I remember being George’s age when I started wanting to sleep in my own room, so it might be an age that kids are naturally ready… however I didn’t do it his age because if you’re being real, night lights are pathetic and really don’t scare the monsters away! With George having a slew of colorful christmas lights adorning his room along the wall though, and a door wide open with the bathroom light shining in, he does perfectly well. Knowing that mommy and daddy are right down the hall instead of down the hall, up the stairs, around the corner and hallway, has seemed to comfort him too, and so far he’s slept two whole nights all the way through in his room. There still is a lot of cleaning and organizing to do still, but I’ll call switching everyone’s room a major accomplishment. Now next step will be to bring my giant dresser downstairs, the rest of all our clothes, reading books, and bathroom hygienics, and else-what’s. However, we’ll leave that for tomorrow. We’re so proud of all the work and George and Emilie did to help as too. When Scott and I were hauling in our new bed, Emilie and George just had to come and help us with pushing (it truly was a family affair). Well, it’s all worked out. And when a lot of family come to visit the kids will gladly surrender their rooms since they’ll be sleeping on the floor for a sleepover anyway ;)
Ah, it’s all in a day. Well, George, Emilie, Scott and I have moved from our cozy and upstairs to the downstairs. George started thinking he wanted to sleep in his very own room and was very persistent about trying it, so we decided we wanted to be a little closer and take advantage of the master bedroom downstairs and giving Emilie her own room as well (so she can sleep better, not being waked by my every move). After getting a new mattress for hubby and me (our other one was old, hurt Scott’s back, and the springs bulging out the sides always gave my legs bruises when getting out… so we decided to upgrade!), and arranging the beds in George and Emilie’s room, we’re all settled! I myself am pretty excited to we switching to downstairs since that was my favorite pick when we moved in, but the upstairs room was the logical choice then with all of us room co-sleeping. Our new room has a nice giant tub, walk-in closet, cupboards in the adjoining bathroom and even two sinks! This was the luxurious guest bedroom master suit you might say, but now it’s ours! Guests will now have our giant upstairs bedroom with an unfinished barebones bathroom… I’m so sorry. Well, I’ll have more motivation to make it nice up there now since it will be for family. ;)
I remember being George’s age when I started wanting to sleep in my own room, so it might be an age that kids are naturally ready… however I didn’t do it his age because if you’re being real, night lights are pathetic and really don’t scare the monsters away! With George having a slew of colorful christmas lights adorning his room along the wall though, and a door wide open with the bathroom light shining in, he does perfectly well. Knowing that mommy and daddy are right down the hall instead of down the hall, up the stairs, around the corner and hallway, has seemed to comfort him too, and so far he’s slept two whole nights all the way through in his room. There still is a lot of cleaning and organizing to do still, but I’ll call switching everyone’s room a major accomplishment. Now next step will be to bring my giant dresser downstairs, the rest of all our clothes, reading books, and bathroom hygienics, and else-what’s. However, we’ll leave that for tomorrow. We’re so proud of all the work and George and Emilie did to help as too. When Scott and I were hauling in our new bed, Emilie and George just had to come and help us with pushing (it truly was a family affair). Well, it’s all worked out. And when a lot of family come to visit the kids will gladly surrender their rooms since they’ll be sleeping on the floor for a sleepover anyway ;)
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After four months of not touching our clothes budget (totally unintentional, no effort on my part!), we had plenty of money for a shopping spree to get the kids some new (well, sort of) clothes! Just in time too, since they are both onto the next size. Now, if you have a good hand of cash, where is your first stop? Ours is AMVETS! Oh my gosh it is amazing, a whole new wardrobe for Emilie, and some extra for George (half his wardrobe was to the correct size), for only $40!!! See this outfit above? Pink frilly shirt, doubly cute shorts and purse in hand for a total of $5!!! The Hat and super cute jelly glitter shoes was my splurge of the day, both being $10 to $12 each at Old Navy. The little baby doll was a little extra gift I wanted to give to Emilie that we found at Target, on sale for $2.44 and has such adorable/realistic blue eyes and just the right size for her little hands! We couldn't really tell if she really wanted the doll though, because she kept switching from kissing and hugging it to throwing it as hard as she could onto the floor. My mom's guessing she's more of a lego person. In the whole ruckus of shopping, both George and Emilie are basically set clothes wise, and it's a nice relief. The shopping spree wouldn't have been your dream "shop till you drop," well, actually it sort of literally was, but not in the happy sense! Shopping with a toddler and and graduated toddler was the difficult. Thanks to my mom though, we were able to get things chosen and checked out in a mostly orderly fashion.
In other news, George has also decided he wants to sleep in her own room downstairs since he's "four" years old now. He's jumping the gun a little! I think playing in his room and seeing the awesome colorful lights hung up on the walls got him into wanting to sleep there. We'll see though. Tuesday night he attempted and made it only half way through the night. Now tonight he's adamant on trying it again with a bit more light. I told him mommy's close, and that the phone will be on call with us on speaker (muted on our end so he can't hear us and wake up), and can talk to us if he wakes up. This seemed to make him feel better. I actually didn't want this, but it seems George wants it! I do remember being his age and wanting to sleep in my very own room, but I was just too scared to do it! I remember even the one night that I did try it, and was scared out of my mind with how dark it was. Maybe the light will help George. In any case, he's the coziest little boy, snuggled in under his circus tent cover, beautiful lights, and one crazy fluffy blanket. I think he'll be fine :) It was so nice to come along with hubby on a business trip again, and this time we found an awesome play place! Though it was indeed awesome, there weren't any kids there for 90% of the day since it just opened in may and is still pretty unknown. George and Emilie still had fun however and we totally took full advantage of the play place (by far, this was one of the best ones we've been to. Only one location of it so far though)! George rocked it out on stage with his very own drum set, and then later played the hero and saved the inhabitants of the play place from an imaginary fire (Emilie helped too). Emilie and George also fun racing, fishing, camping, playing cars and trains, doctor, grocery shopping and MORE. Yes, we spent all day here! It was so nice having so many toys at their beck and call and such a change from a drab hotel room (however nice it might be). We also discovered a painting/craft area and we totally took advantage of that too... until I found out that Emilie would not be happy unless she painted too (no color, crafts or anything else she would touch, just what her brother laid hands on...paint). It turned out a complete nightmare (from my point of view) and they were so sad I wouldn't let it carry on any longer. I'm sorry, but there wasn't a shower in the vicinities... and we would have needed one... especially since Emilie started to paint herself and not the paper... and then George thought "hey, that looks fun. I want to try that too!". Oh, I hated being such a stinker and not let their creativity soar, but I hadn't a change of clothes... or a tub. It would have been a head to toe disaster! But it would have been sooooooo fun, lol. Ah, well, se la vie. Well, the trip has been fun, and we'll be home soon tomorrow. I can't believe how the time has flown. Why does time seem to go faster and faster? How do Emilie and George keep growing? Why do things keep going and changing? I hate change, I really do... unless it's an exciting change like a new manicure, but that's just about the extent of it. I'm glad that one thing won't change however, and that is that we will always be a family and can be together forever and that it can always be that way. That's a sigh of relief in a hectic, always changing world. Now, George and Emilie, stop growing! Please be my little human's forever!!! *Kisses you both* <3 I really don't want George's time wasted playing games where you "pop the bubbles" or race a kitten car to the end for a bowl of milk (though it can be handy during doctor appointments)! If he's going to be wasting his time in front of a screen, I'd rather have him to learn somethings and have fun while he spends time Zombifying! I have just found an app that not only makes his screen time "Okay" but actually makes it time well spent!!! The App is called "Endless Numbers" and it is the next best generation of learning in Apps! It doesn't force you to "tell them the right answers" but rather instructs through play and teaches number counting, odd numbers, what numbers actually stand for (their value), and applying numbers to real life (ok, pretend... Monsters! Example, Abby the monster has three eyes, so she needs a stylish special pair of sunglasses just for her). I've gone through so many free math/number apps, and all of them have been ridiculous and/or boring. With this though, there's been so much love in developing this app, cute monsters, many hilarious voices, and George is loving it!!! I had the Jumpstart games as a kid, and they're not around anymore. I've been craving to find something as awesome, and this is even more awesome! The Endless series has a whole slew of other apps too, but they are expensive (especially if you just view it as a game, but affordable if you're looking for learning software for your child). The demo of numbers 1-5 was free, and the upgrade (only accessed through the app itself) from numbers 1 to 25 was $7, which I did. The upgrade for numbers 1 to 100 is $15, however I think it's well worth later down the line (but not quite yet) for when George starts homeschooling officially. Anyway, I just really wanted to share this because it's so awesome and wanted to share the love and educational empowerment!!! Here is the link if you'd like to see it! Click here.
By the way, it's 10:32am and Emilie's potty training is going well! No accidents so far today! ;) Oh and since I need to post a picture of the kids (posts are pointless with pictures of George and Emilie), I'll share something knew we learned at the Zoo last week! Did you know that by recycling your phone you can save the habitat of Gorillas? I had no idea that cell phones needed coltan which can only be mined in their territory. I'm totally not an environmentalist, but I think it's good to minimize our impact as much as we can. ;) Well, it seems like this 3 day method won't be a "three day" method, but rather a week perhaps. Which is a bit disappointing, because we won't be able to stay home soon and have a whole days worth of travel to help take my mom for her dental surgery (One surgery of many for her missing tooth. The first one will be removing the dead root of the tooth that was left over). It's been a whirlwind in potty training, and I think I've been so down on myself because I thought that Emilie would have it down in three days. Well, I think the progress she's made has been phenomenal, even if I had expectations that she'd completely have it by the third day. It seems, from reading around the web, that most 18 month old potty training children are having 1 week training. "Three days" generally mean the "kick off days" anyway and a child can really get into the swing of potty training anywhere from less than or more than three days. I guess I really just needed to adjust my expectations.
Our toughest challenge so far, is that Emilie really doesn't like drinking, so getting her to pee enough for this training to work is hard (every 20 minutes is ideal, but she's averaging around 2-3 an hour at best). Despite that though, she is still making progress, which is good. Emilie's biggest progress came today when she started to grab and hold herself with her hand when she needed to go! This was fantastic because sometimes she doesn't say "potty" because there are more exciting things to do than go to the potty, and boy does that signal come in handy (I've used it at least five times today)! She's literally holding in her pee! Once George was on the potty and wouldn't get off (he wanted to make her jealous of him, and he actually said it!). I didn't get him off fast enough (thank you diplomacy)... Emilie held it as long as she could, but it was so cute and sad when she started to pee through her little hand. I then physically removed George (ok, more like tossed him off on his head, so sorry George!) and put Emilie on. Anyway, so the rest of the day sort of went like that... without the tossing of George on his head, but with everything else! Another challenge is that Emilie is so independent! She will not sit on the potty if I tell her to and will scream if I set her down on it. The only time she lets me set her down on it is if she's saying "potty!" or if she's starting to have little drips of an accident and I whisk her to the seat, or if she's going onto it all by herself... she'll also go on it if she see's George going on the potty (then she'll literally hit him and try to push him off to get on... I'm trying to help her stop this habit. Yes, she's a feisty little girl!). The whole potty training thing is really exhausting because I have to watch her every minute of the day. If I turn my back or if she goes into another room, there could very well be a pool of pee on the floor. I really just need to keep on top of it, which is hard, and keep setting her on the potty once she makes the grab. She really thinks it's silly as I grab her and do a bouncing jig across the room to the potty saying "POTTY, POTTY, POTTY!!!" and she giggles away. Also, our whole schedule being thrown off by potty training, it's really stressful and exhausting. I'm really trying to get us back into the swing of things and our schedule. We finally had story time again today and boy, was that relaxing. I wish we would have been doing that since the beginning, all cuddled up in bed with tons of the best books in the world. Well, at the beginning I was a bit more worried of her peeing on the books... I still am and keep a hawk eye on her during story time, nevertheless! Well, hopefully things will continue to improve. One thing won't change though, and that's Emilie's new addiction to being outside. She lives, eats, and breaths outside time. The moment we get downstairs to breakfast she pulls me to the door. After breakfast before I've finished cleaning up, she pulls me to the door. She just learned that pulling mommy and daddy places can get her many things she wants, and it's so darn cute. I'm going to die from the cuteness of my own kids! George is so crazy cute (I just want to pinch his cheeks all day and snuggle him... I get to during story time!), and Emilie is so darn crazy cute (seriously, she's so sassy with me, hits anyone in arms reach of her, but she's so darn sweet... even while she's hitting you. I got to get her to stop hitting! She was seriously born with a hitting inclination... George was not... but he's a boy, so he naturally gravitated toward the "natural man". I can't leave these two kids alone together for they're physical safety!). I am so blessed to have George and Emilie as my very own children! Ok, mom hormones, I'm starting to cry now. They're so darn cute and sweet and special and gosh I love them! I LOVE YOU GEORGE!!! I LOVE YOU EMILIE!!! *hugs and kisses you both* The second half of the day is done! I am more and more optimistic of this actually happening. How can this be happening??? How can Emilie actually be potty training right now, she's not even weaned?! Well, after a day of salty homemade cheese crackers and a lot of fluids (had to get creative, she doesn't like to drink like George does), Emilie has gone over a dozen times in the potty today. Yes, she still has accidents, but she's making the pee to potty connection! I'm floored (not because I'm slipping on pee, but then again she actually has). Well, lets just keep this up. Will keep you posted on how it goes! :)
Ok, so I'm going to be real with you. Today has been stressful and exhausting. Potty training is still a GO though! This morning I was so preoccupied with breakfast, cleaning the kitchen and cooking salty cheese crackers to get Emilie drinking. There were a lot of accidents this morning, and I blame them on me being distracted (you really need to give the potty trainee 100% attention on day 1). It was really disheartening at first while I was distracted. Emilie had the bright idea though to drag mommy outside for training, and things started looking up from there... even though there were still accidents... quite a few of them, but then she started to improve. Her first pees were with me setting her down on the potty when I thought she needed to go, and when she did, she liked the praise. She really thrived once George started to demonstrate going pee in the potty though, and she was pushing him off for her turn! Between competing with George, and seeing daddy to impress, she started doing awesome (me for an audience? She could really care less, it's ridiculous. She does love my exploding fist bumps though! ;) ). So far she's went a total of three pees in the potty of her own free will and choice (first one when daddy was watching). Counting those three, she's peed in the potty about six times today total. With the success she's had, and the "aha" about the potty today, potty training may still be a possibility yet! It's still too early to tell for sure wither she's really ready for training, but it's a good sign that potty training hasn't been written off during the first half of the day (which is what I was expecting, if it wouldn't work). I'm optimistic, but who knows. Cross your fingers!
During the hardest times today, letting go of all the expectations I've had has really helped me (they recommend you to do that, and not compare to siblings, and that way it's easier to not get upset when they crawl into the tupperware drawer and pee on everything... she did that today by the way!). With Emilie, I'm really impressed with how much easier it has been. I've still had to let go of the expectation in order to keep my cool but moving outside has really taken the stress off, and we've had so much fun today because of it! Emilie is only 18 months old to count too, she's doing incredibly amazing! If she ends up not being completely ready for training, she'll be fine and we'll have another go in the future. No matter the outcome, I'm happy for this experience and the fun we've been having. Now that Act 1 is done, and it's nap/break time, George and I are having some screen time, and then we'll be up again for Act 2! We'll keep you posted :) The pictures above don't really go well with potty training, but I found them on my phone from our last trip to the playground. I just had to add them! I suppose potty training is a family event, and that daddy and George will be excited that she'll be potty training, so these picture could go with the topic. Well, this evening Emilie went pee in the potty twice! She's also dragged me to the potty countless times to sit by her as she goes to sit on it. She's also said the word "potty" for the first time too! I have no idea if a three day kick off will work with her, or if she is truly ready, but we'll get an accurate idea tomorrow on day one (it's pretty obvious on day one wither they're ready or not). If it goes well, then we'll continue and she'll be well on her way! If not, well, we'll try again in the future! I really worry she's too young (though Fellom's 3 day method works for as young as 15 months old), however she's showing all the signs that she's ready! If she's truly ready and I don't take advantage of this time, who knows when the next window of opportunity will be. She's actually interested in the potty! She brings mommy and daddy a diaper if she has a pooper! She mimics George going on the potty! She's totally ready... Am I ready for this though? I don't know. Well see about that too. :)
Website that encouraged me to take the leap: http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/potty-training-in-three-days-2/ BabyCenter's main explanation of 3 day potty training: http://www.babycenter.com/0_potty-training-in-three-days-or-less_10310078.bc?page=2 Our first heat wave in the high 80's and the AC kicks on. No longer is our house set up with four heaters on, going at once, but now they're all put away and replaced with cranked up cool air! Despite how hot out it's been,Scott decided to go ahead with the weed wiping on Saturday. The kids loved watching him fill the weed wiper up with gas and then tare the weeds to shreds! On the back porch though, watching daddy wasn't enough and the kids thought it was time to turn on the spigot. George kept loving to turn it on full blast, and ended up soaking his shirt, forcing us to leave it outside to dry. Emilie loved drinking from the spigot and was so happy with her dreams coming true. She wasn't too happy when George decided it was his turn (as you can see from the lip in the photo above). After George was drenched and had managed to get Emilie and I with some sprays (by putting his hand right up against the spigot), we decided headed inside for a bubble bath and wound down the evening.
On another note, all may be surprised that Emilie is now ready to be potty trained at 18 months old! After a bath time, she refused to get on her diaper and kept pointing at the potty. I set her on the potty seat, and whamo, she peed! I couldn't believe my eyes. George and I did a potty victory dance song and she giggled and clapped along. Before all this however, she had been copying her role model, George, by putting up the seats and lifting her shirt, standing by the potty. It was so cute, but I'm afraid her copying boy style isn't going to get her very far in success. George being potty trained though, makes her want to go potty too. She will copy him doing whatever! Wither it's banging her head, screaming (oh gosh, that hurts!), running in circles, pulling pots and pans out from under the sink, plumbing and/or cleaning the potty and drenching the floor, or well, I guess anything. Anyway, thank you George, Emilie is now ready to potty train, even though she can't even say "potty"... well, at least she can say "pee pee". We'll work with that ;) We love reading! Not only does it let me sit down and relax, but the kids have a blast. Emilie is still warming up to story time and comes and goes, but George just soaks it up. It's really good that George soaks it up, because we will be doing a heavily literature based homeschool program called Wayfarers by barefoot ragamuffin. I'm preparing George for homeschool by nurturing and growing his love of books, which isn't proving a problem at all. Just yesterday, we read for a whole hour together! We're aiming at having three story times, with the morning story time after lunch, being the longest. The second story time is soon before dinner prep, and the last one is at bed time. Wayfarers does have a preschool program, which is basically a reading list, but we really don't want to force ourselves to read books we don't have to yet. Right now we're just having fun and growing our vocabulary. Our favorite books are classic fairy tales and fairy tale renditions, books that encourage a love of nature, and Madeleine (because she's just funny, you know!). I'm also ordering tons of books from across the San Diego county libraries, and then just picking them up at our branch. We're gradually filling our list of favorite books, which is exciting, and also finding a whole bunch of books which we don't like. So many sites have their lists of "best books" but some of them are very unimpressive, disagreeable, or even teach inappropriate actions like arguing or unkind speech (why the heck am I having to sensor kid shows and now even children's books? This is ridiculous people!). Not a single list on the internet has a list of books that I agree with for even half of the books (wither it's because it's mildly innopropriate or just not beautifully narrated or illustrated). Okay, so I'm picky. So... we're making our own list! ;)
Before each reading, we are reviewing the letter phonograms as well, using Barefoot ragamuffins reading curricula, Reading Lessons Through Literature, which teaches reading with the Orton phonogram method. The curricula basically teaches reading with 75 phonograms and about 30 spelling rules and makes up most of the english language! English actually makes since, though they don't teach us this in school. We've learned all the basic phonograms of the alphabet A-Z (holding off on the letter combinations until a little later) and are reviewing them several times a week. While we do this, I have George pretend to be the "letter monster" which gobbles up the correct phonogram after I lay out three or more letters, asking him to match the phonogram sound I gave to a letter. Anyway, it's a nice review. Another plus of story time for George, to get him excited, is having milk (and in a bottle). Only at story time is he aloud to have milk in a bottle, and it's a big draw of getting him running to story time! As he's older, he'll probably outgrow this want of a bottle, but in the meantime he's associating story time with security and love. What better association can you have with sitting down and reading a good book?! |
Ms. MaryJust one of those average amazing moms... Cause you know, mommy = amazing. Archives
January 2017
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