Little ladies , big personalities

It has been such a blessing to watch my little infants blossom into the 2 year old toddlers they are today. It is funny because at some point you get an idea of who you think they are and what their personality will be like going forward.  Then they change! They are at such a fun stage right now. They interact and really communicate with us in ways that we can understand.

Ivey
We always thought that Ivey would be the really outgoing child and Brooklyn would be very shy around strangers and more open with family. Ivey opens up pretty easily around extended family and most people she isn't familiar with.  This little girl is fiercely independent! Don't dare try to hold her hand while walking up or down stairs.  Most requests to help her are met with a "NO!". She is such a sweet and caring person.  She is always looking out for her "sissy" and making sure that is she gets a treat that Brooklyn has one too.  If Brooklyn takes a fall she will be the first one to ask "You ok?". She loves to take her sisters face in the palms of her hands and gives her sweet kisses- when Brooklyn allows it :) I can only imagine how she is going to smother shower our little boy with love.  She knows all the primary colors, can count to 10 and back, and can sing the ABC's.  Ivey's language is really exploding right now. It is awesome to see how she can respond to questions or will come up with phrases out of no where. She loves to buckle things and figure things out.  We always say she is going to be an engineer.  She can't resist touching everything and trying to make things work.  She also enjoys singing songs even if it's the first time she hears it and dancing.  Both girls like to see animals at the zoo, go to 'nastics (gymnastics), play outside and watch their preschool DVD's.

Gimme all the doughnuts

Brooklyn
We saw the biggest change in Brooklyn from Christmas to now. She changed from an introverted girl to the class clown.  She LOVES to be silly and make us laugh. We will catch her staring at us and then she will furrow her eyebrows and give us a real stare down and then crack up.  She also can make herself burp and "poot" (I've been banned from saying the word fart) on command.  After she does it she says "What's that?" and when we respond she dies laughing.  She loves to have us read her a book and then she will walk away with it and sit by herself and read it out loud.  She used to not be very interested in getting attention from Ivey, but she is coming around and will say to Ivey "Come on!" when she wants to run around and play with her.   She craves knowledge and wants to learn (they both do). She can recite the ABC's, count to 10 and knows her primary colors. They both love to be quizzed on colors.  Brooklyn was always the one to repeat everything I say, but now she comes up with independent thoughts and strings words together to form short sentences. The wheels are really turning in their heads and it is evident that we should try to teach them everything we can right now!

I can't wait to see how their personalities change from this point and how they grow into the little people they will be.  I also can't wait to see how they react to our new addition who will be arriving next week! Our predictions are that Ivey will be our little helper who wants to be the baby's second mom and Brooklyn will be jealous of the attention the baby is receiving and will be very needy.

Is there something on my face?

We are potty trained!! Just kidding, it was a total failure.

We have been talking about potty training for a few months and even had two training potties and 28 pair of princess underwear, but I just couldn't seem to pull the trigger. First, I had to wait until I felt they were old enough- 22 months seemed to be the magic age according to the method I was going to follow.  Then my pregnancy became more complicated and we figured it wasn't worth risking the extra activity.  As my due date approaches nearer (6 weeks!) I had a sense of now or never...or at least not for 5-6 more months.  

I read 3 Day Potty Training by Lora Jensen about 13 times. I knew that I could stick to the method- stay at home for 3 full days, put your child (or children in my case) in a shirt and underwear, load them up with fluids, watch them like a hawk and prompt them with cues such as, "Let mommy know when you have to pee" and underwear checks to see if they are dry and lots and lots of praise.  I expected there would be some unknown factor when dealing with twins- and that they may not be fully potty trained after 3 days. I decided to bite the bullet and go for it.  I bought big kid wipes, lots of drinks, mini M&M's, fruit snacks and lollipops for rewards.  

Day 1

We start the day in diapers and eat breakfast.  The plan was to get underwear on, do circle time and some school activities.  Little did I know that letting Ivey see her cool princess underwear would set off an epic meltdown.  One pair of undies just would not do, she wanted ALLLLL of the underwear.  Some how I convince her that she can only have one pair at a time (after 20 minutes of crazy crying) and we all move on with our lives.  Everything went as expected, we went through 15 pair of underwear by lunch time and there was little success going on the potty (once for Ivey). By lunch Brooklyn had very little accidents and no success, which meant she was holding it. This became an issue because she WOULD not release on the potty and it had been about 3 hours.  No amount of rewards or praise would get her to relax enough to go.  She wanted to sit on the pot, but couldn't let it go.  Eventually I tell her she can put a diaper on, but she is pretty much in the middle of a manic episode, running around, hitting things and screaming.  I felt SO bad for her. Eventually she pees on the floor and I just let her.  

I seriously contemplated giving up right then.  But I knew that if I just pressed on and followed the method, that things would click for them by day 2 or 3.  The girls took a 3-hour nap (hallelujah!).  We decided that since they are still in cribs and moving into a big girl bed is not something we want to tackle ::ever:: they would wear diapers for sleeping.  The afternoon went the same with accidents and no successes. Ivey wasn't having full-on accidents, just dampness which I take to mean that she doesn't have control over her bladder. On the other hand, Brooklyn has all the control, but would not allow herself to pee on the potty.  This time she waited until she got into the bath to release.

Day 2

My resolve was high starting out the day.  I kept telling myself that maybe my children would be those kids who things didn't click for until day 3 and I could handle that.  It was pretty much a repeat of day 1.  Ivey never told me she had to go to the bathroom, I had to catch her in the act every time and put her on the potty and she was still having damp undies.  Brooklyn wanted to sit on her potty because she had to go and every time this happened Ivey would be out of sight and peed on herself. Brooklyn went hours without peeing, only to pee in her diaper at nap time and at bath time.  She wasn't comfortable at all when the time would approach 2 hours and I tried running warm water, reading books to her, telling her she would get rewards. Nope, nothing, nada.  I started getting concerned that it would give her a UTI or bladder infection.   Anyhow, we made it through the day and put the girls to bed in diapers.

Time to relax....er think again.  Brooklyn would NOT go to sleep.  She screamed for 3 hours and Jason and I took turns trying to put her to sleep (he took more turns than I. Thank God for that man).  We let her watch TV with us for a while and then tried to put her down again. She was screaming like she was being murdered and jumping so high in her bed that we thought she might catapult herself onto the floor.  Seriously. At 10:00 we figure that she might be still holding her pee.  Her diaper was pretty dry so we thought we would give her a bath and let her know it was ok to go.  I guess it worked, because afterwards she went to sleep and we got to bed at 11.

At this point, my resolve is broken.  It was breaking my heart to see Brooklyn in so much pain and needing to go to the bathroom and not being able to relax even in her diaper.  Jason and I decided it was not worth going on and that maybe they just aren't ready to be potty trained.  It really isn't a big deal to us to keep changing their diapers, even when the baby comes.  I wanted to get the hard part of potty training out of the way before the baby comes, but I definitely don't want to scar my little girl for life in the process!

We decided that we will wait until 2-3 months after the baby arrives to give them time to adjust having this tiny human in the house before trying again.  Hopefully they will be more ready at that point.  If we want to go the quick route and do a 3 day method, we need to have man on man coverage so I will plan on having Jason there the whole time and possibly someone else.  It may not have been a success, but I did love seeing their little butts in princess undies :)

Can I have this dance?

Day 1- drinking like fishes, not knowing what was coming

Day 2- Circle time

Better luck next time, mom.

"Tot school"- Circle time

I read a blogpost a few weeks ago that got me motivated to structure formal learning time into the girls day.  I believe that children learn a lot through play with guidance and help from adults and peers.

Why: Jason and I have been informally teaching skills this way for 2 years, using books, puzzles, blocks, baby dolls and every other toy you can imagine.  With my background in education I figured that I may as well add in some preschool elements while I am staying at home! I want this to be a fun experience for them and truth be told, I feel like I am running out of time with just my two little girls! Baby boy will be here in two months so I am trying to make my time with them count.

When: Right after breakfast I have the girls go into the play room (which is slowly transforming into their classroom) and we start circle time.  I knew whatever I did, I had to keep it quick and entertaining!

Setting:  In the corner of the playroom. I purchased a calendar at a teacher/parent resource store and hung the various pieces on the wall, slightly out of reach unless they are standing on something. The girls sit on their chairs, but once we have some room I would like for them to sit on a carpet squares.  I bought a garment rack and will use carabiner clips to hang up a large lined tablet, with songs written on it and other "school" information.

Ready to learn!

One of my little helper

Calendar set up

Behavior charts are in the classroom corner.  I can quickly reinforce good behaviors when I see them.

What we do: I sing a transition song first, then a Welcome song where I shake their hands and encourage them to shake each other's hands. It's so funny because at first they just looked at me like I was crazy, but now they are getting into it. We sing a Days of the Week song and then then I ask one of them to be my helper and move the calendar to the current day of the week. We talk about any plans for that day and the next day(gymnastics, any visitors, outings). Then we sing the Months song and count the days on the calendar.  I have the other girl help me put up the correct date on the calendar.  If I still have their attention, I will sing the weather song and we look out the window and talk about what the current weather is.  Finally we sing the Goodbye song. The whole circle time lasts about 4 minutes.  It's super quick and that is really all the attention span they have right now.

Things to keep in mind: This is my children's first introduction to formal learning, so they have no idea what is expected of them until I ask and repeat instructions about 100 times. We have been doing it for two weeks now and they are catching on, but we still have days where they are wondering off, playing with the train table and that is totally age appropriate!  I  redirect them to sit in their chairs, sing the songs and get involved by putting up calendar pieces. They know that they can earn stickers and rewards if they do what is asked of them, so I am able to remind them of that, also.  I just want this to be a fun experience for them and hopefully they can learn while doing it.

Behavior Chart for toddlers

Before having children of my own, I seriously dreamed of the ways that I would get them to behave.  I knew so much of what I was doing with my clients could apply to my own family.  I had everything planned out in my head; behavior charts, positive behavior support rewards, consequences, time-outs etc.  I didn't take into account how fast time gets away from you. In the blink of an eye you have two 2 year-olds!  We haven't done anything formal except sign language training (which was awesome before they could speak and I believe helped their vocal skills take off) and time-outs.  Time-outs were introduced at 18 months because we have a biter.  Since the girls are always in close quarters it is very hard to prevent biting all the time, so we had to use an immediate consequence for her behavior.  We also encourage her to use her words when she gets upset, instead of biting.  But you know, impulse control isn't a 2 year-olds biggest strength.

I wanted to work on encouraging positive behaviors and always thought 2 years old was the earliest I would want to begin a behavior chart with a child.  My girls have pretty good behavior most days, but they struggle at times like any other kid. As a parent it is good to always have something in place for the days that they are struggling.

Obviously, you don't have to be an artist to make your own clip art lol

Here are the steps to creating a behavior chart for toddlers.  It takes a little planning, but it is worth it!

1) List 3-5 things behaviors that you want them to do.  Focus on what you WANT them to do.  How is a child supposed to learn if you only tell them what NOT to do? For instance, one of the behaviors I want to work on is not whining.  I worded it as: Use words in big girl voice.  This is tells them what behavior I am expecting.  I have one vague behavior listed as "be polite".  I wanted a space where I could "catch them being good".

2) Make a chart and make/buy stickers.  You can laminate the chart so that it is reusable or laminate stickers and put them on velcro.

3) Choose a reinforcer.  USE FOOD at first. Food is a primary reinforcer and will quickly make your behavior chart a success.  If there are food issues I can understand going with something else that is a sure bet, but really food is the easiest way to begin.   Pick 3 special treats that they do not get everyday. It should be small or easily broken into pieces.  Our three are m&m's, fruit snacks (one at a time) and marshmallows. 

Day 1- make it super easy to earn stickers. Every time you give a sticker, pair it with one piece of food.  This pairs the primary reinforcer with a secondary reinforcer and eventually you will fade the food out. Enthusiastically tell your child what they did to earn the sticker and have them place it on their chart. Deliver the food immediately, placing it directly in their mouth or hand.

Day 2- it is still easy to earn stickers, however, they have to earn 2 stickers for one piece of food.  I decided to fade the food quickly, but you you know your children's temperament best and can decide to fade more slowly if you choose. 

Day 3- 3 stickers = 1 piece of food

Day 4- 4 stickers = 1 piece of food or 3 min on the ipad.  I HIGHLY doubt my girls are going to choose food over the ipad.

Day 5- 5 stickers = 4 min on ipad.  We have finished pairing the stickers with food and moved onto the reward for good behavior.  Our chart has 20 spots for good behavior which means they could potentially spend 16 minutes a day on the Ipad.  

General tips for the behavior chart- Go over the chart with them several times a day in the beginning and talk about what good behavior you like to see.  NEVER take away stickers. They earned them and focusing on good behavior will create better behavior.  

I will give an update after we have been using the behavior chart for a few weeks! 

Here we go again

I never took the time to write about how baby number 3 came about- so here it is.  After I gave birth to the girls my doctor told me I would be very fertile so be careful.  We really wanted to get pregnant as soon as possible and without medical intervention so we thought this was great.  When I stopped nursing the girls and my periods returned we were ecstatic to get a positive pregnancy test in October 2013 (The girls were only 10 months old!!).  Of course, the pregnancy was short lived and soon I miscarried.  After that experience we were really unsure of what to do next.  Trying to conceive without medical intervention seemed to not be working for us (we had miscarried in August 2010 also).  We had our five embryos in Las Vegas to consider as well.  As time passed we came to the conclusion that we were very content with our two children and that our family was complete.  Our first decision was to donate our embryos to science.  I called many research universities and no one was accepting embryos with our qualifications.  Unfortunately the only other option we felt comfortable with was to thaw and discard our embryos in June 2014.  Jason made an appointment to get a vasectomy in August 2014.

Literally 2 weeks before his appointment, I got a positive pregnancy test.  We could not believe it.  Well, I guess we could believe it.  GETTING pregnant doesn't seem to be my main issue as much as STAYING pregnant.  I was very nervous for our first appointment and was really thinking that worst- that there would be no heartbeat.  To my surprise we found a strong heartbeat.  The first trimester went by without any complications. We met with the high risk specialist to discuss whether or not I was at risk for an incompetent cervix or preterm labor again.  She said that they cannot know whether or not it was the twin pregnancy that caused complications, but she believed that we could make it through this pregnancy without any issues.  She agreed to monitor my cervix every two weeks and to put me on weekly progesterone shots.

My cervix appeared to be stable ranging anywhere between 2.6 and 2.8 cm.  A normal cervix should measure between 3-4cm.  The specialist said that this was fine, but we just had a bad feeling about it.  From our past experience we knew that the cervix could go from 4 cm to .6cm in two weeks and didn't want to take any chances so I asked to be monitored weekly.  At this weeks appointment the lowest measurement they took was 1.6 cm.  It had decreased significantly and gestational-wise I was at the point where it was now or never.  I am 22+5 weeks and they stop putting in cerclages at 24 weeks. The specialist decided to send me to Vanderbilt for overnight monitoring of contractions and to get a cerclage in the morning.

During monitoring they found that I was not having any contractions so the shortening was not due to pre-term labor.  This is good because a cerclage will not help stop pre-term labor or contractions.  In the morning they got me prepped for surgery.  The procedure only lasted about 30 mins.  I had a spinal epidural (as in a C-section, but not as dense) and some happy medications so that I wouldn't remember anything. Recovery only took a few hours and then I was sent home with instructions to take it easy for a few days.  The doctor told me that I can pick up the girls, but to try not to or have them climb onto my lap.  The doctors are very against bed rest and believe that it could do more harm than good.  After I get a few stable ultrasounds they are going to let me resume activity as normal.

The implications of delivering a baby at this point in my pregnancy are so scary.  At this point a baby would not survive and even in a week or two survival would mean a micro preemie which comes with a long road in the NICU and possibly beyond.  We are praying that this cerclage does the trick and I can keep this baby cooking for at least another 3 months.

Rotating Toys

When I worked with children with Autism I would recommend that parents put away almost all of the toys and leave only a few out.  At the time, my thinking had more to do with creating motivation for the toys that were put away (and could then be used for therapy) and providing an uncluttered environment to see what truly interested the child.  When there are 50 toys in a bin, usually kids will pick something out and play with it for 10 seconds before something else catches their eye.

I knew before I had children that I never wanted overflowing bins full of toys around the house.  I wanted the toys we had to matter and promote creativity and education.  I found a great website to help with choosing toys that get played with over lengths of time- Best Toys for Babies & Young Toddlers  From there, I stumbled upon this great website where the author is an SLP and talks about rotating toys How to rotate toys
She has wonderful ideas about how to separate your toys into categories and get rid of the shiny and flashy toys.  The categories are: Thinking, moving and pretending toys.  I won't go into much detail here, but want to refer you to The Little Stories website for more information.

The concept is simple and at the end you have 10 toys (or sets of toys) laying around your house.  Sounds amazing right?  After all, how many toys can your child play with successfully at the same time?? You can tweek it to fit your families needs if you have more than one child or children of different ages.  I have 15 toys out and that includes 5 toys from each category.  We have our toys divided between the living room, foyer and toy room. This works for us, but I could definitely put more toys away and they would be just as entertained.

I have been doing this with the girls since they were around 9-10 months and we started to acquire more toys.  Sometimes I get busy (read: lazy) and forget to rotate for a few weeks, but when I do it is like Christmas morning.  The girls look at all of the new toys in amazement! They forgot about all of these awesome toys! The best part is that they really PLAY with the toys for greater lengths of time, allowing for more creativity within their play.  The only part I'm really bad at is books.  We have 16 out right now.  But 16 out of like 200 isn't bad!

My toy list:

Thinking:
1) Shape Sorter
2) Melissa and Doug Farm animal puzzle
3) Fisher Price Geo Trax
4) Melissa and Doug basic skills board (fine motor)
5) Leap Frog reader junior (girls haven't learned how to use yet, we are still teaching)

Moving: (all in the foyer)
6) Strollers
7) Rody
8) V Tech sit to stand
9) balls
10) cars

Pretend:
11) Kitchen set (always stays out)
12) Brooms
13) Little People Talking Zoo Keeper
14) Leap Frog Tea Time
15) Mickey and Minnie

A day in the life at 18 months

A normal day begins around 6-6:30.  I have the luxury of sleeping in until one of the girls wakes me up! For a bit they were both sleeping until 7-7:30, but recently they have been getting up earlier. We do the typical morning activities; milk, get dressed, have breakfast, read books and play. Around 8 we head out the door.  3 or 4 times a week we go to the Y, where the girls have finally accepted that I will just be dropping them off for a hour, not abandoning them for the rest of their lives.  This was a MAJOR feat for us, especially Brooklyn.  It took her a good 3 months of going consistently before she stopped crying hysterically when we pulled into the Y parking lot.

After the Y, we usually go to the park, go to a story time, or listen to music at Whole Foods.  They have a kids hour and musicians sing children's songs and all the kids get wild on the dance floor.  Ok, mostly it's my children getting wild on the dance floor and running around the room like mad women, but it's really great (free) entertainment! Some days we meet up with one of my girlfriends so that the kids can play together and moms can have some adult time, but it's hard to really have an adult conversation at this age because they still need us to help them with a lot of activities.

"Is mom watching?" Whole Foods Kids Hour

All danced out

I forgot to mention, almost every day they stand at the fence and hope that they neighbor boys will come out to play.  Yes, it starts early ha.

Sisterly love in Publix.

We head back to the house around 11 and meet up with Daddy for lunch.  The girls go down for a nap at 12:30 and will sleep for 2-3 hours.  When they get up we hang around the house, play outside at the water table or in their Cozy Coups or walk over to the park.  Dad comes home from work and we eat dinner and the girls get bathed every other night.  This is the time of day Brooklyn and Ivey seem to get crazy and like to run around the house chasing each other.  It is so fun to watch! We encourage them to get nuts in the hopes that they will wear themselves down.  They cool down and watch a tv show before we put them to bed at 7:15.

Running laps around the house

Sweet Ivey.  Love those blue eyes!

Nothing too exciting!  The girls won't be starting preschool until next year so I have one more year of just us three gals.  I was considering going back to work, but since these will probably be our only children I have to look at the bigger picture.  They will only be little like this ONE time, so I had better savor it.

First trip to the beach.  Gulf Shores

Love <3