Big Girl Bed and other good stuff…..

 

Since Osita started preschool it has been leaps and bounds!

This is a girl who is fully self expressed. The good and the bad. Like with any toddler, tantrums are a regular thing. Lately, it seems like we have turned a new leaf. We are having way more good times than not so good times. Her language skills  have jumped up a notch. She is able to identify that she is angry and communicate why. It’s huge!  We also have been working on her breathing through her anger. (As an adult, I struggle with conscience breathing when I am feeling anxious.) Overall, she just seems happier. Playing, pretending, being.

Potty is a regular thing now. Even #2. But no public potties yet though.

Yesterday, we graduated from her crib to a regular bed! What could have just been ‘swap out the beds’ easy project, turned into a ‘pull all the furniture, paint the room, clean the floors, put furniture back and then put the new bed in’ project. It was fun and everything went smooth. Osita was STOKED! I was worried that she would jump out at bedtime but she went down like a total champ. I was so relieved! Today’s nap went smooth too. Success! The pic above was taken before we put the safety railing up, as you can see, she is enjoying this transition just fine.

Tomorrow night, Nina Grande’s high school orchestra is playing with the Seattle Symphony! I told her I have to work but I have arranged to leave early so I can surprise her. 🙂 N.G. plays the viola for her orchestra. She also sings and plays violin and guitar. Quite the talent, that Nina Grande.

F*ck it!

This is Nina Osita’s new favorite way to get my attention.

My name is Amelia and I have a potty mouth.

What can I say? I am a daughter of a sailor and I have the mouth to prove it. But as much as I want to claim this particular phrase, “F*ck it” is not a phrase that I say regularly or ever. I am prone to various other forms of the F Bomb, though.

The only time N.O. (S) says this phrase are when people are talking and she wants to be heard. If she doesn’t get the attention that she is seeking she yells “F*CK IT!”

You know how your not supposed to react to those kind of things. Well, at first, it completely took me by surprise. I stopped what I was saying. I wasn’t angry, I was amused but I tried to keep a straight face. “Did you say ‘bucket’?” (She wins.)

The next time she did this, I tried really hard to keep going in my conversation but I was totally distracted and the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. This went on a couple more times. (She wins again.)

The last few weeks, I have been really good about keeping my conversation moving and ignoring her while drops her F Bombs. The situation had been improving and we had been hearing it less. I thought maybe we had finally won but my husband just informed that she had dropped it around him while I working.

Thrifty Threads

I have always been a thrift store shopper. Since high school I have loved browsing the racks and finding that one special piece. I love vintage slips and things with history. I love finding high end things for super cheap. I love a great deal and I love to save money. Don’t get me wrong, I also love a good trip to Nordstrom but I always keep my eyes peeled at the thrift stores. I like to go to the nicer neighborhoods and shop for consigned designer jeans and dresses and usually find great stuff! I do the same thing with children’s consignment stores. Kids grow so fast, in my head I just can not justify spending a buttload of money on something that’s going to last 3 months.

Last week, I had consigned some kids clothes to the shop I like to frequent. All of a sudden, it was Fall and S had outgrown most of her clothes. We were not prepared. AND she started preschool, she is outside most of the time. She needed boots and warm stuff, long sleeves, pants. I went back this week and found I had 10 dollars and some change in credit at the shop. I got

1- thick Winter Coat w/ hood

1- rain resistant windbreaker w/ hood

1- hoodie (Crewcuts!)

1 – thick vest (some super cute Japanese brand)

2- long sleeve shirts

3- pants (Gap, Osh kosh w/ the original tag still on it!)

1- pair of winter boots (Land’s End, look never worn!)

The boots and hoodie alone originally retail at around $100.

After my credit, I paid $88 for everything.

🙂

Urination Station

6 weeks.

It took 6 weeks (since my last blog post) to get pee pee in the potty.

You know all those “guidelines” you read. Like, for example, these: http://www.babycenter.com/0_successful-potty-training-for-girls_11653.bc , yeah those did not work for us one bit. We’ve been working those tips since June and had a zero success rate. You know what finally worked? Losing our patience with all those above tips and showing her our frustration. J and I, on separate occasions with her, within 24 hours of each other.

“WHY won’t you go pee pee in the potty??!!”

“I know you know what to do, WHYYYYY won’t you go??!!”

She did it but not without a total screaming fit *WHILE* the pee pee was streaming down. That is how opposed to the idea she is. After she had her first potty, we celebrated. There were cheers and a happy dance and candy (which was really just a fruit juice snack). It wasn’t enough to convince her to want to do it again. She did finally go again, screaming and crying the entire time. Each day has been met with improvement. She starting to tell us, even if she is piddling the entire way to the bathroom. Trails of urine everywhere I look. The mop has taken permanent residence upstairs. Thank goodness for hardwood floors!

We had to break all the rules, errr patience to get results but we got results and have steadily got results for the past couple of weeks. I’m not sure if showing her our frustration showed her we meant serious business or what, but I’ll take it!

Dear parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents

Love this. I have been that woman in the grocery store and have no doubt I will be again. All I can do is stick to my guns no matter what side ways glances or unsolicited advise I receive.

Thanks for having our back!

The Matt Walsh Blog

To the fan I lost yesterday:

I don’t owe you an explanation, but I thought I’d offer one anyway. I do this more for your sake than mine. You see, maybe, as you later suggested, I was in a bad mood. Maybe I could have been a bit more polite about it. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it now that I have kids. Maybe I’m just sick of hearing these comments about parents. Maybe I know that my wife has to take the twins with her when she goes grocery shopping sometimes, so she could easily be on the receiving end of your sort of bullying. Maybe I took it personally.

Whatever the case, there I was, walking down the aisles of the grocery store looking for the ingredients for a new chili recipe I wanted to try. I heard the kid screaming from a distance; the whole store heard…

View original post 1,453 more words

Your children are watching you (especially in breakdown)

I wish it could always be beautiful pictures of our perfect times together. Endless beach scenes upon numerous vacations upon perfect family dynamics. Good feeling, squishy perfect family memories to be instagrammed to look back upon in fifty years and remember fondly. I wish it could always be like that.

But that’s just not real.

Real is drama happens.

I don’t want to go into specifics of my current dramas. But there was a scene recently that I was impacted greatly by.

There was a moment when we could have reacted without thinking, where we could have cast angry words into the world and really put the “nail to the coffin”. There we were, filled with angry and hurt emotions and responding back to the conversation. My husband is typing away and I say to him, “Imagine if this is the last conversation you have with *****, what do you want to say? Do you want your last words to be of anger or out of love? What if this person dies tomorrow, how are you going to feel about the words you put out there?” and then I asked him,”I know how angry and hurt you are, I am too, but do you love *****?” and he said,”Yes.”

“Then your words should reflect your love and possibility you have for the relationship. No matter what the outcome, you’ll know you put your best self out there.”

He knew I was right and he completely rewrote the email. The email said he did not want to create space and he wanted to work through the breakdown and ended with “I Love You”

I looked up and my 14 year old was listening in on our conversation.

Misadventures in Potty Training

When I recall how potty training was with A, I remember it was so easy. She entered day care when she was one year, saw what the other kids were doing and immediately wanted to do it too. She was pretty well trained (except for at night) by 18 months. EASY!

When we returned from San Diego in early June, we decided that we were going to be committed to potty training. Prior to that, we had had months of inconsistent “potty training”, we knew it was time to get serious. I purchased some panties and away we went.

We put the panties on her, talked to her about telling us if she had to go, offered up a treat if she peed in the potty.  She constantly peed in her panties and mildly resisted the process. No big deal, it’s the first week of many. A friend suggested I let her run around without panties that way when she pees she could feel what was happening, which resulted in…

“Mom, mom, look, look at me!!!”

I walk down the hall to see a giant poop on the floor.

Greeeeat. (How does something so big come out of someone so little?!?!)

After that she started REALLY resisting it. I think the poop incident kinda freaked her. Literally kicking and screaming as we walked her to the bathroom.

“I don’t want to! NO WAY!!!!”

I did a little more research and read that some children resist it because they don’t want to give up being the baby. Yeah, I can see that. S is not in daycare so she doesn’t have peers to look up to. She obviously wasn’t ready so we hit the reset button, completely stopped potty training and just let it go.

After a few weeks, we started bringing it up in conversation. Then slowly started taking her to the potty at night before bed, then during changes. Purchased some pull ups and eased in to more regular taking her to the potty. I acknowledge her efforts every time I take her. I’m still offering up a treat for actual pee in the potty. She has been much more receptive this time around.

While she has yet to actually pee IN the potty, she rarely wets her pull up during the day and let’s it go while she naps. I call that a small victory. 🙂