Ok, it was finally time for a hair cut, and boy did that feel good! I was a bit worried, but after cutting George's hair for the first time, and seeing it turn out great... well, woe, that was a sigh of relief! It looks awesome, talk about a blessing! SO happy with how it turned out! I was honestly scared to death (Ok, not truly! If there was a word like "pyromaniac" for hair cutting, that would be me, but hey, my mom never let me get it out on her dog). Anyway, so happy it actually turned out well! Did I mention the first time I EVER cut hair was on my hubby a few days before our wedding? Why on earth was I worried about my son?! Scott will love his hair when he gets home!!!
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We're giving another go at potty training! Not because George wasn't successful last time with the relaxed version of the 3 day method, but because we got lazy and he got sick in between. This time though, he's getting horrible diaper rash, and there's nothing I can do besides showers and naked time to help. Naked time goes hand in hand with the 3 day method!
As you can see though, George isn't naked in the picture! Instead of being naked, we like to use an unbuttoned onesie for modesty. George seems to like it better and so do others when they walk in the door. Last time he was potty training, the Missionaries stopped by for an unexpected visit, and both shouted "Woe!" as George flew around the corner and screamed hi while butt naked. That was hilarious. Underware simply does not work for the 3 day meathod, but a onesie works great for modesty if that's what you want. Children run around with loin clothes in a few places around the world for modesty, and in the home it's perfectly fine. If you have a boy though, keep a good eye on his hands because they'll naturally tug at his parts, especially if uncircumcised. A few more tips are; 1. Have them cornered in a part of the house where there are hard floors! Italians hate carpets because they can't clean them. Sprays don't fully clean a carpet, and the pee will just sit there unless you have an actual carpet cleaning machine to suck out the pee. Keep in mind, poop is 10x easier to clean on a hard floor if its not solid too! On a hard floor, with paper towels and 409 cleaner (or your natural cleaner of choice) cleaning is a breeze. 2. Dont scold them for accidents, they will happen (more so on first day). However, don't say "it's ok", because it isn't ok to pee and poo on the floor. Just direct them to the potty and tell them that's where they go and praise them for sitting on the potty. Positive reinforcement is super important, or else they'll digress back to the diaper. 3. TV is awesome for the 3 day method. Distracts them from being upset and makes the whole experience a treat and an exciting time. 4. Dont use diaper wipes to clean their hands if they refuse to wash up! My son got sick twice last time and if they are sick, its no time to train! Miserable children and potty training do not go together. Use some hand sanitizer, let the germs die, and then you can wipe their hands with a baby wipe if your afraid they'll stick their hands in his/her mouth. 5. Make it a fun and exciting time! Have lots of small snacks out and keep their sippy cup full! 6. Lastly, ask them if they need to go to the potty, or put them on the potty every 20 minutes. After they get the hang of potty training, they'll still need to be naked from bottom down in the house (if using 3 day method to kick start potty training) for around 3 months and you'll still need to remind them to go potty! They're still toddlers after all :) When going out, you'll also want something like the Piddle Pad for your car seat off Amazon (or line car seat with plastic and then a towel), and maybe get a foldable child potty seat or keep your training potty in the car. You can hold them over an adult seat in a public restroom too, just bring a sticker to cover over the automatic flush detector. Go search Pinterest for the 3 day method to learn more about it if you like! Its basically just staying home for 3 days and dedicating it to potty training with no diaper, naked waist down. Anyway, we going for another try, and hopefully life in general won't get too much in the way! We really don't have a choice with this major rash! Once it clears up in a day though it'll be hard to not revert back if things get in the way (tomorrow we'll be needing to go down the mountain). Anyway, we'll try to pull through it all! Wish us luck! Just one more thing! Potty training videos got George excited yesterday to try the potty, and that's what gave us the idea to give it another go! Two videos we're letting George watch for potty training are Daniel Tigers Neighborhood, episode "Prince Wednesday Goes to the Potty/Daniel Goes to the potty" (on Netflix its episode 10 of volume 1), and Bear In The Big Blue House - When You've Got to Go, on YouTube. We might find more later, but George's favorite is Daniel Tiger. UPDATE: To see our updated success story, click here. George did successfully potty train in three days, but we had to try again later. It's important to note that not all children are ready (or parents ready for the commitment) for potty training. Success will be great only if both toddler and parent(s) are ready. It turned out great, so I encourage you to check our success story for a few more tips and even more info: George Potty Trained! In 3 Days... Today was a big day, and we were wiped by 3 pm! We got up early to go to the home we are buying and spent six hours hanging out at the house while the Inspector we hired inspected it. It really was quite exhausting in an 82 degree house, 23 weeks Expecting, and I could barely walk around to watch our 2 yr old darling boy!
Through the whole experience, Scott really learned a lot though and was thrilled with the whole process start to finish! It really made me happy to see him enjoy it all so much. In the end, there were only 20 or so things wrong with the house. In most houses that get inspected, there are normally at least 40 things wrong with any given house, we were told by our inspector. Pretty crazy right? Well, things went smoothly! Afterward, we headed to Carmen's cafe in town, where this pic above was taken. It was a great way to wind down, we were and ARE exhausted. Ahh, our sw3et air conditioned town home. We'll need to get that AC in the house up and running soon before we move in to our final destination! Ok, YL reps are going to love this, and everyone else is going to be disappointed (well, maybe not or somewhere in between). For those who have no clue on earth what I'm talking about, its Essential oil brands. There are varying different qualities and brands out there! If the oils is "too good to be true" price wise, be wary, and don't invest all your money in one brand before you've given them a good try.
So far I've been happy with Aura Cacia's Eucalyptus for muscle aches, and combining their Lemon and Grapefruit to uplift my mood when I'm not feeling so hot. But when I used their Organic Lavender on a paper cut, I panicked a bit! First it burned and then it started to itch in and around the knob of my thumb (where it was cut) and down my thumb to my hand. I also noticed six small pink spots appear around the area. I thought, "what is in this?!" It was Organic AND it has cs/ms or whatever it was called, testing. I personally don't know what was going on, but even if there's testing that its not adulterated, I question it and wonder if its tainted with something else. I had first put it on my husbands eczema earlier too (I use him for experiments ;)) and he gasped as it stung. I didn't dare put it on my 2 yr old sons cuts when he had a terrible fall, fearing he'd never trust EO's again! Now, my Young Living Lavender got here today. I immediately first put it on my husband to try the oil! He didn't squirm OR make a sound! How is it?! I asked and he said it stung a bit, but wasn't horrible like the last one. His eczema wasn't hurting much, so he doesn't know if it made a difference. It passed the pain test so I put two drops on George. Seeing I had EO for him to help his boo boo, he immediately tried to pull up his pants so I could put it on the massive scrape (I've used Plant Therapy on him, so he's had experience, but I was never impressed with their blends that I bought). Well, I put it on his massive and very red scrape and he started giggling and smiling big! The smell of the Lavender was actually nice too. My mom's always hated the smell, and though I never hated it, I never loved it. I can only say this Lavender smelt "real" and I have apparently never smelled real Lavender? I apparently like Lavender, if it's pure. Anyway, now our baby's scrape is doing better and all the red from irritation has gone away! Well, Organic Lavender 7.4 ml was about $16 at Whole Foods and YL Lavender 15 ml was $18 on sale (hardly ever any sales) and $23 with membership or through someone with membership. Its not too hard to find a YL rep, there's many out there. I'm very impressed with YL's Lavender and wonder how excellent their other oils are but I personally do not like YL "as a company", just because of the lack of ease of buying from them, their referral and rewards program to keep you buying more than you might need, expensive membership, false marketing practices (no governing body gives "certified therapeutic grade"), hostility between reps of the top MLM companies, and suggestion and acceptance of liberal digestion of oils. One drop can be as potent as several and several dozen plus cups of tea, and many practitioners strongly advise only doing that under medical supervision! Despite ALL this though, I still lean toward YL being one of the most superior companies. There are other companies out there that may be possible good rivals (from the intense studying I've found), like Mountain Rose Herbs, Native American Nutritional/Rocky Mountain (merging together), StillPoint Aromatics, and Pompeii Organics. I know YL though, and they have years of experience and many happy customers, so I may or may not use them. Maybe I won't but ALL my oils from them, and just Lavender, I don't know! I've spent all my money saved up and now I need to wait till we have money again to spend! I wasn't raised on the healthiest diet with only having a microwave growing up, living on a boat. My husband lived on a high glycemic diet himself. I think I may be too chilax, and naive on foods myself, but believe it or not, I AM doing much better! This morning my almost two year old ate a whole banana, vitamins, canned sardines with me, and then... we shared an ice cream cone! Granted he took me to the freezer for more, but I put my foot down and got excited and said we'd have raspberries! He loved them and I did too, and I was rather proud to get us to eat something good and healthy, after eating ice cream (instead of more ice cream). Granted most of what we ate tasted sweet, but if its a low glycemic fruit, then I think it's way better for you than processed sweetness! And no, we do not always eat Ice cream in the morning! When we do though, I insist we eat breakfast first!!! Well, my mom came up the mountain for a visit and is spending a few nights. Hubby gave the ultimate tour of our small town and surrounding neighborhoods and my mom ended up thinking it's not so bad after all and said she could even live here "part time". That made me smile. She even loved our small Italian-like town home rental, located close to the main street of town; where all the action is.
As she undoubtedly noticed all the specks and dirt on the wood floors (that I gave up sweeping everyday), she commented on a family she visited and lived with in Italy. My mouth fell open when I realized she was serious of the mother/wife getting on the floor everyday and scrubbing the entire house tiled floors like crazy! She says Italians are very clean and they say that the floors are like the dishes, needing to be done everyday! Now, not all Italians are like this, now it's mostly just in small towns, still untainted from "civilized society" where we use Clorox Wipes and throw them away, and other disposable cleaning objects. We use bottles of diluted cleaners, throw away rags, and things more things like that in nature. I read this interesting article What Italian Women Do Better and I was amazed at what my mom said was true for Italians today (though most Italians actually scrub their floors 4 times a week, not 7 according to the article). This got me really interested. I've been set up by society to think things should be easy, and if they are not, I shouldn't do them! Sweeping the floor everyday? It was too bothersome, so I decided the laws of nature was telling me to "give up" and still just do it once a week and just ware socks so I don't notice the crumbs and specks of dirt we trail in everyday. I guess I am so use to my carpet, but maybe my carpet was never clean to begin with, or at least, not for very long!!! Well, I plan to do more research on how Italians clean and hopefully learn a thing or two from the experts who LOVE clean. Ok, I'm so excited, I've got my essential oils (also known as "EO's")! I have one of my Young Living Friends sending me a YL Lavender, and also against all my friends, with EO experience, I have purchased some from the health food store!!!! The Health food store I went to is Whole Foods, and the brand of EO's I bought are Aura Cacia, which is cheaper than MLM company brand oils like DoTERRA and Young Living, and WAY cheaper if bought online like at Vitacost.com. I've already tried Aura Cacia and was floored when I immediately realized it actually worked. I was trying it because I really "just wanted to try it" but had held off since my YL friends and family was so against anything else and said YL was the best. I don't doubt them at all that YL is one of the best quality oils out there, but my family cannot go into debt for alternative medicine. I do recommended YL if you have the money, but if you don't, I've found that Aura Cacia actually works. The first oil I got was Eucalyptus to rub on my sprained neck with some Now brand almond oil. Within a minute I felt the difference. Later I made a one % dilution mix of it, and applied it to my neck several times a day as I massaged it into my neck. A few days after a hike, my legs were killing me. I put my Eucalyptus and almond oil blend on and it helped so much! Today, I've stopped by the store again (since we're down the hill again) and bought Lemon and Grapefruit essential oil for sadness and loneliness and uplifting (hubby will be going away on a trip in the next few weeks and its always hard for me). I wafted both in front of my nose in the car and I immediately felt better, even though I wasn't actually sad or anything. Scott had smelled it from beside me and said "wow, that's uplifting" and he wasn't even aware that that's what they were for! Anyway, I'm super super excited!!!
Last week we went hiking with friends and had a complete blast. Being new to the mountains, they gave us safety tips, showed us old abandoned mining equipment, learned about plants, and saw the sun set between the trees. It was so nice after a rain storm the previous day, and everything has a bit more life to it. The temperature was so eloquent and breeze was amazing. We ended the afternoon with homemade cinnamon rolls around the family table. We can't thank them enough for being so kind and showing us what life can be like up here! No matter where you are, a good friend is a priceless treasure.
George had a terrific day at Nana's. He had a thrill of being a dog walker, watching Masha and the Bear while eating ice cream, and playing Micro machines with Nana. Now he's zonked out and taking a nap just in time for daddy's appointment! Good day.
Ah, the excitement and stress! We have moved, and not just anywhere, to the mountains. So far it's been bliss. It's actually quite a funny paradox; living in a city with several millions of people, you stay couped up inside afraid to ever go outside, and communicate to people via Facebook, and then suddenly in a town of about 1500 I'm suddenly out and about, walking down the streets, exserting myself to be more social even if I'm scared, and being outdoors and learning more about wildlife and nature than ever before.
George has been having the time of his life seeing stray cats, local dogs, and being able to walk up and down safe hills and streets in the new small town. I'd like to call this home, but I'm afraid the locals would get mad at me with only living there a few weeks! George and I have been blessed with a new friend too, who has a daughter George's age. She invited us over and George and I had such an experience we've never had in our lives... George saw horses, fed chickens, played in the fields... and all without the TV!!! Lol. Granted, he did watch TV later, but after much playing outside, and even then he just wanted to go back outside to play and drench himself in rainwater that had poured the previous night. Well, George had fun, and I was happy to have someone to talk to and be able to experience all the amazing things the country/mountains offers. We still don't know if we'll stay 100%, we're just renting atm till our house sells, and then we may start making offers on houses. Hubby and I favor it here though, so there's a good chance we might stay. |
Ms. MaryJust one of those average amazing moms... Cause you know, mommy = amazing. Archives
January 2017
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