Wow, It's March

Wow, I can't believe it's March and I haven't blogged since January.  Sorry!! Things have been crazy busy around here and sleep training Kaelyn was a major issue that caused me to seriously go temporarily insane.  I though I would be the nice mommy and not cut off her night nursing cold turkey but apparently that just made her more mad and we had quite a few nights in a row with awake time totaling greater than 5 hours.  Boy was I a grumpy momma.  So after consulting at least half a dozen sleep training books, none of which helped me, my doctor told me.  "She is healthy, she does not need to eat for at least 10-12 hours"  Okay, so I cut her off and on the fourth night she was sleeping from 7-5:00.  5:00am sucks, but I will take it.  It would it all be wonderful if Blake hadn't decided that he will NOT pee in a diaper or a pull up even at night.  He hasn't quite mastered the pulling down of pants and underwear while still half sleeping so Shane or I have to get up and help him pee at night.  I know I should be thanking my lucky stars that my 2 1/2 year old is night trained already, but at this point in time, I just want to get some SLEEP.  Things have calmed down, he is only getting up once to pee(usually) and Kaelyn is sleeping through the night on a fairly consistent basis.  I have made the decision that I am going to return to work at some point in the near future.  Probably at the end of summer because there are alot of fun summer things to do here in San Diego and we are hoping to make it back to the East Coast sometime in June or July. 
The kids are getting so big, Kaelyn is now a little over 8 months old. She is crawling pretty well, pulling herself up and starting to cruise around.  She still doesnt have any teeth, but my kids don't get teeth forever. She boycotted baby food from the get go and so has been eating whatever we eat as finger food for about 2 months now.
Blake has been binky free for 4 nights now.  He was only getting one in his room for nap and night for months and we decided that the potty training was more important so we tackled that first.  Blake's godparent's had their first baby on 3/8/11, a beautiful baby girl!!  Blake packed up all of his binky's and "mailed" them to her since he was a big boy and she was a baby.  Has only asked for them twice the first night. My little boy is really growing up.

Potty Training

With all of the upcoming transistion that we thought we would be experiencing, I have been delaying potty training for months. I had excuse after excuse after excuse.  Really, I think I just didn't want to have to deal with it(how's that for great parenting)!  After finding out that Shane would no longer be a recruiter and we would be staying in San Diego for at least a few more months, I pretty much ran out of excuses.  Blake has been ready to potty train for at least a few months, now Mommy and Daddy needed to get on board.  Like anything else in parenting there are just way to many choices and decisions to make.  It's potty training how many different ways can there be?  I won't even go into but if you really want to know, just google it :)  Oh and I forgot, it's not potty training anymore it's potty learning!  WHAT??? really, are people so sensitive that they feel like you are referring to your child as an animal if you say potty training.  So after googling potty training techniques and then not reading anything that came up because it was just too much, I went the old fashioned way and actually asked my mommy friends what worked for them.  I took a combination of what they told me and came up with a plan. 

We have potty seats in each bathroom for the toilet and a potty chair that is currently residing in my living room.  Yeah, gross but hey, you do what you have to.  Blake doesn't get excited enough about stickers to do a sticker chart, he thinks stickers are for ripping into tiny pieces to see where he can stick them all.  So I went to the dollar store and bought a clear container(with a lid) and filled it up with candy.  One piece for pee, two for poop.  Starting last weekend, we told him that when Daddy went back to work(which was Tuesday) he wasn't going to be wearing diapers anymore.  We talked about it alot that weekend.  Tuesday morning came, and off came the diaper.  Blake was allowed to run around our house naked from the waist down.  We even went to a Krispy Kreme tour that morning in underwear and no accidents.  Could it really be this easy? 
We have had a few poop accidents which all of my friends prepared me for.  Don't know what the kids are afraid of when pooping in the toilet but it is a hard concept to get.  We have had a few poop accidents in the underwear, but I cloth diaper so cleaning out poop is not a big deal for me anymore.  We have not had any pee accidents, but we have had a few pee on stuff on purpose.  Yesterday he decided to see what it would be like to pee on his train tracks that were in the drawer under his train table.  Hey, there are bound to be bumps in the road. 
We are only in underwear during the day, pull ups for nap and diaper at night.  However, my big boy woke up this morning with a dry diaper and then went and sat on the potty.  We now have to graduate to wearing underwear around the house and getting him to pull them down and go.  One step at a time but I think over all this has been a successful week.  My baby boy is growing up.

I think I have realized too that as long as I am mentally prepared for the task at hand, it won't be nearly as traumatic as I imagine.  On that note, Bring on the Sleep Training for Kaelyn(more on that next week). 

Blake's Surgery

Blake underwent his second surgery in a year and half.  Both were to put ear tubes in.  His first set went in when he was 11 months old and fell out around October of this year.  With his still chronic problems, we went ahead and scheduled for the second set to be placed and to have his adenoids removed.  Thankfully we did not have to remove his tonsils, however the doctor was not optimistic that they wouldn't have to be removed in a few years.  I will cross my fingers that he doesn't because the recover from this was bad enough.  He was a little cranky for the first two days but seems to be almost back to himself today.  I don't think that surgical wards are meant for pediatric patients, they didnt even have a bed for him to lay in when we left recovery.  They wanted me to hold him on my lap in a chair and still take care of Kaelyn.  Shane was not able to be there the whole time because he was finishing up his paperwork at recruiting school.  So anyway, i convinced them to get us a bed so I could lay him down and let him sleep.  Once he took a short nap, he was much better and we were able to go home.  I am hoping that this surgery does the trick and the ear infections and chronic congestion will be finally be over. 

2011

I have decided with the New Year I would start a blog about our family.  I was able to spend so much quality time with our fabulous family's last year and Blake was able to develop great relationships that I needed a way to keep everyone updated. 

A quick review of what happened in 2010 to the Wagner Family.  Shane deployed to Afghanistan in February 2010.  I quit my job :(,  packed up the house and drove cross country to PA(with the help of my dad).  Blake and I were able to spend time with both sides of the family before Kaelyn arrived on July 4th 2010(my little firecracker).  After Kaelyn was born it was a whirlwind of activity.  We prepared to make another cross country trek, this time on a plane, get a new house in San Diego, unpack and get settled all before Shane got back home.  With the help of family we were able to get all of this accomplished and Shane arrived in California on August 27th, Blake's second birthday.  It was amazing to see Blake's recognition and how quickly he got used to Shane being around again, it was also very emotional watching Shane look at his daughter for the first time in person.  We came home to PA for a visit in November thru mid-December.  It was cold but Blake didnt seem to mind.  It snowed on Thanksgiving and that was enough to remind me why I don't want to move anywhere cold.  We spend Christmas in San Diego and then took the kids to Disney Land with Blake and Kaelyn's Gigi and PopPop Dodson.

Shane started recruiting school on Jan 4th and we should find out soon where we are going.  We are hoping to get back to the East Coast so that we are at least within driving distance.  I decided to become a Scentsy Independent Consultant to have something to do with my "free time".  Scentsy is a wickless candle.  Check out my website at http://www.erinwagner.scentsy.us/

I will try and update the blog at least once a week, more if something exciting happens.  Keep checking back.  Hope the New Year finds everyone happy and healthy!!