Happy Day Mommy

Friday was my birthday (only one more year until 30- ack!). Jeremy was in Korea so Mom came to spend two days with us and help celebrate. Jer got home very late on Friday night and we are busy busy packing up for our annual lake vacation which starts tomorrow.

We started our celebration with a trip to Meijer which isn't that exciting but Mom got a kick out of the mega-cart. I usually take Charley in the front carrier (and use a regular cart) but when the weather is super hot like this it makes me sweat! Tessa thinks she is pushing Charley when we use this cart and she holds on for dear life...
We played with Charley, who has become a pro at rolling over
We used our pass to go to the Children's Museum. Where else are you going to go when it's this hot? They have been totally re-doing the front part of the museum and it's a lot different from when I was there just a month ago. They were setting up for a re-opening gala that night and the opening of the King Tut exhibit. The place was all decked out.

The best thing about our trip to the museum is that she went without a diaper and stayed dry the whole time! They have little mini toilets there that she used 4 times.







Used to be that Tessa just chilled in the Playscape and rode the carosel and we were done. She has now discovered the coolest thing in the museum are the dinosaurs. She 'roared' at every one of them and would have been happy to stay in the dino exhibit all day. She even got a dino toy and book when we left.
Digging for dino eggs

Saying goodbye to the museum out of the parking lot window. She roared goodbye to the dinos like 100 times.
We made pizzas with Mamaw
Becky and David stopped by to drop off a present
Mamaw and Tessa made a cake. Notice Tessa's expert decoration skills

And Tessa and I danced to "Thriller" in honor of Michael Jackson

Bear Skin Baby, part 2

The other night Charley flopped over while I was changing him and waved his little jello butt at me. It was so cute but then I was hit with this overwhelming sadness that I couldn't remember Tessa's little baby toosh when it was so small and squishy.

I laid in bed and tried to remember her being this small and was so sad that I really couldn't. It seems like so long ago. As crazy as it makes me sound, I was really depressed for about a day. My babies are growing too fast and sometimes the days all seem to run together to a blur. I'm afraid of forgetting...but so thankful we have about a million pictures to remind us.

To cheer me up, Jeremy searched the blog until he found this entry from August of '07 when Tessa was Charley's age. Her little nakey jello butt is even featured : http://babybennington.blogspot.com/2007/08/ever-since-jeremys-sister-carrie-gave.html

In the interest of preserving memories, Charley and I recreated the same photo shoot last night.

Dare I say?...

That I think we are potty trained. The exception to that would be that she still wears diapers for nap and bedtime....but I'm not thinking we will attack that anytime soon. She still sleeps about 11 hours at night and I just don't think there's any way she can hold it that long.

So I guess you would call her 'daytime' trained. I think this week it finally clicked for her that no matter where we go, she can potty there...either on the 'car potty' or the big potty in the restroom. This week she tried toilets at Target, Japanese Steakhouse and twice while at church. She used her 'car potty' like 5 times.

She's also gotten into the hang of knowing ahead of time and telling me. Granted I usually don't have much notice but a little is better than none.

I'm so proud of her! I was dreading this potty training thing but can't believe how ready she was. I think the most important keys to our success have been: no pull ups or diapers allowed when awake, an M&M for each potty or a sucker for each potty outside of the house, and the 'car potty' so she can go no matter where we are.

I'll be the first to admit that our month of June has not been easy though. Jeremy's been gone alot and potty training has been my full time job. I breastfeed, potty, breastfeed, potty, breastfeed...cook dinner, potty, dishes, breastfeed. You get the hang of it. Yup I'm pretty worn out.

When I say 'car potty', I'm referring to the potette plus travel potty. It collapses for easy transport and you use plastic bags as liners to pitch in the trash. It can also be unfolded to uses as a potty seat on a big toilet. Aka...my new best friend.

For Jeremy

Who will be in Korea for Father's Day. We miss you and love you!

Run!

Ah yes that was me today you saw running (nay, waddling quickly) through Target with a diaper bag over my shoulder, a pumpkin seat swinging in one hand and a two year old on my hip.

Yes I temporarily ditched my cart including my Starbucks and all of the items I had precariously wedged around and under the pumpkin seat (because I didn't feel today like strapping on the carrier, and with two kids that leaves very little cart space)

Yes I did break out in a sweat, which I blame on the 90 degree weather and intense humidity, and of course the aforementioned load I was carting....okay and maybe a little bit on the extra 90lb I'm carrying.

You may have heard me repeating 'wait honey, we're almost there'...or 'not yet, not yet' and you definitely heard my diaper-less two year old shouting "POO POO!!"

My infant, you may have noticed, slept through the whole thing.

But the point is we made it on time. Yes there was poo poo in the potty at Target.

Breakin' Beans

Two things every midwestern kid learns to do in the summer time...break beans and shuck corn. The corn is still a little advanced for her, maybe next summer!

Blogger's Block

Not much to say this week or really to take picture of, so let me do a short rundown

--Tessa is doing great with pottying. We've been out alot more this week and she pottied at Mamaw's, church, and her friend Mattie's house. She's starting to get into pottying in different places. She's also really starting to click with telling us ahead of time when it's time to go. It's working!!!

-- Charley is fine...starting to watch us longingly when we eat. We're following the Super Baby Food book once again which suggests waiting until as close to 6 mo as possible and starting with veggies and fruit (no cereal). It worked so great for Tessa we're hoping to do it again....so he needs to wait a little longer.

-- Because they were on 15% off sale we now have 23 boxes of tile for the upstairs bathroom and closet. That's right we will finally get that nasty carpet out of our bathroom. Whomever thought carpeting a bathroom was a good idea was wrong....old moldy water stains are gross. Jer is having his friend Patrick and Ron from church help tile in August. Patrick knows how to tile, so I'm counting on his guidance!

-- Our garden is coming on. I need to get a pic of the garlic, shallot and onion 'wing' cause it's just going NUTS right now. Seriously in a few weeks we are going to have over a hundred bulbs of garlic. I need to google how to braid and hang it. Other veggies are coming along too. Our flower beds love all this rain we've been getting and everything is beautiful right now.

-- I've been struggling with weight watchers alot more this time around. The weight is not 'falling off' like it did when I was nursing Tessa. But I've found that writing my points in my book before the day even starts is a great plan...I just glance at the book and it tells me exactly what to eat. I did that this week and lost 2.8. Hoping I can keep it up

--Many serious discussions around here about reigning in our budget and being more organized on where our money goes. Compounded by Pastor Doug's awesome message today about faith and finances, after which we've vowed to increase our tithing to the full 10%. Both of us feel really good about it...cutting the fat both literally and figuratively and counting on God's blessing in return!

-- Looking forward to our trip to the lake over 4th of July...our annual cheapo vacation! We have to take so much baby junk (crib, potty gear), I have serious doubts that Jer can fit all of his fireworks into the car. I think he's going to have to buy some when we get there.

Small Victory!

We have a 'pottette' in the back of the car. Best thing ever! It's a little travel potty that folds up for transport and uses plastic liners so you can tie it up like you would your dog poo. We have it in the car along with more potty essentials...extra shorts and undies, washable piddle pads for the carseat.

The few times we've been out I let Tessa sit on the 'car potty' as soon as we get to our destination. She loves it! The other day she was asking to use the car potty even when we were home.

Anyway today we went grocery shopping at Meijer and while I was unloading the bags I put her on the potty in the back of the car (that's right my kid dropped trow in the Meijer parking lot!) and she POOPED in it! Woohooo!!

I know you were all just dying to know that.

Hanging in Mamaw's Garden

Our water heater went out on Saturday and yesterday Jeremy and our friend from church got down and dirty and fixed it. Jeremy informed me we'd have no water or gas (which means also no stove)for 6 hrs and I decided we were outta here!

So we went down and hung out at Mom's. She's on summer vacation right now. It was a nice day for Tessa to play outside, not too hot. We took the potty along and went three times and had two accidents....not a bad track record for our first full day outing.

When I got home the new water heater was installed and bonus it's a bigger tank so when we fill the garden tub in our bathroom we won't lose hot water for 2 hours after. Woohoo!

Charley's favorite thing right now, sucking on his hands.




We're working on the idea that y ou only sniff flowers, don't pull them. That also is a work in progress.
Aunt Becky happened to swing by on her way home from the doctors and got some Charley cuddle time.

Potty Training Update

Of course potty training is still underway but we are doing well. Today we went on our first diaper free outing to church. I got her some of those training panties that are basically double lined with fabric. I took her to the kids potty before and after service. She was excited to do that but didn't actually go, and had a little tinkly in her undies...not too bad.

She's had a couple of accidents throughout the week but not many. It's clear that she doesn't want to poo her pants cause when she can't make it in the potty, she will wait until naptime when she is wearing a diaper. The couple of times she accidents in her undies it did make her mad, which is good I think.

She likes to potty while watching Angelina Balerina but I'm trying to steer away from that a bit. We don't want her to become dependent on the tv to go potty. But she also likes to sit on her potty and read books, which is good.

Saturday I was able to sneak over to Buy Buy Baby for some supplies....some training panties, a piddle pad for the carseat, and a portable potty that folds up and you can also use plastic shopping bags with if you are out away from toilets.

It's a work in progress but doing well so far! This week I hope to get to stroller aerobics with no diapers (I'll use that piddle pad in the stroller as well) At least it's not too long so hopefully we can get there and back with no accidents, or maybe she'll use her porta potty in the back of the car. Wish us luck!

A PSA for home safety

How scary, Jeremy's sister's house got burglarized and our brother in law fought him off. Thankfully everyone is okay but it's certainly got me thinking about home safety!

Here's the link to the news story:
http://www.king5.com/video/index.html?nvid=368937

Toddler Speak

Tessa has become quite the talker but sometimes I'm the only one who understands her. I remember when I was pregnant with Charley one of the little girls in our small group asking if the new baby would be able to speak Tessa's language. Some of the things she says are very clear, and some not so much.

I'm trying to think of good examples of Tessa Speak...

mookey mook- the white beverage she drinks alot
kidney!!- her prize for potty training, hint they have M's on them
Leena- her new fave tv show, Angeline Balerina
moo-ey and ka-korn- go together, usually in the afternoon when we are feeling lazy
Hayne and Sessie- the other small creatures that live here
Happy Day cake- applies to any kind of dessert, then she blows on it
rin-jins- those little dried up fruits that come in a box
Chippies!- the restaurant we sometimes go to for lunch, where she gets tuna sandwiches and baked lays

Other things she likes to say
C'mon, let's go
It's okay baby Charrrry
I see you Mommy (when playing peekabo)
I la you

Underway

Well we are 24 hrs into potty training with no accidents on the floor yet. Of course she wore a dipe for naptime and bedtime.

She's still under the weather so honestly we've been sitting around and watching alot of tv, and she likes to sit on her 'throne' while watching and happens to go. I'll be honest and say I don't know if this is the best way to train because she isn't learning to stop whatever game she's playing to potty. I set a timer for every 20 min yesterday and she was pretty resistent to that cause normally she was up to something and didn't want to stop.

Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow I'll whip out the Elmo undies...thinking that she might get a kick out of taking them up and down and also get mad if Elmo gets wet.

We'll see...still experimenting.

I had to take a break from writing this btw to help Tessa who had peed in her potty and then accidently dropped her toast in it. Luckily I got there before she fished it out!

Lockdown Postponed a Day

We start tomorrow! Today we had to go to the doc's to check out Charley's cough and since Tessa had a fever yesterday I took her too. Turns out Charley is fine (just a cold, no meds) but Tessa has an ear infection. I wondered if that's what it was because she had no other symptoms, just a fever.

It's a mild one so we got some drugs and went home. Since this is only her third ear infection the doc didn't even need her to come back for a follow up (unless I feel she needs it of course).

So tomorrow starts potty training lockdown! I rented a bunch of Disney classics like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, got some art projects and bought all the food we'll need. Assuming she's feeling better tomorrow we'll start with no diapers, a timer set for every 30 min that means it's time to sit on the potty, and a bottle of stain remover for the carpet.

I'm actually really looking forward to lockdown week. It seems strange to say, but we are always so busy going somewhere...stroller aerobics, library, museum, shopping, small group, church, MOPS...I don't know that we've ever had a full week at home except the week that Charley was born.

If we do succeed at (daytime) potty training, the transition back to our activities may be shaky at first, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I'd prefer not to buy pull ups at all, but may get a couple of pairs of cloth training pants, I haven't decided.

A byproduct of the lockdown plan was a conversation about our budget and tendency to overspend in the area of groceries and eating out. If you wonder how I know our specific overspending habits, you clearly haven't seen Jeremy graphs and charts.

We have resolved to do a better job with menu planning and using everything we have in the freezer and pantry before buying something else. It seems easy but with all the other things on my mind, I guess I just don't think about it as much as I should. Because of lockdown, we actually planned a full week menu of three meals a day that includes NO eating out or trips to the grocery store...pretty impressive.