The Old Is New Again

No need to buy new toys when you can just pull out all the old ones and get just as much glee, right?

Here's a little "then and now" for ya:






And yes, all the pictures are of Claire. Crazy how time flies!!

Just Call Me "The Spatula"

It's 2:13 AM and I am blogging. Why? So glad you asked. Little Sarah has mastered a new skill: rolling over to her stomach from her back. As wonderful as that is, she doesn't really love being on her tummy and has yet to figure out how to flip back over again. So she rolls over and gets trapped. You would think that logic would dictate that if rolling over onto your stomach is unpleasant, then stop rolling onto your stomach, right? Well apparently logic is also a skill lost on a 6 month old. Maybe they get that at 7 months? Not sure. I'll have to check the books on that one.

Either way, it has created a sort of middle of the night "dance" between my sweet baby and me. She rolls over while sleeping, wakes and can't get back to sleep. Wailing ensues. I come in and flip her. Now since it is virtually impossible to flip a baby w/o being seen by said baby, she begins wailing even harder because "Mommy just came in, looked at me and left." What she doesn't know is that Mommy is hiding behind the closet door watching to see if the thumb will make it into the mouth allowing sleep to resume.

Eventually the thumb does make it into the mouth. However the thumb, being located on the hand which just so happens to be located at one side of the body, causes her to turn her head to the side. For reasons lost on me, this head turn causes her to turn her entire body to the side which usually results in a baby who is once again flipping over onto her stomach. And the dance continues.

For the past 4 or 5 days, this "dance" has been lasting almost an hour before Sarah falls back to sleep. And usually? It derails nap time altogether. So I am constantly on call to flip this poor baby in the hopes that she can get some rest. I feel like a human spatula.

. . . she is finally asleep so I am off to bed. I'll finish this later. YAWN.

Okay, Part II. Sarah did finally fall asleep only to wake up an hour later. I got a grand total of 3 1/2 hours sleep last night.

Now all this would be exhausting enough, but I also had to choose THIS week to begin potty training Claire. UGH. What was I thinking? What a crazy task that is. It means I am constantly on watch-dog mode during the day. I can't leave Claire's side for a minute because I am watching her every move to signal me she is ready for either a quick dash to the toilet, or a large towel to mop up the mess she made.

We tried the training panties, but those apparently feel just like a diaper to Claire so she just pees and poops in them and stays as happy as a lark. Doesn't seem to bother her one single bit that she is wet and messy. In fact, I found her the other day dancing in a pool of urine in the playroom. Nice huh?

So, upon advice from friends, we decided to try the bare bottom approach. No diaper, no panties, just a cute little naked tooshie running around the house. This was seeming to do the trick because Claire would NOT "go" at all when she was bottomless. She didn't seem to mind sitting on the potty. In fact, she would sit on the big potty for up to 15 minutes while I read books to her. (not convenient when you have a 6 month old screaming for attention at the same time) And she was willing to sit on the baby potty (in front of the TV) for over an hour while she watched cartoons. So she has mastered the art of "sitting" on the potty. However she would never "go" on the potty.

I officially gave up yesterday and today we are back in diapers. I am not too concerned. I know she will get it when she is ready. I am, however, hoping that my wonderful mother-in-law is correct. She said that Claire will basically train Sarah when it is time because Sarah will want to be just like big sister. So in theory, I should only have to go through this once. Here's hoping!!

I Got Grilled

So I was preparing to grill turkey burgers last night when we had a little grill mishap. I grabbed the wire brush thingy so I could clean off the cooking surface prior to starting. I barely swiped the brush over the grill when the entire top of the grill fell off of the pedestal and crashed down to the ground. SURPRISE!

Good thing I hadn't started up the gas yet. YIKES! Could've been bad. Check out the pics below. I searched and searched for a "before" pic, but who takes pictures of their grill? Not me. So the only shot I could find was actually one of Claire but the grill is in the background. (Any excuse to show a Claire pic, right?)




Stinko!! We use that grill ALL THE TIME!!! All the meals I have planned for this week involve the grill in some way. Guess I am using the George Foreman for the time being.

Time to go grill shopping!

"Hear Mama Doo Doo??"

Now if that title doesn't get your attention, nothing will. I'll explain. A-hem . . .

We have several songs saved on my i-pod that Claire truly enjoys. One of them is the Mah Nah Mah Nah song from the Muppets. You have to hear it to understand why her name for the song is "Mama Doo Doo".

We have had many-a-laugh each time we are in the car and she says, "Hear Mama Doo Doo??" We, of course know exactly what she is talking about.

Now imagine me today at the grocery store check out line. I am just about to pay when Claire makes her request rather loudly.

Claire: "Hear Mama Doo Doo?"

Clerk shoots me a weird look.

Me: (speaking loudly enough to be heard by all) "I know you like that SONG honey. We'll play it when we get in the car, okay?"

Claire: (much more loudly) "NO! Mama Doo Doo! Mama Doo Doo! Mama Doo Doo, NOOOOOOOWWWWW!"

Clerk now stifling a giggle as my face beams bright red.

Me: (to the clerk) I promise it's a song.

Now I am not sure what is more disturbing to the clerk, the idea that Claire might not actually be talking about a song, or the fact that I might actually have made up a song about Mommy going potty. Neither are true, but in a grocery store line, who has time for lengthy explanations?

I think I'll carry my i-pod in with me next time so I'll have the proof on hand.

Time to "Go"

I figured I'd better blog something soon before this site becomes solely a "see Sarah's monthly pics" site.

So what's new? Hmmm . . . . well I started potty training Claire. And then promptly stopped the training.

I thought I had it all planned out perfectly.

Pack of training panties? Check.
Child-sized potty seat attachment? Check.
Fun foamy soap for hand washing? Check.
Step stools for toilet AND sink, candy for rewards? Check, check and check.

So yesterday was "Go time". After breakfast, I removed Claire's diaper and dressed her in training panties and a t-shirt. (soooo stinkin' cute by the way) I informed her that we were going to try using the potty so she needed to let me know if she needed to "go".

Now before you laugh at me, I knew that wasn't going to work perfectly. I was totally prepared to clean up several accidents. After all, the pack of training panties came with 3 pairs, so I had my backups ready. Right?? Right.

I gave Claire her juice cup which was 50/50 juice and water as opposed to her normal 10/90. I wanted her to ENJOY the juice enough to drink, drink, drink! And drink she did. My plan was to take her to the potty every 30 minutes whether she needed to go or not in the hopes that eventually she'd accidentally go in the potty. This would allow me to offer grand cheers and a candy treat thus showing her how WONDERFUL it is to go on the potty.

Here is how the entire 1 HOUR of training went before I threw in the towel.

9:00--Claire is dressed and ready.
9:30--I take Claire to the potty (she has drained an entire sippy cup by now) No dice. I re-dress her and replenish her juice cup.
9:55--I am gearing up to take her for the next potty trip when a friend texts me and I take a quick moment to respond. MISTAKE.
9:56--Claire announces, "Tee tee on the potty??" I jump up with excitement only to find that a more appropriate statement would have been, "Tee tee all over the carpet??"
9:57--Hose Claire down. Put 2nd pair of training pants on her cute little hiney. Praise her for understanding the action that took place and remind her that we want to try to "go" on the potty next time. She agrees and I am off to clean up the mess.
10:00--I have just mopped up the floor and rinsed out the dirty training pants. I am just starting to put the pants in the dryer when Claire walks up and says, "Clean up the tee tee Mommy?" I look down to see that she has soiled herself again. Thus a new clean up process begins.
10:05--Claire is sporting her third and FINAL pair of clean training pants just as Sarah wakes and needs feeding.
10:07--I am sitting down to nurse Sarah when I hear, "Tee tee on the potty, Mommy?" Yep. She did it again. Three accidents in just over 10 minutes. In such a short time, I now have NO dry training pants to change her into and an infant who is furious that her feeding time was interrupted.
10:10--All messes are cleaned up and Claire is sitting happily in a diaper watching Elmo's World.

Sigh, sigh, SIGH!

I quickly determined that potty training is not a one person job if you have an infant at home too. We are going to make our next attempt in July (we don't have any other weeks in June that aren't interrupted by travel plans and apparently you need to stay close to home for this potty training business.)

I told Michael that we are picking a weekend where he has Friday off and that way I'll have his help for Friday, Saturday and Sunday before going it alone on Monday.

So as I wait on the next attempt, does anyone want to offer some sage advice on what will work best to train a child who has an apparent gift for frequent urination?

I'm all ears.

4 Months!

Sarah is officially 4 months old. It is crazy how fast the time is flying. I'll try to make time to write something more substantial soon, but for now, here is her 4 month pic with Max the dog--paired with her 3 month shot for comparison.

3 Months:


4 Months:

Facebook Is Killing My Blog

Ever since I joined Facebook, I am finding it even more difficult to take time out to update my blog. The random ponderings that I would normally expand upon and put in blog format are now becoming my quick little "status updates". And alas, I am finding that there really, truly is nothing left to write about here.

But I am not giving up on my blog yet!! Oh, no. It's too fun a place to update on the girls. And besides, I am long-winded. This is the only outlet I have to be my long-winded self. Can't do that on Facebook. So here we go.

This is truly going to be a random, picture heavy post. There is no rhyme or reason to it, so don't even try to make sense of it all. If you do, you'll just be confused.

So we had Claire's birthday celebration.

I made cupcakes:


And Claire enjoyed them:


Immensely. (nothing quite like a chocolate gotee, huh??)


Sarah is growing like a cute little weed:



Claire loves to spend time tromping around the house in Mommy's shoes:




Sarah is finally big enough to sit in the highchair (sort of). So she now has a new place to watch us eat dinner.


And we now have a place for Claire to hang out when we need a break:





(And if you don't know I am kidding about this one, then you don't know me very well.)

Truth is, Nana was visiting and this kennel was her dog's home away from home. However, in true Claire fashion, she assumed it was a new toy for her. She adopted it as her playhouse for the duration of Nana's stay.

Okay, that's it for now. Sorry for the randomness, but you were forewarned.