Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. Now, before you start gagging, it's not because of all the lovey dovey stuff. Well, it is, but not in the romantic way.
One of my favorites childhood memories is of Valentine's Day. Coming downstairs into the kitchen to find a bag of treats at your seat. My mother reused the same bas every year (I wish I could be that organized), and there were always Russell Stover chocolate hearts that came in a tray. Another staple: red hots. This evening, as I was in the store buying candy for my kids, the cinnamony smell of red hots wafted over to me, and woooosh! I was back in the kitchen at parents house.
Tonight, I was on the phone with my mom as I prepared for our festivities. I was taping pencils to the kids' valentine cards for school, and my mother asked me - are you doing anything at home? I said - yup, and she replied - I love that you do that!
What? Of course I do it, and I do it because my mom raised me to. It was my mom's influence that helped form the meaning of Valentine's day for me. Valentine's Day has never been a romantic holiday for me. It has been a time to tell the people in your life that you love them. It's a family celebration of the love you feel for one another. It's a cozy holiday, filled with sweets and snuggle time, and then church in the evening, for the Entrance of The Lord Into the Temple. I have all of that to thank my mom for. Thanks, I love you, and you are a great mom!

Some shots from tonight's preparations:








Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Teaching Moments: Part Deux

Every night before we go to bed, we take Son and Daughter on one last bathroom run. I've read that in order to teach the kids to wake themselves, you have to make them do all the work (walk to the bathroom, pull up their pants, etc), so that's what we do. Son is actually pretty good with the night training; he would wake up dry regardless, but Daughter is having a more difficult time.
Last night, I came in to take her for the last run, and she had already wet the bed. It's a little frustrating to have to deal with when you're tired and worked a ten hour day and just want to go to bed, so I sternly told her to get out of bed and go to the bathroom and undress herself. As I'm stripping the bed, I hear her standing and crying right outside the bedroom door, so again, I yell to her to get undressed. She proceeds to wail and wail, and I'm thinking, this is a great teachable moment here. She will now realize that it's no fun to have to get up and get undressed in the middle of the night. This will probably prompt her to start trying to pay more attention to the need-to-pee feelings at night. She finally gets undressed (with moderate assistance from me) and I help her into her new pajamas, and I tuck her into bed. I snuggle up to her and kiss her soft cheek because I don't want to end this night with her still upset. In the morning, Daughter comes into our bedroom and asks - Mama, почему я одета в другой пижаме?! (Mama, why am I wearing a different pajama?) Doh!!! Looks like another fail in the Teachable Moment department!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Potty Training: Week One

Day 1:
Baby had three accidents. We used a timer set at 20 minutes. The 20 minutes started at every toilet use/accident.
Highlights of Baby screaming "Kaaaaaki" as he pooped his pants. He is not happy to have poop in his underwear or on his legs. Now he's scared to go #2. That will be the next hurdle.
Over the course of this week, we've evolved very nicely to not really using the timer.
Baby showed signs of "potty knowledge" as early as a little over a year. Needless to say, I was not ready to tackle that monster then, and I didn't want to torture Husband. However, a month or two ago, Baby started leaving the room to poop, and tell us when he peed in his diaper. We eased into the potty training thing. Every once in a while, we would put Baby on the toilet before bath time, or in the morning. The day he peed in the toilet (last week), the diaper came off, and it's not coming back (except at night, and long trips out, but then it will be a pull up).
And, by the way, Baby still refuses to use that little potty seat.