Category Archives: parenting

6 Hours

We are a tired household. I think I remember feeling rested… once.

For a while now, Enzo has been staying in his bed all through the night. He used to come to our bed at some point during the night, but then that all stopped and he now happily stays in his bed all night… until 4:00am. I am thankfully asleep at this early morning wakeup call only because he usually insists that Josh come and get him and that it is time to wake up. No. No it is not. It is extremely difficult to convince a 4 year old that it is in fact still time to sleep and it is often around this point that I start to hear whatever whining or crying begins when Josh pleads with Enzo to please just go back to sleep. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Normally I wouldn’t sleep through his waking, but I too am often tired because of a tiny little human who likes to dig her feet into my stomach, back and ribs and often pull my hair while sleeping. She started waking up and wanting someone around 1:00am a while ago, but gradually that time has moved up until now almost every night at 10:00pm she wakes up and calls for me. I usually attempt to tuck her back in and get her to stay in her room, but even if she dozes off, within minutes she climbs out of bed and makes her way into our bedroom. So no more late night reading or late TV watching. Also, we have a king sized bed, so how is it that I end up with a mere 6 inches of sleeping space?? Not only do I have her burrowing into my side, but Uzi also insists that he needs to sleep on me.

Something’s gotta give. At the very least I’d be satisfied if she Phoebe stayed in her bed until at least I’m ready to go to sleep, however, we still don’t know how to get Enzo to sleep in until it’s actually time to wake up. No wonder he gets cranky, he’s gotta be tired. There’s got to be an answer, right? Anybody? I guess it’s time to consult the Google and then sort through the dozens of different ways to go about getting sleep again.

Just Keep Swimming…

I probably should be repeating this over and over this week. I figure it’s fitting since we just watched Finding Dory and this week has been a rough one, so I should probably remind myself to breathe more and Let It Go. If Josh was here he’d probably help me with more Disney puns. It’s been a stressful past week and the kids were thrown off by a few things, as well as Josh and I. I think we all just want everything to get back to normal.

Two weekends ago we pulled the bouncy house outside, which thrilled the kids for about 15 minutes. It was pretty hot, though, so I’m not surprised they didn’t last too long. I wish all days they could play as well together, but they have two very different personalities and they’re each going through various developmental stages.

Quite often there is fussing and whining and “Enzo hit me” or “Phoebe took my toy” which is what I’m guessing he’s saying since really all I hear is high-pitched screaming. We’re really working on the yelling/screaming lately. Enzo’s first response to frustration or outrage or embarrassment is to scream and yell and now Phoebe is starting to do the same. There are some days when I think my ear drums will burst.

His moods are rather like the tide. He’ll have several good days or a great week and then suddenly something sets him off and it can be hard to get through the rough days and back on track. Phoebe’s shenanigans are no help either as she’ll do things that are naughty and laugh at the negative reaction (like her brother freaking out). Parenting is so exhausting.

There are some days where we are able to just laugh the chaos off because some things are just so absurd and ridiculous and exasperating and I’m trying more and more to laugh rather than cry. I don’t know if I’ve told this story yet… but Phoebe can’t be trusted to be left alone – at all. I left her in the bathroom on the toilet for maybe 15 seconds and came back to find that she had unrolled half the roll of toilet paper. There was just this massive pile of toilet paper on the ground. I got her off and then Enzo came in saying he needed to pee, so I got her out of there and told Enzo if he needed toilet paper to just grab some from the pile since I needed a minute. Well… I walk back in to find him with the huge wad of toilet paper in his hand blotting himself and not stopping him in time before he dropped it all into the toilet. I was pretty much speechless… it had been a long day and Josh legitimately thought I had lost my mind when I walked out of the bathroom and just threw my hands up in the air and started laughing hysterically.

They do have moments of sweetness, which are so hard to remember during those rough times when they try your patience and push every single button they can. I’m trying to really respond to these moments, though. Josh spent two nights in the hospital and Enzo cleaned up his floor a bit without asking for which I praised him greatly and he told me he’d take keep me safe while Josh was gone.

I guess we’ll just have to keep each other safe and do our best to get through each day. I call a do-over on this past week, and the great thing is that like I tell Enzo we can choose to start-over and try to have a better day. We choose how we react and we can choose to be mad/sad/frustrated all day or we can choose to accept that what’s done is done. I may have “failed” in my mind as a parent this week, but I can do my best to turn that around. I always make sure that I tell my kids I love them and apologize when I make a mistake as a parent. Tonight my plan is to start over.

Day In The Life – July 4th Edition

Time for another Day In The Life post! For previous posts see here, here, here, here or here.

A holiday is never a typical day, but I figured it would be more fun. I also decided to just use my phone and had Josh take pictures as well. Funnily enough I thought I would take more photos if I just stuck with my phone, but I think I usually take more photos for these posts when I pull out my big camera.

While it could have been earlier, I still wasn’t thrilled to wake up before 6:00 on Monday, so I decided to let the kids crawl in our bed and watch some TV while Josh and I dozed on and off.

The kids went to the store with me the day previously and Enzo had picked out donuts, so we had those for breakfast. It turns out the kids don’t like cream filled out donuts, so more for Josh and I. 😉

Knowing it was going to be a late night and that the kids needed naps, we nixed anymore TV and I tried to keep them occupied with random activities throughout the morning while Josh and I did a little tidying up in the kitchen.

The kids had some fun with perler beads. Enzo decided not to keep his truck design, but Phoebe decided to keep her ice cream cone. The bigger beads are perfect for tiny hands, and let’s face it, me too.

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Potty Training: The update you didn’t ask for, and other random stuff

Oh the joys of potty training. Our bathroom seems to constantly smell like pee – just a warning if you come over and I haven’t had time to clean. It’s apparently not just a little boy problem because little girls also can make a mess when they’re rushing and/or too squirmy. Probably more than you wanted to know, but that’s my life right now. Potty training this time around has gone really well, though. Phoebe is still using pull-ups while sleeping, but has had hardly any accidents during the day time. We all cheer her on and even Enzo gets excited for her when she successfully goes on the potty.

I’m not ashamed to say that we did use some bribing as an incentive to go on the potty. It worked with Enzo, and they reward kids with an M&M at day care, so we figured we’d roll with that. I remember being irritated when we found out they were using candy as an incentive when Enzo was potty training… but now? It’s a battle I’m not going to fight, so yes, here’s your M&M for making it to the potty! Just like with Enzo, we’ll start to phase out the rewards once she’s really doing good and especially once she doesn’t need pull-ups.

These pictures are obviously from before potty training as Phoebe is wearing a swim diaper under her bathing suit, which kept falling off. Thankfully she had her big brother to help her keep them up, though.

While he can certainly be bossy at times, Enzo is also very good at looking after his little sister. He means well, he just forgets at times that he isn’t the parent. It’s moments like this when my heart swells, though. He’ll take her hand to guide her somewhere, or help her get something she can’t reach, or help her keep her swimsuit on when mom buys the wrong size.

I think we’re making up for last year when we didn’t get as much water time, and also because last year we didn’t realize there was a… thingymabobber (technical term) on the outside water spout that messed with the water pressure making it impossible to use a sprinkler. Thankfully Josh managed to get it off this year and now we have normal water pressure for sprinklers and pool filling!

We also discovered a divot in the yard that made the perfect mud puddle. Good thing we had extra grass seed because that patch of grass was destroyed when they were done with it. Next on the list? Water balloons! I got some of those little water balloons that you hook up to the faucet and it fills up a ton at once. Seriously, why can’t I think of the words for anything? Friday brain I suppose.

With the temperatures rising tomorrow, it looks like we’ll be heading to the bigger pool in the morning and hunkering down in the afternoon watching out for hail and wind and all of that fun that comes with summer storms in Minnesota. Happy Weekend!

Potty Training and a vague Disney film reference

“A whole new world… ” Sing it with me everyone!

Completely cheesy, but I really do feel like we’ve entered a whole new world in parenting. A world without diapers! Okay, we still have pullups for naptime and overnights, but I have a feeling we won’t need those for long with how well Phoebe is doing. I think being the second child has helped greatly.

I feel like we may have pressured Enzo too much with potty training – in true first parent fashion we were uncertain whether we were making the “right” choices and I especially was overly worried about being a good parent when I should have walked away from Google and Mommy forums and put a little more faith in myself. There is no right or perfect way to parent and the firstborn is unfortunately the guinea pig.

So, even potty training seemed like a stressful milestone when it really shouldn’t have been. Who cares if you use the 3 day method or use pull-ups or whatever? Part of the problem was also the pressure from day care to have him trained and I think it was before he was truly ready. With Phoebe, I felt the same pressure initially, but then with so many other things going on didn’t think about it again. We would ask her if she wanted to use the potty, but never pushed it and then suddenly she said she wanted to wear underwear and there was no turning back!

It’s been a little over a week and she’s been doing great. She still doesn’t always want to poop on the potty, but we’re getting there. I caught her making “the face” and ran her to the bathroom despite her protests and she was excited when it happened. She’s even going through the night without peeing sometimes! Accidents are happening less and less often and it’s fairly exciting… almost too exciting.

I hate public bathrooms and the germs and it is not easy taking kids to a public bathroom. Phoebe, however, has been crying wolf a lot this past week simply because of the novelty of getting to pee in a restroom. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to rush to a bathroom because she has said she needs to go potty, only to rush inside, set up her potty seat and have her sit down, smile, shrug her shoulders and say, “No pee comin’ out!” Sigh.

*The pictures have nothing to do with potty training, I just wasn’t going to post pictures of that*

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures