Lots of Changes Lately

I can never come up with a catchy title for my blog posts. Nor can I get the post to gel all together to make it sound like I'm actually talking about something worthwhile! However, I did feel that everything I wanted to document for today had to do with changes, so hopefully this will appear as me trying to document all these changes (and how excited I am for them) and not just a bunch of rambling...

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the school district, inviting Maida and I to join an ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) class for one-year-olds. We have been on a waiting list since the end of August and I'm so glad that we finally got in! We will be going on Wednesday mornings from 9:30-11:30. From what I hear, we start with some music and game time with the moms and babies together. Then the moms break away and have their own little class/discussion time while the children have their own class and snack. I can't wait for Maida to get some more social interaction and for me to meet some more friends! We start next Wednesday.

I made a call to Maida's dermatologist yesterday about her rash. I'm just sick of it! I hear that there is nothing that can be done for Molluscum Contagiosum on a toddler, but I just want to make sure that it's not getting out of hand. It has spread all over her body, including into her private parts and that's just gross! She gets really annoyed with the rash and tries to pick it off. Sometimes it's so painful under her arm, that she can't even put her arm down. She'll hold it out to the side. I also got some contact information for a pediatric dermatologist in the cities who is affiliated with the UofM medical school and does a lot of research on different types of childhood rashes/skin disorders. I'm going to contact him and see if he can give me any info or would be willing to see Maida.

For the past two months I have really struggled with Maida's bedtime. Many times she stays up until midnight and no matter how hard we try to get her to go to sleep, she just won't fall asleep until then. I've tried everything! She usually sleeps until 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning and takes a 2 hour nap around 2:00 in the afternoon. This schedule has worked for us as far as I can remember, with her sleeping through the night for the first time at two months old, and never giving us a problem at bedtime. I'm not sure why all of a sudden she doesn't want to go to bed, but I've been told it's just a "stage". Well, with me getting more and more pregnant (not only bigger, but more tired, and crabby) I just can't spent two hours getting her to go to sleep at night. So, I decided that we were going to figure out a better sleep schedule for Maida to see if that would work. I have started waking her up between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning (instead of 9:00 or 10:00). Then I put her down for a nap at 12:30 (instead of 2:00) and only let her sleep for an hour and half. It seems like when I consistently do this, she's ready for bed about 9:00 and doesn't protest at all. Last night it took me 10 minutes to get her to sleep. Mission accomplished. I just hope she keeps it up!

We decided to change around our house! Erik has decided that he no longer can study at school. He really wants a place in our house where he can study, but that's difficult since we only have two small bedrooms, which are very cramped as it is. So, we are going to change our dinning room into our bedroom/Skogen's nursery. Maida will keep her own room, but our old bedroom will be turned into Erik's office. We're going to try to set up his office where if we had company for dinner, we'd be able to use it as a dinning room too. This won't be the prettiest set up, nor will it be convenient for company, but when Skogen arrives and I need Erik to study at home more so that he's here to help out whenever I need him, this will work the best. We'll also have a little bit more room to get Maida a toddler bed and move the crib to a place where Skogen will be able to sleep in the crib and we won't have to worry about him growing out of a bassinet before we move (next June/July).

I thought I'd just mention quick that two of our relatives are having babies soon and I thought we could pray for them! Hilary, Erik's cousin was due a few days ago and as far as I know, she hasn't had her baby yet. This is her first baby and is probably getting really impatient waiting (Erik and I know how that feels - and we were only two days over!). Another relative on Erik's side of the family, Shannon (married to Erik's Grandpa's brother's son - I'm not sure what that makes them!) is due on Friday! This is her third baby and she's having a little boy. We're so excited to hear the good news from both of these families!!