This & That

It’s Tuesday here and it’s Tuesday there.  We’re not having a particularly exciting one but I hope you are.  In case you need to kick yours up a notch though, here are a few things that might help get you there:

I shared a peek at the rug I finally finished in the entry way!  I’m going snap some better pictures and work on a detailed tutorial that will hopefully catch you before the end of the week, but until then you can check it out on Instagram or Facebook.

Sebastian turned the ripe young age of five months last week!  I’m in love with his thunder thighs (well, compared to the girls chicken legs), his gurgles and giggles, the way his eyes follow my every move, and everything else.  Chances are he’ll be sitting on his own during next months photo op.  :)

And speaking of Sebastian and his monthly photos, my friend Danielle sent me a link to this --

that now has me wondering if I’m scarring him for life…or setting myself up for future mom ridicule.  Oh boy.

Olivia had her sweet baby boy and while she’s coddling him I whipped up a little screen-printing DIY + tutorial over at her blog, To The Heights.
 
Go over and check it out!

My sister introduced me to the talented Oana Befort and her free iPhone calendar (for your desktop and iPad too!)  I upload one to my phone’s lock screen and it takes all the guesswork out of figuring out the day (and sometimes the month…it’s like crazy ‘round here…don’t judge) for this busy madre.

Bows come along with the territory when you have girls and I love to make my own (tutorials here and here) but if I didn’t and/or if I had unlimited funds I’d buy them from Bub + Bug Studio – her glitter bows are amazing! and Olivia James Headbands – the elastics she uses are gorg!

I don’t own a kimono but I will soon after I take a note out of Anna’s book and DIY one.  See her awesome tutorial here and whip of one of your very own!

Damage Control

Is it just ours or do your kids have a daily goal of seriously destroying the house?  I feel like our girls are heck bent on undoing, unorganizing, unhanging, undecorating, un-younameit.  Especially Cecilia.  My sister witnessed her tactics first hand a few months ago and dubbed her the “Master of Disaster”.  So fitting.  Because of all this fun they create with their little hands, we’ve had some serious baby-proofing to do around here and it doesn’t bode well for this mom and her hobby of interior decorating.  Perfectly styled end tables?  Nope.  They’re barren save a couple of lamps and even those have had their fair share of near-death experiences.  Prettily decorated shelving less than four feet from the ground?  I wish.  Nicely framed masterpieces branching towards the floor in a perfectly unsymmetrical frame collage?  Forget it.  Needless to say, our house looks pretty good as long as you keep your gaze eye level and up.  But, I digress.  I thought I’d write a quick little post on how we do damage control around here so let’s get to it.

Cabinets.  Once the twins learned how to crawl, it was all over.  Everything at their level was game to be victimized.  That meant kitchen cabinets.  Pots, pans, glassware…we have it all in our lower cabinets and as it turns out, heavy breakables don’t make good toys (Cecilia can wield a gleaming pot like the best of ‘em).  We needed some fancy cabinet locks but when I went to a few stores to search for some, I had a really hard time finding some that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and that actually fit our cabinets.  At first I wanted to avoid drilling into our freshly painted cabinets at all cost.  Damage control shouldn’t have to cause more damage, right?  Unfortunately, all of the locks that didn’t require drilling either weren’t long enough to accommodate our cabinets or weren’t made for cabinet doors that swing in the same direction instead of away from each other.  Boo.  That meant we had to settle on the locks that had to be drilled in.  I had a hard time finding some of those that were relatively cheap though.  Enter amazon.  I love amazon.  We have a prime membership it’s one of the best things we’ve ever spent our money on.  Not only do you get to pick from a plethora of movies and shows digitally streamed to your own tube but you get free two-day shipping on most everything (and they’re not paying me or perking me to say that…we really just love prime!)  Anyway, I found these locks (affiliate link) there and we had them installed in a few days. 

We only had to buy one pack to baby-proof our kitchen, spending around $8.  Insert a happy wallet.

They come with two parts per lock – the part that attaches to the door and the part that attaches to the cabinet itself.  That means lots of drilling.  However we realized that if we attached the door lock just right, it would catch on the edge of cabinet, thus eliminating the need to drill anything onto the cabinet.  See?
 
We’ve had these locks on for a year now and with most of them being used multiple times a day, they’re still keeping the girls out of the cabinets just as effectively as they did the day they were installed.  :)  When we move, we’ll probably just keep them attached unless our purchaser wants them removed in which case all we’ll have to do is remove them, fill in the screw holes, and paint over them with some leftover cabinet paint.
(Side note:  After doing a little more research while writing this post, I stumbled on these locks from Target.  They’re similar to ours but attach to doors using magnetic force rather than being drilled in.  However, they’ll run you back $29.99 for four – for our small kitchen that’d be $60!  Yipe!  But, if you’re willing to spend a bit to avoid drilling, they might be a good option.)

Closet curtains.  The girls closet doesn’t have doors so before they were inhabiting their room, I whipped up these curtains to cover the space and we hung them with curtain rings threaded over a tension rod.


Cecilia (I think Seraphia has maybe done this once) has, multiple times, played Jane (that of Tarzan) on the curtains causing them and the rod to come crashing down, each time very narrowly missing her tiny head.  We finally had to quarantine them from their own room during the day until we remedied the situation with these pole sockets that we found in the hardware department at Walmart:


All we had to do was drill them into both sides of the closet opening and wa-la. 

No more boughs breaking and/or rods falling.  We don’t let the girls play in either of the bathrooms in our house because, you know, toilet water ain’t spring water, but if we were crazy enough to let them, we’d probably slap some of these up on each shower curtain as well.

Gates.  We do have one gate up prohibiting the kiddos from the laundry room where they like to press buttons and wash/dry imaginary loads of laundry but that’s it.  It’s an older gate that stays put using tension vs. drilling.  If we ever move into a house with stairs we’ll have to look into getting some sort of gate that swings open.  Any favorites just in case stairs are in our future or in case anyone reading is shopping for one or five?

Other than those few things, we try our darndest (we’ve resorted to locking the door) to keep the girls out of the guestroom because of the multiple bookshelves in there and my usual pile ‘o projects in process.  Sometimes I feel like a bad mom for restricting them from making messes and just being kids but then I let loose for one second and realize that cleaning up after twin toddlers while Anthony is at work and while carrying Sebastian around isn’t for the faint of heart – and that’s me, faint of heart.  I’ll take clean and crazy over messy and insane thankyouverymuch. 

So, what am I missing?  What types of baby-proofing do you use?  Anything you’d highly recommend?  Cages?  Handcuffs?  Or do you just go right for the straitjacket?  Juuuust kidding…  ;)  As I type, the floor-length curtains in our living room are looped up over the curtain rod where they’ve been hanging out for the past year or so because I can’t seem to convince the girls that they’re not part of a ropes course.  Any ideas on how to win that battle are more than welcome too!  Sigh.  Kids.

Magazine Art

If you’re the proud owner of either a Real Simple or Coastal Living glossy subscription, this one’s for you.  If you’re not, you might want to go out and grab either or both after this.  As I was paging through Real Simple last week I stumbled upon the prettiest picture of a set of six ties all in a row and thought “Hey, this would make some really cute art!”  The same thing happened as I was exploring the most recent Coastal Living.  Out came the two pages that caught my eye.


(In case you’re hankering for your very own, the ship is on page 65 of the June issue of Real Simple and the ties are on page 54 of the June issue of Coastal Living.)

Sebastian just got transferred to his own crib in our room a few days ago so he doesn’t quite have a room to call his own but, he will in the next few months.  So, thinking ahead, I whipped up some free artwork for his room courtesy of the above two magazines. 

 

The ties didn’t have any wording through them so to get them out and up was as simple as cutting out a big square and sticking it in front of the matt inside the frame (from Target via Dirt Cheap).  The ship, on the other hand, had some wording through the tippity-top flag so I debated just cutting that pole and flag right off but settled on cutting around it really closely.  It’s also on a gray background so it doesn’t quite blend as well into the white background as I would like.  A piece of light gray paper might remedy that down the road.

.           .          .

Have you ever used magazine pages as artwork?  I know cutting out words from multiple pages and multiple magazines and putting them all together in one place used to be popular in my high school days and maybe still is.  I’ve also used cheapo calendars for art.  Can’t beat the price and the looks are first class.  :)

Beachin’

So.  Sooooo… So.  You probably haven’t noticed that we’ve been somewhat absent from social media for the past week.  That is because we were enjoying this:

Btw, I’m pretty sure the gates of heaven will bear more resemblance to this little swinger than any pearlies but we’ll see…hopefully.  ;)  Oh, and might I mention #nofilter

We skirted over to St. Augustine to see family that also headed down that way and to see my sister for the latter part of last week and we’ve been missing it ever since.  The time spent in St. Augustine was wonderful but the seven-hour car van ride?  Not so much.  We found out that traveling with three babies a fun road trip does not make and we found out that one of those babies has a tendency to get car sick.  Gagging and throw-up all around, literally.  Here’s the sopped-up aftermath and let me tell you, you’re lucky it’s no scratch-and-sniff.
 
Poor sweet girl.  It happened on the way there and was not the fluke we thought because guess what?  It happened all over again on the way back…after a milk sippy cup was downed…and I used to like cottage cheese…  But, everything is washed and smelling flowery again so we have high hopes for the even longer vehicular trip we’re taking later this summer.  Any remedies I should know about to keep toddler motion sickness at bay?  Spill the deets…I mean, don’t spill ‘em…oh no…I’m having flashbacks…make it stop...(insert squinty-faced emoji).

Anyway, I won’t go into all the details of the trip because I know that vacation recaps are lots of fun to read when you’re not the one that went (sarcasm intended) but I’ll share these in case you’re curious:

My family went out to see the sunrise the morning before we got there and got this amazing shot.  Waking up early doesn’t seem so bad when you have this as a reward, no?



Me, my irish twin sis Farrah (separated by a mere 10 months in the year 1983), and our girls.



This pinterest-ing idea is brilliant and works.  We were racing against a rising tide coming in so we didn’t have much time to build a huge hole but this did the trick for the time being.



Me and our brood heading out to the sandy shores.  Do we look cool and collected?  Good because that was actually not the case.  It was quite the effort prepping all bare skin for the beach, getting there, and being on it.  Quite the effort.

So, with all that fun behind us, we’re well into this week and my best friend is here from St. Louis to join in on the craziness that is the Tobin household.  I hope your week is as exciting as ours!  :) 

Peace!

Choose Happy

So.  I made a few tweaks to the frame collage in the girls room.  This are always at risk of getting changed around here so that should be no surprise, right?  I know I’m not the only ‘tweaker’ (not to be confused with ‘twerker’ which I most definitely am not…in public…sorry Miley).  At the time that I first hung the frames, I framed  a free printable I found online that said “Choose Happy” and I loved it (still do) but it didn’t fill the frame like I thought it would so I had to extend the mat and dah, dum, dee.  Not my favorite improv.  See?

So, I switched things up by spray painting the frame white and adding my own rendition.  Much better.

Here’s how.  Last Christmas I strung our Christmas cards on some glittery gold ribbon and hung them over our french doors.  Well, when I was taking them down I couldn’t bring myself to toss the pretty gold ribbon I used so I cut it up into little squares and packed it away for a rainy day via ziploc.  That day came around last week.  I snatched those squares out of hiding and glued them in a gradient pattern onto a piece of white freezer paper that I cut to fit the frame.  A tiny dab of Elmer’s on the back of each square was all it took.

Then, to keep the ‘Choose Happy’ (because let’s be honest, this hangs right over the changing table and diaper changes call for that reminder), I whipped up the phrase using pixlr.com, rotated it so it printed backwards, and taped it to the glass on the outside of the frame.

Next, I took out the paint I used on these lamps and with a very fine paintbrush, painted the glass on the inside of the frame right over each letter.  I did three coats so that the next layer of paint wouldn’t be visible through the green.  The acrylic paint I used dried super fast so I was able to do all three coats, one after the other.

Then, using the coral paint I intended this desk to be cloaked in, I went over the dried green paint with a thicker paintbrush.


Painting with the fine brush followed by the thick brush gave the letters this two-toned look:

And that was that.  While I was at it though, I also spray painted the frame I had stained with coffee grinds (far left).  Here’s what the collage looked like before:

And here’s what it looks like now:

(See also –> the dresser makeover and it’s spray painted hardware.)

Using things I already had made this little project 100% free, just like I like it.  And, if the winds of spontaneity make me want to have “Keep Calm & Don’t Breathe It In” or something along those lines plastered in that spot instead, I can easily scrape off the happiness and paint on something else nice and quicklike.  Win, win.  :)

In case you want to post this little reminder on painted glass like I did, I’ve made the ‘Choose Happy’ downloadable for ya (thanks to Deme for the excellent tutorial on how to be tech savvy like that).

Click here –> Choose Happy – to download

Have a happy humpday!

Sebastian: Four Months

I know.  I realize these monthly updates can get monotonous and boring.  It’s a picture of a cute baby and a bunch of words on how his “personality” is coming out, how he spends his days (and nights), and how much we love him to pieces.  A lot of you are moms that know what kinds of trouble four month-olds can get into…none.  Unless you count spitting up all over your clothes, their clothes, your floors and walls and surfaces and everything in between.  So, here’s the cute baby:

Now feel free-as-can-be to move along because here comes my take on his personality.

Sebastian.  A happy-spitter, as his Doc calls him.  He eats, he burps, and woop, there it is.  Like clockwork.  Needless to say, I never wear anything more than once before it gets tossed into the laundry basket.  He started giggling this month when tickled.  Super ticklish that kid.  Still hates his car seat which is great for my social life (and my sanity).  Can we say “cabin fever”?  Yes we can, we do, and we will.  What else?  Oh, he’s in the 90-95th percentile for height, the 75th for weight, and the 50th for head size.  So much different than his sisters at their age.  They were always, always, always in the teens and twenties for weight and head size but above average for height.  He weighs now what they weighed at nine months of age (around 15.5 pounds).  That is crazy to me. 

He still sleeps right next to mwah in his co-sleeper but by “sleeps” I mean notallnight…yet.  He fidgets around for food twice or thrice per night which is wonderful for my beauty sleep (and the reason I should stay far away from selfies).  However tough some nights might be though, I awake to him every morning, on his tummy, propped up on his tiny elbows with a grin the size of Texas just staring at his one true love which leads me to the fact that… 

He’s a momma’s boy.  Only wants me, me, me…and Daddy too but mostly me - also great for my social life with the girls.  I sometimes wonder what they think about this kid who’s always attached to the mom they used to know.  It’s okay though because I ward off neglect by getting in twin-time during Sebastian’s several daily naps.  :) 

Speaking of those girls, they turned 22 months old last week.  Want to know about their personalities?  They’re bursting at the seams with them, like most almost-two-year-olds.  Let’s do it acrostic style:

She’s our “good girl”.  We say “no”, she stops.  We say “go”, she goes.  We say “jump”, she jumps.  The one exception to the rule is doing her biznaz on the toilet.  We’ll not revisit that nightmare but if you want to, have at it. 

Oh Cecilia.  I love her so much I want to squeeze her and she drives me so crazy sometimes that I want to squeeze her for that too.  Everything is a game with her.  ‘You want your cell phone back, catch me if you can.’  ‘Ooh, let’s see how close I can come to jumping on Sebastian’s head without actually jumping on it.’  She lives for the chase, for real.  If she was a hashtag, she’d be #comeandgetme with #tryandstopme coming in a close second.

Our girls, our girls.  Comrades, mutual entertainment, partners in crime, all of it AND beauties to boot.   

And, as is typical with that little thing called “sisterhood”, they’re the best of friends…

…and the worst of friends.

All cute, all ours and man do we love ‘em.  :)

Back & Forth

Our girls absolutely love to swing.  They’d eat, sleep, and p-double-o-p swinging if they could.  I imagine it’s a past time most kids share.  Lucky for them, for their first birthday last year Grandpa and Grandma bought them two of these swings.  Unlucky for them, we literally just hung them last week.  We’ve had them stored away in the attic over the winter in hopes that this spring we’d have time to hang them.  The plan was to find a solid branch or two in the front yard and hang them from a tree.  The other part of the plan was to paint them so that 1) they’d sort of match the house a little better since they’d be right in front of it and not detract from curb appeal and 2) so that they were more gender neutral since Sebastian would probably share his sisters’ love of swinging one day.

So, finally and with some spray paint specially made for painting plastic (by Krylon), the swings went from this:

with this:

to this:

As you can see, we ditched the front yard/tree swings idea after a good friend gave us their old swing set.  Now all the fun is in the backyard.  (Side note:  If you’re on the market for some swings and not opposed to a little DIY, check these out.  Our original plan was to make two of them but by the time we could have gotten them done with everything else on our plate, the girls (and boy) would be inhabiting them in high school.  Not cool.)

Unfortunately, I’m not enthused with the spray paint.  Even though it’s made for plastic, it has seemed to easily chip away in areas where plastic meets plastic, like where the safety bar meets the bottom of the seat.  The seat itself however has held up pretty good so far.  It’s withstood a few rainstorms and a week of being outside in the heat.  Time will tell if it’ll hold up for the long haul though.  I’ll keep ya posted. 

I used one can of spray paint per seat and could’ve used more.  I’ve found that as much as I like the way that Krylon sprays in a line vs. a circular spray like Rustoleum and other spray paints, it doesn’t seem to cover as well.  One can would probably have been good enough per swing had I used Rustoleum but since it sprays with a circular spray, it may have been tough to not have the swing look blotchy.

Either way, the kids really don’t care what the swings look like as long as they move. 

And move they do.

Check It

Hello, hello, hello.  I was hoping to have some sort of something DIY for you this week but alas, I don’t.  The next thing up on the ‘ole to-do list is to paint a rug for the entry way.  I’ve got the rug and paint but I’m still on the fence about the process and in need of a few more supplies so hopefully in the next week I’ll be able to get out of the house solo to grab those things and get that done and shared.  Until then, clickety-click on these:

>>><<<

Have you heard of Fall for DIY?  It’s where Francesca creates a whole lot of things, all DIY and all beautiful with excellent tutorials to boot.  I found her on Instagram (@fallfordiy) somehow and her jewelry tutorials grabbed me by the sleeves and sucked me in.  I don’t have a ton of jewelry, one because I’m pretty plain in that department (but I’m working on it) and two, because it can get expensive.  So, when I saw some of her tutorials on how to make your own jewelry, I swooned and tucked them away for a quiet moment or two.  My favorites are this statement necklace and these concrete earrings.  On a related note, JoAnn Fabrics and Michaels both have jewelry sections with pre-made statement necklaces that only need to be strung by a chain.  I’ve spent many a minute in those sections and have sworn that for the next special occasion we attend, I’m bringing in a coupon and buying the supplies needed to whip up a new necklace.

A few weeks ago, Anthony came home to chaos (happens a lot) and no dinner.  Quickly, I did what I do best and searched for an easy recipe involving a whole bunch of random things we had on hand and stumbled on this one for Fire-Roasted Mac & Cheese at Everyday Reading.  We substituted fresh cherry tomatoes for the canned tomatoes simply because those we did not have but it was SO GOOD.  Seriously.  I even bet you could use any type of pasta and add chicken or sausage if you will it.  It’s fairly easy, a must try, and a definite staple meal.

You might’ve noticed we’ve added some new-ish blog buttons on the side bar over yonder --->
Head over and check out Britt at The Fisk Files, Katie at The Lane Above, and Elizabeth at All Kinds of Things.

So, yesterday.  Two ‘o clock rolled around and everybody was fed, clean-diapered (minus one me…duh), and ansty so we packed up and shipped out to Goodwill where I snatched up a few cotton tops to turn into headbands for the ladies in the family.  I’m not quite done with this endeavor but you know I’ll share when I am.  Here’s a sneak peek from Instagram:

Last, a little housekeeping.  I’ve had these pillows in the girls room on their window seat since they were wee ones and they’ve recently been taking up residence to “read” on said window seat, but not before throwing the pillows off. 



Since the girls will be moving to another bedroom to make way for Sebastian in a few months and neither of their preliminary room designs will include these pillows, I thought I’d see if anyone here would want them.  They’re by Dwell Studio from Target and are blue on one side, white on the other and the geometric print is embroidered on and dark brown.  They have a couple of loose embroidery threads that I’ve dabbed a tiny bit of fabric glue on to prevent from coming off more but are overall in really good condition with no stains and perfectly working zipper enclosures.  They measure 17 x 17 inches laying flat.  I’m asking $15 shipped for both pillow covers (I’m keeping the inserts).  Email me at beaninlove@gmail.com with your paypal email if you’re interested.  First come, first serve.  :)

Happy Humpday! 

Ten Years

I wasn’t planning on posting today but then I listened to a song that I played over and over and over when the twins were born, not because it pertained to my life at all at that point in time, because it didn’t.  I just loved it and it’s melody took me outside of myself.  It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to that song but today I pulled it up again just for kicks and it pertained to today.  If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile, you might know that my dad passed away when I was in college.  It was 10 years ago today.

When he died, it was one of the hardest times in my life.  I was closer to him than I was to any person on the face of this earth.  He taught me everything I needed to know about love and how to love in the very, very worst of times, especially those who hurt you the most..  He was a very faithful Catholic and while he wasn’t immune to sin nor was he perfect, he placed everything he had into God’s hands and sought to be with his Maker by going to Mass regularly, not just on Sundays but any day that he could.  We’d go together when I was home from college, my siblings and I and him, to the gorgeous chapel at Boys’ Town near our home in Omaha, Nebraska.  While I was off at college he’d go and tell me about the amazing confession he just had with the great priest there.  In the year before the end of his life, our family broke into pieces and although he struggled immensely with the situation, his faith never waivered.  It’s that faith and knowing how close he was to Jesus and how he depended on him with his life that got me through his passing.  We were given an immense amount of grace at his funeral, so much so that joy overtook us (my siblings and I) and instead of feeling sorrow, we were so happy that he wasn’t suffering anymore and that he was headed to heaven.  We heard through the grapevine that a lot of people were really skeptical seeing that we weren’t all crying at his funeral.  We actually wore white instead of black because we wanted to not mourn the end of this life, but the start of his new one; a better one.  I know that you might raise your eyebrows at this but the truth is that the pain and heartache and missing him will always be here with me and yes, I cry sometimes because I miss him so much.  But, I try and focus on how I’m living my life.  I want to be like him.  I know he’s on his way to heaven, if he isn’t there already and I want to meet him there.  (As a Catholic, we believe that before heaven, one goes through purgatory.  Think of it as a shower.  While you live life, sin makes your soul dirty and so, before you get to heaven, you go through a cleansing or “shower” of sorts so that you’re squeaky clean when you arrive at those pearly gates.  Yes, there are people who go straight to heaven; I doubt I’ll be one of them.)  I want him to be one of the first I see.  I want to move on from the suffering and pain in this life to one where suffering and pain don’t exist…forever!  Thinking about that and focusing on walking the narrow way keeps sorrow far from me and hope right in front of me.  :) 

If you have a minute, please say a prayer for my family, the soul of my father, all souls, and for all those who have suffered and are suffering.  There’s a joy to be had in sorrow and a hope to be found and I pray that all find it. 

Here’s the song I was talking about at the beginning of this post.  I hope you are as touched by it as I am.  It’s “When a Heart Breaks” by Ben Rector.

[I know in his song Ben says "and you don't need Jesus, 'til you're here" and I'm not sure what his thoughts are with those lyrics but we always need Jesus.  It's in the hard times however, that we need Him most.]

A fond memory:

We lived on a farm and so, obviously, my dad smelled like crap every time he came in from work.  He’d always try and rub his “aroma” off on me with hugs and I always told him to stop because, obviously, that ain’t no “aroma”.  Being the wise-crack that he was, he gifted me a snazzy nose plug for my 18th birthday…

…so that my excuses were zero.

.           .           .

Miss you daddy!

Potty Training: Day Tres

Oh boy.  We are done.  Done for now.  Pardon the time lapse between this post and that of Day Two, we were busy recovering/cleaning/cleaning/sanitizing/recovering.  Since the twins have graced our lives, we’ve never had a more rough few days than the three days we tried potty training them.  Tried and failed.  Yep, we’re back to diapers.

 

Anthony had three and half days off of work so we expected to use all that time training and we did, but now those days are over without the results we were hoping for and he’s back to work today which leaves me and the three tots alone and heck if I’m going to nurse a babe, cook, mother, and clean up potty all the day alone.  Not.Happening. 

It feels a little like we wasted three days and I’m really, really bummed that the girls didn’t train like we had hoped and thought.  However, we learned a lot and I think we definitely planted a few seeds about using the pot.  I’ve mentioned this before, but we purchased and followed the ebook, 3 Day Potty Training by Lora Jensen.  I read the book a few times before we started, made notes, and relayed everything to Anthony.  During the three days we trained we followed Lora’s instructions to a T.  We used positive reinforcement and no matter how many times we wanted to slam our fists through a wall, we flashed smiles and encouragement to the girls at all times.  They didn’t see an ounce of negativity in three days.  We followed them around everywhere, we told them to let us know when they needed to go, we caught 98% of their accidents and ran them to the toilet during those accidents (that one left a nice picture in your mind, didn’t it?)  It was misery for all but no one ever said potty training was fun, right?

Poor Sebastian was neglected (the number one reason why we should’ve gotten another person on board to help) and spent the majority of the last three days in his swing.  Besides the emotional stress of trying your darndest to nicely teach your kids that excrement belongs in the toilet, the stress of knowing that I couldn’t cuddle our three month old killed me.  I missed him so much. 

Potty training brought out the worst in me.  I’m a pretty positive person but when I wasn’t within a five foot radius of both twins at all times (a must with the three day method), so during naptimes, I was exhausted and perched next to their bedroom door while they slept listening for any signs that one needed to ‘go’ and browsing Instagram where I wanted to comment “you suck”, “you suck”, “you suck”, “you suck” on all my followee’s pictures because everyone was happily living life and I was stuck cleaning up gallons of pee (and that is probably more literal than figurative). 

Anyway, it’s over.  Life is back to normal and I love all my Instagram friends again so I’ll not focus on the misery but on what we took away from the crappy experience (more figurative than literal thank God).


[I know you’re dying to see pictures of my kids in their skivvies, so I’ll just keep on postin’.]

The girls can be potty trained.  It is possible at their age – 22 months.  They learned how to hold it.  They know how to control it.  The first day was spent cleaning up accidents because they’d just release not knowing what they hay was happening.  Day two was different.  We pumped them full of liquid that they gladly drank but they became afraid of having accidents so they held it until they couldn’t hold it anymore.  They learned to tell us when they had to go – they’d run to us and get all panicky and want to be held.  But, here’s the kicker, every time we set them on the toilet they’d throw a FIT.  Seraphia actually did pretty well on the morning of day two until she observed Cecilia throw a fit on the toilet and decided she’d do the same.  It wasn’t that they were afraid of the toilet.  If we set them on it and handed them a book, they’d be perfectly fine and would sit there reading.  For some odd reason, they just didn’t want to release into the dark abyss below.

 

In the end, we learned that not every method, not matter how many successes it touts, works for every kid.  Lora says you should never say “no” or “bad” and I agree and disagree.  Seraphia responds pretty well to “no” when we say it upon her doing something we’d like her not to.  She’ll stop and move on.  Saying “no” to her when she goes to the bathroom on the floor would probably resonate well.  Cecilia on the other hand seems to think that the word “no” signals a game.  She’ll give us a wry smile, continue doing whatever it is she’s not supposed to being doing and laugh in our faces.  You can imagine how she’d react then if we told her no peeing on the floor…actually, don’t imagine it because…yuck.  Saying “bad” to either girl however would probably make them think that peeing is bad in general, no matter what or where. 

Anyway, I know that if you haven’t already clicked off that I’m boring you to death talking about human excrement so leave the rest of my thoughts to myself.  Our goal is to have the girls potty-trained within the next few months and so, when success finds its way to us, I’ll let you know how we achieved it.  Until then, it’s back to the 20+ diaper-changes-per-day grindstone which I will gladly take over the nightmare of our first experience with potty training.  :)

If you have any tips or tricks that got your kid from diaper to pot, please leave them in the comment section or email me!!  I’m not going to say that we’re desperate but we just might be…a little bit. 

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P.S.  One little tidbit of info I did pick up – I bought size 4 toddler undies for the girls even though they’re barely in size 2T because they were literally half the price and we needed 30 pairs for training.  After washing them and drying them on high heat they shrank a little and, even though they didn’t fit tight, they worked perfectly!

Potty Training: Day Dos

Let me tell you what I am.  Too physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted to write.  So, hopefully this moment in time fills you in on how potty training went today – day two:


Let’s just say that there are three people here who are at medium to high risk of getting their pants wet.

If you’re interested – Day One.

Pray for us.  Please.

Potty Training: Day Uno

Well, we started the day off with a bang…rather, the twins did.  I’m guessing they were uber excited after the last ditch effort to infuse toilet knowledge into their noggins…

…because at 4 am Cecilia wanted out of her confines.  We let her whine it out, which she did until around 6, when I finally went in to find both her and her sister awake and in the most miserable moods (they usually sleep until 8).  And, even though we’re no pros and very much first-timers, we thought about it and made the executive decision to delay the training until after the girls first nap when rosy cheeks and dispositions were a lot more likely and therefore, a couple of doses of semi-cooperation in making friends with the toilet (the initial plan was to start after breakfast).

Naptime came and went and we started the process around 11ish and it’s been accident after accident ever since.  I’m not going to go much into the process because I don’t want to rob Lora of monetary support but let’s just say I thought maybe I’d be able to tell a tad if one girl or the other was about to let go.  Nope, nada, your guess is as good as mine.  The best way to describe to you the difference in the girls expressions when they’re about to pee vs. not about to pee is that it’s the same difference in expression they’d have as a miniscule gnat wizzed three feet above their head vs. no gnat.  No help whatsoever. 

Needless to say, we’ve got the rewards at our sides, ready to be doled out…waiting, waiting, waiting…

Nary a lid has been twisted yet but I’ll let you guess which have been longingly touched and untouched for the sake of patience and bedtime (cough-the alcohol-cough).

I’ll let you know how the rest of the day fares in the rest of this story tonight.  At this moment, I’m perched with the laptop atop my legs outside the girls door as they take a second nap, waiting for a wimpering beg for the bathroom.  I’m hoping and waiting for a cue but most likely I’ll go in after the deeds been done with a clean sheet and out with a wet one…

>>> Six Hours Later <<<

Well.  I suppose the stats will give you the best glimpse into how day one of potty training two kids at once went.

Number of sheets washed:  2 (there will more than likely be more as the night rolls forward)
Number of wee undies soiled:  36
Number of M&Ms doled out as rewards:  2
Number of times we told the girls to tell us when they had to ‘go’:  403
Number of sprints to the bathroom holding a flailing, dripping child:  36
Number of sprints to the bathroom holding a flailing child we thought for sure had to release:  25

On a positive note, towards the very end of the day Cecilia started being bothered by having wet undies and I’m calling it a milestone. 

Anyway, you might get the point and if you don’t, lucky you.  I have high hopes that people who live through potty training twins can, afterward, live through anything.

Smirnoff Ice, come to mama.

State of the Sharpie Mugs & Painted Rug

Hello one and all!  My fingers are flying at the keys to bring you the first of a series of posts I want to continue with the title “State of the…”  There are lots of projects and painting, sewing and scheming that go on around here and I want to make sure that I not only give you all the details on how things are done, but occasional check-ups on how they’ve held up.  Hopefully all report cards will read A+ but some projects, like one that I’m about to open back up, don’t hold in their marbles as well as I would’ve liked them to.  So, without further chitting and chatting…

>>> The Sharpie Mug Planters <<<

I wrote in the original post that the coral, fine-tip sharpie seemed to scratch off a little more easily than the thicker-tipped sharpies.  Well, it wasn’t a little easier, it was a lot easier.  So much so that I scrubbed the whole mug clean last week and redid it using the same type of sharpie I used on the other two mugs but in silver.  Here’s what the sad mug was looking like:

And here’s what it looks like now after I rewrote the words (sans spaces) of our wedding song (When God Made You by Newsong) on it and stuck it in the oven:

I also grabbed some small mint, cilantro, and basil plants and stuck them right in as my seedlings from last year disappointed in the growth department.

As you can see, the other two mugs have held up great!  I’d still take note of the sharpie art tips in the post, but I’d say they’re winning!

>>> The Stamped & Spray-Painted Rug <<<

[Original posts:  The striped side & the stamped side.]

From the pictures you can tell that the paint on the rug has lightened up a little.  Mind you, I’ve washed this rug at least four times since I’ve painted it so I’d say it’s holding up pretty well.  If I could go back, I’d have washed the rug before painting since washing it ‘fluffs’ it up, revealing all the unpainted areas that were previously hidden from any paint because the rug was so matted.  Make sense?  The final verdict though is that you CAN paint a flat-woven rug and it will hold up, even when washed.  Good thing because I’ve got another one coming down the assembly line for the entry way.  Stay tuned for that.

.           .           .

In other news, we’re going to start potty-training the girls this Thursday using this 3-Day Potty Training method.  I grammed this a few weeks ago after I had all the prep work done and ready to go.  After the tots are nice and tucked into their clean sheets each night in their snazzy toddler panties, I might hop on and give an update on the blog here just to vent.  If you care to read about crap, you should stop by.  Just make sure it’s not during your sit-down breakfast break, lunch break, or dinnersnackdrivethru because, well, it’s potty-training people.