Yeah...I am still here... Been about, oh, 9 months since I last posted. It seems like whenever we get to summer it just all goes downhill! However, I haven't stopped writing or sharing. I frequently update my
facebook family and friends of my daily happenings, struggles with motherhood, and all around witty quips about life (whether it be my life or theirs)!
Anyway, today I went to the Omaha Young Professionals summit and one of the speakers at the summit was Wendy Townley. I first learned of Wendy when she was on the Pat and JT morning show promoting her book "Nerdy Thirty." Being almost thirty myself at the time, it peaked my interest and she was quite intriguing. She is an avid blog writer and I love to read her work. We appear to have similar senses of humor! (Scary...I know! There may be more people like ME out there...) Anyway, today she spoke on "Sharing the Story, Spreading the Love: How Smart Social Media Marketing Net Followers, Fans and Friends." It was an extremely intriguing session and funny enough, as I sat there, hundreds of missed blog entries ran through my head! I LOVE to write. I always have! I love to tell people a "story" and I want them to feel like they were there! And while I love facebook, they limit what I can say... I suppose I could post and then comment, comment, comment after my post to get it all in, but...this just seems so much easier! ;) So, I plan to be better. No promises. I am the mom of a toddler and in an increasingly short time, the mom of two! Eeeeek! It's scary and exciting!
The second pregnancy is so much different... Why? Well let's see...when I was pregnant with Alaina I would come home form work, sleep for about an hour and half, get up and make dinner and do a few things, shower and go back to bed. Ahhhhh...that was the life! This time around, yeah, NO NAPS! When I get home I have a toddler who just got stuffed full of some sugary snack running around looking for her favorite toys, asking for yet another snack and wanting to watch NEMO NOW!! And after getting her settled down it's time to make dinner, eat, then it's bath time and don't even get me started on bed time. Let's just say, once you transfer to the toddler bed, there is no such thing as containment!
At least I know I am not alone, I like to follow the "Momaha" Blogs at blogs.momaha.com
There are other moms out there with similar issues who may not be in my exact position, but, maybe they have been somewhere similar and it's good preparation for what we may face in the future...
The "Testing Twos" are where we are now! I don't like to say "Terrible Two's" because she is not terrible at all! But, she is very much into testing...MY PATIENCE! We have adopted something akin to the "Super Nanny" strategy of a warning, counting, then time out. MOST of the time this works well. "Alaina, if you don't put the baby wipes back, you will sit in time out." *She looks at you* "Alaina, put the baby wipes back now. ONE!" *She feigns some interest in the number one but gives you the stare down to see if you look serious* "TWO!" *One more look and then she slowly inches toward the objective of putting the baby wipes back* "If I get to three, you go to time out!" *Ok, she's serious - chucks the baby wipes back in the the diaper caddy* This is the normal progression, however, sometimes she gets gutsy and tests me to numero tres and I have to make her sit on the step for two minutes. This two minutes is normally comprised of about 30 seconds of crying, a minute of bottom lip sticking out, and the remaining 30 seconds filled with her seeing how far she can scoot off the step, without actually LEAVING the step. See...testing.
She also tests your memory. Her daddy gave her two cookies yesterday for snack. She finished them, and said, cookies? Daddy said, no more cookies, you just had two cookies. Alaina responded, snack? No, Alaina, you just had two cookies and that was your snack. This continued for a bit and I believe, knowing that he was not going to surrender, she decided to "test" the diversion tactic as she leaned in and extended her tiny fingers toward him while giggling "TICKLE TICKLE!!!" Teddy laughed at her attempt but had to stop when her response was "Cookies?" Nice try small fry!
Speaking of testing, mommy and daddy are conducting a "test" of their own tonight with door knob covers. So far, so good, at least for us. I told Alaina good night and shut her door and she was immediately out of bed and at the door. I listened to her spin and spin and spin the knob cover to no avail and when she realized after about the, seventh attempt, that it was not going to work...she was quite mad! As I sit here, I have listened to her test it a few more times. Still no luck on that one! Those door knob covers are a miracle! At least for keeping her IN her room... Now if only there was a magic product at Babies R Us that could make them just lie down and go to sleep!
All Smiles for Mommy! 
Alaina loves to play with her babies so we have bought her a few things for her dolls to get her used to the new baby that is going to be around in about 5 more months... One thing I got her was a bath set and she has really enjoyed it. We give the babies a bath and then we put them on the changing pad and diaper them and get them ready for bed. She takes the job pretty seriously!
Lifting baby to put the diaper under her bum
Baby needed a little diaper cream!
There ya go baby! All clean!
We have a lot of fun with our baby dolls! It is really good training for her but at the same time I don't want her to think that when baby comes it's an open invitation for her to just take care of the baby! 
