More Parenting Advice

In this world of "super-parenting" that we live in, I needed these words of encouragement today:

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend’s children do. She’s obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.

You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they’d be put in prison.

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.

You are not a terrible parent if you’d rather be at work.

You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.

You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.

You’re not a terrible parent.

Go here for the full story.

Best. Day. Ever

That is what Claire said to Will when he came home from work on Monday. 

 

Claire got to visit a 1st grade class at a private school we hope she will be attending next year.  They made her fell so special and everyone was so excited for her to be there. 

 

The school sent this fun little photo page home with her.

 

 

She really is a little sad that she can't return there for the rest of the school year.  God made it VERY CLEAR that we made the right decision to send her to school next year instead of homeschooling another year.  Claire told me that she "forgot all about me" while she was at school today.  Gee, thanks!  But, I am glad she had fun and felt welcome.  She is super-pumped to start school in the fall!

 

{Photo editing note: I had to delete the teachers name and cover all the school insignias on the private school uniforms.  In case you were wondering what all those dark sploches were on their shirts.}

Potty Time

We decided to potty train Luke the week after Christmas.  Actually, we started the day after Christmas.  We set up camp in the kitchen ... complete with an Elmo potty book, a stack of underwear and a giant bag of M&Ms.  (Chocolate is Luke's love language.)

 

As we did with Claire and David, we went with the "cold turkey" method of potty training found in this e-book.  I don't even have my copy of the book anymore I've loaned it out so much.  But I pretty much remembered the drill.  I did not remember, however, all the pee-pee I would have to clean up.  Luke had a lot of accidents that first day! 

 

 

We pretty much hung out in the kitchen for the day to avoid cleaning up any accidents from the carpet.  Luke actually went pee-pee on me twice that day while sitting in my lap.  Thanks dude!

And one month later, that little potty is still sitting in my kitchen!  (The dirty laundry in the background is not.)

 

{I did a little photo editing so as to not expose any private parts.}

 

Luke had a lot of accidents that first day.  And he did not love sitting on the potty (even for a treat).  Day 2 was a little better.  Still a few accidents, but more control.  Day 3 was better.  He had pretty much stopped having accidents at that point, but still wasn't really good about telling us when he had to go potty.  Day 4 and 5, it really started to click.  He went back to preschool on January 7th (12 days after we started potty training) and other than a few accidents with aim on the potty, he has done really well.  Our next big hurdle is using public restrooms.  We've still got quite a ways to go!!

 

Oh my cuteness!  Look at his little bottom in that BIG BOY underwear. 

 

 

As much as I would love to add a 4th child to our brood, I could not potty train a 4th.  This really did me in.  And I feel like we have moved on to a new phase in life ... a phase where no one is wearing diapers.  (Both boys still wear a pull-up at night .. David may still be wearing one when he goes to college at the rate he is going.)

 

The Elmo book was a big hit on the potty.  Lots of "potty" songs included.  A perfect Christmas gift from the grandparents.  He would ask for it when he sat on the potty.

 

 

My friend Emily was potty training her 2-year-old shortly after we started potty training Luke.  She read the same e-book we did.  She wrote an excellent blog post on potty training if you would like some encouraging words before you get started!

New Year ... New Routine

I hopes to get a little more caught up on blogging in December but that just didn't happen.  I may try to go back and catch up a few things, but I'm trying not to get bogged down in "catching up" and just moving forward instead. 

This new year brings some MAJOR changes for our family because today, I am officially going back to work.  I will still be working from home until Claire finishes up her first grade school year, but I will be working 30-35 hours/week as opposed to the 5-8 hours per week I have been working for the last 2 years.  David will be moving from a 2 day to a 5 day program at his same preschool and Luke will start a private preschool program (all day) for 3 days per week and finish up the school year the other 2 days in the program his is in now (where David is too). 

I am excited to be going back to work more.  Not because I necessarily love my job or it fulfills me on anything like that.  But because being at home full-time is WEARING ME OUT!  I feel like I am always yelling at my kids and constantly depressed and in a bad mood because 3 kids full-time (plus homeschooling and trying to work a little) is EXHAUSTING.  And hello ... have you met my VERY ACTIVE 2 year old?  He needs much more attention than I can give him with my older 2 kids here.  I think he will thrive being in a program all day with kids his own age.

I will certainly miss having my boys around all day everyday, but hopefully these changes will make it easier for me to focus on work (during my work hours) and easier for Claire to focus on school during her school hours.  Little brothers are very distracting!  I honestly don't know some families homeschool multiple children!  Their kids must be more independent and disciplined than mine!

All this to say ... if the blog seems a little neglected over the next couple of months, its just me getting settled into our new normal.

Santa ... thru the years

We took the kids for the annual Santa visit.  It's kind of become tradition that we drive around and look at Christmas lights and get Sweet CeCe's frozen yogurt afterwards.  We all had so much fun.

I called this night a big success when (1) we didn't have to wait in line very long to see Santa, and (2) nobody cried!  To top it off, Sweet Cece's had peppermint stick yogurt ... topped with crushed oreos this is my all-time favorite holiday treat.  I'm hooked!

Luke loved all the Christmas lights and would yell "rismas wights" every time we saw some (no matter how many or how few).  He even clapped after we left one big light spectacle that coincided with the end of "Jingle Bells" on our radio.  Ha!  He is a hoot!

 

Feeling a little nostalgic last night, I decided to revisit our Santa pictures from Christmases past.  Care for a stroll down memory lane?

 

2006 -- Claire was 8 months old.

.

 

2007 -- Claire was 20 months old and not a huge fan of Santa.

 

2008 -- Claire was 2-1/2 and David was 8 months old.

 

2009 -- This is the year we did not purchase the professional Santa photo.  As you can see below, David was HYSTERICAL!  He would not get anywhere near Santa.  We snapped this picture on our personal camera.  (Claire was 3-1/2 and David was 20 months old this year.) 

 

And I just realized that Claire is wearing the same dress she wore this year, except now it is a top!  We got our money's worth out of this one!)

 

 

 

2010 -- Claire is 4-1/2, David is 2-1/2 and Luke is 3 months old.

 

2011 -- Claire is 5-1/2, David is 3-1/2 and Luke is 15 months old.  (I was shocked we pulled this picture off ... remember the lack of picture when David was this age and the hysterical picture of Claire at this age?)

Tot school dropout

I had grand plans to do some tot school activities with Luke while Claire and David did their school.  While I did have some structured activities planned, I was also going to have some independent play items set up to entertain him too. 

 

Luke's form of play is this: dump it out, strew it all over the room (and under mommy's feet), scream a little bit, and then move on to the next thing.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

We made it through Letter A week and then I just quit.  He pretty much just wanders around upstairs, destroys my house, and "plays" while we do school.  The ipad is an invaluable tool too.

 

FYI, Luke was 23 months old in August.  And I probably won't try to do any type of formal learning with him again until the 2013-14 school year.  Ha!

 

Here he is stringing beads.

 

 

On a side note, Luke always just has one shoe on.  It is miraculous that we haven't lost any shoes while out in public, but anytime we are at home or in the car, he takes only one shoe off.

 

The playdough tray was a big hit.  Except that he ate a lot of playdough.

 

David really likes to play school with Luke.  However, Luke is not the most willing student.  The next few pictures are a few of our formal tot school activities from here.

 

 

Luke would play with the dot markers ALL DAY LONG if I would let him.  But then I would also have dot paint ALL OVER my house!

 

 

He is also a big fan of the coloring.  I finally found some JUMBO crayons that Luke cannot break.  He can identify a few colors, but cannot say their names yet if you said "what color is this?"

 

Maybe we will give tot school another try after Christmas break.  I think he would do great if I could devote 100% of my attention to him for about an hour and then let him play on his own.  Unfortunately, David is not an independent worker at all and he would constantly interrupt us.

 

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to SHARE!

Mother's Day

I got to spend yesterday with my three favorite peeps.  And all I really wanted was a good picture with my 3 kids.  But that simply was not in the cards for Mother's Day 2012. 

Attempt #1.  Notice that Luke was not even in this picture.  He was too busy throwing money in the fountain in the hotel lobby.

Attempt #2.  We tried another spot where he could not see the fountain and he still was not happy.

Attempt #3.  This is the best one we got.  Notice that Luke is not smiling, but at least he is not crying AND all 3 are looking at the camera.

Attempt #4.  Still no smiles from Luke.  David has lost interest.

Attempt #5.  Maybe outside will be different?  No, no it won't. 

Maybe next year.

Luke was ALL SMILES when we got to the church nursery (at Will's parents' church).

We did get an excellent picture of Will's mom with all her grandchildren.

There are a lot of really good articles about parenting on the Internet right now.  For your reading enjoyment:

Motherhood is a Calling by Rachel Jankovic

How to Miss a Childhood by Rachel Macy Stafford

Motherhood as a Mission Field by Rachel Jankovic

Don't Carpe Diem by Glennon at Momastery

Breaking my silence ...

I haven't posted in a while for several reasons:

(1) I am now working from home and I have been home with my kids all day, every day this summer. It has been great fun, but exhausting and leaving me very little time to doing things like blog. (The 4:15 am wake-up for the gym and subsequent 8:30 pm bedtime have not helped my free-time situation either.)

(2) We've had major computer issues the past month. We had some kind of worm on our home computed (which I also use for work) that I spent an entire day removing and installing new security software on our computer. Thank you to our IT guy at work and my brother-in-law for walking me through all that over the phone. Then, I found baby Luke playing with our external hard drive and it was making a grinding noise. After several minutes on Google, I discovered that this was NOT GOOD and the drive was probably broken. All of our pictures were on there (thankfully, all were backed up on Snapfish and most were backed up on CD or my i-pad so we didn't lose much at all), but since our 2004 Dell desktop has absolutely no memory (hence, the external hard drive), I am still waiting on my replacement hard drive from Seagate to get my pictures back in my immediate possession (and on my computer so I can blog).

(3) I am homeschooling Claire for Kindergarten. We started August 1st. I have kind of avoided talking about this subject. I am solid and confident in my decision to do this, but don't really like to discuss the ins-and-outs that much and most people really want to discuss the ins-and-outs. Will and I decided to do this for several reasons, but the bottom line is I feel called to do this for whatever reason. Right now, I feel like it is the best thing for Claire and our family life in general, but I also feel like God may be leading me to do this for other reasons that will become apparent down the road. I prayerfully made this decision back in February when God just kept throwing it in my face over and over again. He solidified my decision when I broached the subject with Will and he was totally on board. I was shocked.

Anyway, as you can see, I have been super busy and unfortunately, for the grandparents and the 4-5 people who read this, the blog has suffered. I hope to get back to regular blogging soon (once I recover all of my pictures) and get the boys started in their new Parents' Day Out program at the end of August. Until then, I have an extra "student" named David that I have to keep entertained with preschool activities while his sister does Kindergarten. I will also being doing preschool stuff with David on the three days he is home during the school year since he is not in a true preschool program.

My friend Amy and I were texting back and forth today and she asked me if I was going to blog about our homeschool experience and I told her "yes." (Actually, she asked if I was going to blog about my "honest oiling" experience. Don't you just love auto-correct?) I won't give you a daily play-by-play like a lot of homeschool bloggers do, but I will share some of our school activities throughout the year.

So, just to clear the air ... I am not pregnant again (like I was when I took my last blog hiatus), but I am very busy!

Stay tuned for more ...

Just Checking In ...

I was on a roll blogging last week. I think I posted every day (M-F). Clearly, I have not done so well this week. But I have many good excuses. (See below.)

Monday: worked, tornado and stormy weather in afternoon kept up holed up in 1/2 bath downstairs for a good portion of the afternoon (and interrupted boys' naps).

Tuesday: worked from home, ran errands, left for Augusta, GA at 2:30 pm.

Wednesday: day at The Masters with my honey (and my brother-in-law and father-in-law), got home at 10:30 pm on Wednesday night.

Thursday: worked from home, toured new preschool/MDO for boys for next year, ran errands, took Claire to ballet (got to ballet and had to drive back home to get ballet shoes), decorated for Claire's birthday party on Friday night, did load of laundry to wash pink Hello Kitty PJ's for said party.

Friday: worked, Claire's birthday party at our house (which will also be shown at 2:45 today ... birthday decorations up and all ... did I mention our house has been on the market since January), pick up cupcakes and balloons for birthday party (with kids in tow).

Saturday: David's birthday party at our house (Sat. morning will be spent cleaning up Claire's party and decorating for David's party). Pray for no rain! Saturday night my in-laws will be in town (at a hotel) and my sister and her family are spending the night with us.

Sunday: Luke's baby dedication at church. Entire family over for lunch afterwards. Watch final round of Masters. Relax ... maybe even drink a glass of wine.

Like I said ... I have many good excuses.

But I will be back soon ... with LOTS of pictures!

Chore charts

I bought these simple little chore charts in the dollar bin at Target ages ago. Claire has been begging me to get going on them and I finally put them up, oh, back in January.

I came up with what I thought were some age appropriate chores ... some things they should just do anyway as a member of our household, like brush their teeth and pick up their toys ... and other things that they could do to earn money, like unload silverware and cups from the dishwasher, set and clear the table and help sort laundry.

Claire was very excited about the money chores ... and Claire was very diligent to do her chores the first couple of weeks.

See the kids below hard at work putting away things from the dishwasher.

Unfortunately, Will and I never really sat down and worked out the whole allowance plan, and the chore charts filled up quickly and it was hard to change out the stickers every week. So, the chore charts kind of fell by the wayside.

Claire still asks about them though. Go here to see the plan we would really like to implement. I think her allowance rates are good too.

Now we just need to keep some cash around the house! We've got to get back on the ball with this before summer since my kids will be home every. single. day.

What chores do your little kids do? How do you handle allowance?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Big Boy Bed

David has gone through a lot in the past couple of weeks all in the name of getting ready for his new baby brother. (A fact I am not too sure he is aware of.) So two weeks ago, we potty-trained. (You can read about it in great detail here, here and here.) I am glad to say that he is officially potty trained and has made public appearances at the Y, the church nursery and his summer preschool program without accident. (He has been completely accident-free since last Wednesday.)

That brings us to big change #2: the big boy bed. Yes, last night, David said farewell to the crib and moved into his big boy bed that is in the room he is now sharing with his sister. He was pumped about it. And so was Claire. I knew they would love sharing a room together.

He ran to his bed as soon as he finished his bath and climbed right in. He kept saying "my bed, my bed." Mickey and Minnie (his new favorite toys) were there to welcome him.



He was so proud. He laid down and covered right up.


Big cheese for the camera.


Claire was excited he was in her room too. This morning, she asked if he could sleep there again and we told her he would always be sleeping there from now on.

Reading books together before bedtime. David did run back into his own room to get his books.

Claire loves to read The Berenstain Bears books.

I snuck in after the kids were good and asleep to take a picture. Clearly, David has not yet bonded with the pillow. This is a new concept for him.

Last night was a really good night. The kids got up once shortly after we put them down to "potty", but after that, we didn't hear a peep from them until about 7am this morning. I was worried that they might be up playing all night long, but they were perfect!

Potty Training: Day 3

Success!!!! Today was a good day. I was home by myself with the kids all day. And we had to make an outing to the YMCA for Claire's swim lesson this afternoon.

David has now figured out that he is not supposed to tee-tee in his underwear. And he can hold it for a good long while. He still just doesn't love going on the potty. He will do it though. Especially if it means he gets to flush the potty when he is finished.

When we potty trained Claire, she was at about the same place on Day 3. She had stopped having accidents at that point, but still wouldn't voluntarily go unless you just sat her on the potty and made her. (Or filled her so full of fluid that she just had to let it out.) It was really on Day 6 that she realized ... hey, Mommy is giving me a Hershey Kiss every time I use the potty ... I'm going to go every 5 minutes and eat a whole bag of chocolate. (After that day, we revised our reward system.)

I have gotten really frustrated with this boy over the past few days. But he is just so sweet and he constantly reminds me of that. Like yesterday, he was playing with Claire's stuffed Mickey Mouse (which he has now claimed as his own) and he was putting Mickey on the little potty and giving him milk to drink from his sippy cup. Then, today, he went a got a sucker from the bowl on the kitchen counter and brought it in to show me. I told him that he could not have a sucker unless he put more tee-tee in the potty. He kind of put his head down and ran off and I got up to chase him. He was running back into the kitchen to put the sucker back in the bowl just like I told him to.

Will gets to stay home with David tomorrow. He is off tomorrow anyway. Hopefully, after that, we can go back to our regular routine, diaper free.

And I promise not to write anymore potty talk.

Day 3 tally: accidents (1); tee-tee in potty (5); poo-poo in potty (1); dry pull-up at YMCA (1).

Weekend plans gone awry ...

Last month, Will took a long weekend trip to paradise ... also known as Hammock Beach, Florida. This is an annual golf trip he takes every year with some of his guy friends.

Just so you know, while it was sunny and beautiful down in Florida, it was cool and rainy in Tennessee ... where I was stuck single-parenting it for three whole nights.

Will aiming for the pin. That's right. I've learned my share of "golf talk" over the last almost 10 years that we have been married. And I don't even play golf.

Buckley, Brian, Chris and Will. I think these guys had a fun trip.

While Will was away, I had planned to send the kids to visit my in-laws for the weekend so I could sew and/or scrapbook to my heart's desire. Unfortunately, David got sick in the middle of the night on Thursday. He seemed better on Friday, but he refused to go with Will's mom when we met at our usual drop-off point. Like crying hysterically for his mommy. So, both kids came back home with me for the weekend. David got sick again in the middle of Saturday night and was pretty puny all day on Sunday. About 6pm on Sunday night, he flipped a switch and was back to his old self ... just in time for daddy to get home! Isn't that always how it goes?!?

My weekend certainly did not go as planned, but the kids and I had a fun time together and I have a new appreciation for single parents (or wives whose husbands travel a lot). Cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night and taking care of sick baby all by myself was no fun at all! I think I am due for a girls' weekend or at least a free day soon ... on Will of course!

We may be potty training soon ...

and here's why:

(1) David loves to take his clothes off, especially his pants.

(2) I have come into David's room after nap on more than one occasion and he has taken his diaper off. Once he had tee-tee'd (is that even a word?) all over the bed.

(3) David has recently tee-tee'd in the bathtub on several occasions, which wouldn't be that bad if Claire wasn't in there with him.

(4) David tells me that he is "stinky" almost every time he goes #2. In fact, last week, he came into the kitchen with his wipes and diaper bag and began to take his diaper off. If I hadn't stopped him, he probably would have tried to change his own diaper. I did stop him and asked him what he was doing and he said "I stinky."

(5) He loves to try and sit on the potty, especially when he see Claire or me going to the bathroom.

Here's why I might wait to potty train David, even though he is CLEARLY ready:

(1) He almost never goes #2 while he is awake. Almost all of his stinky diapers occur during nap time or nighttime and we change him when he wakes up. This will clearly cause some problems with potty training to go #2, which I have heard is much harder for boys than girls.

(2) He just turned 2 this month. Most boys do better potty training if you wait until they are closer to 3.

(3) Timing. I will not be on maternity leave until September. (I potty trained Claire while I was on maternity leave with David.) In fact, we only have a two week break between the end of preschool and the beginning of the kids' summer program when we could get the potty training done. We have a month off in August, but I think that is too close to when the new baby is due. Oh, and I will be working during both of these breaks from school.

We potty trained Claire easy-breezy in about 5 days. She had really showed no interest at all before we started. I don't think she had even sat on the potty before. We stayed at home and armed ourselves with lots of character pa*nties and stayed in the kitchen on the tile floor. We bought lots of candy and a kid potty that makes music when you tinkle. And it worked.

Hopefully, David's training will go the same way, but I know it is different for boys. If I knew it would only take 5-10 days, I would be all geared up to go mid-May, but I don't know that with him. But he is definitely ready. And if I don't do it in May or June, I probably need to wait until November or December when we get settled in with the new baby. Who knows how many times that diaper may come off before then?!?

Any thoughts, opinions or advice? It would be VERY nice to only buy diapers for one come the fall ...

Spring Soccer

So we've been playing a little soccer this spring. And Claire is really loving it ... and her skills are much improved from the fall. In fact, her coach told Will last week that she is definitely the most improved player from the fall team. (We have several new players that were added on to the team in the spring.)

I never know whether to take "most improved player" as an compliment on your current skills or an insult to how bad you were before. (I was the "most improved player" my junior year of high school on our school's softball team.) I think for a 3-4 year old to go from having no soccer experience to being a decent player is quite a compliment in this case though and we are very proud of our girl.

Here are some pictures from the game last week.

The red team was scrappy. They had some mad goal-tending skills, but the "Blueberries" managed to score several times despite the fact that pretty much their entire team was standing in the goal every time we tried to score. In fact, Claire scored her first goal on Saturday!! We were super-pumped and she was so proud of herself.

Getting a pep-talk from one of the other dads.

Lining up to play defense.

More running and kicking the ball.

I love that Claire is improving her athletic skills, but I think it is most important that she learns to play on a team and show good sportsmanship and she has that down pat. She never tries to take the ball away from a fellow blueberry (like several of her teammates do), she always cheers when her teams scores regardless of who scores and she is always concerned when someone falls and gets hurt. (The red team fell down a lot and she would always stop and check on them.)

A team photo from the beginning of the season.