from getting into everything and climbing onto everything and whining about everything and begging to nurse 24/7 and messing up everything that I clean withing .02 seconds of me cleaning it?

As you can see, I have a lot of questions about how to have the perfect toddler. And by perfect toddler, I mean a responsible adult in a toddler body.

Basically, the toddler stage is by far my least favorite of the stages I have encountered. (I'm sure people will tell me that teenagers are worse, but in my particular stage of life, I really don't know if I can accept that.) I think having a toddler is harder because I also have a preschooler who still acts like a toddler sometimes....and hasn't quite figured out how to play nicely.

And speaking of preschool, some of my friends from church and I have put together a joy school for our preschool aged children. We meet once a week at our church building and we take turns teaching about letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and various other topics. It's pretty exciting that Bug is old enough for this type of stuff! And I really love being so involved!

Shortly after celebrating Gizmo's first birthday, we cut his hair. It was a sad and difficult thing for me to do. I loved his curls so much! But, everyone was calling him a girl, and the hubby didn't appreciate that. So he said the curls had to go. The really sad thing, though, is that people still call Gizmo a girl...even without the curls. I guess he's just pretty.

And speaking of pretty, we let Bug pick out his own Wii remote (because he's learning how to play Mario, and that's awesome and fun) and he chose a pink one. There's actually something that I really love about having a boy who has the favorite color of pink!

Bug is really growing up! He reminds me all the time. ("Mom. Me big, right?") I am thrilled that he is totally potty trained. He sits in a booster seat in the car (and even buckles his own seat belt sometimes!) But he is turning into a total drama....king? He fake laughs. He fake whines. He fake cries. And he exaggerates practically everything. (His coloring isn't right...."OOooooohhhh man!!!! I haaate that!!!") I've started having to remind him that if something frustrates him, then he needs to put it down and walk away. He isn't very good at remembering that, though. If the hubs talks to him, when he was talking to me, he says, "Don't talk to me! I talking to mommy!" Or if he goes to the bathroom (usually when he's pooping) and I ask him -anything- he will yell, "DON'T TALK TO ME!" Like I said. Drama.

And Gizmo is growing up. Or at least climbing up. He climbs on EVERYTHING. Bookshelves, kitchen cabinets, bathroom drawers, computer desk, beds, tables, chairs. He is either a monkey, or he has sticky tree frog pads on his hands and feet, because he climbs onto things I had no idea he could. His balance is impeccable! And my nerves are always on edge.

So....that's what's up right now....and now I need to go crochet some more.