Today I Was Brave

Have you ever been seriously overweight? If not, you have no idea how terrifying it can be to go to a gym! Surrounded by scantily-clad, well-toned, glistening skinny people will definitely bring out your insecurities. :)

But today I was brave. I have desperately been needing something to do to get out of the house and away from the munchkins for a bit. I was looking through the YMCA catalog and found a "Mommies-to-Be" class that meets twice a week. I thought "hey, I can do that. It's low-impact, and everyone in there should have a big belly too." So tonight we went! I took the kids to babysitting, and I went to my mommy class.

As we were getting ready to go, I was more nervous than my first day of school. New things and places are kind of scary. But I had decided to go, and I wasn't going to let my fear of the unknown keep me from getting out there. Luckily, I had some good resources that told me what to do ahead of time so I had a general idea.

To get to the babysitting room, I had to walk through the main gym area where all the machines and weights are. I felt super self-conscious. Lots of trim guys and gals going to town on those machines. I tried not to look anyone in the eye. It probably didn't help that the only workout clothes I have are from before I got fat, so they're pretty tight. :)

I dropped the kids off and ran into a friend who happens to be an instructor there, and she showed me where my class was. I was glad to see her. I got to the room and it was empty, and I thought "uh-oh." I wandered around for a minute and when I came back, there was an instructor there. I guess the class actually starts 15 minutes later than I thought.

The class was in one of those rooms with mirrors so you get to see more of yourself than you would want. I ended up in the front of the room and, again, felt very self-conscious as everyone could see my gigantic rear end. We did some stretching and toning, then walked the track together.

Eventually my nervousness wore off and I began to feel more comfortable. I actually met another Navy wife! Her husband is in the same program as Jeff, so we had a lot in common. I hope she's there next time.

Overall, it went well. I felt more confident walking through the gym after the class, since I was kind of sweaty and felt "yeah, I worked out, just like you." If that makes any sense at all. The kids did great at babysitting and seemed to have a lot of fun. The only bad things was that Katelyn must have pooped towards the end and no one noticed so she came home with a poopy diaper on. Oh well. Better luck next time!

And I am very proud of myself. I did something scary and intimidating and did it well! I'm really glad I went and am looking forward to the next class on Thursday!

Life

I think Jeffy is potty trained! Here's what my little man can do:

- stays dry at night!!

- always goes both in his little potty at home

- stays dry on outings and lets me know if he needs to go potty

- uses big potties in public bathrooms

- stays dry during naptimes

- goes just a few times a day instead of a little bit every few minutes

- cleans up after himself

And, if I can just say so, he looks so cute and grown up in his little briefs! :) I'm so proud of him. It took about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm so grateful that it went well. My mom was an invaluable source for me. She potty trained 9 kids, so she knows what to do!

Things I learned:

- Age isn't important, the kids' readiness is. I thought when he turned two that we would try, but it was clear that wasn't going to work. We needed to wait until he was ready. After a couple months of speech therapy, he was able to communicate his needs and wants much more effectively and knew all the potty words, so he was much more ready. I think that's part of why it went so fast!

- Get lots of easy/frozen food so you don't have to cook. Inevitably, when I went into the kitchen to make food was when Jeffy would sneak off and poop in the corner. :) I learned to stay by him almost every minute of the day.

- Schedule to start when you have the least number of obligations. I started on a Thursday, since I wouldn't need to go anywhere till Monday. That was good. I think it would have been too overwhelming for him to try to learn the at-home procedures and the out-of-the-house procedures too quickly.

- Ask for help/advice! There were times I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I asked people. I asked my mom, I asked on facebook, and I got some great help.

- Along that line, trust your gut. You, as the parent, know your kid better than anyone else, so ask for advice, then do what you think is best!

I'm so glad it's over and we all lived through it! :)

And onto the other members of the family:

Katelyn is super cute right now. She loves to do this thing where she backs into you and if she can sit on you, she will, but if she can't she'll just lean her head against you. It's so sweet.

Jeff's almost done with Prototype! He's finished all he can do without doing the watches, and he has to wait a while until the plant is available for him to do so. So he pretty much goes to work and studies. He has done so well and we're all really proud of him. Orders should be coming soon, so we'll know what the next few years of our lives will hold soon! That's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time!

I'm doing well. I'm starting a mommies-to-be class at the Y tonight, and I'm excited!

That's it from the Davises. Peace out.

This Is My 200th Post!

Happiness is --

These three.

Yay For My Big Girl!

Katelyn's 12-Month Stats:

Height: 31 1/4 inches -- over 100th percentile. Yay!

Weight: 23.4 lbs -- 90th percentile

Head: 18 1/4 inches -- 85th percentile

My goal for the last month was to fatten her up because she seemed so skinny. It worked! She gained almost three pounds, and went up in percentile too. And she's tall! I'm glad about that. She checked out perfectly. What a great little girl! :)

I don't feel like I can call her my baby anymore though. She's all grown up!

Potty Training

I'm working on a gigantic post about our anniversary /birthday /vacation times, but for now, it's potty training day!

Things are going pretty well and I'm feeling optimistic. Is it weird that I was actually excited to get this show on the road?

:)

[Edit: 10:30 am] Wow! After the initial success of 2 bm's in the potty, I didn't want to get my hopes up that it would go as smoothly as it seemed, but Jeffy is the best potty-trainer ever!!

I forgot that apple juice tends to give him the runs, and inadvertently bought a whole bunch to make him need to pee. After 2 pee accidents on the floor, he went in the potty (yay!) and now has a little bit of diarrhea. Whoops. But it's not a bad thing this time.

Right now, Jeffy is doing a little squirt in the potty, taking the bowl and dumping it into the big potty, flushing it, and rinsing the bowl out in the bathtub-- BY HIMSELF. Then he comes back, puts the potty back together and repeats. HOORAY! And he's even wiping himself. He is doing so great! And he only got candy the first 3 or so times. I think he's too proud of himself and interested in the process to want candy.

I hope I haven't jinxed myself, but this is AMAZING!

[Edit: 12:00 pm] The apple juice has given him a rash. So much for good intentions! I think the diarrhea has stopped, but he's still uncomfortable. Besides the one time this morning, he will not pee in the potty! He goes poo just fine, but won't pee. Hmmm.

Naps are in an hour, so we'll see how it goes after that!

[Edit: Friday night] It was a long day! After waking up from his nap yesterday, Jeffy didn't want anything to do with the potty. He went to bed with regular briefs on and woke up this morning a little wet, but not sopping. Today we went from Jeffy hating the potty and kicking it instead of going in it, to spending 1 minute sitting on it for a piece of candy, to peeing in it again! Yay! I think two or three times he started there, but most of the time, he started peeing somewhere else, and I directed him to go over to the potty, where he finished. It's better than where he was this morning! He went to bed tonight in regular briefs again, so who knows what morning will find. :)

[Edit: 10:00 am Saturday morning] Jeffy woke up dry! I got him up as soon as I heard him awake, felt that he was dry, and helped him get off his pjs and underwear. He went and sat down on the potty by himself and went pee pee while I was getting him a treat for being dry! I was so pleased to come back and find the potty full of pee! :) No accidents so far today, but even if they happen, I think we're making really great progress. A dry night? Can't ask for much more than that. :)

[Edit: 11:30 am Sat] HOORAY! Another poo in the potty! He hasn't gone poo since Thursday morning, so I was getting a little worried. But he told me he needed to go, so I told him to go to the potty and he did! And he took it to the big potty and flushed it down all by himself! Yay!!

Trip Home!

Jeff had a four-day weekend on our anniversary, so we took the opportunity to go down to Virginia to visit my family. We also celebrated Katelyn's birthday while we were there. So fun! We tried to go to the "Restoring Honor" rally, but didn't make it farther than the Vienna Metro Stop. So many people everywhere! We were glad to see it was a success. We went to a great french restaurant for our anniversary dinner and had a great time. I meant to bring my camera, but forgot. :( We all had a lot of fun with my family and I took almost 300 pictures. Here are a few of my favorites. They're in a very random order, sorry. :)

Katelyn's Birthday (and birth story)

Katelyn's had a birthday!! Here is her birth story, for any curious readers, but mostly for me. :)

Katelyn was due on September 5th, 2009. I felt she would come right around then, so I didn't let myself get too antsy as month nine wore on. The night of Sept 1st I started having some regular contractions, so Jeff and I took off on a long night walk, to time the contractions and see if this was the real thing. We packed a sleepy Jeffy in the stroller and off we went. We walked for more than two hours and I actually had a really good time. It was nice to spend some one-on-one time with Jeff and since it was dark, it wasn't too hot. Contractions kept coming, so we called our doctor who said to go ahead to the hospital. But by the time we were all packed and ready to go, the contractions stopped. I guess she wanted one more cozy night. We went to bed a little disappointed.

The next night (Sept 2nd) I woke up to contractions again at about 11:30 pm. They were coming about 3-5 minutes apart and some of them lasted a whole minute. They kept coming and I had a really hard time staying comfortable, so I woke up Jeff and we got in the car to go to the hospital. Since this was the same point I had been at when I called the doctor the night before, I assumed they would just tell me to go on in, so I didn't bother to call. Whoops.

The ride to the hospital was UNCOMFORTABLE! :) It was only a 15 minute drive, but I felt every bump, every turn very intensely. Yuck. I think it was about 2:00 am Sept 3rd at this point. Jeff dropped me off at the Emergency Entrance, and I walked in, hoping to see signs that would point me where to go, since we hadn't taken a tour or anything. Some security guard called for me to stop from the back, asking if I was lost, (I was going in a direction ER patients aren't supposed to go) but when I turned around and she saw my gigantic belly, she laughed and said that no, I was in the right place, and directed me to the maternity wing.

I got there, and got a little chiding from the nurses about not calling my doctor. Oh well. She was already there anyways. I got checked in, answered a million and one questions and waited to be checked so I could see how far I was. Jeff and Jeffy were with me now. We brought Jeffy along because we didn't want to dump him on a babysitter if I were to be sent home. A nurse checked and said I was at a 2/3. Now this was disappointing, since I felt those contractions had to be hard enough to really make some progress! She said they would give me something to help me sleep and check me in the morning to see whether they would admit me or send me home. Jeff and Jeffy went back home and we all went to sleep.

I remember slowly waking up to the contractions a few hours later. I was so tired, I held completely still during each contractions, just too tired to move. I did that for a while, and eventually the nurse came in to check me. I was at a 7! Yay! They admitted me.

I called Jeff who dropped Jeffy off at Amber's (thank you!) and came to join me. As soon as the nurse found out I was at a 7, she called for things to get moving. I had tested positive for Strep B, which meant I needed to have antibiotics in my system for four hours before giving birth. Since I was already a seven, they needed to hurry up and get that IV in. As she was fussing around me, she kept telling me how amazing it was that I was already at a 7 and that I must be relaxed. She was right. I had figured out that holding completely still and relaxing my body felt much better and helped my labor to progress much better than writhing around.

I was feeling pretty confident and wanted to keep going without an epidural, but my doctor came in and asked me to get once, since I was doing a VBAC and in case things went bad, that would already be done and an emergency c-section could go faster. I agreed. This was about 7/8 am.

We tried to take things slowly to let the antibiotics have enough time in my system and once I got the epidural, I couldn't really feel anything anyways, so it was fine. At 11:00 am I was ready to start pushing. This is where the real work began. Jeffy was born via c-section, so this was like a first birth--it took a long time. :)

I pushed and I pushed and I got very tired. My contractions kind of slowed down at this point, and sometimes there would be minutes in between them. I took those minutes as an opportunity to try to relax.

I remember being a little bit worried. Was this going to work? Was it not and I would need a c-section? I asked the doctor if she thought this was going to work, and she said yes, and that I was making progress. That was the answer I was hoping for. With her reassurance, and because of sheer exhaustion, I just did my job and pushed and let everyone else worry about the outcome. I even reached down once and felt her head right there. That was a little weird. :)

Fast forward two and a half hours. The doctor tells the nurse to go get a bunch of people to come in and help. Once they're there, she tells me that if I push really hard on the next contraction, her head should be out! That was good motivation. The room was very full--about 8 extra people were in there. I think doc was worried that her head would come but her shoulders would get stuck. I pushed with all my might and a mighty "hurray!" rang though the room as Katelyn came out all at once! In that way, it was fun to have so many people in there-- I got a booming cheer when she was born!

For a split second, I couldn't really tell what had happened. I knew some of her was out, but I didn't realize she was all the way here until they lifted her up and there she was! Yay! I actually cried. I was so happy and grateful and in love with this little one. She was placed on my chest immediately, skin-to-skin, and we got to know each other. I thought she was the most gorgeous baby girl I had ever seen. People came in and out and did their thing, but Jeff, Katelyn, and I were in a world all our own. It was heaven.

She was 7 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long, born 1:35 pm on September 3, 2009.

I couldn't have asked for a sweeter, more beautiful baby. My birth experience this time around was so different from the first. I came away feeling confident, happy, relieved, tired, and so, so grateful that the VBAC had been successful. Katelyn has held a special place in my heart since that moment and I hope every coming year will be just as wonderful as her first!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!