Lessons in Potty Training

While many other (sane) people were enjoying their Labour Day Long Weekend, Brian and I decided that it was the perfect time to start potty training Jay. He has been asking about his underwear (“anywhere” as he calls them) and knows that his buddy Stella gets a whole jelly bean every time she goes on the potty so I have known for a while that it was all up to whenever I wanted to take the plunge. And we kind of dove in head first with promising results!

I have read a lot of blogger input about this topic and the consensus that I have been hearing is the 3 day no-pants method works the best for them to “get it”. So far he has only had 2 accidents. Both of which happened while he was eating and strapped to his booster seat. So I am thinking he didn’t know he was allowed to get out to pee? Or was too distracted by his mouth he stopped thinking about his other end. Anyway, here is what worked for us:

• Wait until your child is interested in the potty/underwear/jelly bean rewards. Jay LOVES the idea of wearing underwear and at daycare would ask to go on the potty when Stella would, he just wouldn’t know what to do once he got there.
• Get them excited! A couple days before we started I was talking up wearing underwear and going in the potty, etc.
• Find what works for you. We quickly realized that Jay is all about convenience so a portable potty works best for us. We also find that the faster he can sit on it, the better as his warning signs don’t leave much time to take off layers (he is getting better at noticing the sensations beforehand though).
• so. much. praise. One day he pooped the size of a chocolate chip but hey we celebrated like it was 1999 AND he got 2 jelly beans.
• Check in every hour. This tip is what our dayhome does and it saved me a lot of stress constantly asking him “do you have to pee? are you sure? do you have to potty? what about now?” Keep asking but have that hour in your mind and whether he thinks he has to go or not he is sitting on it for a few minutes just in case.
• How you say things can make all the difference. Not so much in the beginning of our potty adventure but more so now that he gets the routine and tries to manipulate the system. Most times I don’t get a reaction if I ask if he has to pee but if I ask him if he wants a jelly bean that usually gets the ball rolling and the underwear coming off. Also, every day he has a favourite colour of jellybean that he wants so if he isn’t responding to “do you want a jellybean?” then “Oh do you want a BLUE jelly bean??” I find just that small change makes a big difference some days.

Again, this is just our journey with one kid but hopefully this gives some insight for some parents who are getting ready to take the plunge!

 

Hello Again.

Oh haaiiiii this is a bit awkward, not going to lie. Two years of radio silence is a  bit embarrassing but you know having a kid and all that jazz. Well lets see here what has happened in two years to bring us to today?

Jason Dean was born! Huge part of my life right now (obvs). He just turned two and is such an awesome kid, I feel very lucky to have him as a son.

I have been back to work since last August, part-time 3 days a week. We have had a lot going on for work though so it feels like a full 5-day work week by the third day that’s for sure.

Biggest thing currently I think is being pregnant with #2!

I am 16 weeks right now (picture above was taken at 15 weeks because my one from this week was taken in my underwear and…yeah #internetneverforgets). I am measuring about 4 weeks ahead with this bump than when I was pregnant with Jay. Definitely showing a lot sooner this time around!

In super current (meaning so current it hasn’t even HAPPENED yet), we leave on vacation tomorrow!! squeeeeee!!

Jay and I are flying to Kelowna tomorrow for a wedding (Brian is driving out so all I have to bring is a carry on!?) on Saturday then going to Penticton, and end up in Invermere. SO we will be gone for a total of 9 days! It will be our first family vacation minus weekend trips since last summer when we went to Ontario. I think I am going to Snapchat (tawnylee2) and Social Media the shit out of our vacay because I have been getting SO jealous of everyone’s holidays and it’s finally my turn! Also for the memories….you know.

I can’t promise I will be all over this blog like a dirty shirt BUT I do miss it and will be checking in a lot more frequently than once every two years!

Chat soon!

Friday Faves

I ❤ short work weeks SO HARD! This calls for a GIF twerk:

 

Lots going on this weekend though so it will be busy. We decided to bite the bullet and finally do something about our lack of deck space in the back yard and so Brian recruited some friends to help him build a patio! 😀 While he is slaving away building stuff and being manly, I am dragging my sister to a baseball field at 7:30 am to take photos for the nursery. For some reason she agreed right away to do this with me (I lured her with the promise of Starbucks so that helped) and then we are going to hit up the farmer’s market.

My goal is to have the picture situation in the nursery figured out this weekend so that we can hang all the frames waiting to be filled. Remember how I told you about the prints that I was going to order for the three frames above the crib? Well I ordered them but I am still waiting for them to get here. Tell me if you can see the logic behind this shipping adventure:

From Georgia to Tennessee to Miami…I hope they are catching a plane in Miami because you can’t get further south than that. At least Canada Post is not alone in illogical mailing patterns.

In Baby B news, he now gets the hiccups daily. It is pretty stinkin’ cute. My friend also loaned me some maternity shorts so I am excited to give my pasty legs some sun this weekend!

Tell Me: What are your plans for the weekend? 

 

xo T

May Long 2014

Well helloooo!!!

Yesterday was a long weekend here in Canada so today I am back in the grind after a 3 day weekend! Brian had a really tough week so after work we went over to my sister and brother-in-law’s house for the guys to have some drinks and for Windy and I to eat cookies and watch movies. For the first time ever in our relationship I outlasted Brian! That’s how tired he was, poor guy. Saturday I went over the dark side and said goodbye to my iPhone and got an android phone (I got the Galaxy S 4 in white). So now Brian and I have matching his and her phones (his is black) nyawww! At first the phone felt WAY too smart for me (Brian has had his for a year and still has yet to play on it so he was no help) but eventually after lots of googling I sort of have an idea what I am doing now.

Sunday we were invited over to our friend’s house for our first backyard barbecue of the season! They have an amazing backyard with a gorgeous waterfall that unfortunately coupled with the fact that Baby B was sitting super low that day, and resulted in me peeing every 20 minutes. The barbecue inspired Brian and I to get a move on with our backyard plans finally though! We either wanted to extend our deck or make a patio and we somehow ended up agreeing on something in the middle of that? I don’t really care how he decides to do it I am just excited to be able to fit more than 3 people on our deck at a time!

This weekend I also went and saw ‘The Other Woman’ with my Mom. I actually really enjoyed it! One thing that stood out to me was when Kate Upton was running in slow motion on the beach and she jiggled! They actually allowed a female in a film to be jiggly! I thought it was refreshing and she is a gorgeous girl (obvi). In my opinion there should be more movies where women are allowed to have jiggly bodies.

I might have been super body conscious already though because before the movie I went looking in Ardene (a teeny bopper store) like an idiot. At one point I actually tried to convince myself that I could get away with a super loose tank top with a bandeau and my giant belly. It was such a weird feeling being in a store and knowing that I can’t get away with wearing 90% of the items. Ahh oh well. Next summer 🙂

Two things I learned this weekend:

1) Having an elderly dog is a great segway into having a baby. Especially with getting your stomach ready for cleaning up bodily functions. Mika has a hard time standing up by herself lately so we have to prop her front paws up first and then grab her hips to get her on all four legs. Well I did this to help her get more comfortable on her bed and 5 minutes later I realized that some poop had squeezed out of her when I did that. I must have hit a specific spot on her stomach or she had a really full colon. Then this morning while I’m doing my makeup she projectile vomited all over our bedroom floor. Twice. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she didn’t keep gagging the entire time I was cleaning it up.

2) I had a really random craving for Chinese food last night and so Brian and I picked some up for dinner. It was our first time EVER ordering Chinese take out. We both just never think of it/are never in the mood for it. Well we learned that our little family is not a Chinese food loving family. Brian is really sensitive to sodium so he could only eat half of the items, and I just didn’t really enjoy it all that much and then got really sick from the MSG. #cravingfail whomp whomp

Tell Me: How was your long weekend? 

xo T

 

 

 

 

 

Party like it’s 1999

So last night may have to go down as one of the best night of my life. My face looked like this for the majority of the time:

 

Maybe it was because this is what I was looking at:

That my friends is Nick Carter. All of the Backstreet Boys were INCHES from me last night and I touched hands with 3/5 of them but who is counting.

I am a bit worse for wear today though, really tired and kind of sore all over (especially my voice) but that is to be expected. Considering that I was standing, screaming, dancing, singing and hardcore fangirling for a couple hours last night I am surprised that I did as well as I did. My feet swelled up a little bit and my stomach was really tight by the end of the night but other than that I was on a BSB high for the whole time! Best concert everrrrr.

 

xo T

Mother’s Day Weekend

Hi Everyone!

Did you have a good weekend? Mine was really good! Friday night Brian and I just hung out and watched a (new to us) show on Hulu called Chicago PD. We are giving it 4 episodes to reel us in and so far it isn’t too bad! We had a summer meal of BBQ hamburgers and fresh Greek salad for dinner which was delicious. We both went to bed early though because Brian had to work on Saturday and my sister and I were getting up bright and early to celebrate Mother’s Day with our momma. We decided to do it a day early because we really wanted to hit up the farmer’s market which only runs on Saturdays.

We didn’t give her any hints as to what we had planned just that she had plans from 8:30 am until 2 pm and to meet at my sister’s house in the morning.

**She ended up not eating her allowed one cracker and instead we picked up something to nibble on at Starbucks

Our first stop was Starbucks for drinks, and then we hit up the farmer’s market for the first time this season. A lot of the crops weren’t in yet so there wasn’t a whole lot of vegetables but there were still tons of vendors and Windy scored some ah-mazing coconut cashew butter. Since our brunch location didn’t open for another hour we decided to hit up Value Village and browse. We ended up going a bit nuts on baby clothes and pretty much bought Baby B his baby wardrobe including adorable blue suede moccasins! While there, we received a random act of kindness when a lady saw how much baby stuff we were buying and she hands us her 30% off coupon to use! Thank you karma for coming back to me 🙂 We ended our Mother’s Day morning with brunch at a local restaurant.

The next day while out running errands Brian treated me to a soon-to-be Mother’s Day lunch. We then had a relaxing rest of the day reading and chilling with our puppy. Mika is doing a lot better this week and we finally have her insulin levels evened out! She can now get up and down the front stairs without any assistance (it’s about 8 stairs) and overall she seems to be in a lot better spirits than two weeks ago.

 

In baby bump news, Brian and I had a little game going with Baby B last night! Brian would either tap his fingers and pat my stomach to a beat or drag his fingers across my belly and if we waited and watched we could see Baby B react and move my whole stomach with his wiggling! It was such a neat experience and of course Brian let him punch him in the face a few times too just to feel close to him 🙂 We also figured out that Baby B loves it when Brian hums to him (success judged by how fast he hits him in the face once he starts). Already he has such a little personality in there!

Tell me: how was your Mother’s Day weekend? 

xo T

Hard Times

So last week was one of the hardest times that Brian and I have had….ever. For a few days we were not sure how we were going to manage financially in the next month or if Brian would even have a job. It was very difficult and hormonal pregnant tears were shed because of all of the uncertainty. Add on top of that that our fur baby Mika was not doing well at all. To the point of not being able to walk unassisted, peeing all over the house uncontrollably, and not being able to sleep through the night without crying. Last week I was at the Vet’s office twice and each time was not good news. We actually had an emergency appointment on Saturday (why does this kind of stuff always happen on long weekends?!) where we thought we were going to have to say goodbye to her. Among other things, the biggest thing that we found out is that Mika is diabetic and now has to receive insulin shots twice a day. She can now walk for short periods of time with help from a towel around her hips and if you go slow (she has a limp on her right front shoulder as well), but believe it or not this is huge progress compared to just a few days ago when it would take both Brian and I to help her go to the bathroom.

I understand that she is almost 14 but Brian and I wanted to be positive that we did absolutely everything we could for her before we took that final step. So far this is paying off and her body is recovering from all the craziness that it was going through last week. As most dog owners can relate, Mika is like our child and a goodbye is never going to be easy. The best we can do is make sure that she continues to have a good quality of life, which she still has.

So needless to say last week was a bit of a write-off for housework, socializing, reading(!!), and blogging. Now that everything is (finally) starting to look up for us I feel a lot better. It was one of those things where you know there is a reason everything is happening at once but it is so stressful you don’t realize why you had to go through what you did until later. Brian and I had to have a lot of hard conversations about both situations and had to really support each other when we both needed it. If anything last week made me extremely grateful for Brian and the relationship that we share.

This was a pretty heavy post, so how about I share with you something that made me LOL (very unattractively I might add) at work:

You’re welcome.

 

xo T

Babymoon

Hi friends!

I have kind of fallen off the blogging train after coming back from our babymoon two weeks ago…forgive me? I pushed writing about the babymoon because I didn’t take ANY photos. Like not one and I am not really ashamed of it as I didn’t think we did anything crazy exciting but I still feel bad. But I am back and our babymoon was fabulous!

We ended up going to a small town in Montana that is close to Whitefish at a timeshare that Brian’s coworker owns. Our accommodations were free and we also got complimentary massages, but we had to sit through a sales meeting on the timeshares on one of the afternoons. That ended up only taking about and hour and a half so it was well worth it 🙂

I had my first prenatal massage (which was actually my first massage ever as well) and it was soooo relaxing! I had to lay on my side and hug a pillow and then had to rotate halfway through so that the masseuse could do the other side. Baby B must have liked how relaxed I felt because he was moving around like crazy while it was happening which prevented me from falling asleep but that is probably a good thing. Brian got to do a hot rock massage and when he came out he had such red indents on his face from the massage table that it took a good 45 minutes for them to fade!

Our whole purpose of the babymoon was to get away one last time before Baby B comes and reconnect without TV, our cell phones, my kindle, or any other distractions. We had really in-depth conversations about parenting and our future which was really nice to reaffirm that we are both on the same page with everything Baby and parenting related.

The other thing we did was eat. We ate some ah-mazing food from brick oven pizzas, to chicken risotto to a local rib joint that had the best fry bread with honey butter that I have ever experienced. We had such a range of food choices and we didn’t eat at the same place twice just so that we could experience as much as possible. We also did some shopping for the baby and got some outfits for him as well as some summer maternity clothes for me (maxi skirts FTW!).

Nothing super exciting has happened since we have gotten back from the States except for getting a (free) 3D ultrasound done! It really worked out in our favour that my friend needed a (pregnant) guinea pig to test the ultrasound machine for them and I jumped at the chance to see Baby B moving around in there again. He was moving like crazy and we got some 3D photos of him that are pretty trippy because he is still so skinny but it was an awesome experience.

I hope you all haven’t missed me too much 😉

xo T

My Weekend in a Nutshell

Hey Friends!

So my weekend went pretty much as I expected it to but somehow still was not long enough. Friday we got air conditioning installed in our house (!!!) yay no more 35 degree nights that make our dog throw up at 2 am! We had to make the tough call to either pay for a/c or redo our flooring upstairs and me being a selfish pregnant woman thought about my comfort when I am a whale at 9 months pregnant and we ended up going for the comfort over looks investment. Grown up decisions are so not glamorous.

We went over to our friends house for dinner on Friday and they made us lobster for dinner! I felt kind of bad showing up with our Costco caesar salad and tirimisu cake but that quickly went away once we started eating. I don’t remember lobster being that messy to eat but I somehow got lobster gunk eevveeerryyywwhheerreee including an embarrassing lobster splatter on the wall situation. I blame my messiness on the fact that I was a starving pregnant woman and I ate way too fast (I finished de-shelling and eating my lobster 15 minutes before anyone else did #skillz).

My Saturday was spent cleaning the majority of my house including going scrub crazy on my bathtub and I ended up walking funny for the rest of the day because my back hated me. Later on my sister and brother-in-law came over for dinner and Windy and I shoved our totem pole leggings in Brian’s face. Specifically we recreated a picture of two totem poles:

 

Sunday was spent catching up on my Facetime calls with family, watching Friday Night Lights (we have ONE episode left!), and meal planning for the week. This week’s meals look like this:

Monday: Beef Dip (**Brian and I made a roast on Sunday and since we never come close to finishing a roast ourselves we always end up making two meat pies from the leftovers and then saving the remainder of the meat for beef dips during the week. I can do a post on our meat pie prep process if anyone is interested as well.)

Tuesday: Chicken Souvlaki

Wednesday: Pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce

Thursday: Lemon-dill tilapia with couscous and bok choy

I didn’t plan for Friday because we are leaving that day on our BABYMOON!

Tell me: How was your weekend? 

xo T

Totem Pole Leggings

Hey everyone!

This week seemed to fly by but go really slow at the same time somehow. No? Just me? Alright then.

I went to a legging party last night (yup I said legging party) and it was…good? I don’t really know how to explain what happened but basically I went by myself and I was the only. one. there. The weather was crap yesterday with blowing snow so I wasn’t expecting a lot of people, but as soon as I showed up the hostess had to leave for another party leaving me with her husband and her two kids (one of which was having a melt down as she was leaving). I didn’t really know what to do so I just stared really hard at all the different patterns of leggings that were on display and tried to fade into the back ground. If anyone would have gotten the joke I totally would have moonwalked right out of the situation…

 

So on one hand I love the two leggings that I got, but the whole experience was a bit odd to say the least. The little girl was super cute though and even wrote me a ‘receipt’ on a post-it. I ended up getting one pair of capris leggings that are a floral print on a white background and a pair of full length ones that are more aztec print than anything. Both are SUPER soft and I immediately put the full length ones on last night to wear around the house. Brian said that I looked like a walking totem pole. I wasn’t sure how to take it but I am going to take it as there is a compliment in there somewhere.

While I was being a wall flower and getting some leggings, Brian made homemade pizza for us for dinner. It is kind of scary how well that man knows me sometimes because one of the pizzas he made had kale, chicken, and srircha on it. Man of the year right there! It kind of makes up for the fact that he called me a walking totem pole.

So what do you have on the agenda for this weekend? I will most definitely be hanging out in my awesome leggings and Brian and I might finish Friday Night Lights! I am going to be so sad when it is over, Riggins is like a part of me now.

 

xo T