Happy 2nd Birthday, Baby Girl

I have a couple of posts I need to crank out.  I don't have any of them done, but couldn't let this day pass without SOMETHING from me!

On this day two years ago, I met the most beautiful little thing that would change me in ways I never knew possible.  We've both grown and changed an incredible amount over the past two years, but I can hardly remember life before her.

We had a great day today as a family, so I want to write up a post about how we spent her special day.  I also want to write her my traditional sappy letter and also a post about how she's developing.  To give you an idea of what a grown up she acts like, tonight while we were talking to God I asked her who she was thankful for and she said:  "Wait, Mommy, I'm thinking.  I know......Grandma and Papaw."  I never could have imagined, even three months ago, that she'd be so grown up at just two years of age.  Simply amazing.

Happy birthday, Baby Girl.  Mommy loves you more than you'll ever realize.

Meal Plan 7/24-7/30

I have been meal planning this whole time, I swear!  I just haven't been posting, for some reason or another.  And, honestly, I haven't stuck to my meal plan for a couple of weeks.  The first week was because The Hubby had an unexpectedly long recovery period from his wisdom tooth extraction so we were just winging it to make soft foods for him and the second week was...well....it just was. 

But I'm back!  We are putting ourself on a tight budget, though, and cooking with meat from the freezer and trying to make use of ingredients we have around the house.  This means the meals could be completely non-creative or really, really creative.

Sunday:  Sloppy Cubanos (I'd made these before and remembered loving them.  I actually bought the ingredients last week or we wouldn't have been having them, both because of health reasons (who knew ground pork was so unhealthy??!?!) and because of cost)

Monday: Leftover Subs from Baby Girl's birthday party and Summer Squash and Corn Chowder

Tuesday: Black Bean Pizza (going to make pizza crust in the bread machine and hopefully have enough to freeze some)



Wednesday: BBQ Ribs and Summer Squash and Chive Pancakes

Thursday: Grilled Pork Chops and Corn on the Cob

Friday: Will probably eat out for Baby Girl's second birthday.  Either that or we will cook something fun for her (likely pizza or pasta--her favorites). 

Saturday: Will likely eat with my in-laws and my nieces (MIL and FIL are watching my three nieces while BIL and SIL are at a wedding reception and we're planning on taking Baby Girl over there after her nap).



Also, I have been doing my fun things.  I have a post ready to show you all but want to add pictures :)

She did it (again)!

Baby Girl didn't poop at all yesterday and I was really beginning to be afraid that she was going to be a poop hoarder and have it hurt, then fear the pain, then hoard more, etc.  We told our sitter and talked about the conditions under which she pooped last time (pants off and in the little potty).  The sitter was excited that leaving her pants off had worked for us (it was under her suggestion that we'd done it).

I got a text just before noon from the sitter: "Success!  We have poopie in the potty!  Yay!"  I did a little happy dance while I tried to figure out who I could share my excitement with.  After exchanging a few texts, I learned that the sitter had left her pants-(and diaper-)-less and had also brought out the little potty.  After she revealed this, I asked her, somewhat jokingly, how long we need to keep her pantless.  She assured me that she'd get it and I couldn't be more excited.  I texted The Hubby and even called my mom, who I knew would be as excited as I am.

And now, because I'm still excited, I'm sharing with you.  You're welcome.  :)

Not Preventing

I wish I could have this mindset when TTC.  I wish I weren't so aware of my body that I always know where I am in my cycle, whether I'm charting or not.  I wish I could just "play it by ear" and "let nature take its course".  I wish I could try without trying.

But I can't.

We've talked a lot about TTC in the next few months.  I still don't know if I'm ready, but I also don't know if I'll ever be ready, really.  I want to lose more weight.  I want to save more money.  I want to be making more money so we can afford daycare better.  I want to move to a better school district.  I want to own my body for a little while longer.  But I don't think I want our kids much more than 3 years apart, if I can help it.  And who knows how long it's going to take to get pregnant.

In other words, I still don't know what to do.  Why can't I love sex and just go at it with my husband without protection and get pregnant whenever it happens?  Why do I have to plan sex and still know whether it's likely within my ovulation window?  Why do I have to overanalyze every little piece of this?

I did it!

Baby Girl's phrase for the weekend was "I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  She'd climb up on the couch and yell "I did it!".  Kick her legs and "swim" across the baby pool?  "I did it!"  Her excitement was contagious.  Many times she was excited about things she's been doing for awhile now, but we all got excited all over again.

But once this weekend she did something she'd never done before.

I walked in the door from going to the grocery and heard "Mommy Mommy Mommy!  Poopy potty!!!"  I came running in as she points at the potty "Look!"  I gave her a big hug and told her what a big girl she is.  She started prancing around saying "I did it!  I did it!"

I looked at The Hubby for explanation and this is what he told me:

"She had just gotten up from her nap and we were sitting and eating plums when she started tooting.  She sat down to go pee and tooted some more and I asked her if she needed to go poop.  She tried and tooted some more and then hopped up and said she was all done.  She was doing a little dance that made me think maybe she needed to go, but she wouldn't sit back down.  I left her without panties or anything, like we'd been doing before nap, and went into the kitchen to get another plum.  While I was in there, I smelled it and immediately thought she had pooped on the floor.  I walked in and there she was, sitting on the potty!  She hopped up to "See it?" and since her bum was still dirty, I told her to sit back down.  I got her cleaned up and that's when you walked in."

I am so incredibly proud of and excited for her.  We've actually had more pee accidents recently because we've decreased the frequency of prompting her to go potty, so I was starting to doubt (again) whether she was ready.  But I think we're in this for the long haul now!

Oh, and I did take a picture, but am NOT posting it here.  I always thought those moms who took pictures of their kid's poop were weird....and now I'm one of them!  I am not, however, going to go to the level of posting on Facebook or on my blog, though.  I emailed it to my mom because she's taken an interest in Baby Girl's potty-training.  Her response was "Damn!!" and then followed with another email that said, "Way to go!  Aren't you glad you didn't have to clean that up?"  While it would've sucked to have cleaned it from her diaper, it would've been even worse to clean it from her panties!

Who knows what this will bring--I don't know if she needs to be pantless and have a potty she can get to on her own (she used her little potty instead of the potty ring) or if this has opened a window that will allow her to realize she can do it and she'll do it on the potty from now on.  We will see!

30 Days of Fun

My bloggy (but hopefully soon in-real-life) friend, Cassie is starting an initiative to find and create fun in her own life by participating in 30 Day of Fun and I've decided to join her!  I've been incredibly overwhelmed recently by day-to-day life and think I needed this little push to find and create fun in my everyday life.  I plan to blog about it at least once a week, but if I do something incredibly fun, it might get its own post :)

I've already done something fun today (hello cheap Jimmy John's!), but may wait and see if something even MORE fun comes along this evening :) 

I'd love it if you'd join me!  Even if you don't blog, you can tell me all about your fun in the comments on my fun posts!  I think too many of us get bogged down by Real Life and don't take the time to find the fun and have fun on a regular basis.  My goal is to even find a way to make laundry fun one of these 30 days!

Potty Training

I started this post about a week ago and had honestly meant to blog more while in the midst of the heavy-duty potty training, but just haven't had the time (and haven't prioritized it, either--some nights it was just easier to stare blankly at the TV than to blog).  So here's my potty training update--July 2nd to present.
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Baby Girl has been using the potty in the mornings and evenings for us every day, but had been resisting using the potty at the sitter's house.  After a discussion with the sitter, she agreed to start trying harder to get her to go and was successful the last few days of last week.  She suggested that we try putting her in panties this weekend (the July 4th weekend) and having her try every 15 minutes or so.  Because she's shown so much interest, we agreed.  This is my chronicle of how the weekend went.

Saturday

Woke up, ready to tackle the day.  We didn't have anything planned and could focus all of our energy on potty training.  We got Baby Girl into some panties, had a talk about how special they are and how she shouldn't go potty in them, and started the day.  She sat on the potty every 15-20 minutes and typically peed at least a little.  She did great all morning long!  She had one pee accident late in the morning, then we put her in a diaper for naptime.  We changed her back into her panties for the afternoon and had two more accidents then (once while talking on the phone to Papaw).  She still sat on the potty every 15-20 minutes and usually produced pee.  We used a sticker chart to record her progress and she ended up with about 15 stickers over the course of the day.  What a great first day of potty training!

Sunday

Woke up about 5 minutes before Grandma was supposed to arrive.  Papaw dropped Grandma off before heading off to a golf outing.  Day #2 has begun.  Baby Girl did fairly well in the morning again.  She didn't even fight us when we'd ask her to go potty.  I was beginning to think that this might actually be working...as long as we could always be there to remind her to use the potty every 15 minutes or so.  The Hubby and I went to go run in the afternoon and during that time, she had another accident.  And once we were back, we had her try to pee, which she did, but then she had two more accidents in the next 20 minutes.  And down goes my morale, thinking maybe she just wasn't ready for potty-training.

Monday

She did well.  We spent most of the day at our house and she was willing to go potty when we asked.  She only had a couple of accidents and I felt a lot better about our decision.

Tuesday-Friday

Tuesday we returned to the sitter's and I talked to her about our experiences over the weekend.  We'd brought Baby Girl in a pull-up just in case she needed to go while in the car, so the sitter left her in that.  We took a stash of pull-ups and panties and let the sitter decide what she wanted to do.  The week was, in a word, amazing.  Baby Girl didn't have any accidents and only woke up from nap wet one time.  She was still pooping in her pull-up in the morning (the reason we keep delivering her in pull-ups), but peeing in the potty regularly. The sitter bribes her with candy (Smarties) and Baby Girl is smart enough to differentiate between the sitter's house and ours, where we reward with stickers (and sometimes money).

Saturday

Spend all day at a friend's house while The Hubby was helping build a shed.  Baby Girl did really well going potty and only had one accident during dinner.  I don't know if she woke up dry because I wasn't there when she got up.

Sunday

Went to my hometown to get photos taken for Baby Girl's 2nd birthday (eep!).  Stopped to let her try to use the potty on the way down once--we had the portable potty with us.  She didn't pee, but it ended up being a good solution for the future.  She went potty in the car when we were done with the pictures (was wearing panties the whole time) and did pretty well.  Again, I wasn't there when she got up from nap so I don't know if she got up dry or not (and no one else seems to think this is significant...).  She pooped in her panties later in the day but otherwise was accident-free.

Monday & Tuesday (July 11th and 12th)

Did great at the sitter's again.  She poops in her pull-up in the morning, then gets panties on after that, gets a diaper or pull-up for naptime, then panties again after that until bedtime.  She's going potty whenever someone asks and is also prompting the sitter to take her potty.  She doesn't ask us often, but we're also a little nervous to let her go too long.  The sitter lets her go and has concluded that she can hold it for awhile now.  I'm actually feeling pretty confident that she's really potty training and will be at least daytime pee-trained by the time she turns two.  Wow.  Amazing.

Wednesday (today)

Not a horrible day, but not the best, either.  Pooped in her pull-up in the morning.  Pooped in her panties in the afternoon.  Peed in panties at lunch.  :(  Enter frustration and uncertainty.

I honestly think I'm feeling so uncertain because she's so darn young.  Who expects their child to be ready to potty-train before they even turn 2?  So when she shows any signs that she's not getting it, I question if she's truly ready.  We've gotten this far, though, and will keep pushing through the slight regression.  We'll get there.  Next thing to truly tackle, though, is getting her to poop in the potty.  If we catch her getting ready to poop, she stops pushing and then can't (won't) push on the potty again.  We worry about getting her constipated.  The sitter (who has been right about what we should do so far) suggested we let her run around all day without panties or anything.  Apparently kids won't poop on the floor.  So it'll either get her to hold it or get her to poop on the potty.  It might be worth a shot.