toddler issues

Lately I've come up with a genius way to stop Rachel's screaming fits when she doesn't get her way (luckily she's generally a happy girl, so these tantrums don't happen all that often). Anyway, so when she starts screaming and kicking I tell her to go find a pillow to scream into so she can scream louder. So she stops her tantrum, runs to get a throw pillow, and does some fake screams (that sound like her happy squealing) for a half a minute or so. Then she comes and finds me and says every time, "*sigh* Now I feel better." while patting her chest like she had heartburn or something. She makes me laugh.

Unfortunately I don't think that'll help with her other screaming issue: trying to fall asleep binkie-less. Rachel went to the dentist the other day and did really well, not being too scared or crying at all until halfway through getting her teeth polished at the very end. Anyway, she has a slight overbite that the dentist said would probably correct itself when she stops using her binkie. Since she was 9 months old or so she has only been allowed her binkie for sleeping, so she's not overly attatched to it for comfort. But it is how she falls asleep, so I haven't been too eager to take it away. Even after talking to the dentist I was still thinking I'd just wait until Rachel decides she doesn't need it anymore (as the doctor suggested when I asked if it was a big deal). But a few times lately Rachel has woken up and not been able to find her binkie (usually she wakes up, finds it, and goes right back to sleep, unless it's fallen on the ground) and after waking me up too early because of the elusive binkie and not going back to sleep (and therefore being crankier than normal) Jake suggested we get rid of it. I still wasn't too keen on the idea, but when we walked to Walgreens yesterday I had Rachel pick out a toy she wanted and told her that she could play with it when she throws her binkie away. She chose some My Little Ponies. She was a little miffed when we got home and I wouldn't open the box for her, but she got over it and wasn't quite willing to give up her binkie. But this morning first thing when she woke up she said, "I'm gonna throw away my binkie so I can play with my ponies." And she did.
She had a ball playing with her new ponies.

Then came naptime. She was tired and had no binkie, so it was basically the end of the world for her and she cried and screamed and cried some more. She cried for 30 or 40 minutes. Finally she came and knocked on her door, having calmed herself down a little, and I offered to let her sleep on Mommy's bed and lay down with her. After about 10 more minutes of post-crying hiccups she finally fell asleep. And slept about half as long as she normally naps. When she got up from her nap she found one of her ponies and told her "I take a nap." So (I, acting as the voice of) the pony said, "Wow! You must be a big girl to sleep without a binkie!" Rachel replied, "I cried a little bit. I have one tear." If that's a little bit, I hope she's not getting geared up to cry a lot anytime soon.
We'll see how tonight goes. But it's got to get easier eventually, right?

And the other toddler woe: potty training. Rachel is very good at going potty and I can't remember when the last time was that she had an accident... out of the house. But when we're at home she sometimes gets really involved in whatever she's playing with and will not take a break when she needs to. I've seen her many times doing the awkward potty walk, but then when I ask if she needs to go potty she says, "No," and proceeds to have an accident 5 minutes later. So we are back to the potty chart with stickers, and I even made up another special sticker chart to look at every night for if she went the whole day without an accident. I sometimes have to remind myself how much better this is than changing dirty diapers all day. And one day the accidents will stop for good. I hope. :)

UPDATE: She went to bed without any screaming. Just a lot of knocking on the door asking for help getting a blanket, or one more song, or me to stay in the rocking chair. But she's asleep! Oh, happy day!

Visitors

Last Friday, then again last night we got a chance to hang out with some friends from my college days. Matt and Chelsea came to town for Matt to interview with the U of A med school for his residency and to visit Chelsea's sister and family. It was fun to see them again and to meet their two kids who I'd only seen pictures of.
Last Friday we met up at the zoo and the kids had a good time. They also brought along one of Isabel's cousins. Here they are riding the elephant:

And checking out the polar bear:

We had a fun time at the zoo catching up a little bit.

Then last night they came over for dinner and to play games. Rachel and Isabel had a good time together, mostly.

I didn't get any pictures of the adults, I guess.  The girls entertained themselves pretty good, then the TV entertained them, while we played a couple rousing games of Monopoly Deal. It was fun to see them again and catch up a little. It made me think that we should have visitors more often. So all you old buddies that I haven't seen for a while, come on out to Tucson! The weather is great (52 for a high today, and it's probably the coldest day so far this winter). Thanks for stopping by Matt and Chelsea-we'll see you again soon, hopefully!

Media Mania

Most days the first thing Jacob hears when he gets home from work is: "Welcome home, Daddy!" The second thing is: "I need to watch Shaun the Sheep!" Apparently Daddy is a sucker for Shaun the Sheep. Shaun the Sheep is a spinoff of Wallace and Gromit, which Rachel is also a big fan of. The other day Rachel did this about 10 times throughout the course of the day:

She got out every Wallace and Gromit movie we own and went through each one: "This is the scary one. This is the one with sheep. There's the little bunnies. Ohhh. They're cute little bunnies." Then tried to convince me to let her watch one. Which would result either in a successful distraction, guiding her to a new activity while I quickly put the DVDs back on the shelf, or a little crying fit. And a half hour later it'd happen all over again. She's always been really happy to watch TV (what kid isn't?), but it seems like lately that's all she wants to do all day. So I've been trying to limit it even more than I have in the past, because I've found that the more she watches, the more she wants to watch.

Luckily I've found a great distraction that keeps her attention almost as well as the TV, and allows me to cook dinner (that and taking a shower are the top reasons I turn on the TV for her). I got a new CD for Christmas from Jake's sister by InsideOut called Sharing Time. It's a cappella and really fun. And Rachel loves it (especially Mahna Mahna, which she pronounces: nama nama). She'll sit in front of the CD player dancing on her butt for the duration of the CD, then say, "Nama nama again!"

 

I especially like the PB&J song and the snowman remix/medely/whatever you'd call it. Check 'em out!

Another one

Remember how we were digging out our bushes in the raised bed in our back yard a few weeks ago and found a Colorado River Toad? Well, my goal for January (and probably February and March, judging by how much progress I'm [not] making) is to get the whole raised bed prepped for gardening. That mostly involves sifting a lot of dirt to get all the rocks out (and there are A LOT of rocks). After a good portion of the rocks are gone, I'll add some stinky stuff to make it good soil.

Since I haven't really done much on it, I decided today to go out and work on my goal. Not too long into it I unearthed this:

See in the far right of the area where I'm digging? Here's a closer look:

Yeah. It's another Colorado River Toad. This guy was in total hibernation mode. Even when I scooped him up to put him in a box to take down the street to the desert he kept sleeping. So of course after that I start thinking, "Next time I'm going to split one in half." As I go to resume my digging I notice what is at the far left of the picture above-the little white spot. Here's a zoomed (staged afterwards) picture:

See there in the middle. I totally thought it was another toad's foot that I'd either skinned the bottom of, or just barely missed chopping off the thing's leg with the shovel. It was shaped just like the other guy's front foot. After some careful excavating (I recruited Jacob to help because I didn't want to be the one to spill the toad's guts all over the place), we discovered it was a root of the bush we had uprooted a month or two ago. But that did nothing to aleviate my fear of chopping one in half. I quit for day soon thereafter. We'll see how tomorrow goes...

What's my name?

A few weeks ago we were at the shoe store and Rachel found a pair of high heels she liked, so she put one on and started walking around with it, then decided she wanted to show Dad, too. Jake was across the store in the men's section, so I called out to him, "Jake." Rachel then proceeded to walk around calling, "Jake! Oh, Ja-ake!" Since then (and maybe before then, I don't really remember when this all started) Rachel occasionally will go looking for one of us in the house and call out, "Mommy! Colette!" or "Jacob! Where are you?" Or in just talking to us she'll say something like, "Colette, I need some milk, Mommy." It makes me laugh every time.

Sabino Canyon

On Wednesday we headed up to Sabino Canyon for a little hike. We brought our hiking backpack, which Rachel stayed in maybe half the time on the way there, and the whole time on the way back, thanks to the magic of fruit snacks.

Notice in these pictures we are sporting short sleeves and light jackets or long sleeve shirts. In the dead of winter. Kind of. Any of you non-Arizonans are invited to come visit and we'll take you on a hike or two. (Actually today we had a picnic outside and I had to come in because I was roasting.)

Our hike consisted of a little too much of this:

and a little of this, too:

So we didn't last too long (which is why we planned a short hike).

At our turn-around point there was some running water, which Rachel was fascinated with. I guess she's an Arizona girl and doesn't realize that most rivers have water in them all year round.

(Notice my mismatched shoes in the picture above-I'm kickin' it Punky Brewster style :)

Well, I think I'm pretty much caught up on pictures. The remainder of the time Todd and Savannah were visiting, when we weren't taking pictures, we played games (mostly just the one game, Monopoly Deal), ate some tasty food, watched some movies, and played with Jared. It was a lot of fun having them visit for a while and look forward to next time. Maybe we'll have to head out to San Francisco one of these days.

Too many pictures

How do you know if you take too many pictures? You secretly get your camera to get a picture of your daughter taking every single puzzle piece in the house and scattering them across her room...

and as soon as she hears the camera click, she turns around for her Kodak moment:

Another sign you've taken too many pictures:

So here are some of those too many pictures that we took on Sunday when everyone was looking nice and we got our incomplete family picture (Justin and Marie, we miss you guys).