I’ve mentioned before that I haven’t quite lost all of the baby weight from Kelvin yet. Honestly, I blame nursing. I know nursing helps you lose weight, but seriously…all that milk must weigh at least the 5 or so pounds my body is bound and determined to hang onto!

So I have been trying to do the 30-Day Shred every day this month…I won’t be able to blame nursing forever! I also take diet supplements in the form of prenatal vitamins, and I’d like to think that helps, too. But it’s very hard to get any benefit from exercise when you have temptation literally shoved in your face!

The first time this happened, Ava had taken a really short nap and I still hadn’t done the Shred, so I decided to get her to do it with me. She did like one jumping jack, sighed and said, “This is too hard. I’m going to get food.” I almost died laughing.

So she went and got her Cheez-its and sat on the couch and watched me work out. But that wasn’t enough! In between every exercise, she would shove her bowl in my face and say, “Want a Cheez-it?”

And she has continued to do variations on that story nearly everyday since then! Seriously, people, how am I supposed to get anything out of exercising when I have to deal with this?!

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Do you know how long it’s been since I did a Works For Me Wednesday?  I don’t either, but I know it’s been a looooooong time!  I miss blogging.  I cut back drastically on blogging to write articles for Demand Studios, but I’m just not feeling it.  Don’t get me wrong, I make way more writing there than I do here, but I miss the community.  I miss connecting with other bloggers.  I miss the happiness when I see new comments I’ve received.  And I miss the thrill of finding out that I helped someone!  I’m not going to completely stop writing at Demand, but I am going to get a lot more involved in the blogging community again.

But I digress…

Today Kristen has started a backwards theme for Works For Me Wednesday.  That means that instead of thinking of some clever tip to share with you, I get to ask you for your advice on a problem I’m having.

And my biggest problem right now is that my two-year-old, Ava, has decided that she doesn’t need to nap anymore.  But let me assure you, Mommy still needs naptime in order to preserve her sanity!

I’m OK with her not napping, especially because she goes to bed so much easier at night when she doesn’t nap.  But, I need her to have a quiet time while Kelvin naps so that I can exercise, start dinner, and get some work done during the day.  So my question is…What kind of activities would be good to have available for her to do during her quiet time?

She already has a bookshelf full of books and a toy box in her room (most of the toys make noise, though).  I’m looking for things that would keep her busy, without making much noise.  And obviously, I don’t want to put anything involving an lcd monitor (i.e. a TV) in her room.I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

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Readers of my other blog know that being cooped up indoors with the kids is starting to drive me a little crazy.  Which is sad because this is only our first snowstorm.  Something tells me we have a long winter ahead of us!

Part of what makes it so hard is keeping the kids busy.  I definitely don’t want them sitting in front of the TV all winter long, but I don’t want them swinging from the light fixtures either.  Here are some ideas for keeping kids active in the winter that I’m planning on using:

1. Get a children’s fitness DVD.  I have to admit, I haven’t tried this yet, but I plan on getting one.  Ava loves doing my workout DVD’s with me, so I think she’ll be thrilled to have one of her own!
2. If you have a nice basement (doesn’t have to be finished, just not really yucky), move your outdoor toys down there.  This week, we went to a friend’s house and she had tricycles, ride-in cars, a toddler basketball hoop, and a toddler jungle gym in her basement!  This time of year, you might even be able to snag a low price online.
3. Turn on upbeat music and get everyone dancing!
4. Take them to an indoor play area.  We have one at the mall, but several fast food places also have them (McDonald’s, Sonic, etc.).
5. If the temperatures aren’t too extreme, take them outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes.  The fresh air will do them good!

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I really should have known better.  After nearly three years of parenthood, I should know that nothing is ever as easy as it seems to be.  And if it is easy, it’s just getting started But I still bragged about Ava’s awesome potty-training success, so of course, it only makes sense that she would regress…in a huge way.  Luckily, I  didn’t include my naive bragging into any directory submission yet…because this potty-training story is about to get embarrassing.

Like I said, it was practically a fairy-tale in the beginning.  She was almost completely potty-trained in two days and was well on her way to being in panties 24/7.  And then it stopped.  And then it backed up…a lot.

Now she pees in her pull-up every single night (I’ve had to start putting her in a diaper again).  She refuses to ever poop on the potty.  And she pees in her panties at least once a day.

WHY????  There have been no huge changes in her life…no moves, no trips, no changes in our family structure.  While doing a little reading online, I found out that sometimes toddlers regress in potty-training after they master the skill because they aren’t focused on it anymore.  They aren’t fiercely determined to learn to use the potty, so they forget about it until it’s too late and they have an accident.

That could be part of it for Ava, but I definitely don’t think that’s the only factor.  At least not where the pooping is concerned.  She intentionally does not poop on the potty.  And everything I’ve read says not to make it into a negative thing or it might be harder to get them back on track, but that’s been really hard for me.  I know she knows how to use the potty and she just won’t.  Very frustrating.

If you have any tips or can just commiserate with me, I’d love for you to leave me a comment!  I’m getting desperate here!!

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Isn’t this the cutest, sweetest picture ever?  This is Ava and her Aunt Ruthie reading books together when my family visited us a few weeks ago.  Since their visit, Ruthie has mailed Ava a letter that included a ring in the envelope with it, and Ava has written (more like dictated) a letter back, but she’s still decorating it, so we haven’t mailed it yet.

I think it’s so awesome to see the relationships developing between my kids and their aunts and uncles, since they’re closer in age than typical aunts/uncles/nieces/nephews.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how they relate to each other as they get older, too…instead of rings, Ruthie will probably be trying to stick wrought iron candle sconces in envelopes to Ava! LOL

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It never fails.  Pretty much every time I go anywhere with both kids, someone remarks, “Wow, you really have your hands full!”  And I do.  Having two little ones only 18 months apart is hard.  Some days it’s really hard.  But I wouldn’t trade it for the world because the bond between the two of them is incredible.

1. I love that Kelvin stops whatever he’s doing to yell “HI!!” as soon as he hears Ava get up first thing in the morning.
2. I love that when Kelvin cries, Ava rubs his head and says, “It’s OK Baby.  I’m here.”
3. I love that when Kelvin wakes up from his nap when I’m in the middle of something, Ava will go in and entertain him until I’m finished.
4. I love that when Ava has to take a time-out, Kelvin goes with her and sits next to her to keep her company.
5. I love that when Ava gets a snack, she always gets an extra one and gives it to Kelvin.
6. I love that Kelvin watches Ava constantly and wants to get in on whatever she’s doing.  Well, I love it most of the time anyway!  There have been a few instances involving the two of them and our Samsung electronics that I didn’t appreciate too much!
7. I love that Ava holds Kelvin’s hand and helps him walk around the house.  She has to learn to go a little bit slower, but it’s still totally sweet!
8. I love that they’re starting to play imaginative games together.
9. I love that anytime anyone says anything about Kelvin, Ava has to tell them, “MY baby.”
10. I love that I get to watch their relationship grow as they get older.

And that’s just the short list!!  <3

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I am so excited and proud to announce that Ava is almost completely potty-trained!  I still have her wear a pull-up when we go out or when she’s sleeping, but she probably doesn’t even need it.  She doesn’t pee while she’s sleeping and she tells me when she needs to go to the bathroom when we’re out.  This is so exciting for us…maybe we should celebrate by buying some Samsonite luggage….or not.

This is a huge deal for me, and not just because this means I only have one in diapers now.  This also reinforces my mommy-intuition once again.  I’d gotten a fair amount of pressure from various places because I hadn’t started potty-training her yet, even though she was two and a half.  I had even attempted potty-training when I knew she wasn’t ready, just to “keep up with the Jones”, as they say.  Obviously, those attempts failed.  I wasn’t potty-training her, I was training myself to make her sit on the potty every 20 minutes or so.

So I decided to wait until I knew she was ready.  Once she was ready, it took less than two days to potty train and she is completely independent about going to the bathroom.  I don’t have to remind her to go, and if I ask her if she needs help in the bathroom, she tells me “no” and she handles it completely on her own.

Now, maybe this is partly because she’s a girl (I’ve heard girls are easier to potty-train), but I still think it’s mostly because I didn’t push it on her before she was ready.  I just hope it will be this easy when it comes time to potty train Kelvin!!

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Lately, I’m seriously questioning my ability to home school Ava when she gets to be about kindergarten age.  I can’t even teach this child her numbers and colors!

Let me clarify…I can teach them to her, and she learns them, but she refuses to demonstrate that she’s learned them.  No matter what mood she’s in, she always pretends she doesn’t know how to count or identify colors.

I know she knows them…especially her numbers because when we’re playing hide and seek, I’ll start counting with her and she’ll count several numbers on her own.  But tonight, Chad just tried to get her to count to three and it took him 30 minutes!  It went something like this:

Daddy: 1…2…what comes next?
Ava: 1,2,1,2!
Daddy: No, 3!  Say 3.
Ava: 3
Daddy: OK, 1…2…what comes next?
Ava: 1!

And on and on it went.

Any tips?  Advice?  I know she’s only 2, but it’s really frustrating that I’ve taught this stuff to her and she won’t even prove that she knows it.  Know what I mean?  At this rate, she’ll never be doing a New York Job Search!  LOL

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…I still don’t have any pictures of Ava’s new bed for you!  Aren’t you impressed?  I promise I’ll have some to post next week, though.  We don’t have any company coming, so I should have plenty of time.

But because I know you’re dying for an update…both of the kids are now settled into their new beds!  It took a long time to get them to sleep that first day, but now they’ve adjusted and they love them (even more than they’d love a myrtle beach hotel room! LOL).  And I love finally being able to use Kelvin’s crib bedding that I’ve had for a year and a half!  I also love that Ava has more of a “big-girl” room now.

Stay tuned for pictures next week!!  I know you’re just on the edge of your seat, right?

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…like a two-year-old who has to turn the TV off!

We got home a little late last night, so I told Ava we probably wouldn’t have time to watch a movie before bed.  She really wanted to and I still needed to put Kelvin to bed, so I told her she could watch a short one.  Of course, she didn’t want to watch a short one…she wanted to watch Toy Story.  I put it in, but told her she could only watch part of it since it was already past bedtime.

So after a few warnings, I finally told her it was time to turn it off.  Being over-tired already, she threw a nice little fit before I finally got her into bed.  Much to my relief, she fell asleep pretty quickly.

And then the fun started…for the next 3 hours, she woke up crying every 30 minutes or so.  At first I thought maybe her legs ached from being so tired, but she told me nothing hurt.  So I assumed she was having bad dreams about copper kitchen sinks or something and tried to wake her up enough to get her out of her dream.  Nothing worked, though.  Finally, at midnight, Chad went in to try to calm her down.  When he asked her what was wrong, she told him “Mommy…Toy Story…OFF!”

Seriously??  All this misery was because I made her turn Toy Story off before it was over?  She’s watched it about a million times and I’m sure she’ll watch it a million more!  I had no idea my sweet little two-year-old had it in her to hold a grudge, but I sure found out last night!

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