Monday, June 30, 2014

Freedom Fest & Weekend Recap

Well the craziness of having company continued through the weekend. Saturday morning we headed down to downtown St. Augustine to walk around and do some shopping…All 11 of us! Not the easiest   to corral with tons of different shops everywhere. We ended up grabbing some pizza for lunch, some hyppo pops and headed to the beach. Vilano beach is so much nicer than Jax Beach. It's lovely because you can drive on, instead of lugging all your junk down to the beach, and the water is so much clearer. Delainey had a blast once again and even got Dodaddy to go into the water! 

After the beach, we headed home for showers and cooked out at Gammoe's for one last meal before everyone left. On a side note, I think the craziness of the past few days, combined with staying up late, and taking very late naps led D to a few freak out sessions on Saturday. I'm talking hysterically crying, wanting mommy then not wanting mommy, just nothing would satisfy her or calm her down. They lasted about 20 minutes each. One was after her nap, one after her bath, and one in the middle of the night. I'm not quite sure if it was bad dreams or dehydration, but luckily she has been back to normal since those incidences. I personally think she is just too smart and is understanding TV and books better so she is getting scared of the villans from them. 
Sunday, we headed to Freedom Fest which is a christian concert our church puts on every year. They have food trucks, bounce houses, fireworks, and of course some awesome musicians playing! Some of my favorites were For King and Country, Brit Nicole, & Matthew West. Our friends Alicia, Mike & Collins came so D was in heaven with a friend to play with. We had a really fun night! 




 Today we went to My Gym and lunch with Grammy and then we hit up the Town Center with Gammoe & Paige. Delainey got to enjoy a train ride and some play time with Gammoe before she heads out of town again.

The busyness continues this week as we prepare for 4th of July festivities and Pop's birthday! I hope everyone has a good week! 


Friday, June 27, 2014

Elizabeth's Graduation Visit!

We have had quite the busy week so far and it isn't even the weekend yet! Wednesday morning early David's sister Elizabeth arrived with her daughter Paige, Amanda, Joy, & Jenny. Elizabeth just graduated her RN to BSN online program and was able to walk in the graduation ceremony here in Jacksonville. Wednesday we went up to the pool and then had dinner at Gammoe's house, a chicken parmesan feast. Delainey was beside herself with all of the people to play with her. She has become especially attached to Jenny, but loves them all!
Thursday, we watched the USA soccer game and laid by the pool. We showered up and headed to Liz's graduation. It was a really good ceremony with a great speaker. After the ceremony we went back and had heavy appetizers and played games all night!
 Today, we went to the beach and it was a gorgeous day. Delainey and Gammoe sat and played in the waves for a good hour looking for shells and animals. Here is a pic of her BFF Jenny!
Tonight we are headed over for the big celebration dinner. Filet and garlic mashed potatoes…heaven! I think tomorrow we are going to head to St. Augustine and do some more beach time and maybe walk around downtown. I don't know what D is going to do with herself when it is just me. Sunday we are headed to our church's big Freedom Fest which is an outdoor concert with tons of famous christian artists such as Matthew West and Brit Nicole. They have food trucks, bounce houses, and all types of fun things to do. They also end the night with fireworks which I'm really looking forward. I will be back with a post on Monday with a weekend recap. I hope everyone has a great last weekend of June. I can't believe July is here…one of my favorite months of the year! So much fun to be had!! 



Saturday, June 21, 2014

Swim lessons are complete

Last year, we did ISR swim lessons with Delainey and she did fantastic. Fast forward 10 months and a cold winter with no practice and all skills went out the window. Not to mention her body shape changed, she got a lot more muscular, so I think that added to the sinking. We signed up for the refesher  courses with our same instructor and I was thinking we would be done in a week or 2. Well I am happy to say after 4 long weeks, we are done! We have a swimmer at 26 months of age. Not too shabby!

This was D on her first day of swim lessons. She loved going everyday and swimming. She particularly  loved trying to swim to get Ariel on the steps. Every Friday we had a celebratory donut for a good week of lessons! As much of a pain as it was to go every day for 4 weeks, it was nice to see her progress and have some quality Mommy/daughter time.
We also were able to conquer potty training in the midst of swim lessons and swallowing half of the pool. :) We learned how to pop a squat since they didn't have any bathrooms available. She comes by it honestly! haha
 Here is a video of her swimming in her winter clothes. They make them do a day fully dressed in clothes, because lets be honest, when you accidentally fall in you are probably not in your bathing suit. I'm so glad my little water bug is safe and loves swimming so much! I highly recommend these lessons!


Sunday, June 15, 2014

Toilet Training in less than a day - our experience!


Last Monday started our 1st official day of potty training and we have completed our first week! Here is how our first week went down…

Several Weeks ago I ordered a book online called Toilet Training in a Day by Nathan Azrin. It is an old school book that my mother-in-law swore by…I'm talking 1987 copyright date! I got it off of Amazon for a whopping $4.00. While I was on there I also bought a Melissa & Doug doll named Annie that drank water and would pee.
The whole premise of the book is to basically model how to pee on the big girl potty with Annie 4-5 times. Once they have seen it enough spend the next few hours shoving juice and drinks down their throat. Give them salty snacks to make them thirsty and keep giving them drinks. Once you have that started, ask every 5 minutes if they are wet or dry. They should have learned the difference on Annie with the practice trials. Every 15 minutes put them on the potty to pee. As soon as you see something come out, jump for joy, shout, dance, do whatever is necessary to praise your child and make them feel awesome! Then give them a candy treat and keep on going! This should go on for about 3-4 hours and then they should be pretty much trained. Here is how it worked for us! 

Last week, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on fruit punch, fanta, chips, chex mix, cheetos, gummy worms, mini oreos, and snickers. We were ready to rock come Monday. 
We had swim lessons that day and then headed home and went straight to the bathroom. I told Delainey I had a present for her since she was such a big girl now. It was a new doll named Annie and some big girl panties. We put the panties on and then opened the doll to see how it worked. We discussed wet vs. dry felt Annie and Delainey's panties and did 2 practice runs. She loved seeing the doll pee! (side note: Hold her over the toilet when she drinks her bottle b/c it comes out instantly). After 2 run throughs I thought we got the point so I started giving her snacks and asking wet or dry every 5 minutes. At 15 minutes on the dot, she sat on the potty and peed! She was so proud of herself. We did this for 1 hour and 30 minutes and she peed 6 times. By that point, I figured she got the hang of it and we stopped. (3-4 hours of that seemed way too long to me. I was done after an hour and a half.) 

The rest of the day I followed her around and set my phone alarm to go off every 15-30 minutes to sit on the potty depending on if she had just drank or ate anything. She did really great! I could tell she was a little annoyed at me constantly asking her "is your gina (short for vagina) wet or dry?" but it seemed to work. We did have one accident that evening while playing hide and seek at Grammy's but that was most likely attributed to playing and not wanting to stop to go pee which is learned over time. 

The next day she did great, conveniently with only one accident again at Grammy's playing hide and seek. Needless to say we are on a hide and seek ban until we have mastered potty training. No accidents on Wednesday! Which I am so proud of her for because she drinks half the pool at swim lessons so it is great that she is able to let us know if she feels like she has to pee or poop. She did say she had to poop on the way home from the beach on Wednesday. We sang songs about holding it until we got to the potty and she was able to. Took some coaxing but she pooped in the potty about 5 minutes after being home. Thursday we had one accident about 5 minutes after nap and I think that was my fault for not making her go right away…which I have now learned you must go immediately after nap time! It was only a little bit though and then when I put her on the potty to show her where it was supposed to be, a good bit more came out so I think she was trying to hold it in. Friday, she told me 2 separate times she had to pee while in the car so we pulled over into a parking lot and dropped trou, and sure enough she peed right there on the concrete squatting down! We did have an accident while playing at the mall, but I was so flustered that day I couldn't keep up with when to ask her. (that story is for another post)
Saturday we ran some errands, peed on the side of the road twice and then finally went to buy buy baby to buy a portable potty for her to sit on instead of squatting on the concrete. We had a little poop accident before nap time, but that is my hardest thing I'm trying to figure out. She is like clockwork with her BM's. She poops either right before or after nap so I'm trying to find a way to get her to go before nap so I don't have to worry about it. She did great today at church in her big girl panties and even told me she had to pee twice while at the pool. 

Overall I would say she is doing fantastic! Of course I have nothing to compare it to since she is my first but I'm proud of her for having no more than one accident a day in the first week. And each accident has been a different circumstance that we are learning from. Pros: It is heaven not having to change diapers and definitely saves you money by not using them anymore. (We are still in pull ups at night. The book says until they are at least 2 1/2 they don't usually have the bladder control to go 12 hours a night.) Cons: It's a lot of work for the mom. It requires you to build in an extra 15 minutes to all activities to allow time to try and pee before we leave the house or when we get somewhere or pull the car over so it doesn't happen in the car seat. The first 2 days are exhausting but trust me it gets much better as time progresses! I know all this work will be worth it in a few weeks when I don't even have to ask her if she's wet or dry and she will let me know when she has to go! Moral of the story, I highly recommend the teaching plan in the book I read and it may be that Delainey was just ready but it  seemed very simple and easy to grasp on to for a 25 month old girl! 

Monday, June 9, 2014

Our week without Dad

I am happy to say we made it out alive with David being gone for 8 whole days. We definitely kept busy so we didn't go insane with it just being the 2 of us :) We had swim lessons everyday, Delainey moved up to the 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 year old class at My Gym, I worked out 4 days last week while Grammy watched D, we went to the pool twice, we babysat Georgia one day, we went to a pool party on Saturday, and of course did church where she was promoted to an older class as well this past week. All this changing of classes just solidifies how big she is getting! :( I started the official potty training today and it went great! I will do a post on what all I did in a day or two so I can include how these next few days go. 

Georgia and I got to snuggle in bed for almost an hour before Delainey woke up. I love a little baby that just burrows in your arms! D loves her little cousin!

We of course got our Friday donut treat for doing well at swim lessons. It also happened to be National Donut day so it was a free donut at that at Dunkin Donuts!
Saturday we went to a pool party for my friend Tom's 30th birthday. Delainey swam a little and hung out with baby Weston. We are anxiously awaiting for him to be a little more interactive with D. He's still in the newborn sleepy stage.
Her new class at church seemed to wear her out! She did come out singing about how God made the light and the dark. I love that she is actually understanding and learning more about God.
I'm hoping we are accident free tomorrow in the potty department. It is definitely more exhausting for the mom than the child. I can push through though…I just might need a large coffee tomorrow. :) Hope everyone has a great week!

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Last Weeks Activities

David is home! It was a long 8 days without Daddy, but he made it home safely this morning. He passed his class with flying colors which is fantastic. D was very happy to see Daddy! Here are my pictures from last weeks adventures. 
We started refresher swim lessons last week D was awesome at floating and swimming last summer, but she lost majority of it over the winter. I would say they are more of teach her how to swim vs. refresher lessons. I'm hoping it just clicks one day soon and we can be done with lessons. It's rough doing 10 minutes a day every single day! Our treat for doing well at lessons is a Donut with mommy every Friday after lessons. She loves it! When did she become 13 years old. :(

 Last Saturday, Emily and I took Delainey to "Feel the Wheels" where she got to touch/go in different modes of transportation. I thought the helicopter was pretty cool! She had a blast playing in all the cars/trucks…






 


 I'll be back with a few pictures from this past week. Not too many exciting adventures, we were just trying to survive being a single mom which I accomplished! I definitely don't know how single moms do it. They're amazing!!



Thursday, June 5, 2014

I'm still alive...but no computer!

Dave has been out of town on a training trip in New Jersey since Saturday. He won't be back till Sunday. And he took the computer. Ahh! We are still here, it's just difficult to do a blog post from an iPad. We've just been busy with swim lessons and working out this week. We miss Daddy but have had lots of good mommy daughter bonding time. :) We are about to embark on the whole potty training deal next week so I'm sure that will be fun! Other than that not much else is new. Be back on Sunday to do a real post with pictures (the best part). Hope everyone has a great weekend.