Salt Dough Footprint

Little princess' foot print.

This was my daughter's footprint at 3 months old. Hers turned out so much better than her brothers' foot/hand prints that I did years ago. I think it's because I didn't have a rolling pin back then, and I didn't have a good bowl/cutter to cut the dough with back then.

Same recipe, though.

SALT DOUGH RECIPE:

1 cup flour

1 cup salt

1/2 cup warm water

• Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Mix well.
• Make a well in the middle of the bowl of dry ingredients, and pour in the water. Mix and knead into a dough. Add water until desired texture is reached. 1/2 cup for me was good enough.
• Roll the dough into a ball, and flatten with a rolling pin until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick.
• Make the print. (For me, it worked better when I made the footprint first before cutting the dough).
• You can use a clear bowl (to see if the print is in the middle of the cut you're about to make) or cookie cutters to cut the dough.
• Either air dry the masterpiece, or put in the oven at 200°F for 1 ½ to 2 hours or more, depending on your oven.
• When done, you can either leave the dough as is or paint it (some say acrylic is best).

Our oven back when I made her brothers' prints didn't warm enough at 200°F, whereas our oven now got a lot warmer at that temperature and "baked" the dough perfectly, so just keep watch of yours.

Be sure to make a hole before leaving the dough to air dry or "bake" if you want to hang it somewhere. My boys' prints went inside a shadow box frame (as shown below) - before they broke into pieces. I think I made their dough too thick. Hopefully our little girl's print will be just fine.

The boys' foot prints from years ago.

38 Weeks

The crib is set up. The pack-n-play, too (because our room is small to put the crib in there, so her crib stayed in her room while her pack-n-play is going to be in our room while she's sleeping with us). I've taken the diaper box out (old diapers from J, they don't expire you know) and stored it in her room along with my personal nursing things. I've washed her "just enough" amount of clothes (we still need to get her some winter clothes, she only has mostly onesies and footed sleepers haha!), folded and tucked them neatly away.

My planner has been filled since last Sunday to the day before she's due to come - things I need to do/clean/prepare (freezer meals, anyone?) before the big day - if she does wait 'til that day. The hospital bag lay open on her crib, waiting to be filled with last items like toiletries or cellphone chargers. The rechargeable batteries have been collected and are now being charged for future repeated use (crib mobile, swing, vibrating chair, toys, etc).

I look at my planner and see that on a particular day, I have to clean this and that because it will probably be months before I get to do it again (*cough* the oven, for example, which was, and still is, really dirty when we moved in). "Ooh, maybe sterilize her bottles on this day so it's not so far away from her due date." Clean the bathrooms, clean the shower, clean the windows and glass doors (also dirty when we moved in, like it hasn't been cleaned for more than a year), clean the vents (also dirty when we moved in. They can actually catch on fire easily with the amount of dust stuck in them), clean the floors, etc. I am nesting, my heart and spirit are willing but my body isn't.

I am big. Well, at least my belly is big. I can't find a comfortable position anymore. Not sitting up, not lying down, and definitely not standing up. I can't count how many times I almost fell trying to go downstairs just because I can no longer see where I'm stepping at, and most of the time it's when I walked my son to school.

Yes, walk. I hate it now because it hurts me. Well at least I hate it FOR NOW while I'm in pain doing it, but I like the short moment it gives me each way to be with my boys and not anything else. Plus it's like a forced kind of exercise before I give birth, walking to and from school five days a week.

Sleeping is a pain. Literally. I've been having a lot of Braxton Hicks lately and aside from having to wake up every 30 minutes or so to go pee, sometimes the Braxton Hicks keep me up an hour or two a stretch on the nights that it visits me. I just look at it this way: I can go back to sleep right away. With a newborn, that's not the case. Especially if you're the one with the food supply. So for now I'll take the pains and discomfort and cherish how I actually have it easier right now.

It's kind of nerve-wracking thinking that next weekend is my last weekend with just our two boys and then our lives will change again. She'll join our small family and my routine will be thrown off. To be honest, I have mixed feelings at the moment. Knowing how I've been with my first two children, I am scared that I will be the same when she comes. You know, the baby blues. Emotional roller coaster, constant sickness (I think it was mastitis though I was never diagnosed because I never went to see a doctor each time I got sick), loneliness, fatigue, etc. The whole package.

And J. I wish I could spend more time alone with him now that his older brother is in school. I've enjoyed the short time (a month by the time I give birth) of alone time I've had with him - something we never really had since he was born. It made our bond stronger as a mother and son. I got to know him more. I wish I could do more for him - take him to places, run with him (I can't), play more "boyish" stuff with him, read comfortably with him, explore this new State we live in with him - now that we have the chance to be together, just me and him. But I can't. I am limited to my limited amount of daily strength that I need to share with all of my boys/man. At times I want this just-me-and-J-time to last longer - a couple of months more or so with me in full capacity to do a lot more than I can now with him - to make up for the three years that he hardly had any chance to spend one-on-one time with me. But that's not possible. How am I ever going to give him that alone-time attention again that he just barely got? I think in some ways I'm not ready to give it up just yet.

But despite all these fears and anxiety, along with the unknown of raising a daughter (it really feels like being a first-time parent all over again), I am ecstatic to meet our little girl. I am excited to hold her, to smell her, to let her share her innocence with me, with her Dad, and her brothers. I am excited to let her feel she is loved, and to feel her love as well. So many good things in store as she grows up with her brothers. What a blessing she is to us. C is very excited to meet her. He gives my belly kisses and hugs more than five times a day, and whispers, "I love you baby sister!" Lately he's been pretending that she answers him with, "I love you too!" J is now slightly aware he's about to have a baby sister, but still kind of oblivious to it. I'm surely gonna miss him a lot when she comes, the same way I missed C when he came. But I am ready and excited to welcome our daughter into this world.

Growing Pains

Well, it's been another while since my last update.

C has graduated from preschool. He loved preschool and he loved making friends there. He's turning five soon and I'm a little sad that we aren't throwing him a party with his friends and/or cousins over. It'll be just another simple birthday celebration. Heck I don't even know yet what to do for him on that day, but I'm sure we'll have fun.

J is still his silly, will-powered self. He's beginning to construct sentences better. It's cute and all, but it also kind of makes me sad that my baby is indeed growing up. He's getting better in using the toilet to do his business, even with going #2. Potty training him this time around had been so much easier for all of us than the first time we tried.

My husband applied for an assistant controller a few weeks back, got through the interviews (phone and in-person), and now we are looking at many weekends ahead full of traveling because he got the job. We'll be traveling for house hunting where we'll be moving, and traveling to see family and friends before we leave our close proximity to them. It's going to be a busy month and maybe even after we've settled down. More on this on a different post later.

And me, still growing. I'm 24 weeks pregnant as of today. My little princess is living up to her reputation as the princess of this household. She has been harder to carry than her two older brothers. I always find myself exhausted - a lot more exhausted than I was in my previous pregnancies - and in pain. Just pain everywhere. Sometimes it even hurts my everything when I walk, or when I roll over in bed. I don't know if that has something to do with placenta previa but most days I just want to lie down in bed and have a maid clean the house, or a babysitter to take care of our kids, or a chef to make us good food. I haven't been making dinner a lot because of it. I mean I've always been like that, but I'm worse now. Just glad that my husband understands and doesn't complain.

I'm a little upset that my doctor's appointment has been moved to 2 more weeks (that's 6 weeks since the last time I met her, 4 days before we leave Vegas) because she suddenly isn't available at the time they gave me and now they had to push me over to some random date to accommodate HER needs, not mine. So there's a possibility that I won't get that ultrasound before our move. We'd have to find a new doctor first which will probably take by August before I get another ultrasound. I really need that ultrasound. I just ... all I want to know is if everything's better and if so, then I can have some things, even just ONE thing, back to normal.

I think the reason why I'm in this blog post right now is not just to merely update it, but because my pathetic, insignificant disappointments are building up and I need to let some, if not all, of my steam out. So, thank you, for bearing with me. I appreciate it. :)

Random Chatters

I haven't been blogging in a while. But today is different, and today I feel like blogging rather than doing anything else while my sons took their naps.

Chatter #1:

I was sweeping the kitchen floor after having cleaned the living room floor, when I heard my two little boys arguing and stomping their feet at each other. C climbed upstairs to let his steam out, while J stayed downstairs with me and continued ranting that his kuya is on time-out (he put his kuya on time-out... really?)

I think any parent have the urge in every fiber of their parental being to step in when the children argue and fight, but I also know some parents choose not to and let the children settle it themselves as long as they're safe. I followed that today (and I do in most days if their noise wasn't bothering me). I kept on cleaning and let them at it.

Soon enough, C went downstairs. His younger brother kept nagging at him that he should go upstairs, "Kuya time-out!" he says. "No, I'm not in time-out. I just went upstairs because I was angry with you! I'm still not playing with you!" said the elderly brother, and he proceeded to slide his tiny race cars down the seat of the slightly folded metal folding chair. Little J approached him and said, "You playing, kuya, you playing?" To which his older brother replied, "Yes, I am. Come race with me."

It tugged at my heart on how quickly they got along as quickly as they fought. Then right at that moment, a song from my Pandora station played. I let it sink in my head as the song went by, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." I looked at my boys and just smiled, watching them play again together, with those big cheeks sticking out of their faces. They are my many rays of sunshine in this ugly desert I can't ever call home. Someday, a young lady will catch their attention. But for now I am the one, and wherever they may go, they will always be my sunshine.

Chatter #2:

As you all know by now, we are expecting baby #3. We haven't met my doctor yet, although I have an appointment set up for April (she was booked all the way til April when I called in February). No chosen name yet, as I've learned from our first experience that it kinda makes you get attached to the name and gender if you assume it so early. We already had a girl's name picked out for our first baby when we found out we were having a boy. Of course, I was happy. I wanted a boy as an eldest child. But somehow I felt I lost that little baby girl, too. Could be weird to some but that's how I felt. So I decided since then not to name the baby until we knew the gender.

We are all doing well. I am doing well. Like my last two pregnancies, it doesn't feel like I'm pregnant. Well, besides my obnoxious hormones, I don't feel pregnant. Belly bump's not quite there yet. But I can't wear my non-pregnancy jeans anymore. Here's to more waiting for April! I will post my face with the bump when I am ready, haha!

Chatter #3:

Will I ever be ready to potty train J? I think my husband is ready, but I'm not. Besides, I'll be the one who will be stuck doing it for the rest of the day. This is probably the 10th time I held off on it. I was planning to do it February. I have forgotten now what has changed my mind. Then last week was supposed to be the day we were going to do it, then I kept changing my mind to "wait til the spring break" and "wait til next week." It's just a lot harder to time it now than it was with C, because with C he didn't have any sibling that went to preschool so we were able to stay at home for as long as we needed as we potty trained him. With J, though, I am so torn because I want to do it now but I don't want to because of C's preschool schedule. I feel like it's going to take longer if we don't wait til spring break. But that's too long and too close to our anniversary where we most likely will have to go somewhere, and I don't like going anywhere when potty training. I guess we'll just wing it and see how it goes. J is aware, a little if not a lot, when he needs to/has gone to the "bathroom" so I guess that's a good thing?


It's been great to post something random again. Have a great weekend everyone!