Potty Wars

It might be hard to believe, but the princess pictured here marked not one, but two stores in a single day with golden puddles during the long, hard process of potty training.

That's right. I've reached one of the monumental times in parenting - potty training. I followed all the (questionably helpful) advice I've learned from residency. Such gems such as "Try a sticker chart, it works like a charm," "Let her run around without a diaper on so she can use the potty when the urge comes, " and "You'll know when she's ready,"come to mind. I really hope these things helped someone, but for me they resulted in: flat out disinterest in stickers, urine on my floor, couch, and coffee table in rapid succession, and continued assertions of, "I want my diaper back!"

I really don't know how I expected all of these gimmicky things to work after every other moment of parenting has taught me that nothing is that easy. There was almost zero chance that I could say, "Hey, you get one whole sticker if you go from being totally happy in a soggy diaper for three hours to having to stop doing fun stuff every hour or so to sit on a cold toilet seat," to my stubborn little bug and expect it to happen.

So here's the real truth: potty training is a huge inconvenience and a lot of work. Bug was dry all day for the first time today because I (not her) was finally willing to pay the price for that accomplishment. I carried her potty chair up and down the stairs to keep it at hand while we were in the playroom. I allowed errands to take twice as long so we could take potty breaks the minute we walked into each store, before we left the store, and sometimes during the shopping if the urge struck her. I turned off the stove in the middle of preparing dinner to help her onto the big potty.

These might not sound like huge inconveniences, but the time burden is heavy when you commit to it. It makes me realize how much easier it would be to just let her keep peeing in a diaper. Thinking of it that way, I realize why she was never going to be the one to take the initiative and it had to be me.

Anyone else about to take this journey, best of luck...

Letters - the rest

Bug at the museum on "M" day

I wish I could say that my ABC plan worked wonderfully and my super savvy 31 month old now knows every letter from A-Z. But I'll be honest - it was too much information, we were going too fast, and she got sick of it. It went great at first, but she slowly became less and less interested in my overenthusiastic declarations about how great such and such letter was and how many super, amazing, awesome things we were gonna do to celebrate that letter!! We made it to "M" doing the full out plan. She still likes making the picture collages, but I'm pretty sure she likes it because it's one-on-one interactive time we spend together (or because she gets to play with stickers...) not because she cares about what the letter is. I hope that the collages will at least help her to learn the ABCs in the future.

Here are some things I think I could have done or changed to make this work better:

1. More time! I think this would have worked much better as "Letter of the Week." She would have had more time to process each letter and really commit it to memory before we moved on.

2. I think I could have kept her attention more if I planned ahead better. We would sit with a huge box of craft supplies each day and see what we might happen to have that started with that letter that we could go with. I could have pre-sorted and put aside everything we were going to use the night before.

3. It would have been more fun if we were all involved (Daddy too!). He would always ask about the letter of the day, but otherwise it was just bug and I plodding through the alphabet.

I and J

Sorry for the delay in continuing this feature. Bug and I took this week off from letters to review and we'll resume with "N" on Monday.

We learned about the letter I by playing with ice in the sink and making ice cream.

We filled the sink with ice cubes and bins of colored water. Bug practiced catching the ice cubes with a big spoon and moving them to the other containers.

Bug watching our pumpkin ice cream churn.

For J day we spent some time outside jumping on the trampoline and then made our own fresh apple juice!

Jumping on a nice fall day.

Using our leftover apples from the orchard to make some delicious homemade juice.

Pumpkin Faves

I know I've posted about it before, but I love everything fall and everything pumpkin. Halloween may be over, but I consider it pumpkin season through Thanksgiving so I thought I'd share a few of my new pumpkin favorite foods and drinks.

1. Pumpkin spice coffee. No, not one of the dozen varieties available at markets and coffee shops (although Fresh Market's is quite nice). We make our own by filling the coffee filter with regular fair trade coffee and then adding about a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. Stir the spices in and brew as usual. Delicious!

2. Pumpkin Cannoli. I discovered these about a month ago at Roma's in Latham. They are of the chocolate shell variety with a delicious pumpkin flavored filling. Yum!

3. Pumpkin pie yogurt. Wonderful treat from Target for only 80 calories and zero fat.

4. Pumpkin cookies. These are more like mini cakes. The recipe I used is here, but I added a cinnamon cream cheese frosting instead of glaze.

5. Pumpkin Shrimp Curry. OK so I am cheating by listing this as a favorite because I haven't actually made it yet (dinner tonight!). The recipe is this month's issue of Bon Appetit and looks incredible similar to the usual shrimp curry I make except the can of tomatoes is replaced with a can of pumpkin so I am projecting that I will love it.

Post-Halloween Weirdness

This morning my bug is in rare form. First, she demanded that her daddy kiss her "big toe" instead of her cheek before leaving for work. Then she did this while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and washing my face...

When I asked what she was doing, she told me that, "The lion and me are taking a nap in the kitchen." After I showed her the photos she said, "Aww, we're so cute!" How do I even respond to that?!

Happy Halloween!

As Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I thought I'd share a few of our photos from this weekend's festivities....Hope everyone has a very Happy Halloween!

A proper princess with her pumpkin cookie at the Crossings Halloween party

Silly Cinderella finds spider rings in the hay at the Boght Fire House

Sweet little gnome posing at a friend's Halloween party

Chocolate "dirt" cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting, cake crumbs, and gummy worms for the Halloween party at school.

F, G, and H

We finished last week by learning about the letters F, G, and H.

We celebrated the letter "F" by having French toast sticks for breakfast, jumping around pretending to be frogs, visiting some friends, taking a drive to check out what's left of the fall foliage, and (as evidence by these pictures) making funny faces.

Yummy french toast sticks!

We learned about the letter G by being guests in bug's aunt's classroom, practicing being gentle with our kitty moe., and playing guitar with Daddy.

I know the cat looks like she's trying to get away,

but she actually was purring and seemed quite happy.

Playing along to Phish's "Joy" with Daddy

Our celebration of the letter H was a bit off because we had to spend the day out of the house as bug's Daddy and Pa were doing some major construction in the middle of our living room (taking down half of a wall and sheet rocking). We visited a bounce house playground to hop and bought a new Halloween hat (the next day we went on a hayride too!)

Halloween hat from Gymboree

30 months

I started doing these snapshots of what it's like living with an infant/toddler at different stages and thought it might be fun to resume! Here's what my bug is like at 30 months!

• Tantrums still happen, but are far less frequent and easier to defuse with distraction than they were 6 months ago.
• Diet is fickle to the extreme. Sometimes she will request seconds and thirds of a meal, other times she refuses to eat more than a few bites. Her favorite real foods these days are broccoli, carrots, grapes, cheese, and shrimp. Her favorite junk food is mini lollipops.
• Everything prompts a question. I must answer "What is it?" and "What's in it?" twenty times a day minimum.
• Her language skills seem to be improving and expanding on a daily basis still. I can tell she is putting more complex thoughts into words and gets frustrated far less frequently.
• She has a great memory and picks up on routine well. For example, I made a comment that her Papa (my dad) might not be home and she responded, "Yea, Papa might be at camp" in reference to his cabin that he frequents all summer.
• She is starting to repeat, but with her good memory the things she hears can come up much later so we really need to watch ourselves. We don't really use curse words, but I made an offhand comment one day referring to myself as "fat" and days later she started chanting "Mommy's fat, mommy's fat" in the car. Oops!
• She still loves to dance - I'm thinking of starting her in dance class soon.
• She has a sense of humor and loves to watch America's Funniest Home Videos - she laughs at all the animal videos.
• She has an insane imagination. She plays house with her babies all the time and her bath time is frequently invaded by walruses, sharks, sea turtles, and dolphins after our visit to Sea World.
• I got away with not having to wean pacifiers or bottles, haven't had to deal with a crazy attachment to a stuffed animal or blanket, and don't have to worry about bug trying to get into places that are off limits (she HATES when I unlock under the sink to get a new garbage bag and tries to re-lock it), but she is aggressively resisting my attempts at potty training. In fact, she doesn't even want her diaper changed anymore. It's a complete waste disposal shut down.

Things might be busier and more difficult in some ways, but I LOVE this age. She's funny, interactive, and learning like a sponge. Not to mention the fact that she's the cutest kid I've ever seen...don't you agree?:-)

Letters D and E

I'm not sure if anyone finds this interesting so I am going to consolidate posts for a quicker re-cap of the letters of the day...

To celebrate "D" day we ate a donut for breakfast, had a visit with our neighbor's dog, fed the ducks at the park, had a dance party and drum circle listening to Keller Williams, and pretended to be animals that start with "D" (this mostly involved me being a dog and the bug leading me around the house by the string on my hooded sweatshirt).

Feeding the ducks some old rice krispies

I'll admit, "E" was a bit harder to come up with activities for! We dressed up as "eagles", ate eggs for lunch, watched Enchanted during afternoon quiet time, and went to the gym to exercise.

My little future Boston College Eagle

Candy Corn Cupcakes

This is going to be a very short post as I can just link to the two recipes I used:-)

Go to Scharffen Berger's site and click "Make a vanilla cupcake." Once there look for the link in the upper right that says "Get our base cupcake recipe." I followed the recipe exactly. At the end I divided the batter into two bowls and used food coloring to make half yellow and half orange. I put one spoonful of yellow into the cupcake liner followed by a spoonful of orange to mimic a candy corn. Bake as directed

I used this buttercream recipe and it might be my new favorite! I halved it to avoid too much leftover. I did add a little bit more milk than called for so it would be softer - you can play with it as you go to get the consistency you want.

Enjoy!

The letter C

Friday was "C" day!

We celebrated by having Cinderella waffles for breakfast, visiting lots of cats at the animal shelter, wearing costumes, baking candy corn cupcakes, and making our "C" collage!

Yummy Cinderella waffles.

Visiting the animal shelter - "Can we have one, Daddy? Pleeeease?"

Thankfully, my bug loves to cook with me!

Mixing the batter to make candy corn colors...

Proudly showing off her costume and mini-cupcake!

We are on our way out, so I'll post the candy corn cupcake recipe later...

The letter B

Yesterday was "B" day!

We celebrated our letter of the day by wearing a butterfly dress, remembering some of our favorite B words (balloons, beach, and bugs!) on a collage to add to the ABC scrapbook, by going to the library and picking out lots of books, by running around the house acting out B words (bees, birds, butterflies, bouncy balls, etc), and by making a delicious butternut squash soup!

Bug enjoying her new library books

Butternut Soup

Quick Recipe

1 TBSP olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 cup diced carrots

1/2 cup diced celery

2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced

4 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into small cubes

4 cups of low-sodium organic chicken broth

1/2 tsp cinnamon

sprinkle of nutmeg

sprinkle of coriander

1. Saute onions, carrots, and celery in olive oil for about 8 minutes until starting to soften.

2. Add all remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Puree in a blender or with an immersion blender.

4. Enjoy! (I topped it with a teeny dollop of fresh whipped cream and cinnamon to make it look pretty!)

ABCs

As soon as I found out that I was going to be home with bug for a few months, I decided that I wanted to try and teach her the ABCs. Her daycare has been amazing and has helped teach her all of the colors, how to count to 15, and all of the basic shapes, but I really wanted to take this on as a fun project for the two of us together.

My idea is to spend the whole day (each week day) talking about "the letter of the day." We'll use her leapfrog Fridge Phonics set to review the sounds that each letter makes, practice writing the letter, cook using ingredients that start with that letter, and do at least one arts and crafts project highlighting the letter of the day.

Today's letter (predictably) was "A."

We made a letter collage using paper punches and stickers with some of our favorite things that start with "A".

For lunch we had Pasta with Apples and Almonds. See recipe below.

Apple and Almond Pasta

2 cups cooked pasta (We used Spinach wagon wheels)

1 cup halved red grapes

1 medium apple, peeled, cored, and diced

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1 TBSP sliced almonds

1 TBSP Parmesan cheese

juice from 1/2 lemon

pepper, to taste

Cook your pasta and run it under cool water. Mix the fruits and nuts together in a large bowl. Add the pasta to the bowl and toss to combine. Mix in lemon juice. Add pepper and Parmesan and toss one last time. You can chill it and eat it later, but we ate it right away at room temperature.

And exhale...

I realized that it has been almost 2 months since I posted anything! In all fairness to myself, it's been crazy around here. In brief, this is what's been going on that's kept me away from the computer:

• I got hired for a new job! A real job! And...I'll be working part-time for at least a year.
• We (meaning my husband, father in law, and dad) re-modeled the bug's playroom.
• I finished residency!!
• I found out my new job won't start til December, so I'm a "stay at home mom" for two months.
• We took the bug to Disney World!
• I studied for and took my certifying board exam.

And now, I've finally reached the point when I can take a deep breath, slowly exhale, and RELAX! I'll try to give some attention back to the blog because I have many things I'd like to share about Disney, plenty of new recipes and crafts, and I imagine I'll need an outlet for my thoughts on what it's like to abruptly switch from working 40-80 hours a week to working NONE. 

Cupcakery

(a dangerous trio: Raspberry White Chocolate, Margarita, and Rum Punch cupcakes)

Our family recently had the pleasure of celebrating the marriage of my husband's cousins to a very wonderful guy. As many family had traveled for the event, the bride and groom hosted a day-after-the-wedding party at their new home. I'm always looking for an excuse to bake, so I offered to bring dessert. I decided to continue the theme of celebration with some spiked cupcakes. I know cupcakes are a big "trend" in baking right now, but I love them for so many more reasons than their trendiness. Here are a few if the reasons I adore them so very, very much: easy to portion control, inherently kid-friendly, simply portable, very fun to decorate, and amendable to cute dessert displays.

Anyway, on to the cupcakes! The Margarita and Rum Punch versions are spiked, but the final recipe is alcohol free.

Margarita Cupcakes

I found the recipe for these on another food blog I like to follow called Tracey's Culinary Adventures. As I LOVE lime, I was practically drooling just thinking about this recipe. I followed her recipe exactly and they were delicious! See her website for a much prettier picture that actually does these beautiful cupcakes justice! I was just lucky my photographer remembered to snap a shot before he devoured the leftovers...

Rum Punch Cupcakes

Once again, the picture leaves something to be desired, but the flavor of these amazing coconutty, rum drenched, pineapple whipped cream topped delights does not. I found this recipe on another food blog called Annie's Eats. Once again, I followed her recipe to the letter and was very pleased with the results. The only thing I added was the cherry on top for a garnish.

Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcakes

This recipe was also borrowed from Tracey's Culinary Adventures (recipe here).These cupcakes were very pretty and dainty in appearance, but quite dense when you ate them. The white chocolate cupcake was not light and fluffy like the other cakes, but heavier like a pound cake. Not bad, just different. The issue I did have with them was that I felt the frosting was too sweet - it was the kind of sweet that makes the insides of your cheeks tingle from all the sugar! I would definitely make them again, but with about 1/2 the sugar in the frosting. Also, I did skip filling them as I was running out of time. (I made use of the extra raspberry filling as a yogurt stir-in and as a topping for baked brie, yum!)

Bug Party: Everything Else!

I'll admit that my life (in terms of residency) is lightening up, but the amount of "free time" I have has virtually disappeared. Between my efforts to study for my board exam, get back to the gym, and deal with the bug refusing to settle for bedtime until later and later, my blogging is once again slacking. I'm now going to make use of an aptly timed "no show" patient to present the rest of my Bug Party crafts and ideas. This is a long one, so either skip it or settle in!

Party Sign

For bug's actual birthday I spent time making a paper birthday banner. Then, I saw the sign idea on another blog and decided to mix it up a bit for her big party. Check out Prudent Baby for the original instructions. For my version:

• I didn't have a staple gun (and find them scary), so I stretched the fabric in place over my canvas and used hot glue to secure
• Instead of twine, I used some of my leftover ribbon from the topiary to hang the letters
• Once again, I used my "inspiration paper" as the backdrop for the letters
• Instead of painting the letters, I used two packages of large, glittery cardboard scrapbooking letters that I purchased on clearance from Michael's
• After carefully measuring out the spacing between the letters, I dabbed a bit of hot glue on each mini clothespin to keep the letters from moving or falling

Cupcake Toppers

If you haven't see these cuties pop up recently, you are very out of touch with what's what in the world of party planning (or didn't have endless hours trying to stay awake in the NICU overnight to browse every party planning blog known to man). Anyway, these are VERY easy to make and really jazz up your dessert table.

Supplies: Lollipop sticks, paper, scissors, large square paper punch, color printer, glue stick, hot glue gun

Quick Instructions:

1. Use paper puncher to punch out twice as many pieces as toppers you intend to make (i.e. if you want to make 25 toppers, punch out 50 squares).
2. Use Microsoft Word to design whatever picture or wording you want on the topper (I made 4 different ones) and print with a color printer in shades to match or compliment your punched paper.
3. Cut out printed circles.
4. Use glue stick to attach the circles to half of your punched squares.
5. Use hot glue to attach one square to each lollipop stick. When dry, secure second square in place by making a thin line of hot glue around the edges of the first square and pressing the second square in place until dry.
6. Stick in cupcakes and wait for compliments:-)

Bug "Ears"

My little bug called the antennae that I made "ears" and it just kinda stuck. These were very, very easy and inexpensive to make and I think the adults enjoyed them nearly as much as the kiddies.

Supplies: Cheap plastic headbands (I got packages of 8 at the dollar store!), green ribbon, green pipe cleaners, small styrofoam balls, spray paint, hot glue

Quick Instructions

1. Spray paint styrofoam balls (I used my leftover paint from the terra cotta pots to save money).
2. Roughly determine where you want the antennae to be and wrap one end of the pipe cleaner around the headbands. By having them in place at the start, you can secure the sharp ends under the ribbon when you wrap it.
3. Using hot glue to secure in place, wrap green ribbon around headbands to cover completely. I worked in half inch sections at a time to prevent the glue from drying too quickly.
4. Stick the styrofoam balls in place on the top of each antennae. You can make them more secure by placing a dab of glue on the end of each pipe cleaner before inserting it.

Treat Cones and Holder

This project was a last minute detail for my dessert table. The cones themselves are super easy to make if you have the right supplies, but presenting them takes a bit more effort in putting together the holder. Directions for the holder can once again be found on this blog (scroll til you find it!), but I made my cones smaller and with a different method.

Supplies: Paper, paper trimmer, scissors that cut fancy edges, long lollipop sticks, any container you want to be your holder, styrofoam, hot glue, container "filler"

Instructions:

1. Cut paper into squares of any desired size (I made 6" by 6") with the trimmer.
2. Use design scissor to trim the border on two consecutive edges of the paper square.
3. Roll the paper into a cone shape with the scalloped edges at the top and a small opening large enough for the lollipop stick at the bottom - this step takes some trial and error; just keep rolling until you get the look you want. Secure along the seam with hot glue.
4. Secure the styrofoam in the bottom of your container with the hot glue.
5. Insert the lollipop sticks into the styrofoam (they need to be spaced out enough that the cones will fit next to each other) and place the cones over the sticks.
6. Spread the filler out around the cones.
7. Fill cones with any treats you desire (I made pink white chocolate popcorn for mine).

Phew! I think that's it for the non-edible DIY projects. I could make about a dozen other posts with the food DIY as I made everything that we ate as well, but I'll just hit on those recipes in other ways. I really, really hope my ideas and instructions help someone else out there:-)

Code Brown

I haven't posted a "mommy story" in a while, so I thought I would share this one. All of this needs to be taken in context of the fact that I woke up at 6am on the day preceding these events and had been up for more than 36 hours with only a short nap...

We have family coming into town soon for a wedding and I've been desperately searching for cute, coordinating outfits for all the little girls in hopes we will be able to get some pictures. This has not been an easy task to accomplish (without spending a fortune) as the babies range in size from 0-3 months all the way up to 2T.

As I was post call from a night shift and don't like sleeping during the day, I took advantage of my toddler-free time to hit up Gymboree's summer clearance (LOVE this store!) after cleaning my house and working on a sewing project. After an hour of searching through clearance bins, I thought I had finally done it! Four adorable, coordinating outfits for less than $50! When I got home I was reviewing my purchases and realized one of the outfits was just a shirt; the bloomers were missing. I called the store, but they couldn't find them and had NO other outfits in that style and size. After a quick internet search, I found there was another Gymboree at a mall thirty minutes away. I was hopeful I could find the same outfit, so I decided to make the trip.

As I was strapping the bug into her car seat, I double checked that there was a diaper bag already in the car (both mine and daddy's were in the back) and we were off. For the most part, bug enjoys Gymboree as there are cute chairs and a TV on to entertain her. She was good for the first few minutes while I was shopping, but quickly got bored with the shows on the TV and decided to "hide" under the racks that I was searching through. This was fine as I could see her and look at clothes at the same time. All of a sudden, she burst out holding both hands in front of her crying "uh oh, uh oh, uuuh oooooh!" Both hands were coated with a brown/yellow sticky looking substance. My first thought was grease from the racks, but as she came closer the smell informed me otherwise.

Holding her by the elbows to prevent her from touching anything on the way out, I sought out the nearest bathroom (which was waaay too far away considering the circumstances). Using copious amounts of soap we scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I had left the diaper bag in the car, so after making sure there were no ominous leaks from her diaper, we made our way back to the store to purchase the clothes I had set aside. After apologizing a million times for my stinky bug, I paid and rushed out to the car.

I popped open the back of our Mazda 5, spread out the changing pad, and laid the bug down. Casually, I reached for the diaper bag and found it empty. Ok, I thought. No big deal. I'll just get a diaper from the other one. But wait, that one was empty too! Two empty diaper bags?! A very large, stinky diaper and no diapers or wipes in either bag. Really? REALLY?!

And this is where my creativity was truly put to the test. I felt like McGyver. Using half a bottle of lemon flavored water, assorted fast food napkins, and two gently used cloth bibs I was somehow able to get the bug's bottom reasonably clean and fashion a make-shift diaper.

Take home lesson: Always have extra diapers!

Bug Party: Favors!

It's time to put the bug party to rest so I can move on to new events I'm working on! My next big projects were the caterpillar favors for the kids and the jelly bean favor pods for the adults.

Caterpillars

Once again, I found this craft just searching the internet for "bug themed" party ideas. To make them, I used:

• leftover lime colored fleece fabric ($0)
• leftover quilt batting ($0)
• lime green thread ($2)
• Small pieces of ribbon leftover from the topiary (less than $2)
• Blue or pink felt for the eyes (about $1)
• crinkly wrappers/bags from sun chips and granola bars

Follow the tutorial I used here. Below are my cutie bugs!

Favor Pods

I really wasn't looking for this project at all, but when I stumbled upon it while admiring some of the blogger's other projects, I HAD to make them. Here are the supplies I used:

• More of my inspiration paper cut into 3x6 pieces (hard to define $)
• lime green thread from the caterpillar project ($2)
• Jelly Belly jelly beans in colors coordinating to the party ($15-20)

I followed the directions found on this tutorial here. I didn't jazz up the edges of my pods though. Also, I tried parchment paper and found it crinkled up too much and preferred the sturdiness of the scrapbook paper.

Here are my pods on display at the party: