On Toddler Hairstyles

My little girl, as I've stated many times before, is a bundle full of energy. She is so active!
Another little-known fact about her is that she inherited my not-so-great genes of really fine hair, so since... well... forever, we've kept it short. Her hair has always been above her shoulders. Believe me, I would love Princess to have long hair, but its just not in the cards right now. The problem with short hair for active, energetic girls though is that it is always in her face! Ugh! It drives me bonkers! My older sister has a daughter that is the same age, but her hair always looks so perfect. I swear, my sis is like the toddler hair whisperer! All she has to do is touch her daughter's hair and its put perfectly in place and stays there all day. So since I'm not a hair genius like her, I've come up with a few staple hair-do's for Princess that are wonderful for her... And the nice thing is that all short hair styles also work for long hair... fancy that!

The Classic clip-back look

Side pony variation(she calls this her Rapunzel hair) We make this one a messy bun sometimes instead of a braid.

The 'French Twist'

Twist-under pony

Graduated Pony

That's about it! We pretty much stick to those 5 hairdo's. I can almost stick her hair in a pony or pigtails, but it comes out so easily, its just much easier to have most her hair down.

What about you? Do you have any staple hairdo's for your kiddos?

On Potty Training

After some nudging from a good friend of mine who recently potty trained her not-quite-two-year-old little boy, I've decided to write a post about how I trained my daughter. I told her she should be doing the post and not me, but that didn't work, so here goes nuthin'.:)

Now, when I was preparing to potty train Princess, I read a ton of material. Blog posts about how mom's have a 100% success rate with their method, books, articles endorsed by pediatricians, etc. I thought I would have her trained in a hour flat and never have to change another one of her diapers again! Yeah, it just didn't happen that way for us!
I was able to potty train Princess when she was just about two-and-a-half. Despite the many, many things I read about not starting and stopping potty training, that just didn't work for us. When I first tried with Princess, she contracted a very bad case of RSV shortly into our training, so I immediately stopped. Strike one. Then about six weeks later, I tried again, but realized she just wasn't ready to be potty trained. She would stay dry for the most part, but refused to do her -ahem- 'dirty business' in the toilet. I decided after the fifth or sixth 'number two' accident that we would try later on in the summer, after things calmed down in our lives a little bit. Strike two.We were gearing up for a long family road trip, and I just didn't want to deal with that on our vacation.
SOOO, finally in June I decided this was the time it was going to stick, and I buckled down. I ended up sort of combining a few tips & tricks I'd read about and made a hybrid method that seemed to work great!
Right when Princess woke up that glorious morning, I took her out of her diaper and put her in big girl underwear (she calls them 'nunders') and a t-shirt. I told her that we were going to have a really fun day together, and that if she could keep her 'nunders' dry all day, I'd give her a surprise. I had decided earlier that we were just going to spend the majority of our day in our kitchen, where there is a bathroom close and its easy to clean up any accidents. No TV or movies for the day; just her and I and lots of coloring, puzzles, and books.

We headed down to the kitchen and started our day with a big sippy full of apple juice. I set our kitchen timer for 15 minutes, and each time it went off we headed to the big girl potty. I'd set her up there on her toilet seat and wait. If she did end up going- even just a drop or two- I'd do a little jig and sing the song my mom sang to me when I was little. It goes like this...

I'm proud of you

So proud of you

And I hope that you are proud as I am 

Proud of you 

I'm proud of you....

And I hope that you are proud of you too!

She then got 2 (because she was two) M&M's each time she was successful on the potty.  She even got to choose which colors she wanted! 

After about two hours of this, I pulled out her baby doll. I told her that her baby doll is learning how to wear big girl nunders too and I let Princess play with her for a few minutes. Then I took the baby doll and in my stealth mommy-mode, slipped a syringe full of water behind her and made the baby 'have an accident' on our kitchen floor. I then gasped at the baby and said 'Baby doll! We don't go potty on the floor. We go potty in the toilet.' Then I took the baby to the toilet and she went potty in the toilet, all with Miss Princess watching. She thought it was pretty funny, but honestly, I think that's what solidified the idea in her head. 

After the incident with her baby doll, she started telling me when she needed to go to the bathroom. I think that's when I knew she got it. When she started asking me. She did have two little accidents that day, but that was it! The next day she was dry all day, and I told her that for lunch the next day I would take her to go get chicken and fries. That was her surprise because my little Princess thinks that getting 'chicken and fries' is the coolest thing to do in the whole world. Isn't that funny? We even threw in a little ice cream cone to celebrate.

After she was fully potty trained by day, I still put her to bed in a diaper. However she would always wake up with a dry diaper so I just decided to give it a try and put her to bed with underwear on. She hasn't worn a diaper since! She is day and night trained, and I couldn't be happier!

A couple of notes:

• before beginning potty training, I had let my daughter watch me go to the bathroom. I believe this can help in the process of training, but of course, isn't for everyone.
•  I didn't expect to night-train her for a while, but it ended up working out for us; I don't have any words of advice on that, sorry!

 Hope this helps those mom's out there think about potty training!

What about you? What successes have you had in potty training?

Princess' Birth Story

My little girl is about to turn three this weekend, so I thought I'd commemorate it by sharing her birth story with you.
It begins a while before she was born; at my 20-week ultrasound to be exact. Knight and I were so excited to be expecting our first child and were just as excited to find out its gender. I was working in a different city at the time so I just took the whole day off of work to celebrate my pregnancy. As the ultrasound tech was looking at the screen, she kept checking and re-checking the baby's stomach. Amongst all the measurement taking and listening to the heartbeat, the tech told us that we were having a girl! I was absolutely elated! I'm sure Knight was happy too, but I think he was secretly hoping for a boy. That was when the tech said she would be right back, she wanted to show the doctor something on the ultrasound. After about 15 minutes of waiting, the doc came in and did some checking of his own. He told us our baby had an abnormality on her stomach, and that we would need to go see a specialist in our neighboring city. He gave us some information on a couple of different things it could be, but none of them were minor complications. The doctor told us that at least our baby would need surgery after she was born, if she even made it that far.
It was our worst fear. There was something wrong with our unborn child. Our little girl. I was beyond hysterical. Our families were waiting for our phone calls after our appointment to see what their new grand baby was going to be. We had to tell them that something was wrong, and we didn't know what.

The following week, we saw the specialist. He confirmed to us that our baby had what's called an omphalocele (umf-al-o-seel). Often times with this condition, the baby will have a number of cognitive and developmental conditions, and may not even survive through the pregnancy, let alone the risky surgery that had to be done right after birth. He gave us the option to terminate the pregnancy. It brings me to tears just thinking about that dreadful conversation.
Of course, we decided as a couple that it was in the Lord's hands, and we would keep this baby as long as He would allow. We had bi-weekly appointments for the remainder of my pregnancy, each bringing us the news that the omphalocele was getting bigger, and that she was a very small baby.  But, we had hope. We prayed fervently together as a couple. We held family fasts. And as a result, we were comforted. Our lives and the life of our sweet, innocent little girl were at the mercy of a loving and all-knowing Heavenly Father.
The day came to have my c-section. Because of the protrusion on her abdomen, having a regular birth was out of the question. I was more nervous than ever before in my life. My heart was beating so fast. As my arms were spread out on that operating table I remember thinking, "Everything will be okay. Things will work out for the best." At 9:51am on October 21st, Princess was born!  My eyes welled up with tears when they lifted her little head over the curtain so I could see her. Knight got to see much more than I did. He said he was so glad I didn't see everything because what he saw was so gruesome. The nurses and doctors (there were about 20 in the room during the surgery) began their tests, put her in an incubator and rushed her up to the NICU. Knight went with her, at my request of course. After I was stitched up I had to wait another two hours until I was aloud to be wheeled up to the NICU to see Princess. It was then that we took our first family picture together.

About five hours after being born, Princess had her surgery. It took over three hours to complete, but we received updates from the nurses regularly. What angels they were! The doctor finally came down and talked with us about how it went. All our anticipation and worry came down to this moment. The doctor told us that the baby was much bigger, and the omphalocele was much smaller than they had anticipated. And that in fact, skin had started to grow on the protrusion, so they were able to completely enclose her liver and intestines behind her abdominal wall. That was not something they did often in this particular surgery because of the stress it puts on the baby's body. The doctor even told us what he was able to do was a miracle. We thanked him profusely. Then the waiting game started.
For the wound to heal, Princess was on paralytics and coma-inducing drugs for the first six days of her life. She was hooked up to a breathing machine too. We were not able to hold her until she was a week old. When they finally started weaning her off her medicines and she began moving, her cry was muted due to her breathing tube. It was the most painful sight I've ever had to witness. Finally, at 8 days old, she was taken off her respirator, and the next day she tried eating from a bottle for the first time. What a glorious day! From that point on, all she had to do to be able to come home was gain weight and maintain her body temperature.

3 days old with an extra 1 1/2 pounds of water weight from her drugs.

First time holding her after her surgery

Right after getting her breathing tube taken out

almost ready to go home!

Ready to go home.

Although she had a couple of setbacks, she was able to come home just one month after being born. Only 30 days in the hospital! The Neonatologist told us that they weren't expecting her to even be home before Christmas, and she made it to our Thanksgiving dinner! She still had a feeding tube for a week after she came home, but we were so happy to leave the hospital! It was a wonderful day for our family.

Aside from high blood pressure for about a month after coming home and being teeny tiny for a long time, Princess was and is a healthy, happy, high-spirited little girl. We are so incredibly blessed to have her in our family!

Happy Birthday, Princess! We love you!