Thing 1:

As of my 36-week midwife appointment yesterday, baby is now, once again, HEAD DOWN!  Hallelujah!  Midwife Sarah (who always seems to have good news for me, although I am still a little mad at her for accidentally knowing the gender of our baby) thinks that at this stage, baby will probably stay put.  She also encouraged me that the fact that it is head-down now is a good indication that we could persuade it to get that way again should it have another moment of stubbornness later on.  A very happy visit all around.

If anyone happens to have stumbled onto my blog for baby flipping advice, I can’t really say for sure if anything we did worked or if baby just got its act together.  We did try the main position for the transverse lie from Spinning Babies, which involves kneeling on the sofa with your elbows on the floor.  Are you getting a mental picture here?  Yeah.  I know from a video the kids like to watch that giraffes have an intricate system of valves in their heads to keep them from exploding as they bend down to drink water.  Very impressive stuff.  I’m pretty sure now that I have no such mechanism in my head. Owwy.  In any case, baby cooperated, and it is my firm belief that it had an awful lot more to do with many prayers on my behalf and a gracious Heavenly Father who knows just how small my plate is than with my baby spinning skills.

Thing 2:

This little lady, in addition to her obvious musical talents*, has acquired a new skill over the past couple of weeks.  Being largely homebound by the weather gave her the perfect opportunity get completely potty trained!  She has now had a good week’s worth of outings to public places and friends’ houses in big girl panties and has stayed more or less completely accident-free with minimal prompting.  (I’m whispering here, but she’s even been dry at nap time!)  If it sticks she has been our easiest potty-trainee yet, and I am so thankful to have this hurdle cleared before our next diaper-wearer arrives on the scene.

* This performance is entirely to the credit of the toddler nursery staff at Faith Community Church, and not at all to mine.  We sing a lot of Jesus songs around here, but for some reason that one isn’t on our usual playlist.