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3/4/2016 0 Comments March 04th, 2016
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2/18/2016 0 Comments February 18th, 2016I Wrote A BookOnce again I have been MIA. This time I have good reason. I WROTE A BOOK! This has been a dream of mine for years. I don’t know why it took me so long to actually do it. I honestly have always wanted to write a book. Just never trusted myself to be any good at it. Then I was asked to start a blog by a friend who said my information on parenting was needed and could help other parents. And here I am. I feel like I have done a great job on this blog. I know it’s not making me any money yet or as big as I would like it to be, but it’s pretty decent if I might say so myself. I always run into people who tell me that they love it and that I should keep writing. I guess you never know who is reading.
I am taking a financial class. It focuses on how to grow your money the practical way. In the month and the one class that I have taken I learned to brand myself. From this class I have this book and will be venturing off to sale baby products as well. I can’t even get into how crazy this is. I mean I can’t believe that I wrote a book. Have you ever dreamed of doing something but never thought that you would be capable to actually make it happen? That’s how I felt about writing. I was a math and science girl. I didn’t like to write nor did I care to read when I was in school. It wasn’t until college that I started to read all the time. Even though I wanted to write back in high school. I just didn’t think I was smart enough to actually write a book. But here I am. I never thought that I had anything to say and I definitely didn’t think anyone would get me if I did say it. This blog has been a huge outlet for me. I don’t know if you can tell or not, but it’s been my saving grace through single parenting. ……..Let me stop going down this road! It’s so easy to let it all out on here but that wasn’t my goal, lol. Either way. I have a book out. It is available for pre-order today. If you want to support me feel free to purchase. If you need help potty training, get it! If you read my potty training blog then you can write a review based off that. Either way, if you want to check me out or support do so with the link at the bottom. If it wasn’t for you guys I don’t think I would have written a book ever, SO THANK YOU! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BWBB9LE?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660 1/12/2016 0 Comments January 12th, 2016Potty Training in 3 DaysOkay, I know you all are looking for this…..HOW TO POTTY TRAIN!! Yes, I know you are because I was. I have to say that it was by far the scariest thing that I had to deal with so far in the parenting game. I honestly wanted to leave it up to his school to handle. And I was okay with that. Then he came home and I knew he was interested in using the pot. Little rugrat just couldn’t stick to the plan. You should know that I was an early child development teacher too. But I was early, early. Meaning I worked with kids that pooped in their pants not in a potty, and I honestly didn’t mind that. It was so much more controlled.
The only reason I am talking about this now is because the technique that I used worked very well for me. I swear by it. This weekend when talking with a fellow mom who is going through what I went through two years ago, I discovered that people have thought that my research wouldn’t work for them. BUT IT DID! I have told two, now three moms how I did it with Camden. And oh my God, the joy I see when they say it worked for them. So I am going to share it with you. It’s called the Potty in 3 Days! Before you say no, just hear me out! It is totally worth it. You will find that it is easy and less of a fuss than it sounds. I want to also point out that you need three consecutive days, so if you are looking to potty train, this three day weekend is the perfect time! You will need a few potties. I find it best to section off a place in your house that you will remain fully on that first day. My area was the family room. It was connected to the kitchen and had a bathroom very close. I put a potty in the middle of the floor between the kitchen and the family room so that I could run and get him on the pot as fast as possible. The main bathroom was used in case that was the closer option. You can have as many pots as you wish. But I thought that 2 was enough. Now here is a little background. Basically you leave your child naked from the waist down and encourage them to go to the pot every twenty to thirty minutes. You sit them down and say something like “okay, let’s use the potty!” If they go you reward them with a song of praise and a sticker. They may have accidents trying to get back and forth to the pot but that’s okay. It’s actually the point. But as the parent it is your job to catch them before they have fully went on the floor. You want to show them they are supposed to make it to the pot. First day: From the start of the day you are going to only put your child in a t-shirt. That’s right, no underwear or diaper. The child must be either fully naked or only in a shirt. The whole point of this is because the clothes restricts the children from feeling free. They are to go on with the day as usual. Just as if they are fully clothed. Increase the amount of juice or water they are having and encourage them to go to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes (and don’t forget to praise them). When they don’t make it, show them that you are disappointed, not angry just disappointed. They will have a few accidents. Camden had two on the first day. I think for most kids they get embarrassed that they peed on the floor and will make an effort to make it to the pot. Second Day: This day is the same as day one. The only difference is that you are to take the child outside for an hour. Now I have seen reports of parents who have taken their child in the backyard with no bottoms. I wasn’t very comfortable with that. So I just put him in some pants and no underwear and we went to the grocery store. Before you head out make sure you sit on the pot so that the child knows that you are to use the pot before you head out. (Accidents should be very few by the end of day two.) Camden didn’t have any accidents this day. I honestly felt like we were done! It was a breeze for me by the end of day one honestly, and that’s the same story I got from the two ladies I told to try this. Day Three: The exact same as day two. By this day the child should be fully potty trained and no accidents or just one. I will point out a few things with this technique. IT WILL NOT WORK IF YOU CAN’T STAY CALM AND AVOID BEING ANGRY. You have to be willing to deal with the mess, the long times in the bathroom, the rewards, singing, and running back and forth. You have to give it your best effort to make it work. Also evaluate your child, is he ready to be potty trained? If he isn’t asking to use the potty it might be too soon. If that’s the case, there is a chance for regression. If so, just try again in a few months. There are a ton of helpful articles on Pinterest too. That’s where I first saw this. From my personal story with Cam, it worked great. I swear by it. The next kid will def. be going the same route. Camden didn’t regress, he used a pull up at night but after a week even those started to be dry every morning. I think that it’s all about getting the child to see what it really means to pee on yourself! Camden saw how much work it was to clean it up. (OH YEA I MADE HIM CLEAN IT UP WITH ME, what I look like!) Oh one other thing I get asked a lot, does the child poop on the floor? Camden didn’t. Which was normal. It’s actually pretty common for a child newly potty trained to skip pooping for a few weeks. It’s a psychological thing. You can read up on that too on Pinterest. Once they get more comfortable with peeing in the pot, they will poop. I promise. Let me know how it works for you. Don’t be scared, I promise it changed my life. 12/31/2015 6 Comments December 31st, 2015No Sleep for the WearyI don’t know what to do! As a mother I feel like I am going crazy at night. It’s not just Camden either. I get anxiety about putting him to bed at night, I hate bedtime too. But for my own selfish reasons. Camden is scared of the dark. And has been for some time now. I do think that it gets worse when he comes back from his dad’s on weekends. I think there he sleeps with his brothers and when he comes home it’s like we start the sleeping alone process all over again. For the last month or two since his dad was MIA, we were doing okay with bed time. I will not say that it has been perfect but it wasn’t as bad as last night either.
I will admit that I am also to blame. I will continue to put Camden in the bed until I fall asleep. But once I am asleep, I tend to draw a blank. I am so out of it that I don’t know what time it is and will allow him to sneak back into my bed. So it is practically my fault. But his fear is real. I was feeding into it at first. Being that soft mom that people tend to refer to us women as. But how could I not be? I mean he is literally terrified. He runs and is crying uncontrollably and shaking with fear. But then sleep deprivation started to kick in and I gave up on caring if he was scared. I won’t lie, I didn’t care about his fear more than I cared about my sleep. And let’s not mix the lack of sleep with PMS, then mister you have a monster on your hands. Last night was the worst. He ran into my room and I had to pop him constantly to get him to stay in bed. Finally he went to sleep and I thought I was in the clear. I couldn’t even deal with being up, I was mentally and physically tired from having to force him to sleep that I went to sleep myself without getting anything that I needed to get done, done. Well a little over and hour after he fell asleep, he comes in my room crying with fear. I do not really recall this, but I happen to sleep on facetime now, so when I woke up the entire story was told to me. He came back in my room frantic and I allowed him to get in bed with me and go to sleep. HE HAD WON! And any mother to a child knows the huge difference that sleeping with your child can be. I woke up at 1am knowing that something was off, and to my surprise there was a set of four year old feet kicking me in the back. I wanted to cry. For my entire morning shower all I could think about was how tired I am, and will be. I just hate that I am so torn in the middle. I want to cuddle him and be mushy with him. But I also want my sleep and I want to wake up feeling good about my day. If you have any advice to offer up please do. Don’t let this be a blog post that goes unnoticed. I have about 600 readers a week and yet no comments. I am always there for my readers. You guys have sent me countless emails and IG messages and I ALWAYS respond. Help me out today. I could sometimes use the encouraging word. And not just me, think about the other moms and dads that are reading wanting to know they are not alone in these same situations. Your comments could just be the thing that gets them through it every day. Thanks All! 12/9/2015 0 Comments December 09th, 2015Don't Call Him BABEAND JUST LIKE THAT, I AM STARTING TO LIKE CAMDEN’S TEACHER. We are officially about what, four months into the school year and I am just now starting to see promise in this lady. I will say that I am extremely hard on all of Camden’s teachers. I want Camden to grown up and be the next Steve Jobs, and it starts now. I don’t care if school is more chill in the morning and afternoon, when I walk in the door he should be doing algebra or taking apart a computer. Not coloring on some paper and the art looks like Mr. Potato Head.
My friends and family think I have no solid reason for hating this lady. I haven’t wrote about this all school year because I can’t deal with anybody telling me that my reasons aren’t valid. I am allowed to hate whoever I want (crossing my arms and stomping to prove how serious I am). The one thing that really gets under my skin with her is that she calls Camden “babe”. WHO THE HECK IS YOUR BABE??? “Good Morning Babe”, “Did you have breakfast yet babe”, “Hey babe”….I legit want to smack her every single time! I didn’t wait 8 months of my pregnancy to come up with the name Camden for you to call him BABE! How completely unprofessional at that? Like you are his teacher and his mother is standing right in front of you, call him by his God given name, before I cut you! That is literally how upset I be. I mean the black side of my heritage really shows up. And the sad part is, I have to just turn away and leave because I haven’t mastered being the bigger person yet. So I run out the class like a complete idiot to refrain from smacking her. I’m not even going to go into reason number two of why I don’t like her. I feel like by now you are probably reading this and laughing because you think it’s already stupid. But whatever, my feelings are valid! So because she is an incompetent teacher she never sent any information home to tell the parents ANYTHING about the Christmas program. I’m not sure what my child should wear, how many people we can invite, how long it last, if the kids are staying at school or need to be picked up, if they have to come back what time is that, etc. So because of the great childcare provider I once was, I know all the questions to ask. And I couldn’t wait to ask them. I came in there on a mission, “let her say anything out of the way, and on this day I’m going to call her babe!” Don’t you know when you are ready to light into someone? You got yourself all gassed up. You ready! Been in the mirror all morning practicing the faces that go along with you cool slick phrases. Well that was me. I was ready. Laced up my boots and walked in the classroom on a mission…… Then she drops the bomb that would make the most hoodrat mother weak, “Ms. Avery you will want to put him in his Sunday’s best because he has a special part in the program”. Everything went to lollipops and sunflowers. I was too excited that my baby was the chosen one. I kissed him on the cheek and said “bye babe!” HAVE YOU EVER DISLIKED ONE OF YOUR KIDS TEACHER? HAD A HARD TIME GETTING ALONG OR THOUGHT THERE WAS SOMETHING THEY COULD HAVE DONE BETTER? Leave a comment below. We (me and Darin) would love to hear what you have to say! 11/17/2015 0 Comments Dad CornerĀHi. My name is Darin, and I am a ParentHi. My name is Darin, and I am a parent. I am a father…of two. Two girls. Two BE-YOU-TEE-FUL girls. One is in the “terrorist” 2 phase, the other is in the “neglected” 6 phase.
I’ll just leave that there. In theory, parenting is one of those things that look fun in commercials….until you live behind the scenes. You see those joyful Huggies babies running across the floor, just Happy to be alive. What they don’t show you, is when those babies decide to rip those pampers off when the parents aren’t looking. If I told you all the places my daughter decided to randomly “cop a squat”, let’s just say there is no place safe to lay…or sit…shit, possibly even stand (without shoes on) in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a DAD, almost all the time. Ok…sometimes. Okay…only when they are sleep. Are you judging me yet? That’s cool. I’m too tired to care. But, I love my babies to death, I really do…they just don’t make it easy. For example. As an adult, I used to be in control. I used to control a lot of things. Simple things. Like the radio. My phone. TV Remote. iPad. My juice. My snacks. My chips. My food. My space. Then, it happened. I woke up one morning, and realized I had lost everything. There were 8 legs in my bed. My TV would instantly tune to Disney. My iPad would be dead. My phone would be playing “Kids Bop” non-stop. My snack drawer—raided. Bottle of Grape Gatorade used to be loaded with “electrolytes”…now it’s just purple backwash. I had accepted the fact that I was no longer an individual…I was a parent. There is never a moment of silence between the “Can I have’s”, “I wanna’s” “That’s mine” and the shrill screams….and IF that moment of silence happens between the hours of 8am-8pm….be afraid….something has happened. So, that’s why I am here…I am here to talk about what the books sugarcoat, what the TV shows don’t show enough of, and to say what some parents just don’t like to say…outloud…about having kids. Ms. Avery graciously extended her platform so that I or we as parents can speak as more of a collective whole, if you will. I am not here to ask for help, because, frankly, “YOU AINT GOT THE ANSWERS SWAY…YOU AINT GOT THE ANSWERS!” But I do want to share…and I hope you all as readers are here to hear that you are NOT ALONE. How good do you have to have it before you stop acting like a completely ungrateful person? I don’t believe that some people really understand how great their life is. It’s like they just sit back and think of how to get more out of people. They don’t do anything for themselves and have to find something to pick about.
11/10/2015 0 Comments Working for the ManI have been trying to think about what I wanted to talk about next. Then it happened, I read this article and I figured out exactly what I wanted to vent about. Not only from a single mom’s perspective, but parenting in general. Of course as a single mom I think it is a lot harder to balance work and parenting. I kid, IT’S EXTREMELY HARD! But I don’t believe that working and raising children is easy on anyone. I don’t believe that the work field thinks about the parents that work for them.
10/30/2015 0 Comments Here SHE ComesI could feel it coming yesterday. I just knew that it was going to be looking me in the face bright and early when I woke up. You want to know how I knew. Well first there was the uncontrollable anger I had towards my mother that day. I mean I legit wanted to scream every time she opened her mouth. Wasn’t like she was saying much of anything to get under my skin either. Oh just the usual stuff “hey don’t leave your clothes in the dryer before you go to Philly tomorrow”. Then there was the comment my dad made, “Why is it that every time I see you, you are on the phone”. I don’t know why these things go to me, but I was livid. I mean so mad. I went downstairs and just turned on my music and started to clean. That’s what I do when I get upset, clean or cook.
10/20/2015 0 Comments All Grown Up
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