Category Archives: toddler

A frigid Monday following a long weekend

I love a good long weekend, but it’s always that much harder to get going on Monday morning, and this Monday morning was especially difficult once we realized how cold it was. Oh well, at least the days leading up today were pretty good, even if we didn’t venture out all that much. We stuffed ourselves and hung out with family on Thursday, but once Friday hit we were on lock down.

Ignore the fact that these pictures are from when it was actually warm enough to wear shorts and pretend that I’m not super behind on transferring photos from my camera to my computer and sorting them. Anyhoo, we decided that Enzo was ready for the next big step – potty training. He had recently been showing all the signs and has been obsessed with potty books and apps/games on the Kindle, and when we asked if he wanted to wear undies, he was game.

It actually didn’t go all that bad. On Day 1 we had an accident pretty quickly, but then he also realized pretty quickly that underwear is very different than diapers. During nap time we definitely had an accident and we talked about whether or not to use pullups. Overall, a much easier day than I expected – he excitedly went potty frequently, flushed the toilet/emptied his potty seat, and washed his hands – all by himself.

Gradually, it became a little more difficult, though. We decided to do pull-ups, which I’ve been told will probably hold us back, so we may rethink this, but the big issue came with the other P word. Pooping. We had a couple of long days, but by Sunday evening everyone was pretty happy. He really likes underwear and we like the idea of having only one kid in diapers. Granted, we’re preparing ourselves for accidents and other issues, but we’re hoping we won’t have any major setbacks. The biggest step will be taking the pull-ups off at night and just accepting that we’ll have to deal with a few accidents in the beginning. It’s just hard with both of the kids not being the best sleepers right now.

I’m kind of hoping that Phoebe’s sleep issue is just due to a growth spurt or is simply related to her age and will stop soon, but I’m still unsure as to what to do with our toddler. We’re giving him an earlier bedtime and are attempting everything to get him to sleep at a reasonable hour and keep him from waking up in the middle of the night and insisting on a parent to sleep with him, but are at our wit’s end. I guess we’ll work on potty training for now and then figure out the sleep training later.

Send coffee… and donuts while you’re at it.

I am especially thankful for a short work week after a not so very restful night… or rather several nights. We’re adjusting things and hoping that Enzo will not keep fighting bedtime and will also not keep waking up in the middle of the night, but in the meantime, Phoebe has also decided not to sleep through the night. We’ve all been a bit fussy due to lack of sleep. Remember moments like this? I do… I do.

Last night it started with an earlier bedtime for Enzo, however it was still an hour later before he finally stayed put in bed. We think his clock may be too bright now… go figure. However, he still woke up at midnight, so I stumbled into his room and ended up laying down with him, only to wake up at 2:00am because I could hear Phoebe squirming and fussing in her crib. Josh was blissfully sleeping, despite the monitor by his head, so I found her pacifier and crawled back into our bed. Around 3:00, though, Phoebe was standing up in her crib and fussing. I may have swatted Josh a few times and told him it was his turn to get up. Baby girl was wide awake, though. Josh changed her and she continued to stay wide awake in our bed rolling around, crawling on top of us.

Then at around 4:00, I heard Enzo again… he was back and whining at the gate in his doorway. Up I got, and talked Enzo into crawling back into bed by agreeing to lay down with him again. He put his hand on my arm this time – probably trying to make sure I wouldn’t get up again. He fell asleep, though, and aroudn 4:30 I headed back to our bed… only to find Baby Girl had completely taken over my side of the bed. I gave up and made Josh give up part of his half and managed to close my eyes for half an hour before it was time to get up. All this to say… I’m tired and really looking forward to a short week even though it won’t mean sleeping in like it would have in the past. Ha ha. Maybe we can convince the kiddos to sleep until 6:00 or 7:00 if we’re lucky. 😉

Morning Routines

I used to be a morning person… even during the week I’d get up early so I had at least half an hour or so to read a book while I slowly drank my coffee and ate some breakfast and enjoyed the morning quiet all by myself. Weekends were even better because I could just read until whenever… heck, I could just read all day if I wanted to and it was magical. Magical, I tell you!

Oh, how things change. Now I get up as late as I can, which isn’t very late… 5:00am is a horrible time of day. I shower, feed the cats and then proceed to get the kiddo’s stuff ready (bottles, breakfast, lunch) and hope that no one gets up early otherwise everything is thrown off kilter.

Granted, in the past couple of weeks since I took these photos, Phoebe is no longer on formula, and only takes one bottle of milk to day care, which saves me a few minutes in the morning. Hey, every second counts.

Mornings3

On a great morning the kids sleep until 6:15-6:30 and hopefully Josh is out of the shower by that time so I can start blow-drying my hair and then feed Phoebe her morning bottle because baby girl is like me and needs food in her tummy fairly quick.

Due to lack of time, my own breakfast usually waits until I get to work. Enzo will wake up and depending on his mood be happy and joyful and want to watch an episode of one of his favorite shows, or will tell us all to go away and stay in bed as long as possible before wandering out and demanding a snack. He’ll either accept breakfast as an alternative or fuss for a bit if we tell him he can have breakfast, but not snacks.

At some point I’ll find time to get myself ready. Thankfully, I don’t really take that long unless I have no idea what to wear and then the morning ends with me rushing around trying to finish while helping Josh dress the kiddos and keep them amused.

Somehow we always end up somewhat rushed the last 10-15 minutes, especially now that cars need to be warmed up and the kids need to be bundled up to brace the cold. Generally the kiddos will amuse themselves fairly well, but lately Phoebe has been a tad clingy in the morning, which can make rushing around difficult.

On the mornings when they wake up early, we are sometimes able to get out the door on time, but the morning is more stressful because we have tired, whiny munchkins to trip over, so I’d almost rather trade being late for happier kids. One of these days I’ll hopefully work closer to the kids’ day care, which would be ideal. My office move really threw things off and added driving time. Oh well, in the meantime we do our best to manage the chaos and as long as everyone is smiling by the time we get to day care, I call it a fairly good morning. 😉

Big Boy Bed

For about a month now, Enzo has been in his new big boy bed. And by big, I mean fairly big. When we bought his crib we liked the fact that it converted from a crib to a toddler bed to a full-sized bed because we figured it would just grow with him until he moved out and would therefore save us tons of money in the long run. We’ll see about that. Anyway, we decided to move Enzo into the full size bed kind of early because he wasn’t sleeping well and we couldn’t keep him in his toddler bed. We (foolishly) thought that maybe a bigger bed would be the solution, and in some ways it has, if only because now instead of constantly letting him sleep in our bed there is now room for a parent in his bed. Yeah… not exactly fixing the problem, but we’ll work on that later.

All in all, he has been super excited about his bed, though, despite how much real estate it takes up in his room. The day we surprised him with it, he immediately wanted to climb up (which was also the moment we realized he’d need something like a stool to get in bed) and test its bounciness. Phoebe also insisted on joining the party, but seemed more interested in hanging over the side.

One really nice thing about the bigger bed is how much more comfortable it is for reading books, and it makes getting Enzo into bed much easier because he’s already in bed when it’s time to say good-night. Now if he’d only stay in bed once we close the door… I guess we’ll get there eventually.

Despite the large size, I think it’ll be a while before we can take the bumpers off the sides considering what a wild sleeper he is still is. There are some nights where I’ve wondered if we need bumpers at the foot of the bed because of how close he’s come to rolling off… or maybe that actually means he doesn’t need the bumpers because he stopped himself in his sleep. I think I’ll wait either way if only to avoid that potential bump in the night.

Daylight Savings

I’m sure most parents of young children can understand just what a pain in the neck daylight savings is. It can turn normally happy and cheerful kids into whiny, irritable messes.

The kids were up a little later on Friday night and were doing pretty good Saturday. We figured they would be going to bed a little later that night because Josh and I were headed out for the evening, leaving them with their grandparents. We hoped that they might sleep in late Sunday morning because they did get to bed a little later than usual, but no so luck. At some point Enzo ended up in bed with us – we were both so tired we’re not even sure why we broke our “rule”, so I definitely didn’t sleep well after getting kicked and pummeled and then Phoebe woke up right at 6:00 am. In her mind it was actually 7:00 am, which is perfectly normal for her.

We tried to keep naps on schedule, but the kiddos were just off the whole day. Enzo fought his nap only briefly before giving in to the exhaustion, but Phoebe was not keen on napping much at all despite being kind of fussy and clearly needing to sleep. By the time the evening rolled around they were both super fussy, so we decided to get bedtime rolling earlier, hoping to get them to sleep half an hour earlier (which would still be half an hour later they’re used to). It seemed to work okay…

Until this morning when Phoebe woke bright and early at 5:30, followed shortly by her brother. I guess we’ll see what day care/preschool says about their moods. From the sound of things, though (Josh had drop off and pick up today), it sounds like a few kids may have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and it could be a long day. I know they’ll adjust, but it could be a long couple of days in the meantime.

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures