Better late than never

When my children were babies, I did the research and I knew that cloth diapers were healthier and better for the environment. But when there is a newborn baby in the house, disposable diapers are just so much more convenient. I wanted to spend all my extra time catching up on sleep, not doing laundry. I did have a set of cloth diapers, but they were only used as burp rags.

Fast forward four years from when my youngest was born, and I have found a use for those old cloth diapers! My son has been potty trained for a year now, but he still has occasional night time accidents. As such, we have kept him in the pull-up style diapers at night, every night. They can be reused a couple of times if there was no accident, but they get a bit fuzzy after that. Pull-ups cost much more than diapers, even if you buy the generic brands, so I was anxious to find an alternative.

So I came up with a homemade pull-up. I take a cloth diaper and fold it over to make a thick strip. Then I have him hold it on himself, covering from under the belly button on down between the legs, while I help pull up his regular underwear on top. Then he wears a pair of plastic over-pants, topped of with the pajama pants. So far, this has worked quite well, and the clean up isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

If he wakes with wetness, we soak the items in a bucket filled with water and a splash of bleach. I swirl it around for a minute, then dump the water. Then I rinse everything with plain water, wring out, and hang it to dry. When they are dry, I put them in the hamper to be washed at the end of the week with the rest of the laundry.

Plans and life changes

We have been revising our future building plans again, since we are convinced that we won't be able to make all our money back on our current house. Since the incidence of the damage from Hurricane Ike, we have also decided that a basement is necessary, even if just used for storage, so we can have a safe place to go when the next emergency strikes. I'll have to start getting quotes on how much it costs to excavate around here. We were hoping to do some of the digging ourselves, but our trials with digging even small holes around here turns out to be a painful and rocky experience.

Once we get the hole dug, I believe we can do almost all the work ourselves. We have been reading a lot and feel we have a better understanding of the inner workings of houses since we repaired an entire wall in our kitchen, including reinstalling cabinets. Our new house will be much more simple in nature, and as small as possible, so the work should take less time and will definitely take less materials to complete.

We are looking forward to some major lifestyle changes with this move. The obvious is the smaller house, which we hope will force the kids to spend more time playing outside. Don't get me wrong, my kids love playing outside to matter where we are, but the new lot slopes down and is set below street level, so I feel they are safer playing outside over there. Our current house has a circle driveway and we live on a dead-end street, so many cars will use our driveway to turn around and I worry about the safety of the kids and dog if they are playing out front. Since we are also planning to start a garden at the new place, the kids will love helping with that too. They have recently taken an interest in where our food comes from and what things are made with, so gardening will be a great learning experience for all of us. Plus, the fresh organic vegetables, herbs, and fruits may eliminate our need for vitamins, medicines, or diet pills.

The other major change will be increased exercise. We will be closer to town, and within walking distance to the park, the library, the post office, and all the events that happen downtown. We are planning to walk or ride our bikes for any downtown errands, including my commute to work.

I know these are many changes to make at once, but I figure "why not"? These are changes we have been thinking about for years and are only just now beginning to make them real. Also, implementing these changes while the kids are young will make for a better transition and will help to cement better living choices in their minds. In this way, things like reusing materials, composting, gardening, and conserving energy will be second nature to them and they will continue practicing these things for the rest of their lives.

Our little "Super Scottie"

My readers please excuse me, but I simply must gush about my daughter (again)!! At an awards ceremony at the elementary school, my daughter won one of the coveted "Super Scottie" awards for making the honor roll, and exhibiting exemplary behavior at school. Only four kids in her class won the award and we are so proud that she was one of them.

I was worried she might have trouble adjusting after they shuffled her grade around a month ago and she was switched to a different teacher. But as usual, she has made the best of it and is thriving. I love having those moments when I am truly proud to say, "Hey, that's my kid!"

Reading bug

Thanks to the library summer reading program, my daughter "caught the reading bug" and ended up reading around 200 books last summer. Now that school is back in session, I am proud to report that she has been classified as reading above her grade level. Reading is so crucial in all parts of school, and I'm so thankful that she picked it up as well as she has. I can only hope we are as lucky with our younger son. I have a gut feeling that he will have a harder time, but maybe I'm just stereotyping him because of the other typical "boy" behavior he has been exhibiting lately.

Maybe he will learn young, simply because big sister is doing it and his competitive spirit will take over. Only time will tell. The important thing is that both of my kids love school and we will continue to foster that because when there is love for learning, everything else just falls into place.

Autumn in Eureka Springs

Aaahhh, the cooler, beautiful days of autumn are here. This is by far my favorite season, especially in Eureka. The leaves are absolutely stunning, there is a wonderful smell in the crisp mountain air, and the best part is that the fall lasts a really long time here. This is the perfect time for walking and hiking because the insects are dying off, as well as the humidity. My family tries to walk or bicycle as much as we can, and not just for hobby, but to run errands as well.

The trouble with our town is that there are no sidewalks, except for downtown. The sidewalks downtown are somewhat difficult to manage because they are 100+ year old limestone, which is slick and uneven. When we moved here, our son was a year old so we walked with him in a stroller. After a couple of tries taking a regular stroller on the downtown sidewalks, we went online to get something more appropriate. We picked a lightweight jogging stroller with inflatable bicycle-style wheels and have determined that jogging strollers are the only way to travel with a baby or toddler in Eureka Springs.

My son has since outgrown the stroller, and we sold it for a good price at our latest garage sale. I am impressed at what troopers our children are when we walk, even on steep terrain. They don't complain unless we walk more than 2 miles, and if we stop for a drink and a snack, they are good to go another mile or so. Another fun and earth-friendly game is to bring garbage bags along and see who can find the most trash and recyclables along the way. This teaches kids a good lesson on the trouble with littering and how important it is to do our part for the community.

Eureka Springs School of the Arts

Our daughter was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to attend a summer art class at ESSA, and we are very happy with the experience. She originally wanted the painting class, but she was enrolled in "Working with Metals" instead. There was another class which used airbrush and stencil techniques to make T-shirts. She was somewhat skeptical to work with metal, but after the first day, she told me, "Mom, I love working with metal!" She made a variety of Christmas ornaments, jewelry, metal boxes, and more.

I was so glad she thrived, especially since she was the only girl in the class. The instructors were Mary Springer and Eleanor Lux and they did a wonderful job teaching my daughter. They definitely made an impact and my daughter feels that she can try lots of new art techniques that she may have not thought of trying before. Thank you ESSA! I definitely recommend these summer classes for school age children.

Oh, how school has changed!

When I was in elementary school, computers were just making their way into residential homes. I was one of only about three other students in my class with a word processing program to turn in printed reports in the 6th grade. The internet wasn't a viable resource until college, and offered much help with my assignments then.

Today, children start using the internet as early as age two, and computers are a staple in every classroom in the country from Kindergarten through high school. Students in middle and high school carry a flash drive on a lanyard around their neck with all their computer files stored. I just hope that by the time my kids are in school, we aren't expected to purchase laptops that they carry to school. Call me old fashioned, but I think kids are too young for that much responsibility.

You know you're a Mom when...

...you enjoy the feel of your son rolling a Hot Wheels car over your back more than a massage at a spa.

...you lower your standards of what you consider "clean".

...your favorite smell is the top of your child's head.

...you lick your finger and wipe something off a kid's face.

...you can watch your child sleeping for hours.

...you find yourself repeating the same thing 100 times a day.

...you start humming theme songs from kids' movies.

That's all I could think of right now. Please add more if you think of any!

Her first boyfriend

Yesterday in the car, my 7 year old daughter nonchalantly says, "Mom, I have a boyfriend who loves me." I say, "Oh really? Who is it?" Turns out it is a boy who has been in her class for two years, but apparently they just discovered they love each other "just a little bit" according to her.

I don't think it is a big deal, buy my husband seemed a bit upset by it. He grilled her with questions like, "You don't kiss him or anything, do you??" She just made a disgusted face and said, "No, we just draw pictures for each other."

So we're not quite ready for "the talk" yet, but she is growing up so fast that before too long we will be breaking out acne treatments and fighting off real boyfriends. The good news is that since we live in a small town, there are many other parents looking out for your kids too because everyone knows you. I don't think the teens around here can get away with much... but I could be wrong.

Practical solution

So after weeks of my 3 year old wetting the bed about once a week, I got annoyed by the smell of his room in the morning and having to rush to do laundry while trying to get ready for work. If he had a foam mattress it would be even more difficult to clean, but we needed a new solution none-the-less. We had already tried putting him in Pull-ups at bedtime, but he adamantly refused because they look too much like diapers and he was a "big boy" now. Point taken.

I had looked for the plastic diaper covers before and could not find them anywhere, but I decided to look again because those would work for our bedtime situation. I finally found them at Wal-Mart, way on the very bottom rack in the cloth diaper section. They do make the plastic covers up to size 3T, so it would be nice to put them in the toddler underwear section too, but that's just my opinion.

We had to hide the package from my son, since it had a picture of the Gerber baby on the front. There was no way I could sabotage this idea by having him think these things were for babies. When we got home, I discreetly unpackaged them and removed all traces of babies from the wrapper. Then I pulled out a pair and saw that the baby picture was also on the tag, so I cut it off before introducing them to my son as his "Protector Underwear."

Success!! He accepted them with no problem, puts them over his underwear for sleeping and takes them off in the morning when he wakes up. He went three days with no accident, so I still wasn't sure how they would hold up - but this morning, he woke up early after wetting his pants. The plastic covers worked perfectly. His underwear was soaked, but everything else was totally dry. I'm sure after feeling how wet they got, his bed wetting will lessen, but until then we have the "Protector Underwear" on our side!

My best friend

The other morning at breakfast, my husband proudly states that the night before, when he was finished reading a bedtime story to our three year old boy, he said, "Dad, you're my best friend." Aaaawwwwww, how cute.

Then, my daughter rains on his parade by stating, "Dad, he told the dog she was his best friend the other day." Upon seeing the disappointment on daddy's face, she said, "I mean, you're special too. He's been telling us all that we are his best friends."

In drastic contrast to the "terrible two" attitude we dealt with for over a year, all of a sudden our son has become very affectionate. He will just run up and give out hugs and say "I love you" all the time. I remember this stage with my daughter as well. Just around the time you enjoy spending time with your toddler is when it's time for them to start going to school.

Independence is key

Well, it seems we are mostly back on track with my three year old son's potty habits. As you may recall, he was totally trained (much to my surprise) in one day on the first Friday in December. Once he understood what was expected of him, he would go about his "business" all by himself and only tell us after he had finished. He never told us before he went to the bathroom. He was very proud, as we all were and very independent about the whole thing.

Then I became too controlling (as I always do, dang it!) and he started using it as a control/stubborn issue. I would ask him to go potty and he would always say no, then he would wet himself from holding it for too long. Then I stopped asking and he was better about going by himself, but would still hold it for too long and sometimes have some wetness in the underwear.

So I've tried to ease up even more and it seems to be helping. I also put the toddler potty back in the kid's bathroom because I think the size of it comforts him, even though he will use the big potty too. I think he just likes having it there "in case" he needs it. Anyway, I'm very happy to report that we are only going through one or two pairs of underwear per day, rather than the four our five we were changing daily a couple of weeks ago.

Don't touch that!

One of the biggest challenges of having small children is keeping the house safe for them. Everything must be out of reach and you never know what they will get into. Case in point: the entertainment center. We put all of our components in a large armoire and when the doors are closed, the kids can't touch anything. But when the doors are open, the TV as well as the DVD player and VCR are within reach and the kids are attracted to those buttons like a moth to a flame.

Another option is to use a tv mount which actually hangs the TV from the ceiling or a wall. Then shelves could be mounted nearby to place the other components. In addition to keeping everything out of the kids' reach, lots of floor space would be cleared this way.

Slacking in the potty department

My three year old son has been potty trained now for exactly two months. He started off great, always staying dry and rushing to the bathroom when he had to go. Now he has started slacking off and will pee a bit in his underwear before getting to the bathroom. It's not enough to come through his pants, but it's still enough that he should feel uncomfortable.

If I don't notice, he will keep the wet underwear on and it doesn't seem to bother him. The funny thing is, he only does this at home and he rarely wets the bed during the night. When we are in a store or the park, he tells us in plenty of time to get to the bathroom. Yesterday, when I talked to him about why he does it, he says, "Don't worry Mom, the pee keeps me warm." I couldn't help flipping out about that one. So my husband jumped in and talked to him about going to buy baby diapers since he couldn't stay dry and my son got really upset and said it wouldn't happen again.

This morning, he peed on the couch and didn't tell anyone. Now what???

Potty progress report

Well, it's been about a month since my son (3 years and 3 months old) decided to be potty trained. I'm happy to report he is still going strong and we've only had a couple of mishaps along the way. First of all, to my amazement, he has only wet the bed twice in a whole month. Every other morning, he wakes up dry and sometimes even waits to go potty until after he eats breakfast! As you can imagine, this makes me quite nervous, but he won't go if you tell him to, so I have to keep my mouth shut.

There have also been a few times when he waits too long and has a little wetness in his underwear before making it to the potty. I don't make a big deal about it and he just picks out a new pair of undies and changes them himself. He's all about doing things by himself right now, so I'm going with the flow. This will be very important for starting pre-school in August since they expect the kids to do most things themselves.

Overall, I'm still very proud of my "big boy" and I'm so glad he is out of diapers before our Florida trip in two weeks! Mickey Mouse will be so impressed, I'm sure.

Christmas crescendo

Crescendo (kre-shen-doh): a gradual, steady increase in loudness or force.

I think this word perfectly describes the week before Christmas, especially if you and your spouse are both notorious procrastinators. Hey, nothing would get done if it weren't for the last minute, right? So we started our shopping last Friday, and amazingly enough, got nearly everything we wanted. My husband has to go back and buy a bicycle for our daughter in a couple of days, only because we couldn't figure out where to hide it in our house. We thought maybe we could just get one in the box and we would assemble it on Christmas eve, but they assemble all of them at the store right when they get them.

Waiting until the last minute is tough when you have packages to mail out in time to arrive before Christmas. We decided to make DVD slideshows for the relatives with most of our pictures from this year. This makes for a nice gift, but is stressful since it involves relying on the computer to get the job done. And as we all know, computers can hardly be relied upon for anything. So a few computer crashes and DVDs-turned-coasters later, we got all 9 DVDs completed and packaged last night around midnight. Since I had to work at the school the next day, I wanted to get to bed early. No such luck. Then my husband got the wonderful job of going to the post office in the morning to mail all the packages, which we thought would be dreadful (as most post offices are the week before Christmas). But this is yet another advantage to living in a small town - he only had one person in front of him and got done very quickly.

The overall tone at the elementary school today was total chaos. The kids are all worked up and excited for Christmas break. I can't imagine what it will be like by Friday. Hopefully no one will get sick and I won't have to substitute any more this week. Then maybe I can get more of the gifts wrapped so we won't have to do everything on Christmas Eve.

Let's hear it for my boy!

So after all my stressing out about potty training, reading a couple of books, watching a kid's video to get my son psyched up... He basically potty trained himself in one day. Yes, one day. No kidding.

Here's the story:
Last week we started letting him wear Pull-Up diapers and telling him he could go to the potty with them, etc. He wore them for two days and tried sitting on the potty a couple of times with partial success, but the diapers were still getting wet. Then on Friday, he saw me folding laundry and told me he wanted to wear "big boy underwear." Skeptically, I said "OK" and we changed him into underwear.

Today is Wednesday night and so far, he has not had one accident. We put him in Pull-Ups at night just in case, but he wakes up in the morning with them still dry. He even wants to use the big potty already and only uses the baby potty for poopies. While we are on the subject, who's up for a detoxifying colon cleanse? After reading a bit on the web, my sluggishness lately could be caused by excessive toxins in the system. Maybe a detoxifier is just what I need. I've never tried that before, so who knows?

I am seriously shocked about my boy, though. I still can't believe it, although I am very proud and happy. It's so fascinating to see something just "click" with a child and how excited they get when they accomplish it. I guess I don't have to worry about him being ready for Pre-school in the fall. It will also be so nice not to deal with diapers on our upcoming trip in January. Woo hoo! Let's hear it for the boy!

For parents in the midst of potty training...

This one's for you!



My husband saw the video on another daddy's blog and just had to share it with me since we are just starting to get serious about potty training my son. He's actually doing very well. Once we put the training pants with "Cars" characters on them, he knew we meant business (literally!). He has sat on the potty several times, and been productive on the potty once so far. I just finished reading Potty Training for Dummies, which helped a lot to put things in perspective.

The one point that really stood out for me was their reminder that potty training is just like any other milestone in your child's life and should be treated as such. For instance, when babies learn to walk, we cheer at their first steps, but don't get angry or frustrated when they fall. It's because we know they will get it eventually. It's the same with potty training. Be your child's coach and cheerleader, but don't be a preacher or a nag and keep the mood light. Treat accidents in a "matter-of-fact" way and don't make a huge deal about it.

Potty training debate

Once you have children, you realize that there are opposing views on virtually every aspect of childrearing. It begins with breastfeeding vs. bottle, then thumb sucking vs. pacifier, then Family bed vs. Cry-It-Out. When the baby is a little older, the debate is about potty training. My parent's generation trained children early, around 18 months. When my first daughter was trained three years ago, most were in favor of later child-led training so I was within the norm. Now that my son is three, the super-early training promoters have come out (we're talking infant potty training, which I don't even comprehend) so my son seems really behind in his potty learning skills. He has until August to be fully trained before starting pre-school, so we're starting to get serious about it and he does seem to be much more interested lately so that's working in our favor.

I have a friend who doesn't really have a choice in starting to potty train her son because even though he just turned two, he is almost too big for the largest size of diapers. She has jokingly mentioned that she may have to start buying him adult incontinence supplies until he is fully trained. I think they do make pull-up style diapers in a 3T-4T size, but they are very expensive and it would probably be easier just to go ahead and try to train him at an early age.

The key is consistency and right now in my house that is one thing we do not have. Since I am a substitute teacher, I could be called in to work anytime and then my husband has to try to work from home while watching my son as well. Trying to enforce potty training at the same time may be too much for him to take on right now. We'll probably do a "crash course" during Christmas break and if he's not trained after that, we'll aim for summer break.

Extra curricular activities

With all the activities available to children these days, it is hard for a parent to decide what to expose their child to. When I was a child, I started with dance (ballet and modern jazz), but that only lasted a year or so. Then I got into recreational soccer, but that only lasted a couple of seasons and involved a lot of driving on my parent's part.

Probably my favorite activity was horse riding. In Colorado, there is an equestrian group called Westernaires that teaches young people ages 9-19 horsemanship, including riding techniques as well as proper grooming. I'm not sure all the costs that were involved, but I know they required equestrian riding apparel including boots.

I guess it all comes down to money, as most things do these days. When you are considering an activity for your child, you must realize all the costs involved, from application fees, monthly fees, uniforms, equipment, travel costs, and maybe more. I found out recently that some organizations like Girl and Boy Scouts actually offer scholarships that help pay for the membership fees, so be sure to ask about assistance if you require it.