hoppy easter!

Saturday morning we walked with some other neighborhood families up to the park where there was an egg hunt for the little ones. Gus volunteered to help hide eggs and to clean up dog poop before the kids got there. We got there a little early and not even the promise of candy in those eggs could get Little Miss J off the swing. Gus finally just had to tear her away because I have a feeling the tears would have been greater had she missed the hunting.

There was an Easter bunny.

Some face (arm) painting - she loved her butterflies and was very careful for the remainder of the day when washing her hands to not smudge them.

And even some treats for the grown ups!

 

Little Miss J got the hang of the egg gathering pretty quickly -

 



 

On Sunday, she was so excited to wear her "beautiful ballet" that we put her dress on well before having to leave for church. She was very diligent about going potty because she did not want to mess up her dress.

 

 

After church there was another egg hunt where she got more "Easter bunny eggs." I think her favorite part was the balloon drop.

 

 

We then headed to Easter brunch with Auntie Rachael and Uncle Randy complete with flower picking and a dance party - oh and more Easter treats!

 

 

Little Miss J was having so much fun with Auntie Rachael that she didn't want to leave, but we had another Easter bash to head to. Our neighbors had invited us over for dinner and so we had to head out. I told her that she was going to get to play with Karly and only then did she acquiesce to leaving. As soon as we pulled up to our house, she wanted to go to Karly's house. Since we weren't expected for another half hour or so I tried to hold her off but Little Miss J persevered and I finally had to text my neighbor to see if Little Miss J could stop by early. Thankfully, Julie took her off my hands for an hour and I managed to whip up some crab dip. By the time we went over there, Little Miss J had her shoes off, had drawn with sparkle chalk, and was swinging on the swingset. The weather was gorgeous and after a couple competitive rounds of croquet we headed in for dinner. My favorite part was watching Karly and Little Miss J - monkey see monkey do. Karly's in kindergarten and Little Miss J will do absolutely everything Karly does. Little Miss J sat politely at the table at all her soup with a spoon and dipped her bread in just like Karly. Of course leaving is always the hardest part and despite being bedtime, Little Miss J was still going strong. She was so upset to have to take off her fancy dress.

 

With family spread far and wide, the Chunglunds were on their own for another holiday. Luckily, we've had some great friends new and old to be with on Easter. We don't have many friends here in Sacramento, but the ones we have are fantastic and we had a jam packed Easter weekend.

 

 







the good, the bad, and the ugly

We'll do this in chronological order -

BAD - The other morning Little Miss J wanted to play Play Doh before going to school. When it was time to get ready, she wasn't completely on board and instead yelled, "NO!" and proceeded to throw Play Doh on the ground. I managed to pick some of it up, but figured the rest would dry up and be easier to get off the rug. I wasn't really even fathoming what was to happen next ...

UGLY - Apparently, Carl Rove decided to clean up the rest of the Play Doh and by "clean up" I mean eat it. Let's just say what happens after Carl Rove eats Play Doh is not pretty - in fact, it's ugly. We came home last night from work at 6:00 p.m. and Carl had literally sh!t everywhere. Like at least 45 times. The whole house smelled like dog poop. Gus spent the next hour cleaning it up, while entertained Little Miss J. I clearly got the better end of that deal.

GOOD - Carl Rove, who appeared to be completely recovered and good as new, Little Miss J, and I got to spend an hour playing in the yard. And because the house smelled so completely awful, we headed out to Opa Opa for some impromtu Greek food. We learned that Little Miss J likes falafel and tabbouleh, and she got some of her favorite "thomas" aka hummus. AND because the weather was so nice (or maybe because the restaurant was full), we dined al fresco on the patio.

So the area rugs were ruined, Carl didn't feel so well during the day, and Gus had to clean up dog
sh!t, but other than that it was a pretty nice family evening.

wordless wednesday

adventures in potty training

Last week while playing quietly in the living room, Little Miss J must have decided to use the potty chair on her own because all of a sudden I hear the doorbell ring, Carl bark, and Little Miss J scream. As she comes running down the hall with no pants on, I pick her up at which point she proceeds to continue peeing ... on me. Damn door to door salesman with your dry cleaning coupons.

potty training in much (much) more than three days

OK, let's be honest this is not a how-to potty training method blog post. First, let me say that I call BS on the potty training in one day or even three days for that matter and am glad I never spent any money on a potty training book. I went into the whole potty training ready to dedicate an entire weekend to indoctrination. I read mom blogs. I bought treats. I set a timer. I pumped my child full of juice and salty snacks. I even bought Dora underwear! You know what happened that weekend? I about lost my mind and Little Miss J peed on the floor more than once. I learned that the only sure fire way to prevent accidents was to hold her hostage on the toilet with an iPad. She wasn't learning about going potty, she was being trained to learn that the only way she got to play iPad was to sit on the potty and well, she was OK with that. She could (and did) sit there for hours and watch Diego. She did, however, learn what chinchillas and crocodiles were during that time. So there's that.

After realizing that Little Miss J only wanted to sit on that froggy potty because she wanted to watch Baby Jaguar, you know what we did? We stopped. We stopped asking her if she wanted to go. We stopped putting her on there every hour. We stopped abandoning her in the bathroom with only an iPad for company because literally I didn't have the patience to sit in the bathroom with her for hours. I watched my dollars go literally into the garbage with each little pull-up. You thought diapers were expensive - the pull-up thing takes it to a whole new level.

Finally, Gus and I just decided it was time to go cold turkey. I bought my last pack of pull-ups and we started telling Little Miss J that when she they were all gone that she would have to wear underwear. Well, those pull-ups lasted until last Thursday and when they were all gone, Gus asked her what she was going to do and she said "wear underwear." The next day, we packed up 6 pairs of underwear and 6 pairs of pants and sent her on her way. The first day we had 4 accidents and the second day 2 accidents. This Thursday marks her one week anniversary in underwear and so far we've had two full accident-free days.

Given that Little Miss J has never been a textbook baby/toddler, I'm not sure what possessed me to think that any other parent's potty training method was ever going to work on her. She's her own little person and she will do things on her own schedule. I still bribe her to "try" because sometimes in the throes of insisting that she doesn't have to go she actually pees her pants. But for the most part, I'm feeling pretty confident that progress is being made.

My friends with older children tell me the freedom from the diaper bag is indescribable. At the moment I still carry it around with extra pants and underwear - but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

something else

As Little Miss J has gotten older, the whole candy thing has become more difficult especially when there is Halloween, Valentine's Day, etc. At Halloween, I let her have one piece after trick or treating and then we managed to hide the rest. Out of sight out of mind. Same thing onValentine's Day. In fact, I just found the rest of her Valentine's Day candy a couple weeks ago and tossed it. Last Saturday, it was her first day of gymnastics class and they gave us a welcome package, which included a pen, some coupons, and a few Hershey kisses. Of course, she wanted to open it right away so we negotiated that if she got in the carseat we would open it for her. Gus managed to remove the pen without her noticing. Then she handed the package to me to open and as I opened it I removed the candy. When I handed it back, I watched her carefully sort through the coupons, which was all that was left in there. After a short moment, she kept saying "something else, something else." I  was caught red handed by the two year-old. So I handed her one of the chocolates and thankfully she forgot about the rest of them. Can't fool this one as easily anymore ... apparently, she wasn't born yesterday.

wordless wednesday