I wish I didn't have to title posts. I never have a point, you know.
It's been a fairly uneventful week at the Sullivan house. Travis decided not to go to the football game today, which was nice. It was Homecoming weekend, so it probably would've been fun to go up and socialize, but I just haven't felt up for it this year. So we had a nice Saturday at home, on a beautiful day. Travis did a bunch of landscaping, and I did some sorting and other things that are hard to do with two children underfoot. I picked up Indian food for supper tonight, and after the kids were in bed, I made molten lava chocolate cakes for dessert, just the two of us (I only used 1 egg yolk instead of two, and some unsweetened chocolate in place of the semisweet, and it was still plenty rich and sweet!). The girls were driving us nuts for a good portion of the day so it was especially nice to work in the kitchen without being bothered, and then enjoy a treat without it being such a big deal.
I guess the biggest thing is that Audrey has fully unpottytrained herself. OhCrap told me to do a reset, so we're doing disposable diapers for two weeks. Next Saturday will be the new Day 1, and hopefully she's receptive to it and not uberpissed like she was when I gave it up. She seemed really concerned the first few times she used her diaper, but I just changed her and hugged her and sent her on her way. Now, I think she really likes how easy it is... so this may be tough. But she's gotta do it sometime, and it's gotta be soon. I'm a little worried about setbacks the following weekend at her birthday, but that's a long way off. I've gotta say that it's been really nice to not have Audrey's bladder on my mind constantly, but I hate diapers. I really, really hate them. I think the train went off the rails when Audrey had several accidents in a row, and she decided she was terrible at it and didn't have any idea what she was doing, and didn't want to try. It wasn't true, but I couldn't convince her. When I reset, I'll have to be careful of her ego, and make sure that I do my best to help her have a whole string of successes right off the bat, and then make a big deal of accidents or successes, either way, so it's not such a big deal to her if she succeeds or fails. Easy, right?? Sure...
Wednesday was fun because Grandma Sullivan came to spend the day with us!! We really made it special by going to Old McDonald's for lunch and then to the spice store, which the girls really enjoy because they have a table set up to color at. They may have enjoyed that more than the playland at McD's, which was loud and full of obnoxious children. Then we made rainbow cupcakes, wihch we are still working through. I should've sent them to daycare on Thursday because I'm sure tired of the whining and fussing for multiple cupcakes every day. And while they were a superawesome treat when they were fresh, they look particularly unappetizing now and i just keep finding more fingerprints in the frosting. Gah!!
Emily has been really enjoying her piano books. We don't do it every day, but probably every other day we sit down together and play things out of both books. One book has 4-measure exercises that are supposed to sound like the action that the stick-figure that accompanies it is doing, like Walking or Skipping or Rolling or whatever. Yesterday, Emily played 5 out of the first 6 in the book! I was SO impressed!! She was delighted and said, "let's play the other book!!" so we did a little of that, too, and all in all it's less than 10 minutes of work, but I can tell that's all she's up for. It's crazy how a short period of intense learning can really make a difference, and really wear her out. But then after supper yesterday, she sat down with a baby book with me and she worked on reading off her letters. The book is so simple - a picture of something with the word printed underneath. She would read off the letters, and then say the word because she knew it from identifying the picture. Today, I covered up a picture and asked her what the word said, and she looked at me so funny, as though, how could she know without the picture?? So we sounded it out together, and it was so fun then when I uncovered the picture and she was right. What a great grin that girl has! And again, we can't do that much of this before she gets squirmy and it's obvious she's at the end of her attention span. But it's hard for me to hold back when she's picking up so much of what I'm telling her and we're having such a good time! Oh yeah, she's only 4, and it's ridiculous that she's doing this degree of sitting-still learning.
And we're still trying to get Audrey to talk, but she's getting a little braver. She knows, she just won't do it. I wonder if she practices at Ms. Teri's? She's gotta practice somewhere!!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Lousy parent
It's been a rough week here. I spent Wednesday in some kind of frantic state... I can't even say what it was all about but I was seriously annoyed that I couldn't get good behavior out of Emily, and I was freaking mad. Audrey was driving me nuts because she's decided not to be potty trained anymore. Guess that was a fun little experiment, honey. I've gone back to my forum, begging for help. She totally had it all figured out, and now she's not making ANY effort at all to even tell me when she has to go, and she fights like hell if I tell her she must sit and try. Then 20 minutes later she comes back to find me with wet or dirty pants. I am so frustrated, and I'm probably doing everything wrong, but I just don't know how to get past this. Hopefully OhCrap lady has some ideas.
I finally got some good sleep Thursday night after a late night (upset with myself for the way I parented Wed), and a long day at work and an evening out to celebrate a new product release with some coworkers. Yesterday, I pretty much operated on the idea that whatever I would have done on Wednesday, I would do the opposite. We went to the store to buy paint, and Emily worked on a project while Audrey took a fantastic 3-hour nap, which was preceeded by a poop on the potty. It was all looking up. Today, pee everywhere. There never really was anything that wrong with Emily's behavior, in retrospect. I hope I've turned a corner with that.
So, I just heard that someone I knew from marching band had a 4-month-old who died of SIDS this week. Horrifying! I told Travis about it after lunch today. Apparently Emily overheard that, even though I didn't say much more than I did in this paragraph, but she got to thinking about it. This afternoon, she sat on my lap, and said she didn't like dying. I said i didn't either. She asked me if I was going to die, and i said not for a very, very long time (I can't lie to her!). She then started crying really, really hard and said she didn't want to die because she would be all alone!! Oh my gosh, I wasn't ready for this conversation yet!! I told her I would always, always be with her because I love her more than anything in the world and she's not getting rid of me! That seemed to relax her a bit. It didn't seem like the right time to introduce any kind of religious teachings, since her fear was so very literal. Instead, I talked to her about how Mommo used to be a little girl, and then she grew up and had a little girl, and that little girl grew up to be Grandma, and it took a long time to tell the story so I hoped that would show her just how long her life will be (hear that, Universe? WILL be!). And then she asked something about a birthday, and I said I have a lot of birthdays left, and that Emily has even more. That seemed to satisfy her all right, and we snuggled and talked for probably an hour after that about just fun random stuff. What a sweet girl. and an unexpected way to spend the afternoon!
Trav and I took Emily down to the parking lot near our house to see if Emily could balance on her new bike. No go. Not even excited about it, just wanted to walk (or dance, really) most of the way back. oh well. She and Audrey spent a good amount of the afternoon outside playing and watching/helping Travis work on the landscaping out front. Trav is exhausted tonight from the work, so we'll all sleep well tonight. If I can get past my own conscience...
I finally got some good sleep Thursday night after a late night (upset with myself for the way I parented Wed), and a long day at work and an evening out to celebrate a new product release with some coworkers. Yesterday, I pretty much operated on the idea that whatever I would have done on Wednesday, I would do the opposite. We went to the store to buy paint, and Emily worked on a project while Audrey took a fantastic 3-hour nap, which was preceeded by a poop on the potty. It was all looking up. Today, pee everywhere. There never really was anything that wrong with Emily's behavior, in retrospect. I hope I've turned a corner with that.
So, I just heard that someone I knew from marching band had a 4-month-old who died of SIDS this week. Horrifying! I told Travis about it after lunch today. Apparently Emily overheard that, even though I didn't say much more than I did in this paragraph, but she got to thinking about it. This afternoon, she sat on my lap, and said she didn't like dying. I said i didn't either. She asked me if I was going to die, and i said not for a very, very long time (I can't lie to her!). She then started crying really, really hard and said she didn't want to die because she would be all alone!! Oh my gosh, I wasn't ready for this conversation yet!! I told her I would always, always be with her because I love her more than anything in the world and she's not getting rid of me! That seemed to relax her a bit. It didn't seem like the right time to introduce any kind of religious teachings, since her fear was so very literal. Instead, I talked to her about how Mommo used to be a little girl, and then she grew up and had a little girl, and that little girl grew up to be Grandma, and it took a long time to tell the story so I hoped that would show her just how long her life will be (hear that, Universe? WILL be!). And then she asked something about a birthday, and I said I have a lot of birthdays left, and that Emily has even more. That seemed to satisfy her all right, and we snuggled and talked for probably an hour after that about just fun random stuff. What a sweet girl. and an unexpected way to spend the afternoon!
Trav and I took Emily down to the parking lot near our house to see if Emily could balance on her new bike. No go. Not even excited about it, just wanted to walk (or dance, really) most of the way back. oh well. She and Audrey spent a good amount of the afternoon outside playing and watching/helping Travis work on the landscaping out front. Trav is exhausted tonight from the work, so we'll all sleep well tonight. If I can get past my own conscience...
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Lots to catch up on
Travis's uncle died suddenly on Thursday. I can't seem to find his obituary online, but he was only 63 and it was as sudden as you have ever heard of. One minute he was getting ready to go drive his school bus route, and the next, he was on his way out. Apparently, a post-mortem x-ray showed a pulmonary embolism; they weren't able to resuscitate him in the ambulance. His daughter, Travis's cousin, was on her way to fly to Iowa with her 2-year-old daughter to visit Tim and Nancy, and then come to Emily's birthday party on Sunday. We had visited them in California last spring, and had a great time with them. When she arrived in Dallas for her layover, she changed her connecting flight when she got the news that her dad had died, and flew to Minneapolis instead. I feel SO bad for that family. I really liked Gerry, and I've always had a great time with Travis's cousins. It's been weird to be planning a joyful birthday weekend in this beautiful weather, knowing the degree of mourning that people I care about are enduring.
So, Nancy drove the 7 hours up to Lake Park, MN (almost to Fargo) the very next day to help her sister, nieces, and nephew plan the funeral, and has been there ever since. I cannot tell you what an amazing heart that woman has, to drop everything in her life and do that for them. Travis and Tim drove up today to be there for the wake, and they'll come home late tomorrow after the funeral in the afternoon. It's been very, very weird. I would have gone with them and left the girls with my parents, but I was needed here, as you'll see below.
We moved Emily's birthday party to Saturday instead of Sunday, and fortunately that worked for everybody except Nancy. Everything was going just fine - the cake was ready, lunch was ready, everybody was here and eating, but Emily said it was too loud, too many people, and she wanted to just sit in the living room where it was quiet. She ended up falling asleep on Travis's lap, and he put her in her bed to sleep for at least an hour. She had a fever of 102!! When she woke up, we gave her a full dose of tylenol, and within half an hour she was chipper enough to enjoy the party. She loved the Frances cake, and the gift that Audrey gave her: a Chompo bar (a snickers bar in a wrapper I made) wrapped in pretty paper with ribbon. Those of you who know A Birthday for Frances will appreciate that!! She LOVED it. She opened all of her presents, and really enjoyed everything she got, especially the umbrella that she had picked out and wrapped for herself. Very thoughtful and awesome gifts! She's got some pretty great family. She was so excited about the gift that Mark and Lea gave her that she marched right over and hugged Lea. I thought it was hilarious that she already knows that it's the females who are to credit for things like that - ha!! :)
Travis and I thought Emily would be ready for a real bike, with no training wheels and everything, and she was kind of excited when she saw it, but not like I thought she would be. In her defense, she was still feeling sick, but she was a trooper and climbed up on the seat while Travis held it, and Grandpa took her picture. We're going to go pick out a helmet tomorrow, on her actual birthday, to round out the gift. Her head is so big that I wanted to be sure she was a part of the selection so we go something that fits!!
So, I thought I would be up all night with a sick kiddo, and have a lousy day taking care of her fever today, but she has felt fine all day. However, I was up all night anyway because she had to keep getting drinks, and pooping (? who does that at 2 AM?), and worrying about Audrey, who also took her turn being up crying. I was up every 20 minutes for a good 2 hours last night. Travis left at 6:30 AM, so i talked to him for a minute before he left (i don't think i opened my eyes, though!) and then at 7:15 Emily was in my room with a bloody nose, and my day was off to the races. Needless to say, I will be headed to bed shortly here!!
The girls and I had another nice day enjoying the beautiful weather, and for the most part, we had a lovely day. But wow, what a weekend. apparently, my sister-in-law met her biological dad for the first time this weekend, so it'll be interesting to hear how that all went, too! Life just keeps on happening...
p.s. since i've been posting potty training progress here, I will note that we started Audrey on probiotics that were specially formulated for children, and she is finally, finally not sliming every few hours. It's been AWESOME. It was seriously like finding a magic pill - within a few hours of her first dose, it was a whole lot better. Now she'll actually go a full 24-hours without going, and when she does go it's no problem at all. YAAAAYYYY!!! I am so happy for her!! and me, too, of course :)
So, Nancy drove the 7 hours up to Lake Park, MN (almost to Fargo) the very next day to help her sister, nieces, and nephew plan the funeral, and has been there ever since. I cannot tell you what an amazing heart that woman has, to drop everything in her life and do that for them. Travis and Tim drove up today to be there for the wake, and they'll come home late tomorrow after the funeral in the afternoon. It's been very, very weird. I would have gone with them and left the girls with my parents, but I was needed here, as you'll see below.
We moved Emily's birthday party to Saturday instead of Sunday, and fortunately that worked for everybody except Nancy. Everything was going just fine - the cake was ready, lunch was ready, everybody was here and eating, but Emily said it was too loud, too many people, and she wanted to just sit in the living room where it was quiet. She ended up falling asleep on Travis's lap, and he put her in her bed to sleep for at least an hour. She had a fever of 102!! When she woke up, we gave her a full dose of tylenol, and within half an hour she was chipper enough to enjoy the party. She loved the Frances cake, and the gift that Audrey gave her: a Chompo bar (a snickers bar in a wrapper I made) wrapped in pretty paper with ribbon. Those of you who know A Birthday for Frances will appreciate that!! She LOVED it. She opened all of her presents, and really enjoyed everything she got, especially the umbrella that she had picked out and wrapped for herself. Very thoughtful and awesome gifts! She's got some pretty great family. She was so excited about the gift that Mark and Lea gave her that she marched right over and hugged Lea. I thought it was hilarious that she already knows that it's the females who are to credit for things like that - ha!! :)
Travis and I thought Emily would be ready for a real bike, with no training wheels and everything, and she was kind of excited when she saw it, but not like I thought she would be. In her defense, she was still feeling sick, but she was a trooper and climbed up on the seat while Travis held it, and Grandpa took her picture. We're going to go pick out a helmet tomorrow, on her actual birthday, to round out the gift. Her head is so big that I wanted to be sure she was a part of the selection so we go something that fits!!
So, I thought I would be up all night with a sick kiddo, and have a lousy day taking care of her fever today, but she has felt fine all day. However, I was up all night anyway because she had to keep getting drinks, and pooping (? who does that at 2 AM?), and worrying about Audrey, who also took her turn being up crying. I was up every 20 minutes for a good 2 hours last night. Travis left at 6:30 AM, so i talked to him for a minute before he left (i don't think i opened my eyes, though!) and then at 7:15 Emily was in my room with a bloody nose, and my day was off to the races. Needless to say, I will be headed to bed shortly here!!
The girls and I had another nice day enjoying the beautiful weather, and for the most part, we had a lovely day. But wow, what a weekend. apparently, my sister-in-law met her biological dad for the first time this weekend, so it'll be interesting to hear how that all went, too! Life just keeps on happening...
p.s. since i've been posting potty training progress here, I will note that we started Audrey on probiotics that were specially formulated for children, and she is finally, finally not sliming every few hours. It's been AWESOME. It was seriously like finding a magic pill - within a few hours of her first dose, it was a whole lot better. Now she'll actually go a full 24-hours without going, and when she does go it's no problem at all. YAAAAYYYY!!! I am so happy for her!! and me, too, of course :)
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Weddings are Exhausting!
I am writing this from my sister's house. All 6 Johannsen grandkids are asleep here (or in bed, at least) and all the other grownups are at the wedding. I guess I'm on duty, of sorts, but it's actually just that I'm glad to be done with the day. I probably shouldn't hash over the details again because I'll just get agitated again. It was full of exasperation, exhaustion, some regret, gratefulness, but mostly just feeling overwhelmed with responsibility on top of a headcold and a short night of sleep. Since Travis was sick this week, it seemed like he and I had almost no communication about the weekend, and it's just impossible for it to go completely smoothly without that. There's always the mismatch of expectations that's inevitable, even if most of the time we can correctly assume what the other is thinking. When we miss, it's sucky. I guess I'll just let it go and try to get more out of him next time. Ugh.
Audrey had a frustrating accident today - she sat on the potty to poop, and everything was going great, and when she stood up, it became apparent that she hadn't quite gotten her dress up over her bottom. Poor girl! The regret that I mention above was that I didn't figure that out immediately and get excited that she had actually done everything just right - i thought it was an accident. It wasn't, it was just... misfortune?? The gratefulness that I mention was to Travis's family, for helping me with the girls after the ceremony and through the reception, and to Jenny for providing me with everything I needed after I discovered that all the things the girls needed for overnight had been left at home, carefully packed but left on the porch. It was a rough weekend, but it would've been impossible without them!
As glad as I am that Audrey is potty trained and doing great for the most part, now we are to that weird phase where she will only use HER potty. I've gotta take it everywhere with me, including to the hotel where the wedding reception was tonight - awkward! I guess I'll go back to the OhCrap forum and ask how to get out of that. I'm hoping she'll get so confident that she'll think it's fun to try peeing other places, but so far she's a hard sell on HER potty if it's located in a new place. It's not as exhausting as the initial step, but still a lot of logistics to manage.
I've started planning Emily's 4th birthday, with a Frances theme, for obvious reasons! I cannot believe she's going to be FOUR. That's such a big number!! I rememer drowning in the terrible two's and Jenny would tell me that the hard work of parenting is up until they're 4, establishing the boundaries, and for a while after that, you just nudge them back into place as needed. It was so hard to believe her that those days would ever come, but for the most part, I'd say she's right. Emily is a lovely girl, especially compared to a few (nonfamily) children I was around this weekend - yikes. She'd be lovely even if she wasn't so well-behaved, but she really, really is. There's just a few things that exasperate me, like her intention to finish what she's doing no matter how hard I try to verbally direct her otherwise. Screaming STOP or NO or MOVE or DROPIT or anything like that has no effect whatsoever if she's intent on what she's doing. She'll finish, and then look up at me like, "okay, now what was it you needed??" I needed you to move so I don't drop a pot of hot water over your head on my way to drain these noodles because I'm trying to make supper so you'll stop whining at me!! GAH! I can physically stop her, and when I do, it's apparent that she did hear me because she freaks out about it. I guess if I'm left with one major challenge for age 4, I can be glad, because those other kids - yikes. It wasn't their fault, though; when they were around me, they responded instantly to some of my parenting techniques, and it's obvious that their parents could do the same and save themselves a lot of heartache. Life's too short to be mad at your kids all the time!
It's also too short to have such a rotten personal day on what should've been (and hopefully was) a fantastic day for two very wonderful people, and their family and friends who love them very much.
Audrey had a frustrating accident today - she sat on the potty to poop, and everything was going great, and when she stood up, it became apparent that she hadn't quite gotten her dress up over her bottom. Poor girl! The regret that I mention above was that I didn't figure that out immediately and get excited that she had actually done everything just right - i thought it was an accident. It wasn't, it was just... misfortune?? The gratefulness that I mention was to Travis's family, for helping me with the girls after the ceremony and through the reception, and to Jenny for providing me with everything I needed after I discovered that all the things the girls needed for overnight had been left at home, carefully packed but left on the porch. It was a rough weekend, but it would've been impossible without them!
As glad as I am that Audrey is potty trained and doing great for the most part, now we are to that weird phase where she will only use HER potty. I've gotta take it everywhere with me, including to the hotel where the wedding reception was tonight - awkward! I guess I'll go back to the OhCrap forum and ask how to get out of that. I'm hoping she'll get so confident that she'll think it's fun to try peeing other places, but so far she's a hard sell on HER potty if it's located in a new place. It's not as exhausting as the initial step, but still a lot of logistics to manage.
I've started planning Emily's 4th birthday, with a Frances theme, for obvious reasons! I cannot believe she's going to be FOUR. That's such a big number!! I rememer drowning in the terrible two's and Jenny would tell me that the hard work of parenting is up until they're 4, establishing the boundaries, and for a while after that, you just nudge them back into place as needed. It was so hard to believe her that those days would ever come, but for the most part, I'd say she's right. Emily is a lovely girl, especially compared to a few (nonfamily) children I was around this weekend - yikes. She'd be lovely even if she wasn't so well-behaved, but she really, really is. There's just a few things that exasperate me, like her intention to finish what she's doing no matter how hard I try to verbally direct her otherwise. Screaming STOP or NO or MOVE or DROPIT or anything like that has no effect whatsoever if she's intent on what she's doing. She'll finish, and then look up at me like, "okay, now what was it you needed??" I needed you to move so I don't drop a pot of hot water over your head on my way to drain these noodles because I'm trying to make supper so you'll stop whining at me!! GAH! I can physically stop her, and when I do, it's apparent that she did hear me because she freaks out about it. I guess if I'm left with one major challenge for age 4, I can be glad, because those other kids - yikes. It wasn't their fault, though; when they were around me, they responded instantly to some of my parenting techniques, and it's obvious that their parents could do the same and save themselves a lot of heartache. Life's too short to be mad at your kids all the time!
It's also too short to have such a rotten personal day on what should've been (and hopefully was) a fantastic day for two very wonderful people, and their family and friends who love them very much.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Doing great!
Audrey is over the hump - she's really got it now! We're still looking for a totally accident-free day, but her accidents are really just "awww, so close!" kind of things. She either gets distracted/busy, or she has trouble with her pants, or she tells me she has to go and I'm too slow hurrying upstairs because I wasn't able to carry her potty down to the basement with us. I just didn't have room in my arms with her and the basket of laundry I was carrying!! But she's really understanding the whole process, and for the most part she does a GREAT job. Poor girl still has trouble predicting whether her backside is going to produce gas or slime, and she got caught by that last night. But we were at a friend's house, and I was still super proud of her because she did her first pee away from our house!! Well, besides daycare. That tells you just how much I've gotten out of the house in the past two weeks. This morning she got 95% of a slimy poop in the potty, with the remainder getting on the outside of her training pants and the floor as she stood up afterwards in celebration. Now, how can you fault a girl for that??
Travis leaves tomorrow for an overnight in Madison. I'm not at all mentally prepared for it, since I have spent so much mental energy potty training and helping Emily through her latest sickness. Poor girl was too sick to be at daycare Thursday, and I just marvel that she can manage to find 1 of the 2 days of the week where I am not able to easily drop everything for her. Travis stayed with her in the morning, and I took the afternoon off. Today, I think Audrey has started in with the fever that Emily had early this week, and I hope she doesn't develop the croupy cough that made it so hard for Emily to breathe. She spent all day Friday in whisper mode, since her voice was totally gone. It was kind of funny because Audrey would notice Emily whispering and then tell me "shhhhh..." with her adorable finger up against her pouty little lips. Soooo sweet! It was a very quiet day, which was nice after all the volume we had while potty training.
Audrey was snuggled on my lap this morning, and as she sat up to go off and play, I said, "I love you." I could swear she answered "I love you too," nodding so emphatically like she does. I'll take that for a first sentence. :) But I won't hear it again for ages because she only talks on her terms. She's got a pretty good vocabulary, but you wouldn't know because she gets by on charm!
I didn't take a video of it, but Emily has added the left-hand to her piano trick, and she can play both hands together. Awesome!!
Travis leaves tomorrow for an overnight in Madison. I'm not at all mentally prepared for it, since I have spent so much mental energy potty training and helping Emily through her latest sickness. Poor girl was too sick to be at daycare Thursday, and I just marvel that she can manage to find 1 of the 2 days of the week where I am not able to easily drop everything for her. Travis stayed with her in the morning, and I took the afternoon off. Today, I think Audrey has started in with the fever that Emily had early this week, and I hope she doesn't develop the croupy cough that made it so hard for Emily to breathe. She spent all day Friday in whisper mode, since her voice was totally gone. It was kind of funny because Audrey would notice Emily whispering and then tell me "shhhhh..." with her adorable finger up against her pouty little lips. Soooo sweet! It was a very quiet day, which was nice after all the volume we had while potty training.
Audrey was snuggled on my lap this morning, and as she sat up to go off and play, I said, "I love you." I could swear she answered "I love you too," nodding so emphatically like she does. I'll take that for a first sentence. :) But I won't hear it again for ages because she only talks on her terms. She's got a pretty good vocabulary, but you wouldn't know because she gets by on charm!
I didn't take a video of it, but Emily has added the left-hand to her piano trick, and she can play both hands together. Awesome!!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Here we go...
Last Saturday morning, Audrey refused to put a diaper on, and I decided to potty train her. I probably shouldn't have done such a snap decision, but I had been considering it for a while and really thought I could flip the switch on her. Over the last 10 days, she's come a LONG ways, and today she only had one accident, which we managed to actually get to the potty in time to catch about 1/3 of it. I'm pretty proud of her! I've had a lot of help, though, since I have been communicating with a potty training expert who wrote a book that's sold through her website http://ohcrappottytraining.com. This lady is amazing - no nonsense, and really informative. It's not just rah-rah, it's really instructive. And encouraging! Audrey seems to be having a hard time with the advance notice part of it; she HAS asked me to go before, but for now she is totally reliant on me to remind her. We're doing pretty well now, though, that I've got a mental schedule down for her, and I have a good idea of when her bladder might be full. Today, while sitting on my lap, she looked up at me with her "I'm gonna go" face (which is adorable, I might add) and grabbed at her backside, so we hustled to the potty and just as she settled in with a book, she pooped!! She's doing great, but it is a LOT OF WORK and it's EXHAUSTING. We've come too far to go back now! I'm NOT SPENDING A YEAR AT THIS like we did with Emily! the diaper service is turning out to be a totally awesome thing, because they will provide training pants instead of diapers until she's totally trained!! YEAH! No more washing poopie undies!!!
I am still trying to figure out her slimy poops, though. I bought some soy milk to substitute for a while, and we'll see if eliminating dairy helps. The real kicker to this is why her slime cleared up when she was at my parents' place for 4 days a couple of weeks ago, and now that she's home, it's back in full force. ?? Emily and I both had some tummy troubles, so I thought maybe it's a bug that lives... in the bathtub? sanitized. Refrigerator? scrubbed clean. Our water supply? it's the only thing I haven't totally checked out. If she doesn't do better off of dairy for a couple of days, I'll try limiting her water to only that purchased in a bottle, and see if then it improves. Because the poor thing just doesn't stand a chance in this condition!
Emily has been doing all kinds or crazy academic gymnastics these days. She loves to rhyme, and she's really got the hang of it. Tonight she was making up words to go with objects around, and then it was all nonsense - but all rhyming! We've been reading Frances books, at least one every day and sometimes I have to cut her off at four! They're long and detailed, and she's started to memorize them. She's got the first 4 pages of "Bedtime for Frances" memorized, including where she sings her little alphabet song, and Emily points at each letter on the page and identifies it. So then after she's on a roll with that, she points to "Father" and "Frances" and we have to talk about how they start with the same letter, and how they sound alike. At the end, the moth goes "BUMP and THUMP" so she matches up the U, M, and P and we talk about how they not only sound alike, they look alike! After talking about the sound that TH makes, she's been working on incorporating that into her speech, so I'm afraid I'll lose her celebratory "I'm FREE" before she actually is done being three! and Fank you, and I Fink, and dis and dat. It's all slipping away.
Travis took Emily to football games both weekends, just the two of them, while Audrey and I practiced potty (have I mentioned this has been an incredible commitment??). Trav was looking for things for Emily to do in the car, and I told him about the rhyming game and how that kills time well, and instead he started counting with her. hold up two fingers on each hand and count - how many do you have? In "Birthday for Frances," she likes to count the bubblegum balls, talking about how four pennies bought four bubble gum balls; Frances eats two, so how many does she have? It's so cute to see those little fingers counting!! Also adorable is seeing them PLAY THE PIANO!! She puts her little thumb on middle C and playes up through G with her pinky - amazing!! Video at the picasa site. The cutest part about that is that she didn't learn that from me or from Grandma, who's actually a piano teacher, but rather from Megan, who just started her own lessons recently, and has the hang of reading a few notes on the page and totally gets how to count beats per measure. Incredible little girls!
So Emily and Travis had fantastic trips to Ames for the football games, and had a great time. It doesn't hurt that Iowa State won both games, especially the one yesterday! yeahhhh!! Emily came home from the night game a week ago, and as she was snuggled up in bed falling asleep, she was telling me all about what she did and what she saw, and I knew that one of the most highly-anticipated things was getting to eat a hot dog for supper. I asked her what she had for supper, and she sat up and said, "I didn't have supper!!" what?? I asked if she was hungry and she said yes!! She was very worried, so I came downstairs and asked Travis about it and he said, Yeah, of course she had a hot dog. I gave Emily some milk, and when she burped afterwards, I could even smell the hot dog breath!! She had not sat down at a table to eat a meal, so it didn't register to her that she had actually eaten something at dinnertime. Funny girl!
I have really gotten to know Audrey as we've spent hours sitting in the bathroom together. A fun game for me is to sing a pitch and she'll sing it back. I'll put socks on her feet and yank on the toes to get them off, and she giggles like crazy. She really likes books, we talk about all kinds of things that we read in there. She's really gotten much faster, though, now that she knows how to do it and I am not guessing as much as to whether she has to go or not. And she is starting to trust me a little, too.
Since I've had so much potty training on my brain lately, it was easy to see, in talking with my sister, that her husband is behaving just exactly like a 37-year-old in diapers. Suddely she (and the court system) won't let him have his way, and he doesn't like it! He knows what he should do, and he's physically capable of appropriate behavior, but he remembers that life was really, really good when somebody else was doing all the work for him. He just wants for things to go back to being easy for him, when he could get his way all the time. In case anybody else out there is helping a loved-one escape an abuser, he's really just a big baby. It's really helping us stay a step ahead of his actions to realize he's just reacting, he's not even capable of plotting, he's just reacting to his selfish desires. Once it's apparent he's just trying to get his way, it's totally possible to outmaneuver him. What a jerk.
Lots of love to all of you. Hope you're enjoying this beautiful weather!
I am still trying to figure out her slimy poops, though. I bought some soy milk to substitute for a while, and we'll see if eliminating dairy helps. The real kicker to this is why her slime cleared up when she was at my parents' place for 4 days a couple of weeks ago, and now that she's home, it's back in full force. ?? Emily and I both had some tummy troubles, so I thought maybe it's a bug that lives... in the bathtub? sanitized. Refrigerator? scrubbed clean. Our water supply? it's the only thing I haven't totally checked out. If she doesn't do better off of dairy for a couple of days, I'll try limiting her water to only that purchased in a bottle, and see if then it improves. Because the poor thing just doesn't stand a chance in this condition!
Emily has been doing all kinds or crazy academic gymnastics these days. She loves to rhyme, and she's really got the hang of it. Tonight she was making up words to go with objects around, and then it was all nonsense - but all rhyming! We've been reading Frances books, at least one every day and sometimes I have to cut her off at four! They're long and detailed, and she's started to memorize them. She's got the first 4 pages of "Bedtime for Frances" memorized, including where she sings her little alphabet song, and Emily points at each letter on the page and identifies it. So then after she's on a roll with that, she points to "Father" and "Frances" and we have to talk about how they start with the same letter, and how they sound alike. At the end, the moth goes "BUMP and THUMP" so she matches up the U, M, and P and we talk about how they not only sound alike, they look alike! After talking about the sound that TH makes, she's been working on incorporating that into her speech, so I'm afraid I'll lose her celebratory "I'm FREE" before she actually is done being three! and Fank you, and I Fink, and dis and dat. It's all slipping away.
Travis took Emily to football games both weekends, just the two of them, while Audrey and I practiced potty (have I mentioned this has been an incredible commitment??). Trav was looking for things for Emily to do in the car, and I told him about the rhyming game and how that kills time well, and instead he started counting with her. hold up two fingers on each hand and count - how many do you have? In "Birthday for Frances," she likes to count the bubblegum balls, talking about how four pennies bought four bubble gum balls; Frances eats two, so how many does she have? It's so cute to see those little fingers counting!! Also adorable is seeing them PLAY THE PIANO!! She puts her little thumb on middle C and playes up through G with her pinky - amazing!! Video at the picasa site. The cutest part about that is that she didn't learn that from me or from Grandma, who's actually a piano teacher, but rather from Megan, who just started her own lessons recently, and has the hang of reading a few notes on the page and totally gets how to count beats per measure. Incredible little girls!
So Emily and Travis had fantastic trips to Ames for the football games, and had a great time. It doesn't hurt that Iowa State won both games, especially the one yesterday! yeahhhh!! Emily came home from the night game a week ago, and as she was snuggled up in bed falling asleep, she was telling me all about what she did and what she saw, and I knew that one of the most highly-anticipated things was getting to eat a hot dog for supper. I asked her what she had for supper, and she sat up and said, "I didn't have supper!!" what?? I asked if she was hungry and she said yes!! She was very worried, so I came downstairs and asked Travis about it and he said, Yeah, of course she had a hot dog. I gave Emily some milk, and when she burped afterwards, I could even smell the hot dog breath!! She had not sat down at a table to eat a meal, so it didn't register to her that she had actually eaten something at dinnertime. Funny girl!
I have really gotten to know Audrey as we've spent hours sitting in the bathroom together. A fun game for me is to sing a pitch and she'll sing it back. I'll put socks on her feet and yank on the toes to get them off, and she giggles like crazy. She really likes books, we talk about all kinds of things that we read in there. She's really gotten much faster, though, now that she knows how to do it and I am not guessing as much as to whether she has to go or not. And she is starting to trust me a little, too.
Since I've had so much potty training on my brain lately, it was easy to see, in talking with my sister, that her husband is behaving just exactly like a 37-year-old in diapers. Suddely she (and the court system) won't let him have his way, and he doesn't like it! He knows what he should do, and he's physically capable of appropriate behavior, but he remembers that life was really, really good when somebody else was doing all the work for him. He just wants for things to go back to being easy for him, when he could get his way all the time. In case anybody else out there is helping a loved-one escape an abuser, he's really just a big baby. It's really helping us stay a step ahead of his actions to realize he's just reacting, he's not even capable of plotting, he's just reacting to his selfish desires. Once it's apparent he's just trying to get his way, it's totally possible to outmaneuver him. What a jerk.
Lots of love to all of you. Hope you're enjoying this beautiful weather!
Monday, August 29, 2011
True Rejuvenation
Travis had to travel to Indianapolis for work this week, and then went to a weekend bachelor party in Minneapolis. That meant that the girls and I were on our own from Wednesday to Sunday, so we made all kinds of great plans and had a fabulous time!
Trav's mom came to visit us on Wednesday, and I don't think she got both feet in the door before both girls were clamoring all over her. It was pretty great. Not only did we have a really nice visit, but I got a lot done while she played with the girls. I don't think I would've been able to get on the road the next day without that. And, she had recently had a heyday with a clearance rack full of cute little girl clothing, so they immediately redressed themselves in the cute stuff she brought. It was a great way to just relax and enjoy a beautiful summer day. That, in and of itself, would've been a sufficient grandparent fix for the girls, but I had more planned. :)
Thursday morning, I picked up Megan in Ames, and brought her with us to Rockford. It's funny, you might think adding another kid to the mix would make it more complicated, but she actually made my life easier by entertaining Audrey in the car and singing with Emily, and just being a delight in who she is. Jenny and Julie and Sarah came up on Friday afternoon after school, but they all had to get back to Ames early Saturday morning to get to Julie's soccer game. We had a great time with them, but it was nice to have some time just me and my girls and my parents. Their place is SO pretty this time of year. Their garden is producing like crazy, so every meal is just a creative use of whatever my dad has brought in - green beans, zucchini, grapes, onions, and TOMATOES. Mmmm!! The weather was perfect, except for the sweat bees that Emily detested.
Saturday morning, after Jenny left, I went for a bike ride up through Nora Springs - 28 miles total. About a mile down the road, I saw a friend of mine who was out for a run, and stopped to chat with her. That was kinda fun, chatting it up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere! She lives in the same house she did as a kid, just up the hill from my parents' place, and yet I hadn't really kept up with her. She'd been working as a nurse, but now she just started teaching in Charles City, with a class of kids who are considered behaviorally difficult, and she's really fired up and excited about that. Recently she's lost a ton of weight and considers anything less than a 5 mile run to be "short." It was so nice to catch up with her. And I am always glad to find out that people I knew from my hometown are doing great things.
So, I got a bike ride, I got to shoot baskets with my dad on a perfect evening, I got to play my mom's piano for probably hours (which is especially fun when Megan is around because she dances! It's so fun to see her snap into character!). I told Travis again that I need a piano like my mom's -- someday, I WILL have one. I mean, my piano is really nice and all, but hers is... well, it's like the one time in my life when I played a $40,000 violin, just to see what it was like. It plays itself!! Ahh! My dad gave my girls breakfast each morning and let me sleep late, and I got to stay up late Friday night laughing my head off with my mom and my sister. I got to see Audrey scooting around outside on her tricycle, feeling very independent as she did laps around the circle. Emily bonded with her grandparents, who are thoroughly charmed by her abilities and adorable personality. They got to swim, bike, swing, catch kittens, help in the garden, wander through a real watermelon patch, eat popsicles and push-ups and cookies and have tea parties, and play with a gazillion toys (or just spread them in a thin layer throughout the house. Why do they do that??) It was perfect weather, with no agenda, and no stress. It was a FANTASTIC vacation! I know that Travis got to go out late three nights in a row, schmoozing with Deere people and getting wasted with his best friends, but I think I got the way better deal. I'm refreshed, happy to get back to my regular routine, and ready to look towards what fall will bring.
The girls and I drove home on Sunday, picked up Travis and went to the airport to get his car. On the way home, we stopped for supper at "Old McDonald's Restaurant." Could it get any better than this?
Trav's mom came to visit us on Wednesday, and I don't think she got both feet in the door before both girls were clamoring all over her. It was pretty great. Not only did we have a really nice visit, but I got a lot done while she played with the girls. I don't think I would've been able to get on the road the next day without that. And, she had recently had a heyday with a clearance rack full of cute little girl clothing, so they immediately redressed themselves in the cute stuff she brought. It was a great way to just relax and enjoy a beautiful summer day. That, in and of itself, would've been a sufficient grandparent fix for the girls, but I had more planned. :)
Thursday morning, I picked up Megan in Ames, and brought her with us to Rockford. It's funny, you might think adding another kid to the mix would make it more complicated, but she actually made my life easier by entertaining Audrey in the car and singing with Emily, and just being a delight in who she is. Jenny and Julie and Sarah came up on Friday afternoon after school, but they all had to get back to Ames early Saturday morning to get to Julie's soccer game. We had a great time with them, but it was nice to have some time just me and my girls and my parents. Their place is SO pretty this time of year. Their garden is producing like crazy, so every meal is just a creative use of whatever my dad has brought in - green beans, zucchini, grapes, onions, and TOMATOES. Mmmm!! The weather was perfect, except for the sweat bees that Emily detested.
Saturday morning, after Jenny left, I went for a bike ride up through Nora Springs - 28 miles total. About a mile down the road, I saw a friend of mine who was out for a run, and stopped to chat with her. That was kinda fun, chatting it up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere! She lives in the same house she did as a kid, just up the hill from my parents' place, and yet I hadn't really kept up with her. She'd been working as a nurse, but now she just started teaching in Charles City, with a class of kids who are considered behaviorally difficult, and she's really fired up and excited about that. Recently she's lost a ton of weight and considers anything less than a 5 mile run to be "short." It was so nice to catch up with her. And I am always glad to find out that people I knew from my hometown are doing great things.
So, I got a bike ride, I got to shoot baskets with my dad on a perfect evening, I got to play my mom's piano for probably hours (which is especially fun when Megan is around because she dances! It's so fun to see her snap into character!). I told Travis again that I need a piano like my mom's -- someday, I WILL have one. I mean, my piano is really nice and all, but hers is... well, it's like the one time in my life when I played a $40,000 violin, just to see what it was like. It plays itself!! Ahh! My dad gave my girls breakfast each morning and let me sleep late, and I got to stay up late Friday night laughing my head off with my mom and my sister. I got to see Audrey scooting around outside on her tricycle, feeling very independent as she did laps around the circle. Emily bonded with her grandparents, who are thoroughly charmed by her abilities and adorable personality. They got to swim, bike, swing, catch kittens, help in the garden, wander through a real watermelon patch, eat popsicles and push-ups and cookies and have tea parties, and play with a gazillion toys (or just spread them in a thin layer throughout the house. Why do they do that??) It was perfect weather, with no agenda, and no stress. It was a FANTASTIC vacation! I know that Travis got to go out late three nights in a row, schmoozing with Deere people and getting wasted with his best friends, but I think I got the way better deal. I'm refreshed, happy to get back to my regular routine, and ready to look towards what fall will bring.
The girls and I drove home on Sunday, picked up Travis and went to the airport to get his car. On the way home, we stopped for supper at "Old McDonald's Restaurant." Could it get any better than this?
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