23 weeks

1) I am 23 weeks pregnant today. In the last few days I finally felt like I look less big all over, and it's getting to be mostly belly now. I feel good, other than some trouble sleeping at night and having sore feet by the end of the day. My legs and feet definitely swell a little during the day, and I didn't notice it until I realized how much skinnier they look in the morning than at night. The little guy has very distinguishable sleep/awake times now. Sometimes Celia asks me if he's awake or asleep. She has started to like putting her hand on my belly, and she puts her ear to my belly and says she can hear her brother talking :). When we read stories at night she likes to rest her head on my belly and tells us she's lying on her baby brother.

2) We made a little progress with picking a color for the little guy's room. I think it will be a muted greenish blue color. I started realizing this week that in addition to improvements to the house, we have to get moving on baby related things. I only have a month left of vacation and then we'll be busy and have other last minute things to do once school starts.

3) Speaking of babies, our neighbors just had a baby boy so we went over and brought them dinner and some muffins yesterday. The best gifts we got when we had Celia were food. It's a relief not to have to think about cooking when you have a newborn. Our neighbors bought their house just a year ago. Its layout is a mirror image of ours and they were built at the same time, so it's interesting to compare notes on our houses. The previous owners of our houses had boys the same age, just like we will. The boys became friends and have stayed close all their lives, into adulthood. We're hoping that our kids can be friends too, especially where we'll have boys just a few months apart.

4) Who else is watching The Bachelorette? Is it not the most ridiculous train wreck of a series? At the same time, so hilarious and entertaining. Even Chris has gotten sucked in because we end up just laughing at how ridiculous it is and critiquing the men.

5) Last but certainly not least- we did potty train Celia over the weekend! We used a one-day method and it worked great. We spent the whole day on Saturday focused on potty training, made a really big deal about what a big girl she is and how she gets to wear underwear now, and made a real celebration out of it. On Sunday we were comfortable enough that we could play all over the house and in the yard without worrying about accidents, and I even took her to the grocery store and she used the bathroom there. She wore underwear the whole day on both Saturday and Sunday- no pull-ups. Poop is another story and she also doesn't yet consistently tell us ahead of time when she has to pee, so we still have work to do. But I'd say the majority of the hard work is done! We have music class this morning so I have to decide if I'm brave enough to keep her in underwear or if I'll wimp out a little and put her in a pull-up just to be safe...

Headed to the bathroom all by herself, in those big girl underpants.