Now What Do I Do?

I've worked out what I think is a pretty nice morning routine. She gets up; I get her milk; I retrieve her from her bedroom and bring her to my bedroom; place her in the playpen; turn on the TV; and then I'm free to get ready for the day. For 870 days, this routine has suited me just fine ... until today.
Sometimes during this morning routine, Lauren is not thrilled with the show Disney channel offers. The usual culprit is Handy Manny. She is okay with the show, but it does not receive the complete undevoted attention that a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse does. Apparently, she reached her threshold of Handy Manny while I was in the bathtub. Sometime during toweling off, I hear the sound of fabric rubbing together and a *thump*. An odd sound to be sure, but I thought nothing of it. Then, Lauren walked into the bathroom and said "Hi Daddy!".
That last sentence may not seem that bad but I refer you to our morning routine. When I started this bath, she was in a playpen happily watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. When I ended this bath, she was wandering around on her own. Great! She climbed out of the playpen. And she did it with such skill so as to not hurt herself. What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to trap her now? Guess I'm to turning the playpen upside down and putting a few bricks on top.

Who gets burned in March?

What a day!!!!! First, we introduced Lauren to her brand new big girl room. Her reaction was priceless:

Oh ... it's beautiful

I never expected that great a reaction. Of course, the big test is how she handles sleeping in the new room over the next few days. I don't really consider tonight a valid test because of what else we did.
How could we not take advantage of the weather today? It was sunny and 78 with a nice breeze. The neighborhood was filled with kids running around and adults chatting it up, so we had to join in. Lauren had an absolute blast. We played with basketballs and baseballs, rode her new bike, and had fun playing with the other kids. She also drove one of those electric jeeps around. She had seen them before, but was never brave enough to try it out. Today, she got brave enough to sit in one. From there, it didn't take her long to slide into the driver's seat and go for a spin. Her smiles could not have been bigger. She just loved every minute of it. Guess I need to go find one of these bad boys for her this year.
There is just one problem. Living in Chicago, my skin has not seen hide nor hair of the sun for about 5 months. Immediately subjecting my skin to several hours of baking sun has produced this nice glow ... a nice red glow but a glow nonetheless. I never thought I would get a sun burn in March. My only hope is, when I go to work tomorrow, I am just one of many to have spent a little too much time enjoying the new found sun.

Uploaded Pics

A few more folders worth of pictures have been uploaded. Check it out:

January
February
Adding an overhead light to the playroom
Lauren's New Bathroom

An Honest to God Conversation

As a parent, you know your child is maturing. You see it everyday. Little things they couldn't do before they suddenly can do now. As babies, the leaps involve movements: sitting up, grabbing things, crawling, walking, etc. As toddlers, the leaps are more subtle and completely take you by surprise. Now that I'm back at work (a thoroughly depressing subject I may address later), I am back to my routine of calling Debbie as I leave for home. When we last left, Lauren would want to talk to me on the phone, but this usually consisted of her listening to my blabbering like an idiot and then hand the phone back to mommy.
Last night, I made the requisite phone call and Lauren, as she usually does, asked for the phone. This time, perhaps deciding she had had enough of my gibberish, she actually talked to me. Not just words talking, but full sentences that also match the context of the conversation. She tells me a little about her day; how she went to the park, played outside, sang songs, and is now playing with mommy.
Great! It's only 7 more years until she's calling her friends and talking about shopping and fashion and school and ... ugh ... boys. I am so not ready for this.

We Do What We Must

I have an answer for you Heather. Apparently, warm water does loosen the rectum making a child go poop.
Yesterday, Lauren was obviously fighting the urge to go poop. Some quick remembering had us realize the last time she did go poop was the bathtub incident. So that was 4 days of holding it in, creating quite a backlog (as it were). Worrying it might be something serious, we called the doctor to get some advice. She mentioned that the bathtub might do the trick, so we decided to give it another try. We were smarter this time though and got a Country Crock tub to catch what came out. Sure enough, seconds after sitting in the water, she screamed and started crossing her legs. We knew the warm water was doing its job on her, so we grabbed the tub and caught another significant log.
Parenting involves making sacrifices like we did yesterday. Sure the butter is going to taste funny for a little while, but we had to do what we had to do.

Marking an Anniversary

Hey Valpo fans!!! Do remember what happened on this date 9 years ago? (Yes ... they have a wiki page for it).

What a Choice

Being a parent means making choices. Sometimes, the choices given you are not good ones. Today, Debbie and I had to face one of these types of choices. I have previously highlighted some of the bowel issues we've been having with Lauren. She does everything she possibly can to hold it in. Tonight was bath night and, just as we started, Lauren let out the unmistakable wail of Lauren needing to go poop, but refusing to do so. That left us with 2 options: let Lauren scream and continue her non-pooping ways or let her poop in the tub. What a choice!
By the way, we overcame the initial feelings and did the right thing. She needed to poop and we pried her legs open. As soon as we did, 3 ginormous logs that would have hurt me plopped out. We moved her to the other bathroom and finished the bath. Afterwards, it was Scrubbing Bubbles time. No wonder parents are hard to gross out. By the time the kids are old enough to try this stuff, we've seen far too much for their little minds to comprehend.

Decorating Advice

I have a question for the more decor inclined of my readers. As you may know, we recently replaced all the windows in our house. For almost all the windows, we ordered new blinds which will be installed tomorrow. The question I have regards the 2 large windows in the Living Room/Dining Room. Our plan is to decorate these with draperies to accent the room. The curtain rod we have in mind has a large orb shaped object on the end. We felt given the scale of the room (i,e, vaulted ceilings), we wanted something that wouldn't be lost. However, this presents a little decorating problem. The LR window is fine, but the DR window has 1 side with only 5 inches of clearance between it and the wall. You can see a picture of that here. So that leaves me with what I think are 2 choices: have matching curtain rod ends, but remove it from the end against the wall or use a plain rod for the dining room. Would having 1 side with nothing on it seem odd to many out there? What about 2 different rod sets? Thoughts would be greatly appreciated here.

The Eagle Has Landed

Today brought 2 unexpected events. The first is Lauren actually went to sleep during Quiet Time™, which is quite the rarity. The second happened about 45 minutes into QT ... POOP!!!!! After a few days, she finally pushed out the giant log that had formed. Hopefully, this will be the start of a few good days.

Just poop already

I'm really at my wits end on this one. We are in the potty training stage and things are not going well. First, the good news: Lauren has no problem sitting on the toilet. In fact, she loves to sit on the toilet and read her books. The bad news: She has yet, after a month plus of sitting on the potty, to actually go potty. No pee pee, no poo poo, nothing, nada, zilch. The worse news: She refuses to go poo poo at all. We thought we had this under control by offering M&M's every time she went poo poo. Apparently not. She has reverted to crossing her legs, holding it in, and crying. Our pediatrician suggested we stop trying potty training. We tried, but she insists on going into the bathroom.
The event that brought me to my wits end happened tonight. She's sitting on the potty because she asked to sit on the potty. While sitting on the potty, she began to cry because the urge to go poo poo was hitting. What happened? She managed to hold it in and steadfastly refused to go poo poo. *sigh* Just poop already!!!!

She's a toughee

From my previous post, you may gather that Lauren and I spent some time playing outside in the snow. We had a lot of fun, but what struck me most was how tough she is. The snow suit she had on came with some small mittens attached. Unfortunately, they were a bit too small and she had a hard time keeping them on. She gave no indication of having issues though and even picked up snow with her bare hands. When I finally convinced her to come inside, it was then I saw her poor little hands were beet red. I was duly impressed with the toughness she has to not even care how cold her hands are. I always knew she was tougher than her mommy because Lauren would actually walk around the house in bare feet ... in winter! But to play that long in the snow without mittens? Well, I'm seeing lots of fun wintertime activities in our future.