Embarrassing Mom Moment

Today we had a long busy day down at picture people. Since we are potty training we saw a lot of bathrooms and parking lots. We made one more stop on the way to the car. This time I needed to use the bathroom too. This was an interesting task between trying to stop the kids from picking on each other and touching the nasties in the public restroom. Then Ellie opens the door and out run Samuel and her with me on the toilet. Now I am calling the kids, jumping up and running stall, buttoning up. The kids are nowhere to be found. I run back in the bathroom when I hear Ellie giggling. They had locked themselves in another stall. Aaaaargh.

3-Day Potty Training - Day 3

Samuel was so excited to see Ellie after being gone for 3 days. She moved to the booster chair from her highchair while he was gone. He dragged his chair all the way around the table because he wanted to sit next to "his sister."
I have determined however that I don't want my kids gone for three days at a time. Every time I turn around they change dramatically. He looks so much older to me. Now I understand why my mother always wanted to "put a thumb on our heads"

Both the kids were getting pretty hyped up by each other after not seeing each other for 3 days.

Tally without nighttime:

12 False Alarms

10 Perfect Potty trips initiated by her

2 Perfect Poo trips initiated by her

So before bed time. We have had 0 accidents, 1 pair of undies, and the same sheet all the way through nap time. Woohoo! I have hope that this is working after all. Yay!!!!

3-Day Potty Training - Day 2 complete

Day 2 is almost over. Ellie is in bed but we have yet to do the whole nighttime wake up routine. I am not sure I feel like today went better than yesterday. We had a lot more accidents. I keep praising her for anything in the potty regardless though.
We have continued to pump the fluids and spend lot's of mommy-Ellie time. It is so amazing the difference of her focus and concentration when it is just her and I. She actually sat and meticulously threaded every one of those beads in the next picture herself. Every time she got one on she would shout "I got it", when she missed she would shout with the same enthusiasm "missed one." I love this girl.

We painted toes, played the fishing game, fed dolly, played with cars and the list goes on and on. Though I am tired and getting a little cabin fever. I am so loving the quiet time to just focus on Ellie. I am also thankful for my good friend who brought me lunch since every time I stepped away to grab something Ellie peed.

Final Tally not counting Night:

Successful trips to the potty with my reminders: 5

Successful trips to the potty without reminder: 1

Accidents: 4

False Alarms: 21

Update:

I didn't go into her room at one hour like I was supposed to b/c yesterday at one hour she really was not happy I woke her up but when I went in at about 3 hours she was wet. Again when Zach got her up when he went to work she was wet. And when I got her up in the morning she was wet.

One step forward 2 steps back. Oh well keep plugging away.

3-Day Potty Training - Day 2

So today has been a little more frustrating. Every time I turn my head for two seconds she pees even though I have asked her every two minutes to tell me when she has to pee. She tells me alright, as it is coming out.

She is down for her nap now. She is being really quiet which is making me nervous. We shall see. At least changing the sheets is fairly easy and she peed right before going down.

Tally so far today:
Dry Undies - pee in potty - at my prodding - 2
Dry Undies - pee in potty - without my prodding - 1
Accidents - announced as they are happening - 3
False Alarms - 12

I know this system works and that it wouldn't be easy but right now I feel like a broken record and am tired.

3-Day Potty Training - Day 1 is complete

After nap time the rest of the day went really well. We did night time like we did for Samuel.

Potty
Jammies, Stories
Potty
Bed
1hour later Potty
When daddy goes to work in the morning potty and back to bed

She did not however like the 1 hour later potty trip so I put her back to bed and waited another hour, she must of switched sleep levels because she was then very happy to go potty.

Her Final Tally was:
3 wet undies
1 wet sheet
7 perfect pee
1 perfect poo

Not bad for day one. that gives her about 85% success rate.

3 - Day Potty Training - Day 1

We did 3-day Potty Training with Samuel when he was 26 months old. It worked like a charm. By about 1 week we had no more accidents on a regular basis. Day and Night. We had about 3 or 4 accidents in the next 6 months. I have had so many friends use this method since them with glowing reports. From the time Ellie turned 22 months it has been a niggling thought in the back of my head that I need to start thinking about it. I have procrastinated until now though. Ellie is so different than Samuel. Samuel was easy with almost everything that we did with him. Ellie.... not so much.

This week I finally got up my courage, marked out a time on the calander when my mom could take Samuel and here we are on Day 1.

About 10AM, mom came and took the three older kids. Then Ellie and I got down to business:

* We threw away the rest of her diapers (really only 1 diaper for effect, the rest I tucked away in the garage to go back to Grandma's house for other grandkids)

* Next we put on Ellie's first pair of big girl undies, which she imediatly stripped off to try out her potty but nothing happened.

Here she is modeling her "dry undies"
Next was pumping in the fluids. We don't normally do juices, mostly just milk and water. This time I filled it 1/4 way with Lemonade. This got her drinking pretty consistantly. Then it was Mommy Ellie concentrated play time. Considering that Samuel demands quite a bit of attention and they are so close in age Ellie has not gotten a lot of individual attention from me. This morning has been really nice. We played trains, kitchen, read books, cleaned up the book shelf...

Still nothing. As we were approaching nap time I started to wonder how that was going to work. We made lunch and just as I was putting the finishing touches on lunch Ellie looked up and said "poop" so I swooped her up and rushed her to the bathroom. Her undies were slightly damp but not really wet and she peed in the potty. She got a sticker for her chart, a yogurt covered rasin and lot's and lot's of praise. We even called Grandma's and Papa to tell. She was very excited.

Since the results were so enjoyable she shouted poop and was rushed to the potty several more times during lunch. False alarms of course. But I want her to know that I will respond if she tells me.

After lunch we read books and she started making poopy faces so we rushed into the bathroom and she pood and then was tucked into bed.

Of course this now seems like a game to her so she has been out of bed a number of times to use the potty she did actually pee again so she was rewarded for that. Not sure if she is going to sleep today. We shall see.

Total:

1 Pee - damp undies - sticker, yogurt covered raisin

1 Poo - clean undies - sticker, yogurt covered raisin, pick out of the prize box

1 Pee - clean undies - sticker, yogurt covered raisin

7+ - False alarms

Summertime Lazy Days

We had the girls with us quite a bit this summer. It was great. They were very helpful. They decided they preferred the living room floor to the bunk bed in Samuel's room after the first time when he danced around the room singing at the top of his lungs at 3am.

Not quite sure how she got up here. I think it had something to do with Daddy though.

Samuel fixing the traintable

This how many of our mornings started out. Samuel was ecstatic to pounce on the girls as soon as his alarm light turned green. The girls in turn were eager to get Ellie the second she made a peap.

This is Ellie learning to pretend Yawn. Looks pretty realistic to me.

I will miss the girls this year after having them here so much. They go home on Thursday. Thank you girls for being so helpful and for spending so much time with us.

Day 2 at the Fair

Two days at the fair? Zach and I used to only need an evening to do the fair, now one day is not enough. Since we did rides all day yesterday we were back to see the animals today. This girl let Samuel help her spin some wool.
As we were watching the kids take turns at the spinning wheel some guys came out with a crate of adorable piglets who had been born the night before. They were cutting their eye teeth which would otherwise turn into the fangs you see on wild pigs. Apparantly the mother has a hard time letting down her milk until those teeth are trimmed.
They were also getting iron shots. Needless to say the pigs were not thrilled about the whole prospect. The men said they didn't feel anything but honestly how would they really know that.

Samuel got to pet the last little piggy

The kids watched a chick crack out of its egg in one of the warming cases.

Eden really wanted a picture of this funny looking cow.

Samuel, Emily, Eden, Ellie

Samuel hadn't forgotten milking the cow last summer and was very excited to try again. He did much better this year.

At the Karate demonstration booth they were letting kids try a running side kick. Samuel would run with all of his might and then stop and kick the bottom of the cushion. It was like he was kicking his opponents in the shins. It was so adorable.

We did have one scary moment at the end of our day. Ellie got out of her stroller and the counterweight of all the stuff tipped it over. Mom and I worked at getting things picked up, but when I turned around Samuel was gone. I ran back to the barn we had been in and checked all the sections, then checked the music stand we were standing next to. My mind was working so fast. Who do I grab? Can they close down the gates? I haven't heard them make any announcements about lost children, surely this isn't the first time this has happened. How far could someone have gotten with him in just one minute? The longer I don't find them the farther they get. These thoughts made me run faster. Just then my mom found him. He had walked behind a pole to see the music better.

I told him how important it was that he never walk away because he could get lost or someone could even take him away. His response was "but I wasn't lost I was right here". In his mind he knew where he was so what was the big deal. At that point I wished I had brought the backpack with the leash tail. Regardless of how it may seem to put your child on a leash in such a public place it is safest way to go.

The Fair 2010 - Day 1

Today I experienced the fair from a totally different perspective. From the perspective of a parent spending the entire day standing in lines for kid rides. This is the first year that Samuel could go on all of the kid rides and he loved it.
Thanfully my neices were with us and that meant most of the time I didn't have to go on the rides with him.

Ellie spent a lot of time in her stroller but she was a really great sport about it. For the most part it didn't seem to get to her. She ate a lot of raisins and animal crackers and fishies to pass the time.

The rides that Ellie could go on required an adult to ride with her so I did end up standing on the merrigoround quite often.

This was our group: Eden (giving us her preteen I am so bored look) Emily, Ellie, Samuel, Me and Mom taking the picture.

We are going back tomorrow to see all the animals and walk through the booths.

Batch Cook

The kids and I spent an afternoon last week checking prices for our batch cook. On Monday I made my final plan. On Tuesday my two kids, and my two nieces helped me do all the shopping. We had about 3 hours to get everything done. We hit Safeway to double check some prices then headed to town where we went to Trader Joe, Cash and Carry, Costco, Office Depot and back to Safeway and home. Busy day. The kids were tired of shopping and so was I. It was super hot.

Ellianna picked our her clothes for our shopping trip
On Wednesday morning at about 10am we got started. April arrived with baby Jeremiah and Gideon. Samuel and Gideon disappeared immediately to his room to play. Jeremiah needed to eat. It took us a while to get moving but when we did things ran smoothly.










Eden and Emily (my nieces) traded off between watching the kids and helping in the kitchen. Emily preferred the kitchen. Eden preferred neither. Jeremiah cycled between eating, arching in the bumbo, sleeping in the mobi wrap, and cat naps in the playpen. The kids did awesome. We had a few incidents of Samuel and Gideon not getting along. (In their defense there were no naps today.)Eden and Samuel finger painting each other instead of the paper. (Really no excuse for that one) And a few others.

Poor little Jeremiah really wanted his mama. Throughout the day each of the kids took turns entertaining him. Samuel kept saying the baby thinks I am really funny mommy. Ellianna would periodically sit next to him holding his hand.

When I plan a batch cook I get a little over ambitious. This makes for an exhausting day but the results are very rewarding:

8 Beef Baked Spaghetti
4 Chicken Baked Spaghetti
13 Jars of Spaghetti Sauce
12 Jars of Veggie Soup
6 Jars of Apple Sauce
5 Pesto
4 Walnut Pesto Butter Logs
8 Broccoli, Cheese Stuffed Meat Loaf
6 Chicken Stir fry
Yay for great friends who are willing to join me in my insanity. Also thank you to April for teaching me how to can. What shall we can next.