Happy Birthday Peanut!

My baby is three.

I will spare all of us the "how did that happen?" questions, but man, time sure does fly.  We all know I haven't been the best at updating this blog lately, but I can't ignore her birthday.  So much has been changing with her lately.

You may remember several months ago when I was blogging about her staying in her bed...and her horrendous tantrums (did I even blog about that?  I might have been too traumatized to put it down on paper...), and her overall unpleasantness...  However I am happy to say that for the past few months she has been down right lovely.  I am SO enjoying her lately.  She is freaking hysterical and she is such an amazing little girl that I am constantly laughing and loving her.

So...when I blogged about potty training I told you all that when she went on spring break, that was going to be it.  Hard core potty training...  Spring break was this week.  And she rocked it.  Starting last Saturday morning we drew the line.  All undies all the time (except for night time and rest time).  She was on board from the beginning.  And I am so happy to say that we are 90% there.  She is good with pee pees all the time.  Has had only one pee accident since we started and that was I think on Sunday.  Since then she has not only peed consistently all the time in the potty at home, but she has also successfully gone pee at the mall, at the grocery store, and at several of my clients this week.  So she's got it.  She even told me she had to go when coming home from somewhere in the car earlier and I told her she had to hold it until we got home and she did!  Poop on the other hand...  I would say we do about 1 in 4 poops in the potty.  The good news is that she DOES go in the potty.  She has done I think 3 successful poops in the potty.  But the rest?  In her undies.  So we are still a work in progress on that one, but we aren't going back.  I cancelled my diaper service and I took the changing table out of her room.  We are done.

And then last night, out of the blue, when it was bed time she opened the drawer to get a binky and she looked at me and said, "Mommy, do big girls use Binky's?"  I told her that they didn't.  She said, "Well then I don't need them either.  Let's throw them away!"  And she took all of her binkys out of the drawer and walked to the garbage can and threw them out.  Then she proceeded to go lay down and go to sleep.  Just that easy.  Who knew?

She is just getting SO big.  She gets herself dressed every day.  She picks out her own outfits.  When shopping she chooses what she will wear.  She wants to do it ALL herself.  Everything.  She doesn't seem to think she needs me for anything anymore.  But I am so proud of her.  Her brother would STILL prefer that I do everything for him, but her?  No.  She's completely self sufficient.  Or at least she would like to be.

She knows all her letters and all of her numbers.  She can color in the lines.  Because she has an older brother she is SO much more advanced than he ever was.  And in terms of speaking?  She can literally have a discussion with you about current events.  She can explain to me how she's feeling, why she is feeling that way, and explain to me why what I am doing is probably wrong.

Some of her favorite things right now:  Her brother.  They play together SO well and for hours on end. She adores her brother and he is her favorite person to play with.  And based on that, most of her other favorite things aren't the typical 3 year old girl faves.  She loves all things Super Heros.  She loves to play pretend ("Mommy, you are black Spiderman, and I am red Spiderman, and brother is Doc Ock...").  I am constantly having to ask her, "Who are you right now?"  And she will answer me with a "I'm a doggie...I'm a monster...I'm a T-Rex..."  All about playing pretend right now.  She still loves to draw and wants to do it constantly.  She's really big into reading books right now as well.  Mostly her brother's super hero books, but it doesn't really matter.  She still eats like a horse (god love her for that). In fact I started to list all her favorite foods, but there are far too many.  She still eats great.

She is still at her home Montessori daycare, but she knows that come summer time, she is going to go to "Brother's old school."  Also a Montessori, this is actually a real pre-school instead of a home daycare so it's a big step up from where she's been going since she was 3 months old.  She is SUPER excited to get there.  Everyday I hear, "Mommy are we going to my NEW school today?"  I haven't done her 3 year old well-baby check yet, so I don't know how tall or heavy she is, but she seems pretty average.  For the summer coming up, I bought her size 3T in pants and/or shorts, and 4T in shirts.  She wears a size 7 shoe (oh!  And she LOVES shoes...definitely gets that from her Gigi).

I could go on and on about her, but I must get to work.  I tried to upload some pictures of her from this morning in her "It's My Birthday" t-shirt but my iPhoto apparently doesn't like my camera right now.  *sigh*  So you'll have to make do with some pictures from Easter.  As you can see, potty training didn't stop for Easter!

Happy Birthday my baby girl.  I love you  more than I could ever express.  You are truly my sunshine.

Day in the Life. Friday April 6, 2012

• 5:42am: Alarm goes off for the first time. I actually get up a little after 6:00. Between that time and 8:15 (when we need to leave to get the kids to school on time) we are doing any number of things. Showering myself and getting myself ready. Getting both kids dressed and hair done. Breakfast. Making lunches and getting all school stuff ready for both kids. You all know the drill. It went pretty well on this day; perhaps because it was the last day of school before Spring Break for The Boy.
• 8:15am through 9:00am: Spent driving each to their respective schools and back home.
• 9:10-9:30am: Drive to an appointment with a client.
• 9:30-10:00am: Actually meet with said client but mostly just picked up all the paperwork I needed and left.
• 10:00am: Start *Operation Holy-Crap-I-Forgot-About-Easter* Seriously. I was completely shocked when my mom told me on Wednesday that this weekend was Easter. At this point I have no outfits for the kids, I have no plastic eggs, I have nothing to put inside those eggs, I don't have an easter basket, nor anything to put inside that...
• Back to 10:00am: Shopped in a little toy store near my client with ridiculously high prices and left with the entire contents of both kids easter baskets.
• 10:40am: Arrive back near home at local kids clothing store. Picked out super cute pink, orange and white polka dot dress for Peanut, and a somewhat matching orange plaid shirt for The Boy to wear with his jeans (he literally has nothing else that fits right now). Also got a little sweater for Peanut's so she doesn't freeze. And an "It's My Birthday" shirt for her because...guess what? Two weeks...
• 11:00am: Head to big box store with a bulls eye on the front. Purchase regular items needed at that store, two easter baskets, two sets of new crayons, two different types of little candies to put inside the plastic eggs, the grass for inside the basket... Oh and don't forget the little box of crap needed to dye the eggs with the kids later. Got everything on my list and left to drive home.
• 11:40am: Realize I forgot the effing plastic eggs. Got the stuff for inside of them, but not the eggs themselves. Call Mom. Gotta love Gigi, she'll get the eggs. And did I remember to get the vinegar to dye the eggs? No. No, I did not. Thank you Gigi.
• 11:45:am: Run into my house, unload junk from all the stores and briefly meet with my business partner (who's working at the house). Grab a cheese stick and run out the door because of my next appointment...
• 12:00pm: One hour with my shrink. Always feel a bit refreshed after that.
• 1:15pm: Back home to plan rest of day with my business partner (BP). Answer some texts and return a client phone call and plan to go and meet with them later that afternoon. Answer emails and put out about 3 fires.
• 1:30pm: Tell BP that I'm starving and that I think we really need to plan the rest of the day while eating. Drive to Chip.otle and enjoy burrito bowl. Thanks for asking. :)
• 2:00pm: Back at the house/office and get stuck with another client on the phone and go over whole process with BP so he can handle that situation while I go tend to this other client.
• 2:30pm: Text my client that I am leaving.
• 2:45pm: Actually leave.
• 3:00-3:45: Meeting with client. Try and solve inventory mess and fix some accounting issues that have gone horribly wrong (this is a new client that I am trying to 'fix' right now...this is not my own shoddy work).
• 4:00pm: Come running in after driving home with solution to big client issue and tell it to BP. Go over what needs to be done and how I am going to make it happen. Stoked we figured it out. Now just implementation...
• 4:15pm: Go and pour BP a glass of wine because I need him to put his creative and fun side on... Tell him the other thing that came to me after meeting with my shrink today. We need to seriously rearrange my house and create a proper office.

Side note: My business is going crazy right now and I run it out of my home. Two of us are working here all the time. I have four different computers alone going in four different random spaces throughout my house. And the stacks of papers are trying to eat me alive. I seriously feel SO overwhelmed constantly because of just the physical space. I try to make dinner and I have to clean up a stack of papers, a pen and some post-its. I try and prepare dinner in the kitchen and have to clear a laptop away... You get the idea. My shrink would have me say, "It is creating a lot of extra stress in my life right now."

• 4:30pm: Decide that I need to go pick up my son now, because I want to have a glass of wine with BP and discuss arrangements and what we need and how we're going to make it happen for the new office space. BP calls his brother and informs me that his brother can get tons of nice office furniture for free, so we should just "draw it up" and send him the specs and he'll let us know what's available. Awesome.
• 4:50pm: Finally get home with The Boy. Get him situated and go back to pour glass of wine with BP and relax. Although while I have been gone, BP has gone back into work-mode and now has many work questions for me and all sorts of things to discuss. I did NOT get to pour my glass of wine.
• 5:05pm: Mom gets to my house with The Girl. Brings plastic eggs and vinegar (I am now officially ready for Easter!) Takes kids outside while I finish up with BP and we decide that he and his husband will come back later (at which point his title switches from BP to one of the gay boyfriends...) to hang out.
• 5:15pm: Finally pour that glass of wine and go sit outside for a while. Or 5 minutes.
• 5:20pm: Children start demanding snacks...my mom tells me that one of her friends is going to stop by (my house, mind you...my mother treats this as her second home) and the kids are playing outside. I make dinner for the kids, visit briefly with my mom and her friend, slowly consume my glass of wine...and enjoy my kids loving their backyard.
• 6:00pm: Mom and friend leave, I receive a text from the gay boyfriends saying pre-heat the oven to 400 and they on on their way. I strip the children and usher them to the bathtub.
• 6:15pm: Gay boyfriends arrive. I pour a second glass of wine, I get the kids out and into their jammies, I enjoy some yummy mushroom turnovers...I watch my gay boyfriends loving on my kids...we decide to order some Chinese from a place that delivers...I may have had another glass of wine...
• 7:45pm: Start getting the kids to bed...read all the books, have all the milk, brush all the teeth and begin the process. They both end up in their rooms with the doors shut around 8:20pm.
• 8:30pm: Girlfriend arrives. Girlfriend and gay boyfriends all chat while I continue to try and attempt to keep my almost-three year old in her bed.
• 9:15pm: Gay boyfriends go home. Final discussions with the kids. I swear! Final.
• 9:30pm: Kids asleep...watched a half hour show...girlfriend could tell that I have a lot on my plate right now...so she gave me full body massage that eventually went led both of us back into another room of the house.
• 11:15pm. Passed out cold.

And then The Boy came into my room this morning at 6:48am. Ready to do it all over again...

When Sickness Gets In the Way

This has been a rough winter in terms of illnesses in my house. Up through the end of January, we were all pretty healthy. Then I got sick...and more sick...and STILL sick...and amazingly enough, through all of that my kids stayed pretty healthy. Then once I finally finished my second round of antibiotics and started to feel better, the kids got sick.

So The Girl was doing great with her potty training and even used the potty at her school all day on Monday of last week. Then on Tuesday? Sick. Like fever of 102 sick... And she had no desire to get up and use the potty. And I didn't blame her. So I let her go back into diapers until she was better. She was really sick all week long (home with me 3 days) and then again on the weekend so she hasn't really been working on it. Finally yesterday she felt better and wore her undies all day long (even to a trip to the grocery store where she attempted to use their potty twice...unsuccessfully...) and stayed dry. But today when she went to school she wanted a diaper. So we went with it.

So potty training? Still a work in progress...but we're getting there. As I mentioned, I have a deadline set for the end of her spring break, so up until then I am going to let her lead the charge. But once we hit spring break and she's home with me for a week? It's all undies all the time! And no going back.

Other than that we had a lovely, relaxing weekend. The girlfriend was around so that was nice. Speaking of, that is still going well. We actually hit the six months of dating mark sometime last week. Amazing how fast it goes... I am keeping things pretty casual...I don't have any desire to jump into a big, heavy relationship so things are very mellow and fun right now. And I am enjoying that.

The Boy is growing up so fast. He is such a big kid. It still amazes me. He is very into anything "Super Hero" right now. And amusingly enough...The Ex has him into all of the old-school cartoons that we watched as a kid. So right now he is into Scooby Doo and He-Man and the regular Spiderman and Batman stuff. But he loves him some super heros. He is also doing great in his art class. He did a water color last Thursday that I think is beautiful and I am going to get it framed. He loves to write and draw and lately has been writing his own "books" which he is very proud of. He is loving learning to read and is still absolutely in love with his school.

And blissfully, the kids have reached the stage where they LOVE to play together. They are best little friends and I find it adorable. They run into one of their rooms and make up a game and play it for hours. Or they will go outside together and play... The Girl is so verbal that they are really at a similar level of playing and the result is the most adorable friendship. Longtime readers of my blog know that I really struggled with the idea of having a second child on my own. There have been countless times lately where I have been doing something and stopped to listen to my kids play together and smiled and thought, "That. That right there is why I did this." And I know that I absolutely made the right decision. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend.

How's This for a Welcome Back?

When you fall off your blog for so long...what becomes the topic that finally forces you to write a post again? Was it your son's 6th birthday? Nope. That came and went. Was it the greatest sickness that I have ever personally endured? Nope. I lived and it was far too boring to write about. Was it The Boy losing his first tooth? Nope. But the fairy took care of that so all was well. Was it all the amazing changes that are going on with my business? Nope. Far too busy working to write...

My daughter woke up this morning and told me that she didn't want me to put a diaper on her. She wanted to go sit on the potty. Ummm...okay, sure. So I went and put her little potty in the living room in front of her favorite show and she sat down and chilled for a little bit. She has done this countless times and never produced anything so I wasn't really thinking about it when she told me, "I did it! I pee-peed in the potty!" I went over expecting to find a few drops but she had fully peed. Now that has certainly never happened before!! We did all the hugging and the dancing and celebrating and may have even called a grandparent...and then she got the treat of her choice (a fruit roll up--at 10:00 in the morning. It sorta disgusted me, but whatever, this was her deal...) and sat down all proud of herself and ate it.

She had one accident after that when she put on pants and socks and shoes and went outside with brother. But after that she has spent the day inside in a long sleeved shirt and undies. And she went over the peed again. All on her own! Just came over, all casual like, and was like, "yeah Mommy...I went pee pee again. Let's flush it so I can have my treat!" And so we did.

So I thought it was a bit strange when not 20 minutes later she came into my bedroom and told us that she had done "dat yucky thing" in the potty. I was like, "what did you put in the potty?" Anyway, after some investigation it was discovered that she pooped in the potty! Holy crap! Just went out there and sat down and pooped. Like she's been doing it all her life. Crazy.

I should clarify that I in no way am under the impression that it is this easy and that my daughter is now potty trained. But this is a huge step for her. Huge. She turns three in a month... My big girl.

I Need Your Help

It's very rare that I put out a plea on the Internet for help with an issue with my kids, but I am at a loss. If any of you out there have any advice for me, I'd love to hear it. Here's the situation:

My daughter has decided that going to bed at night is for the weak. She's just not into it. At all. She's not in her crib anymore (since she was crawling out of it and hurting herself) and she goes to bed fine and lovely. We do our normal night time routine: we read a couple of books, brush our teeth, and head to bed. She gets some time to be in her room with a flashlight to play with toys or read in her bed, and then after I get The Boy in bed, I go back in, take the flashlight, sing her a song and say goodnight. And then she goes to sleep.

Or at least that is how it used to go. Now, we do all of the above steps, but once I leave her room she gets back up. She will mess around in her room for a few minutes, but then I hear her door open, and she "sneaks" down the hall, goes into her brother's room and tries to talk to him. This is somewhat tolerable when we are talking 8:30 and 9:00 at night. But when this is occurring at 11:45 and midnight...it is NOT okay. Her brother goes to sleep like he always has and then he gets woken up. If for some reason I am in the living room and don't hear her "escaping" then he has to come and tell me she woke him up and we start the process all over again. But of course then the poor boy has been woken up. Fortunately he can go pretty much right back to sleep, but with her...it never ends.

So here is what I have tried. I went out and bought those "baby-proof" door handles so that she can't open her door. That worked for about a week. I would not start the night with it on her door (because I want to give her the option of making good choices), but after the third time she got up, I would put the handle on her door. Each time I take her back to her room I tell her that it is time for bed and when she screams at me that she isn't tired, I explain she doesn't have to sleep, but she does have to stay in her room because the rest of the house wants to sleep. She would usually respond to that by kicking her door as hard as she could to get out because she couldn't open it. Until last night. Last night she figured out if she puts her little fingers into the holes of the door handle in a certain way she can pop it off. So that no longer works. Unfortunately that means I can no longer put one of those handles on the outside of her brother's door so that she doesn't wake him.

I have also tried to let her take her "game" (iPod Touch) to bed with her. I am not proud of this parenting decision because I don't want her to get into that habit. But if the issue is that she is honestly not tired, and she will stay in her bed watching a PBS show until she falls asleep I was willing to let it happen. Even that doesn't help. I tried that last night and her iPod lost the battery at around 11:30 (and she had already gotten up about 5 times prior to that) and she went postal and tried to terrorize the entire house. I then put her back in her bed with a flashlight and tell her that she can read a book. I let her pick out a few books but then she screams, "I don't WANT to read a book!!" and then proceeded to take each and every book out of her bookshelf and throw it at her door. That was fun.

The only thing that seems to "work" (and I put that in quotes because I don't think this is the long term solution), is to make sure she does NOT take a nap during the day. If that is the case, by bed time she is physically so tired that after about three or four of these fights she usually is so tired she falls asleep (of course it is usually in the middle of her floor or right behind her door; not in her bed). But then she makes my life a living hell between the hours of 3:00pm and 8:00pm because she is exhausted. She's two years old. I really don't think she is ready to get rid of her naps yet. Yesterday she actually came to me at about 3:30 and said, "I am going to go lay down in my bed Mommy," and she did. She walked to her bed, layed down and went straight to sleep. I let her sleep until 4:30 and then woke her up (also not fun because she still wants to sleep so she is a bear when I force her to wake her up before she is ready). So she only got one hour of napping yesterday. And I was in tears last night at midnight because I was out of solutions and so tired I wanted to die.

What she would like is to take a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day (like a normal 2 year old), and then be up until midnight. That is just not an option. I get up everyday with my kids no later than 6:30am so on most nights, I am in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10:00pm. This new schedule is slowly sucking the life out of me. And I don't think I need to spell it out that when I am exhausted I am not the best parent that I could be.

I just don't know how to deal with this. Anyone have any advice? Have you ever had a similar situation with your kid? If so...how did you deal with it? What am I doing wrong? For the love of God...WHY WON'T MY KID SLEEP ANYMORE?!?!?! HELP!!

Happy Holidays

It's a holiday in our household today so I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season, and here are some of the pictures from the kids' holiday photo shoot... I may have already shown you some of these but if not, enjoy! Have a wonderful day everyone!

Apparently There Is A Limit to My Crankiness...

This past week has been ROUGH you guys. Trying to work AND take care of two kids simply doesn't work. It just plain doesn't. I can either work properly, or I can take good care of my kids...but I can't do both of those things at one time. So this week has been crazy and I am not proud to say that I haven't been the most patient parent in the world as of late. In fact for most of this week my children have literally been driving me out of my mind.

But then tonight I put The Girl to bed and then I put The Boy to bed in their respective rooms and went into my bathroom to take off my makeup. I hear my daughter open her door, walk out and pause a little bit in front of my room to see if I am looking at her (I am not, but can see her through my bathroom mirror) and then "sneak" into her brother's room. I have his monitor on so I turn it on and see her hop up on his bed, give him a hug and lay down on her tummy with her ankles in the air watching her brother do something with Spiderman. They whispered because they didn't think that I knew she was in there. They sat together for about 15 minutes before The Boy couldn't stand it (he's definitely my honest one) and he came out and told me that The Girl was in his room but could they please please please spend some more time together? He was teaching her how to not be afraid in the dark and he was going to go get her Kitty (her lovey) for her. I said sure and he ran off. A few minutes later I went in there and they were both laying together on his bed under the covers and asking if they could have a sleepover.

Let me reiterate...there has probably not been more than a handful of moments in the entire last week that I thought these two were cute. They have both been "on my list" all week long. And yet...even I couldn't resist the adorable brother/sister bonding that was going on. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we don't have to be anywhere until 4:00pm. It's a perfect night for their first ever sleepover in our house (they have slept together in other places before, but never at home). So I blew up the aero bed, put the sheets on and they each made their own part of the bed. She chose her pillow pet, her kitties (2 of them), her blanket, her stuffed frog and a spiderman figure. He chose his pillow pet, his Lambie (like her kitty; a lovey), a flashlight, a blanket and three spiders. Oh, plus another Spiderman figure to battle his sister. I took a picture of the cuteness, turned off the lights, and slipped out to leave them. I will never know what they talk about or what they do in there tonight, and I shouldn't. This is just between the two of them.

Happy Holidays to everyone!