Bottles Begone

It's been a week of milestones for our Tory Girl - the biggest change being the end of the baby bottle.

Rocking her Oakley sunglasses (a present from Andi's friend) and her beloved bottle

Anyone who knows Tory, knows just how much this girl looooves her bottle. She's never been one to attach to anything - doesn't suck her thumb, never latched onto a blanket or stuffed animal, hated the pacifier no matter how many times I tried to force it on her. There was no quick fix to comfort her in the early months of life and many times I'd have to drop everything and bolt from stores during a meltdown because I couldn't calm her down. We introduced the bottle around seven months when I stopped nursing and she's been hooked every since. Finally we had something to comfort her in the car so she'd stop screaming during every minute of a car ride or a "pacifier" of sorts to help her settle down before naps and bedtime. Tory would've carried a baby bottle of water around all day if I would've let her.  

I've heard of some pediatrician recommendations to remove the bottle at 12 months, but ours seemed neutral on the topic. Still, I've been stressing about the removal of the bottle for months because I seriously didn't know how we'd pry it out of Tory's pudgy little hands. My mom assured me no kindergartner ever started school with a bottle in his/her mouth, and it'd all work out eventually, but I wasn't so sure. I mean, Tory really loved the bottle. 

About a month ago, Tory started biting the tips of the bottle nipples. I threw the ones with holes in them away and told her to stop biting them because I wasn't buying anymore. I started to use this as my plan of attack - when there were no more nipples left, I'd have to face the inevitable and take away her beloved bottle. Truthfully, I was dreading this transition more than Tory probably was. Taking away the bottle meant I'd have to endure a few weeks of the dreadful Cry It Out. Admittedly, when she'd wake up at 2:00am, I'd just warm up some milk for her and she'd be off to dreamland in no time. 

Cut to last week when Tory was being a bit challenging ....

I'm not sure what's the matter with her the last 10 days (growth spurt? canines pushing through farther?) but she's been quite the grumpfish with near constant whining, throw-herself-on-the-ground tantrums, multiple nightly wake-ups, etc. My patience have been on thin ice. One particular afternoon, I gave her a warm bottle of milk before nap time and she forcefully threw the bottle back in my face. THAT'S IT KIDDO! Nearing the 90 minute mark of nap-fighting, I decided she was cut off. Really, if she was fighting sleep and being super fussy, wouldn't this be the perfect time to endure the unpleasantness of vice removal anyway?

I offered Tory a bottle of milk later that evening at bedtime and she threw it on the ground. Alright, then. The bottle is officially no longer at our house. We're still in the midst of nap and bedtime struggles, but I assume those issues will smooth out once this phase of whining and temper tantrums passes (or at least lessens). Tory doesn't seem to miss the bottle at all. She hasn't asked for it once. Yesterday, I washed and sterilized them all and packed them away with the baby stuff. Out of sight, out  of mind. 

My only concern now is Tory has always refused / continues to refuse cow's milk out of a sippy cup. I've tried it warm, cold, with chocolate / strawberry syrup ... and she spits it the minute it touches her mouth. Strange because she used to drink warm milk out of a bottle just fine. I'm not too worried as our pediatrician recommends Tory get 18 oz. of dairy a day and she eats her fair share of cheese, yogurt and cottage cheese. I'm hoping she'll eventually take to milk in a sippy cup after she realizes milk in a bottle is no longer. I guess I'll keep offering it and see what happens.

It is nice to have my counter space back after having a bottle drying rack occupying it for the last 19 months, and it's awfully nice not to wash bottles constantly. I will never miss that aspect of parenting. Another childhood milestone achieved - this one I'm not so sad to see go. 

Swim Time

In an effort to beat the never-ending cold weather, we took Tory swimming three times last week. Tory likes the pool and it's a good way to burn off some toddler energy. Plus, it's a warm place for Andi and I to seek refuge if we can't find the same outdoors.

Tory is currently enrolled in swimming lessons on Wednesdays, so that's a nice retreat every week for us. Our class is at 11:00am and the whole process burns through a good chunk of our day, which I love. There's a Panera Bread across the hallway from the class, so I've made it a special treat to grab lunch to-go after our class. If I don't, we've both starving and Tory's in full melt down mode by the time we get home and I have a chance to pull something together for lunch. Now when we leave class, Tory points toward Panera and ok, fine, twist my arm! I'll buy us yummy warm bread and soup and salad and macaroni and cheese for lunch.

On Thursday last week, Andi came home from work early and we visited a community center in the next suburb over from us. It was a little pricey to get in ($7 a person - even for Tory!) but worth it for a  warm place to play for the evening. Andi volunteered to swim with Tory so I vegged out on the sidelines for an hour which was glorious.

Tory was a maniac swimmer in the pool. Once she learned there was a zero-entry place where she could stand up in the water and go down a kiddie slide, she was in heaven. She gave Andi a run for his money! They were all over the pool, swimming and splashing and doing "Humpty Dumpties" off the side.

On Saturday at the cabin, we were going stir-crazy from the dreary winter weather (it snowed there the entire weekend - ugh!) so Andi called around and found a pool in the nearby town of Cumberland. It cost about $6/per person again to use one of the hotel pools, but it was worth it for something to do. Andi and Tory swam in the pool again and I watched from the side. We had the entire pool area to ourselves so we tried out Tory's new summer life jacket and the pool toys that most community centers don't allow.

True kid-style, Tory's lips were purple by the time we left the pool. Girlfriend loves the water, and threw a fit when it was time to get out. She'd swim forever if we let her.

Seven reasons why not to get my undies in a bunch because it's snowing in April

Inside my house, tiny pink flowers are blossoming on branches set out on my dining room table ...

Outside my house ... not so much.

A fresh new pile of snow has been falling outside most of today and while I want to complain about how much I'm tiiiired of winter weather and I am oooover being cold all the time, I'm also trying to remember this is Minnesota and complaining about the forecast doesn't change anything. We're the ones who choose to live here.

Instead, I'm trying to focus on the good things this snow storm is bringing our way because positivity is better than being a bitter party of one all day. At least that's what I keep telling myself ...

******

Seven reasons why not to get my undies in a bunch

because it's snowing in April

(with extra use of exclamation points because it's more convincing that way)

1) This is probably the last snow we'll see this year! Right? I mean, right God? This has to be the last time so we should enjoy it!

2) All this snow will melt fairly quickly I'm sure and it'll be great for my yard and future flower beds. Soak up the moisture, ground! The more precipitation we get now, the less I have to water later. (At least that seems to make sense).

3) Andi bought me auto start for my truck this winter and it's been a lifesaver. How great is it that I've been able to use my auto start for an extended period of time this winter / spring? How convenient! Always a warm vehicle. Perfect.

4) Our cabin lake was looking a little low last fall, so all this snow / snow melt will be great for boosting up the water level again. Super! We'll be swimming and boating in no time!

5) When it snows, at least the annoying neighbor kid who bounces his basketball directly outside our bedroom window isn't outside shooting hoops. That's a big win right there. Score!

6) As crappy as the snow is, I have no reason to complain because I didn't have to drive anywhere today. Being a stay-at-home-mom means I never have to see traffic like this again.

Traffic pic Andi text me on his drive into work this AM
Go ahead, try to avoid the "red" roads

Tory and I stayed home today and watched the snow fall outside our living room window. If I have to experience a snow storm, that's my favorite place to be.

7) And finally, well, I actually can't come up with a seventh reason. I'm tired of this crappy weather just like everyone else is. If my kid would stop refusing naps today and actually rest a bit, maybe we could even go outside and play in this powdery white stuff one last time.

The Best Date Day

Andi and I had the best date-day on Sunday. My mother-in-law, Janie, called Andi earlier in the week and volunteered to watch Tory for a few hours. I told immediately told Andi to call her back and say YES! Not to sound like a horribly ungrateful stay-at-home-mother (because I do realize just how lucky I am), but after spending two solid weeks with Tory, I was in need of a little breather. My usual mommy free-time the last few weeks had been canceled because our babysitter was on Spring Break and with a few recent traveling work trips for Andi, I felt a little run-down.

On the way home from the cabin on Sunday, we swung by Andi's parent's house and dropped off Tory for the afternoon. "Stay out as long as you like," Janie said, but Andi and I didn't think we'd be gone for long. We planned to grab a movie nearby which is completely uncharacteristic of us. I think the last movie we saw in the theatre was Hunger Games and that's when it was in the cheap theatre, not even a new release! Of course the one time we agree to see a movie, there wasn't anything playing. On the way to the theatre, Andi turned to me and said "I'm half-tempted to go home and take a nap." "Can we get take-out first?" I asked, because I was starving, of course.

And that's just what we did.

Andi must have felt a moment of weakness and caved when I said I was craving Spinach and Artichoke Dip from Chili's. We don't have a lot of restaurant options around our house that aren't chains and let's be honest, I'm a slave for their tortilla chips so we ordered Car-Side To Go and to our home we went. It was just warm enough to sit outside on our three-season porch (my favorite spot in our entire house) so we dined on TV trays over an episode of New Girl.

Next, we decided to watch a movie so we rented This Is 40... while laying in bed on a Sunday afternoon. Can I even express how glorious this felt? It was like a trip to pre-kidville where time and quiet were of the plenty. The movie was horrible, but the company was perfect.

In our last 50 minutes of parenting freedom, Andi and I retreated to our own respective bathrooms in the house. He took a long shower and I took a warm bath with Tory's Sesame Street bubbles.

In that moment I realized I've never actually been at home without Tory. EVER. In 19 months, I've never spent one minute at my own house without my child accompanying me. It felt so peaceful. I probably should have used my kid-free time at home to do laundry or vacuum. Maybe next time.

My next goal is to be at home alone without my kiddo or husband in tow. It's hard to even imagine what I'd do with my free time! Maybe I'll check this one off my list by Tory's second birthday. (A girl can dream, right?)

Going Maple Syruping

We had a fun, relaxing weekend at the cabin, as per usual. This time of year is a bit tricky because it's still pretty chilly outside (40's and cloudy, mostly), with spurts of rain (or snowflakes, UGH!) and very muddy roads and trails. It's no longer safe to be out on the icy lakes and most of the snow is melted on the ground, so ice fishing and snowmobiling are out, too.

This weekend, Andi's dad invited us to visit his friend's cabin which is about 20 miles from ours for a day of maple syruping. For several years now, Andi's dad, Jim, has volunteered his time to help his friends collect and cook pure maple syrup. Neither Andi or I have ever seen the process up close so we thought it'd be something fun and interesting to occupy our Saturday.

After Tory's morning nap, we hopped in the car and drove to the maple syrup spot near Shell Lake, Wisconsin. Jim's friend's have a cabin there and they've also established quite a rustic maple syrup operation. With little investment in money and lots of man-hours, they've been making pure maple syrup for the last five years. Every 30 gallons of sap collected produces about 1 gallon of maple syrup so it takes a lot of patience to collect all the sap from maple trees and cook it down to become real syrup. This sugar shack is where all the magic happens.

Tory and Grandpa Jim - ready for a day of maple syruping

It was drizzling outside so we didn't spend much time walking around the woods to look at the buckets collecting sap. Jim and his friends would make a sweep through the woods later in the evening to gather all the sap collected.

Inside the sugar shack, Jim and his friends were cooking gallons of sap in a simplified science. The wood-burning stove boiled down two big pans of sap. Each stock pot on top held more sap ready to take a plunge in the boiling pans below. By the end of the day, the sap will have cooked down to fill one stock pot. Then, the pot will be moved into the house to continue simmering overnight.

The Sugar Shack was country cozy, with a few chairs gathered around the stove and pots and grates hanging from the walls. Jim and his friends sit in the shack, drink coffee or beers and talk for hours.

Skimming the foam off the boiling sap

It was a neat process to see up close; a labor of love for people who enjoy the outdoors. Andi said he learned one thing about maple syruping: he'd much rather pay $8 for a jar of pure maple syrup than spend 8 hours boiling down the sap. It takes a lot of patience and time to achieve a finished product.

Watching out the window of the Sugar Shack

There was no maple syrup for us to take home as a parting gift, but Jim promised to bring some back home for us to try. We did sneak a taste of some maple syrup leftover from last year's batch and it was sweet and delicious. I look forward to smothering it over homemade waffles at the cabin for weekends to come.

A Whole New World

Last Thursday, Tory and I started our day as we always do: breakfast and The Today Show. I'm a creature of routine and I like to watch the news first thing in the morning, otherwise I have this weird feeling like I don't know what's happening around me. I flipped on the television as I scrambled to pull some breakfast together for Tory and was greeted with an automated message from our cable service provider. Apparently we were due for a digital equipment upgrade and none of our five basic channels would work until we got it. I was not happy.

Of course Andi was traveling, as is always the case when anything goes wrong around here, so I decided to take care of the issue myself. "Look at me go!" I thought. Andi has been urging to take on more responsibility around the house since I began a SAHM so I thought I'd call up the provider and take care of this minor issue without bothering him. By the way, I was super annoyed the cable provider didn't notify us before our cable service was interrupted. Hmmph.

I called the telephone number on the TV screen and the customer service employee who spoke very bad English promptly told me he would not talk to me about the issue because I was not the primary account holder. WTF. Apparently, Andi was the only one listed on our account and he'd have to call to get the FREE equipment upgrade. The FREE upgrade could not be given to me for my safety, the man explained. Thank you for your concern, annoying cable service provider. I was pissed. I mean, I get account privacy and all that, and technically it wasn't the dude's fault I wasn't listed on our account, ... but still, PISSED. Apparently the cable service provider had also sent about fifty-million emails, left phone messages, and mailed letters to notify Andi of the equipment update issue, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, I did what any seething-red wife would do: I sent Andi a 911 email urging him to call the cable service provider at his earliest convenience (read: immediately) because I was without television. Dire straights, obviously.

In between meetings, he called the cable service provider to solve the issue. I'm not exactly sure what happened during that conversation but in the end, Andi canceled our service with this very-expensive-for-five-channels cable company and signed us up with a satellite TV company instead.

A few days later, the satellite provider came over to bless us with 150 television channels, some free movie channels and DVR recording capabilities. It's been TWO YEARS since we had real-deal TV and oh my goodness, it is glorious. I thought it was no big deal that we only had five basic channels and Netflix before but no, 150 channels for our entertainment is wonderful. On Tuesday, our first evening with real TV, Andi and I fell into a rabbit hole of Duck Dynasty. A&E kept airing episode after episode and we just kept watching it. It was captivating.

Even better than Duck Dynasty is the endless supply of Bubble Guppies episodes. We don't let Tory watch a ton of TV, but we do watch an episode of Bubble Guppies on some very early mornings or I'd probably fall over and die by 10:00am. We also let her watch Bubble Guppies on the iPad to and from the cabin or she'd scream the entire drive. We purchased about five episodes of Bubble Guppies on iTunes and have been watching those same five episodes over and over and over a gazillion times. I am so sick of those five episodes I practically throw up at the sound of them. Now we have a new DVR full of BG episodes. It's heavenly.

Bottom line, I feel like Andi and I moved to a world where rednecks, Snooki and dance moms reign supreme. We may never leave home again.

Easter 2013

Our flight from Nebraska arrived into Minneapolis just a few hours ago and now Tory's snuggled into her bed for a nice afternoon nap while I take advantage of a little downtime myself. We had a whirlwind weekend celebrating Easter with my family. Whew!

On Friday afternoon, Andi, Tory and I arrived at my parent's house around 5pm. Tory was a little gem on the plane ride there - thank goodness for the iPad! Once at my parents, we spent the early part of the evening catching up over pizza before heading to the Good Friday service at church. I twisted Andi's arm to stay at home with Tory since the service started at 8pm and Tory was beyond exhausted from an afternoon of travel and no nap. It felt like a vacation to be at church and not wrestling a squirmy toddler the entire time!

On Saturday, we hurried around town to accomplish all the things on my "must-do" list. That's the problem with being home for such a short time frame - there's always so many people to see and things to do before our visit is over. Due to some family circumstances, my sister and brother-in-law were caring for my brother-in-law's niece and nephews over the weekend so I made a mad dash to Wal-Mart to purchase Easter gifts for the new little kids. We also visited my great-grandma who's recently moved into a nursing home. The nursing home had an indoor Easter egg hunt for kids and a visit from the Easter Bunny so it was perfect timing. Unfortunately, as soon as Tory caught sight of the Easter Bunny, she cried inconsolably for the first fifteen minutes of our visit. She finally calmed down enough to hunt a few eggs after the Easter Bunny was out of sight.

Hunting eggs with dad at the nursing home

Afterwards, we went back to my parent's house and played Easter egg hunt in their backyard. The weather was 70 and warm - it felt so good to be outside without coats and boots. My body definitely missed the sunshine. Tory wasn't quite sure what to think about being outside at first. She was a little apprehensive to walk in the crunchy grass (I guess it has been six months since she's seen any)! Every time she'd fall down in the grass, she'd say "uh oh! uh oh!" in a panic until someone helped her to her feet. There was no way she was going to put her bare hands down on the pokey grass.

Later, my sister Ashley brought her family over for dinner. My dad grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and catching up. Tory had a fun time playing with her cousins, as usual. Neeley (three days shy of 8 months) is nearly the size of Tory these days. The girls are going to be great friends as they grow up together. They kept planting kisses on one another. Tory just can't get enough of her.

After Tory went to sleep, Andi and I went to my best friend Ashley's parent's house to visit her and Ashley and her husband for a bit. It's been a few months since we've seen them and it was wonderful to snuggle their baby boy Easton.

Unfortunately later in the evening, Tory became quite the little pistol at 11:00pm. She woke up screaming and refused to go back to sleep. I spent the next three hours standing over her pack-n-play rubbing her back, laying with her in our bed and walking around with her in the living room with no success in calming her down. Finally at 2:30am, Andi and I put her in the car and drove around for a half hour until she finally stopped crying. We kept the entire house up until 3:00am which made getting up for the 6:30am sunrise Easter service at church a bit miserable. I was determined not to let Tory's bad night ruin our Easter, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and made it to church on time. I have no idea what was wrong with her during the night other than maybe she was scared? She definitely wasn't sick or teething. Who knows.

The Easter Bunny delivered his basket for Tory while we were at church on Sunday morning. Andi and I were too sleep-deprived to even think about the Easter Bunny before church after only getting two hours of sleep the night before.

Opening her Easter basket

The Easter Bunny brought Tory a coloring book and crayon pouch, a potty time book and training pants, flip flops, a new summertime bunny outfit, a sippy cup, hair bows and a new Easter basket with her name on it. Nana and Papa also spoiled Tory with an Easter bag full of goodies.

My mom bought all her grand-daughters matching Easter outfits so we had to capture a photo of them all together.

Brooke (5 1/2 years), Neeley (7 months) and Tory (19 months)

No holiday is complete without group photos of course -

All of us together (except my brother who had to work - bummer!)
The sun was so bright, we were all having a hard time keeping our eyes open!

My sister Ashley's family

Nana and her grand kids

My little family

After the delicious Easter lunch my mom prepared and afternoon naps for some of the kids, we did an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Surprisingly as into egg hunts as Tory is, she could've cared less about this one and was more interested in blowing bubbles. Go figure. She did hunt a few eggs before all the big kids took over.

First Easter egg hunt

On the hunt for plastic eggs

The big kids spent the rest of the afternoon sidewalk chalking my parent's entire driveway and sidewalks while adults fell over from exhaustion inside the house.

Apparently, they like Nana's Bug - ha!

Happy Easter!