Regression? Such bad timing!

Apparently, (from about 7 moms I've heard from) potty training regression is completely normal. I chatted with my neighbor for awhile this afternoon, all her kids are up and grown and out of the house. She had some words of wisdom that I needed to hear today. She said what happens is you spend this time potty training and the idea is on their minds and they have been trained to look for the clues. Mom becomes more relaxed and the child becomes more relaxed and they start remembering using a diaper and how easy it was. They become forgetful and start having accidents. I have been taking her way more often now, which hasn't been working, but i really need to be consistent with my timer. She also suggested monitoring her liquid intake. Gosh, I hadn't been thinking of that. So I started this afternoon, and she was drinking so much. It's going to be a little tougher than I thought. But all the moms said it only lasts a few days. My whole attitude towards her completely changed. It's nice to know it's not just us. It's tough that this all is popping up right during the week that she is testing me.

We had another rough day. My patience is so short right now. Courtney was up at 6:30 am! She has never been up that early. Always a new plan, so my current plan has been: huge celebration when she listens the first time, every time she gets out of bed, I take a money out of her piggy bank, and I'm trying to catch her being good, so Im going to go in her room super early tomorrow morning and if she is in bed, she will get her money and then I will let her watch TV in my bed first thing in the morning and then slowly move the time later. I always thought I was a patient person, but I guess I'm not. These girls are sure putting it to a test. I tried to spend a lot of time with just Courtney and I had her help me a bunch, it seemed to help.

Tomorrow is a new day!

Thank you Daddy for your help!

Ben was such a huge help with the girls this weekend. It was really nice to have the extra hands since Courtney has been not the greatest listener lately. Friday was a rough day with both girls and Ben offered me to go out and take a break. I didn't want to be away from him that long since I hadn't seen him all week, so I just took a walk. Then on Saturday morning, he took Courtney to breakfast and spent some time with her in the morning. I was able to actually get a shower and almost get my hair done. Throughout the day he was very helpful in reinforcing discipline with Courtney. She was just testing us all weekend. She was being such a daddy's girl that any discipline from Daddy was much more meaningful. He gave Courtney a bath before her nap and even put her down for a nap. Then when she repeatedly got up from her nap he was right there to put her back in and discipline her.

On Saturday late afternoon we went to our friend Gaddiel's surprise party. There were lots of kids there from church and Courtney got to run around and play with them. Not to mention sample all the food around the house. The little girls put together a few songs to perform for the adults and Courtney was right in the mix singing and dancing. Her new favorite song is "Happy Day". The girls sang it especially for her. She went crazy and sang her heart out and danced around. She loves just being one of the girls, she is just about 7 years younger. Ben held Caylee most of the night so I could keep an eye on Courtney.

We went to first service at church and then headed to look for a new bed for Courtney. We are looking at ideas of what to get, a regular bed or bunk bed. Oh what to do. We grabbed some lunch first at Red Robin and Ben took Courtney to the bathroom and then again at the furniture store. She is doing better at going in public, though she doesn't like it. She has had so many accidents lately, that I have been making her go a lot. Fortunately, she didn't have any accidents today.

Thank you daddy for your extra hands and making our girls laugh and smile. We love how hard you work so mommy can take care of the girls. Though it seems like our life is crazy and there is never a quiet moment without someone crying or misbehaving. It's a season of life, we prayed that these little girls would come into our lives. I know we will look back on these moments and smile, that is if we make it thru them! Thank you for partnering with me to raise these princesses.

Later this afternoon, we gave Daddy a break and I took the girls to 415 at church. It is a Sunday evening service that they do every 6 weeks. They have music, games, lesson and food for the families of young kids in the church. Courtney really enjoys going. They did her favorite song, "Happy Day" and she sang and dance around. Courtney had fun playing with all the girls and hugging everyone she saw. She was behaving really well all evening until we got to the car. She did not want to get into her carseat (as usual). I had Caylee in the Ergo and I lifted Courtney into the seat and she reached out with her nails and scraped them along Caylee's head. Ooh I was not happy. I hate when she hurts Caylee. Poor Caylee's face was all scratched up. Courtney got a time out as soon as we got home.

Ben gave Courtney a bath and put her to bed, so I could spend time with Caylee and feed her.

Even though we didn't do much this weekend, it was tiring just because Courtney was so misbehaved and challenging. I am hoping we can start fresh tomorrow morning.

Am I a broken record?

Today I felt like a broken record. I kept telling Courtney the same thing over and over. This is a normal day occurrence, but today was to the extreme. Definitely a testing mommy day. I hate these days. I have to be mean all day.

The day started good, Courtney and Caylee both woke early and I took advantage of the opportunity and went for an early run and and tied in some errands. I went 2 1/2 miles, stopped at Starbucks, the bank and the grocery store. I got back and got Caylee down for a nap all by 8:45. I was feeling good and productive, until Caylee woke up and wouldn't go back down. She just screamed. I finally got her up which threw off my morning clean up plans. By lunch our house was thrashed because I had to carry Caylee all morning and I couldnt pit things away very quickly. To top it off Courtney was being such a brat. I had to repeatedly tell her things before she'd listen. She got so many time outs. It was ridiculous! At one point she was in time out and crying, she got up and kicked Romo in the face! What! She did stuff like that all day.

She kept getting out of bed at nap, then only slept for an hour n hald. She had two accidents today and pooped in her diaper at nap. One accident was on our nice bedroom chair. Ooh! I was not happy. I was feeding Caylee and talking to my mom and she just did it right in front of me. So I told her we are back to having her go every 15-20 min. So the whole rest of the day, I had her go often. She was actually a good sport about it.

After I got the girls to bed, Ben was nice enough to stay in with the girls while I took a 10 min walk with Romo to just blow off some steam and re-coup. I wanted to go out, but didn't want to take away time from Ben. We haven't seen each other much this week.

Daddy Sing" Our God"?

We had a quiet morning at home yesterday, no biblestudy so onward with sleep training Miss Caylee. It's all working really well so I don't want to mess things up quite yet. She has slept 12 hrs 4 out of the past 5 nights! Finally its back.

With sleep training in full force we got to our playgroup late not to mention I got lost getting there. So only about 2 minutes to play with Abby before she was gone. I met a nice new mom and future playmate for Caylee!

Our big event for the day was to go watch "daddy sing Our God" for the high school group at church.
Ben leads worship on Wednesday night and every so often we go and watch. I don't like to go very often because its another late night out and with our Tuesday biblestudy, two nights in a row is not a good combo for a 2 year old. I sure paid for it today. A very grumpy girl I had on my hands. But Courtney had fun with the girls and she loved watching the game and danced her heart out to all the music that daddy played. My friend Heather came along with us, so she was a big help and we got to hangout after the girls went to sleep.

We got sad yet happy news today. Our good friends Karly and Gaddiel live practically next door to us and they told us they are moving. They aren't moving far, but it has been so much fun having them really close. They will be about a mile up the road, still close enough to visit lots but not close enought to pop in for a quick visit or to borrow an egg. But we are happy that they got a bigger house for their family. I bitter sweet moment.

Cute Courtney"ism": Caylee sneezed and she said "Jesus Bless You!". So cute. I love her innocent heart.

Playdate with Avalon

GeoTagged, [N33.68245, E117.82567]

Courtney was invited to play with Avalon today. I didn't tell her til this morning because I knew she wouldn't sleep well. She was thrilled! As soon as we got there Avalon was waiting and gave Courtney a big hug. The two were cute and played so well together. They played inside and out, watch Jana Alyra, ate snacks and took lots of trips to the bathroom. Just like girls do they peed together and talked.

Such a smooth day

Mondays are usually hard, Daddy is back at work and we usually have had a busy weekend on lots of bye bye"s". Courtney is often sad that we aren't going anywhere and begs me go somewhere. Usually she acts out.

I have been trying so hard to keep Caylee on schedule especially for her first nap and this weekend was a failure at that. So I had a new idea for our errands today. I used to always walk to the store, load up on groceries and walk home, but I haven't done that in awhile because I usually have too many things to get or have to get something big or heavy. So I decided to give it a try today with two motives in mind, (1) I spend much less when I just have the stroller (2) Caylee can stay asleep the whole time because I am not getting her in and out of the car numerous times. It all went really well. I think I am going to definitely do it again. Courtney was really good and I was able to keep her occupied and busy the whole time and we got two stores done and a stroller full of groceries. I was able to even put away most of the groceries while Caylee slept. Usually I have to drop them all on the floor and quickly feed Caylee.



The girls both took great naps and I was able to get my "weekly home blessings" done, which put me in a great mood when Courtney woke up. We went out and used chalk on our sidewalk leaving fun messages for daddy. Too bad it was too dark when he got home to see them.



After dinner we did baths and I bathed both girls together which is always a challenge. Caylee was a bit fussy so she screamed as I washed Courtney. Never fun. Courtney is still hating getting her hair washed. Tonight was not any better. I tried to approach her differently and told her I was just going to wash the back of her hair so no water would get to her face. I am going to slowly move up. This was not any easier. I pleaded with her to let me do it and she was not convinced. So Caylee was screaming and Courtney was screaming. I did keep my cool. Ben came up and helped out and was able to get Courtney to let him rinse the back. She was relieved to not have the water touch her face. Oh silly girl.

Good Weekend

Another good weekend for the record books. It was nice and pretty relaxing. It was the first weekend in about a month that Ben was home and not working. Just him being home makes the house calmer. I also didn't do really any cleaning. It felt good not to spend my weekend cleaning. But I forced myself to relax. It felt good.

Yesterday we went shopping at Spectrum. We got there early and went to coffee. Courtney got her "baby coffee" and we just relaxed and watched the rain come down. It was nice for about 7 minutes and then Courtney was ready to go. We shopped in the rain! It wasn't too bad. Courtney was in need of a few new clothes, so she was the only one who got anything. We ended with lunch and it was far too soon for Courtney to nap. After nap, we had to cut it short, we had a birthday party to go to. It was a friend of Ben's, but it was a family party.
They have a little girl that Courtney loves to play with. Also, Ariel and his kids were there. So she was loving it. We took Ariel's kids home with us for a little bit. Courtney thought that was the coolest thing. She just loves those kids. It was so cute (wish I had a picture), but the three kids were all huddled together with a blanket in front of the fire.

Today we had church and then we went to lunch with Gaddiel and Karly. We love hanging out with them. Ben is friends with Gaddiel and I'm friends with Karly and they have a baby, so they are understanding of kids stuff. During naptime, I got some time to relax. Ben took off for a bit, Caylee was really fussy (she missed her nap) so I put her to sleep in the ergo and sat on the couch and relaxed and read. So nice! It didn't last long but it felt like a bit of vacation. I actually left the housework to be unfinished!

Ben got his bonus this weekend, so to celebrate he took us girls to Melting Pot for dinner. This is probably my favorite place to eat. It's so good, yet so expensive. Courtney was in heaven with all the yummies and dipping.
I've noticed these days we sure do get tucked into the back of restaurants with our kids. Talk about discrimination! I know people get out for a peaceful meal and don't want to listen to my kids babble.


All in all we had good times and for the most part, Courtney was super good. I think the more she sees Ben, the less she feels she has to compete for his attention. Just a thought. Oh and last night Caylee slept 12 hours! Yeah, I'm hoping my trying harder to keep at least that first nap complete is working.