Potty Training? Am I Crazy?!

Annie used the potty twice before bed last night, then all day today she's been diaperless (well, pantless, to be more accurate), and we haven't had a single accident yet. (A little off topic, and slighlty gross, but I had NO idea how much stench the diapers kept in from Annie's apparently rampant gassiness! Never noticed it 'til now . . . I'm constantly convinced I 'missed' a very messy accident, but so far it's all just been gas.) We've had "Fancy Nancy" sticker rewards (she calls it "Antsy Pantsy" stuff, which cracks me up everytime she asks to read one of her Nancy books), as well as some "Princess" gear (sticker earrings, barrettes and pony tail holders with fake, colored hair) as random 'prizes'. (There were a ton of cute dress up stuff in the dollar bins at Target that we've divided up into little prizes. Annie gets a sticker for every time she goes potty, and a prize for every three stickers. Probably excessive, I know, I was just so excited to give her the dress up stuff! (Turns out my kid is a bit of a prize-accruing-genius, 'cause she's managed to pee about 10 seperate times since 8AM this morning!) We also have Winnie the Pooh set up with his own potty right by hers. And by mine. There's been a lot of social time spent in the bathroom today. It's been odd.
Last night she got her first prize, the sticker earrings and hair stuff . . . we took pictures.






Oh great, Annie watched some "Land Before Time 2" earlier today, and is now scolding all her toys for biting like Chomper, all the while randomly coming up to me and saying, "Grrr, I eating you Mom," and biting down.

Edited to add: Annie proudly called me in to show off her latest 'accomplishment' in the toilet. Her first, um, solid accomplishment. "Yay!" I cried, "Good job Annie! You pooped in the potty!" "No," she responded, "I moved it into here. I pooped on my bed, then brought it into my potty."
I have laundry going now. And a bath. And I'm still throwing up a little in my mouth.

Edited again to add: When I asked Annie, "Baby, did you, um, pick it up and bring it into the potty?" She looked at me, her little face filled with disgust and looking at me like I'm crazy, responded, "No! I got a rag." I'm not 100% sure which rag she used, so I've pretty much rounded up every single washcloth, even all the still folded ones, out of the bathroom and hall, and they're all in the laundry right now.

Old School

Inspired by my friend Jessi's super cute baby pictures up on her blog, I got all motivated to stick cute pictures of Greg and I from our childhood's up here for all to enjoy.

Here's Star and I on Christmas Morning . . . have you ever seen two kids more thrilled for Christmas. I'd be just about that happy right now if someone could find me a Smurf Big Wheels, that rocks!

Gotta love the Easter hats . . . (Me and Star)

Star, Talina and I on what I'm assuming is Beans' (Talina's) birthday, since she's the one with the best slice of cake in this picture!

Me, Talina and Star. This was a Halloween picture, but people have asked my Mom if it was some kinda weird Christmas pageant type of thing . . .

Baby Star with the best big sister EVER!

Gotta love Lagoon! Star, me, Talina & my Mom rockin' the old fashioned looks.

Star and I happy to be holding our baby sister, April.

My parents with their feathery, feathery hair, holding their precious first born baby. Pretty much the highlight of their ENTIRE lives!

It was the '80s now, so my Dad's hair toned down a little. Dad, me, Mom & Star.

Gotta love my bangs! They make up like half the volume of my hair!

My Dad and I with a baby lion. We did some COOL vacations when I was a kid.

My Mom and I up camping.

This was at Christmas when I was year and a half old. I love this one, 'cause Annie made this face A LOT around this age.

Y'all just wish you had that perm!

Baby Hilary in yellow.

Baby Hilary in red.

Baby Hilary in white.

Baby Hilary in blue. Last one, I promise!

Me and Star. My Mom was a really talented seamstress, I would NEVER make dresses like this for my girls (mainly 'cause I have neither the ability, nor the patience!)

My Mom and I.

Now into the Greg pictures . . . these were supposed to be on top, so I didn't seem so egocentric, but I always forget that blogger loads photos from bottom to top!

Here's Greg's family before Andrea's arrival. LOVE K.C.'s hair!
James, K.C., Chris, Ruth and Greg. (In my favorite shirt ever! It looks like three sizes too big, and the collar ROCKS!)Greg, Andrea, James and Chris.

Greg has more hair at a few months old than me or my girls have ANY time in our first year!

Baby Greg. Love the pudge!

Possibly evil of me . . . but this picture makes me giggle everytime I see it. Sorry, honey.

Can you believe he was THAT blonde?!

How freakin' cute is that!?

This is probably one of my all time favorites. Such cute baby features!

James, Chris, Ruth, K.C. & Greg (again, so blonde!)

So adorable.

I think this is the oldest family picture I have of them up until Chris & Liz's wedding.
Greg, James, Andrea and Chris. How adorably '50s child sitcom star would Chris look if this picture was in B&W?

Greg and his older brother James. I love this one. How Greg and I ended up with two teeny tiny daughters who spend much of their babyhood around 2% on the charts has to be some kind of scientific mystery . . . we're both HUGE babies!

This is a Test, Only a Test . . .

. . . to see how technologically capable I am.  I am attempting to email a blog entry directly to my blog.  I expect this to really screw up the internet somehow, so my apologies if it all comes crashing down or something.  I'm gonna try other tricky-type things from my cell phone later!

You Can't Go Back . . .

This has been rolling around in my mind for awhile. Don't really know why, it just has.

Life seems to be a series of steps that bring us to (hopefully) somewhere wonderful and new, and even better than before.

But, I think we spend too much of our lives looking to that next step.

What single woman doesn't have moments of (or some who drown themselves in) "If only . . . " "When it happens . . . " "When I get there . . . " Now, I love being married to Greg. There is no single thing in my entire life that has turned out as well for me as marrying the man I did. But, there are times I think back and go, "Wow, I should've made more of my time when I was single." First off, everything was cheaper than. Vacations. Just pile 10 people into a couple cars, a single hotel room, and voila! Road tripping done right. And cheap. The first thing I noticed about vacationing once I was married was the only person I could split a hotel room with shares a bank account with me. Restaurants are another one. Getting married didn't mean by bill doubled, it practically tripled. I'm known to order off the kids menu, make meals out of appetizers, and I pretty much never order a drink. All the sudden instead of having a sweet boyfriend/fiancee who paid for me on these nights out, the entire tab was coming out of my checking account, and it included stuff like steak, and raspberry lemonade. Greg is not a cheap date. The freedom that comes from being single is not better than or worse than anything about marriage per se, it's just different, unique to that time in your life. And often I feel it is wasted, waiting for the next 'big step'.

I see these 'steps' all around me. Having kids, finishing school, having a 'real' job, buying a home. Each of these things (no matter the order they come in) really have life altering power, and amazing indescrible benefits, but with each one, something else is left behind. Maybe even for the better (the selflessness that comes with parenthood (or at least, hopefully, should) makes us shed an egocentric take on the world that, although not ideal for the long term, can be a lot of fun in the right time and place.)

I love being a homeowner, but there are some months when I see that mortgage payment leave our account, and I think, "If we were renting an apartment, a couple hundred of that could go straight into savings!" Now, I wouldn't want to go back to our two bedroom condo, but was I too anxious to move past it? And even if not, could I have made more with my time there?

I love my children. I think more than I can put into words. But there are parts of my life that were left behind, relegated to memories, that sometimes leave me with a little pang of, "The time I wasted . . ." It's going to be years and years and years before it's just me and my sweet husband again. Where our lives don't revolve around the needs of those less capable of taking care of themselves than we are. If I could go back in time, I would tell childless-Hilary, "Don't take this time for granted! Take another vacation, just you and Greg, before you have to start planning them around pregnancies and newborns! Go see a movie, go on more dates, more romantic outings! And sleep in! For goodness sakes, sleep in!!"

I try hard to live in the now, not 'wishing' my kids any older. Never thinking, "Oh, I can't wait 'til they're in school and I have some time to myself." (Well, almost never.) Greg and I were talking the other night, we're probably only going to have one, maybe two, other kids after Ellie. Possibly only one more time to have a newborn. That makes me sad to think of, only one more little person to be born, watch grow and learn. With Annie (and the screaming nightmare of colic), there were many times I just closed my eyes and willed it to be the next day, then the next, just to get through it. And then it was over, and nothing but a memory in a blink of an eye. I didn't make that mistake with Ellie. Despite the screaming, the not sleeping, the spitting up, I just let her be her, not wanting the time to go by any quicker than it already was. And my new baby is well on her way to be a year old, then a toddler, and I want to close my eyes and just will time to stand still, before this whole phase is over. Of course, as with all things, than she will be moved onto the next step of her life, which is amazing and wonderful and better day by day. You just can't ever go back, so might as well enjoy the 'now' as much as possible.

Preschool?!

It seems crazy, since I'm pretty sure Annie was just born like yesterday, but I've been obsessing about the idea of preschools. When do you start a kid in preschool? Do you do one year or two? Do kids really need it? Do some kids need it more than others? And for educational or social reasons? Big, established preschool with a set curriculum, or a cute little at home deal where they spend all day gluing pom poms onto popsicle sticks? Co-op preschool? How do you get in on one of those?!

I feel a little like a slacker, since the one person I really talked a ton about preschool with had a two year old son that they felt was speech delayed, so he was in a head start kinda preschool from 22 months on. But, if I understand it right, Annie at two and a half is probably too young to even attend most preschools (so why is it I'm already stressing about this?! Do you have to sign up ahead of time? Can you join in anytime, or is it 'term' or 'semester' based at all?! How is it I know NOTHING about preschools . . . were they supposed to give me a pamphlet about it or something when I left the hospital with my first born, 'cause I don't know how I'm just supposed to know all this on my own otherwise?!)

Where I'm at on this:
• Socially, especially, I think Annie would greatly benefit from a preschool of some sort. So far she mainly hangs out with me, or her aunts and uncles, and although she may be more mature than some, she's by far the youngest. But the most dominant. Annie could use a little three year old bully in her life, teach her life isn't always fair (or at the least, not incredibly Annie-leaning in it's fairness).
• But, if I just got in on some nice little play groups, that's a heck of a lot cheaper than preschool.

• Educationally, I think Annie would love mini-school. She's bright, inquisitive and loves to learn things, and I'm pretty sure she's convinced she's learned everything of use from me, and is ready to move onto some new and better teachers. I'm amazed at what kids can learn . . . pretty much anything you take the time to teach them and they have an interest in. I feel like at this particular time, I'm running outta ideas on stuff to teach her . . . what if there's whole areas of knowledge she could be amassing, that I'm just not thinking to teach her!?
• On the flipside, she's two and a half, she doesn't have to know everything right now . . . the kid already knows her shapes, dozens and dozens of animals, numbers, colors, letters and the sounds they make -- we could pretty much stop teaching her anything between now and kindergarten and she wouldn't be behind.

• I'm not exactly anxious to rework our new budget to fit preschool in, but what if it's worth it to Annie?

• She probably has to be potty trained first, huh? That terrifies me . . .

Anyway, random, I know, but it's just what's been on my mind lately . . . especially when I noticed signs up in not one, but TWO, neighbors yards calling for "Tuition Due" for their home ran schools.

Completely unrelated . . . it never ceases to amaze me how quickly babies heal. Ellie could have bonked her head into something leaving a nice red welt, and scratched at her eyelid with a too-long fingernail, making her look horrifically maimed, and by the time Greg comes home, all her battle scars are gone. But, why is it their little wounds have to look so exaggerated in the first place? Ellie just dropped a remote control on her own head (she's actually more coordinated and smarter than she sounds), and there's this nice big red mark across half her forehead making it look like a brick was dropped on her head. But it won't be there an hour from now. It's just weird to me. I hit my head on something a few weeks ago and it was tender and red (hidden under my hair though, fortunately) for like a week!

As I was driving the other day, I was listening in to Annie's phone conversation with her Aunt Talina:

"Hi, it's Annie." [pause]
"No. How are you?" A little annoyed she didn't get to ask the question first as per her usual phone script.
"I good, I just sitting here, in the car, with Mommy, Ellie and Baby White Bear Polar Bear."
My cell phone beeps.
Annie, kinda miffed sounded very annoyed, "Mine phone just beeped at me!"
I call from the front seat, "Oh Annie, that means the battery is dying . . ."
"Oh!" as she slams the phone shut and hangs up on Talina. I laughed. I had to call my sister later to explain the sudden dead air.

New Years in Pictures

My family is close. Like, ridiculously close. Despite our nearly trying to kill each other on a daily basis all through growing up, my sisters and I grew up to be the best of friends. Cody, even though we live 20+ minutes away now, comes at least once a week to play with Annie (I have the play-doh all over my kitchen floor right now to prove it.) My family also love games; card games, party games, memory games, board games, video games, drinking games (just kidding). And we will find any excuse to get together and play them. Holidays, birthdays, Saturdays, Sundays, days where people got off work a little early. Holidays are some of our favorites. My sisters and I were discussing this around New Years. Did any of us have plans to go hang out with friends? Nope. (Losers.) Sure we all thought about going to a friend's party, but all of us ended up right where we almost always do on holidays, together.
I think I just always assumed that all families got together on all holidays (Fourth of July, Memorial Day, National Aardvark Day), not just the major ones; and had deep seated traditions for each and everyone of those holidays. I was kinda shocked when I got married and had my first holiday freak out of "Which family are we going to get together with?!" and my husband stared at me like I was crazy and was like, "My parents go out with their friends, and I haven't seen my siblings on this holidays since we were 12." Oh. (As I was secretly thinking, "Cool! Now I only have to split up the 'big' holidays!" Then it kinda made me feel like a loser that it had never even crossed my mind to hang out with friends on the holiday, but I got over it, 'cause we had a new Cranium game to break in at my parents house.
All of the above rambling leads to this New Years Eve, where (now that I'm a grown up and all) for the first time I hosted the New Years bash at my own house. It was a success . . . as is measured by the fact we had about 5 times too much food, we were all up at midnight (minus Ellie and Jovanny, but hey, they're 7 months old), and we broke in a new game that involved Greg and Cody throwing small balls at each other from over their shoulders and catching them in tiny cups. And Greg trying to hum, "This is How You Remind Me." And me making the funniest joke in human history ever told about my grandfather. And Star yelling at Cody and Greg for not getting 'Monkey Wrench' from her obviously master sculpted clay. And as an added bonus, my adorable two year old stayed up and ridiculously happy 'til way past midnight. It was even a success after Annie nearly received a concussion from being clocked in the head with a Wii controller by an overly enthusiastic bowler. I'm not saying who. (Dad). I ate, I sang, I played games that are probably best reserved for very drunk people, and in my sober state still laughed until my stomach hurt. Is it any wonder I keep ending up at parties with these people year after year?!

We had to whip out the especially big card table . . .

Jovanny doing what most of us were thinking about doing around 10:45PM, before we got our second wind.

See, who knew playing "Five Crowns" could be so funny. Except for Talina, who apparently takes her discarding VERY seriously.

Annie and Cody in a heated game of "Guess Who?" She seriously kicks our trash. She's good.

Annie setting up for another round . . .

Around 11:30 the party dissolved into a giant pile of people watching the movie "Elf" and waiting for the countdown.

We woke Jovanny up at one point.

Annie and Talina pretending to sleep. This kid was so wired though, there was no chance of her falling asleep with everyone still there.

Annie apparently heard stories about the drunk drivers everyone worries about when they leave a New Years Eve party . . . someone needed to remind Annie we were perfectly safe (as was Baby Bear) since we hosted.
Shortly after this, we had the countdown, Annie ran around the room and kissed pretty much every single person, and then Annie and I went outside where she cried out, "Happy New Years!!" at the top of her little lungs. To which our neighbors waved and responded in kind. There were also more illegal fireworks over our town than I would've ever expected. Annie thought this was possibly even cooler than Santa Claus coming.

The next day, we were able to get together with Greg's brother and sister-in-law, who came into town, as well as their two boys, Connor and Nathan. These are our two girls only cousins. Annie and Connor are about 5 months apart (Annie's older), and Ellie is eight weeks older than Nathan. We don't get to see them all that often, since Chris is half way through law school at Notre Dame, and Indiana isn't anywhere near close enough for them to come for Sunday dinners.

Here's Annie showing off her new kitchen to Connor. What you don't see here are the several meltdowns my very tired two year old had during this exchange. Poor Connor couldn't do anything right, and kept just staring at Annie like, "What is wrong with her, she keeps spontaneously bursting into tears anytime I touch anything!"

Here's Ellie with her cousin counterpart. I love how Nathan is like, "Look at me, I'm the happy baby who loves, loves, loves being on my tummy, more than anything else in the entire world!" (his Mom informed me that isn't usually the case), and Ellie looks like she's pretty convinced she's the most picked on baby ever.

"Here Mom, the phone's for you."

Once off her stomach, and happily chewing stuff, Ellie was cool. Plus, she found a shared passion with her cousin, sticking stuff in their mouths.

"Look, we have the exact same hair style!"

They kinda look alike, don't they? You don't even really notice the 5 lb. weight difference between the two.

And lastly, I had to throw in this picture . . . this is my family watching Utah play in the bowl game tonight. Go Utes! Annie marched around the house singing, "Go Utah! Go Utes! Go you guys!" (And, see how thrilled Ellie is by the first quarter! She really seems to 'get' football. She's probably a prodigy.)

Tagged

Busca tagged me on her blog, and since I'm at a complete loss on how to do any kind of 'New Years' post, this seemed like a great idea:

i am: blogging, when I should be showering, because the two year old is playing with her kitchen, and the baby is napping, and it's 10AM.
i know: I'm gonna regret this later when I'm still unwashed this afternoon.
i want: my basement to be magically unpacked. By elves. Or helpful woodland creatures. Or by hired help, I don't really care, as long as the next time I go down there it's organized and there's no sign of cardboard boxes.
i have: lost the preferred parent distinction during the night from Annie. The last several nights, if she wakes up (um, when she wakes up is more accurate), we hear, "Daddy! Daddy! I need you!" Or, when she comes into our room, she walks around the bed, to the other side of the room, to her Daddy where she whimpers, "Daddy, I want you to pick me up."
i hate: sexual predators disguising themselves as 'business people.' That seems random, but I tried calling Toys R Us the other day to change an order, and when I dialed 888 instead of 800 (or vice versa) I was shocked to have some velvet-voiced tramp coo and moan all manner of suggestive dialogue. (OK, I'm an idiot, but my initial thought was, "This seems like a REALLY inappropriate 'on hold' commercial for hamburgers for a toy store hotline . . . did Carls Jr. hire Paris Hilton again? . . . oh, that's not about hamburgers! OH! [CLICK!]" If you're gonna peddle porn, fine, that's your prerogative . . . but if you're trying to 'catch' people who were trying to reach Disney websites, toy stores or doing random google searches, than it ain't business, it's predatory. And often aimed at children. And that's just wrong.
i miss: the holidays already. I feel like with the move I missed just 'basking' in the holiday goodness that is December.
i feel: pleased, but uncomfortable. Annie was done playing with her kitchen, so she came upstairs, dragging a blanket, pillow and baby bear, and curled up on my lap in front of the computer. It's a very crowded office chair now, but I love the cuddling.
i hear: Annie saying, "Actually Mom, I'd rather watch Dumbo," as she's staring at the Dumbo DVD sticking out of the side of my Mac. (She now uses the words "actually" and "definitely" whenever humanely possible.)
i smell: the stench of a poopy diaper escaping the plastic bag it was wrapped tightly in. I live a glamorous life. I'll be right back . . . I need to run out this trash!
i crave: one night of uninterrupted sleep.
i search: for the game Partini for as cheap as I bought it before Christmas for my sister . . . so far, no luck.
i love: when Greg has time off work. I love how we get to spend the whole day together smack dab in the middle of the week. Even if nothing gets done around the house. I wish he had today off.
i always: regret when I raise my voice to my toddler. I wish I had more patience some days and I wish she would sleep more and not be so grumpy.
i believe: family is the key to happiness.
i sing: all the time with Annie. Not well, and not around anyone else (well, Greg and Ellie), but all the time. All day long. I think this is why my daughter will end up earning her living as a troubadour, since she already spends her entire day, dancing around the house while narrating her life through song.
i write: to express myself, to record our history for my daughters, to amuse/entertain/enlighten/question/debate/engage people. To keep sane.
i lose: baby weight. Oh no, wait, that would only work if it was i wish i'd lose. Only two more months until I can't consider it baby weight anymore, and it's just extra weight I'm personally responsible for losing without getting to blame pregnancy. (Wait, is it 'nine months on-nine months off', or do I get a whole year? Either way, I need to start working harder on this.)
i win: Settlers of Catan each and every time I play it. Which is why I've retired from the game, undefeated.
i never: stick to my guns in the middle of the night when the kids want to cuddle/nurse to fall back asleep . . . at 3AM I'm in survival mode, whatever gets me back to sleep the quickest goes.
i listen: best when I shut up. And right now I'm listening to the sounds of paper rustling from the bathroom . . . I'll be right back, Annie's just unrolled pretty much an entire thing of paper towels all over the bathroom . . .
i am scared: of screwing up my kids.

Do We Need a Clone?

Annie has a favorite baby doll. Baby Bear. (Or Baby White Bear Polar Bear, if you're in a 'full name' kinda mood, which Annie has been lately.) Annie got him on her first Christmas and he sat happily on a shelf for nearly the next two years. Then she noticed him. They've been attached at the hip every since (to the detriment of poor Moo Moo, who hasn't seen the outside of our house in over a month . . . which makes me sad, I loved when her favorite baby was a stuffed cow.)


In the course of their travels Baby Bear gets filthy. Disgustingly dirty. Not in small part because Annie loves to throw him and make him 'fly' and he crashes to the floor wherever they are. I wash him on a bleach cycle in the wash as often as I can wrangle him away from my daughter. Than I withstand nearly two hours of tears, pouting, whining, whimpering and moodiness, until he comes out of the dryer, closer to clean than he's been since the last time. And I'm wondering how long he can hold up . . . he already has a small hole forming on his back.

So, I found a twin for Baby Bear online. Fortunately, he's a Ty Beanie Baby, so people actually hold onto, then sell, these things. I have the link for an exact clone of our current Baby Bear, minus some spaghetti sauce stains. And despite the first bear I found being $24.99 plus shipping, I came across a $5.49 bear, with $6 shipping. For twelve bucks, it seems worth it to me to get a 'back up' bear (or more accurately, another one to rotate with the current, dirtier, Baby Bear, so that I can give one a 'bath' without a major freakout on the part of my two year old.) Greg disagrees, saying that Annie is fine with the current Baby Bear, and should just wear him out 'til he's nothing more than a stuff-less bear skin. When he finally dies a natural death, Annie will learn to handle disappointment and move on with her life. Or, she moves onto a new toy, leaving Baby Bear to hang out with Moo Moo on the bed of forgotten baby dolls. Then I've wasted money for a spare for a doll she never uses. I'm not sure what I think.

In your opinion, is $12 worth a 'back up', or do we just let her run poor Baby Bear ragged until she outgrows him or he ends up looking much like my own tattered bear and blanket from my own childhood? (Rockin' the shredded look.)

Edited to add: Now Greg's leaning towards my way of thinking, but cautions I have to be careful to not let her know there are two of them, or she'll just want both of them all the time, negating my 'being able to wash one' thing; or she'll pick a favorite and ignore the other one anyway.