Terrible Two-sday

Posted November 11, 2006 1:08pm

So my daughter, Toddles, has just informed me over dinner that I am no longer 'momma' but 'mommdada'. I can only assume she has given me the duel role as mommy & daddy. Interesting concept to say the least, especially coming from a 2 year old. Of course you can also assume that all of this has come about from our recent separation. It's mommy time 24/7 and she only see's her daddy a few weekends a month, if even that.

And the reason why I say today is Terrible Two-sday is because It's just complete havoc the minute I get home. I have some backup (grandparents) but it's usually just me. Everyday is Terrible Two-sday! lol Toddles & I come home and she immediately wants dinner. So I have to put her on the bar so she can watch me cook, if not, beware of her complete toddler melt downs of not getting her way. Then we have at some point during the night have a nice long conversation as to why she cannot have her blueberry yogurt. I give it to her once a day for breakfast and she is a addicted to the stuff (plus its expensive). Then I chase her around the house getting her to *want* to take a bath. Yes I said, want. This child dosen't like her baths anymore, or at least she is in that 'out' phase. It's like pulling teeth sometimes with her. 7pm comes, I put her to bed and I can sit down, relax and have myself a drink!

Several Milestones that have come and gone over the past 6 months:

*Her hair is long enough to put into a ponytail! (Yes the kid has hair! lol)

*Toddles will pick and choose what she wears for the day. If she dosen't approve it, she throws it away.

*Instead of the usual grunting and pointing of what she wants, Toddles now screams "Momma!!" and rushes over to tell me what she wants. Either that or she repeatedly says what she wants until she gets it.

*No more caudling Toddles when bed times comes by laying down with her in bed, rocking her to sleep, or staying in the room until she falls asleep. I stick her in bed, give her a kiss goodnight, and tell her to go asleep!

*She at one point mastered turning on/off the tv and changing the channels. I remember one night taking a bath and sticking her in my bed with the tv off. I take my shower, come back and caught her with the tv on flipping through the channels!!! heh This also goes for my alarm clock.

*She has a daily chore of feeding the dogs and she is good at it too!

*She has a bad habit of crawling up chairs now. Yes beware! I caught her at my desk, sitting in my chair, putting on my makeup one day!

*Toddles can take off and put on her shoes with the velcro straps on!! My girl!

*She has great table manners....for a 2 year old!! She says please and thank you most of the time. And tells me she loves me when I leave or put her to sleep.

*And the best for last: Toddles knows her ABC's!! She can't pronounce the letters well but she tries her hardest to say them.

Whats to come next:

-Learning to not have a panic attack when I take Kelly to the mall by myself. ( ya I just cant do it yet, she's a wild woman running around in that place).

-Getting rid of that darn pacifier

-I'd like to think I could get her to not be so clingy to me but I know that will take a lot more time. She has horrible separation anxiety without me around. And this is her solely wanting me, and not even Oma & Opa (grandparents) will suffice at this point in time. Shocking I know!

-Potty Training <~~~~~ Terrified Of

Sweetest Promise

Posted October 17, 2006
*A Poem for my daughter Kelly

Twinkle twinkle on a starry night.
Your sleepy head must stay in my sight.
For as precious as life can be,
your worth more than any man to me.
For your giggles of laughter is all the faith I have
to make your life the best I can.
Time ticks away your youthful age,
as seconds turn into minutes, minutes into days.
For I have plans to make our lives bitter sweet
and that's my sweetest promise for you to keep.

Toddles' Top 10 Favorite Activities

Posted August 22, 2006 5:52am

10. Running away from mommy in the store, knocking things off the shelves and yelling out "Momma!". Then throw a toddler meltdown right there in the store after I've tried to get her to act like a proper child.

9. Finding places to hide away from mommy, whether it be in a small corner or in a closet. Then yell out "Ughh Momma!" and then of course, giggle.

8. Looking through one of my Glamour or Parents magazines hunting for baby pictures then exclaim in a shrieking pitch "Babiiiieessssss!"

7. Grabbing mommy's cell phone off the counter and leaving it in miscellaneous areas of the house (on the floor next to the toy box, on the bathroom floor, etc.).

6. Taking a bubble bath and pouring the water from her 'wash cup' onto the bathroom floor. Then proceeding to throw every wet toy on the floor.

5. Taking every book of from her basket, and putting them on the couch in a big pile, one by one. Toddles will then sit on the pile of books and read each one and then throw it on the floor.

4. Brushing her teeth with mommy's toothbrush, not her own.

3. Taking sheets of stickers, pulling each one off and sticking them to her body (arms, hands, legs, feet).

2. Sitting down next to mommy when she puts her make-up on. Taking all of my make-up items out of the bag and giving them to me one by one. Then proceeded to open up the eyeliner and eye shadow and smear it on her face.

1. Feeding Angelina's (my friend I'm staying with) puppies, guarding their food, and making sure that they get enough to eat. And making sure that they behave by exclaiming, "Noooo puppies!".

Leader Of The Pack

Posted June 29, 2006 7:30am

I've always been the type of person to swear to myself and my family that I'd never have children and allow them to become evil, annoying, little hell-ions. Over the past month it has become very apparent to me that Toddles is sinking into an attitude of "I want it now and I will have it and I will do whatever I want to do" type phase. I know it's just the beginning of her "terrible two's" toddler years but frankly it frustrates me.

I had the daycare worker report to me that Toddles has been spending more and more time in the 'time out' corner. The other day she was kicking, throwing, slapping, hitting other little kids. They would be minding their own business and Toddles would come up to them and smack their pacifier right out of their mouth. Not something any parent wants to hear. I can tell you that a lot of this is instigated by other little toddlers. They love mimicking each other.

I was just informed yesterday that Toddles has a partner in crime, Abby. Apparently Abby loves to fill her mouth full of milk and then spit it out everywhere. Toddles sees this as a very amusing trick and joins in on the fun, I'm sure spitting all over the poor daycare workers. When I pick Toddles up she is cheery, wide eyed and ready to go; you'd think she was an angel all day. Not so. So it's very frustrating to hear all these things she has done and I was not there to handle it. I wont allow my daughter to continue her terrible two's until she is well into her teens! Hopefully that will not happen. But it appears Toddles is now one of the lead instigators of the toddler group. It seems to fit her since she is the eldest in her class.

You'd think after hearing all this, this would be all I'd have to say. Let me further your knowledge of how a almost 2-year old acts around Mommy & Daddy. After picking up cuddle-butts from daycare, we head home. Almost immediately Toddles will start to whine and grunt. I'd ask her what's wrong. She'd whine more and her pitch would get higher. I know she's hungry, so after giving her food, she eats about half of it and throws the rest on the floor. Last night was penne pasta spaghetti with green beans. Then add her sippie cup she throws on the floor about 3 times. Lets not get into detail of what my kitchen floor looks like. After playing with her food, I ask her if she is done. She looks at me and starts to cry. I pick her up and set her down on the floor. She starts to bawl. I put her back in her high chair, she cries harder and then starts to kick. I set her down back on the floor and the melt down begins. Kicking, screaming, sobbing. I run into the living room to maybe block out the noise. It doesn't work. All I can do is let her cry it out until she is ready to calm down. 10 min. pass and she finally starts to settle down. And I have a huge tension headache. Here lately I can't clean the kitchen up. Toddles comes to my side and jesters for me to pick her up and hold her. If I try ignoring her for 5 min. she'll start her melt down again. I asked her to go find Da Da. But it turned out that she didnt want her Daddy only her Mommy. She's been a super clingy, whiny toddler. I guess I should feel lucky someone loves me and wants my attention so much. I know I do keep telling myself that this is just a phase that toddlers go through and it wont last forever or does it?

Sleeping Problems

Posted June 19, 2008 6:03am

Anyone have advice on convincing a 1 1/2 year old to go to sleep? I sure dont. It took her 2 1/2 hours for her to fall asleep.

My night went like this:

8:00 pm Mood:

"Let's go to bed Kelly, youre a cranky baby". Kelly jumping on the bed, looks at me and smiles. I give her cup of milk, lay down next to her on the bed and turn the light off. Toddles sits up and drinks her milk and starts turning from her backside to her front side, switching positions every minute. "Aaabbby Aaabbby. Laaaaaaaaaaaayne!" and then starts mumbling toddler talk (Abby & Layne are Kelly's girl friends at daycare). I tell Toddles that "Abby & Layne are sleeping and Kelly should go to sleep too". She looks at my puts her finger to her mouth and says "shhhhh" about 5 times. She lays down and sucks on her pacifier.

8:30 pm Mood

I'm considering getting up and just leave her to cry herself to sleep.

8:45 pm Mood

Toddles is still mumbling to herself and still moving around. Then she looks at me while holding her breathe and starts to turn really red. And I give her this look and ask her what she's doing. She lets out her breathe and starts giggling and then does it again. She does that about 4 times and I get up to turn the light on. I tell her she's not ready for bed and I go start picking up things in the living room.

9:30 Round II Mood

Time to try putting Toddles back in bed again. She drinks the rest of her milk and start wiggling around again. I lay down and pretend I'm asleep, hoping she will do the same. She slaps me in the face with her cup. I cringe, and ask if she wants more milk. A big shake of her head tells me yes. I get it, come back, pretend to be 'sleeping'. She kicking me in my ribs and puts her face as close as she can to mine and starts to giggle. I tell her to give me kisses and she lays one on me, all slobbery. You can't beat one of those slobbery baby kisses! I tell her to go 'night night'. She lays down..and as soon as I can get away I quietly walk out at 10:20pm.

4:30 am Mood

I wake up to Toddles crying. I go see what all the commotion is all about. Kelly is awake sitting up. I grab her and put her in bed with me. She immediately rambles on "Daaa Daaa" "Daa Daaa?". "Da Da isn't here honey, go to sleep!". She lays right on me. I think, fine whatever works. I fall asleep.

Gosh I hope tonight goes better.

Warning!! Toddlers Carry Viruses!!

I thought I'd go back and share one of many short blogs I wrote on my Myspace page from 2006 & 2007, all of them relating to my first daughter, Kelly (aka Toddles) who is currently 4 years old now.

Posted June 16, 2006
9:02 am *Warning!! Toddlers Carry Viruses!!

Toddlers are small little people that are the transporters of all of the nasty viruses you can think of. I swear If you were able to hold a special light up to one of them it would show every type of virus you could imagine covering every square inch of their little bodies. And it doesn't help that they feel that they have to touch everything. I swear I didn't know what I was getting myself into before Kelly turned into a toddler. "No Kelly don't touch that, it's yucky!". "Stop it toddles, noooo touching!". "Don't stick your finger in your nose and then put it in mommy's mouth! That's a no-no!".

So right now I have pink eye for the 3rd time within the last month or so. I also have a sinus infection but that isn't contagious. The usual routine goes, toddles comes down sick and the next day I get the same exact thing. Matt is lucky that he doesn't get whatever virus Kelly and I have except for one. The dreaded rotavirus where it hits you like a ton of bricks. You break out in a cold sweat, you feel dizzy, very nauseous. Then all of a sudden the overwhelming stomach cramps and everything on your stomach decides to come up. Later on you puke so much that all that comes up is the neon green/yellow bile. Ya, it's not a very nice virus. Every time toddles get's it, everyone within a 5 mile radius comes down with it within a few days. Last year 8 different family members came down with it, all within a week. We were calling toddles "Typhoid Kelly" there for awhile.

Despite all the viruses toddles has, I still enjoy taking care of my baby when she's not feeling well. Lot's of snuggling and cuddling in bed. Toddles becomes easily attached to me when she doesn't feel good; she clings to me like a monkey. Daddies are for fun and mommies are there to make their babies feel better but, that's fine by me.

The Best Week Ever!

I have had a very exhausting last couple of days. I was working the credit card booth at the Armstrong McCall’s Fashion Revolution show at the Austin Convention Center Friday through Monday. It’s a lot of hard work but, well worth it. I learned a lot about our company, our products that we buy & sell, who the company store owners were and among other things. Plus I had the pleasure to see some of the best hairstylist in the country; among of them John Paul Mitchell.

While my coworkers set up our booth, we had this unbelievably annoying John Paul Mitchell sound check guy that literally spent over an hour talking to himself on the microphone. “Check, check 1,2…..1,2,3…..can you hear me? I’m talking to myself!” and went on to say as ridiculous things as “a blah a blah blah blah”. I wanted to run over there and through a shampoo bottle at him.

The highlight of the fashion show was seeing all the craziness; customers running through the convention center to get to the bargain booths, models having their hair done, hairstylist doing their magic on the models hair, ladies that could be ladies or men :)

I became very run down the after the first day the show opened, getting up at 4:30am and not going to bed till about 11 that night. I did receive some words of encouragement that things would get better for me. And so it did…

The 2^nd day at the show I became a model for a Puerto Rican hairstylist, named Lashawdra at the Helen of Troy booth. It took awhile to get her to do my hair but she was nice to make time for me. She said she wanted to do a bob hairstyle on me. I told her I wasn’t too sure but I wanted something that would work well with my facial structure. She said she has over 12 years of experience and knew this would look good on me; so I trusted her. And she did an excellent job of it! She cut off over 12 inches of my hair and most of my blond hair is gone. So I have my dark blond hair with some blond highlights. I got many comments and was surprised to not hear one negative comment where someone didn’t like it. Whew…I got lucky. Some hairstylist, I was told, do crazy things to other people’s hair.

But the true highlight of my week is adopting my new baby girl Piggy. I’ve been searching everyday for a month now, looking for a good deal on a Boston terrier. I found a posting on Craig’s list and emailed the lady immediately. By 5:30pm yesterday I was a new first time dog owner. Piggy came from a family with children around Kelly & Sebastian’s age. I could see she was well loved and trained well. Her previous owner was moving and unable to keep her. Piggy got her name from snorting too much, as most Boston’s do. She is a black/white purebred Boston Terrier. The owner said she lost her AKC papers though. I didn’t see anything that showed that she was not a purebred. Piggy will be 2 on January 20^th. She is potty trained, crate trained, leashed trained (needs a little work), loves children, cats and other dogs. And she was just spayed 2 weeks ago (yay!). She was truly a good deal and she is definitely meant to be for my family and me.

When I got home late last night, I never heard one word out of her. She’s a very mellow dog, follows me around, and likes to jump up on the couch, curls up and chills. My kind of dog!

My New Purse

For my 28th birthday I found this awesome purse on www.Etsy.com. I've been waiting 3 weeks now; it's coming from Thailand. I am a purse addict.

So Much To Do.....So Little Time

This being my first blog post, I was going to make it exciting but frankly I cannot accomplish this right now since I am knee deep in my work. I am going to be working over the weekend at my first ever fashion show that my company is putting on at the Austin Convention Center.

Here is a picture of my adorable nephew Damien. My sister Charlene made him a cute cuddly looking animal...not sure what it is.