Potty training jail

On July 2, 2014July 2, 2014 By JillIn I need a glass of wine, Mommy Musings, What's Going On?9 Comments

I picked Friday, our first free day. We have a lot of activities during the school year so I waited until the schedule was free and we were housebound (As I am writing this, I am questioning everything about my decision making skills….seriously, why would I torture myself like this? Yea, it’s the fifth day at home, during the summer, and I haven’t left the house… kind of in shock just seeing that written…I never stay home!

I feel like a hermit crab, only coming out of her shell to go out back and then quickly back in…running for the toilet…I feel bad for the girls but they are surprisingly happy and having fun together for the most part, definitely each others best friends right now…oh so cute, running around and playing together …I can here a song in my background….”We are faaamily…I’ve got all my sistas with me…”

CRAFTS WITH THE BUSY BOX, courtesy of Tiffany:)

And then the fun is over!

I felt like I was preparing to board Noah’ s Arc prior to this day…stocking up on food, energy, and supplies… Like I was preparing for 40 days of rain …make that 40 days of pee, but I hope to God, it doesn’t take 40 days…

Anyway, the first day I woke up, got my training arsenal ready for the day and planned on an intense, diapers gone, pure potty training session.

Day one – Arianna woke up smiling and calling for mommy, not knowing that her day was going to be a little different…I took her diaper off, and all of a sudden she started to pee and I said, ” Ahh, pee, run…” And we went running to the toilet and she definitely peed on the potty! I did the happy dance and was like, “Yay, potty training!” She snarled at me…she is not one for people to make a fuss around her, especially if she’s in a mood – already she has this distinct personality where she does not want to be looked at or coddled with if she is in a “mood!”

Well, she was not happy when I told her that we weren’t putting on diapers anymore!

“No- I want my diaper, diaper, diaper…” And then a full blown scream… And more screaming…it was not pretty. Then I tried to get her to put on some underwear and she got even more angry…she was like “I don’t like underwear, no underwear !”
Ok then, I thought to myself…let’s forget about the underwear …

So, I decided to spread out all of our underwear choices on the dining room table… I simply mentioned that they were there and left it at that…kind of like leaving out cookies when someone claims they’re on a diet… Sort of temp them in a secret sort of way… NOT LIKE I WOULD EVER DO THAT… but someone I know does…um Dad…anyway, she finally came around to picking out a pair – of course, she picks the Dora ones (should have hid them since we only have two of them) yup- sure enough she wets the first two pairs and refuses to put on any other type of undies… It’s not like I’m go go gadget uber fast super washing mama…

I present her with two m&ms and she’s like, “No, whole bag, I want the bag!”
Won’t bore you with the details but that was a whole different struggle…

Gosh, I remember being in first grade and getting 100% on my spelling test and being able to go up to the teacher’s desk and choose one m&m from the glass jar the teacher had on display and was so happy with that…actually I have a few more thoughts on that subject – one is that… Eww! kind of gross thinking that we were all dipping our hand into that jar, and two…brings back memories of when I was a teacher and I would have treat jars….I was always running to the store to refill it because as soon as 3:45 hit, I was hittin that jar hard…my Mom always called the 4 pm-ish time the witching hour, especially for teachers, when you are so damn hungry, exhausted, and spent, you just want to EAT, and it’s usually not a carrot stick craving!

So…
The day goes on and we kept trying and running to the potty and almost making it…

Four days later, we were still at it…NOT FUN…I think my face says it all…

This is what I wrote yesterday- Monday…

I am not having fun, I am cranky and frustrated. I am currently writing this on my iPad-I only have 19% battery left and while anyone with a brain is thinking, uh duh, go plug in that sucker – I can’t because there is no power in my house…
Tom, “You didn’t have to go to such extremes to stop me from online shopping!” I’m quite sure the people at PSE&G think you might need to see a therapist!”

Kidding – But really, why is there a power outage? It’s a summer day, no rain, what causes these things? All I know is it’s really hot in this house…and while we’re on the subject of this house, things are not going well today! I went upstairs and two, oh great, NOW THREE wasps are in this house! Apparently, there is a nest outside and somehow they’re are finding their way in! I am petrified of wasps –
Pretty much terrified of most bugs… Then the handle on the faucet broke off. This is a picture of the bathroom faucet.

I noticed one of the kids pulled the bling off my throw pillow.

I discovered more crayon works of art in this house .

I am feeling like an inmate in this house!

Today is day four of not leaving! For those of you who regularly read my blog and know me personally, realize that I am going insane! I am experiencing severe pee pee poopied frustration, not to mention feeling creatively stifled… ( I sort of mentally shut down when I feel trapped…which is unfortunate for my kids who are probably craving the old idea mom)
It’s also that “fun time ” of the month…when I am waiting for my monthly visitor.

Perhaps, a bit TMI but I am in a “mood,” not even wine can cure today! The only thing propelling me forward is the thought of the beach…Ahhh…less than a week left till I am free of this house, and as far as the potty, she can just let loose in the ocean!

only 13% left… And this device shuts down soon, we have no tv, no power, and it’s getting darker and hotter….and I’m afraid to go outside because of the wasps in the backyard, and if I go in the front yard, I will scare small children at the dreadful site of me…haven’t showered! hair looks frightening… This is reminiscent of newborn days…ugh…remember those days moms? No sleep, no brushing teeth, feeling like you were in a scene from the night of the living zombie…and I have been rockin the wife beater all week…

ONLY THE BACK VIEW- NO BRA

Ok, I’m back, power is back on, thank goodness, Gia and I were looking at each other with looks of fear! What were we going to do with no television and internet!

So that was yesterday, and here I am today, day FIVE of this torture, and we haven’t made much progress:( On the bright side, I haven’t spent any money and am so up on laundry, and well, I wish I could say cleaning, but the whole cleaning up pee pee took all my cleaning motivation out of me!

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Closing the sweet shop

On June 28, 2014 By JillIn Health eating, Mommy Confessions, Sugar and Snack Less, The Cookie Chronicles, Uncategorized, What's Going On?4 Comments

I just want to put some closure on the subject of Baking.

This is so hard for me to write about because I haven’t wanted to face the music, I have wanted to carry on like I have been, people thinking I am fine, writing my humorous posts and baking for everyone and their mothers…in the past three weeks, I have baked for the last music class, the last dance class, the last gymnastic class, the last day of school, barbeques, friends, family, and even store associates – Gazde- if your reading this, I loved baking and bringing you cookies and I love my cookies and I love making people happy with my sweets so don’t feel bad! BUT, and this is a huge BUT…

I can’t do this anymore, the constant flow of chocolate chips, licking of bowls, muffins, frosting, baking craziness- runs to the store, snacking or buying of treats for my girls, thinking about what everyone would like, what so and so likes – the oatmeal ones or the chocolate ones – what Gia’s teacher likes – frosting, and what my family likes… It’s become out of control…I am not a baker by profession, nor would I ever have chosen to be surrounded with frosting and crumbs, remember- food issues here…kind of like an alcoholic working at a bar… this isn’t my job (although it seems like it has been recently- even Gia said the other day when I ran out of flour- “Mom, you’re not even like a Mom anymore, you’re like a baker.” Yikes- isn’t that food for thought…

I feel as if baking gave me an identity, a sense of purpose, and the comments were impossible to ignore, “Jill, you’ve outdone yourself…she’s the best baker, thank you so much…the delight in people’s eyes when they eat a cookie…we love Jill’s cookies…you should start a business, how do you find the time? (That one I love the most, (sound familiar Kris?) etc…” Hard to stop bringing the goods when you feel special and important…

The truth is I am not doing “well” with baked goods and snacks. It’s just not the lifestyle I am happy living. Excess wheat and sugar seem to be aggravating anxiety and my Arianna is growing up with chocolate as a fifth food group. Nothing wrong with a bit of chocolate here and there but she hears the crinkling of a plastic bag, and is like “I want chocolate chips!”

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’m ready, this time – for good. The shop is closed. I love my friends and family, my kids’ teachers, and I love how it felt to bake and deliver, but I can’t be the happy, chocolate wagon anymore.

I’m setting sail for fruit islands…I may serve up a low sugar banana bread…but besides that, I am taking care of me and focusing on this family of four.

Ahhh, smelling the sweet summer fruit.

The Shopping Chronicles

On June 23, 2014 By JillIn Mommy Musings, What's Going On?5 Comments

I don’t even know where to begin! I have been so busy, but to say busy, sounds like I have been doing important things. That word is kind of confusing in the life as a stay at home mom…Taking care of my children, yes, important, of course… But everything else we fill our time with can arguably be considered silly and maybe a bit frivolous…the treats, Dunkin Donuts, the play dates, the activities, the crafts, the kid outings, the baking, the trinkets… The daily story of my life, and keeping us happy and busy YES, but groundbreaking science- not exactly! Oh well, chromosomes and plasma were never really my thing!

All of a sudden, the warm weather was upon us and I didn’t have “anything to wear!” Oh, woe is me…the damsel in distress… Well, perhaps I had something to wear but last summer, I didn’t buy anything except for statement necklaces…oh boy…last summer was the summer of obsessing about jewelry…I used to think I was insanely crazy with my quarterly obsessions… Make your own cleaners, researching about sunscreen, scrap booking, cooking everything from scratch, non stop baking, positive thinking, exercising, yoga, running, millions of challenges I make for self, and on and on.

But, recently I have come to a peace with my craziness…I mean, look at Madonna – she has gone through lots of stages…material girl, like a virgin, glam cowboy phase, blond ambition, old Hollywood glamour, wearing tea length dresses and writing a children’s book, the Sex stage when she was a dominatrix, YogaDonna, where she embraced her spiritual side,
Ray of light and Kabbalhaism, and many more…and she is a cultural icon.

I was thinking of this quote by a psychologist, “When your stressed, you obsess.”
This is very true of me! I always start feeling a bit uneasy about the ending of things, like the end of classes and school years, etc.. Not to mention that we have a family vacation planned to the shore in a few weeks, and I don’t know about you, but I am such a worrier about making sure we have everything we need! So does my friend who’s family we are going with… talk about a couple of neurotics, you should hear our conversations!

So, this past month has been a marathon of buying, online and in stores, and returning and returning and returning… Shopping with kids is awful, it’s like you have such a loss of control with them running around, touching everything, fighting with each other, whining, ugh! I have needed some sort of “refreshing beverage” almost every night after these torturous trips to the mall…

I am still at it and it’s been like five weeks since I stopped writing… I simply haven’t had the energy or a clear mind lately…the good news is tomorrow, I have my “last trip to the mall” for the summer and it is a big bag of returns…oh um, actually I am waiting for one last package to arrive so that may be only 98% true.

Ahh…shopping with kids is like being on another planet…

Miss Jocelyn
This was the name given to the pet balloon dog I bought for Gia at the mall. The girls love their gymnastics teacher so much that they name stuffed animals and other random pets with her name…

You know those balloons they sell at the mall that your child can drag around. I decided to buy the girls these balloons and Gia wanted the dog and Arianna wanted the tiger. Well, sure enough, five minutes after dragging the tiger around, he starts losing air…so I went back to the lady who sold us the balloon and she said that Arianna put a hole in it…she said, “Last one, next replacement you have to buy!”

We got a second tiger and were on our way…and then, the Tiger lost air again… I knew she couldn’t have possibly put a hole in it, so I marched back to the balloon kiosk and was ready to put up a fight – and no one was there!

We waited and waited and waited and finally the man working at the neighboring kiosk, came over and said he would try and help us. I told him our “tiger situation” and he gave us another balloon. I looked around in fear, crossing my fingers that the woman who ran the balloon store wouldn’t see us getting another balloon and yell at us… I could just see her face, red as a beet, scolding us, “I said no more balloons!”

Arianna wanted the Tiger -again! And I said, “No way!” Pick something else, she kept picking up the Tiger saying that all she wanted was the Tiger and I said, “Oh forget this- give me another dog please…” Never again with these balloons!

And after all that drama, we had an incident on the way home… Gia opened her window and out went Miss Jocelyn #1… And let me tell you, that was not a fun ride home… I saw Miss Jocelyn fly down the side of the highway, never to be seen again.

The Disney Store
Love the Disney store! It’s like free babysitting…they have this princess castle that the girls enjoy playing in and in the center of the store, there’s a large flat screen with a touch screen menu that children can pick a song that they want to listen to. One time, more like every time we’re in there, Arianna always picks Let it Go, and my daughter has a set of lungs on her and her voice is very deep…while I was browsing the princess bathing suits, I hear her belting out the words and I was on the complete other end of the store!

I went to go check out the concert and all of these moms were like “Wow, is she yours? The singer …She’s quite the entertainer!” Not to mention the dance moves and the modified worm she decided to show us! Never a dull moment!

These are pictures of Arianna “doing her moves” at the Disney Store.

The White House Black Market
Yikes, this store has been present in our lives for the past couple of months…it all started two months ago when I mistakenly stopped in there, asking for directions to a different store, I can’t even remember where I was trying to go…it seems sooo long ago…I was looking for something to wear to my twenty year high school reunion and I stumbled in there and started looking around, loving everything that I saw… Three hours later, I left with a lot less money in the bank, and a ton of clothes that were beautiful…but had to go back…well, not all of them, but a lot of them… it’s easy to get wrapped up in the moment, forget about the fact that I am a stay at home mom, not pulling in an income, and certainly, not needing all of these going out type of tops or work attire.
So, about a week later, I went back and returned many of the shirts, but bought a few more, and then started ordering clothes online, returning what didn’t fit, buying more, sneaking in quick outings to stores whenever I could…We were in the WHBM so many times, the associates got out markers and paper for the kids when they saw us coming… The girls immediately go to hug the dog statue, and then assume their position on the round bench by the shoes… (I haven’t been to the mall at all this past week, thank goodness!)

The obsessive shopping adventure has come to a screeching halt…and that screech was my husband’s angry phone call – darn, I should have pulled an Andrea from The Devil Wears Prada, and threw my phone in the woods when I saw his number!

Filling my closet with everything I need, or rather want, for the summer became a major project, and I can’t say that it wasn’t completely unfulfilling, I have been getting compliments wherever I go about a cute shirt or great earrings… Such the dilemma – looking good and spending money verses wearing the old stuff and being thrifty…everything fun comes with negative consequences… Cookies and brownies= weight gain, too much wine=major headache, too much couch and potato = flabby body and soul, too much relaxing=poor grades, low performance at work, and not being successful.

But, I spent way too much money, and I just need to be a bit more careful in the future!

Last thoughts about the past five weeks…Wetzel’s Pretzels, chicken nuggets and fries, milkshakes, car snacks, throwing coins in the fountain, fingering all the toys and jewelry on display on the kiosks, getting home late with cranky children, not having dinner made, telling the people asking to sign my kids up for modeling because they are so, so adorable that WE ARE NOT INTERESTED every time we walk by them, the girls begging to buy toys, meltdowns in the middle of the mall, fighting and not listening, and stealing odd pieces of medal (part of displays in Macy’s) …

Oy Vey! It has certainly been an exciting and exhausting adventure of a crazy shopping mom and her curious, lively girls.