Make Room for Baby!

A lot has happened in the last couple of months. We have been super busy preparing the way for baby girl #2. I am 36 weeks today and am feeling pretty good about being 'ready' for her to get here.

First let's talk Kylie. My first baby girl. I think she will always be my baby girl. I guess both of my girls will be my baby girls forever. I just can't visualize it any other way. With all of these changes lately and the ones still to come, I don't want Kylie to ever feel that she is being replaced. I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about it! I pray that we are able to continue to make her feel special and loved, even though our attention will be divided. I now understand all the parents of multiple children that have talked about feeling guilty about not being able to spend as much time with their first child. Baby girl #2 isn't even here yet and I'm already starting to feel guilty with our focus on preparing for her to come. With that being said, we have been working hard on preparing Kylie for the new baby and preparing her to be a 'big girl' in hopes that it makes the transition a little easier. We decided that before the baby got here, we wanted her naptime pacifier to disappear, as well as get her settled in her new room with her new furniture. The pediatrician suggested that we do this at least 2 months before the baby arrived and that mostly happened.

Easter Sunday. In the car, she wouldn't nap because she was supposed to have her pacifier. We gave it to her.. this was before we took it away obviously.

The pacifier. Kylie loved her pacifier. When she was a baby, she liked the extra sucking that she got from the pacifier. She needed it on occasion early on (maybe up to 6 months) to be comfortable around other people or in the car, but she never seemed addicted to it. She actually used it mostly to bite on while teething or just to play with. We quickly decided that night time was not working out with the pacifier and we knew that once she was in her own crib we didn't want her to have it. So we just stopped giving it to her. No problem. This quickly turned into her only having it at naptime and not during the day or in the car. We just gradually stopped offering it to her and also made a point not to have it visible. Those times were pretty easy. Since then (hello, she's almost 2 years old!), she had it for naptime. It became a crutch and we noticed a few months ago that she wasn't napping well. She would either fall asleep and have it fall out, and then wake up OR she would just sit in her crib and play with it instead of falling asleep. She got a little cold around the beginning of May and sucking on the pacifier was not working. She couldn't breathe! So I decided that it was the right time to just stop offering it to her even though they recommend not to take it away when the child is sick because of the stress. She was old enough and it needed to go. It really got to the point that she knew where it was and that it only came out for naptime and went right back to it's home after nap. She started asking for it and it was becoming a habit instead of really giving her comfort. So May 1st, a few days before I was going to sub again, I took it away. I hoped that she would be fine with it by that Friday because Gigi was watching her while I subbed that day. I basically just waited for her to ask for it and then told her that she was a big girl, that she didn't need it anymore, and that it went bye bye. We went through lots of tears and fits when I tried to lay her down. I pretty much would rock her if she wanted me to, sing to her, anything other than give her the pacifier. Slowly, she decided that she didn't want to rock anymore and just wanted to put herself to sleep. After a week, she did great and didn't ask for it again. Once the pacifier was gone, amazingly her naps were awesome. She started napping for 2 to 3 hours everyday. This has mostly kept up. There have only been a handful of days that she didn't nap at all because of teething (keeping her awake) or our schedule (like on trips and she would nap in the car). Now her naptime routine is more like bedtime. We clean up toys, pick out 2 books and a stuffed animal, read and I lay her down. Sometimes (she's a master at procrastinating), she asks me to sing her rock-a-bye-baby before laying her down. So no more rocking! She loved to be rocked and still does on occasion, but I knew that with a newborn I wouldn't be able to do that as much with her, so I'm glad that she is okay with taking that out of our routine.

So happy to have a closet and new room to dedicate most of this mess to!

New room. Kylie absolutely LOVES her new room. Once we got the office doors put in the front of the house and took everything out of the guestroom/office, we set it up as Kylie's playroom. I was SOOO happy to get some toys out of the living room. This was/is a long process. It is mostly done now, but I am still tweaking some things here and there, especially with her playroom/closet. We decided early on that we would move Kylie out of the nursery and keep it as is for the baby. Kylie doesn't need the diaper changing table, at least hopefully not for much longer after the baby gets here. We ordered her a new convertible crib and tall dresser, same awesome company. We love their furniture and know that they will last forever. Well hopefully forever. The pediatrician also recommended that we keep Kylie in a crib for as long as we can and then convert it to a toddler bed when she is ready. We agreed that it would be difficult with her just turning 2 to make that big of a change. It would add a LOT of stress on us once the baby got here to deal with her getting up and out of her room. And we know that she will do that. We ordered the furniture in March and we were told 9 to 12 weeks!!! Ahh! We were starting to get worried. I called at the 9 week mark and the next day they called back saying that everything was in. We picked it up and quickly got it all set up with less than a month and a half to go before baby! The transistion went fairly well. We moved her bedding over to the new room, so she would have something familiar, plus she loves her bumper (pillow, place to put her animals to sleep, etc.) and it is well used. The bumper would not be safe for the baby. We decided to make the switch over the weekend just in case we didn't get any sleep. I quickly made the decision Friday afternoon to practice during naptime in that room, so I moved her mattress and everything over by myself. Probably shouldn't have done that being 34 weeks preggo, but oh well. She did really well. I just talked about her 'new room' alot and about how the other room was for the baby. (She knows there's a baby in my tummy..) She has been sleeping in her new room since June 1st! I wouldn't say she has been doing great though. Her top 2 year molars have been cutting and poor thing wakes up saying ow and crying. Also, our air conditioning unit and our neighbors unit are both right outside her window. With it being super hot lately, they kick on and off throughout the night. I think it affects how she is sleeping. I hope that she gets used to it because we all will need the sleep once baby girl gets here!

Daddy rushing to put the crib together before bedtime and Kylie was 'helping.'

Kylie's new beautiful room. I love it! So does Kylie!

Actually, I love this more. Ah, oh so organized!And Kylie puts things back where they belong! She's a mini-me, lol.

New monitor. My parents so graciously bought us our new monitor. (Our old one was dying and only had one camera.) They bought us the super cool Motorola 2 camera handheld monitor. LOVE IT! Before Kylie's furniture came in we had it set up on her old crib and then also in her new room. I could watch her playing in either room and know pretty much where she was while I was doing something else. The cameras move, so I can roam around if  I can't find her in the room. So cool. Also, at night when both babies are sleeping (fingers crossed!), the monitor will scan from room to room every 12 seconds. Such an awesome product. I would recommend it to anyone.

Old one.

New one!! We even get the temperature.. it's slightly high.

Outside play area. We decided to fence a small area in our backyard so that we would feel more comfortable with the girls playing near the pool. Absolutely LOVE it. It only took Casey about an hour to install and it goes with our house theme/style perfectly, with Texas stars on each section. Casey still needs to turn one into a gate, but just having the fence up gives us some peace of mind while we are out there. So far Kylie's water table is in that area and soon (after her birthday party) she will have a slide. It will be so much easier with two kids to keep them safe.

Before..

After.. with tags still on. :)

Kylie loves it out there!

Finally, we get to talk baby. Like I said before, we kept all of Kylie's old furniture in the room, except we bought a new crib mattress for the baby. Casey's parents, Heidi and Steve, bought her new bedding, just like they bought Kylie's. Kylie got a tall stuffed giraffe for her first birthday and I wanted to use it as 'decoration' in the new baby's room. We found a bright pink and green jungle set that is completely opposite of what Kylie's room is like. Exactly what I wanted. It was time for a change! I changed out the bows on the giraffe and everything is almost ready in there. Sadly, the valances that came with the set do not work at all. They are huge and do not look good bunched up like most curtains do, so I bought some chocolate brown curtains to help with the window and it matches the diaper changing cover. I still need to buy a laundry basket and lamp, but those are not super necessary right at this moment. It was a lot of fun getting down Kylie's old baby clothes and putting them away. They are so little and I can't wait to see this little one in the same clothes that Kylie wore. It's been a long time since Kylie was that little!

Kylie would take the baby's bedding bag into her closet and do this. Haha!

Baby's crib all set up! Yep, I shouldn't have done that by myself either... lifting that mattress and trying to put the bedskirt under it. Probably not the best 9 months preggo thing to do! Darn you 'nesting!'

Kylie opened the baby's drawers and started putting on her onesies. ;) Yes it's upside down, but she doesn't know that!

And there you have it. We are (mostly) prepared for baby girl to arrive! And now I'm off to take a shower. More than likely Kylie will wake up as soon as I get in. That's just how it works. I wonder when I will shower when this little girly gets here?? Hmm...