I see London I see France...someone's wearing underpants

Yes, it's true suddenly and with no pressure or prompting from me, Nicole has decided to make her attempt at potty training. She started with wanting to wear big girl underpants a few weeks ago. A couple of puddles and rug cleanings later and she finally figured out she should pee in the toilet accompanied by the trusty Elmo themed seat. She has a whole routine. She gets her step stool in the bathroom, takes it into the hallway, puts on the light and brings the step stool back to the bathroom and puts in her Elmo seat into the big seat. She then proceeds to get naked. I don't know why this is a necessary step. Aimee needed to do this too, so perhaps it's part of the toddler mindset that naked = peeing in the toilet. Whatever the need, I am not questioning it since it seems to be working.

Our reward of course is M&Ms. I tried a sticker chart with Aimee and she was not impressed so of course I went all out with M&Ms and it worked like a charm. Now Nicole must have had some memory of this or perhaps it was her sisters questions of rewards for deposits in the toilet met with the yummy little treat of chocolate. Whatever the reason, M&Ms are the chosen reward for successful potty trips and my itty bitty Nicole has probably eaten her weight in them the past few days. Because just one M&M is not enough of a reward, we need at least 2 for peeps and 3 for poops. Again, not questioning just going with it.

So we have spent the past two days pretty much home bound. More because the weather has been so gross and humid but it did definately help with the successful potty usage. So much so that when the girls were next door visiting my parents, Nicole even christened their toilets with her little bum. My mother was so impressed she promised to take Nicole shopping tomorrow to pick out her favorite character decorated big girl underpants.

We are still in diapers/pull ups overnight, though this is more my issue because she would wear just her underpants but we have yet to get up in the AM with a dry diaper so I know we are not ready for that step. But in just three days we have made leaps and bounds into the potty training terrain. I will again pull the no help from me card in that I did in no way initiate this potty training but I sure as hell encouraged it when the interest was there. So here's to almost being out of diapers. Another $10 a week I can put in the bank instead of investing in Pampers, Huggies or Luvs. Though I am sure I will find another way of spending it instead of depositing it in the bank.

Bugs, bites and burns...oh my!

Well, it did finally happen. The summer arrived. True, it arrived a bit later than we all expected but maybe it will stick around until later September and give us an extension we've been looking for. Unfortunately with all the rain that came this late spring into early summer we have been dealing with a deluge of bug bites. I have tried to cover every square inch of my girls with a friendly, skintastic OFF! but there still manages to be a few bites here and there.

I was very upset a few weeks ago when from a walk from the house to the car on the way to daycare, I noticed a slight bite on Aimee's right knee. I put some hydro cortisone cream on it and sent her to daycare with some Benedryl just in case. When she arrived home 8 hours later, the little bite was the size of a half dollar, warm to the touch and all around swollen. I called the DR and asked what to do since this was all new to me. Apparently sometimes kids go from having a small reaction to a bigger reaction to bug bites and so long as there was no associated fever (which they said I would have to bring her in for immediately which scared me to death) just to apply the 1% hydro cortisone cream and give Benedryl to reduce the swelling. The poor kid was almost comatose for 24 hours from her every 6 hour dose of Benedryl. But it did work and that little pink liquid is my new best friend.

Also with the summer weather now here we have been to the beach even more than before and we are loving it. The low tide brings the warmer tidal pools that keeps Nicole entertained for house with pruned feet to add to it. She just has a blast sitting in the little pool while I have to shove the amount of germs floating around in the pool out of my mind. Last week however, while applying sunscreen to Aimee, I missed a spot. In my defense it wasn't a spot I had thought about and in future will be sure to get to it. You see after playing in the water, sand and surf, the bathing suit naturally rides up. Despite my efforts to slather that Coppertone SPF 50 in the pink bottle all over them, I missed just a sliver under the bathing suit that gets exposed when a wedgie is created. As an adult I need to remove the wedge ASAP but apparently this does not present itself as a discomfort to 4 year olds. Nicole has a swim diaper that stays in place well and keeps the bathing suit there too. But poor Aimee had a sliver of a burn on her derriere from my rookie mistake. So take note moms, once the kids are potty trained and no longer wearing the swim diapers, apply the sunscreen even to spots under the suit where it could ride up or shift to avoid this unpleasantness.

Sleeping Arrangements

The girls in the family (including me) seem to have developed a nice summer cold complete with sneezing, coughing and post nasal drip at night. I think it may also be a touch of allergies too as many symptoms disappear during the day but come back like gang busters at night. So as with any stage in the life of a child, we are having sleep issues.

First off Aimee. For some reason she just can't fall asleep as easily at night as she once did. She begs me to sit in her chair next to her bed until she falls asleep. I did do this for quite a while but I finally realized that if she wakes up at night in her slumber state does not see me sitting there as I was when she fell asleep, she calls for me at the 2AM hour. So I firmly give the speech of she is a big girl and doesn't need mom sitting next to her at night. The result is a 9PM fall asleep time. She has also recently decided that she no longer wanted her bed rail on. Since she got her big girl twin bed two years ago, she has had this rail to keep her into the bed at night when she would go perpendicular across the bed. But on Sunday night she just looked at me and said "I don't want this rail on it anymore" and that was it. I wasn't sure how we would eventually get rid of it so once again my parenting is more about following her lead than creating one on my own.

Now Nicole has had the post nasal drip cough. And as many of us realize with this cough is that it really only wakes you when you aren't fully asleep. So just about that time in slumber when you roll over to reposition or take a look at the clock, Nicole has started to wake up calling for me. Normally I would let her cry a bit and hope she would settle back down. Sometimes I will go in and check to make sure things are okay. But this latest cry is an all out "I need you cry" so I think that she actually wakes up a while before she starts to call for me and just can't get herself back to sleep. So I go in, take her from her little toddler bed and bring her into our bed. Magically the coughing stops. I don't know if it is from the incline of her head now safely resting on my arm or just the comfort of mommy's bed. But she snuggles in and goes to sleep until it's time to get up. I hate to say it but I don't mind too much. She snuggles and sleeps with me whereas anytime Aimee is in bed with me I get a kick or two that would wake the dead. Nicole on the other hand is so little and petite that she just burrows next to me and gives me a big smile, closes her eyes and sighs off to dreamland.

Next up, a new house. We are moving on September 5th to a new house and I am not sure how our arrangements are going to change. We are going to have 4 bedrooms and the master bedroom is a suite that is a bit of a walk from their rooms. So I am already having some angst about how to prepare them for the move, how the first few nights in a new house and bedroom will be. And I am already brushing away a few tears knowing that we are leaving a house so full of memories from my own childhood as well as from the first few years of their lives. Plus we're moving away from Nana and Papa. Granted we're only moving a mile and a half away and in doing so, we are allowing our favorite aunt and uncle (my brother and his wife also known as Freddy and Tee Tee) to move out of their current apartment and into this house to create their own memories and live next to Nana and Papa and hopefully have some kids of their own.

More sleeping arrangements to come....

In the blink of an eye

I know, it's been a while since I posted here last. I have been enjoying the wonderful summer weather with the girls and trying to unplug at night and do captivating things like read. Gasp! Work has also been crazy busy too and my usual 24 hours have been bumped up to 30 hours at least each week as I try to navigate my way through a very large project.

In amongst all the summer and work activities, a little thing happened right around July 26th. My "baby" turned 4. I can't believe it, 4 already. I have memories in my life from when I was 4, so it's crazy to me that we are doing things now that she will remember for a lifetime. Also amazing to me is the fact that just about 4 years ago I was sitting on the couch with a newborn baby on my lap, nursing away. That little baby looked like this:

And now I have a 4 year old that loves to talk endlessly to me every day. She ponders the big questions like "do I have to take a school bus to kindergarten?" and she loves with more of her being than I would have thought a little girl could. Here she is from a recent trip to the beach.

I can still see traces of that little baby in her smiling face here. Happy birthday little girl. A little bit late but you will realize that we Schaffers do things on our own standard of time. I love you!