Time to Clean Up, Uh-huh, Uh-huh
Tiny is usually great at cleaning up the toys in the kids’ room when it’s time for breakfast. But yesterday morning, it was Buba who cleaned up all the toys while Tiny talked on her purple, plastic phone…
All Tiny:
“Hello, Nammy? It time clean up.”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Mess, mess, mess!”
“Time clean up.”
“No, no Daddy. No work day. No work.”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
“No Nammy bacation. Nammy home.”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Clean up.”
“Ok. Yep. Ludoo. Bye-bye!”
I love that her pretend phone calls give me some insights as to what she’s understanding. She clearly knew it was time to clean up the big mess in her room, even though she chose not to help. And she understood that T wasn’t going to work that day and maybe that we’d be going to Grammy’s house now that she’s home from her vacation.
Her “Ludoo” at the end is her pronunciation for Love you.
Potty Training: 5 Weeks Later
It’s been about 5 weeks since we started potty training with Tiny. I know, for many, potty training is a process. I’ve read enough blogs to know that some kids take weeks, even months, before they really get the hang of it. Thankfully, that has not been our experience with Tiny. She has done extremely well, and I’ve had absolutely no regrets regarding ditching the diapers.
As you probably remember, we went with the three-day plan. Tiny had done very well in those first three days, but I was still very nervous about leaving the house. Would she tell me when she had to go? Would she use the travel potty I’d purchase? Luckily, the answer to both questions was yes. I can’t say that she hasn’t had a single accident since we ditched the diapers, but thankfully all but one has been at home. And all within the first week after our potty training weekend.
So, at five weeks out, we’re in a pretty good groove. If we’re at home, I don’t have anything to worry about. Tiny will independently go to one of her potties and use it without any prompting or help from me. Sometimes I don’t eve know that she’s gone until she comes up to me with her panties and pants in her hands, asking for help. Tiny is alway willing to sit on the potty before we leave the house, and 8 times out of 10 she’ll go at least a little. If we’re out and about, she’ll tell me when she needs to go. During the first few weeks, there were a large number of false alarms. Personally, I think she just wanted to get a look at the bathrooms of all the places we frequent. But we’ve had fewer and fewer false alarms in the last two weeks. On one occasion, when I was pretty certain that she did not need to go, I told her there was no bathroom where we were shopping, so she’d just have to wait, and she dropped the potty request instantly. (I now know that she’ll whine and cry if she really, really has to go.) Although she’s doesn’t get terribly upset when she has an accident, she takes great pride in being able to keep herself dry and clean all day.
But the cutest thing ever is how she cheers for herself when she uses the potty. As part of the training process, we gave tons and tons of praise (no M&Ms and very few stickers- but that’s for another post)- lots and lots of ” Yay!” and “You did it!” along with “Tiny went pee in the potty! Tiny went pee in the potty!” So now, when Tiny uses the potty all by herself, she takes her Abby Cadabby doll with her, and has Abby cheer for her and give her hugs and kisses when she’s all done.
And although Buba is still in diapers, and we’ve not continued any of the three-day techniques with him, he’s still very interested in Tiny’s use of the potty. Buba often comes with us when we empty Tiny’s potty into the toilet, and he still claps and cheers with the same amount of enthusiasm as he did on day one. Buba likes to sit (with diaper off) on the potty twice a day (first thing in the morning and right before bed), but hasn’t produced anything yet. When he gets up from his potty, he says, “Empty. No pee. I’ll try again later.”
So, what can I say. I’m pretty happy with how things have been going. I know that there can still be some bumps in the road. While Tiny wakes up dry from naps, she still very much needs a diaper at nighttime. And just because Tiny trained so easily doesn’t mean that Buba will as well. But that’s okay. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Buba
I’ve been calling my son Buba since the day he was born. I’m not sure why or how I determined that Buba would be my pet name for him, but it felt right. Of course, I do call him by his given name too. But until recently, I’d say 8 times out of 10, I’d call him Buba.
T calls him Bub sometimes, but most often uses his given name (which T chose). I don’t think it really bothered T that I call him Buba until Tiny started calling him Buba. Now, I don’t mind that Tiny calls him Buba (she can’t pronounce his given name very well), but it doesn’t sit well with T. So when Tiny says Buba, T will sort of correct her by repeating what she said, but replacing Buba with brother. Something like this:
Tiny: I see Buba running. Running fast.
T: Oh, you see brother running? Running fast?
I’m not sure how that makes the situation better. And I would rather that Tiny use Buba’s given name than call him brother all the time. So, I’ve decided to make it a point of calling Buba by his given name more often. But I’m not ready to give up Buba altogether. And I hope that’s okay.
p.s. Thanks for all the great snack recommendations. I now have a few new things on the list for my next grocery trip.
(Un)Healthier Me: February Vacation
From 2004-2007, T and I spent every February vacation with his parents in sunny St. Maarten. His parents have a timeshare there, and it was because of their incredible generosity that we were able to enjoy such a heavenly tropical vacation in the middle of winter. For one week each year, we sat on the beach, sipping tropical drinks and enjoying the sun, sand, and water. We fell asleep to the sound of the ocean and woke to the warm breeze blowing through the balcony screen door. They were truly the most relaxing vacations ever.
But as you can see, that trend stopped the year I gave birth to Tiny and Buba. T’s parents continue to go and enjoy their timeshare (who could blame them?), while we stay home with our kids. It’s not that we haven’t been invited back. We have. But each year we’ve declined, feeling that we’d rather wait until it won’t feel like so much work to take a vacation.
But last week (which was this year’s February vacation week), we sure did eat as though we were on vacation. I can probably count on one hand the number of times we cooked a meal for ourselves. Instead we dined on take-out and left-overs. And my healthier me goals flew out the window. I did not make it to the gym 5 times, and I won’t even disgust you by listing all the non-healthy food choices I made.
While it seemed like fun at the time, I’m not realizing that I’ve got to find a way to get back on that healthy living horse again. Slapped in the face with the reality of gaining weight as a result of not eating right, I need to stop this downward spiral quickly before it gets completely out of control.
I tried getting right back to it on Monday, but there were still too many temptations around. And I felt sooooo hungry. I’m pretty good at sticking to healthy meals, but it’s the snacks that get me. I can only eat so many apples and yogurts.
So please, help me jump-start my healthier me plan by telling me some of your favorite healthy snacks. Perhaps if I can get the food part back under control, I can get back on the other tracks too.
fine motor development gross motor development Language Development mostly photos Tiny & Buba Toddlers: climbing dramatic play indoor playspaces singing songs
by reanbean
3 comments
23 Months Old
Dear Tiny and Buba,
It’s hard to believe that it’s been two months since my last toddler update. The past couple of months have been filled with lots of learning, growing, and experiencing new things.
The thing that amazes me the most these days is listening to you sing. You both have learned to sing quite a collection of songs (including The Wheels on the Bus, If You’re Happy and You Know It, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and more!). Although it’s not uncommon for either of you to burst into song while playing or riding in the minivan, I still find myself pausing to pay extra attention to your sweet, little voices. I especially love listening to you sing our version of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. I’ve been singing it to you guys since you were infants, singing your own names instead of Bonnie, and now you are singing it yourselves. You insert each other’s names, Mommy, Daddy, Grammy, and Paw Paw and laugh and laugh as you sing. You also love to sing the songs you’ve learned through Early Intervention (Hiding Hiding and All the Little Ducks), as well as a song we made up at home (Bye-Bye Mr. Cry).
You’ve both discovered the fun of pretend play. You like to use the Laugh & Learn Learning Home as you pretend to go off to work in the white car (our Corolla).You come to me and give me kisses as you announce that you are going to work. Then you wave bye-bye as you crawl through the door of the house and close it behind you. But only moments later, you burst through the door announcing that you are home and then the fun begins all over again.
The play kitchen you received as a Christmas present has also provided hours of fun. You both love to prepare meals with the plastic food and bring them to me for a tasting. The smiles on your faces when I say, “Yum! Yum!” are just priceless. And you love to use the phone from the play kitchen to call relatives and friends to chat about your day. You say, “Hello? Mmmhmmm, Mmmhmmm. Sit down and read books. Love you! B-bye!”
We’ve had several fun adventures at new places these last couple of months. We bought a multi-pass at a toddler gym, and you both enjoy climbing, running, and jumping in this playspace just for toddlers.
You also had a ton of fun at the gymnastics birthday party for your friends, and you especially enjoyed running and bouncing on the long trampoline and jumping into the pool of foam blocks.
Tiny, you are all about asserting your independence these days. You want to dress yourself, put on your own socks and shoes, and put away the toys you’ve claimed as yours. This can sometimes be a problem if we need any of these tasks to be done quickly, but your determination served us very well during our potty training weekend. At 22.5 months old, you decided, “No more diapers.” We devoted an entire weekend to helping you learn to use the potty, but you pretty much had it down in 5.5 hours. And it’s been smooth sailing ever since. What can I say? When you’re ready, you’re ready.
And finally, it is probably your language development that has continued to wow me the most. You’re constantly rehearsing and repeating the new words and phrases that you hear, and it’s usually not until I hear you say them that I realize you were listening when I thought you were ignoring me. And although we don’t have 100% accuracy, you’re getting pretty good at remembering events from our days and telling Daddy about the things we’ve done when we sit down for dinner. I know he enjoys this part of the evening very much.
Buba, you continue to make tons and tons of progress with both gross and fine motor skills. Although I don’t like to see it, you are building lots of strength as you practice climbing up and down our couches. You love to climb so much now, that we decided to move our Kangaroo Climber into the living room so you and Tiny would have something inside that is appropriate to climb. This climber keeps you busy for hours each day. You love to climb the steps on the outside of one side, and you climb through the big, round opening on the opposite side while hoisting yourself up to the platform at the top of the slide.
And your fine motor skill have improved dramatically. Just a few months ago, the Busy Poppin’ Pals toy was a major source of frustration. You wanted to make all those animals pop up, but you were only able to get the panda by pushing the big button in. Now you can slide, flip, turn, or push to make all the animals come up. It is so nice to watch you enjoy playing with that toy. And I love, love, love to hear you sing. You pick up new songs after hearing them just once, and I know if we could find a sing-along that lasted all day, you’d be in heaven.
It’s hard to believe that you’ll be turning two in just two more weeks (March 7th). The old expression is definitely true: The days are long, but the years are short.
Love you!
Mommy
Book Number Three
As of today, I have read exactly 3 books in the last 23.5 months that were not related to parenting. If I include parenting books, the number would certainly be higher, but not much over 10. I am always amazed when I hear other moms talk about the great books they’re reading. I have a booklist about a mile long, but I just can’t find the time to sit back, relax, and get lost in a great story.
So what have I read…
Book #1 (back in June 2009 (15 months after Tiny and Buba were born)): Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way by Ruth Reichl.
Book #2 (November 2009): For One More Day by Mitch Albom
And finally, Book #3 (December 2009-February 2010): Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
Book number three certainly took me the longest to get through, but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it the most. It was assigned as my book club’s January book, but I only got through the first 100 (of 310) pages by the day we were meeting. I was determined to finish the book even after we’d discussed it (fortunately for me, no one had gotten through the entire book, so we mostly discussed the first half), but then it was due back at the library and it took me a while to go back for it.
But I finally finished Midwives last night, and I have to say, I’m so glad that I did. It is the story of a midwife who does home births. She is put on trial for performing an emergency c-section with a kitchen knife to save the baby after the mother is presumed dead. The prosecutor says the mother was not dead at the time and that it was the midwife who killed her by performing the emergency c-section. And so we are left to wonder, as we read through the story, what really happened the night that baby was born. The narrator of the story is the midwife’s daughter, who was 14 at the time the birth occurred, but is now all grown up. The story is told in a back and forth way, so that you get bits of what will happen later while you’re reading about events that occurred earlier. And sprinkled throughout are diary entries written by the midwife that tell a bit of the story from her perspective. I found Midwives to be extremely well written, and should I ever have the time, I would love to read other books by Chris Bohjalian.
Next up on my list is Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. Given my track record, there’s a good chance I won’t finish it in time for the book club meeting on March 5th, but I’m going to give it my best shot. If I find it enjoyable, I’ll let you know.
p.s. I would definitely recommend Midwives to anyone out there who has the time for a good read, but not to anyone expecting a baby at the moment.
Wake-up Calls
For many, many months, I’ve been getting up at 6:30am every day. When we used Dr. Weissbluth’s advice to sleep train Tiny and Buba, 6:30am was the time T and I agreed would be the start of our days. This made sense because it was the time T needed to get up for work. And even on the weekends, our days begin at 6:30am. Although I’ve often (like, every single day) thought it would be lovely to sleep in a bit more, it seemed to make sense to keep wake up at the same time every day to keep our schedule and routines on track.
This does not mean that Tiny and Buba sleep until 6:30am. They generally wake up sometime between 6:10am and 6:30am. But it means that T and I do not get up and get them up until 6:30am. There have only been a handful of times when I have found them still asleep at 6:30am, and even then they didn’t sleep much longer once they heard T up and getting ready for work.
But this week is school vacation week in Massachusetts. T, being a teacher, doesn’t have to get up for work. So, I proposed that we turn the alarm off and just see what happens. My thinking was this, normally I hear Buba and Tiny whenever they start to stir in the morning, and there had been quite a few times recently when I hadn’t heard them at all until the alarm went off. Perhaps, given how small our house is (roughly 900 sq/ft), they were able to hear the alarm from our bedroom causing them to wake up at 6:30am when they might have stayed asleep (or at least quiet) longer had the alarm not gone off. I wanted to test this theory, and this seemed like the perfect time.
So, we reset the alarm for 7am (T didn’t agree with turning it off altogether). This seemed like a good plan that would give us a little more time to sleep without throwing off the schedule too much. But it seems I was way too optimistic about this allowing me to get more sleep. Apparently, Tiny can tell time and 6:35am is her max for staying in the crib. Before 6:35am, she is happy to play quietly and talk with Buba. But at 6:35am, the shrieking and screaming begins. Not the sort of wake-up call you’d like to get while attempting to sleep in. I’m pretty sure I prefer the sound of the alarm at 6:30am, but I’m going to give it a few more days just because I can. When school vacation week is over, we will have no choice but to go back to our 6:30am alarm. But if I can see some positive results in the next few days, there might be some hope for 7:00am wake-ups on the weekend.
How do you handle wake-up time with your kids? Is there a set time every day, or do they just wake up when they wake up?
No Climbing
Maybe it’s because it wasn’t allowed, or perhaps it’s because my guys are such peanuts, but Tiny and Buba weren’t into climbing when all their friends started doing it. Sometime in the fall, they both attempted to climb up on the couch, but I pulled them off and told them, “No climbing.” When they tried again, I put them in time out, and that was pretty much the end of the climbing attempts…
until the holiday break.
T was home for a little over a week, and even though he knew that I didn’t allow climbing, he let Tiny and Buba climb up on the chair and couches. I explained to him that my biggest fear wasn’t the climbing up, it was the falling off. Although he was with them when they were climbing, I can’t always be there when I’m solo parenting to make sure they’re being safe. And I’d rather forbid the climbing than have to deal with nasty spills off the couch.
But it was too late. The damage was done, and there was no longer anything I could do to keep Tiny and Buba from climbing on (and falling off) the furniture. A few times I removed the chair and put in in a room that was gated off, and after I caught them jumping on the couch, I penned them in the kitchen. But those were not great solutions. So, we came up with a better one…
No, you’re not seeing things. That is, in fact a Kangaroo Climber in our living room. It used to be in our front yard,
but T and I agreed that Tiny and Buba really needed to be allowed to climb something in the house. So Tuesday night, T brought it inside and cleaned it off. Buba and Tiny were instantly into it. And they’ve spent the better part of the last three days playing with the climber.
Over the summer, it took a lot for Buba and Tiny to hoist themselves up the the platform at the top of the slide. But now they can do it with seemingly little effort. And while there is obviously still a risk of falling, I’m just not as worried about it when they’re on the climber. They’re holding on with their hands and gripping with their feet, rather than just bopping around on squishy cushions. They’ve had a couple of minor spills, but they’re falling with more control.
And since we brought the climber inside, there has been significantly less climbing on the furniture- maybe 5% of what there used to be. I’m not thrilled to have the climber in the living room, but spring will be here soon enough, and then the climber will go back out into the yard. Until then, they’re happy, so I’m happy.
Total Saved: $261.20
I love that many stores now list the amount of money you’ve saved at the bottom of your receipt. As someone who tries to bargain shop as much as possible, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a big, fat number in the amount saved section at the end of a successful shopping trip.
And this is one of my favorite times of year to shop. Stores are already beginning to bring out spring clothing (which seems absurd here in New England where we are bound to have many more cold days ahead), and so the end of season clearance sales have begun. I love to shop these sales, as I take full advantage of the low, low prices to buy ahead for the following year. My general rule of thumb is that I won’t pay more than $3.00 for a clearance item. Exceptions are sometimes made for sweaters, sweatshirts, or heavy pants, but in general, $3.00 is my max. Yes, this end-of-season shopping is a bit of a gamble, but I’ve gotten really good at predicting the sizes I’ll need, so I feel it is completely worth the risk. (Plus, if my kids never wear the stuff, I’m pretty confident that I can get most of my money back by reselling the clothes at my twin club’s rummage sale.)
So I was like a kid in a candy shop this morning when I saw the 70-80% off display of Jumping Beans clothing at Kohl’s. I scoured the shelves looking for any pants or tops that were sized 18 or 24 months (because my almost 2-year-olds are still wearing 12 month clothing) and came up with 33 items. I think I ended up with only 4 or 5 shirts and the rest were pants, but I got a nice mix of lightweight (for cooler summer days), mid-weight (for spring), and a few heavyweight (for winter). I was able to find more for Buba than for Tiny, but I’d gotten more for Tiny than Buba when I shopped at the Children’s Place over the weekend, so it was almost even.
I wasn’t paying a ton of attention as I threw all the clothes into the storage area beneath our double stroller, but was hoping to spend around $50. So I was a little disappointed when the cashier asked for $68.80. That is, until she announced that my total savings for my purchases was $261.20! I’d gotten an additional 20% for using my Kohl’s card (along with a coupon that came in the mail), which meant that I’d spent just over $2 for each piece of clothing. Not bad at all.
My Day Off
Saturday from 8am to 5pm, I was on my own. No kids, no husband. I didn’t even make plans with friends, because I needed to have this time just for me. And it was fantastic.
I started off with an early morning appointment at the Apple Store at the mall. I’d gotten a free iPod Touch when we purchased a new computer last summer, and had never even turned the thing on because I didn’t feel I had the time to figure out how to use it. The music and photo part, I was pretty sure I could handle, but everything else was new to me. So, I sat down with one of the Apple gurus, and tried to soak up everything he was explaining about getting emails, searching the web, and adding new apps. After playing around with the iPod for about an hour, I felt like I was pretty much up to speed, so it seemed like time well spent.
I had planned to to a bit of shopping after my appointment, but most of the mall stores were still closed. Sears, however, was just opening their doors, so I popped in and browsed around the clearance racks. Unfortunately, after selecting a ton of clothes for Tiny and Buba (stocking up for next fall/winter), I found the pricing to be a huge headache and ended up putting it all back. It was a situation in which the racks said take an additional 40% off the already reduced prices, but when I took them to the price check scanner, they all rang up higher than even the reduced price that was on the tag. I wasn’t head-over-heals about any of the clothes, so I chose to put them back rather than try to figure it all out at the register.
By the time I left Sears, the other stores were just opening, and I headed down to The Children’s Place. They had five or six racks of winter clothing all marked down to $2.99 a piece, so I was able to do some stocking up there. Then, I continued to browse around a few more stores, but didn’t find any other great deals. So I decided to go off in search of an early lunch.
I ended up at The Cheesecake Factory, which is usually ridiculously crowded, but apparently not when it first opens for lunch. I was seated immediately and ordered one of the lunch plates- BBQ chicken pizza with a garden salad. Now, once upon a time, I might have thought it sad to see a woman eating alone in a restaurant, wondering where are her friends or her family? But I can honestly say that I very much enjoyed my lunchtime alone. I had brought a book (that I’ve been working on forever) and found it very peaceful to sit and read while leisurely eating my lunch without having to worry about feeding two other mouths or refilling sippy cups.
After lunch, I left the mall and headed to the spa for my absolute favorite part of the day- an 80 minute massage that was, without a doubt, the best massage I’ve ever had. The pressure was just right (not too light, but not so deep that it hurt). It was heavenly!
Then I headed back home to my empty house and just lounged about for a while. I ate a piece of chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake (that I’d taken to go from lunch) while I caught up on shows on Hulu. By the time I needed to head over to my in-laws to join the family for dinner, I felt ready to jump back into my mommy role again.
My day off was everything I had wanted it to be. It was nice to have some time to relax and do things for myself without having to worry about all the other things that needed to be taken care of. And another benefit was that T finally got to experience what I’ve been dealing with the last couple of weeks. When I walked in the door he told me what stinkers the kids had been all day- hitting, toy-stealing, climbing and jumping on furniture. I just smiled and said, “Not just all day. All month.” And I could see it all click for him in that moment. It’s one thing to tell someone about your day over dinner, but it’s a completely different thing to have that person experience your day for himself.
Needless to say, I’ll be talking more days off from now on. Maybe not every week, but a day or two every other month or so sounds reasonable, don’t you think?