No More Binkie

I am thrilled to report that we are officially a binkie-free family.

When Ian was 1, we had to take the binkie away from him because it was actually disrupting his night time sleep.  He would wake up, need it, not be able to find it and commence a screaming fest.  So bye bye binkie at 1 year.

Sammy didn't have that same issue.  She used the binkie to take naps and to go to bed at night, but once she was asleep, she wasn't bothered if she woke and didn't have the binkie.  So we weren't in any rush to take it away from her because it was so soothing for her.  But she is getting older and I was starting to have visions of a 6 year old girl still attached to her binkie.  So I promised myself that I would take away the binkie when she turned 3 in April.

But at school this week, Sammy transitioned from the Twos room to the Preschool room.  And the new teacher didn't know that she slept with a binkie.  And she got her to sleep (with some fussing and crying) without the binkie.  When I picked her up that night and the teacher told me, I knew it was my chance.  So we took the binkie away for Sammy's night time sleep too.  I told Sammy that there were too many babies in the world and not enough binkies and because she was a big girl, she didn't need the binkies anymore and we had to send her binkies to the needy babies.  She didn't buy my story and cried.  But we stuck to our guns.

So the first night, it took her 17 minutes to get to sleep with constant crying during that time.  She also woke 2x in the middle of the night crying.  The second night, it took her 20 minutes to get to sleep, but she wasn't crying constantly.  She would be quiet for many minutes and then call out for me.  So I soothed her but told her it was bedtime.  And she fell asleep and slept through the night.  And then the third night, she called out for me once and was done and slept through the night.

It really is amazing how adaptable children are.  Sammy has been using a binkie for 2 years and 8 months.  And in 3 days, she broke the habit.  I'm so happy it wasn't worse than that.  My heart broke a little bit on that first day when she was crying for it.  But I'm so proud of her and more importantly, she's really proud of herself because after all, big girls don't need binkies.

8 Nights of Celebration

Happy Hanukkah!  We lit the candles for every single night and ended up giving the kids a total of 16 presents.  They loved all of it.  My favorite part?  Eating latkes with cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving!  It was Thanksgivika!

In the picture below, Sammy is posing in the "new" hat we found in the closet (which was made by Nana last year) with the big wooden dreidel.

Happy Hanukah!

Happy Hanukah!  It's crazy that we're celebrating the first night of Hanukah the day before Thanksgiving!  I'm looking forward to latkes and turkey tomorrow!

Tonight the kids each got a sticker book as a present.  Ian got one with all the Avengers in it.  And Sammy got a Disney princess sticker book.  I guess they're living up to certain gender stereotypes but I had two very happy kiddos!

Potty Training Success for Sammy

I'm happy to report that Sammy is officially potty-trained at the age of 2 years, 7 months.  She has been consistently peeing in the potty with very few accidents.  And, for the last 5 days in a row, she's pooped in the potty.  And we didn't have to lurk and spy on her to make sure she wasn't squatting and pooping in her pants.  She actually said that she needed to poop on the potty.  And she did!  We're so proud of her and she's so proud of herself.  Smiles all around!

I feel like we've been in some sort of potty training mode for Sammy for so long now.  Daycare started putting her on the toilet very early and so at 18 months, she was sometimes peeing in the potty.  But it's been on and off since then and we certainly didn't have any consistency.  And she CLEARLY did not get the pooping thing.  But I think the long haul is over.  She gets it now and I am psyched that we only need diapers/pull ups for nap time (although often she wakes up completely dry) and night time sleeps.

Halloween 2013 - Goodbye Nana

Today was an extremely sad day for our family.  My husband's grandma, our warm-hearted and loving Nana, passed away.  Despite the fact that she was 90 years old, I didn't expect her to go so suddenly.  She had been having heart issues and was in and out of the hospital over the past 2 weeks.  But they had put in a pace maker and I had just assumed she would come out of it fine (just like she has quickly come out of other hospitalizations in the past).  But she slid downhill quickly.  Luckily, my husband was able to be with her in her final moments and was with her when she died.  She knew he was there and I think that's comforting to him.

I tried to keep it together for the kids because they're really too young to understand what happened to Nana.  They just know that they won't see her again and that "she died".  My husband loves Halloween and is normally the one to take the kids trick or treating.  But understandably, he didn't feel up to it tonight.  So I took the kids around the block with some other neighborhood kids.  They had a blast and Sammy really raked in the candy.  At 2.5 years old, she knew she could take the candy offered to her.  But she had no inhibitions about grabbing one, two, three and even four pieces at a time.  So she ended up with WAY more candy than Ian (who apparently understood social conventions a bit more).  I ended up putting some of her candy in Ian's bowl so that he wouldn't get bummed by it.  Here is my bumble bee transformer (this is what he asked to be) and my princess (she asked to be one).

And here's what our front stoop looked like.  This year, we added a skeleton in the lawn, which you can't really see in the picture.

Fall Fun and Halloween Prep 2013

We can't let autumn go by without a little leaf jumping fun!

In preparation for Halloween, we also carved pumpkins.  

As usual, my husband did one easy one and one complicated one.  I made fun of him for the complicated one because I wasn't sure the time he spent on it was worth it, given how it turned out.  But once we put a candle in, it was awesome.  One, Two Pumpkins...ah ah ah!

Rainbow

Tonight, after I picked up the kids from daycare, I took Ian to get his hair cut.  When we got into the car after the hair cut, we saw the most unbelievable rainbow from the parking lot.  It was so massive that I couldn't capture the entire rainbow with one picture.  It was SO bright.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before.  Here's the proof, taken with my iPhone 4: