Pacifier

Bye, Bye Paci's! That's right! We've been paci free for 17 days now!

How did we do it?

Did we cut off the tip?

No! Grace would chew a hole in them and still continue to suck & chew on them so I knew that wouldn't work. I had to throw a many a paci away because of this.

Did Santa take it?

No, you probably figured that one out based on the days we've been paci-less. I just didn't want her to associate Santa with taking away something she loved so much.

Grace and had talked a lot about giving up her pacis. We kept saying that we'd give them to new babies because Grace was no longer a baby. I wanted to do something creative as a way of her giving them up so I saw an idea where you tie paci's to a balloon and let them fly away in the sky to find a home with tiny babies. Anytime this was mentioned Grace was VERY against the whole idea.

So us being paci free just kind of happened. When Grace and I were traveling back to Raleigh on January 10th we got around Rocky Mount and she started asking for her paci. I realized that I didn't grab one before we left and I was pretty sure she didn't have one when we walked out of the door either. I had a period of panic for about 30 seconds until I realized that this could be a good thing. I proceeded to tell Grace that she'd left them all at the bay and we didn't have one in the car and I wasn't sure that we had one in Raleigh either. Now, I knew that if we searched REALLY hard we'd probably find one but I figured this might be a good time to begin the weining process. She did have one at school and that seemed to sooth her over for the time being. At school she's only allowed to have it at naptime, so I was okay with her having it at nap that day. She asked for paci as soon as I picked her up from school (totally the usual), a lot that evening, and again that night before bed but I just kept telling her that they were at the bay and we didn't have any.

She asked for paci a lot on Wednesday when she and I were just doing things around the house. She never got too upset knowing she didn't have one. Often she'd come to me randomly and say, "my paci's at the bay." We went out that afternoon and I had to run grab something from the mall. As I was walking by the Build-a-Bear store I thought how neat it would be to stuff a bear with all of her paci's inside. I wasn't sure they allowed that so I went in to ask. I actually had to choke back tears as I was asking the lady. She probably thought I was crazy. I just knew this was a major milestone for us and how fast Grace is growing up. I discussed this idea with Grace and she seemed to be okay with putting them inside a teddy bear. Scott and I discussed the Build-A-Bear idea later that night in comparison with the balloon idea. He likes the balloon idea better because the paci's will be away/gone. He seems to think that with them inside a bear she would know they were near but yet she couldn't get to them and that would frustrate her.

On Thursday, when she went to school, I went in and took the paci out of her naptime tub and told her teachers what was going on. When I picked her up they said she cried a little when she didn't have it but that she finally went to sleep and took a good nap. I knew my next biggest hurdle would be getting back to the bay and finding the paci's (I was pretty sure there was atleast 3 laying around) before she did and not giving in to her asking for them there since she knew that's where they were.

On Friday I had a photo session at the bay and Grace was asleep when we got there. I went in the house first in search of paci's but didn't find any. (Isn't it amazing when I'm not looking I'd find 6, but when I was I'd find none? That happened often!) Grace was still asleep so I managed to get her in the bed still asleep { winning ;) } so I could set up for my session. She didn't sleep much longer but as soon as she woke up those three pacis were the first thing she went for, she obviously knew right where they were. However, instead of popping them right in her mouth she brought them to me. She showed such excitement from not seeing them for 4 days and the fact I knew I had to get them from her broke my heart! I told her that she'd gone most of the week without one and it showed how she was a big girl now and that she didn't need one anymore. I proceeded to tell her that I needed to put them away, and as I did she began to cry. And cry. I kept reassuring her that she didn't need one anymore and about 10 minutes later she was calm.

That was about it. She really didn't ask for them the rest of the weekend. I would make a big deal over it when we were around others and have Grace tell them what she gave up. "My paci" she'd respond and everyone knew that was a big deal so they'd hug her and clap, and cheer for her, which made her smile.

Since then she's seen babies with paci's and she calls my attention to them, even if its on TV. We've been REALLY lucky that she hasn't found them in some of her toy boxes or play areas of the house. I have found them before she has and have them stuffed in a plastic baggy, all 8 of them! :) She did see the baggy the other day and had a major meltdown. I let her hold the baggy for a few minutes and it calmed her down. Scott and I reassured her that she didn't need them anymore and we asked her if she wanted to put them in a teddy bear or tie them to a balloon to fly away for new babies. She chose the teddy bear. So we'll be making a trip to Build-A-Bear soon!

I'd say it was a fairly easy process. I'm glad it worked the way it did.

Are you trying to wein your little one from the paci? Below are some links with other tips:

Four Tips for Getting Rid of the Pacifier

How to get rid of the pacifier

Pacifier B Gone

How did you wein your little one from the paci? Hold old were they when you bit the bullet?

Grace was 2 years, 8 months, and 2 days old the last time she had a paci.

State vs. Carolina {UPDATED}

TONIGHT. 7pm. Hoping the Wolfpack and pull out a big W!

Update 1/27/12: Congrats to the Tarholes on their win last night. I think the Wolfpack stayed in Raleigh rather than making it to Chapel Hill.

A State fan and a UNC fan find a genie in a bottle. The genie grants them each one wish. The UNC fan says "Well, UNC is already the best at everything, the only problem is that normal people keep coming into Chapel Hill, so I want a huge wall secluding us from the outside world," the genie says okay and grants the wish. The State fan says "So you're telling me that all UNC fans are now in Chapel Hill with a huge wall around it?" The genie confirms, and the State fan states his wish, "Fill it with water."

Go Pack! :)

Article about Motherhood...

I recently read the following article. It was on the ncregister.com site. I enjoyed it and just thought I'd share.

To The Mother With Only One Child by: Simcha Fisher

Dear Mother of Only One Child,
Don’t say it. Before the words can even pass your lips, let me beg you: don’t say, “Wow, you have nine kids? I thought it was hard with just my one!”

My dear, it is hard. You’re not being a wuss or a whiner when you feel like your life is hard. I know, because I remember having “only one child.” You may not even believe how many times I stop and reflect on how much easier my life is, now that I have nine children.

But I remember having only one child, and it was hard—so very hard. Some of the difficulties were just practical: I didn’t know what I was doing, had to learn everything. People pushed me around because I was young and inexperienced. But even worse were the emotional struggles of learning to be a mother.

When I had only one child, I truly suffered during those long, long, long days in our little apartment, no one but the two of us, baby and me, dealing with each other all day long. I invented errands and dawdled and took the long way home, but still had hours and hours to fill before I would hear my husband’s key in the door.

I cared so much what other people thought about her—they had to notice how beautiful she was, they had to be impressed at my natural mothering skills. I obsessed over childhood development charts, tense with fear that my mothering was lacking—that I hadn’t stimulated her enough, or maybe had just passed on the wrong kind of genes. I cringe when I remember how I pushed her—a little baby!—to achieve milestones she wasn’t ready for.

I lived in terror for her physical safety (I once brought her to Urgent Care, where the doctor somewhat irritably diagnosed a case of moderate sniffles) fearing every imaginable disease and injury. In my sleep-deprived state, I would have sudden insane hallucinations that her head had fallen off, her knees had suddenly broken themselves in the night, and so on.

My husband didn’t know how to help me. I didn’t know how to ask for help. My husband had become a father, and I adored him for it. My husband got to leave the house every day, and sleep every night. He got to go to the bathroom alone. I hated him for it.

When I had only one child, I told myself over and over that motherhood was fulfilling and sanctifying and was filling my heart to the brim with peace and satisfaction. And so I felt horribly guilty for being so bored, so resentful, so exhausted. This is a joyful time, dammit! I should enjoy being suddenly transformed into the Doyenne of Anything that Smells Bad.

I loved my baby, I loved pushing her on the swing, watching squirrels at the park together, introducing her to apple sauce, and watching her lips move in joyful dreams of milk. But it was hard, hard, hard. All this work: is this who I am now? I remember!

So now? Yes, the practical parts are a thousand times easier: I’m a virtuoso. I worry, but then I move along. Nobody pushes me around, and I have helpers galore. Someone fetches clean diapers and gets rid of the dirty ones. When the baby wakes up in the middle of the night for the ten thousandth time, I sigh and roll my eyes, maybe even cry a little bit for sheer tiredness—but I know it will pass, it will pass.

It’s becoming easier, and it will be easier still. They are passing me by.

I’m broken in. There’s no collision of worlds. We’re so darn busy that it’s a sheer delight to take some time to wash some small child’s small limbs in a quiet bath, or to read The Story of Ferdinand one more time. Taking care of them is easy. It’s tiring, it’s frustrating, but when I stop and take a breath, I see that it’s almost like a charade of work. All these things, the dishes, the diapers, the spills—they must be taken care of, but they don’t matter. They aren’t who I am.

To become a mother, I had to learn how to care about someone more than I did about myself, and that was terrible. But who I am now is something more terrible: the protector who can’t always protect; the one with arms that are designed to hold, always having to let go.

Dear mother of only one child, don’t blame yourself for thinking that your life is hard. You’re suffering now because you’re turning into a new woman, a woman who is never allowed to be alone. For what? Only so that you can become strong enough to be a woman who will be left.

When I had only one child, she was so heavy. Now I can see that children are as light as air. They float past you, nudging against you like balloons as they ascend.

Dear mother, don’t worry about enjoying your life. Your life is hard; your life will be hard. That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—it means you’re doing it rightAll right, so there is a lot more laundry. Keeping up with each child’s needs, and making sure they all get enough attention, is a constant worry. And a stomach bug is pretty much the end of the world, when nine digestive tracts are afflicted.

Nanny and Jacq

Nanny and Jacquelyn share January 16th as their birthday! This year we decided to get together for Nannys birthday at the Hitching Post for lunch. Jacquelyn surprised us and came too!

Helping Nanny open presents:

The birthday girls:

The lunch gang:

4 generations:

Awesome

Grace: I ate my whole plate at supper.
Scott: You did?
Grace: And my ice-cream too!
Megan: Grace got ice cream as a treat for cleaning her plate completely.
Scott: Good girl.
(Grace and Scott high-five)
Grace: It was awesome!

Not 3 minutes later...

Grace: I saw Mommy and Daddy on tv.
Scott: You saw Mommy and Daddy on tv?
Grace: Yep, it was awesome!

A photo of my awesome baby girl taken a little earlier this afternoon...

NYC

Scott and I are in New York for a long weekend! We've already had lots of amazing food, went to the Live with Kelly show, the natural history museum, a Broadway show, dinner with Scott's college roommate, and just tooled around Manhattan! We're having a great time!

This picture was taken on Thursday night in Times Square.

We're getting ready to venture out for another fun day, in the snow this time!

A little funny...

When I was in my Elf on a Shelf craze I came across a blog post: "Over Achieving Elf on the Shelf Mommies". While some of my friends probably would have called me that, I wasn't as crazed as some other people I knew or from other ideas I'd seen on the internet, which is why I found so much humor in her blog post.

The title of her blog is "People I Want to Punch in the Throat". Her blog is meant to be a joke: funny and satirical. She even says, "You don't have to take me seriously, because I don't take myself seriously."

Her latest post is called:

Rules for Parents with Daughters
I found this list of rules so very true and made me realize how thankful I am to have a Mom who taught me said things.

Since most of my closest friends have sons, this post is for you: Rules for Parents with Sons

Another Birthday...

While I'm blessed to have the most amazing Daddy who's always there and loves me unconditionally and Grace is blessed with a Daddy that loves her to the moon and back, this video is still really powerful. Just wanted to share it with you all.

I'm thankful for the birthdays I've share with my Daddy and the birthdays I've shared with Grace. I can't believe that she's turning 3 in just 4 short months.

iPad fun

Scott gifted an iPad to me for my birthday! I've just gotten around to really using it within the past week, as a matter of fact I'm typing this blog post on my iPad. I've finally gotten a few apps on it for me too. As soon as I got it I loaded it with quite a few apps for Grace. In turn she has used it WAY more than me and calls it "her 'puter". Other than her apps she loves to play with the iPad camera. It has some really cool features and can take some pretty funny photos!

Just wanted to share some of Grace's self portraits. :)

This funky setting seems to be her favorite!

2012 Goals...

I'm not a fan of new years resolutions, instead I have a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. I haven't been too successful getting that list completed yet but I did set a few goals for 2012: Blog More and Get Organized!

One of my goals last year was to blog more too, but I acutally blogged less last year than I did in 2010. 77 posts last year, 87 posts in 2010 and 100 posts in 2009. My goal this year is to have more than I did in 2009.

As far as the Get Organized goal goes I have a whole board on Pinterest devoted to really cool organizing ideas for when I finally find the time to get organized!





So far in 2012 I have:
*organized our pantry here in Raleigh
*the cabinet over our refrigerator at the bay
*my boots in my closet (more on that later)
*Scott's sweaters (using this method to folding, which is so much better than how I was folding them).

Nothing major quite yet. My closet is in TERRIBLE need of organizing, but that's going to be an all day event for sure and is going to need lots of planning before I start. I'm afraid I might fall in! ;) I've purchased plastic tubs, closet hangers with the clips on them, and shower curtain holders to be prepared when the organizing bug hits, so I'm getting prepared!

I've had this 21 day challenge on my pinterest "organizing" board for some time now I knew it was time to get going! Another blog I follow, Missi's Musings, (Missi was a teacher at Holly Springs when I taught there, she still teaches there) started her challenge and it's given me a push to start my 21 Day challenge too! There are also some things on the list that don't really apply to our home, so I'll probably do some substituting. I loved how Missi said, "I buy magazines and then only read part of them, so I keep them beside my bed or in the bathroom until I get the chance to read them, which then turns into a stack of magazines." I do the same thing! I have a stack of magazines on my desk, 17 high, that I haven't had the time to look at but I won't get rid of them because I hope one day I'll have the time to do so!

What's something you need to organize?

Want to join the 21 Day Organizing Challenge with me? If so here's the list:
Day 1 - Junk Drawer
Day 2 - Computer Desk
Day 3 - Tupperware Cabinet
Day 4 - Linen Closet
Day 5 - Under kitchen sink
Day 6 - Dresser Drawers
Day 7 - The Pantry
Day 8 - Coat Closet
Day 9 - Toy organization
Day 10 - Laundry Room
Day 11 - The Freezer
Day 12 - Spice Cabinet
Day 13 - Medicine Cabinet
Day 14 - Under bathroom sink
Day 15 - Medicine/Vitamin Storage
Day 16 - The Fridge
Day 17 - The Mail
Day 18 - Keepsakes
Day 19 - Master Closet
Day 20 - Photos
Day 21 - You pick!


Guess I better get busy and get to organizing my junk drawer(S)! ;)

Gobble, Gobble

I know everyone is always looking for new recipes, I for one LOVE new trying new recipes, but HATE when they don't turn out. Luckily I've been doing fairly well with them turning out pretty good lately. I know it may be a little too late after the holidays for a what to do with your leftover turkey, but I wanted to share with you 3 turkey dinners that we had last week. Yes, 3 turkey dinners in one week, and they actually were 3 days in a row! :) I never do that, but the turkey was just too good!

Scott's Mom bought a turkey fryer just before Thanksgiving and has enjoyed frying turkeys. Scott made a big deal to her how wonderful her turkey was at Christmas so she fried us one to take back to Raleigh with us. I picked it up on a Monday and we ate turkey Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday nights! :)

Monday night: Open-face hot turkey sandwich - this was so yummy and the key was BBQ bread. I toasted BBQ bread (no butter) in the oven while I heated up the Turkey Gravy and turkey. I'd never bought turkey gravy, but Heinz makes it and it wasn't bad at all. Poured the gravy and turkey over the BBQ bread, and voila!

Tuesday night: Basic Turkey Sandwiches - Whitewheat bread, mayo, lots of black pepper, and turkey! On this day I also made the stock for Wednesday nights dinner. In the crock-pot I cooked all day on low the turkey carcass in water with some celery and onion. Before bed I drained the stock into a bowl to save for Wednesday's Soup.

Wednesday night: Turkey and Wild Rice Soup - you can see the recipe here. Althought it was good it had a bit of a bite to it. I think maybe that was from the balsamic vinegar?



Complete with a grilled cheese, and BAM! What do you do with your leftover turkey?

Grace: 4 days shy of 2 years, 8 months

Tonight she has on her snow white dress. Her Daddy says, "come on snow white." Grace's reply, "Daddy! I'm princess snow white!"

She's really into choosing. She needs a choice of outfits and food to eliminate meltdowns for any breakfast, lunch, dinner or when it's time to change clothes. She'll sit for 30 minutes to an hour with a magazine asking you to chose something on the page and then telling you what others (Crewe, Brookie, Andy, Dawson, Nonnie, etc) would choose too. If she doesn't like what you've chosen she'll say, "no you chose this." while pointing to what she wants you to choose.

She also likes to tell you what answer she prefers to a question. Example:
Grace: "will you play play-doh with me?" "Say okay, Mommy."

She's been battling a UTI just before Christmas and then an ear infection just after but seems to be on the mends.

Her favorite treat is a Starbucks birthday cake pop!

When playing puzzles she divides the pieces into groups- one for her, one for me, and one for her daddy. We have to put together ONLY the pieces she's given us and can't combine them until everyone has put their set together.

We're still working on potty training. She uses the potty often- either she tells me when she needs to go or goes on her own. However it's just inconsistent.

After my post last night about her not needing her paci to sleep, she's done nothing but begged for it today. False alarm, I thought she was going to give it up on her own.

She's hit the "WHY?" stage.

And her other favorite question is, "where we go next?"

Hope your 2012 is off to a great start! Xoxo from our house to yours!

Pacifier

A pacifier (known as a dummy or soother in some countries) is a rubber, plastic, or silicone nipple given to an infant or other young child to suck upon. In its standard appearance it has a teat, mouth shield, and handle. The mouth shield and/or the handle is large enough to avoid the danger of the child choking on it or swallowing it.

Grace didn't have her paci at all today except for naptime at school (i'm guessing). I got her one in time for bed and tonight as I was rocking Grace to sleep she passed me her pacifier and said, "Mommy, I dont need this to sleep."

That's a FIRST! Think this might be the start of getting rid of it? Maybe so! :)

Shopping

Grace's sleeping has been VERY off lately. Some days she takes great 2-3 hour naps, some 45 minutes. Some nights she sleeps until 630, or like last night, was up from 12-2. Last Thursday night she had another restless night and fell asleep as I was on the way to BJ's to make a grocery run for the B and B. Usually if I move her while where out and about if she's sleeping she wakes up. This particular day, not so much! She slept like this for a good 30 minutes! :)

Sharp Eye

It took me (and Scott) a while to figure it out, but Grace kept telling us, "Santa forgot Lightening McQueen's eyes." It seemed she was the only one that noticed!