Playing catch up

How long can you go in between posts and still call yourself a blogger? I think I'm going to find out.

I've noticed during the last couple of weeks that the less I blog the better I feel about my parenting skills. Maybe it's because I'm not analyzing every move I make, or maybe it's because when my kids are bad, I forget about it instead of writing about it.

Yeah, that's the ticket. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Having said all that, so much has gone on that I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll start on the toilet. Quite literally, Sophia has decided she wants to use the potty. She still isn't telling us when she has to go, but she's using the potty when we ask her if she has to go. To be fair, she did tell us one time on Saturday that she had to use the potty, but it hasn't happened since.

Regardless, I am thrilled at her enthusiasm for the potty and I'm feeding into it as best I can, so much so that Ryan has decided he should sit on the potty whenever Sophia does. It's actually very cute, he just plops his little butt down on her little potty after she's done and claps. Maybe, if I'm lucky, Ryan will be potty trained by the time Sophia is and I'll have both kids out of diapers by the summer.

Good luck, right.

The other major thing happening at home is Sophia (again) has decided she can't stay in her bed. Bedtime stretches for hours (if both parents are home, of course). Supernanny would be appalled at how long it takes us to put Sophia to bed. We've tried everything, from Supernanny techniques to sleeping on the floor next to her bed. Nothing works … except ignoring her. I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but what has been working is when she gets out of bed after we tuck her in, we go upstairs and put her back into bed without saying a word to her. She's an attention grabber, so she doesn’t enjoy this one bit. Some days she screams louder, other days she goes back to sleep.

It's a crap shoot, really. One day she'll go to sleep.

Sigh

When she does go to sleep, we've noticed at about 11 p.m. every night, Sophia wakes up screaming. I think she's having a nightmare, but I can't confirm that since she doesn't really understand what a dream is. I've resorted to comforting her and giving her whatever she wants to calm her and get her to go back to bed.

My kids aren't spoiled one bit, are they?

Enough about the kids, you want to know about me too, right? Yes, I know, I'm used to playing second fiddle when my kids are around, but, damn it, you're going to hear about me too. This weekend beautiful weather crept in and we took advantage of the 60 degree weather to go for our first bike ride of 2009. It felt so great to get back on the bike and out of the gym, it better have, because this year we have quite a few miles to train for and I'm so nervous and looking forward to it at the same time.

This year, in addition to the MS 150 City to Shore ride we did last year, Jon and I are going to do the Dutch Country ride in July, which is two 100 mile days (ugh!) and we are hoping to do the Livestrong Challenge ride when it comes to the area, which is another 150 miles. All together that's 500 miles for 2009.

I hope my legs make it.

In exactly three weeks, my husband and I will be boarding a plane and flying to Cancun. I am so excited about this trip because 1) it's a warm vacation spot in the middle of crappy weather season, and 2) THE KIDS ARE NOT COMING! I love my kids to death, but is it really a vacation if the kids go? Hmmm, you can decide that for yourself.

Going with the flow

The screaming started at 3:45 a.m., technically the "morning" but not really the morning at all. I looked at the clock and shut my eyes. There is no way I'm getting out of bed at this ungodly hour.

The screaming escalates and I pull the covers up around my face. Just ignore the screaming and it will stop.

The screaming stops for a moment and that's when I hear it. Knock. Knock. Knock. It gets my attention and I listen harder. The screaming continues, MOMMY. MOMMY! Knock. Knock.
(Yes, that was a Mommy!)

I lumber out of bed and slowly open Sophia's bedroom door and there she is, standing there looking up at me. She's wide awake and in a surprisingly pleasant mood.
It's not wake up time, honey. Let's go back to sleep.

I go potty, Mommy.

OK, let's go to the potty.


It's now 4 a.m. Sophia and I stumble our way into the bathroom. I put the potty seat on the toilet as she pulls down her Pull Ups. I lift her up on the potty. I don't have much faith that she's actually going to do anything, so I tell her that I'm leaving the bathroom to get a new Pull Up because the one she was wearing was wet.

Walking out of the bathroom, I hear the unmistakable sound of peeing in the potty. I'm so excited that she's actually going. She hasn't gone on the potty at home in almost a week, although she's going at daycare. I'm thrilled that she woke up and climbed out of her crib because she had to go to the bathroom. (OK, I'm not so excited about the climbing out of her crib part) But it's FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING and I really don't want to be awake now.
I want to go back to sleep.

With a clean Pull Up in hand, I go back into the bathroom and quietly praise her for going on the potty. I give her a hug, tell her how proud I am of her, and she's thrilled.

I go potty, Mommy.

I know honey, I am so proud of you. But now it's time to go back to sleep.


Inside my head I'm freaking out about putting her back in her crib. What happens if she climbs out again, but this time she falls? So I guide one very proud, happy and wide awake little girl into my bedroom and tell her she can sleep in Mommy's bed, but she has to go to sleep because it's not morning yet.


There she lies, tossing and turning, adjusting pillows and pushing me to the very edge of the bed trying to get comfy. For 45 minutes.

Note sleeping husband. Why, oh why can I not sleep through crying babes like he can? WHY?

Just when I think I'm doomed to be awake for the rest of the day it happens: sweet, sweet silence. She's asleep, and I drift off to sleep and have one of the weirdest dreams I've had in a while.

I was in a car with a very pregnant woman with long brown hair, and we're sightseeing on a busy highway. We get out of the car and explore the side of the road. Then we visit a small home next to the road with a small boy sitting in the front yard.


At 6:30 on the dot, Ryan starts to cry. I need to get him before his crying wakes Sophia. I turn and look at my beautiful sleeping daughter. She's such a big girl I can hardly stand it.

She wakes shortly after Ryan and now the hole house is a awake (note now awake husband). I try to keep the potty momentum going and get her to sit on the potty again. No way. She reminds me that she already went on the potty.

I went potty, Mommy.

Apparently, she has a one-potty-a-day clause and refuses to go for the rest of the morning.
Tonight, I think, Daddy and Mommy will be converting Sophia's crib into a daybed (thank God for the convertible crib) and our little baby girl will be sleeping in a brand new big girl bed for the very first time.

Heaven help us.

Baby steps and potty training

We've been very busy these last few days. Ryan is quickly learning to walk and Sophia is taking to the potty one baby step at a time.

In his zombie-like stance, Ryan will stumble half-way across the room and gleefully fall into whosever's arms are reaching out to him. The joy on his face while he's walking is absolutely priceless. I wish I could bottle it up and share it with the world. It's a mixture for pride and joy and I absolutely love it. It's only a matter of days before the big guy is chasing his sister around the house.

Sophia loves helping her little brother walk too. But sometimes, just sometimes, she gets a little jealous of the attention Ryan is getting by walking and will pretend to be a baby and walk slowly at one of us and fall into our arms laughing.

Another potty training breakthrough happened this morning on the way to daycare. Sophia started complaining that her belly hurt about a block and a half away from daycare. I asked her if she had to use the potty and she said a very firm YES. I raced the rest of the way while begging her to hold it. As soon as we got to the classroom, I told her teacher she said she had to use the potty and they took her to the bathroom. Five minutes later, the teacher came out and told me she went on the potty. Hooray for Sophia! Now we just have to keep it up.

Since she's been sitting on the potty, Sophia has also noticed her girl parts and has put us in the predicament of what to call those parts. As fate would have it, the lovely Sue from Happy Meals & Happy Hour just addressed this topic this week. Today she has made a list of the names her readers have suggested. Go ahead, go there and take a peak, some of them are hilarious. Before I had kids, I was strongly for calling those parts their "correct" name, but now that I'm a mom, somehow telling my 2-year-old about her vagina seems far less appealing. So does anyone have any ideas on what should I call Sophia's girl parts? I need help here.

***

Some of you may already know this, but for those of you who don't, my friend, Autumn's Mom, is getting married on Friday (lucky 8-8-8), just one week after moving into a new home. She's been calm cool and collected through the whole ordeal, but she is tired. She has been very busy and could probably use a happy distraction. So take a moment and visit her and leave her some bloggy love to help her get through this exciting time.

The cult of Elmo

Elmo rules my house. This silly red Sesame Street puppet has the ability to calm the most wound up toddler. Elmo (a.k.a "Sesame Street," "Elmo's World") is the only TV Sophia asks to watch. Elmo is teaching Sophia how to use the potty. Elmo tells Sophia in her Valentine's Day book that he loves her. Elmo talks to her on the phone. My aunt even made an Elmo book about cutting Sophia's nails. Sophia will do almost anything Elmo tells her to do. Elmo is my hero.

He is also my archnemesis. If she glimpses Elmo any where, in any place, she immediately reacts and needs to see it. We avoid the toy aisle like the plague.

Sophia went to day care today dressed head-to-toe in Elmo. From her Elmo sneakers to her Elmo track suit, this child was decked out. She was so proud of her outfit, and she did look cute, but it's also a little disturbing.

She has red Elmo slippers and Elmo sneakers, an Elmo towel and washcloth, Elmo books and videos, Elmo dolls, Elmo telephones, Elmo music, Elmo sippy cups, an Elmo fork and spoon, an Elmo chair, I even have two Elmo videos in my iPod for those particularly bad car rides. It's gotten so overwhelming that if Sophia sees something red, she'll point to it and say, "Melmo, Melmo."

What is it about that furry red monster? Sometimes when Sophia has a particularly rotten day I pop in an Elmo video or turn on Sesame Street On Demand and she is happy as a lark for about an hour. She exercises with Elmo and dances with Elmo.

But there is only so much Elmo an adult can take.

I've tried to play up Big Bird, Cookie Monster even Grover, but none of those characters hold a candle to Elmo. I'm sure Ryan will soon be inducted into the Elmo fan club, and at that point I might as well paint my house red and wave the white flag.

No punishment harsh enough

Toilet training is hard, there's no argument about that. We are introducing Sophia to the potty and she thinks the whole purpose of the toilet is to say bye-bye to the water as it flushes. She'll sit on it for a bit, get up and says, "Bye-bye pee-pee," with no actual pee-pee in the potty.

It's frustration, yes, but she's only 1 so I'm just glad she's sitting on the potty. So, I was shocked after reading a recent Associated Press article about an 18-year-old man who was sentenced to life in prison for killing girlfriend's 1-year-old over toilet training frustration.

According to the article, "A judge has sentenced a teenager to life in prison for killing an 1-year-old boy by repeatedly swinging him against a wall because he was frustrated with the child's toilet training." Authorities said the man, the mother's boyfriend, repeatedly slammed the boy against the wall when he became frustrated while trying to toilet train him. The impact left drywall stuck to the boy's head and cracked a wooden door.

I am completely speechless. Violence against the innocent is inexcusable. As far as I'm concerned there isn't a harsh enough punishment for this man.