Advents Corner

OK, most of you know I have 3 daughters so potty training is not something new at my house. The oldest daughter was stubborn, the middle daughter trained herself and then there is Lani. Oh the little precious angel. The little one who knew very well how to “go” to the toilet but is too busy or how should I put this….hard headed to go. I did not push it so much at first but then she turned three, then it was a couple months after her 3rd birthday and still nothing.

I put my foot down and said you are going to do it or else. Well, maybe it did not happen exactly like that but I like to think I have some authority over my girls. OK, stop laughing, it really isn’t funny.

She loves Toy Story and now with the new movie coming out the stores are flooded with toys from the movies. She received Buzz and it was the greatest thing to happen to her since she was born. The next thing she asked for was Woody and I saw my opportunity and pounced. I bought Woody and told her Woody only played with big girls and big girls wore panties.

That statement alone caused me to receive the biggest and baddest stinky eye I have ever seen. Lani was not pleased with that at all but I stuck to my guns. I told her that every time she went to toilet like a big girl she could pull his string 2 times. Woody stayed in the box on top of the fridge in plain sight so he was a reminder to be a big girl. Of course we had accidents and we had times where she just refused to go but she also knew the rules. She could not pull that string unless she went to toilet.

It took us one week and one week only to get her trained. She received Woody and she was so proud of herself. Just remember you must tell them how proud you are of them when they go. It got to the point when Lani would have an accident she would say, “are you sad?” I would respond with “yes, but the next time I will be happy because you are going to use toilet, right?” Just tell them how proud and how happy you are of them and sometimes that is all the encouragement then need.

So, take off those pull ups and put on your big girl panties.

I think we need to get one more stroller. Right now we have two strollers, one in Matt’s car because that is what we take on the weekends and one in Michaela’s car for when she takes Lani somewhere but that is rare. Well the other day Lani and I ran out to get her a pair of shoes in the van and when we got to the mall and I opened the back of the van…..no stroller. I was not a happy camper because we had to get one of the strollers from the mall. I know that is not a bad thing but you have to walk half way through the mall to get to the center where the strollers  are and they were out of strollers. Oh well, I guess I will make sure I have one in the van next time.

I walked into Lani’s room yesterday with her sitting on the floor pulling out all of the baby wipes from the container. She is so funny she just looked at me and said UH OH. Oh well I guess we all desire our moments of fun and that was hers. She is starting to talk a lot more so we are very happy about that.

Finally someone has said what we have always known as Mommies, when you are pregnant your baby sucks out your brain cells.  OK maybe not but they do make us more forgetful.  We have known this for years that when you are pregnant you tend to forget things more easily.  Now it has been confirmed through medical studies that pregnant women tend to forget things when they are involved in multitasking or unfamiliar things.

We use to think that once we had the baby that our memory would come back but they now suspect that the forgetfulness can last up to one year.  Do you think that might have something to do with being tired for all of the sleepless nights? 

Well she did not get out of the crib last night so we got one more night out of it.  I am trying to hold off for as long as I can before putting her in a toddler bed because I do not think she is really right now.  I am going to measure her tonight to see how tall she is because at 35 inches she has to come out of the bed.  I know she is not 35 inches but I want to see how much time we have left to prepare.  If she comes out one more time she is out of the bed completely I can not risk it.  I am hoping it was a one time thing and it does not happen again.  I talked to daycare yesterday and they told me that she has never climbed out of the crib at school so that is good to know.

I was not aware of this fact and it scares me because I think I keep up on all of the things that protect my child. From finding the right socket plugs to the right gate. I was not aware that car seats have a life of 6 years. When we went to purchase Lani’s car seat we looked at a lot of them and pushed on them and pressed on the seat to make sure she would have enough cushion on her bottom, but we did not know to look at the manufacturing date. We purchased and Eddie Bauer for a little over $200 because she could use it what seemed like forever. It goes from 5 lbs all the way up to a booster seat.

Some car seats can sit on the shelf for 6 to 18 months before they are sold. You are losing that time you can use the car seat. So the first thing you need to think about is the car seat being on sale. Check the date, it can be found on the seat itself or in the instruction booklet. If the car seat was made a year ago then the car seat you are intending your child to use until they are in a booster seat or longer if it is one of those like we bought is now only good to you for 5 years. The video that I have attached shows you how a car seat can fail if it is past the expiration date. Because the seats are exposed to extreme heat and extreme cold from being in the cars all of the time it can weaken the plastic over time. Also the harness fray and lose their strength over time. I hope you have found this useful and here is another article for you to read. You would think the internet would be flooded with articles on this subject but sadly it is not. I hope you have a little more luck finding info out on it than I did.

I bought this today for Lani as her Christmas present from Santa. She has become fascinated with Daddy’s computer so we thought maybe it was time she could get her own little one. I got it at the consignment store for $30 brand new still in the box and all of the pieces even the batteries in plastic. I had a store credit there to when all was said and done I paid $8.30 for it. How cool is that? You can buy different cartages for it so that will be an easy thing for people to get for her for Christmas if they ask. The extra ones are like $10-$15 so that is not bad. We hope she likes it.

My brother just called and it is a BOY!!!!  We are so happy.  My brother is the only boy so we needed him to have a little boy to carry the name on.  This will be my first time being an Aunty.  I am so excited.  So below is my little ticker so I can keep track of when the little bundle of joy is going to get here.

I see that this toy has made the 2007 Hots Toys for Christmas list. My daughter Lani has one and we bought it during the summer when they were not being sot after by crazy parents trying to score that big toy for Christmas and it was hard to find then so good luck at Christmas time. I just wanted to tell you this. Lani got it when she was about 11 months old and would not have anything to do with it. She just did not find it interesting at all. Then about a month went by with it just sitting on the floor and she discovered it again. This time only to find that she was scared of it. He is pretty loud and he does flop around the floor a lot. So it went from the floor in the living room to the bottom of the toy box because she did not even want to see it.

Lani is now almost 16 months old and she found the Elmo again about 2 weeks ago and thinks it is the funniest thing ever. She just presses him and laughs. His gears do grind a little when you hold his hand that the slaps with but other than that he is a pretty good toy. I recommend this one for around the 15 month old age. But if you little is not afraid of anything go for it. We did pay $50 for Lani’s so it was a waste for it to sit in the toy box but now she likes it. Oh and by the way Lani is not afraid of anything either but she did not like the Elmo when she was around 1.

You have to check this out.  I was so amazed with these strollers, in the fact that they actually grow with your child.  My favorite is the urban rider next.  When it gets to the toddler stroller they have their own little steering wheel, you should check it out and give it a spin.  Matt and I are looking at getting Lani a booster seat and now I have my eye on the Mutsy Grow Up!