Mama Likes to Jitterbug

D.T.O.

I just want to say that I have successfully mastered the parenting technique known as D.T.O or the "Double Time Out".  It took a little practice, but I'm now able to get Grace and Sean to sit next to one another for their alloted times (two minutes for Grace, one minute for Sean), say they're sorry, hug, and carry on like respectable little children.  At least until the next drama ensues.

Generally speaking, a D.T.O occurs when Grace is put in time out for some offense against Sean...either hitting him, yelling at him, taking one of his toys, or something along those lines.  It never fails that while she's there she'll say something lippy as he walks by.  I don't understand what she says, but apparently Sean does, because whatever it is, it completely sets him off and causes him to hit her.  Thus, landing him in timeout and resulting in the D.T.O.

A funny story.  We've really been working with Sean on hitting and telling him that it's not acceptable.  He's at that age where it's his first instinct when he's mad or wants your attention.  The other day, Grace yelled something bossy at him and it really made him angry.  You could totally see his internal struggle.  Wanting to hit her, but knowing it was wrong, but really wanting to hit her.  After thinking long and hard for about 15 seconds, he bent himself in half and charged head first into Grace knocking her down.  The first word that came to my mind was GENIUS!  Not your typical parental reaction, but I was so impressed that he clearly thought about it and figured out a way to get back at her that "technically" wasn't hitting.  At least not in his book.  And to see her flying back on her bottom was pretty darn funny.  Can't say she didn't deserve it either.  Maybe Steve should try that technique the next time I get too far out of line with bossing him around.  Ha!

Finally, here's a picture of Sean from last Friday that cracks me up!  This child is FIERCELY independent and refuses to be treated like a baby in ANY way, yet he still refuses to give up his "ba ba".  I couldn't help but laugh when I found him in the living room with all the cushions pulled onto the floor, just kicking back and waiting for everyone else to get ready.  I love this kid!

Potty Training

We're officially in full potty training mode.  What's funny is that it was totally Grace's idea.  She just made up her mind last week that she was done with diapers and wah-lah, she was done with diapers.  We started out bribing her with candy for each successful trip to the potty, but she decided that she'd rather have cheese.  So now it's slices of Kraft cheese in exchange for pee.  Cheese for pee.  Hey, whatever works!

I took Grace to Target over the weekend and let her pick out her first pair of big girl panties.  Wouldn't you know, out of everything, she chose the boy's Cars underwear.  She did pick out lots and lots of princess undies as well, but these were definitely her favorites.

On Saturday I also did some serious clothes shopping for the kids.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that they had NOTHING to wear to daycare that wasn't shrunk up to their shins or covered with Spaghettio stains.  It was pretty embarrassing.  I've NEVER been this behind on my shopping.  But I've just been so busy lately that I haven't had time to pick up anything new, much less cute and stylish. 

So I met Steve's cousin at the mall in Providence for one of our fabulous "moms only" outings.  I decided to combine our gossiping and girl time with a mass shopping spree.  I wish I had a camera.  I was a woman out of control.  Running from store to store just buying whatever I could find with long sleeves or pants in their sizes.  I was throwing things over my arm and not even caring that I had just bought three of the exact same thing at the previous store.  It was so bad that at one point my credit card company actually thought my card had been stolen and requested a call for verification.  Ha!  But the good news is that now we're all set with enough clothes to get us through to summer. 

This reminds me, I also picked up the kids Easter outfits online yesterday. I'm such a softie when it comes to sear-sucker and matchy-matchy outfits.

Of course I know Steve is going to give the big VETO on Sean's outfit.  Not to mention, it's TOTALLY impractical for Easter Sunday in Vermont, but I thought that they would make for an adorable photo of the kids together.  And I know I'm being completely delusional thinking that I'll even get a shot of them sitting in the same place at the same time, much less looking at the camera and smiling, but I figured I'd turn it over to the professionals and at least give it a try.  Our appointment is in mid-March.  And I know I'm totally cursing myself here, but what's the worst thing that could happen, right?

Movie Night

Saturday night Steve & I sat down and watched our first movie together in ages.  No computers.  No cell phones.  No kids.  Nothing but the two us and twenty baskets of laundry.  I've been wanting to see The Departed since it came out last fall.  Mostly because I love mob-type action movies, but also because it was filmed here in Boston and the cast is star-packed.  OH MY WORD what a fantastic movie!!!!!  I didn't even get through half of the laundry I was suppose to fold because I was on the edge of my seat the entire time waiting to see what happened next.  It's definitely the best movie I've watched in a long, long time.  No surprise that it won the Oscar for best picture on Sunday night either.  I don't know how that entire cast wasn't nominated.  Two thumbs up!  Totally recommend! 

"Mama, watch this!"

These three little words have the ability to get me from any place in our house to another in under two seconds flat!  Mostly because I know it generally means that I will find at least one of my children, probably both, preparing to perform some gravity-defying stunt that hasn't been very well thought out. 

I swear my kids fear nothing.  Nothing!  (Well, other than snow and car washes.  Ha!)  They are such little thrill-seekers.  Last week Steve found Grace standing on the office chair and diving into the sofa head first.  And Saturday, I found her with one leg slung over the banister ready to slide down.  I'm not kidding! 

Not surprising, we don't  catch very many of these dares on camera since we're generally sprinting to the scene of the crime.  But never one to leave you hanging, I do have a couple of safer stunts from this past weekend that I was able to capture.

Here's Grace jumping off of her stool onto her "cow".  At least after the carpet burn incident she figured out how to soften the landing a bit!

And here's Sean doing flips over the side of Grace's bed.  This was REALLY funny actually!  He saw her climbing over the rail and decided to improvise a little bit with the chair. 

How to Eat an Ice Cream Sandwich

Ok, here it is.  The layout I've been having so much trouble with.  This one was challenging because I really wanted to show the difference between how Grace eats her ice cream sandwich and the way Sean does it.  It was sort of like doing two totally different pages and trying to cohesively merge them into one.  Ugh!  Anyhoo.....these pictures of the kids TOTALLY crack me up.  Grace taking mini-bites and insisting that I keep the paper on her sandwich.  Sean tearing in with reckless abandon.  Classic!!!!

Credits can be seen here.

Hats

For the first time ever, Steve & I are sick and the kids don't even have so much as a sniffle.  Weird!  We must have caught some kind of cold while we were teaching last weekend because we've felt terrible all week.  But I bought some great cold medicine on my way into work and I'm chugging right along.  Although I think I might be wearing the same outfit I wore on Monday.  Not sure.  And frankly, at this point I don't really care.  Today is all about just making it to bedtime.  LOL!

I do have a couple of cute pictures to share.  Sean's REALLY into hats right now.  The Wiggles have a song about them, so of course that's his "thing".  I'll have to remember to take some pictures of everything he's trying to put on his head, but in the meantime, here's a shot of him wearing a hat that I found at an end-of-summer sale for $2.  It's part of a trunk of dress-up clothes I've been wanting to put together for ahwile now.  I loved that sort of thing as a kid and I thought this would be a fabulous start.

Here's a random picture that I took of Sean sleeping last week.  Soooooooooo cute!  I love how his little feet are wrapped around the bars of his crib.  This picture actually reminds me a lot of what he looked like as a baby.  Sleeping on his tummy and cheeks mushed into the mattress.  I must admit it makes me a little sad because the bigger they get, the harder it is to remember them as babies.  I know everyone says it goes by fast, but it REALLY does.

This is a topic for a whole other post, but here's a picture I snapped of Sean banging his head on the bathroom door yesterday.  I don't know if this is a boy thing, a genetic thing, or a "my child has issues" thing, but Sean does it when he gets mad or wants your attention.  Must remember to research this. 

I've been working on a new digital scrapbook page for almost a week now, but I keep getting stuck and can't seem to finish.  I have some really funny pictures of the kids that I want to share, but it looks like it's going to have to wait another day or two.

We Got Pee!

I swear I'm throwing every parenting book I own in the garbage!  It never fails that when you research some technique and think you have it all figured out, your kid just up and does it on their own.  I can't tell you how much time I spent stressing over how we were going to wean Grace from her pacifier because I didn't want her to be the only kid toting one into kindergarten.  And then when she was about three months old, I walk into her room to find that she's kicked the habit cold turkey, thrown her pacifier out of her crib, and is looking at me like she's insulted that I would even suggest she needed one.  Ha! 

So I don't know why I was surprised when out of the blue, Grace tells us that she needs to go to the potty.  Thinking it was a stall tactic, I just ignored her.  But she was incredibly persistent, so I put her on the potty and what do you know.....WE GOT PEE!!!!  I know it's still a long while before she's "officially" potty trained, but the fact that she did this on her own before I could even pull out a single parenting book just blows my mind.   Way to go G!

Sean even got in on all of the pee excitement.  When he saw how much attention Grace was getting, he went back into the bathroom, pulled out the training seat, and begged me to put him on the potty too.  As you can see, he had the most adorable smile when we started cheering for him. 

Oh, and apparently sippy cups are no longer cool.  LOL!  Grace is all about cups with straws these days!

Believe it or not, this is the only picture I took during our weekend in Vermont.  *Gasp*  Not a very good one, but you can see how much snow they got.

 

Not a fan of the car wash!

Well, I finally found something that Grace hates more than snow. 

Yesterday the kids and I took my car to the wash to get all of the snow and dirt removed from last week's storm.  The second we got inside, Grace completely flipped! Which of course set Sean off.  She kept pointing to the back of the car and saying "this way", wanting me to back out of the car wash.  Of course, me whipping out my camera to take pictures probably didn't help matters.  LOL!

Yesterday was a holiday for Isabelle, so we took Grace to the daycare where Sean goes on Monday & Tuesday.  Farah reported that Grace was "very good".  Sean, however, had a much tougher time with the situation.  He was incredibly jealous to see his sister playing with all of his toys and friends.  And apparently everyone must have been asking Grace what her name was because last night she kept saying "What's your name?".  I bet she really confused them.  Most of the time she says it's "Sean".  Occasionally you can catch her off guard and she'll say "Grease" or "G".  Or sometimes she even calls herself "Maggie".  (I think this comes from watching Herbie The Love Bug because that's one of her favorite movies and the main character is named Maggie.)

Finally, here are some pictures Steve snapped of Grace a couple of weekends ago with his iPod that I keep forgetting to post.  It's seriously scary how good these kids are with technology.  Grace is only two and she's already got the iPod figured out.  When Steve found her, she was just sitting there listening to Lindy Hoppers Delight.  No kidding!  Oh, and last week she called Nana and had her on speaker phone!!!!!!  I have no idea how she figured that one out, especially since *I* don't even know how to put my phone on speaker.  Crazy!

We're Back!

We're back from our weekend in Vermont.  Steve & I had a lot of fun teaching our dance workshops and the kids enjoyed getting to spend time with Nana & Papa.  Can you believe they didn't fall asleep until almost midnight on Friday night because they were so excited from the trip?

I also came to the realization this weekend that Sean understands a lot more than we give him credit for.  At one point during our drive we asked Grace if she wanted some candy and were surprised when Sean started crying.  It never crossed my mind that he would know what we were saying and want some too.  I also thought it was cute that he woke up on Sunday and searched the entire house looking for us.  When he realized we weren't there, he cried.  I couldn't help but smile when I heard this.  It felt good to know we were missed!

I bought this book awhile ago, but just recently decided to start reading it again.  I'm fascinated by these sorts of topics.  The book discusses how our birth order influences who we are, who we marry, the jobs we choose, and even the kind of parents we become.  It also talks about the way we treat our children differently, depending on their birth order.  I definitely see some of this happening with my own children.  Like assuming that Sean is too young to understand what we're saying and treating him like a baby.  Having two children that are so close in age sort of throws a kink into things, but it's still interesting. 

I'm also learning more about myself from the book than I expected. I didn't even get past chapter one before I realized I'm pretty much a textbook firstborn child.  A leader, team-player, go-getter, and a perfectionist.  Funny because last week I happened to ask Steve if he could pick only one word to describe me, what would it be.  He said "perfection".  And before you start thinking "awh, how sweet", he was referring to my need to having everything in perfect order, not my charming disposition or breathtaking good looks.  LOL!  So here's how I faired on the book's "Are You a Perfectionist" quiz.  Unfortunately, a high score doesn't get you an A on this one.

   

Finally, congratulations to Steve who got a nice raise today at his job! Yay!

8 Questions With....Us!!!

How cool is this? Steve & I are spotlighted in this month's edition of Swing Dancer Magazine as part of their "8 Questions With" series.  I was also interviewed for an upcoming article on crossover events that will be coming out in their March or April issue, so be sure to check it out if you get a chance.

It's been such a weird week with the weather that I don't have a lot to report today.  However, that actually reminds me to mention that Grace HATES snow.  Hates it!  Will not stand on it, will not touch it, wants nothing to do with it.  So much for getting cute pictures of her building snowmen this weekend, but here's one I have to share instead.