Adventures in potty training... {EML}

I mentioned it already, but Emily turned 3 last week and for that, our gift to her was the beginning of potty training days. The first day, her actual birthday, I had to help out at church that morning so Will stayed home with the girls so that Emily could camp out by the toilet to begin the savings of diapers in our monthly budget :)

That didn't go well.

3 times peeing in her underpants and 1 dump  later Will strapped a diaper on Emily and called it quits. :) I can't say I blame him.

The next day, I got up and knew it was time. I knew that that was the day that we camp out... in the bathroom. I brought my whole work set up into the bathroom and made Em sit on the potty until she gave me pee or poo.

She was.... pissed?!!!!

She did not want to sit there. She was screaming, crying, snotting, yelling, kicking, begging for her diaper etc. but the mean mom I am made her sit there... for 2.5 hours.

I felt terrible, but I mean, come ON!!!! If you can ASK to go to the restroom in your diaper, you can go in the toilet. :) I decided to try my best to make this not complete torture camp... SO I busted out the iPod with games which only comes out for long road trips! That helped for a little bit...

Then she said she was hungry and hoped that would allow for her to get up... No such luck. I brought her a banana :)

This was about an hour and a half in... I started to worry that her legs were going to get bruised from sitting on that seat for so long, so I brought a stool over so she could rest her feet... still NOTHING!!!!

It was taking so long I polished her piggies....

And it was now lunch time... so I brought her yogurt and cheerios. HAHA!

She started to really accept that she wasn't going anywhere...

Maggie woke up from her nap (she napped this whole time) Oh GOODNESS she is just adorable!!!! I love her!!!

And FINALLY... she peed for Maggie!!! Freedom from the throne.

Moments later she pooped in her pull up, but that's okay, at least I got something. 

Emily girl- you're a tough cookie to crack... but I believe in you!!! 

We are now on day 10 and she finally, FINALLY gave me her first poopoo in one of our toilets today. Hooray (and I'm sorry! I know if you don't have kids this could seem nasty!!!) She did go for Papa and Gigi at their house this weekend, but not for me yet, so I was suuuuuper excited! She's doing a good job with #1 now, too. I'm still sticking with pull ups for a while. 

Oh- wanna know what finally got her to go. M&MS. 

Yes, I now bribe my children. But, it works! 

3 m&ms for pee

5 for poo 

Bedtime hell

Dear Emily,
I love you so very much! I really, really do. You are one of the sweetest, most caring, FUNNY girls I know!! Almost every moment of my every day is filled with great love, admiration and honor because I am yours and you are mine.

However. Bedtime hell has set in.

We put you down, you don't want to go down.

You either need something in your tummy,

or your thirsty,

or you need to change your nightgown,

or you went pee pee (in your diaper... which is a whole different story)

or you want snuggles (which of course I love snuggling you, but not when it's already an hour and a half past your bedtime!!!)

or you need another book,

or you think theres bugs in your room,

or you want one more smooch and hug,

etc,

etc,

etc.


The thing is, when 7:00 rolls around, this mom of yours is quite ready to be off duty. I have put in my solid hours for the day, and I'm tired. I want to check out and do something, or nothing. I want to breath. I want to have an adult conversation with your dad about life without many, many interruptions. I want to be. I need to be.

I know you don't understand this yet, and right now you think this is all a fun game of seeing how late you can stall. But my dear, this has got to stop. I'm so sorry.

I love you with my whole being.

I feel as though every ounce of my mothering is selfless. But I need to rest, to recharge, to be done come bed time.

So tonight. Good luck- because bedtime comes at 7 and by 7:30 I will be done reading you books, changing diapers, getting you water, tucking your toys in to bed, getting you the perfect hair tie and on and on... I love you. And I know when you are a mother, you will understand. And this blog is so that you have a place to look back. And while I hope you don't look back and see(read about) a frazzled mother- I want you to know that in the midst of all the wonderful times, there are also some very hard, exhausting times - and that's okay. And they will pass. And we will get through. And that... well, that is life.

Oh- and I know this might sound odd, but I can already tell that you're going to be an amazing mother one day. For real. You are so caring, so creative, and so thoughtful! I believe in you already, and I will believe in you when you're doubting your every motherly decision and sleep deprived. You've got this!

I Love you.

A day at the bay

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Since we needed to be out of our house on Sunday afternoon for an Open House, we decided to head to Monterey to use our Monterey Bay Aquarium Passes. We LOVE going there and having passes with little kids makes it so enjoyable. The girls and I were just there a few days ago because Emily had been asking to see the Otters. It was really fun to get to go as a family!!! 

Here we are driving to the bay

Emily was so excited to be headed to see the fishies at the "a-cari-uum"that she passed out on our way there. Maggie did too, but I couldn't (well, chose not to) lean over my seat to get a picture of her sleeping sweetness. 

We of course had to go to the Jelly Fish display.... because on the other side of this is the Sea Birds which the girls LOOOOOOVE!!!!! Here's a picture of Dada and Margaret looking at the Jellies. 

It was so nice out we sat outside on the upper level deck for a bit just enjoying the salty ocean air and looking for Otters. 

Family Photo... tryyyying to get better about making sure these happen

Margaret and Mama

bahaha! I like how she's rested her legs :) 

hugs!!!

While the otters were "at lunch" dada and Emily got to watch the other fish in the tank. 

We ended our day by walking to fishermans warf and trying the free clam chowder and eating dinner overlooking the ocean. Maggie was ooooover it but once she got some bread she was better. Eating out with littles is work. But, we've all gotta eat and although she would squack here and there, it really wasn't all that bad. 

I snapped this of the 2 of them walking behind maggie and I. They are such Rock Stars!!!!

love spending time with this guy!

Motherhood Monday

It's time for another phone clearing of all Mommy and Me pictures. I just la-la-la-love my girlies!!! We have such a fun time together, and they are such a blessing to my life. I still have to pinch myself at times to make sure that this is truly our life. This week, no pinching was necessary though- on Monday, Maggie woke up from her nap in a pool of vomit and she soaked her jammies in poop. I know, lovely, right?! It was okay though. Jammies off and straight to the shower we went. She hated the shower so once I got her all rinsed off, we settled into a nice relaxing bath. When we were done in there, Will had walked through the door (welcome home, honey... HELP!!!!) I passed her off to him so he could get a fresh diaper and jammies on her and I set out to clean up the mess. Go Team Laing!!!

Me and my sickie 

Once Maggie was feeling better and we had just started to recover from that, Emily got ill. In the middle of the night. In my bed, which I didn't even know she had climbed in. All over me. ALL. over me! But Daddy to the rescue yet again. He was a very brave first responder- just needed s good jump start. lol! Into the shower and then the bath... then back to bed. Then got to follow her around all day with a barf bucket, changed lots of dirty diapers and snuggled lots and lots. There is no greater honor than being able to be here to help the girls through these times. Sickness is no fun, but I'll take the common flu or cold any day when I know that there is WAYYYY worse out there. I am happy to report that both girls are back to normal and so far Will and I seem to have dodged it. Here's to hoping that is the case...

snuggles in bed

And now for random mommy and me's:

Sending Daddy a good morning picture 

Teething baby Maggie

Kissy face before getting on the carousel at Disneyland (few weeks old)

Schvetting (sweating) to death at Disneyland- 98 degrees out at the beginning of MAY.... what in the world?!

Rocking on the porch waiting for daddy to come home

Mothers Day morning with my sweet girlie she woke me up verrry early... guess she had lots of celebrating she wanted to do with me <3 

That's it for this week. Until next time...

xo

Emily's First Big Girl Room

There are so many big things coming up in the next 18 months for our family and the fact that Maggie is almost 1 and Emily is almost 3 is enough of a reminder to me that these days and years are flying by! I wanted to take some time to document our house so that the girls can look back on it one day. How fun would that be? To see how the bedrooms and layout of the house were?! I'd love to be able to see how my parents had decorated when I was a girl. We (I!!!) so often take pictures of people, but not necessarily their surroundings. I think it'll be nice to see both. So. I'll be highlighting different areas of our house over the next few months. Today I'm starting in Emily's room. This isn't the house that we were in when she was born, but we moved in here just before she turned 1. So in this room she did have her crib for a bit, but now it has been transformed into her first "big girl room". She loves it... and she loves sleeping in our bed too... but she does spend a lot of time in here picking out which dress she's going to wear for the day (and sometimes week!), she reads in here quite often, and loves to do her hair in her little purple mirror/bow holder thing I created for her.

Such a happy little wall. 

For the polka dots I used embroidery hoops, painted them, and then filled them with fun fabrics. 

There is a story with these flowers. I had them on my Pottery Barn Kids registry and Will randomly bought them for Emily and they arrived on Valentines Day. I was still pregnant with her, but those were his flowers for her that year. Please tell me that isn't the cutest and sweetest thing EVER?!

Gifts from when Papa Bear and Dad have been traveling the world

Some of her precious gifts on display

Her Madame Alexander dolls on display

...picking out more books...

View as you walk in

In her own little world hiding away to read

Flower Chandelier from PBK

Emily's Pink Chair from Auntie Andie and Gigi and all the bows on her bed 

"Cup of tea" Night Light

I just love how much she loves reading!!!

Princess Emily

Emily has basically had her crown glued on her head lately...even at bed and nap times :)

Echo! Echo! Mr. Echo!

 THERE IS NOTHING, NOTHING, LIKE THE LOVE OF A SISTER!!!

check out that braid :)

future conductor, perhaps?

She discovered that if she yells down the ac unit that it echo's. :)
When I was a nanny, those precious children taught me about calling "echo echo mr echo" in echo-y places. now i've taught my children!!!

Sidenote: I tried to talk Emily into putting a different dress this day, because I knew that she wore it just a few days ago, but apparently this is one of her favorites right now and she insisted on wearing it!  Dress from: Crazy 8