Abby is 2!

 

Sweet Abby girl is now 2, going on 20. She has an independent streak a mile wide, and wants to do everything by herself now. Here are some things she is doing on her own:

• Going potty: Abby was potty trained in just a few weeks of trying, and although it wasn’t a walk in the park, it went so well! She still has accidents, but she is getting much better. She has decided that she wants to sit on the big potty now, rather than her Minnie Mouse potty, because she especially likes her Lightning McQueen potty seat. Abby also insists that we come with her to go potty, but stand outside the door, so she can do everything herself and only get help when she needs/requests it. She then demands a treat immediately after, and we think it will be a long time before we will be able to transition away from this.
• Napping: Abby decided that she didn’t want the railing on her crib anymore, so now that she can climb in and out of her bed, she often puts herself down for a nap. If she doesn’t want a nap, an epic battle ensues, and there is no reasoning with her. But, most days, she grabs her binky and blanket (the pink one), and heads to bed.
• Choosing her clothing: Abby refuses to wear anything unless she picks it out. She is quite the fashionista, so if it is her idea to wear something, she will happily wear it with every accessory she owns. But, if I pick it, she doesn’t want to wear it at all, and will rip the clothes right off. Sometimes she tries on multiple outfits, and sometimes she wants to roam in nothing but her underwear. Her style ranges dramatically, depending on her mood. And, sometimes her styles clash into perfect adorable Abbiness. See below:

• Playing outside: Unfortunately, Abby figured out how to unlock the sliding door and let herself outside. Luckily, we have a fenced in yard, so she can roam freely.For the most part, she loves to go outside and spend countless hours in her sand box, playing with her new water table…or dragging water from the table to her sandbox, and sand back to the water table.

Some things are just meant to be shared. Abby loves nothing more than to do these activities with others:

• Play games/puzzles: Abby is getting quite good at playing “Zingo,” which is essentially a Bingo game. She is pretty focused and competitive when we play this particular game, though games like “Candyland” and “Chutes and Ladders” bore her.
• Play with Benjamin: I love when these two play nicely together, because they entertain each other so well! Their favorite game is to just chase each other around the house or yard, while they each ride in or push a toy. They also love to squirt water at each other outside, and play on our climbing dome and slide. As usual, clothing is rare.

• Socialize: Abby loves a party/get-together, which is good, since we hang out with friends A LOT! She has plenty of friends, but Tyler (4) and Emma (almost 2) get the most requests to play. Here she is trying to keep up with all of the boys.

• Shop: Abby requests often that we go to Target. When I ask why, she says, “See toy aisle.” She has picked up on one of Benjamin’s favorite pastimes…roaming up and down the toy aisles, admiring everything on the shelves. While she loves to wear shoes, and even shop for them at most stores, she becomes hysterical the moment we walk into Stride Rite. I believe she is scarred for life, though I am not sure why. She thinks it is akin to going to the doctor when the try to measure her feet.

So, what else is Abby up to? Well, Abby is growing like crazy! She grew three inches since her 18-month well visit, and now weighs 24 pounds. This puts her at about the 20th percentile for weight and 25th for height. She screamed hysterically the entire visit, even though there were no shots. Abby loves Doc McStuffins, but despises the actual doctor.

Abby’s favorites:

Books: she loves everything on our shelves, but right now she especially likes “Goodnight Train, Goodnight,” “Farmyard Beat,” “Widget,” “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” “Mr. Brown Can Moo,” and any “Curious George” or “Clifford” books.

Shows:  Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (a remake of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood), Curious George, Dora, Bo On the Go, Dora, Leap Frog, Doc McStuffins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, all the Tinkerbell movies and Disney’s Frozen.

Songs: Anything from the “Frozen” soundtrack, anything Benjamin learns in preschool and sings at home, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and the alphabet song. Abby sings whatever song is in her heart, so sometimes we aren’t quite sure what she is singing with such enthusiasm!

Food: grilled pork chops, broccoli with cheese, peas, smoothies/popsicles, spaghetti and meatballs, blueberries and most other fruit, ice cream and brownies.

Places: the zoo, Target, Entertrainment Junction, area parks, Jump N Jacks, Kings Island/Soak City and the neighborhood pool and church for Recharge…but not to be left in the toddler room.

Toys: a stroller, a shopping cart, the Cozy Coupe, blocks, trains, cars and Potato Head.

Crafts: Playdough, beads, markers and stickers

I will leave you with some of my favorite Abby photos, including those from her birthday party in Findlay.

Benjamin gave Abby a Lightning McQueen and Francesco, which he bought with his own money. He still claims they belong to him, and she is allowed to hold them now and then.

While Benjamin learned to play golf, Abby learned to drop her ball in the hole and act as a moving hazard during our putt-putt game.

For her birthday cake, I put a bunch of characters that Abby likes on an ice cream cake. It was a hit!

Hiking with Daddy…

Entertrainment Junction is a favorite spot to play…

 

Here are more birthday party photos.

This won out as the favorite toy of the day…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Teaching my children to find beauty in messes

The theme for my Mothers of Preschoolers group this year is “A Beautiful Mess.” Thursday is our last meeting, and I am one of the speakers. I can think of so many times life feels messy, but I think the worst time for me was when my mom was dying. It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to face. I felt like we grieved for months prior to her death, and that grieving, while less now, continues on… I suppose the hurt of losing your best friend never truly goes away.

God has brought many women into my life who have been dealing with grief as well. So, I felt it was appropriate to address this topic to our group, but from the perspective of a mom… how do we grieve and help our children do the same? I know this blog is usually just photos and fun stories about my kids, but I wanted to re-print the speech I am planning to give, so Benjamin can look back at it one day. I hope he is able to see how we helped him through losing one of the most important people in his life. While I am sure his memories have faded more quickly than ours ever will, he still misses his Nana. In fact, the other day his friend came running up to him yelling excitedly, “Nana is here! Nana is here.” He looked so hopeful for a second, and then he saw that it was her Nana. My heart broke at his crestfallen look. He recovered quickly, but I know he still hopes that someday she might come back from that far away Heaven. Thankfully, as life moves forward, God keeps filling our lives with more people to love, and to love us.

It had been a hellish week of watching my mom slowly die, and as I rolled out of bed the day after Christmas in 2012, I was bracing myself for funeral preparations and more waves of grief and exhaustion. Then, I heard my 3-year-old son running toward me with a little panic in his voice. “Oh No! Mommy! Nana forgot her cell phone!”

It was one of those moments where you have to laugh in the midst of tears. I began another conversation with my son about Heaven and death. We had been having those conversations for months, preparing him to say goodbye to Nana. His questions were many -- most importantly whether there would be train tables in Heaven – but also tough things like when he would die, and how he would die. There weren’t always easy answers, but we turned to the Bible and explained things as best we could to a 3-year-old. And, surprisingly, a 3-year-old is able to understand a lot about life and death.

I never hid my grief, or tried to explain it away. When Benjamin questioned my tears, I told him I was happy that Nana gets to be with Jesus in Heaven, but I was very sad, because I missed her. He would nod his head and snuggle a little closer.

So many times, we want to protect our children from the tough things, but this seemingly terrible experience opened up a dialogue with our son about what is most important in life – his relationship with Jesus. More than anything, we wanted him to understand that death is not final. We explained that we are separated from God because of sin, but he sent Jesus to be our rescuer. When we trust Jesus with our hearts, we are not only ensured a home in Heaven forever, but we also experience God’s love and grace each day.

We spoke so often of Heaven, to Benjamin, it was a place even better than Disney World, which at the time he imagined must be the best place on Earth.

As the months passed by, Benjamin would sometimes notice my tears and say, “Don’t be sad Mama. Nana is in Heaven!” Often he would add, “Do you think she is playing with trains?” He really didn’t want to be left out of the party, and often expressed a desire to join her there. He would randomly tell people, “I want to die like my Nana.” Later, when he started to fear that he was going to die, we would gently remind him that God isn’t finished with him yet, and he likely isn’t going to be dying anytime soon. But, when he did die, Jesus and Nana would be waiting with open arms.

I have loved the “Beautiful Mess” theme of MOPS this year, because life can be a mess sometimes. But, within that mess is beauty. I was a mess with grief, but God used my beautiful children to help me keep moving forward.

And, God provided me with friends and family to help me during the low times. In fact, it was no coincidence that last year, the first day of MOPs, I found myself in a small group of women where more than half of us were in various stages of grief over losing our mothers.

Death stinks. It hurts. But, the reality is, we all are going to die one day, some sooner than others. We all have been touched by death. If you look around, some of you have dealt with miscarriages. Some have watched your babies or children die. Many of you are struggling with the loss of a friend or family member.

Sometimes I feel like everywhere I look there is pain and hurting. But, God doesn’t want us to despair. We can experience hope at the foot of the cross, where God the Father reaches down to us in the midst of our mess and our grief. He grabs hold of our hearts, and reminds us that He has a plan to wipe away our tears forever one day. Until that day, I believe our Great Comforter – our living God -- has given us the gift of peace through the Holy Spirit, as well as comfort from each other. We aren’t meant to go through life alone. When we share our grief, even with our young children, God helps us to find joy in our sorrows, beauty in our mess.

More Spring Photos!

Just when you thought I didn’t have any more photos… I decided to start another post on the exact same topic. I just can’t take enough photos of the kids playing and exploring their much warmer environment.

We made a special trip to the zoo just to see the tulips in bloom. It is one of our favorite times of year to visit.

And, here are silly pictures of Abby being Abby…

Our little climber was cracking people up with her skirt, matching sunglasses and “catch me if you can” attitude. Benjamin was nowhere to be found in any of these photos, because he is too busy playing with friends these days than to pause for me to snap a picture. In fact, I had a very difficult time keeping up with him once he figured out how he could go fast on his bike!

Abby discovered her shadow the other day, and she kept shouting “Abby!” So here she had pinwheels, and as the light reflected and refracted, she shouted, “Shadow! Shadow!”

This is such a fun age! I also need to note on here that Abby has been potty training the past few weeks. It started out with her refusing to wear diapers anymore. I had read about a three day all-or-nothing approach to training, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So, we tried a few methods for several weeks while using pull-ups. Finally, a few days ago -- after I cleaned up poop and pee for an entire day (soaking and soiling eight pairs of underwear) -- the following day she started using the potty with absolutely no accidents! I was shocked, but very hopeful. The next day, she repeated her progress with only one accident during a play date. Today, we went to Kings Island, and while she wore a pull-up there, as soon as we got home, she went back to using the potty again. I am not sure how we will transition to using the potty in public restrooms, but for now, I am THRILLED that she is in underwear all day long at home. (You all might remember potty training “hell” with Benjamin not too long ago…) So anyone who tells you they have a full-proof potty training method, and are super great at it, they are very misguided. I am a firm believer now that it is completely the child and how motivated he or she is to actually be trained. Abby is super motivated to do this, and she also is motivated by the treats she gets. She now pees and immediately shouts, “Mommy! Potty! Treat!”

Benjamin also is motivated by this new progress. He now begs for treats too, and so I am leveraging that. He gets treats for doing reading lessons. We are working through a book, “How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons,” and he is on lesson 55. It is AMAZING to see how it has been clicking for him. We started the book, and stopped, three times before he was really ready to launch into it. Yes, he is squirmy, and doesn’t like to sit through the whole lesson. But, as soon as I mention a treat, he is back to being focused. I am so proud of the progress he is making, and I am so hopeful he will grow to love reading books as much as I do. Until then, I treasure the reading time we have together, where he and Abby jostle for space in my lap, both sitting there until my legs start to fall asleep.

The moral of the story is… my children are now addicted to sugar, and may spend the rest of their lives demanding treats for any progress they make. But, I suppose we will deal with that later…