Stress, Excitement and Absolute Love

I am very tired today. I'm putting myself under stress and therefore also Husband as he's my "vent" (poor thing). Husband is taking it all very calmly, he knows what I am like (and so do I). What I do is that I take EVERY little thing and list it all and then I stress about the massive list. Even things such as "shower" is added on to this "list" and it just grows and grows and grows until I start crying and becomes unable to cross anything off. This is Stress-Ems in a nutshell.

The reason for the stress is that I've been fooling myself that we "already have everything" for when the baby comes as we'll be using same furniture and pram etc as Toddler N had. But. All of a sudden it feels like nothing is "in place". I realised that I haven't got stuff sorted for the hospital for me or baby. No nappies, cotton wool, blankets, a little teddy etc.

I've focused SO much on making sure Toddler N isn't forgotten that I've kind of forgotten about Baby and myself. We've brought presents for Toddler N FROM baby and Toddler N is very excited about Baby. He is so cute - he wants to show everyone a picture from the ultra sound, he kisses my tummy regularly (without being asked to), he pats my tummy and says "Hello Baby!" and yesterday - after I'd picked him up from nursery and we were on the sofa - he pulled up my shirt and bared my tummy, rubbed his nose and cheeks back and forth and said "mysa Baby" (snuggle Baby) and my eyes just welled up. He is going to be such an awesome brother!

Toddler N is at a funny stage - he is absolutely wonderful and I fall more and more in love with him every time I see him but he can also be extremely frustrating in that he refuses to listen, completely ignores me and Husband at times, demands things and not asking for it and gets angry if he doesn't get it. And I am not the one to give in for silly things so we've had our battles lately. I mean, biscuits for breakfast is not something I will ever give in to (even though I myself wouldn't mind it).

Over Easter weekend we felt that the "naughty chair" wasn't quite working because he was naughty, was warned 3 times, got on the chair if he didn't listen to the warnings, sat there for a while, said "sorry", got down and was naughty again. He doesn't quite understand yet that you can't just do something naughty say sorry and everything is ok as you can "see" him thinking about doing naughtiness, then he says sorry almost before he's finished being naughty and so on. Sooo - and this might be terrible to other parents but we were at the end of our tether here -we started with "if you continue to be naughty you'll lose a favourite toy for a day" type of approach. ie. if he continued to not listen and be naughty we would take one of his favourite toys and put it in the garage and he would not get it back until he had shown he could be the good boy we know he is.

Husband had to remove two of his toys (and Husband has the patience of a saint) and then Toddler N seemed to understand that "wow, they're serious here and I really don't want my big digger or the pirate ship to not be in the house". He did get them back later the same day but he had been a very (!) good boy so we felt it was well earned. We haven't (touch wood) had to remove a toy since but it's good to have a back up plan when the stubbornness sets in.

+ he loves his new Big Boy Room and often wants to get up there and just "hang out", hide by the sofa bed, play with his Duplo Cars (Disney's Cars) and just seems in awe of all the space. Bless him, he's gone from the smallest bedroom to the biggest so it must seem huge. We've moved his cot in there until he gets used to sleeping in the room itself and then we'll try the bed soon. He sleeps very well in his room and in fact, has slept in til past 8 since moving in there. We are very happy for the extra sleep but also know that in just a few weeks we'll be back to the night time feeding and so on... mixed feelings about that, I can tell you! :)

Anyhow, I'd best get started before the day slips away from me and it's Friday which means "cleaning day!" Not that I don't clean the other days but since Toddler N is at nursery the whole day it means I can get more stuff done at the same time and it leaves the house tidy for the weekend. So, ironing towels and sheets for Baby (to cross that off list) and shirt for Husband as he is off to a wedding this weekend. I loathe ironing, it must be the worst household chore EVER!!

Hope you'll have a fun day!
x