It’s a new year mothers and mothers-to-be! If you are pregnant and due in 2009, you are surely happy to enter into the year of your baby’s birth. My husband and I joke that we’re having babies on the even years, so perhaps 2010 will bless us with a new little one. Yes, that’s right…we are thinking about another baby. I can’t believe it. No sooner am I through my pregnancy and postpartum, than it starts to sound like a great idea to me to have another child. However, I know a lot of Alaskans who are happy to have one child for life and that seems to work well for their families.

Immediately after going from one child to two, you start to think “what were we doing?!” and then slowly life seems to get easier. A few months down the line, all is as it should be and your family has adjusted to its sudden growth. I am thrilled that our toddler welcomed his sister with open arms and loves her immensely. Was he really that lonely without a sibling or is it just his nature? I’m not sure. I do know that he absolutely refuses to let me use a bulb suction device on his sister’s nose, even though she has a cold. I’m positive that he thinks I’m sucking her brains right out, so he puts a stop to it every time and expresses his concern for “Tahl” (he can’t quite say Tahlia yet).

Speaking of my dear toddler boy, I woke up yesterday morning to find him covered head to toe in a slimly combination of Vaseline, toothpaste, and vapor rub. It appears that his arm reach has lengthened and he can now stretch from his crib to the top of the dressing table. Yikes! I wondered how the radio had been turned on the other day, and it was him all along. So I extracted him from the gooey blankets, put him in the tub, assessed the empty containers and called poison control. As luck would have it, no real harm will come from eating the Vaseline or toothpaste; however the vapor rub does have an ingredient that could cause a seizure. Scary thought, but it never happened. I guess he didn’t like the taste of that one and choose to spread it all over his body, rather than ingest it.

This is a year that will certainly have mile markers along the way. Babies being born, sleepless nights, first foods, injuries, and unfortunately if you have toddlers it may even hold calls to the poison control center. Enjoy the ride of whatever this New Year will bring and please share your stories with us all.