Potty adventures

January 23, 2015 by

This week, Samantha went a few full nights without going in her diaper and as soon as she woke up, sat on the potty and went! I never thought I would be so excited talking about bodily functions until I became a parent.

We haven’t done any “real” potty training with her, other than preparing her by reading some potty-related board books and watching the potty episode of Daniel Tiger/Elmo. She also gets a chocolate chip every time she goes in the potty, which is a huge motivating factor for her. “Treat! Treat!” she exclaims after a successful potty trip.

Samantha was showing signs of being ready (recognizing when she was going in her diaper, verbalizing it, and showing interest in using the potty), so we started showing her how to use it and she never looked back! While she’s pretty good at telling me when she has to go at home, she still hasn’t quite mastered the concept that other places have potties too and was pretty upset when she went in her diaper at gymnastics and music class this week.

Amelia, on the other hand, could care less about the potty, but sees us clapping/shouting hooray/singing the potty dance song whenever Samantha goes, and usually decides to follow suit. Also, she absolutely can’t stand when Samantha gets a chocolate chip and she doesn’t, so sometimes she will ask to sit on the potty after Samantha, just in case!

Samantha browses her Elmo potty training manual on her potty break: 

We’re nowhere near 100% trained, but I’m gleeful at the thought of deleting the diaper section of our Amazon Subscribe and Save (FOUR giant 124 packs of diapers a month)! It’s the little things in life.

Lots of love,

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Now that winter is over…

January 20, 2015 by
Now that our two weeks of winter are over (back in December, it actually snowed– of course, we missed it while we were in Utah), S and A have been exploring the great outdoors. 
The hills are aliiiiiive with the sound of music…

Amelia loves to pick flowers and then point to her ears (that means she wants me to tuck flowers in her hair, apparently).

Amelia has been working on perfecting her scooter skills. She can scooter all the way to the park, while Samantha usually hops on, gets frustrated and throws the scooter down in tears. It’s funny how different the girls are with certain things!
Who needs scootering when you’re a champion slider?
Tickle fest!
Yipppeeee! Introducing the newest Olympic sport: the swing ‘n’ slide. 
Saturday night playdate at the park. 

Samantha hangs with the big kids– Owen, Parker, Leighton, and Lily. 

Having pizza delivered to the park: the awesome things you discover when you become a mom. 

Avery, Ashley, Amelia and Samantha chowing down. 

Happy kids, happy parents. 
Unprompted sister hand-holding melts my heart. I’m such a sucker for these two. 

Lots of love,

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A typical Monday

January 19, 2015 by
This morning, the girls found a package of water beads in their craft cabinet and brought it to me, begging to make some. We scooped the beads together in a bowl and I let them measure and pour the water with measuring cups (that killed about 20 minutes). 
I set the bowl on top of our low-height buffet table while the beads hydrated and forgot about it (foreshadowing!)
When we got back from gymnastics, I was getting turkey out of the fridge to make lunch, with the girls literally right behind me in the kitchen, when I heard the tell-tale SPLASH and screams from Samantha. 
Yup. Amelia had dumped half the bowl of water and half-formed water beads on Samantha’s head– Gatorade-Dump-On-The-Football-Coach-At-The-End-Of-The-Game style.
Samantha stood there, paralyzed, while Amelia wouldn’t make eye contact and acted like she had no idea what had just happened. I KNOW IT WAS YOU, AMELIA. THERE ARE ONLY TWO OF YOU. 

She did it, Mommy!

Samantha was nice enough to help sister pick up all the beads off the floor. 

Monday morning recap: 
So far, I’ve cleaned up poop from the bathtub (Amelia) and sanitized the tub. C’mon guys– after the poop-extravaganza last week, give me a break!
Tried to calm down Samantha who had a total meltdown at gymnastics for no apparent reason. She finally stopped crying after I took her to the potty and let her get a drink out of the drinking fountain. 
                         
Changed the girls’ clothes two times due to water-related incidents and cleaned up two million squishy water beads off the floor, with the girls’ help. 
And it’s not even 1 p.m. yet!
Lots of love, 
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Five reasons this week was crazy (and St. George recap)

January 16, 2015 by
Five reasons this week was crazy: 

1. Samantha and Amelia (duh).
2. I finally had my tooth implant procedure done! Back when I was a teenager, my last baby tooth fell out, but there was no permanent tooth underneath. Ever since, I’ve had to wear a retainer on my bottom teeth which has a little fake tooth attached to it to fill in the space the baby tooth left. I went in for part one of the tooth implant procedure this week- a three hour operation in which my dentist drilled into my jawbone and ever-so-precisely wedged in a tiny screw using a tool that looked and sounded exactly like one of those auto-repair ratchets. I felt like I was a robot!
I have something like this in my jaw right now. Ouch!
It will take three months for the bone around the screw to calcify into it, at which point I can go back and get my new tooth placed. They didn’t put me out for the surgery, but just gave me a shot to numb the left side of my mouth. The procedure was similar to my c-section in that I couldn’t help but be amazed that THEY WERE DRILLING INTO MY BONE and yet I couldn’t feel a thing. 
The really fun part was that since the left side of my jaw was numb, I looked and talked like I had just had a stroke. Eating was out of the question for most of the day, too. Thank you, Blendtec, for saving the day. 
Once the numbness wore off later in the afternoon, I discovered drilling deep into your jawbone is a pretty big deal. Like, significant pain kind of deal.  I’m on some hardcore painkilling drugs, but man, does my jaw still throb! My dentist called me on his way home to make sure I was doing ok that evening, and I told him it felt like I had both lost a boxing match and that my opponent had sliced into my teeth/tongue/cheeks with a knife. If teething feels anything akin to this, I have renewed sympathy for my girls!
3. Sleep deprivation. On top of my jaw killing me, I haven’t been getting much sleep as Samantha has woken up screaming multiple nights this week. Now that the potty is her BFF, she can’t STAND going in her diaper at night– and will LOUDLY let us know about it. 
Last night was actually pretty tame. We heard her on the monitor around 4 a.m., saying “poo poo” over and over again and when Jake went to check it out, he found her sitting in Amelia’s crib. As soon as we put her on the potty, she went pee (she hasn’t quite got the difference down between the two yet) and then happily went back to bed. I have no idea what to do about the situation, other than cut back on the amount of water and milk she has before bed (a battle of its own). 
4. More potty adventures. This morning, I was hanging up the girls’ towels while they, as per usual, ran naked into the playroom. When I entered five seconds later, I discovered that Samantha had pooped on the carpet! No idea why she didn’t just run to the potty on her way to the playroom, but toddlers don’t have the best decision-making skills, apparently. 
Not only did she poop on the carpet, some of it inexplicably got all over her doll high chair (my theory is that once she realized she had to go, she squatted on the high chair) and it was all over her legs (but not her hands, so she hadn’t touched or smeared it). 
This wasn’t just regular toddler poo either– this was some kind of paranormal, sticky, tar-like substance that pretty much melted into the carpet, no matter what I did. I have picture evidence that I texted Jake, but I’ll do everyone a favor and not post those. 
So, I spent the morning cleaning up Samantha, bleaching the tub, disinfecting the doll high chair (which I almost threw away, it was so disgusting), and trying in vain to treat the stains in our carpet. Bandit watched nearby, gloating in the fact that he’s now one up on the girls for never having had this bad of an accident. 
 Thank goodness for two mom’s night outings with some friends this week, or I think I would have checked into the mental hospital. 
Life lesson: Put the post-bath diapers on immediately. Towels can wait.
5. Construction. Since we had planned to install new flooring upstairs this year anyway, Jake and I decided Samantha’s christening of the carpet was the perfect opportunity to rip it out and put in some kind of wood. That’s what we’ll be up to at Casa Whitehead the next few weekends. 
Since I haven’t been blogging much due to the aforementioned catastrophes, the last little part of our Utah trip went un-documented. I’m too brain-dead to come up with an overall theme or storyline to wrap up our trip, so here’s a bunch of pictures and captions!
After nearly ten days of fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s in Utah, we left for home after the girls had fallen asleep. We stopped in St. George for the night and stayed with Jake’s brother, Jarom, and his family who were vacationing in St. George. A big thank you to Jake’s brother, Tyler, for letting us crash at his vacation condo. 
The next day, the girls explored a local Children’s Museum with their cousins, Ethan, Emma, Claire and Cate. 
Do you want to build a snowman? 
Snowball fight!
Cate was a cutie and made sure the girls had help anytime they needed it. 
Or wanted to dress up. 
Frozen fun. 
Amelia kidnapped Olaf. 
It’s always nice when there’s free entertainment. 
Amelia enjoyed milking this cow a little too much. 
Cousin chilling time. 

We attempted to play games, Amelia’s favorite being “Steal All the Checkers.” 

Samantha was more partial to the card games. 
Hit me!

Eating with the big kids. 

Out for ice cream. 

Noodle fight!

Showing off their scooter skills. 

Time to say goodbye!

Noooooo! We don’t want to leave!

S and A were running around, jumping off couches and having tickle wars with their cousins right before we left that night and were super bummed when we had to go. All that excitement helped them fall right to sleep in the car and we enjoyed a peaceful drive the rest of the way home. It was nice to break the trip up into two nights, and have some quality cousin time during the day. 
That’s a wrap!
Lots of love, 
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