psychological warfare... at bathtime

Usually when Lula's bath is over she doesn't make a huge fuss. We put away our toys, rinse off and get out; tonight it went a little differently. There wasn't a tantrum or anything, it was more of a flat out refusal that turned into a psychological battle...

Mom: Okay Lula put your toys away.
Lula: No.
Mom: Come on Lula, it's time to get out of the bath, let's put the toys away please. (and before I could even make a threat she says...)
Lula: No, I'll go in timeout.  (What???)
Mom: (clearly that threat isn't going to work, now what?) No Lula you can't go into timeout, you have to put your toys away. 
Lula: I go in time out!!
Mom: No timeout. Put your toys away. (is she trying to use reverse psychology on me???)
Lula: No. 
Mom: (trying to find some leverage) Do you want to play in the running water? 
Lula: yes. 
Mom: Then put your toys away and we can play in the water. 
Lula: okay. 

I won this round, but she is only two and this was a challenge. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to stay one step ahead as she gets older. I think I'm in trouble...

new friends and animals

When we first moved back to our house in Jax Beach Lula and I needed a reprieve from all the craziness of the previous weeks, so we took a break from unpacking and headed to the beach. As luck would have it we ended up near a little boy and his mom. We started chatting. As it turned out we had a lot in common! His mom, named Bekki, graduated from St. Joe in St. Augustine. I went to CPS, so we knew some of the same people. Obviously she had a little boy... his name? Luke! (my brother's name). Luke is a couple of months younger than Lula (actually only one day younger than one of her besties, Olive). Besides the name coincidences, our kids, and the fact that we just hit it off we decided we needed to hang out again!

We finally did so this past week when we met up to go to the zoo. It was so much fun. The Jacksonville Zoo really does have a lot to offer and Lula and Luke explored almost all of it!

My favorite thing by far is to feed the Giraffes! Lula gets a bit nervous, she will hold the lettuce, but wants me to actually give it to the giraffe. I guess their tongue weirds her out. I think it's awesome. This one's name is Luna. We fed her last time and we know it's her because of the two upside down heart shapes on her chest. She is so sweet. "Come on Lula, feeeeed me. Here, I'll make it easy, I'll just reach my tongue allll the way over to you... it's cool I swear."  

The zoo even has a splash park and Luke and Lula had it mostly to themselves!

My second favorite spot at the zoo is butterfly hollow... it is almost like a fairy tale, actually if you look closely into the bushes you can see little fairy houses!

 

These two are so cute together. They got along great and were pretty much on the same page all day... even at the end when they made it clear they were done...

It was a great day... i'm so glad Lula and I decided to go to the beach that day!

Uncle Scott's birthday Extravaganza!

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited to Uncle Scott's birthday weekend at a beachside resort near Palm Coast. It was a gorgeous weekend! The place had three pools and a lazy river AND was right on the ocean. Lula had so much fun!

 

The McKinney's know how to party and this was no exception... they went all out! In addition to an awesome weekend surrounded by cool people and filled with the pool, beach and golf; they also threw a dinner party with the most amazing food and entertainment by none other than Tuffy.

Two Beauties... Sadie and Catie

dolls. Tegan & her pretty momma Kerii

adorable

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE SCOTT!! thanks for a great weekend.

                             

end of the night. byron is d-u-n.

"mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy...."

Ninety seconds is a very short amount of time. It can feel a little long if you are,  say, stopped at a traffic light or something. But let's be honest, these days people are happy to have the chance to text or check facebook at redlights, so the time just flies by. Let me tell you when one minute and thirty seconds feels like an eternity.... when you have a toddler in the back seat relentlessly saying...

"mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy"

As I continuously try to interject, "yes Lula?"

"mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy"

" what it is Lula?"

"mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy"

 "what do you need Lula?"

"mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy"

AHHHHHHHHHHHH. It's a really fun game we play.

from the mouth of babes...

I think I need to use this as a reoccurring title. The things these kids say really are amazing. From the way they pronnounce words, to the crazy things they come up with themselves to the embarrassing / inappropriate but hilarious things they repeat!

Talking has gotten to a whole new level with Ms. Lula. She says all kinds of things, mostly on her own. The other day she walked up to me out of nowhere with two toy frogs in her hand and said, "excuse me ma'am here is your dinner." What? Who are you! It was the cutest. Of course I had to stop what I was doing and eat some frog. It was pretty good. And then we did it another 20 times.

We definitely have to watch what we say. The other day we had a particularly rough morning trying to get ourselves together to go out of town. Things just kept going wrong, one thing after another and finally Byron snapped, let the F word fly a couple of times and then went outside. Lula was sitting eating breakfast and looked up at me, "f#$k this momma?" I said, "Is that what daddy said?" She says, "yeah." I'm like, "yeah it's okay, daddy is annoyed right now." It was just so funny how sweetly and nonchalantly she looked up at me and repeated that four letter word. She has repeated a few of mine as well, but mostly the "d" word.

Right now a couple of my favorite phrases are:

 "YET YUYA YOOK" she always wants to see what's going on. But all of her "Ls" are "Ys," I love it.

"THAT'S MIND" of course almost everything is hers these days, but it's hard to get annoyed when she says it like that.

...more of these posts to come I'm sure!!

Potty Training Diaries

We are still "keeping it casual," but I decided to try going out of the house without a diaper on the other day. Why? No good answer, just wanted to see what would happen; I know you've probably already guessed what that is. But nonetheless,  I lined the car seat with a trash bag and a towel, I put on training pants (a cloth diaper with no liner), went pee pee one more time and we were off to the park.
No accidents at the park... Although it was so hot outside I think she may have just sweated out any excess water she had in her system.  We did try to "pee like an animal" next to the car before we left. Nothing.
Next up, lunch. I thought I'd try using the actual bathroom this time, of course I picked her up and held her over the toilet so she couldn't touch anything. But the toilets were armed with automatic flushers and any time I readjusted (holding 32 pounds out in the air isn't easy) the thing would go off and scare both of us to death! Needless to say, this didn't help. No pee pee there.
Finally we hit the grocery store. Mom got a little too involved (that place always stresses me out) and I apparently forgot about potty training. Everything was fine until we went to unload the groceries and I realized her entire seat was wet! We were riding in one of those cool kid carts so thankfully I don't think the next person will put their groceries there. It wasn't that bad anyway, most of it was soaked up into her clothes.

Lessons learned:
1. pay attention mom!!
2. bring the portable potty with us. Yep, I think it's going to happen.

On a positive note, around the house Lula gets to run around naked and for the most part she pees AND poos in the small pot all by herself! So I think we are keeping it local right now, really local.
one step at a time...

The mess we live in

Slowly but surely we are getting settled... box by box.

Although it seems never ending, this is where we were a few short weeks ago

And here we are now! Still not 100%, but totally livable!

THE potty seat

We have two potty seats, one that fits on the big potty and then this one...

This one has become a favorite! Lula loves to sit on it and do her business. Maybe it's because she can get on and off so easily by herself, but I think it's because she can use it and not miss a beat playing.

A visit to dad's work!

We miss dad so much now that he is a full time working man, so Lula and I decided to visit him at work. She loved it! And apparently dad just watches Elmo on YouTube all day so maybe we'll visit more often!

We also visited some other friends who work there and Lula really enjoyed basically destroying their offices. It's a kid's paradise... golf clubs and breakable objects all RIGHT next to each other!