Jordan's Birth

I thought I should write about when Jordan came into the world before I forget. It's been 9 weeks now.

When I was a week over-due I went to the hospital for a routine ultrasound; they do this with all women as they go past their date to make sure the baby is still thriving. I wasn't worried because I was feeling a lot of movement and I was told that the biggest concern would be how much water was left. I figured if there was enough water he would have enough space to move. I was wrong about that. He was moving enough and his muscle tone seemed great, but there wasn't enough amniotic fluid. The lady doing the ultrasound told me I would have to be admitted. I was really surprised. I hadn't brought anything with me and I had the car, which meant that Scott would have to find a way to get Brianna to my brother's and then find his way to the hospital. I fought back tears at this point because aside from the technicalities, the doctors would want to induce me and I was determined not to go down that road this time.

I walked down the hall and was told to wait for a doctor to assess me. I called Scott and my midwife (Karen) while I waited and Scott made arrangements to come see me and bring everything I needed. After a few hours of being in the hospital I was finally told that they'd like to induce me with oxytocin, but they didn't have enough staff so they sent me home. Karen was frustrated because she knew she could safely deliver the baby at the hospital and that staff would then not be an issue. The attending doctor that was on-call that evening, though, was not going to let her take care of me. She sent me home after doing a membrane sweep and gave me a list of other things that may help me go into labour on my own. So I went, and anticipated the call the next day to say they could take me in labour and delivery.

After calling the hospital a few times myself, I finally heard from them the next afternoon. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when we took Brianna back to my brothers and I mentioned to Scott that I thought my contractions were becoming more regular; about 7 minutes apart, but not too strong. We arrived at the hospital and waited again to be assessed. Once again, though, I was told that they couldn't do anything that night. They said I could stay the night and wait to be induced in the morning or go home and come back. We were getting frustrated and I decided to just stay there. Scott was surprised that I wanted to sleep there if I didn't have to, but I was so tired of going back and forth and I had a feeling that I was going to go into labour on my own. The OB on duty that night was different and we explained to her that it was really important that our midwife do the delivery. She was very understanding, but she said that if I was induced then the care would be transferred to a doctor. I asked if I could still have Karen do the delivery if I went on my own and she said that she would be okay with it. That gave me hope, but I knew it had to happen before 7am the next morning when the other doctor that wouldn't allow it would be back. I called Karen to give her an update and hung out with Scott until 10pm. My contractions were getting stronger when he left so I'm not sure why I sent him away, but I told him to expect a call. I tried to sleep after and then around midnight I woke up with some pretty serious contractions about 3 minutes apart. I couldn't find the page button on my bed so I got up and hobbled to the nurse's station to get a doctor. The resident came to check me and said I wasn't in true labour, but I called Karen and Scott because I knew it was real and I didn't want to be alone. Karen suggested I get in the shower to help the pain. I got in there to wait until Scott came and let the hot water wash over me. I found the spray really irritating on my stomach during contractions, but it felt good on my back where I was also really feeling them. I just put a hot wash cloth on my stomach during contractions. When Scott arrived they decided to take me to a delivery room. Karen had just arrived then too and we were all glad that she would be the one doing the delivery if the baby seemed fine. I just had to have a fetal monitor strapped to me the whole time.

I was having a really hard time with the back labour so Karen had me get on all fours and drape my arms over the back of the bed to take the pressure off. During each contraction either she or Scott would put counter-pressure on my hips to help alleviate some of the pain. It helped a little, but only if they put their hands on me at the beginning of the contraction. If they touched me after it started to rise I couldn't stand it.

The hours went by slowly after that, but things were progressing pretty well. Every once in a while my contractions would slow down and we'd have to change positions for a while. Jordan was facing the wrong way and wasn't putting enough pressure on my cervix so the last few centimetres were difficult. We talked about breaking my water. It was going to have to be done so they could check for meconium in the fluid (something that would require a transfer to a doctor), but I was apprehensive because when my water was broken with Brianna my coping skills went out the window and I didn't want that to happen again. I knew that I was prolonging the inevitable though. I think it was around 7 in the morning that I finally let her break my water. I was happy that the pain didn't increase dramatically right away, but the contractions deifinitely got stronger. But still, the last 2 cm were just not getting there. Karen even tried to manually turn Jordan around, but he didn't stay. After Karen broke my water she called Mico, the midwife for Jordan, and my contractions continued to get stronger and more intense. They convinced me to move into the bathroom and sit on the toilet to open up my pelvis. I sat there for a few contractions and was having a really hard time. I kept breathing through each one, but I said I didn't think I could do it anymore. Karen said that's what women say just before they deliver their babies. I was scared, though, and even though I had a slight urge to push I didn't want to continue. I got back to the bed on my hands and knees and pushed a little. Karen didn't know that I was pushing yet, but with that little push I couldn't control it after that. She hadn't had a chance to check my dilation yet, but my body was ready. It was intense, scary and painful and could only look inside myself for the strength because nobody could do it except me. I was determined to get through the next phase quickly, though, so I gave it all that I had. After 15 minutes Jordan was born at 9:42am and I was exhausted. Everyone was proud of me because I finally had the birth I wanted and I did really well, apparently. I was just glad it was over.

Jordan Rain was a beautiful, healthy, chubby 9 lb 6 oz little boy and it felt wonderful to finally hold him and nurse him. I am proud of myself for having the natural birth I wanted. It took me a while to feel that way, though, since it was obviously more intense than Brianna's birth. Right afterward I said I wasn't sure if I would go naturally again because I really didn't like the pushing phase like most women do, but I've gotten to the point now that I can appreciate it more. I'm just glad it wasn't 2 hours again this time!

I'm feeling a little moody these days...

I'm now a week away from my due date and I've sort of calmed down a little. Last week I went into panic mode thinking this little guy was going to arrive early, but who am I kidding? He'll be late. I see the midwife tomorrow and maybe she'll have an idea. Or not.
Today for some reason I looked at his little clothes arranged in his dresser and smelled them (I don't know what possessed me) and they smelled like a dirty, old musky basement and I was suddenly really upset. The dresser came from a basement and the smell hasn't disappeared like I thought it would. I took everything out of it and told Scott we're simply going to have to get a new dresser (hopefully I can find one for a decent price that's new, or in good condition and not stinky. I have a lead at United Furniture Warehouse). I freaked out just before Brianna was born too, about cat hair. I almost got rid of our cats because there was too much hair that I couldn't get rid of. Maybe it's normal to suddenly get irrational about things at this stage in pregnancy, or maybe it's just me.
I'm also at that point in the pregnancy that I'm feeling quite ready to be comfortable again. I've had a pretty easy go of things this time around (and with Bree too), but it's difficult sleeping and I want normal clothes again.
Hopefully by sometime next week, though, we'll have our new little son and I can become rational and less moody....or just more so, we'll see. At least I'll be bale to sleep on my stomach again!

Getting excited about Christmas...

I've been really excited about Christmas since the summer this year. It's so exciting now that Brianna is old enough to get excited about it and it's made it so much more magical for me. I'm looking forward to all the festivities that happen and also to finally spending Christmas with our families! We're going to the Santa Claus parade on Saturday which should be great. She really likes Christmas decorations (much better than the Halloween ones that made her a little nervous) and the fact that the floats will be lit up will make it even better. The parade in Edmonton was actually kind of a disappointment which surprised me since it was a big city. They did it inside the City Centre Mall Which has a series of pedways connecting it all around the downtown) since it's usually so cold outside and instead of floats they had people pulling wagons. It didn't have the same appeal for me.

I think I've also convinced Scott to go to Upper Canada Village some night for their light festival. They have all sorts of children's activities and neat things to see. Scott's not excited, but I think Bree (and I) will really like it.

We won't put our tree up right away in December, but Scott is talking about putting up a few lights outside and I bought a little Fisher Price Little People nativity that Brianna can play with (but it has to stay in the same spot!). I like the idea of having a little nativity that the kids get excited about seeing every year when it comes out. I always liked the nativity that my parents displayed, but we weren't allowed to touch it.

Aside from the commercial side of Christmas, which I won't deny that I enjoy, I've been trying to get Brianna to think about the importance of giving to people in need. We've been talking a lot about what we have and some people don't and she got really into the Operation Christmas Child shoebox. She's been talking a lot about "the little girl that's far away" that will get the box with everything we put in it. I also want to get an advent wreath and read stories and reflections every week and start that tradition. It's something that I always liked as a little girl too.

friends

This morning I was doing some housework while Brianna was playing in her bedroom alone. She often wants me to play with her instead of cleaning and I usually try to get through my chores quickly so I don't feel so guilty. Today she had her door closed and she had Tyke, one our cats in there with her. She loves to have him trapped in there, but he doesn't enjoy it so much. I usually allow it until I hear her chasing him into a corner yelling at him. I had an armload of her toys and I opened her door to put them in there. Tyke was out the door as soon as there was space for him to squeeze through. Brianna all of a sudden had her bottom lip out and tears in her eyes and she said, "I need Tyke to come back in here because he's my friend!" She said this which such earnest in her voice that I felt kind of bad, but then, wiping her tears away and trying not to cry she said, "maybe you can be my friend now, Mommy." Let the guilt trip begin!

7 months, 5 days

March 28th was way too long ago. Time to try this again. I can't promise that I'll be better, but I'll try to do better than 7 months and 5 days.

We're pretty settled at our new home now. I'm happy to have more space and our own yard (even though we don't play in it very often) and it's nice to be somewhere quiet. It isn't my dream home, but I'm happy for now.

I think Brianna misses the daycare and playing with all her friends. She really likes to see her cousin Alexa, who's 4, and sometimes her distant cousin Kristin when I go to the mom's group at the Christian Reform church. We didn't go last week because I was paranoid about all the kids who are sick everywhere and this week is a hymn sing which I'm not into. We'll go back next week, though, and we're immunized now so I won't worry so much. I'm probably worrying more than necessary, but I can't help it with the way the media has gone crazy with everything.

I'm really enjoying getting to know my midwife, Karen; she seems a good fit for me. At the last appointment she asked where we were planning on having the baby and I said hospital, but I'm not really opposed to a home birth either. Scott's always been the one a little more hesitant on that front. It freaks me out a little when I think of the mess (silly, I know) and I'm not sure about Brianna. One the one hand I think it would be great to not have to ship her off to someone's house while I'm in labour, especially if it's the middle of the night. On the other hand, though, if she's here I guess I'd need someone to be with her and I can't think of anyone that I'd feel comfortable asking. The idea of her being here makes me feel better, though. I'm pretty sure that if she wasn't I'd be worried about her. The other thing about a home birth I like is that I can just be in my bed afterward. I hate sleeping in a hospital; it's too noisy, uncomfortable and bright. We'll be going to an information session at the clinic next month. I also like that I don't have to commit to anything right now and I could decide in the middle of everything what I want to do. I suppose I should pre-register at the hospital just in case, though.

I just finished reading the Twilight series and, if you haven't read it, it was very good. I never would have picked it up if Scott hadn't given me the first book for Christmas. Now I'm among the followers. I'm not crazy like some of them , though. Next I have to continue reading my Outlander series since there's a new book due out in the fall. I'm re-reading the first 6 books to refresh my memory. I've never read a book twice before; I never saw a point. I'm absolutely in love with the books, though. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, they are written by Diana Gabaldon. It's a historical fiction (with some romance thrown in for good measure) about a woman who accidentally gets thrown back to 18th century Scotland and because of circumstances end up marrying and falling in love with a warrior from then. It stretches out through many years and real life wars and it's very good. I didn't used to be much of a reader, but after Brianna was born I started to read more often.

Even though it is officially spring, the weather hasn't been co-operating. It's still been cold and snowy. We've ahad a few days above zero, but nothing to significantly melt any snow. We just get a bunch of puddles that end up freezing and being hazardous. I'm really looking forward to warm weather being permanent. The last two winters here didn't really bother me, but this one has been really long and I'm done with it. My brain is telling me it's spring, though, and I feel my spirits lifting slightly and I'm thinking of spring cleaning. We have the week after Easter off so I'm hoping that along with a trip to the mountains to ski and a trip to the Calgary zoo that I can do some purging around the apartment. I usually enjoy that (until I encounter spiders).

I'm hoping to make our eventual move back to Ontario easier by taking stock of what we have and what to keep or get rid of. I feel confident that the move will happen soon, but it drives me nuts not having a hard time line. We plan to have the application for the transfer in within the next month, but after that it will be out of our hands. We just hope that we don't have to wait to long and we'll be in Kingston by summer. I prefer summers there to here since there are better places to swim and camp. To me camping and swimming go hand-in-hand, but there isn't a lot of lakes here, and the few around aren't worth swimming in with all the pipe-lines running through the province. I hope to be visiting Sandbanks or Charleston Lake this summer.

Christmas Spirit

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year. Brianna will be able to appreciate it more and I love experiencing this for the first time again through her eyes. We went for a walk the other night to see how many Christmas lights were up and she would get so excited when she spotted another house. We're eagerly anticipating when Candycane Lane is all lit up close to our house so we can walk over and see the abundance of lights. It's just a neighbourhood that has been getting into the spirit for years and it's a tradition for thousands of people to come and see it.

We'll be putting our Christmas tree up next weekend and I hope to get some holiday baking done too. Scott has been busy making Christmas cd's with our favourite classics so we can play them while we're doing everything together.

Scott and I both have the week between Christmas and New Year's off and it will be nice to spend that time together as a family. We're hoping to make it to Jasper for a couple nights so Scott can ski and Bree and I can do some wintery stuff around town.

I think there is some fancy way for people to see when I've updated my blog, so in the off-chance that someone still checks-in I'll update.

We're on holidays this week and it's going to be hard to go back to work on Monday. The holiday didn't start off great; both Scott and Brianna were sick. We haven't done much yet since everyone has been better, but we've had some good intentions. I tried to take Bree to the beach the other day when Scott was sick in bed. I drove almost an hour to the other side of Stoney Plain just to discover that the beach was closed. I was pretty annoyed that there was no indication on their web site. Beaches that aren't too polluted to swim in are few and far between in Alberta. We also intended to go to the water park last night, but Brianna had a very late nap and that didn't work out. We're still hoping to go to Fort Edmonton sometime this week. We have managed to get a good hike in around the Fort's perimeter last night, though.

We're still striving for our goal of moving back to Kingston, but we haven't made much progress and still have no idea of when it will happen. I'm so eager to get back there, though, and it's so hard being away from family and friends. It was hard when we decided not to go for this week since my brother, Travis, and his wife and kids were visiting Kingston from Saint John. They haven't even met Brianna and I haven't met their latest addition to the family. I'm just praying that we'll be there by next spring, but we don't know.

Whirlwind

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind lately. Brianna turned one last weekend and we had Scott's parents here to celebrate with us. We had a really nice time and Scott and I went out for the first time since Bree was born by ourselves. We went to The Olive Garden for supper and then to the movies to see "Made of Honor". I thought the movie was cute, but I think Scott was just okay with it since it was very much your typical chick-flick. It was our anniversary outing because we were married 5 years this past Saturday.

We also had a birthday party for Brianna on the 18th since her birthday was the 20th. It was lots of fun and the cake was really good. Since I had guests for the weekend I didn't make a cake myself. I ordered one from Safeway that was decorated with a Sesame Street theme. It had two layers (one chocolate, one vanilla), and it had custard in between. We also ordered a couple of sushi platters from the only sushi place that we've found to be any good here.

Brianna also started at the daycare on Wednesday and I started work. It was a really stressful week for us as we tried to adjust. She didn't nap very well on any of the three days so she was really grumpy and not herself when I came home. I work until 6 so there isn't a lot of time to spend with her before bed and it's even less time when she's tired. I also feel bad waking her up early in the morning when she's so tired. I hope we all adjust soon. We came home early today, though, because Brianna was having a hard time breathing because of her cold. She had the same thing happen back in February. She had a normal cold and then after a couple days we noticed her breathing was really raspy and fast so we took her to the doctor and she was given a bronchial dilator. Since the same thing happened today I had to bring her home and give her her puffer. It helped almost right away and now she's sleeping. I hope she has a good nap so she'll get better faster. I'll probably take her back to daycare tomorrow (assuming she's doing ok) and bring her puffer with me.

Everyone has told me that I'll get used to taking her to daycare and she'll adjust. I'm sure it will get easier, but I'll never feel like it's the ideal situation for us. My vocation in life is to just be a mom and wife; that's where my priorities are and we always planned for me to stay home. This situation is motivating me to be pro-active in making that happen. When I decided to go back to the daycare I was pregnant and knew the situation at the daycare would be temporary; now that I'm not pregnant I don't know how long it will be and that makes me anxious. I admire parents who can do what they need to do for their kids and accept it even if they aren't happy with it, but it's hard for me. I really hope and pray that we can buy a house somewhere soon(preferably Kingston, but at this point I'm not feeling picky) so that I can finally have a suitable place to have a home daycare and stay home.

Good stuff

Brianna has slept entirely through the night for 2 nights in a row now and this afternoon she fell asleep all by herself without crying. I'm very happy about this. She's also down to nursing at bedtime and in the morning only and there wasn't any stress about losing the other times. After I was stressing about not pushing her she just kind of let go a little. It's funny how that worked out.

I'm also happy that spring is here (again) and the snow is melting (again). Hopefully we've seen the last of the snow and we can stop wearing jackets. Pushing a stroller is really difficult on snowy sidewalks, especially when it warms up a little and it's all heavy and slushy.

We're taking Brianna to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time tomorrow and then going to her fist birthday party on Sunday. Her friend Olivia is turning 1. It's making me excited about her birthday next month.

It's winter here again. We got tons of snow over the weekend and there's still more to come; it's not really welcome. Despite the terrible weather yesterday I went to church with Brianna. I went to the Alliance church here in the west end finally. I put off going because I didn't think I'd like it since it's so huge, but I was pleasantly surprised . I can't really put my finger on why I liked it since I didn't really get to hear much of the message and I didn't really talk to anyone, but there's something nice about it. Brianna was with me for about three quarters of the service and was pretty restless. Eventually an usher approached me and asked me if I'd like her to be in the nursery. I wasn't too sure about it, but once I got her there I felt comfortable with it. They have a good system that made me feel like no strangers were going to steal her so I left her in there. Much to my surprise she didn't mind being left there at all. She was only in there for about 15-20 minutes, but she didn't cry at all. That makes me less scared about putting her in daycare in a month. I'm also glad that I can finally go to church and not stress about her disturbing everyone around us.

nursing

Brianna isn't ready to wean yet and I don't want to push her. She can easily go most of the day without nursing and she can fall asleep without it if we dance with her, but if I don't want to dance with her then nursing is pretty much the only way (aside from taking her for a walk or drive). I'm stressed out because I don't know how things will be for her at the daycare; I don't want it to be difficult for her. My hope is that she will be so tired from all the stimulation and the nap routine will be so different that she will just sleep easily. It will be really hard on me if I can hear her crying and I can't do anything about it. I'm going to nurse her before we go to the daycare and also when we get home. I'm hoping that nursing at different times will help her have her "mommy time" so that she won't feel traumatized. if I wasn't going back to work I wouldn't even be trying to wean. I thought I wanted to wean her, but I don't. I also enjoy the closeness. I wanted to stop sometime in her second year, but my plan was always to make it really gradual so it would be easy on both of us. Hopefully nursing her more when it's not nap time at home will help us both get what we need.

Saturday

Saturdays are always good days for me because Scott gets up with Brianna and takes her out and I have the place to myself. Unfortunately, I often spend it cleaning, but I feel better when it's done and I can relax then. For some reason in my head I had it in my head that I was going to go for a run this morning. The snow was pretty much gone and the days were longer so I thought I could try again. I woke up to a lot of snow and didn't feel up to it anymore though. I still haven't eaten my breakfast and I still could, but it doesn't seem as appealing with all the snow. I'm just really determined to eventually be able to run without wanting to die. It's been a life-long battle between my determination and laziness. So far laziness is winning.

Scott's on holidays next week and it will be really nice to have him around. On Monday I have to have an ultrasound just to make sure that my uterus is clearing out and then Tuesday morning I'm taking Brianna to a sign language and singing group at the library. As soon as that is done we're heading to Calgary to stay at a hotel and go to the zoo. Bree loves animals and I've heard good things about the zoo there. I was pretty disappointed in the one here; it doesn't have very many animals and the ones that are there are living in pretty small areas.

Everything happens for a reason?

For those of you who don't yet know, we've lost our little baby before even knowing him or her. I started spotting on Sunday, and after being told by an emergency room doctor that things were fine, I had an ultrasound yesterday and found out there was no heartbeat. The bleeding hasn't been bad and I haven't really had any cramping so I guess the worst is yet to come. I could see the baby on the monitor. The tech asked if I wanted to see and I said "no", but she left the screen on when I was changing so I looked. It was easy to see.

Scott and I are leaning on each other, our friends and family, and God to get us through this hard time. We're thankful for Brianna who can put a smile on our faces despite how we're feeling.

Pregnant Dreams

My dreams become so vivid when I'm pregnant that I think I should always be able to tell when I'm pregnant on that alone. The weirdest thing about my dreams is that I seem to dream about spiders a lot. I'm petrified of spiders and in all my dreams I have this terrible fear associated with them. They're always bigger than anything I've seen in real life and very threatening. I don't know what that means. I also dream that I am choking a lot. I wake up thinking that there is something in my mouth and I'm struggling to not swallow it. It's not always food either, sometimes it's an object like a ball. It makes me wake up really panicky. Luckily I haven't woken up thinking that I'm choking on a spider...I think that would give me a heart attack.

I'm having a hard time with this whole weaning thing. My family doctor told me I needed to wean because there wouldn't be enough nutrients, which I don't really believe (and with the amount I'm eating there has to be enough), but I'm eager to anyway because it's not that comfortable anymore. Brianna has 8 teeth that are becoming an issue throughout the whole feed. I also haven't been putting on much weight yet, and this morning the scale actually indicated that I've lost weight. I'm not sure how accurate my scale is, though, so I'm not sure if I should be concerned. I don't have an appointment with my OB for another 2 weeks so I can't discuss it with him until then.
I don't nurse that often anymore; it works out to be 2-3 times a day and then twice a night on average. She's been eating a decent amount of solid foods so I think she's doing well with nutrients even when she doesn't nurse often. I've started giving her cow's milk even though I've read a few times that babies under 12 months should be given formula instead. She's never had formula and I feel more comfortable with the milk. She also won't take a bottle, but sometimes I wish I had encouraged her to so that Scott could give her a bottle with warm milk at bedtime.
For those of you who have gone through the weaning...does just nursing at nap time and bedtime seem like a good start? What about nursing while pregnant? What did your doctors/midwives say about it?

News!

So big news over in Edmonton; I'm pregnant again! I'm 10 1/2 weeks along and I'm feeling great. I haven't had any morning sickness and I'm not even that much more tired. Baby number 2 is due to arrive in early October.

This is another reason I'll be going back to the daycare...I can cash in on mat leave again! I'll only be there until either we move, or I have the baby.

I haven't posted for a long time because I really don't know where to start. A lot has changed recently.

I'm no longer doing the home daycare and I've decided to go back to work at the daycare that I was at before. I went out with my old boss and she persuaded me to go back when Brianna is one. She can come with, butI won't be in the same room as her. I'll also be making more money than I would if I stayed home, even with paying for child care since the pay has gone up since I was there last. Scott and I weren't really sure if we wanted Bree to be at a daycare, but we figure it's a good opportunity for her to socialize with some other kids. She will only be there for a little while anyway since we're still hoping to move back to Kingston at the end of the summer. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it works out.

I had a meeting with my consultant from the day home agency yesterday and I think she was annoyed that I backed out. It does suck since I put so much time (and money) into preparing for the daycare, but I still plan to one day do it so I'll still use a lot of the stuff I bought. I plan on returning the things I don't need though. I was hoping that I could have taken care of some kids temporarily, but no such luck.

I still need some sort of a part time job so I'm applying at the grocery store near by. I'm really hoping that I can get something where I can just work 4 hours at a time when Scott is home so we'll keep our fingers crossed on that one too.

I'm also starting to wean Brianna, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I didn't want to do it this early, but I need to get rid of the daytime feeds at least if she'll be starting daycare. I've been trying to just nurse her at nap times, but sometimes I end up nursing because I think she'll go to sleep, but then she doesn't and I've put in an extra feed by accident. It doesn't help that she's all of a sudden completely uninterested in solid food. She was doing really well for a while, but now she only wants to eat a very limited number of things and she only eats a little. It's kind of stressful.

So that's all my news for now. I'm not feeling all that relaxed, but things will work themselves out.

I'm still waiting to have my daycare, but at this point it's mostly out of my hands as I wait for documents in the mail and a doctor's appointment to pass a physical. I don't need to complain about it anymore. Scott helped me out a lot with the preparations and helped me keep my sanity. Now I'm just looking forward to getting started.

We've been trying to get Brianna to fall asleep in her crib lately because once I have other kids here I won't be able to sit in her room with her for a long time while she falls asleep. She's also getting too heavy for us to bounce around or walk with until she sleeps. I'm not a fan of leaving the room while she frantically cries in her room, so instead we've come up with a routine that is working.

After a nice bath (her favourite) we read a few books and then I take her out into the living room to nurse her while I talk to Scott or watch TV. I don't really want her to fall asleep nursing anymore so this seems to work to keep her somewhat distracted, but it still relaxes her. After that I take her into her room and hang on to her and cuddle with her with the lights out. This part varies in time depending on how she's feeling, but most of the time she relaxes in my arms and then I can lay her down in her crib while she's still awake. She doesn't usually fuss about it, but if she does I can usually calm her down by just rubbing her back or head. If she gets really upset I pick her up again until she's calm and try again. The first night of trying this new routine took over an hour of picking her up and putting her back down again. She wasn't crying because she was sad; she was pissed. I wasn't really sure if my plan was going to work. The next night, though, it only took 10 minutes. We've been doing it every night and at nap time for just over a week and it's working great. I don't have to spend very much time in her room with her anymore. I just have to be sure she's tired enough or else she'll just try and play. She still wakes up a few times during the night and I will nurse her back to sleep if she's hungry, but sometimes I don't have to. I'll worry about the middle of the night routine later.

A Rant...

I've been stressed out lately and it's making me lose sleep. The combination of stress and lack of sleep has made me absent-minded and cranky. The reason I've been so stressed out is because I'm getting ready to open up my daycare and I'm finding it really over-whelming. I'm going through an agency because I thought it would be the easier route, but I get really tense when I think about it.

The good thing about going through an agency is that they will find kids for me so I don't have to worry about not knowing anyone. They'll also take care of the money side of things and because they're accredited, I'll actually get government wage enhancement - being a level 3 ECE makes the enhancement enticing too. They also will find back-up care for the kids if either Brianna or I are sick. These are all the things that made me choose an agency instead of going privately.

The things that make me feel over-whelmed are all the things I need to do to prepare for the day home. I was somewhat ready for the things that they would tell me, but I've been surprised more than once. I have to do some re-arranging of my bedroom because that's where the two kids will be napping. We have a cedar chest that Scott's grandfather made us and apparently it's not safe because the kids may pinch their fingers, so we need to move that somewhere else. Our bedside tables can have no cosmetics (like hand cream and such) on them. This is just a little thing and not really a big deal, but just bugs me because it's on top of a bunch of other things. I always put on hand cream before I go to bed (because it's so dry here); I don't put it on before coming into the bedroom because then my hands will be slimy when I open the door. I also have to put child-proof locks on a bunch of cupboards; I'm ok with that one. I have to buy a container that I can lock with a pad lock and keep the key elsewhere for medications. The box then needs to be put up high out of reach. I need to clear a medical exam. I don't have a doctor, so this will likely result in a bunch of tests since no doctor here knows anything about my history. The one person who would know most things is my ob/gyn and I don't think I could go see him for that. We also need to get the cats their vaccines. This really bothered me when I found out because it's going to be really expensive to get all three done. They've all had shots in the past, but none of them have been outside since, so we haven't bothered because of the expense.

On top of the things I need to do to the apartment, I have a lot of paperwork to do. I have to do program plans and meal plans and fill out a lot of forms. I wasn't expecting that. I've never been one to get phased by this kind of stuff, but for some reason all this is bugging me.

This may sound very "complainy", but I feel like there's so much to do. I know they have standards and I can appreciate that, but I feel like if I just did a private daycare it would be a lot easier. Doing it privately worries me though because I don't know how much money I would make and since I don't know anyone I'd be worried about getting people who didn't pay me.

I've never been one to like rules. It's not that I'm a rebel, but I prefer things to be more relaxed. I think the fact that they are coming into my home and telling me what I need to do to it also rubs me the wrong way. Most of the things they're asking me to do I'm not even doing with Brianna here and I think she's safe. I do supervise kids; I don't put them in a rubber room and hope for the best.

I'll likely just stick with the agency and once I get all the crap out of the way first it will be ok. I just hope it doesn't take too long to get a couple kids; they told me it may take a while because I want 2-4 year olds instead of younger kids.

I hope this doesn't come across too negative, but I really can't help it. I'm really feeling pretty negative about the whole thing.