Baby #2 Coming

Now that Crystal can take care of herself, a little sibling is on the way! The baby will come around July 12th or something.

Our time with baby Crystal has been precious. I breastfed her on-demand for much of her babyhood and it was great that my period didn't come until she was 15 months old. I slept with her and breastfed her throughout the night until she was 2 and then I stopped feeding her during the night. I then weaned her completely by the time she was 2 years and 3 months old. I was unable to get pregnant with the next one until 4 months after that.

Now I'm about 2 months along and Crystal is 2 years and 9 months old. We've just started not letting her join us in the middle of the night because it was driving us nuts how her wiggling and climbing was keeping us awake. When she comes, I just walk her back to her room, give her a hug, and shut the door. I always remember to warn her that if she comes back out then I will lock her in room and then she usually chooses to stay in her room.

After a stubborn 2 years of potty training since she was a baby, I am glad to say that now Crystal is completely potty trained. She sits on the potty without being told and she asks to go potty when we're out. She even stays dry every night.

I love the beach!!!!

The roaring of the ocean. The wind in my hair. The oh-so-soft sand in my toes. We camped at Assateague State Park in June this year instead of the usual September and boy was it windy! It was in the mid-70s that week and it feel too cold to really go swimming. I was wearing a sweatshirt all week and the wind at the beach was making the sand fly into our legs like sharp needles. Because of how spectacular the ocean is, we still enjoyed it very much. I didn't want to leave after 4 days. If it were possible for us to live permanently in a tent on a beach, we definitely would.

Hot Days at the Creek

Our main air conditioning unit has always been broken and we've never felt the need to get it fixed. Last summer and this summer, whenever it got hotter than 89 degrees in the house, we turned on a window unit so that it cooled down to 85 and was semi-comfortable again. I like to say that we're minimalists. I don't like to spend much money. The only thing that I can go crazy spending lots of money on is food. Fresh vegetables are important to me. We eat at restaurants too often ($30/month). Apart from that, the amount that we pay for our internet, home phone, and 2 cell phones totals to about $60/month. We only do Netflix during the summer ($8/month) and my reading habit costs about $7/month. So, when that unexpected storm came and knocked down some trees in the D.C. area, our power was out for 5 days it wasn't so bad since we already weren't using any air conditioning and neither were we watching much TV or playing many computer games. What was hard for us was not having any fresh refrigerated food available.

For days when it's 90-100 degrees outside, we like to spend some time in the water. There is no way that I will spend $14 for me and two kids (Crystal and her friend) at the public swimming pool each day, so instead we go to the creek every now and then. As long as my legs are in the cool water, even when it's 100 degrees outside, I never feel hot. It's less than one mile away from us and the few people who know about it keep it as a secret. But, I'm willing to share it with you because I love it so much. So if any of you want to come to the creek with us sometime, send me an email. You are also welcome to our baby pool.

Mothering a 2-year old

Crystal is potty-trained enough for wearing underwear now. She will go on the toilet public bathrooms but she get's pretty stubborn at home. Usually, I can get her to sit on her potty herself with minimal fighting if I first give a warning: "go sit on the potty or I will drag you." The nicer version sometimes works: "can you do it yourself or shall I help?" It also works for other things. She loves her independence.

Also, I am still breast feeding Crystal but I have night-weaned her. This means that I give her only "milky" at bedtime, morning time, and throughout the day; not during the night. I sleep in her bed with her or in another bed in the same room most of the time. So whenever it's the middle of the night and she asks for milky, I say something like "no milk and if you cry, I'm leaving the room" and "it's still nighttime: you can have milky in the morning." Of course the threat only works after I have actually left the room immediately when she cried (and I return after only a moment). I then ask her "will you be happy? Say 'I will be happy.'" Then she wipes her eyes and says "I will be happy." So she believes me when I threaten her and she won't cry and will go back to sleep.

I've also stopped giving her milky during her 2-3 hour nap. When I'm done giving her first milk and she's still not asleep. I pretend that I'm asleep while repetitively telling her to lay down and close her eyes and stop talking. Again: "If you sit up or if you talk, I'm leaving the room." If she ever misses her nap, it makes for a very poor rest of the day, so I make sure that I do whatever I can to convince her to go to sleep for her nap at the perfect time each day: 12:30 unless she get's tired eyes and moody earlier.

Crystal was dancing at Zumba on Thursday and it was so sweet! We have so much fun together and I love her so much! She is such a wonderful little sweetie!

This is Steve and Crystal during General Conference:

How I Spend My Time

Lately, I've been reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Each book is 800-or-so pages long. I started the first book shortly after my birthday or was it Christmas? Now I've just started the 6th book but think that I'm slowing down now.

For the past couple of days I've been practicing some vector calculus and I'm really enjoying it. Funny since I can't remember enjoying it much when I took it during a summer semester 7 years ago.

I'm tutoring math even more than ever and I am enjoying that also. My favorite students are my 9th and 10th graders taking algebra and algebra II. The most exciting subject for me to tutor is any of the college Calculus courses.

This year, I gave Crystal only a small birthday party and I gave Steve the bigger birthday party. In the 7 years of marriage, I had never given Steve a birthday party, partially because he hates big/long parties. But this year, he prompted the idea himself by suggesting that we invite his brothers over to share the cake. That's when I immediately started making the phone calls. For his cake, I followed the recipe for the "Red Waldorf" cake in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook except that I left out the red food coloring called it "Brown Waldorf." Though the name doesn't sound too good, the cake was.