We were playing in the arts & crafts
drawer today and Eve decided to make a necklace. Lex, of
course, wanted to play too. I was surprised at how good both of
them were at stringing the beads on. Last time we tried it
neither of them were quite coordinated enough. They really had
fun today.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIetURzG3xs]
I read an article awhile back about potty
training in 3 days. One thing that caught my eye was their
suggestion to have the child go completely naked for the first
few days. They said that if the kid is wearing pants or
underwear they are more likely to be confused and have
accidents. I’ve seen this a lot in Eve lately. She wants
underwear but has lots of accidents, but then she will tell me
she peed in her diaper (while wearing underwear) or get upset
about peeing in underwear, even though she is really in a
diaper. Anyway, she definitely seems to be confused by that.
The other day I stripped her down after dinner and let her run
around for awhile, and after a few minutes she ran right to the
bathroom and peed on the potty! So I decided to try some naked
time for a few days to see if we can kick this diaper habit
once and for all! So far, so good! She was naked all morning,
very happily, and used the potty with no accidents. I was going
to hold off on blogging until tonight, but the below picture is
so funny I can’t resist posting it now. She used the potty
right before I took a shower, so I thought (hoped!) it would be
safe to leave her unattended for a few minutes. They were
watching a show, I took a quick shower, and came down to find
this:
The
silly girl got up, got her potty, put it on the couch, climbed
on, and peed! She was happily sitting on a potty full of pee,
watching TV. I’m so thankful that she didn’t pee on the couch
and also thankful that she didn’t try to get off the full
potty! Whewh!!! I told her to sit still for one second longer
while I grabbed the camera :)
This
picture is just to remind myself that it is summer and we do,
occasionally, see the sun. It’s been many, many days, but it
came out for a few minutes this morning. Yay!
Something seems to have clicked in Eve’s
brain recently and she is now a counting wiz! Well, she’s been
able to count for awhile now, but she figured out the “touch
each thing once” part of counting and can now count individual
objects and stop when she runs out of objects to count. Before
she just waved her finger around wildly and counted to 12 or 15
or some other random number. In the past few days she has been
counting EVERYTHING and telling me “you touch each one once!”
Such a smart girl!
We are finally all getting healthy after
our bout of colds and eye infections. Yay! Sadly, today we
discovered a second downside to daycare: biting! Poor Eve got
bit on the arm by another kid today. Apparently this is not
uncommon, but sad for Eve nonetheless. At dinner she told me
“we do not bite Eve, people are not chew toys.” :)
While
I was taking pictures of Eve’s arm, Lex asked me to take
pictures of his “beautiful striped shirt.” He was so excited
how could I resist!
They drove me crazy yesterday. Lex was up
early this morning but I had to wake Eve up at 8am for daycare.
We got out the door, everyone cooperating but no one very
excited about the day. Not sure why. They entered the daycare
very timidly and Lex seemed upset, or worried, though not
crying, when I left. Eve was also not her usual bouncing,
cheerful self. Now I’m sitting in a quiet, cold office and
missing my noisy warm babies. Somedays it seems like you just
can’t win!
The day after returning from vacation is
always a tough one. I think everyone is tired and we all need a
break, from life and each other. Unfortunately when “we all”
includes a 2yr old and a 4yr old, there are no breaks! We came
home to a clean house yesterday, which was nice, and after just
a few hours of us (including lawn mowing and grocery shopping)
the place is a disaster again! We got through the day and
tomorrow is a daycare day so that will be a bit of a break, for
me anyway. I realized today that I probably get spoiled by
having family around to pay attention to the kids during the
day, so when we get back and I’m on duty full-time again, it’s
exhausting! :) Anyway, time now for dinner!
Do you all like when I share every detail
of the day? :) After my cranky post earlier I let the kids get
up with no naps. I thought it would be a slow afternoon, but
maybe an early bedtime. I got lucky! The afternoon wasn’t bad,
Eve fussed and used her baby talk (drives me crazy!) a lot, but
Lex zoned out into playdoh for about an hour and then cleaned
it all up afterwards! After a calm dinner (only spilled two
cups of milk, not too bad!) and a nice bath, we packed the
suitcase, read stories, brushed teeth and went to bed. All by
7pm :) I laid down with Lex, as usual, and a very tired Eve
started bouncing in her bed. Lex and I discussed how
frustrating it was that she won’t be quiet and I gave him the
option of me staying with him and ignorning her, or me going to
lay down with her instead and hopefully keeping her quiet. He
said, “go keep her quiet!” So I did. I cuddled with Eve and
talked her through relaxing her body. I told her to relax her
legs because they have worked hard all day. I said how they
carried her around and climbed the ladders at the playground,
and ran up the stairs, etc. When she stopped bouncing her legs
I moved on to her arms, then all the way up the body to her
eyes and finally her ears. Believe it or not, it worked! After
about 5 minutes she was calm and still and within 10 she was
asleep!!! Maybe that’s our secret! Or maybe no naps… but I’m
not ready for that yet, especially since Lex still wants them!
Whatever it was, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet
tonight!
What happened to my good sleeper?!?!
Whereas Lex (after 4yrs!) is finally getting good at the sleep
thing, even taking naps again (yay!), Eve has decided to give
up on it all together. She was always my reliable sleeper. What
happened?! We fought with Lex all through the years and I was
so hoping to avoid toddler sleep battles with Eve… but alas,
I find myself fighting the fight :( Sooo aggravating! She’ll
nap, usually, after awhile, but at night she’s up for HOURS,
bouncing around and keeping Lex awake. We put her to bed at the
usual 7:30ish and for the past week or so she’s been awake past
10pm each night. One night it was past 11pm! Just awake,
bouncing around, making noise. He will eventually fall asleep,
but I know if she was quiet he’d be out much quicker. Blah!!! I
want sleepers!!!