B and O Railroad Museum Christmas 2009

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Step One on the Green Path (Green Cleaners)

So here is the short story of how I got sucked into the whole green movement. When I first got pregnant with Will, I was letting everyone know how I was fully intending on using drugs for childbirth, I had no idea about disposable diapers, and was truly the biggest fan of bleach and anti-bacterial anything (thanks Bath and Body!!)

Well, after using the theknot.com for planning my wonderful wedding, I took the next step to thebump.com (used to be part of thenest.com.) I started out on the first trimester board and moved to the second trimester board without incident. Then there was an explosive debate about cloth diapers vs disposable during my second trimester. I never really considered it, but got completely sucked in by the drama! (Very easy to do on discussion boards!!) I ended up being redirected to the Eco Friendly Family Discussion Board and started to do my research. I was hooked. Paul and I decide to cloth diaper and my first step was to get greener with our cleaners!!

I wish I knew where I found this list but it now is copied to my notepad on my iPhone and I use all the recipes constantly! Sorry to the website I got this list from, I wish I could credit it! But, here is the list, hope someone can use it! Ok, I don't know how to cut and paste on blogger. So, I just did it in the comment section. If someone would like to school me on it, I would love the help!!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Potty 101

While this is not a very interesting post for those not in toddler land. I would like to at least document this for Baby #2 when it comes time to hit the potty up again. I am now declaring Will potty trained. We are still having an accident or two a week, but most of the time he is communicating his needs and making it to the potty in time. So here is the run down. First, we spend the first two weeks of summer vacation in cloth diapers ONLY. And really starting to talk about feeling wet or having poops in your butt. And I start the mantra, your pee goes in the potty. I will say this about 1,295,697 times in the next four weeks.

July 5th - Potty association day - Will sits on the potty every 1/2 hour and receives an M&M for each attempt. He left the diaper on for most of the day. This was just for him to associate the potty with something good. Before this, he wouldn't really sit on the potty and didn't have much interest. He really seemed to be into this compensation thing.

July 6th-8th - We go pantsless. Will is now naked for these days. Diapers at night and at nap time. I am now STARING at Will's penis ALL DAY LONG! I am trying to catch him in the act and get him to the potty in time. We have a huge celebration if he gets a drop of pee in the potty. This does not happen too often, but once or twice a day. Enough to keep me motivated to keep trying. We also continue sitting on the potty every 1/2 hour with the M&Ms. We spend most of the time down in the family room playing and watching TV. At this point, if we leave the house he wears diapers.

July 9th-19th - I bite the bullet and he is now in training pants. I found that Gerber training pants (Target) worked the best. NO PULL_UPS!! They also have plastic pants that the kids can wear at night. I found that these were WAY too big on our skinny little two year old. So I only used them once and still have to clean up the mess. I will pass on plastic pants next time. But the Gerber cloth training pants are great! They have enough absorption for the start of pee to buy you the 5 seconds needed to get him to the potty and the pants off. So, we did get to the potty more often in this time period but he was still "wetting" his pants each time. We had about 8 pairs of pants and I did laundry every day. During this time, Will made it to the potty at least once a day and was starting to "tell" me that that he needed to go. "Poo, run!!" Each day got better and he seemed to really be making the connection. I was getting excited that my experiment was working and I was going to be able to ditch the diapers for good.

July 20th - My give up day. We wake up. Will is dry. He then pees in my bed and as soon as he is dry and we are down stairs, he pees again! AGAIN, and doesn't say a word, just goes over and starts playing with his trains. At this point, I am T-I-R-E-D! I have lost my patience. All my good vibes from the last two weeks are gone. I throw Will's butt in a diaper and we leave the house. I go up to my sister's house. I don't take the potty with me or a change of clothes. I just pack the diaper bags full of diapers and head out. THANKFULLY, my sister talks some sense in me. She tells me that I am a good mother and Will has made amazing progress and I would be a fool to throw it all away. I promise her that I will try again tomorrow. THANK GOD FOR SISTERS!! In retrospect, I think I needed this day. I needed a break. I needed to give Will a break. I needed to really look back and see what worked and what didn't. When we got home. Paul took over potty training for the evening and amazingly Will used the potty twice and stayed dry till bed time.

July 21st - July 31st - Full time big kids pants. I am back on the prowl. The break seems to give me and Will a new focus. He really starts getting it. We start going out of the house. I learned to sit Will on public toilets sideways. That way he is not falling into the potty and can put his hands on either side. to stabilize himself. A word to the wise, take the pants all the way off. Will tended to get excited when he peed and it would splash a bit. He really started to communicate and even went in his potty with my sister and mother-in-law watching him.

August 1st to present - He has now gone accident free for a week! I am SO proud. He is giving me time to get him to the potty and we don't use the little potties at home anymore. At home, he sits backwards on the potty. That way he can lean forward and flush and still see what is going on. Thankfully, we never had the issue where he didn't want to poop in the potty. It all happened for us at the same time. I know that we are lucky with Will. He seems to take to things pretty easily.

I am worried about the transition to me going back to work, him going to preschool and the new arrival of his sibling. I hope that we take these events all in stride. I guess I will blog about that as we hit them!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Big Boys and Babies!!



Well, there is a lot of baby news flying around the last few weeks. The biggest for me is that I will be a great aunt somewhere around February 8th! That's right, my NIECE is pregnant at the same time I am. Her and her husband are thrilled at the news and I can't be happier to help Christine and Micah as much as I can through this awesome journey! Also, my dear friend, Becki, is in the "safe zone" with her twins by reaching 35 weeks. Her OB has told her that the likelihood of them all coming home at once is very good! Lastly, my far away friend, Katie, just revealed that she is having a baby at the end of January. I can't be happier than with all the ladies that are around me that are knocked up!! And gasp, I have only one more week left in my second trimester (wow 26 weeks went fast!!)Lastly in baby news, Paul got asked to start training as a Respiratory Therapist for the NICU (babies) and the PICU (kids.) He is really excited to already be asked to do something new after only two months on the job!! I love that man of mine!


AND THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL......


We have a potty trained little boy (not a baby anymore!!) Will has been very successful with the potty! I can't believe how well he has taken to the big (scary) potty in the outside world! He is awesome for only being 27 months old. He still has accidents every once in a while, but has spent the last two weeks in underwear full time. That's right...during naps and night time!! I will devote a whole post this week to my ups and downs (and trust me there were downs!) of potty training a barely two year old later this week. I just wanted to catch up on the blog since I have been MIA (for many reasons) for the last two weeks!


My sad news is that I only have three more weeks home before I have to go back to my paying job as a kindergarten teacher. I truly do love this job, but am finding myself being pulled to stay home. I have loved this summer with Will. He truly makes me laugh and smile about a hundred times everyday!