P is for Potty Party

It's time to be proactive. I'm go to do the same thing I did for my first kiddo. She was ready, but we just couldn't make a clean break from the pull ups. So we did a potty party. Potty training in one day. 

I've about had it with my 2 and a half year old. She uses the potty about half the time. The other half, she changes her own diaper - and then hides the evidence.

In the case of the dreaded poopy diapers, all I can say is eewwww. For whatever reason potty training my second child has been much more difficult than training my first. But I'm busier now. Perhaps if I just spent more time. Well you know what they say about ifs and buts. But my problem is specifically about the butt.

The idea is to make it fun, almost like a birthday party. We invited a few friends over, there was a special cake, little presents, and lots of fun potty games. The whole day was spent playing with the potty and saying goodbye to the diaper. She was a big girl that could wear underwears.

This made a connection in my first daughter's brain. Of course we had a few accidents afterwards, but just like a birthday party to celebrate getting older, she had celebrated growing up and getting rid of the diapers.

So I think in the next month I am really going to push the little one to lose the diapers. Let the party planning begin.

What worked for you and little poopers?

O is for Octopus

This is what I wish I was. For obvious reasons, the 8 hands.

It would be so nice to get laundry folded, while typing my WIP, playing with my kids, and burning dinner. 

Just a side note on my favoritism of the octopus. When I was a kid, my mom would send me to school with a brown bag lunch. But they weren't ordinary brown bags, my mother would decorate them with fanciful creatures. My favorite was a bag she made in 3rd grade. It had an octopus drawn on it, arms stretched wide. It said, "I love you THIS much". Kids would try to trade their cookies for my bags, but I would never part with them. My mom was an artist, and each bag was proof that she loved me THIS much.

N is for No

This would currently be my 2 1/2 year old daughter's favorite word. And if that wasn't enough, my husband, tired of the no, taught her other fabulous ways to say it. Nien, Niecht, nu-uh, no way jose, nope. All Ns.

Now while the little one has this down pat, I seem to have trouble saying it. When someone asks me to do something I immediately say sure. It isn't until I get home and have a panic attack when I input it into my schedule,  that I realize I may be a tish overstretched.

Why is it that sometimes we are incapable of saying no? Is it because we want to help and genuinely feel the desire to serve? Or (at least for me) the more likely culprit of not wanting to disappoint someone.

Oddly enough, when someone else offers to do something for me, I don't hesitate to say no thanks. I suppose I don't want to be someone's burden.

Just rambling out loud on the keyboard.

M is for Mistakes in Motherhood

Not a day goes by without a moment where I think, yup I have scarred my kids for life.

Words sound a whole lot different coming out of my mouth than my five year old's. Sometimes I can't tell how harsh something sounds until it's parroted back at me.

The other night my oldest daughter was playing with her little sister. Apparently a two and half year old does not grasp the finer nuances of whack-a-mole and my preshcooler took issue with that.
 "If you can't play right, you don't get to play," she shouted and threw the game across the room.
I took issue with her behavior. My reply was angry and scolding,  "If you can't play nicely, you won't have any friends and no one will want to play with you." Then, since it was close to bedtime, I sent her off to her room to chill out and go to sleep early.

Alas she did not go quietly in the night. For the next half hour I could hear her screaming from her bed. "I don't want to go to sleep. I hate you. I'm going to go find a new family."  A little while later I heard the phrase that broke my heart. "I don't want to be alone. I need friends."

Somewhere along the line I had screwed up. I had made a colossal mistake in motherhood and made my daughter feel unloved. It had not been my intent to hurt, just a frustrated attempt at correction. So What was I gonna do about it now?

I felt it would be an even worse mistake to let my child go off to sleep thinking that no one loved her. So I sat down with her, gave her loves and took the 2 minutes to explain why her behavior was unacceptable. Basically what I should have done in the first place. Afterwards I got my kiss goodnight and she was out like a light.

Not so much for me. I sobbed to my husband that I was the worst mother in the whole world. That we should start saving now because my kids would end up having huge therapy bills. He reminded me that kids were pretty darn resilient and my daughter would get over it. And the next time I got angry, I should just love 'em to death.

Sure enough, the next day my daughter gave me oodles of love and hugs. Telling me she loved me, that I was the best mommy ever. What I learned was that everybody makes mistakes. In particular, I will continue to make mistakes. It's what we do afterwards that defines us as a parent.

I for one am going to apologize to my mother for the time I packed up my stuffed animals and ran away to my best friends house. I don't remember what she did that made me so angry, but I remember the tears in her eyes when she couldn't find me. Sure when I was discovered I got grounded, but I also got nearly hugged to death.

L is for Lullaby

My favorite part of the day when my girls were little, was bedtime. Not only because the little beasts were going to sleep, but because of our lullaby ritual.

I would swaddle my baby and sit in the rocking chair and sing a song or two until there little eyes were nice and droopy. Sometimes I would sing Twinkle Twinkle, or Rock a Bye Baby. But I had a favorite lullaby for each girl that is a little... different. I figured, hey they don't know what the heck I'm saying. As long as it's low and soothing I could sing the phonebook.

So for my oldest, my favorite tune was Death Cab for Cutie's I''ll follow you into the dark. 


For my little one is was the Smith's Sing me to sleep.

To this day I get misty eyed when I hear those songs on the radio. They remind me of a time that was precious, crazy, and worth every minute.

What did you sing to your little ones?