binky and potty update

With all the binky talk on a few of my family and friends blogs, I figured I would give a binky update.

Hailey is binky free except for when she is sleeping! I am one who doesn't mind binkies at bedtime, but when it was the constant companion of a 2 1/2 year old I felt enough was enough. If you remember awhile ago I tried cutting them down and it worked for a short period, but I always kept one that wasn't "broken" around and so the broken ones became forgotten and the unbroken one always found :-) It seemed after I gave up on this approach her binky obsession because worse. I hit a wall around christmas when we were out and she had a temper tantrum at in the mall because she wanted binky and banky. Granted she was tired, but my personal feeling is at this age she didn't need to be walking around the mall with them.

So our new approach was to put a shadow box above her bed and that is binky's new home. During the day they stay in there only to come out when she is tucked in bed. I didn't know how this would go over, but within a week binky and banky didn't exist outside of bed. This is a HUGE milestone for her. Just last month we couldn't go in the car or leave the house without binky or we would pay HUGE consequences. Now she doesn't even ask for them.

On the potty front, slow and steady wins the race. There is ALOT of potty talk going on in our house and she prefers to walk around in "undies" when she is home - thank God for the absorbent ones! She has gone a few times in the potty, but only at my mom's house. Go figure! She even requests to sit on the big potty now and will sit and read books for 5 minutes or so. Haven't we trained her well! Ha, ha! Right now she seems to ask to sit on the potty right after she has already went which means she is aware, but its too late. I am not pushing anything, but kind of letting her guide us. The pictures of her on the toilet in her towel are priceless. For the past few nights at the end of her bath she looks up at me and requests to sit on the "big" potty. I had to get a few pix, she will look back and yell at me for this someday :-)

Lastly, I have just been thinking of something lately. Do you ever wonder what your kids remember from when they were born till now? I know it sounds crazy and at my age I don't remember anything from that young so you think they don't ... I beg to differ. Ever since Hailey was little when she sees pictures of herself in the NICU or watches her one year video montage she gets all sad, clingy and whiny. Especially when she watches the video montage. We haven't watched it in awhile and yesterday at my mom's house she pulled it out and asked to watch "Hailey video". My mom said she kept saying over and over as she was watching it - "baby, boo-boo Nana" and I know she realizes that baby is her because she says, baby Hailey. Does she cringe because of the pictures or is there something still in her sub-conscious mind where she remembers a little of the pain she went through?! I guess we will never know for sure, but I bet it is a little of both and that makes me sad for my little baby. Sometimes I feel guilt for her early birth and repeat over and over how I could have prevented it. Then I think of how blessed we are that she has no lasting issues beside reflux and I realize what a GREAT blessing came out of that bad situation.

And to end a couple cute pix from the other night at Meme and Papa's house.

cuteness

Hailey has a favorite food and no its not cookies, its tomatoes. The girl LOVES tomatoes. I keep them in the house and she eats them like grapes. Yesterday we were at a birthday party and they of course had cake and ice cream, but that isn't what Hailey was interested in, she was at the veggie tray (yes it was on her level) eating the grape tomatoes and I am pretty sure she ate most of them. I am not sure what started this love affair with tomatoes, but you better watch out if you have tomatoes around Hailey because she will eat them all.


Hailey comprehends more and more every day and comes out with new stuff. She is also doing more imaginative play which is fun to watch. At bed last night I asked what her favorite part of the day was not expecting her answer because she usually responds to my questions by just repeating what I say "favorite part of the day" and she shakes her head - well to my shock she answers - "gymnastics". I thought it was a fluke and asked again, sure enough she answered it again and repeated it to daddy this morning. Just in the past few days she has really started carrying on full conversations where she answers questions and asks questions. My baby girl is growing up!!!! Back to the tomato conversation, tonight I asked her what her favorite part of the day was and she answered "tomatoes" - go figure!

Hailey's idea of reading books ....

Hailey has also been really enjoying art lately, she colors on her chalk board, her dry-erase board, she has crayons for the tub (big hit) and then she has the usual crayons, coloring book and paints. Well, if you notice a pattern most of these can be erased ( chalk, dry-erase, tub crayons) so to my shock we were coloring in a coloring book the other day and she took the eraser and tried to erase the crayon. I laughed so hard!

Dancing with "my bear" ...

And to end this post I wanted to say Happy 1st Birthday Bradyn! You don't realize how fast they grow until you are at a one year olds birthday party and you realize your child is only 6 months away from being 3! God help me!

random

I love the pix above. Hailey likes to play "ELMO" with Dooda and will sit for quite awhile at his computer playing.

Tonight Hailey painted daddy a picture for when he comes home from work.

Not much new to report. We are stepping up trying to potty train again, last week Hailey actually stopped my mom told her she had to pee and went ahead and peed in the potty, but then hasn't since. She loves to walk around in her princess undies though, but has no shame peeing in them. I know it will happen, but I can't wait for this process to be over :-)

fear

I don't know at what age children develop true fear. Hailey can be cautious or not want to do something because its new to her, but she has never shown true fear until recently.

The reason for her fear, "windy" as she calls it. It was very windy outside and Hailey has 3 windows in her bedroom. The windows were shaking and when the lights were out you could see the branches bend and sway outside her window. Since she has slept through thunderstorms before I never thought going to bed would be a problem, but about 15 minutes after laying her down she started to whine and cry. I went in and her eyes were glued to the window and she kept saying "I scared", " I scared of the windy". I felt so bad as she whined and looked at the window.

Even now that the "windy" is gone she will still look at me randomly and ask - "all gone mommy?", "windy, all gone?" She has also been giving me a hard time going to bed because of her fear. To help with this she now uses a night light and we have had to completely cover one of her windows with dark blanket so she can't see the "windy."

Here is a pix of her new curtains - (guess I need to go out and buy some that match?)

Also, today Hailey started a parent-tot gymnastic class. She loved it! They do warm-ups as you can see in the pix below, then they let the kids have about 10 mins of play where they can use the equipment, then they do circuits, today was the balance beam, then more fun with balls etc.

"my bear"

We are trying to wean binky and banky once again. We started awhile back with cutting the binky down and it worked for a short period of time, but I became lax and the habit became worse than ever.

She is at an age where I can explain binky and banky are only for bed and she is doing pretty well with it. She has a shadow box above her bed that she can reach and she keeps her binky's in there for bedtime. Occasionally she will walk out with one or both of them, smirk at me and then run back and put them in bed so I would say at this point the process is going pretty well.

What we have noticed though is that as we are weaning binky and banky she has grown a new attachment to a black bear she has owned for awhile. I don't know what drew her to this particular stuffed animal, but it now goes everywhere with her in place of her banky. If you ask her what its name is, she proclaims "my bear" and this is what she calls it. I guess it is better for her to be walking around with her bear than dragging banky through the mall.

B-I-N-G-O

Hailey has a cd with toddler songs that she loves. It has 42 songs so she has many to choose from, but the one that she has been singing most often is B-I-N-G-O.

She does pretty well singing with the cd, but on the way home from Luke and Alyssa's house tonight Hailey started singing it on her own without the help of the cd.

It went like this ... H-I-J-K-O and Bingo was his name-o!

happy new year

2007 was a year we will never forget, a year that forever changed our lives. Its hard to believe how fast time marches on whether we are ready or not. I am looking to this new year with expectation and praying that this new year will be a blessed one with miracles big and small in each of our lives.

Our church put on a movie/game night with karaoke which I have to say was very funny! Hailey napped from 3:45p-7pm and actually stayed up and rang in the new year with us. That was quite memorable and she did great.

Due to his job daddy had to work 2nd shift new years eve, but made he made it home 5 minutes before midnight which was quite a feat!

artist

Hailey has been going back and forth eating/writing with both hands, but I think she is finally settling on her left. Both I and my grandfather (dad's side) are lefties.

I was worried about her lack of choosing a hand, but the ped at her two year check up said that usually this is a sign that she will be a lefty and this is proving true.

makeup

christmas 2007

I think the pictures tell the story better than I ever could. Christmas eve was spent at Meme's where the kids exchanged presents, ate lots of food and played together.

I love the picture above, Taylor is having a "ticklefest" and the kids were laughing so hard!

Christmas day started at our house and ended at my parents house. Hailey was quite spoiled and actually overwhelmed. She opened each present slowly and precisely and wanted to stop and play with each before opening the next.


My parents among many other things got her a bike and my brother probably got her the favorite gift of all - drums! I don't know who likes them better Hailey or daddy! Both daddy and my brother play drums so she has alot of exsposure to them.

family

Last night we went up to celebrate christmas with my dad's side of the family. They live 2 hours hours north of us so we don't get to see them all that often. My cousins daughter, Kailee is about a year and a half older than Hailey and Hayden the other girl in the in the picture is quite a bit older, but Hailey had a blast playing with them and they did great including her in everything they did.

I had to add this picture of my mom and dad giving shoulder massages to my Grammie and my dad's sister.

Below is my brother and his girlfriend Laura. Don't they look thrilled that I am taking their picture?!

Hailey was able to have ANYTHING she wanted while at my cousins house, so she had chicken nuggets, a popsicle, popcorn and then washed it down with ice cream while walking around the house!

sugar cookies

Hailey made her first sugar cookies tonight for our MOPS christmas party tomorrow night. She followed those cookies from start to finish. Added the ingredients, stirred, cut them out, sprinkled, frosted ... you name it.

singing

oh christmas tree

Today we helped Robin, Luke and Alyssa decorate their tree for Christmas. It was great being together and the kids did a great job decorating!

sledding and snowmen

Today we got some snow! YEAH! We were excited for our first significant snow this year so we could take Hailey out sledding. She had a blast! She could be heard yelling - "Do again daddy"! "I want to make a slide" (go sledding) and for some reason she called the sled, the beach. My assumption is she thinks it looks like a float you use at the beach?!

Below is the beginning of a snowman, the snow was perfect for building, but sadly we had to go in because daddy had to leave for work.

Since she never was able to finish her snowman she has been saying all day that she wanted to build a snowman so this evening my mom and I took Hailey back out in the snow. We attempted to build a snowman. Notice the word attempt and lack of a picture. It doesn't take much of a snowman to please a toddler :-)