Greenleigh is Three! {Glittery Giveaway!}

April 23, 2012 By 211 Comments

It’s been such a crazy, whirlwind of a weekend I didn’t even have a chance to post yesterday in honor of Greenleigh’s 3rd birthday.  I don’t know who gets more excited about her birthday – her or me – but this year she certainly knew it was her birthday (and still thinks it’s her birthday today).  

To celebrate, I decided that we should do everything that she loves to do.  We went to her gym class in the morning, then to brunch on the beach, took a brief dip in the ocean, then headed out to see the ponies, but they were flooded so we rode the miniature trains instead.  When the trains closed we headed to the playground.  I needed a nap, but she was having a ball.   I still owe her some ponies though and she’s not going to let me forget it.  Maybe this coming weekend.

I feel like I often get overwhelmed by the toddler years, but these are the days that I want to remember.  These are the days that I will miss one day when she’s grown up.

Three generations on the beach, well, four, but I'm behind the camera. The clouds look bad, but it ended up being a pretty nice day.

Not as cool as ponies, but riding the miniature trains was fun.

Playground time!

So like usual, I feel the need to celebrate a little longer.  As if 3 full days of birthday celebration wasn’t enough…I need more.  So let’s have a glittery, birthday celebration right here, shall we?  In honor of Greenleigh’s birthday I’m giving away a pendant in her favorite color – Purple.  One lucky reader will win this beautiful all natural Tanzanite, Amethyst, and White Topaz Pendant in Sterling Silver is valued at $279 (sale $199, but it’s sold out).It was so pretty, I actually picked up one for myself.  I hope to pass my necklace down to Greenleigh one day, but you are free to do whatever you wish with yours!  Just fill out the rafflecopter form for your chance to win.  If you are intimidated by the rafflecopter form (like I used to be)…just try it, you might like it.

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3 Years Ago Today I Got a Phone Call…

April 21, 2012 By 8 Comments

It went something like this -

Nurse:  Hi, is this Jennifer?

Me: Yes.

Nurse: Hi, this is Nurse So-and-So down at the hospital.  Are you still pregnant?

Me: Yes.

Nurse: Really?

Me: Yes.

Nurse:  Okay, well you need to come in and have that baby now.  I haven’t talked to someone as pregnant as you are in a long time.

Me: Um okay, but I’m at work and I’m at least 1-2 hours away, can I just finish the day and then come tonight?  I mean, I feel fine and everything.

Nurse:  No, you need to come in now.

Me:  Okay, well do I have time to run home and shower?  I thought I had more time… (you know, because I hadn’t had 40 weeks + 10 days to prepare or anything)

Nurse:  Not really.  You are really pregnant and we are filling the beds for tonight.  I’ve never heard of anyone who doesn’t want to come to the hospital when they are 10 days overdue.  This is a first.

In the end, I grudgingly agreed to go into the hospital to be induced.  It’s not that I was against being induced, it’s just that I wasn’t one of those women posting on Facebook every 5 minutes, “OMG, I just need to have this baby already” when they are only 32 weeks pregnant.  I was very happy pregnant.  I wasn’t uncomfortable or in any rush.  I was the woman who skated in and out of her 40 week appointment without uttering a word about inductions or when the baby would be born.

The urgency in the nurse’s voice freaked me out a bit.  I was scared terrified at the mere idea of child birth, let alone the idea that I was about to experience it personally in the next day or so.  All the classes we had taken, the books we had read, and friends we had spoken to, couldn’t calm my fears.  I’m not exactly good with the unknown.  And then I was going to have to actually raise the child…I wasn’t sure I could do it.

Three years later, I look back and smile.  What an amazing 3 years it has been.

2009 - Just born and a little unsure of her new surroundings.

2009 - Bath time! Two months old.

2010 - Valentine's Day at 10 months old.

2010 - Fourth of July at 15 months old.

2010- Hitting the beach at 17 months old.

2011 - Just under 2 years old.

January 2011

 

August 2011 - Ready for water day at school!

February 2012

2012 - Last weekend, being silly at Disney.

 

 

 

 

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Lazy Weekend Mornings

March 18, 2012 By 3 Comments

Our weekends are busy, so it’s pretty rare that we get to lounge around in our jammies.  Lucky for us, we had a pretty quiet weekend so I was able to get some pictures of the girls hanging out in Greenleigh’s crib.  Greenleigh just loves when I bring Hazeline to visit her in the mornings.  And yes, you read that right, my nearly 3 year old is still in a crib and I plan to keep it that way until she wants a big girl bed.  Hasn’t happened yet, so she’s staying there. This picture actually started out pretty harmless, but when Greenleigh wouldn’t let go, Hazeline freaked out.  That look of fear is pretty constant for Hazeline when Greenleigh is around.We read some books…We ate some books…Hazeline is out of focus here, but check out that tantrum!I finally got a picture of her teeth (well, 2 of the 4 of them).

We had a great time playing with stuffed animals, reading, singing songs, and enjoying each others company.  I’m glad to have had this lazy morning and a few pictures from it.  Sometimes it’s nice to have nothing to do.

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Changing of the Guard

March 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

As I explained earlier this week, I’m not great with change.  Of any kind really, let alone change that affects me and my family on a day-to-day basis.  So imagine my dismay when Greenleigh’s teacher pulled me aside last week to let me know that she had given her 2 weeks notice.  She had found another job with great pay and benefits, and while I’m happy for her, I was a little sad for us.  And my heart sank even further when I arrived to pick the girls on Monday afternoon and found that she had not stayed for the entire two weeks.

Dramatic much?  Maybe, but it’s hard to find a childcare provider that you trust and that you feel is going to take the time to really get to know your child and teach them something, not just let them run around the classroom like banshees.  Because, the latter is far easier to do than the former.  It’s difficult to find someone who will give it 100%, and I thought we had finally found that.

This particular teacher started at the daycare a little over two years ago, and despite a rocky start, we had really grown to love her.  She began working in the toddler room when Greenleigh was just shy of a year, and stayed with Greenleigh until she was 18 months.  A while back, she took over the 2 1/2 year room, and became Greenleigh’s teacher again.  I loved the organization and structure she brought to her classroom.  When I dropped Greenleigh off in the mornings, the teacher always had something going on – storytime, circle time, songs, or a craft.   She would send me pictures of Greenleigh during the day, call or text me with updates, and who could forget that she pretty much single-handedly potty trained Greenleigh.

The situation got even harder yesterday when Greenleigh started to ask for her.  Of course, this isn’t the first teacher to leave her school, but it is the first one that she’s noticed.  You might remember that her teacher was often the best part of her day, so she’s not very accepting of the fact that her teacher isn’t going to be there anymore.  I’ve tried to explain it the best way that I can and reassure her that we will have her teacher over soon (she babysits for us occasionally), but she can’t quite wrap her brain around her.  Finality is a hard thing to explain to a little kid.  It felt very much like that scene in Bambi.  And as a mother I’m sad because my little girl is sad.

This morning when I dropped Greenleigh off in her classroom, children’s music was blaring and the kids were running around like banshees.  The order and organization were gone.  No group activities, crafts, or anything like it.  I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s had two accidents in the last two days that the teacher has been gone, after being accident free for nearly a month.  I know it’s temporary, until they can find another teacher at least, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the quality of her care right now.

Why do the good ones always have to be the ones to leave?

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I Drove the Getaway Car

March 2, 2012 By 10 Comments

When I picked the girls up from daycare on Wednesday I was running super late.  I’m supposed to get there by 6:30pm, or I have to pay $5 for every 5 minute increment after 6:30.  I pulled into the parking lot at 6:31 and probably didn’t get the car parked and walk in to the daycare until 6:33.  I was prepared to pay the fee, because I was late and I know their policy, but when I walked in no one said anything.  Maybe they didn’t know it was 3 minutes after?  Or maybe they were just being nice?  I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to get the heck out of there before someone said something.  I quickly gathered the girls and all of their stuff and scooted out the door.  Mission accomplished – No $5 fee!  I hurried to get the girls into the car and we drove home.

As I parked my car, Erajh came out of the house to help me with the kids.  Greenleigh got out of the car and I noticed that she had a small rectangular item down her pants, towards her hip.  Erajh noticed it right away, and knew exactly what it was.

“Why did you let her steal that?”, he asked.  I think this is where he figured out that I had no idea what he was talking about, so he elaborated, “That’s the princess cell phone down her pants.  I stopped her from taking it yesterday, why did you let her take it today?”

And at that point, I had a Modern Family moment and burst out laughing.  At two years old, she stuffed a toy cell phone down her pants and stole it from her daycare.  I would buy this child any toy that she wanted, but no, she’d rather steal.  Clearly, she’s headed for a life of crime.  She had pulled one over on me.  She knew I wasn’t paying enough attention to stop her and she got away with it.  And I had driven her getaway car.

Her actions were definitely intentional too, because when she saw Erajh’s reaction and realized what we were talking about, she started to run.  Like on the show Cops.  Erajh would go to the left side of the car and Greenleigh would run around to the right side, where I was waiting for her.   She then would pivot on one foot and make a complete 180 like a great running back going back toward Erajh.  This went on for about 4 minutes.  Fortunately there was no fence to scale, because I have no doubt she would have climbed one if given the chance.  We eventually had to tackle her and pull the phone from her pants, Cops style.

Then came the hard part – putting on the upset, disappointed mommy face.  I mean really, it was hilarious.  And the fact that she put the phone exactly where a pocket would be, was just adorable.  But stealing is wrong and you have to teach kids that some things aren’t theirs.  So in front of our house, while being held (in a very similar manner to the suspects on the show Cops) we explained what she had done and why it was bad.

So here’s where I need some mommy advice.  The original plan was that she was going to have to return the phone to the daycare the next day and say she was sorry, but it didn’t quite work out that way.  I forgot, and just noticed that it’s still in our house tonight.  A bit of a mommy fail on my part.  Then I started to wonder – Should I even return it at all?  I hardly think they noticed and it did spend a good amount of time down her pants.  I’m not sure I would want her playing with a toy that spent anytime at all down another kid’s pants, but then again, I’m sure she has touched things that have been worse places.  And I’m almost positive that if I told the school what happened, they would laugh and tell me not to worry about it.  But, it’s not ours and there’s a lesson for her to learn here…right?

What’s the parenting protocol here?  Clorox it and return it or forget it and move on?  Or do I need to buy a new toy to give to the daycare to replace it?  What would you do?

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Living With a Peanut Allergy

February 21, 2012 By 9 Comments

It’s a good thing Erajh and I aren’t hopeless romantics who celebrate Valentine’s Day in a big way, because this year all those plans would have been pushed aside to spend the night in the pediatricians’ office during emergency hours.  It was about 6:35 last Tuesday night when Erajh caught Greenleigh with a Butterfinger candy bar.  Of course, I don’t mind Greenleigh having a little candy every now and again, except Greenleigh is highly allergic to peanuts.  She was diagnosed with a peanut allergy at 15 months when a parent at daycare brought in a “fun” peanut snack for the kids to share.  Just in case you have never seen an allergic reaction, this is what it can look like (and no, our carseat straps are never that loose, my husband was trying to move them for the picture).

July 2010

Poor baby.  It took about 4 days for her go back to normal after that episode.

Greenleigh’s allergy is a bit more complicated because she has asthma.  On a normal day, Greenleigh can have problems breathing and an allergic reaction can make it so much worse.  Dangerously so.  In fact, one of the doctors in the ER told us that the second encounter with peanuts can often be worse than the first.  Since the first occurrence in July 2010, we’ve been aware of the situation and carried an EpiPen.  I’ve read labels, intercepted goodie bags from well intentioned hosts at birthday parties, and let daycare know that under no circumstances should she have anything peanut based.

And everything was fine…until last Tuesday night.

The candy bar had come out of her Valentine’s Day goodie bag from daycare, and although I normally intercept and inspect her goodie bags for peanut based contraband, for some reason I didn’t this time.  I suppose I was still getting over the plague, and off my game.  Plus, everyone at daycare knows she can’t have peanuts or anything with peanuts in it.  There’s no way to tell how much of the candy bar she ate, but from the huge mess on the couch, it appeared most of the candy bar was still intact.

Denial set in right away.  ”She probably didn’t eat any.  She’ll be fine”.  Then she started to rub her eyes.  She was probably tired I thought.  We just needed to get through dinner and everything would be okay.  She was nibbling on a banana when the repetitious sneezing began.  No, no, no this can’t be happening I thought.  ”Just eat your banana, Honey” I said struggling with the idea that we were going through this yet again.  This can’t be happening, I thought.  It’s been over 18 months since her last reaction. I was hoping she would have outgrown it by this point.  Apparently not.  When she started itching her throat, I knew we were in trouble and called the pediatrician’s office.

The reaction spiraled out of control from there – her nose began to run like a faucet, red splotches appeared on her face, and her breathing became labored.  I didn’t know it at the time, Greenleigh’s tongue was swelling, which was making it impossible for her to eat that banana that I was so desperately trying to get her to eat.  This was also around the time that she started to panic.  Struggling to keep her (and myself) calm, we headed to the pediatricians office for emergency hours.  We were whisked in right away, Greenleigh was put on the nebulizer for a breathing treatment and lots of Benadryl was given.  I held them off from giving the epinephrine because she was responding so well, and I knew if they gave it, we would be off to the ER for monitoring.

It’s fair to say that she hadn’t outgrown the allergy.  Far from it.

Valentine's Day 2012

So I guess you could say that although we had no big plans, our Valentine’s Day didn’t really go as planned.  On a positive note, Greenleigh did fully recover in about 2-3 days.

If you had told me that I would have had a child with a peanut allergy, I never would have believed you.  I love peanut butter.  Almost in an unnatural kind of way.  And yet my child is allergic.  How can this be?  The fact that she may never know the simple deliciousness that is peanut butter sandwich, pains me to a certain extent.  But it really isn’t all that rare.  The number of kids with peanut allergies is growing at an alarming rate and no one can pinpoint the exact reason.  One source I found said the number of kids with peanut allergies nearly tripled from 1997 to 2008.  And as much as I wished and hoped in that moment that she had outgrown her allergy to peanuts, apparently it’s one of the allergies that tends to stick with you throughout life.  So much for that.

Now comes the hard part – We need to teach Greenleigh how to be her own advocate.  We are teaching her to say, “Peanuts make me sick” and teach her what foods have peanuts in them, but since she hasn’t had these foods before, it’s really hard to explain.  After all, she wasn’t trying to eat the Butterfinger because she knew it was tasty, she just knew it was candy in her goodie bag.  I guess we have a long road ahead.

Do you have a child with allergies?  How do you teach them to be their own advocate, especially at such a young age?

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Twisting the Knife

February 6, 2012 By 6 Comments

[My daughter] just launched into yet another tirade about all the deprivation she faces with having a working mom.  Wow, talk about twisting the knife a little more!

Facebook Friend’s Status Update

When I saw this status update, I thought to myself, “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about that for a while.”    My friend’s daughter is 7 years old, and with Greenleigh being only 2 right now, I have a few years before my being at work becomes a “problem” for her.  Right now, she doesn’t know any better.  As far as she’s concerned, all kids go to daycare from 9am – 6pm.  My girls don’t know that other kids’ parents stay home with them during the day or meet them at the end of a half day at preschool with a snack.

But it won’t always be that way, and I know it.  One day I will probably hear a very similar tirade.  I’m bracing myself for that day.

Recently, I’ve started rocking Greenleigh before bed.  I used to rock her when she was a baby, but stopped when she was around 5 months old.  I don’t know exactly why I started rocking her again, but she loves it, so we’ve been doing it for about three weeks now.  She’s a little big for it, but it gives us special time for just the two of us to talk.  No Dora.  No Mickey Mouse.  Just us.  We talk about the things she did that day and the stuff that is scheduled for the next day.  We sing songs.  We are silly.  Overall, it’s a pretty good time.

About two weeks ago, I started asking her what her favorite part of the day was.  I didn’t know if she knew what “favorite” meant, but Dora ends every episode like that, so I figured I would see if she knew what it meant.  When I asked her, she thought for a very long time and then responded with her gym teacher’s name.  We had been to gym class that day, so it made sense.  From that point on, I started asking her what her favorite part of each day was and received a variety of answers – the slide, the swings, her teacher at daycare, her friends.

Then one day, I thought to myself – Wait.  Why is the slide her favorite thing?  What about me?  Surely, I must beat out the slide.  I have to beat the slide.  I’m way, way cooler than that damn slide.  Just think of all the fun stuff we do together.  When Greenleigh was sick last month, who took care of her?  Not the slide.  That was all me.  And yes, her teacher is awesome, but hello, who covers her back up with blankets at 4am?  Not her teacher.

I decided that I was probably just such a constant figure in her life that she didn’t think of me as her favorite thing.  So I decided to suggest it.  A few days later, as we were rocking and recapping her day, I asked her what her favorite part of the whole day was.  She seemed to go back and forth between the slide and her best friend at daycare.  I looked at her and said, “What about Mommy?  Is mommy your favorite part of the day?”  To which she responded, “No.”  My heart broke a little.

In a completely unintentional way, my toddler twisted the knife.  I couldn’t help but wonder, if I didn’t work, would I be her favorite part of the day?  If we went to the park Monday – Friday, instead of just on the weekend, would I be her favorite part of the day then?  Or if we did crafts 7 days a week, instead of just 2?  Would I be her favorite then?

My toddler had clearly hurt my feelings.  Unfortunately, it won’t be the last time it happens.

I know my little girls love me.  I know they enjoy spending time with me.  Shame on me for asking a question I didn’t already know the answer to.  As an attorney, I should know better.  When it comes to her favorite things, she thinks about the stuff she sees on a daily basis, most of which is at daycare.  Sad but true.

Greenleigh is 2 years old and there are things that she just doesn’t understand yet.  One day she will understand that due to her asthma most insurance companies won’t cover her unless it is on a group plan (like the kind that you get at work).  And one day she’ll understand that the money I earn allows us to go so many fun places, we wouldn’t be able to go otherwise.  And one day I’ll explain student loan payments and the importance of education.  But that won’t be for years (maybe decades?).   Maybe one day when she is old enough to understand those things, I will be her favorite part of the day.  Because both Greenleigh and Hazeline are my favorite part of the day.  One day they will know and understand.  One day I’ll beat that damn slide.

Life lesson learned – Apparently, a 2 year old can twist the knife just as well as a 7 year old.

 

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Adventures in Potty Training: A Week in Review

January 29, 2012 By 5 Comments

Greenleigh’s daycare teacher has been after me to put her in underwear for a while, but I just wasn’t ready.  I mean, it should be about her being ready, right?  But what about me?  What if I don’t want to clean up the messes?  What if I’m not ready for her to grow up?

After a heated debate last Sunday night Erajh said that he was on her teacher’s side – he thought she should be in underwear.  It was time to rip off the band-aid.  It should be noted that by the time I get the girls up and ready in the morning, Erajh is long gone.  In fact, he’s not even in our same county by the time they wake up.  No threat of having to stop everything and be late to work to clean up messes, no threat of her peeing on his clothes as he carries her down the stairs, and no threat of her peeing or pooping in his car on the way to school.  Sure, this was an easy executive decision for him to make.  Reluctantly, I agreed to give it a try.  Greenleigh has been in Pull-Ups for 6 months, and while she initially made great progress, she had become lazy and knew she could just use it as a diaper instead.

So Monday morning I bit the bullet and put her in panties.  She seemed curious, but not really all that excited when I put them on her.  Completely out of my mind nervous doesn’t even begin to explain how I felt while Greenleigh drank her milk and sat on my side of the bed (I tried to get her to move to Erajh’s side, since it was his idea and all, but she’s a creature of habit).  I think I must have said, “Are you absolutely sure that you don’t have to go to the bathroom right now?” a hundred times.  ”Potty?”, “Bathroom?”, “Are you sure?” are the phrases that filled the next 20 minutes.  Forget the fact that she had just gone.  I was sure she needed to go again.

Luckily, we made it to school without incident, but I did learn a valuable lesson – don’t ask a toddler if they need to go to the bathroom just as you finish buckling them into their carseat.  They will undoubtedly say yes, causing you to have to unpack the entire car, only for them to get inside and giggle at you while not going to the bathroom.  My mistake.  Next time, we’re just going and they can worry about it at daycare, if she really even has to go.

As I dropped her off at school that morning (with a back pack filled with no less than 7 pairs of underwear, 3 spare outfits, and 4 Pull-Ups) I gave the teacher a list of scenarios where she should just abandon ship and put her back in Pull-Ups.  I mean, I wasn’t really all that attached to the underwear plan to begin with.  One thing that was clear from that conversation – the teacher was not going to put her back in Pull-Ups.  I wished her the best and left, only to text her and check up a few hours later.  The reply message was vague, so it was clear I was going to need to wait until 6pm for the full details.

When I picked her up that day, the teacher told me that Greenleigh had 3 accidents that day.  Hmmm…that was better than I thought she would do.  Until she then had 3 more at home…2 of which were at the dinner table.  Yikes.  Internally, I reminisced about how convenient Pull-Ups are and contemplated going back.  I mean, she could technically wear them through college, right?  No harm in that.  I rationalized that as a perfectly fine option as I was changing Greenleigh into her pajamas, only for Greenleigh to look at me and say, “Panties?  Tomorrow?”.  What?  ”You mean after 6 accidents, you want to try this again Greenleigh?”  She nodded and smiled.  She was hooked.

The next morning as I took her out of bed, she made a mad dash for her panties.  She sleeps for about 11-12 hours at night, so I had decided to keep her in Pull-Ups for naps and nighttime, but surprisingly she woke up dry.  We got ready without incident and were on our way to school in no time.  I’ll admit, I sped up the morning routine a bit this week.  Hey, it was the teacher’s idea, remember?  I’d like most of the accidents to be on her watch.

The next 4 days Greenleigh did remarkably well with just  one accident each day, and woke up dry each morning.  It was also over these 4 days that I learned that I’m not cool anymore.  Remember that fun song and dance I made up 6 months ago to make potty training fun?  Yeah, well, she’s over it.  So much so, that when she is about to go to the bathroom, she waves her finger at me and says, “No, woot woot potty.”  Only after I agree, will she actually go.  I thought my song was fun.  Apparently not.  For the record, it didn’t have the word “woot” in it once, let alone twice, but apparently that’s what she took from it.  As long as I promise not to sing it, she’ll go.  I guess it’s really a good thing that I never tried out for Idol, if my nearly 3 year old is begging me not to sing.  Better yet, she’s hinging her bodily functions on me not singing.

The 5 days at school passed all to quickly, and soon it was the weekend where I [gulp] had to clean up the messes myself.  Pull-Ups sounded so good.  No, no, I said to myself, I’m going to give this a try.  The first 5 days had gone remarkably well, said my inner pep talk.  I needed to give it a try.  Problem was, we couldn’t just sit at home and potty train all weekend.  We had a baby shower, gym class, errands to run, and maybe we would eat out once or twice.

Even with my nerves rattled a little about being all on my own (seriously, where was her teacher now?), Saturday went swimmingly well.  We must have gone to the bathroom 5 times in the span of 2 hours at the baby shower, but no accidents.  I did learn that it feels like an eternity to wait for someone else to go to the bathroom when you have a toddler who needs to go.  I swear what was probably 4 minutes, felt like 20 as we waited for the person in front of us to go.  But we made it through.

Today was the true test though.  We had to get through gym class.  Would she make it through?  I would just die if she peed on the floor there.  I know she wouldn’t be the first, but I just didn’t want it to be my kid that did it.  Greenleigh needs to go to the bathroom about once an hour.  By the time we got her up and ready, out the door, and to class 35 minutes away, she was going to have to go again.  But we were late.  There was no time to go.  We were going to have to make it to free play time, which meant she was going to have to be accident free for 15 minutes through circle time.  We were really pushing the limits.  I was freaking out.  Mainly because she wanted to sit in my lap and I didn’t have a change of clothes if she peed on me.  A chorus of, “please don’t pee on me, please don’t pee on me, please don’t pee on me” played in my head.  Oh yeah, and I was nervous for her, too.  Thank goodness we made it.  We got her to the bathroom with plenty of time and I finally started to breathe again.  Crisis averted.

The rest of the day went even better.  We made it through brunch, trips to 2 separate Best Buys (to cash in on that warrant we bought and replace her portable DVD player that she dropped one to many times), and a variety of other errands.  I may send a mean letter to Best Buy since they seem to find it hilarious to make the bathrooms as far away as possible (I’m convinced that whoever designed that store never potty trained a toddler), but we made it through the day accident free.  Scratch that, we made it through the weekend accident free.  How cool is that?  Well technically she hasn’t pooped in 2 days, which probably accounts for the lack of accidents, but I’ll take it.  She’ll poop eventually, right?  Hazeline attempted to make up for short comings in that arena though, so I suppose it all evens out.  The process is obviously far from “done”, but we had a great first week.

So these are the things I learned over the last 7 days:

  • I underestimate how smart my child is.
  • I am uncool, and so are my songs.
  • My child might not have go to college in Pull-Ups…she might go with her pacifier, but not Pull-Ups.
  • My husband is sometimes right.
  • My child will do just about anything for a cookie.  And let me tell you, we have gone through a TON of cookies this week.

 

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Houston, we have a problem…

January 6, 2012 By 11 Comments

A few months ago as we were on our way to daycare, Greenleigh was walking out of the house and dropped her backpack.  She looked at the backpack on the ground and, without missing a beat, said “Oh, s&*t!”.  She then picked up the backpack and continued to walk towards the car as if nothing had happened.  I, on the other hand, had to almost physically pick my jaw up off the ground.  Where had she learned that?  Oh, right…me.  But when did she become a parrot?  What happened to my little baby who couldn’t talk, let alone repeat a phrase?  Apparently, I missed the day where she started to completely understand what I’m saying and mimic me correctly.  I mean, give her points for using it properly in the situation, but that’s got to stop.  Yesterday.

Over the next few weeks, we tried to correct Greenleigh every time she used the dreaded “s” word (no other new words arrived in her vocabulary after that, thank goodness).  Each time she would use it, we would say, “Yes, Greenleigh, that’s your shirt,” or “Yeah, what pretty shoes you have on Greenleigh.”  She said the s word and we said “shirt”.  She wasn’t buying it, but I figured if we were consistent, the dreaded word would go away.  Through this process we had a few embarrassing situations arise where she decided to use her new word in public, but other than the side-eye we received from a babysitter, it went unnoticed.  The word disappeared and we felt victorious.

Until Christmas.

After months of watching our words at home, the “s” word reappeared while we were at Erajh’s parents house on Christmas Day.  Seriously?  Of all the days.  We then repeated the process of convincing her that she was actually trying to say “shoot”.  Problem is, Greenleigh thinks she’s funny.  She also thinks the word “s&*t” is hilarious.  We started using time out but it doesn’t seem to bother her.  In fact, when you ask her why she had to go to time out, she says “oh, s&*t!” and erupts in giggle fits.  We are being stern about it, but no luck so far.  Perhaps we are paying too much attention to the bad behavior?

We figured there was no chance this was going to go unnoticed by her teachers at daycare.  If it came up, I had plans to say something to the effect of, “Oh really, she never does that at home.” Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have done that, but I might have acted surprised.  Instead, Erajh ratted us out and told them the whole story.  According to them, she never says it there.  What?  We just ratted ourselves out for no reason.

I never claimed to be stellar at this parenting thing.

Anyone ever have a situation like this?  How did you handle it?  Help, please!

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Hello 2012!

January 1, 2012 By 3 Comments

After weeks of wondering what we were going to do with an infant and toddler on New Years Eve, we decided to attempt a party at a friend’s house.  We knew it could be a disaster, but also knew that there would be other kids there, so we hoped for the best.  Turns out, we were lucky – Hazeline fell asleep in the car on the way to the party and I was able to put her in the pack n’ play when we got there, which left us with only one child to run around after.  The question was, how long would Greenleigh make it?  Would she tantrum in the new year?

As luck would have it, Greenleigh had a fabulous time.  She had a dance off in the backyard with another little girl, sang ’till she nearly lost her voice, and enjoyed way too much good food.  As the ball dropped and we all started to count down to the new year, she was beaming.  It was also at this point that I realized the “counting down” to something confuses her, and she only knows how to count up.  As we counted 5-4-3-2… she struggled to correct us by counting 5-6-7-8…  It wasn’t all perfect, but it was as close as it gets for a 2-year-old at a very late hour.  She even slept in until almost 11am this morning!

Hopefully this luck is just a sign of great things to come.  Happy 2012 everyone!

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