Potty Training

Well, it has begun.

Potty training.

And it is HORRIBLE.

Oh my gosh.

So, this weekend, Evie comes into the bathroom and insists on using the potty. I didn't ask her. I wasn't planning on starting it. She just strolls into the bathroom, points at the toilet and says "potty." Then she starts trying to pull down her pants. So I help her with her pants and diaper, put her little potty seat on the toilet and sit her down. She wants to sit there for about 30 minutes. Which is fine. This is her show after all. And finally! She poops and pees. Honestly, I think my jaw hit the floor. It took me a minute to even clap and cheer I was so shocked! So we get off, inspect her work. Cheer again. She flushes. Gets a snickers and then sits in the living room in her pull-ups, watching an episode of Dora on the iPad while she eats her treat.

I then commenced calling everyone.

So she ended up going potty successfully 3 times on Sunday. Three times! I was so excited! I was actually kind of bummed that it was bed time.

On Monday, we got up early because Sissy had her four month check-up at 8:30 a.m. Evie spent about half an hour sitting on the potty. She didn't want to leave the potty but unfortunately we had to go. So we met Ma and I passed off Evie and took Elly on to the doctor.

Long story short, I had to leave Evie at my mom's for the night because the shots made Elly feverish and sick. Elly got lots of snuggle time and I was hoping the one-baby situation at my mom's would make potty training more successful. I was wrong. Evie has gone two days without a single success. All we have to show is a lot of time spent watching her sit on the toilet, a lot of wet training pants and many more soaked pull-ups.

This is so frustrating! And no one has anything encouraging for me. So I feel so lost and aggravated. The only thing I can think of is Evie "gets" potty training at home but doesn't "get" it anywhere else yet. But I don't really know if that's true or not. And right now I have only 2 days a week that I can really focus on potty training and that doesn't seem consistent enough to really accomplish anything.

So any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

This sucks.

My mother's eldest child's oldest daughter

I am absolutely infatuated with this girl. Of course, as her mom I suppose that I am required to love her quite a bit. Her wild curly hair. Her perpetually scraped-up and band-aid covered knees above her bruised shins. Her crystal-clear-water-blue eyes. I love her. But sometimes she does things that I hope she won't grow out of when she's older and realizes how brave she is being.

Today I watched as she nonchalantly removed a large collection of spider webs from her playhouse and climbed up. She just swiped the webs, wiped them on the grass and went along playing. She ignored the half dozen spiders as they fled for their lives, she just plopped down on her slide and slid down. I marveled at the hundreds of women I know who would have screamed and shrieked as the small orb spiders scurried away.

I know as she gets older she will be told that as a girl she should be afraid of spiders. And there are plenty of reasons to be cautious with spiders (especially the potentially poisonous ones) but there's no reason she can't be a little diva and still be fearless.

It's just so neat to know that she doesn't have to grow up and be a total wuss about bugs. Like my serious phobia of camel crickets. Eek those things are sooooo creepy.

'MATERS!!

I am so incredibly excited.

Why, you ask.

This is why...

Tomato plants. I'm very excited because I haven't had time or space to really grow a garden, although I've always wanted to. And although I still don't have time or space for a full blown garden, tomato plants are fairly easy to grow in big pots on the porch. So that is what I will do!

This year I will do a few tomato plants.I have six currently, 2 beef steak and 4 ruetgers. But I'm going to give my mom half of them to supplement her garden. I'm just going to grow 3. If the tomato plants go well this summer, next summer I would like to add maybe some pepper plants and some cucumber plants to my potted porch garden. I love growing things and find it incredibly rewarding to exercise my green thumb.

I'd like some additional ideas for plants I might could grow in pots next year if this year's operation goes well. So if you have any suggestions, please comment! Maybe in a couple of years my children won't be quite so difficult and I can till up a spot and have some strawberries, corn and asparagus. Because I absolutely LOVE those foods. I also love green beans and sweet peas, but I have a pretty small, hilly yard. The places that get good full sun are really limited.

And there's just something adorable about baby plants. How silly am I? But I think they're cute. I'm attached to them. I don't want any harm to befall them. I hope they grow up big and strong and do great things with their lives. I guess once a mom always a mom. Even if that child is small, green and leafy.

I went down to the basement this morning and found two good sized pots. Partially filled them with some of my peat moss potting soil that I had. Tomorrow I've got a big Walmart trip planned so I'm going to pick up one more pot and some Miracle Gro potting soil. The variety with the plant food and the moisture retention. Then tomorrow afternoon I'm going to be planting some maters.

I know it's silly to be so excited. But I can't help it. It's the little things in life that I derive great pleasure from. Reading a good book. Planting some flowers. Growing tomatoes. As a result, I tend to be a pretty happy person.

Emily was a little puzzled by my dragging pots out to the deck and digging around in the dirt part of the morning. She gets fussed at for that sort of activity...dragging things onto the porch...digging in the dirt. Nonetheless, I can tell she's excited about 'maters too. Evie is super excited about the playing in the dirt part. I had to shoo her away several times this morning because I didn't want to have to deal with giving her a bath before work. Tomorrow, when the real planting occurs she will get to help.

I'm also going to be picking up some nice flowers and making a couple of decorative pots to sit around on the deck. And I might even go by Lowes and get some paint for the deck. Because yet again my stupid deck needs painting. Once we get it painted this year though, we're putting a gate up and keeping the dogs out. Their little toenails and wild games are hard on the already weary wood. Plus, once we get a lockable gate up, I can take the babies onto the deck to play without having to constantly yell at Evie to get her little booty back up the steps. Hopefully in a couple more weeks my deck will be a fabulous place to enjoy some time outside. Tomato plants, flowers, and fresh paint. Ahhhh.

The ABSOLUTE GREATEST gift...(aside from my kids, of course...)

Yes, that's right. I know I've been slacking on my blog lately but I have a really good excuse. Okay...its mostly just an excuse. Actually the end of last week, Blogger was down and I couldn't blog even though I had several good blog ideas during that time that of course I can no longer remember. But on Thursday evening my Mother's Day present finally arrived. And since then I've been dedicating all my spare time to it.

So, what did I get you ask...

*drum rolls*

An iPad 2!

(Please disregard my seriously chipped purple finger nail polish)

I have wanted an iPad since they came out. At first it was just a "hey, those would be neat to have" sort of want. But as the apps have improved and developers have created better and better ways to utilize the iPad's unique capabilities, my desire for one has increased 10-fold. By the time the iPad 2 came out this past March I felt like I absolutely had to have one and began trying to con my husband into getting me one convince my husband I needed one.

Finally I found a reason for him to get me one...

Educational apps...

No joke. There are tons of them. And not just crappy flash cards with the alphabet on them. But really neat applications that can entertain your kid while also helping them learn colors, shapes, alphabet, math, etc. I'm not talking about handing my two-year an iPad and telling her to go play, reducing our interacting and adding to her total screen time. But instead using the iPad to replace some of her existing television or movie time. Using the iPad creatively to draw and play and learn and not just sending her off by herself, but using the devise together as a way to help me TEACH her. How cool, huh?

So, as a collective family present to me, I finally got an iPad. Granted, I won't be receiving any more gifts until Christmas (or so my husband says...haha) but I have my iPad.

Hooray!!

Now I've loaded it up with books for me and Evie, a couple of games for me, of course Netflix and HBO and Facebook, and some educational games for Evie. Honestly, the games for Evie are pretty fun. Even if it is kindergarten and preschool level addition and subtraction or matching games. They're fun! I even got a game for Josh...in case I ever let him play it.

It's amazing watching Evie use the iPad. It's so impressive to see her immediately "get" how it works and poke the animals to make them talk or pull the string to turn of the lights or whatever. I know the device is supposed to be easy to use and intuitive, but seeing a 21 month old use it is still pretty incredible.

The only downside is that I am a little obsessed. I do most of my internet surfing on the iPad now. Even though I have a laptop at home, just because the iPad makes it more fun and more intuitive. Same for Facebook and email. Now I'm even more excited about my cellphone contract being up for renewal in November since Verizon finally has the iPhone (and the white one has been released!) so I can get some of the App Store apps I love on my phone. The iPad is super portable but I hate taking it with me EVERYwhere because it is big and expensive and not made to be as durable as a cell phone. And now that I've experienced the super awesomeness of iOS, I really hate my Droid with its lame Android OS. I mean, I hated it before. But now I really hate it. And it's less personal issue and more legitimate complaint now. The Droid seems so ugly and dark compared to the Apple devices. Ugh.

So I'm an Apple convert. Living an iTunes and App Store life.

But I'm a happy convert!

What's wrong with pink?

Yesterday I was casually perusing my usual mom blogs and came across a review for a book about how to raise girls in today's society. The title of the book is Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and it is all about how to protect your daughter from today's "girlie-girl" culture. From the review I gathered that the book is about protecting our daughters from the Disney princesses, Hannah Montana and everything pink and girly.

Okay, that's not a completely fair analysis but that's kinda the main gist.

I'm incredibly offended.

What the heck is wrong with princesses and fairy tales and pink and tiaras?

I loved Ariel and Cinderella and Snow White when I was a little girl and I still spent a large part of my childhood playing in mud and riding horses. Wasn't really interested in dating until I was in high school. I was never a girly-girl despite my love of fairy tales and princesses. The author mentions that focused marketing to young girls goes all the way back to Shirley Temple, who I was obsessed with, and that Barbie, dolls and all things "girl" brainwash our kids into being oversexualized, underachieving bimbos. Good grief! Can we, as parents, please stop blaming society for EVERYTHING and try taking some responsibility?

While I agree that 8 year-olds don't need to be getting their belly button pierced and dating, I don't think that being a fan of Beauty & the Beast is going to make that happen. I've seen that there is a lot of social pressure for girls these days to act and dress much older than they are. But it's not up to society to determine how your child dresses. It's up to you!

No matter how much pink and crinoline and perfume your child wears, it's up to you to teach them the values that you want them to be instilled with. If you want them to dress like hussies, then let them dress like hussies. If you don't want them to look like floozies, then you shouldn't let them out of the house showing more skin than an R-rated movie.

A girl can be girly without being a slut. You can like Barbies and baby dolls and dress up and still enjoy going outside and playing kickball or building a dam out of mud in the creek. I managed it. And I know when I was a little girl we didn't have Miley Cyrus and Lindsey Lohan or Bratz dolls or heck, even cell phones. But just because society has changed doesn't mean that our kids have to grow up as little hellions. Just because there are cell phones that let them access everything from Facebook to HBO to porn doesn't mean we have to buy them one or let them use ours. They don't need a television in their room or their own computer unless they are trusted with it and unless you have some sort of final say as to what's on it. We don't have to advertise how well off we were by buying them the latest and greatest in technology or spending $300 on a pair of shoes that they'll only get to wear a year. It's not necessary and it's frivolous and look where unnecessary and frivolous spending has gotten us. Into a national recession that we ought to be ashamed of, because when it comes right down to it, we allowed it to happen. The government's spending has followed our own.

Rather than worrying about whether or not our daughter's are fans of the Disney Princesses we should be more concerned about raising healthy, happy girls who have good morals and good self-esteem. Girls who know that their worth is not tied to what they wear or how expensive their clothes are or how much people like them. Girls who enjoy planting flowers or riding a bike as much as they enjoy playing dress up and having a tea party. That's the kind of girls I want my kids to be.

Yes, I like to buy my kids nice things as much as anyone else. But I don't think I have gone overboard or done it to an extreme degree. Yes, they wear a lot of name brand clothes. But they also wear hand-me-downs and consignment clothes and stuff from Walmart. They don't get everything they want. They have a plethora of toys, but a lot of them were given to us by friends and family, and they don't have everything out there.

While my youngest daughter isn't yet old enough to really have an opinion, Miss Evie is totally a girly girl. Her favorite colors are pink and purple. She loves to paint her nails, put bows in her hair, play dress up and totter around in Mommy's high heels. Evie also loves playing in the sandbox, driving her four-wheeler, chasing the dogs around and getting dirty. She's a pretty good balance I think.

And I plan on doing all I can to continue that balance for both Evie and her sister, if Elly turns out girly as well. We will continue to buy and watch Disney princess movies.

I understand that how my children grow up is largely my responsibility. Of course, they will do what they want but unless I instill in them the ability to make the right choices they will probably be able to make nothing but the wrong ones. Teaching them right from wrong, values, nurturing their self-worth and self-esteem...those are not society's responsibilities. And while I know that society can have a tremendous impact on my children, I don't feel that eliminating all things princess will shield them. Besides, princesses, "real" princesses at least, can teach girls good lessons. They can teach propriety, manners, poise, dignity, grace, charity...think about Snow White and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

I worry a lot about doing the right thing and raising my girls "right" but I will not be worrying about whether or not the Little Mermaid is teaching them the wrong values or whether or not they're wearing too much pink.

To teach a toddler

It's easy to see that learning starts way before a child sits at a desk or walks through kindergarten doors. The first year, the teaching comes pretty easy. Teaching baby how to eat, drink, crawl, walk--babies do it all in their own time, in their own way, and a parent's involvement is pretty straight-forward. Heck, a lot of the responsibility in the first year is just keeping baby alive. Feeding them, keeping them from tumbling down a set of stairs or choking on a penny, padding the furniture so they don't crack their heads open trying to walk. These are the ways parents occupy their time that first year. While the sleepless nights, colicky days, hundreds of bottles, thousands of diapers and the occasional heart attack as you watch baby take a spill may be hard on your health, the first year flies by. And with Evie, the first year was easy.

The second year is where the real learning started for us. We have been reading to Evie since before she was born. I remember reading "Piggie in a Puddle" to Evie while I was about 6 months pregnant. We always have pointed out things in the pictures, narrated, used sound effects, etc. We talked to Evie constantly. Repeated sounds, stressed syllables and said words over and over and over. Despite our efforts, Evie's first words didn't come until long after the 6 month average. She was about 10 months old when she really started using "mama" and "dada," words that most babies have long since mastered and moved on from. Now at 20 months she's finally progressing in her speech and starting to catch up to where she should be.

While her communication skills fell behind, Evie has always been ahead on all her physical milestones, from fine motor skills to the bigger stuff. She walked at 10 months, was stacking blocks, walking up stairs, climbing ladders, jumping, dancing, and more long before the baby books said she should. Heck, long before they thought she might be trying them.

Believe me, I'm one of those parents who obsesses a bit over milestones. Every month I read my "What to Expect" book for both Evie and Elly and look at what they should be learning to do this month. Granted, Elly's list is much longer than Evie's. But Elly obviously is lacking a lot more! And I push them every month towards those goals. Like this month Elly needs to be able to hold her head up when pulled to sitting and push up on her arms. So that's what we're working towards.

But now Evie is almost two. While we of course work on her language development daily, we have also been teaching her other things this year. Things that, before you have kids, you don't think about having to "teach" someone. Like the names of body parts and laughing at the hilarity of when they misunderstand (No baby, that's your belly, not your butt.) or stammering to come up with a cutesy name for the girl parts. Lately, we've been going over shapes and colors and counting.

Thank goodness for educational toys. They make this easier.

We sit in the floor and I ask Evie where the blue shape is or the purple shape. And she picks it up or points to it. Where the star is or the triangle. And she tries to identify it. Every time I ask her to find one by both color and shape she gets it, but sometimes she mixes up shapes if I ask them solo.

She tells me that the purple star is her favorite.

Like anything else, learning shapes and color and counting has its successes and frustrations. And unfortunately Evie has a Molotov cocktail of temper and patience that she inherited from her parents. My husband's temper and my lack of patience combine into a hell-cat combo. Frequently these games of "learning" dissolve into Evie screaming and throwing the toys across the room before she gets up and leaves. She cannot handle any form of failure. I've found that even telling her in a kind, constructive way that she's doing something incorrectly brings on tears and trauma. Telling her she's being silly for deliberately pointing to the wrong pictures in a book led to a complete meltdown one night. A snot-covered, sniffling toddler curled up on my lap having to be reassured that it was okay for 20 minutes kind of meltdown.

While she never got frustrated with just shapes and colors today, she did get really ticked that the square wouldn't fit through the triangle's slot. And when the heart and star weren't interchangeable...well, meltdown city here we come!

Teaching is hard. It's tough to stay positive and focused and not get frustrated. Especially when dealing with a wanna-be two-year-old who throws a hissy fit when she gets something wrong. But it is also incredibly rewarding when she gets it right and grins proudly. And she's so adorable sorting her shapes out and putting them in the container.

At times I'd even call her highly entertaining. Next up...counting past five! Woohoo.

Sissy is trying to talk!

So, you're going to think I'm completely insane...but I swear Elly is going to be talking way earlier than Evie even thought about. The other day I was jokingly trying to get her to say "mama" by just repeating it over and over, much to Evie's delight (she thought it was hilarious for some reason) when Elly just went "Maaaaa!" and giggled.

This morning, Josh was holding her and she was cooing and making happy faces. He asked her if she could see her Momma (I was sitting just a few feet away) and she said "Ooo-ma!" Oh my goodness. It was adorable! And she's only 2 months old! I can't wait to hear what she's she's saying in a couple more months. After Elly said that I told Evie that Sissy was going to be teaching her to talk in just a few months and Evie nodded. Hah! Kids are just too funny.

I really don't remember what she was making this face at.

Or this one. Elly has a lot of adorable faces. And like many babies...they don't really seem to relate to anything going on around them.

This is my favorite though...

This is how she sleeps...pretty much all the time.

So is it possible for a baby to be starting to try and talk this early? I only have my little late bloomer to compare to. And of course she didn't say her first words until like 8 or 9 months old. She's only just now starting to use two word phrases regularly. And those tend to involve personal pronouns..."My momma" or "My juice" or something along those lines. I think she was trying to tell Mushu he was a bad dog this morning which is certainly the most advanced sentence she's used that I've understood. "Moomoo, baa daa" was kind of what it sounded like. He was dragging her around the yard at Mimi's at the time and she was using her stern voice...so it fits. A lot of conversations with Evie involve a lot of guessing and assuming she's trying to say what you think she is. I know of people with children younger than Evie who form complete sentences. Complete sentences that you can understand. Heck! They are able to have conversations with their kids than even a stranger can understand. Even though I can have pretty simple conversations with Evie, I'm certain that a stranger couldn't.

I'm hoping that Elly's early desire to communicate means that she'll start talking early. I hope that her being a little tongue-tied doesn't affect it any. But I guess that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.

In the mean time, Josh tells me he thinks that Elly will be even more attached to me than Evie is. Though he doesn't really have an explanation for why. She's continuing to sleep better and better at night. Sleeping til 5 or 6 in her crib then til 8 in our bed with no nighttime feedings. Just a couple more months and she'll be starting cereal and veggies and fruits and hopefully we'll all be sleeping a hundred times better.

I don't mind waking up to this precious face every day though...

Going to be bad if I'm the one with separation anxiety and crying myself to sleep when we put her back in her crib for good.

Daddy does it different

Sometimes I feel a little sorry for my husband. He, after all, will spend the next 18 years in a house full of girls. Even if we change our minds in a few years and have another child (highly unlikely) and we have a boy (which the odds seem to be against at this point) the girls will still outnumber the boys. Unless we have twin boys. And with no twins in our families I think we're more likely to find a winning lottery ticket on the street than to have twin boys.

So there he is. A lone beacon of testosterone lost in a vast sea of pink, frills, dresses, make-up and estrogen. He's going to have to learn things most men will never learn. Like how to color coordinate. Or how to braid hair. Dress dolls. Have a tea party. He'll have to deal with lots of tears, listen to boy problems, and buy lots of tampons.

Poor guy. He has a tough couple of decades ahead of him.

Watching Josh with Evie, I think he's going to do fine with all of this girly stuff. He actually volunteered to paint her toenails this morning. She wanted her toenails painted, but when asked if she could sit still long enough for them to dry, she admitted she couldn't.

She instead wanted Daddy to trim her toenails. Then wanted to help me paint my toenails. Ehhh, that's okay baby.

I admit, even for me taking care of two girls is going to be difficult. It already is at times. I'm home alone with them a lot and I admit that there are times when they're overwhelming. You can't understand it or explain it but taking care of two kids is somehow three times harder than just one.

Josh doesn't spend a lot of time home alone with them both. Sometimes I'm jealous of this. Like this week, he's working the late shift everyday. So he gets the house all to himself from 11 a.m. when I take the girls to my mom's and then head to work until he leaves for work at 3 p.m. Then he doesn't get home til around 2 a.m. so he gets to miss the nightly insanity. Then he'll sleep in the next morning til around 9:30 or 10, meaning not only does he miss the insanity of trying to get both babies fed first thing in the morning, he only has to deal with them for an hour or so before we leave.

I'm sure he misses them some. But at the same time he gets a lot of time to do whatever he pleases. While I would be miserable only seeing my girls for a few hours over the course of an entire week, I'm at the same time very jealous of all the time he gets to do whatever he wants. Especially since my free time is certainly not spent on "me time." My "free" time, meaning anytime the girls are sleeping or otherwise preoccupied, is spent trying to catch up on house work. If I get 5 minutes I will run and start a load of laundry, put up some clothes, sweep the floor, put up dishes, etc. Men just don't seem to have that kind of motivation. Josh will spend all of his free time playing Call of Duty or watching a movie. If I ask, he will manage to get a few chores done. Today he's supposed to be putting the first load of laundry (that I started during a free moment this morning) in the dryer, the next load in the washer, emptying the dishwasher (which I loaded and started this morning during another free moment), filling the humidifiers, getting the coffee maker ready for tomorrow and making the bottles that Elly will need tonight and in the morning. He will probably get it all done. But of course he'll have PLENTY of time for his video games and whatever else he wants to do.

I don't get enough free time to usually get to spend it doing something for me. Over the course of this weekend, I got a whole 30 minutes to myself which I spent sitting in the sun reading. It did a little for my base tan and dramatically improved my overall outlook on life. I wish I had more time for stuff like that. But I don't particularly want to give up time with my kids to get it.

One of the upsides of having spent so much time with both kids is that the whining, crying and tantrums don't really get to me much anymore. Of course, I have some bad days and there are moments that I cannot stand another second of it. But Josh's tolerance level is way lower. He gets easily frustrated with Evie's whining and tends to yell a lot more often than he used to.

The first day he stayed home with them both he was exhausted and completely frazzled by the time I got home from work. Of course, I remember calling him in the tears on my first day home alone and telling him that I couldn't do it. Granted that was two months ago and Elly was younger and sick and Evie hadn't developed any patience or tolerance for her sister yet. So I think Josh has it WAY easier now. But I don't want to say that. Because I know it is incredibly hard to balance both babies at first. And I don't need to prove that I'm better or anything. Being a parent isn't a competition. And if it were, we're supposed to be on the same team.

I tell him it will get easier the more he does it. And it seemed to go better on his second full day home with both babies.

I just find it so interesting how much different a father's bond is with his children. His whole attitude towards them is completely different from mine. And I don't mean that he loves them any less or doesn't want to spend time with them and do things. He loves them very much and he's a great father. Josh helps out way more than a lot of men do. So I'm not complaining. Sometimes it is just so frustrating though. Guess that's just part of parenting.