Coffee

This morning wasn't just a "coffee" morning, it was definitely a 'caw-feeeeeee' morning said in the most desperate voice you can imagine, like guy-crossing-the-desert desperate. Ben is teething up a storm and not suffering in silence or alone. Matt and I are encouraging him to push out those teeth the old fashioned way -- we are currently offering him $1500 for each one, and at this point the sky's the limit on where the bidding will go!

Once breakfast was underway, I found myself attempting to put the gallon on milk away in the cupboard; after my second attempt to put it away, it dawned on me that the milk belonged in the refridgerator and the coffee in the cupboard, not the other way around. Hence the need for coffee to clear up the foggy brain.

I noticed that without coffee, it's pretty difficult to get things going. Since having Ben, I need that jolt of caffeine to help me focus and get my butt in gear. I have often told Matt to 'put the dishes in the washing machine' or to "get that thing off that shelf for me" without indicating at all what I wanted him to move, because I was in the other room and he was in the kitchen looking very confused. I thought language was not a problem between two people who understood each other? (Apparently speaking the same language sometimes helps, but who knew?)

Matt is a consultant who tends to work late hours, and as such has also acquired a coffee habit (that sounds so much better than "addiction", doesn't it?). Isabella has been ring-side to our struggle to wake up and be fully functioning in the morning with her usual watchfulness. She's also a slow riser, and tends to linger in bed in the morning. We were trying to get her up for school one day and she was not moving very fast; Matt finally went in there and said "Bella, it's time for school." She rolled off the bed and onto the floor, where she finally opened her eyes and said, "Tired....coffee." At that moment, Matt & I also realized that cracking up laughing is another way to get yourself going in the morning.

The Potty Diaries

To me, one of the most difficult aspects of parenting to date has been potty training my very independent, stubborn daughter. Isabella has declared a 'jihad' on potty training and has made our potty training experience a tough one to-date. Matt and I deserve a medal (a big shiny one, the size of a car's hub cap - made of chocolate) for perseverance and bravery.

I have read a whole lot of books about potty training, talked to tons of parents, including my mom and Matt's mom and our very patient pediatrician about this, and we finally came to the conclusion that we were going to let Isabella set the tone for this. It seemed the more we pushed and bribed and cajoled, the more she dug her heels in; so we watched videos about potty training, and read books, and generally asked in a very casual way every time we changed a diaper if she would like to try the potty.

We tried asking her if she had to go every 15-30 minutes, and even taking her hand and leading her there, only to have her say 'I don't have any pee-pee yet'. We even tried using M&M's as incentive; that worked for the first couple of times, and then she would say, "No thank you" to the offer of candy for using the potty. We then bought her Dora the Explorer panties, and she was willing to try the potty.

As many of you have probably experienced, we haven't had the same level of success with potty training for pooping as we have with peeing. Most people say that once you get the peeing, the pooping will come shortly thereafter, so getting them to acknowledge they have to pee is the major hurdle. The key point here is getting them to learn their body's signals is the tough part, especially when they are busy playing.

Case in point: on a recent trip to Babies'R'Us, Isabella was busy playing with a toy that was left out by the crib section. Matt was hovering nearby as I was shopping for formula about 50 feet away, and I heard him repeated ask her, "Bella, do you need to go potty?", to which she replied, "No, Daddy" each time. Sounds good so far, right? Well, about a minute later, Matt catches my eye, and then screams across the store, "GET OVER HERE NOW, SHE JUST PEED ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!" Aye carumba -- I jogged over to where Matt & Bella were standing, and there was a rapidly-expanding yellow puddle of pee where Bella had been standing not more than ten seconds before. This thing was huge -- if it weren't pee, for God's sakes, we could have sold pool memberships! Makes you appreciate the absorbent power of diapers, that's for sure. It was definitely cleanup on the center aisle.

I have often heard people say that no child ever went to college in diapers and I hope that is true! We are trying hard to make sure that Isabella, earns her merit badge for potty training but its been tough going. I would like to think that our efforts are not in vain and that, by the time fall comes around and school starts our efforts would be rewarded with a little girl who is fully potty trained and recognises that this, is an essential part of being independent.

I am sure I will be writing more about our potty training woes and in the mean time I would appreciate any advise, potty training tricks and anecdotes you would like to share

You too were once a baby

For this one, I am dragging out the Eva Peron-like soap box. This is my current pet peeve, but I know that parents are going to relate to this.

A friend and I were at the local botanical gardens where our kids spent the morning playing in the childrens garden; it's a fantastic place totally worth the cost of membership. As it got closer to lunchtime, we made the decision to have lunch in their cafe; like most places, they have a captive audience, so the prices are not the most economical and the quality of the food is OK. My friend has three little boys and I have my little monkeys, and we are both loaded down with diaper bags, bags of wet towels and clothes, and two double strollers! Both of us were the "wide load coming through" kind of kids & parents parade, so by the time we made it through the line and paid for our lunches, the normal dining room was full of people and there was no room available for our large party.

Our kids were hungry, and they have another dining room and the doors were open, so we went in there; we were sure that since the kids were starving and it was close to nap time, we would be in and out in a snap; nevertheless, we figured that most of the people in the main dining room were breathing sighs of relief that we had not joined them.

Here's when it started: we then had the cashier who was rude to begin with come in there and tell us in snotty tone of voice that we were not supposed to be there. Well, since the main dining room was full, the kids were starving and we were carrying trays of food, there was little else we could do other than cop a squat with our brood in the entryway. She kept coming back constantly and checking on us as if we were going to steal the chairs or let our kids finger paint on the walls. We quickly finished up and left.

Quite frankly, I am fed up with people who are amazed that you dare to venture out with -- GASP -- CHILDREN. I understand that they are not always the best behaved or the quietest, but we have a right to be out and about with our children as much as they do.

Harry Potter is to blame ( and no this is not a spoiler!)

A quick note from me: I am not planning on being brilliant this weekend - I am recovering from an attack of the migraine from HELL and am planning on reading the new (and last -- CRY, CRY, SNIFF) Harry Potter book, while trying to iron a pile of laundry that has taken up residence on our arm chair; not all of those at once mind you!

I wanted to share something that a very good friend of ours told me yesterday. She was talking about her teenage daughter and some of the antics that she has been getting up to. At one point, she sighed and said:

"I am not raising a happy child, I am raising a competent adult!"

I loved that, what a great saying! That's one that I would crochet on a pillowcase if I knew how to do that; my skills in that department are somewhat lacking, although I can knit a looooooooooooong scarf (if only because I never learned how to cast off properly ;) ).

Have a great weekend and happy reading!

Are we there yet?

A quick note about this topic...our whole family was on a road trip up to Ikea in Woodbridge, VA (one of my happy places :) ). We were in lots of typical DC traffic and I turned to my husband and said "Are we there yet?" in a whiny baby voice and my daughter who was in the back seat thought that it was very funny to hear mommy talk that way. She cottoned on to the phrase pretty quickly, so now it's become words that we hear almost on a daily basis. I am sure that alot of parents out there can relate to the 'Are we there yet' and 'Why?", or, in our case, "Why not?" phrases.

Kids say the funniest things

My daughter is a very smart, observant little girl and I think sometimes we underestimate how much she is listening and what she is paying attention to. The phrase, "Little pitchers have big ears" certainly applies to her, as these examples show:

Privacy in the Bathroom

Most moms and dads know that once your child can walk, there is very little in your home that remains private. My daughter developed the habit of walking in on my husband & I when either of us were taking a "potty break."

It was that certain time of the month and she walked into the bathroom and asked, "Mommy, is your diaper all right?" "Diaper?", I responded, and then I realised what she meant (LOL). "It's fine," I said and hurried her away.

A few days later, we were attending story time at Barnes & Noble and Isabella was looking around in my daiper bag for a pen. I was chatting to some moms and -- lo and behold -- Isabella comes walking towards me with a little green square in her hand! "Mommy," she said rather loudly, "Here's your diaper!" Oh boy... :)

Everyone around me laughed and was I embarrassed! I have come to realise that enforcing the need for privacy is a lesson that one needs to enforce early and often.

Correspondence

We love Little Einsteins in our house, and Isabella loved the episode about the caterpillar and getting invitations to the annual butterfly party. Since she watched this episode, she was obsessed with waiting for the mailman.

One day, she saw him approaching our house and she opened the door and said "Hello!" and then asked him for our "correspondence." You could have knocked Tom, our mailman, over with a feather. He said he had never had toddler ask him for correspondence. Yeah Einsteins! Yeah Bella!

Are you going to trim me?

Getting Bella's hair trimmed has now become a Daddy and Bella activity; she behaves beautifully for him. I seem to rub her the wrong way and end up having to deal with beasty baby.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that since her hair was growing it looks like she needed a trim and she looked at me in horror; when I asked her what was wrong, she started crying. After a couple of minutes, I asked again, "What's wrong?" She said, "I am growing; will you trim me too?" I laughingly explained that we only trim hair and nails. Funny how kids' minds work...

Paris, France

Bella has become enamored with the idea of going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower after we watched a Travel channel show about touring Paris.

One Sunday morning, she asked her father if he could take her to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. We explained that this was not the type of trip that one just took, and that you had to plan these things out. Matt took her to the computer and pulled up some pictures of Paris and she liked looking at it.

A week or so later we were on our way to Vermont and she happened to see a cell phone tower -- a particularly big one in upstate NY -- and she screams excitedly, "We are in Paris, there's the Eiffel Tower!"

Profanity

All right, well...we all use bad language every now and then, and it's no suprise when our kids learn it as well.

In our family, we try to use substitute words, but sometimes it does not work out. One afternoon we all going out together to Barnes & Noble, and were trying to find a parking spot, and the only one available is one that the guy next door had parked really badly; needless to say, a lot of manuvering was required. At one point, Matt said "F#$K!" and, without missing a beat, we hear a little voice chime from the back seat "Suck, Suck!" It's a good thing she could not say "f's"! Daddy was fined $5 for his slip.

On another occasion, Bella was a much faster learner. Matt was working out in the front yard, keeping one eye on what he was doing while keeping the other eye on Bella, who was running around. I needed his attention, and so I called his name from the window right behind where he was working. This accidentally startled him, and he jumped & yelled, "S***!" Like an echo, Bella then yells in the exact same tone, "S***!" Matt & I cracked up, but then had to make sure we weren't making a big deal about it so Bella wouldn't realize it was such an evocative word. Daddy was fined another $5. :)