Wednesday, August 12, 2015

A family fun weekend of epic gardening fails, saint doll arrivals, & potty refusals, settle in!

Hi all! Gosh, it's been a busy week. A pretty good week, mind you, though I have to admit that I feel a little what I term "wimpy." That's what I call it when a person feels a bit fragile, a tad vulnerable, not feeling 100% physically. There are a multitude of reasons:  the kids going back to school soon, the semester starting up and subsequent work craziness descending on both Mike and I in just a few weeks.

*sniffle*

So I'm hanging on to my 54 Day Rosary Novena like a life raft and trucking on. I think I'm also going to pray the St. Monica novena this year, which begins next week. More details on that to come!

At any rate, some fun stuff from the weekend to report in to you about. I know, I know, it's Wednesday already, what took me so long?! :0 I do what I can. ;-)

This weekend I spent lots of quality time with my cute Mike, and our ever unpredictable offspring. First up we have the Very Serious Henry:

This is his version of smiling :0
And the Ever Sassy Anne:

"I'm about to go hide this puzzle piece, so that the next time I ask Mommy to do the puzzle with me, she will think she's losing her mind!"
For the most part, Henry was low maintenance this weekend, as he usually is. Our daughter on the other hand...you know, she's 4. Mass these days? SO MUCH WIGGLING. It doesn't help that the Children's Liturgy of the Word program is on summer hiatus until after Labor Day, so she's in the pew with us the whole time:

"MOMMY. Why is Father Joe doing THAT?!"

"Shhhhh, we need to whisper, Honey, or better yet, wait until after Mass to talk."

"I *AM* WHISPERING, MOMMY!!"

"He's getting things ready for Communion, Sweetie."

"I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM! RIGHT NOW MOMMY!"

"Anne! You are SO LOUD!" That would be a beleaguered, long suffering Henry.

#funtimes

In a thrilling discovery, though, after we got home: an Amazon package was awaiting me! Given that it was Sunday, I was rather surprised. I quickly squirreled it away, as I knew it contained a future feast of St. Nicholas gift for Anne. Last week, Shining Light Saint Dolls was having a sale, and thus I procured Our Lady of Guadalupe for Anne. When I had a moment to myself, I pulled her out and found her levitating:

Apparently her journey was a little rough. :0
But after a soothing session with me, she was as good as new:


It seems that their Amazon store is a bit cleaned out now following that sale, a bit of a bummer. But their Facebook page mentioned that they are restocking with new dolls, so keep your eyes peeled! These are nicely made, plastic dolls for smaller children. I have a beautiful wood St. Nicholas doll on order for Henry's feast day gift, so everybody is receiving a saint this year, like usual. ;-)

After I tucked Our Lady of Guadalupe away, Mike and I trudged out to our poor, beleaguered garden. To say that we do not have green thumbs would be the understatement of the millennium. We usually manage to keep a few tomato and pepper plants alive until the fall each year, but this year we got a little overambitious and also planted cucumbers and small melons.

!

Next thing one knew, we had vines climbing up our fence and attacking the other plants. Bad, so bad. And apparently grape tomatoes think that they can just take over the world by spreading their leafiness over top of the entire garden and sucking up all the sunlight. It wasn't pretty.

I felt guilty (because Mike loves those tomatoes) but I encouraged him to take one of the tomato plants out. We would still have one tomato plant, but there was no way anything was growing with the wild, feral situation we had on our hands. So he did, and also beat back the other plants a bit. And now the remaining tomato plant looks like the garden version of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, and the melon vines put out some sort of liquid that gave me hives. So you could say that things are not going all that great back there.

On the up side, we found two gigantic cucumbers hiding amongst the forest-like conditions:

Anne dancing with the cucumbers...which naturally, she would not eat :0

...and we are getting a nice crop of sweet banana peppers. The bell peppers, not so much, but you can't have everything. I wish I had asked him to take out the melon plant instead, but there really was no way to even GET to it with the way that the tomatoes were growing.

#sigh

In other news, Monday morning found me strengthening my resolve as I entered Anne's room to get her up for the day: I was going to push the issue of her heading to the bathroom first thing upon getting out of bed. Anne has been potty trained for a few years now, but through the night? An absolute OCEAN of pee pee. So we still buy diapers and she wears one overnight. Lately though, she's woken up dry a few times, so it got me to thinking that she may be moving towards being able to go through  the night. Only one thing gave me pause: her bad habit of "not having to go pee, Mommy!" when she first wakes up:

"Anne Honey, the entire WORLD needs to use the bathroom when they first wake up. You are not going to be the lone exception."

"BUT I DON'T *HAVE* TO GO MOMMY."

Standoff!

I wanted to push this a bit, figuring that if she develops the habit of peeing right when she gets up, she may start to be dry on most mornings. If not, so be it. I know that some kids take a long time to be able to go through the night. But this is a bad habit that needs remedying, regardless.

So Monday morning I pushed the potty, and Anne pushed back. No potty, no sir. As expected, tears became involved in this process, as well as a refusal to even get dressed or cooperate with a single thing that I asked of her. Eventually, I went downstairs, and Mike volunteered to take a turn.

Next thing I knew, I heard the toilet flush and see a cheerful Anne coming down the stairs, fully dressed. When it was Daddy, you see, she was willing to pee and cooperate. An inadvertent Good Cop/Bad Cop situation. ;-)

For the remaining time until I left for work, it was clear that Mike was The Favored Parent. She bustled about, fetching him a napkin and offering to get him juice.

*narrows eyes*

Yesterday morning was more of the same, but today we had a good experience, and she cooperated without too much complaint. We'll see how this turns out.

So dear reader, any nighttime potty success stories you want to share? Are you a gardener who wants to shed some light on my abysmal gardening skills? :) Have you got your saint doll list together and ready for the early ordering season?! Do chime in!

8 comments:

  1. HA! Your Anne and my daughter came off the same assembly line. Last night my daughter refused to hop out of the tub even after she drained the water out, so I was "Bad Mommy" for lifting her out of the tub. Tears. So many tears. Daddy wanted to know what was going on, so he became the savior, complete with desperate hugs and kisses. I went to sort laundry, and within minutes, my husband is begging my daughter to pick out her jammies. Then, he became stern, telling her that if she did not pick jammies, he would pick them for her. Tears. So many tears, followed by scurrying feet down the hallway to me, because "Daddy is saying angry words." "Bad Mommy", suddenly rehabilitated to savior status, blandly asks why Daddy is saying angry words, to be told that "Daddy is angry because I don't LIKE (pronounced "YIKE") the green jammies." Maybe if you told Daddy which jammies you DO want to wear, that would make Daddy happy. "Okaaaayyyyyy, I'll TRY that." (Walks to bedroom) DADDY, I WANT MY SPARKLY JAMMIES!!!!!!

    My husband and I finally staked our tomatoes this weekend. In the process, we ended up with about 5 pounds of green tomatoes because staking the plants this time of year is not the best plan. I'm trying to find something to do with them besides fried green tomatoes. I know I saw something using green tomatoes in one of my new cookbooks I cannot now find as they all usually get appropriated by my children for use in their play kitchen sooner or later.

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  2. Amy, HA HA HA HA!!!! I'm certain that this was not funny at the time, but I laughed really hard reading this story. :0 Because...YES. All the tears. All the "yikes." All the indecision about clothes. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, THE CLOTHES DECISIONS! :0 Good gravy. It's a battle Every.Single.Morning. And then Every.Single.Night.

    And fried green tomatoes are really awesome, I'm just saying. ;-)

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  3. Night time potty training...

    I think for the oldest one I basically told him that he could not snuggle in bed with me in the morning until after he peed. Same for the younger one. After a while they just go when they are more awake. So sometimes they get up and sit on the couch with that "I'm not quite awake yet" look and a couple minutes later dash off. *shrugs*

    Night time training was something we never really had to do. Once they were day trained it was only a couple of weeks later that I noticed they were night trained. My youngest absolutely hated diapers (once he decided to use the potty) so sometimes I had to sneak in and put a diaper on him after he fell asleep (over his undies). But like I said that didn't last too long.

    I use a trick my mom did for us when we were young. We have a night light in the bathroom and we leave the bathroom door open. There's cups and a step stool too. My youngest used to cry and wake us at night for water and whatnot, but then he got in the habit of taking himself. I'd wake up to hear the sink being turned on. Then he'd scamper back to bed. The night light is bright enough to direct traffic to the bathroom, but dark enough not to wake them up so much that they have to trouble going back to bed.

    Maybe waking up Anne before you go to bed and sitting her groggy self on the pot to pee? I guess I just lucked out on this part. Although day training was a head ache unto itself. I wouldn't worry too much though. It's pretty normal that most kids are still doing diapers at night until age 6, and longer if there's a family history of bed wetting.

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  4. Laura, thank you so much! Henry was like your kids. He didn't train at all until he was 3, but once it clicked, it clicked, and he never wet again, even overnight. With Anne, it's been very different. She trained earlier, but the overnight has never even been a question - she's not anywhere close on that one. I'm not worried about it, but it sure would be nice to not have to buy diapers anymore! Yep, I told her no TV unless she sat on the potty, and this morning she complied. I'd like for her to be able to get up and go herself if she needs to, so the nightlight idea is a really good one! Helpfully, her bedroom is right next to our upstairs bathroom.

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  5. Annamarie still wears a diaper at night, but honestly she hasn't peed in it in months. Well, she will only pee in it at night if she falls asleep somewhere random and doesn't use the toilet before bed. I think I've heard that the earlier they train to use the toilet the harder night time is? Not sure if it's true, but Annamarie used the potty super early. We have tried telling her she doesn't need a diaper (since she rarely wets it) but for her, I think it's a safety thing and she says she still needs it. But once this pack of diapers runs out I'm not buying more. If she wants a diaper on, I bought a few cloth trainers and that will be her only option. Since I'm now washing baby diapers she can use the big toddler sized trainers at night if she insists on a diaper. I hate buying disposables and then having to throw them out when she doesn't pee in them! So, I'm not sure that helps, but just to say you are not alone! :)

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  6. Thank you Allison! Yep, I hate throwing away the dry disposables too, but if she wore it the whole night...gotta throw it out. ;-) Agreed, it's time to stop buying the diapers!

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  7. I obviously cannot offer an parenting advice, but I do have some thoughts about gardening. My husband grew up in a German farming family, so he does miracles with the garden. Since we are in an apartment, we obviously cannot have one by our home. For the last few years, he's rented a few plots at a community garden. It works out well and he's been very successful. The only downside is that the people who lives nearby think that "community garden" is the same as "communal garden" and have been known to steal whatever they can. He was gifted a tomato plant by someone and put it in the corner with a circular gate over it. It's worked well so far as long as we can hang on to the tomatoes! He's had great success with the yellow and italian beans. With some water on a regular basis and good amount of sun, they grow and grow and grow! Maybe that would be a good plant to try next year. He's had so many beans he's given some away. The other plants are on their way but not ready for picking yet. I can't wait for us to have a house so that the garden can be in our backyard.

    Thanks for the laughs and stories as usual. :-)

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  8. Steph, I LOVE the bean idea, thank you! I think next year, we will plant only 1 tomato plant (yields SO MANY anyway, we really didn't need 2 to begin with!) and 2 sweet banana pepper, because those are wonderful and easy. Our bell peppers never yield all that great, so we may axe them, or just try the green lady bell (we usually get fancy and do red/orange/yellow ;-)) since my mom has great luck with those. No cucumbers or melons (God forbid), but maybe something else simple, like the yellow beans you mention. I'll bring it up to Mike!

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