Happy Birthday Vivian!

Today Vivian turned one!

I've got nothing planned for this post...no funny story to tell.  I just want to document the day, as it's such an amazing milestone.  She'll never remember it obviously, but I think for parents it's huge to be able to say you survived your baby's first year!  There were tears, growing pains, and many cups of coffee, but everyone made it through!  

Vivian is such a sweet, happy, easy going baby that it really has been the quickest year.  Every giggle, hug, cuddle, and open-mouth, sloppy kiss erases the memory of one of the sleepless nights of the last 365 days (okay, maybe not completely because we're totally going to hold it over her head what a needy baby she becomes at night).  If I search deep down, I guess I have to admit that I secretly love that she needs me for that quick snuggle to fall back asleep, even at 4 am.  But I'll also be the first to admit that I would just as happily provide that snuggle at 7 am - but that's play time!

Watching her take care of her baby doll today and push it around in a stroller it's so much fun to wonder who she is going to turn into.  Whatever she becomes, she's always going to be our sweet, little monkey!

11 Things about Vivian

I feel like my blog hasn't featured Vivian as much as it should, so at 10 months old, I'm going to give you all 10 things I love about Vivian.

1. She is such a mommy's girl.  I mean, she loves Daddy, too.  And I'm super happy that she has finally started reacting when he gets home at the end of the day and runs to him like Evelyn does.  But let's be honest, Evelyn was all Steve's from the beginning, so it's nice that Vivian turns to me.

2. She is a cuddle bug!  She has this adorable little way of snuggling up right under your chin, but then she will pop back up to look at you and smile.  It's like she wants to know that you're happy she's there and she wants you to know she's happy to be there.

3. She loves to dance.  Put some music on and she's bopping up and down, usually in her trademark stance, which is down on one knee.

4. When given the chance she will make a break directly for the stairs and be half way up before you realize she's gone.  This is always interesting since Evelyn can open the door we use as a barrier.  

5. When she gets to the top, she turns around and closes the gate.  Safety first you know.

6. And speaking of closing the gate, nothing that opens or closes is safe.  Drawers, cabinets, the DVD door...

7. When she isn't looking for things to open, she's eating paper.  Toilet paper, tissues, receipts, her sister's art projects...

8. Don't try to feed her anything that she can't pick up and feed herself.  This makes things like yogurt and applesauce interesting.  Cottage cheese though...she will go to town!  

9. She goes nuts for a soft, cozy blankie.  We will often put one down on the floor and she flops right down on it and starts rolling back and forth and pulling it over herself.

10. When she gets mad, I mean really mad, she pulls off her socks.  Like she's staging a protest.  You're going to make me take a nap?  I'm ripping my socks off and throwing them on the floor.  Take that!  And when she gets really, really mad.  She poops.

And a bonus...

11.  When she happens upon a pair of her sister's underwear on the floor, this always happens...

Sleep Update

A while back I posted about the sleep troubles we have been having at our house.  Since then I have received two products that made a real difference in our lives, and helped put us on track for full nights of sleep.  

The first thing we got was a Zippity Zip sleep sack.  My mom saw it on Shark Tank, and said the sharks ate it up.  According to the reviews on the site, it's a must have product and solves all sleep troubles.  The basic premise is that it's a sleep sack, but it allows for less movement, particularly when babies startle in their sleep.  Vivian's sleep trouble started when we moved her to the crib and she started rolling, so it made sense that she was probably waking herself up with her movements in her sleep.  

We got our Zippity Zip and instantly Vivian's sleep pattern increased to a five hour chunk of time, and then quickly to a seven hour chunk.  This was an amazing increase from the 2-3 hours we were getting.  We then feel into a routine where she was waking at two am.  Around this time my mom also got me a great book: How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber.  Even if your child doesn't have "sleep problems", I seriously recommend getting this book.  It's very interesting to understand how a baby sleeps and the patterns of sleep they go through.  Evelyn was a good sleeper, but I still would have done things differently with her had I read this book when she was a baby.  

There was a section of the book specifically for babies with pacifiers.  And I know it sounds so stupidly simple, but basically the book said it was time to get rid of the pacifier.  By nine months most babies have outgrown the benefits of using the pacifier by the baby's ability to move around on their own.  And with one kid who's still hooked on her paci, I was okay with pulling the plug, especially if it meant we were going to get longer stretches of sleep time.  It took a few nights, but eventually she got over the pacifier and was suddenly sleeping until 4:30 or 5:00, when she would wake for a feeding. 

Reading the book I also recognized that it was time to change some of Evelyn's sleep habits.  It was time to cut her nap significantly.  She would still go three hours if we let her, but she was up until 10:30, or would go to sleep but wake up at three am and not be able to fall back asleep.  We played around with no nap at all, but she was intolerable by about five in the afternoon.  We learned through trial and error that about an hour was the right nap, and still have a bedtime of around 8:00.  I also need to make sure to wake her up by 8:00.  

Even though things are getting better, we continue to have some trouble with Vivian's sleep.  She cries for about 15-20 minutes every time it's time for sleep - both naps and night time.  It's hard to deal with, but there's really nothing to do about it because she has to go to bed!  I really think she just falls into the "light sleeper" category.  It kills me because I can't check on her at night like I love to do because  it almost always causes her to wake up, sit up, and start crying.  I dealt with the early wake up and feeding for a while, but she started getting up earlier, and was not really eating.  Add to the waking up early the fact that sleep and I aren't always on the same page, and I have trouble going back to sleep after that wake up call.  I decided it was time to sleep train that wake up out of our nights, but we also happened to put her to bed much later the other night, and she suddenly slept until 6:00.  So that's where we currently stand!  Vivian's bedtime has been moved back, and now the girls have bedtimes a little closer to each other, which actually makes life a little easier. 

And maybe, as I start to gain back some sleep, I'll have more energy for things like blogging!  :)

 

Behavior Plan

We've been having some struggles here at our house with listening.  And it's really hard for me to deal with having a child who doesn't listen.  As a teacher one of the things that I think is a relative strength for me is classroom management.  For the most part I've been pretty lucky with the students I've had, but you give me a group of 9 and 10 year olds and I feel like I do a pretty good job with behavior.  So the fact that I've been struggling with my own kid really is hard.  Now I know that kids are always better behaved for other people, but my child does need to listen to me, too!

Last summer I tried a sticker chart with Evelyn, but she really didn't understand the purpose and just wanted to pull the sticker back off as soon as she stuck it on.  Perhaps it was the wrong plan, but I let go of any plan for a while with that failure.  It wasn't until my friend The Control Freak posted an article about a behavior plan that it dawned on me that maybe it was time to try again.

I decided to employ a behavior jar to be filled with pompoms.  According to the plan, you picked a few key behaviors that needed to be changed and focused on those to be rewarded.  I decided we would have two jars, one for getting ready in the morning quickly and getting ready for bed without fussing, and the other just for general good listening since really that is our big problem.  As I said to a friend, we needed to fix the morning and evening because it just ruins both the start and end of our day!  And with the not listening in between our whole day just sucks!

From teaching I knew that the key to a good behavior plan is that the child needs to "buy in" and that requires a reward that is going to be meaningful.  Enter the Dum Dum.  Recently at the bank the teller offered a lollipop, and I said okay for the first time.  Evelyn was hooked.  Now I know that many people are not a fan of using food as a reward, and in general I am not either, but I knew it was going to work for my kid and that is what matters!

I gathered my materials and got to work...

Very quick and easy to put together!  And when Evelyn woke up from her nap I explained the Good Listener Jar and promptly started putting pompoms in.  We spent the rest of the afternoon adding pompoms for pretty much everything in order to get that jar filled fast because instant gratification is important when you're three!  

And, as with any good behavior plan, you have to be ready to make adjustments as needed.  I quickly got rid of the second jar for morning and bedtime because it is just as easy to include those times as good listening, and it helps get the jar filled up faster to only have one.  And if we're talking about filling up the jar fast, my kid quickly caught on to the fact that I had different sized pompoms and she always goes for the bigger ones when selecting what she's going to put in.  

It took about 2 days for her to get her first lollipop, and she's very close to her second.  I am getting a lot more, "Okay Mommy!" responses when she is asked to do something than I've ever known possible.  I've been able to back off a little on rewarding every little thing while still getting the desired result, which is exactly what a behavior plan is meant to do, and everyone is a little happier!  

Christmas...after the fact!

One of the most traditional holiday customs is the picture on Santa's lap.  Kind of strange when you think about it, but just one of those things you are supposed to do!  Evelyn's first Christmas came ten days after she was born, and I could barely walk, let alone think about finding a Santa to take a picture with my newborn.  So Evelyn's first picture with Santa actually came with her second Christmas.

I don't remember many of the details, other than we waited forever because we got held up that morning despite my best effort to get out of the house first thing.  But the picture turned out amazing!  

I learned my lesson waiting in the ridiculous line and the following year I looked up the times, and we were determined to be there before Santa arrived.  Unfortunately the website didn't have the times listed accurately and were at the mall about two hours early.  No one was in line, so we hit the play area for a while.  We decided to go for a cup of coffee and bathroom break about 45 minutes before Santa arrived.  Still no one in line.  Fifteen minutes later there were suddenly at least 20 people in line ahead of us.  So not only did we wait for about two hours, I then stood in line for another hour to get this gem:

And after this Steve and I heard for a full year about how "Santa is nice.  But I don't want to sit on his lap! I cry!"  She was obviously traumatized.  In fact we were walking through the mall back in early November and I was surprised to see Santa was already there.  As we walked by and Evelyn realized he was there, she latched onto my leg and I had to carry her past.  I did manage to get her to wave, but there was NO WAY she was going to get anywhere near the man.

When December rolled around, it was time to think about visiting Santa.  If I'm being perfectly honest, the picture with Santa seems to be way more important to Steve.  He always seems to be the one to bring up making the visit, which made me think he wanted to be there for it.  As we started to prepare for an early Saturday morning up and out of the house just weeks before Christmas, it was obvious we were both dreading it.  We knew Evelyn wasn't going to participate willingly, we were sure we would be waiting in line no matter what we did, and it just wasn't going to be fun.  

I proposed a different plan.  As long as it was okay with Steve not being there, I would take Vivian to meet Santa one morning when Evelyn was at school.  Hopefully during the week the lines would be minimal and there would be no drama if Evelyn wasn't there.  Steve agreed, so one Monday morning I got Vivian all dressed in the same dress her sister wore, and we headed to the mall.  

I got there about 20 minutes before Santa, and there was no one in line!  I had been in this position before, though, so I lingered near Santa's "house".  Just before 10:00 I noticed a few people in line so I entered the queue.  I was third.  Not too shabby.  We took the picture, and were back in the car by 10:17.  It was the best Santa experience ever.

Same outfit down to the shoes (minus the headband...I was so sure that Evelyn wore the headband!).  The camera person kept trying to get Vivian to look and smile, but I told her to go with the looking at Santa pose knowing it would look even more like Evelyn's picture.  And did you notice the "I love you" sign from Santa?  At first I thought it was just a fluke, but then I started seeing all these posts of other people who had the same sign in their pictures, too.  Santa really is the best!

Happy 3rd Birthday Evelyn!

My baby turned three the other day.  It's absolutely unbelievable to me that it has been three years since my spunky little girl was born.  Each day I am amazed by the person she is becoming.

I distinctly remember that when she turned one I thought there was going to be this magical change.  As if turning one were like flipping a switch between being a baby and being a little person.  Things would be easier.  She would understand what I was trying to tell her.  We would start to do things together, not just me doing things for her.  Well naturally I was very mistaken for quite a while.  Obviously her development continued to be gradual.  I kind of had the same notion of what it meant to turn two, and once again there was no instant change.

As we approached three I didn't have the same expectation.  I knew there would be no sudden change.  But a few weeks ago I did start to notice some changes in Evelyn.  All of a sudden she has been able to do things for herself.  She can put on her coat by herself.  She can play independently for ten minutes.  She pretends, and in a way that is totally adorable.  She is a brand new little person.  And her memory...oh my gosh.  She remembers everything.  And that little girl knows exactly what she wants.

But I think the very best part is how aware she is about everything that is going on.  She knows that Christmas is coming up.  She knows what her birthday means.  It was her special day.  Her favorite people were all together in one place and it was ALL. ABOUT. HER!  And I think my very favorite part was the look on her face when everyone was standing around, singing happy birthday to her, and watching her blow out her candles.  The look on her face was just absolutely priceless.  The pictures don't do it justice...

My Christmas List

It's that time of year when people start asking what you want for Christmas.  So, for anyone looking to get me (or probably any other mom) a gift, here is my Christmas list.  In no particular order...

1. I would love to go an hour without having to ask "What did you do to your sister?"

2. It would be incredible to be able to be completely alone in the bathroom for the entire time I am getting ready.  From brushing my teeth to drying my hair, I want to be completely alone.  And bonus if I have the luxury to take my time.

3. I want to clean the kitchen (I'm not even asking someone else to do it for me!) and have it still be clean when I turn around.  Where do the dishes come from???  No matter what I do, there is another dish lurking somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to show its dirty, ugly face.

4. I would like to do something seasonal as a family.  And I don't want to have to wait in line, worry about tickets ahead of time, fight for parking, etc.  Just get up and go.  And it would be great if I could get a family picture at this outing.  One where we look put together, without TRYING to look put together.  "Oh look...we just happened to all be wearing seasonal colors at the same time!!"

5. And after this wonderful, quality, family time, I would love an hour alone.  With a cup of HOT coffee.  That I didn't have to reheat.

So that's it.  Just 5 little things that would make me super happy for Christmas.