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I decided three nights ago to wean The Tater Tot from her bed time bottle and I was expecting wailing and gnashing of teeth. Arm and leg flailing. Hysterics. But there was none of that. The first night there were a few teeny sobs. The second night there was crying through one of the two songs I rock her to. Tonight there was not a mention of the bed time bottle.

We started by explaining to her that she would be having milk in a sippy cup at reading time before bed instead of milk in a bottle at bed time. We thought about explaining that she’s a big girl now and big girls don’t use bottles. Doing something symbolic like giving them away to a baby who needed them. But, in the end, we went with just changing the routine. That’s not to say that we couldn’t have used that tactic if the routine change hadn’t worked so well.

She looooved having milk during reading time but I think the first night she expected more milk at bed time. She adjusted pretty quickly though. The second night we explained again and I think she understood. I think the crying was a protest against the change in routine that night. Tonight, I think I am blessed to have a daughter that adapts so quickly. She has shown me time and time again, even though I have doubted her, that she will roll with the changes and not throw ginormous, nerve-fraying fits. For this I am grateful.

Thanks to Kirsten and Jenn for the advice about how to handle the weaning! It worked! (And, yes, I will have egg on my face if Tater Tot decided tomorrow night that she is not going to roll with my program any more!)

I didn’t think that I was going to be that person but I am. That person that, on January 1st makes a New Year’s Resolution to lose 10 pounds. And, yes, these are the same 10 pounds that I have been wanting to lose, talking about losing, and making half-hearted efforts to lose for a year and a half. Just the other day I said I wasn’t going to be that person. But today, it feels inevitable. I feel compelled to go through the ritual of making the resolution to lose weight. Do I really think I’ll be able to do it? Sure! Why not? If I didn’t believe at least a teeny-tiny bit that I would be able to do it, I wouldn’t even bother making the resolution.

Why start January 1st? Why not start today or tomorrow? Or even the next day. Well, I don’t have a good answer for that except “Why not start January 1st?”. It’s as good a day as any and it relieves some of the pressure until then. I feel more free to just eat rather than examine, analyze, measure and then eat. Talk about sucking all the fun out of food!

Until January 1st, I guess I’m going to make a plan. A plan that helps me get more organized so it’s not so easy to say “I’m too tired” or “I’ve got too many other things to do”. A plan that helps me keep my house clean, my chores done, fit exercise into my day, and get to bed on time. Good luck with that! I can’t remember the last time I got to bed “on time” and got enough sleep. I’m embarrassed to say what it was that I was watching that kept me up past my “bed time” last night. Let’s just say it was on MTV and it’s about people half my age! Vicarious living, I’m sure…

I’m hopeful. Convinced that I’ll succeed? Not entirely. But I’m almost convinced. Does that count for anything? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Oh well, I’ve got four days to convince myself…

Merry Christmas to you! This is the first Christmas that Tater Tot really understands the whole present-opening deal. She knows that “Santa came last night” but still doesn’t make the connection “How did Santa know I was at Gammaw and Gampaw’s?”. I’m not even sure she understands that Santa theoretically brought at least some of the presents. And I had to coax her into pulling on the wrapping paper to “help Mommy unwrap your presents”. But the reaction once the presents were unwrapped was priceless! Unfortunately, we were not coordinated enough to get the video function on our digital camera going to catch the arm-flapping, high-pitched-squealing goodness of The Tater Tot’s spontaneous reactions to all things Thomas and Yo Gabba Gabba. She petered out before we got to the stocking stuffers, though, so that’ll be a nice bonus for later today or tomorrow…

Luckily she doesn’t yet get impatient about opening presents so we didn’t have to get Gammaw, Gampaw and Uncle up super-duper early to open presents. That may change next year but for this year, I’m sure they appreciated it. The other interesting factor in the present-opening ritual was that she wanted to open each and every present and play with it before moving on to the next one! Not convenient but what can ‘ya do? It’s Christmas! Generally, it’s her day so…

Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to edit Tater Tot’s toy box before Christmas so I have a daunting task ahead of me: finding spots for all the new merchandise and figuring out what toys can go and which stay. I wonder if The Container Store’s earnings jump significantly after Christmas?

I’m very stoked about my presents…several gift cards which means “shopping for free”! Gotta love that.

Yeah, I don’t iron. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I ironed before tonight. How do I get away with it? I don’t buy clothes that need ironing. Duh! Sorry, didn’t mean to be so judgemental there. How could you have known that I restrict my and my family’s clothing options like that? The Daddy usually just wears khaki pants and a Hawaiian shirt to work every day so, as long as I don’t wait too long to get the clothes out of the dryer, they usually look pretty darned presentable from the get-go. If I forget to pull ‘em out, I just start up the dryer again for a few minutes and voila! Relatively wrinkle-free clothing. And if the shirt isn’t entirely wrinkle-free, all that busy Hawaiian-print goodness hides any of those sneaky little wrinkles. Since my Momiform is usually just jeans and a t-shirt or sweater, no ironing is needed there. Taylor’s wardrobe consists mostly of jeans, sweats or knit pants, and t-shirts or sweaters, too. Again, no ironing. And then there’s always the fact that sometimes we just walk around slightly disheveled. Because I hate to iron. No, more accurately, I loathe ironing. With the fire of a thousand suns.

Why? Let me use tonight as an example. I had several things that I needed to iron tonight and, just as I had managed to iron my first wrinkle into the first item of clothing (reason #1 that I hate to iron), there was unexpected movement of the ironing board and I burned my arm with the iron (reason #2 that I hate to iron). It’s just not safe for me to be handling extremely hot objects. I’m just not capable. Really, I’m not kidding.

Then I turned my attention to the cute iron-on t-shirts of Tater Tot’s favorite Yo Gabba Gabba characters that I’m making for her for Christmas. Think about it. Have you ever ironed knit material? It loooooves to smoosh and squish while you’re ironing it and create wrinkles as you iron! With my history of over-developed ability to create wrinkles while ironing, I knew that this was going to be a challenging task. And it was. But I managed to complete the shirts without screwing up the iron-on transfers so I’ll consider this evening to be a whopping success!

Now that my arm has stopped throbbing, I will acknowledge that sometimes this Mommy just will not be able to let her family go around looking like they are orphans and bachelors and I will have to concede to ironing occasionally. I’m just glad that those occasions are few and far between…

So I was noticing that my “I’m Not Going To Win Mother of The Year” category wasn’t getting many posts from me for a while now. That got me to wondering: “Am I a better mother than I used to be?” You know, gaining confidence, getting my act together. Or am I just obsessing less? Not sweating the small stuff. Letting go of perfectionism. Like, after Tater Tot has popped a cracker from her car seat in her mouth, asking her what kind of cracker to judge how old it is. “Fishie cracker? No worries, that’s only two days old.”

After ruminating on this for a bit, I’m still not sure what the answer is. Probably a little bit of both. I’m sure that I have become more confident in my mothering skills. You can’t be the mother of a toddler and not have learned some things. I’m also equally sure that I have loosened up a bit on the perfectionism. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a looong way to go on that one. But I am very aware of not imposing that on her. It’s bad enough that I impose it on myself. I do NOT want her to be like me in that respect. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t want her to be like me in lots of respects. And, no, this isn’t Low Self-Esteem Hour here. I’d just love to be able to save her from some of the stuff that I’ve been through. Wouldn’t we all like to do that for our kids?

Whatever the answer, rest assured that there will still be posts in the “I’m Not Going to Win Mother of the Year” category. There always will be posts in that category. Because the Little Ones, they “test the Momma” and stretch you to capacity sometimes. Then you grow. Funny how that works…

Every night until Christmas this month Tater Tot gets to open the next door on the advent calendar The Daddy bought to count down to Christmas. It’s a cute little green house-lookin’ thing with doors and cute little knobs that are just small enough to drive an adult crazy. I have relaxed my “no sugar” stance and every night we plant a teeny-tiny graham cracker cookie behind the door for the date. And every night The Daddy asks her “Which one are we going to open tonight?” She calls out some random number until we tell her the right one, at which time she screeches the appropriate number with a wonderfully cute trill at the end. For example: “Sixteeeeeeeeeen!” (Please imagine this at the highest pitch sound humans can uncomfortably hear). “And what do you think is behind the door?”, The Daddy asks. “I FINK DERE’S A COOKIE IN DERE!” Tater Tot will answer. “Are you sure?” The Mommy asks. “I FINK DERE’S A COOKIE IN DERE!”, she replies. Yep. She’s sure.

Sure enough, after dinner she’ll go over and open the door and there’s a cookie in there. And every night she is just as excited as the night before. What happens when Christmas is over and she still expects a cookie every night? I haven’t quite figured that out yet. But in the mean time I’m going to sit back and savor the pure joy that my daughter gets out of this simple holiday tradition. What are some of your holiday traditions?

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These are just too cute! I was over at CrazyforBargains.com looking for cute Christmas pjs and look what I found!

The Grinch Green Striped Footed Blanket Sleeper for Baby and Toddler Boys

The Grinch Pink Max and Cindy Lou Who Footed Blanket Sleeper for Baby and Toddler Girls

Dr. Seuss Little Miss Who Pink Pajamas for Toddler Girls

The Grinch’s Dog Max Red Striped Footed Blanket Sleeper for Infant and Toddlers

The Grinch Green Striped Pajamas for Baby and Toddler Boys

How adorable are those? When I was growing up, we would open Christmas presents on Christmas Day but would beg and beg to open one gift on Christmas Eve. My parents would always give in and guess what the gift they allowed us to open always was? Yep. Pajamas. You’d think we’d learn! I’m thinking about starting the pajama tradition in our family, in part just because I love weird, quirky pajamas! And CrazyforBargains.com has just about any pajama you’re looking for. Characters? Got ‘em. Bunny (and every other imaginable animal) slippers ? Check. Silky soft plush robes. Yep.

If you’ve got little ones who bug the heck outta you to open “just one present, Mom” on Christmas Eve, get ‘em some cute Christmas pj’s they’ll not soon forget.

Tater Tot looooves her “Princess Ajamas”. So much so that I am finding myself scrambling to wash them just about every day so that I can say “Yes, sweetie, your Princess pajamas are clean tonight” and see her face light up. This is one interesting little girl. She alternates between “tough chickie” and “sensitive girl” so that it’s anyone’s guess what her reaction will be at any given time. From “Huggies an’ kisshies a Mommy” (huggies and kissies to Mommy) to “Get out a way, Mommy” (no translation needed!) in no time flat! She’ll run and fall, getting up laughing sometimes but others will get a minor bump and look for me crying. She seems just at home in The Daddy’s fashion concoctions of boys board shorts with a mismatched cutsie t-shirt or in my sometimes well-coordinated and mostly pink or purple outfits. She loves her “Princess shirt” and pink Vans tennis shoes but also really likes the least feminine blue and red striped playsuit that I have ever seen. She loves her Groovy Girls Gwen doll but Elmo is also a big hit. She has no problem scrounging in the dirt but looooves bath time and being “clean and fresh”. At almost two years old, I’m assuming that this is pretty normal. I can’t imagine a two year old who doesn’t want to scrounge in the dirt or who really cares a whole heckuvalot what they wear as long as they’re not too cold or too hot. Am I wrong? But, I have to say, I wish that she would never lose this little person that she is right now. Bubbling over with excitement and enthusiasm. Unafraid to speak her mind. Clear about her preferences: “dooce” and milk, Mommy…”boph”; “put it away, Mommy” (in reference to an outifit I picked), “garden begetables bettah”, “go outside “pleeeease”. And I hope she continues to love her Princess side while she’s kicking butt with her tomboy side. Because every girl needs a little bit of both.

Ok, so I had a niggling feeling last night that my period might start four days early, effectively canceling the LEEP I am supposed to have today. I was right. What made me think it would start early? Oh, the pint of ice cream and intense craving for carbohydrates, probably. I was a carb-eating machine yesterday. Since The Tot was born, I have very few PMS symptoms but carb-cravings definitely tops the list. Unfortunately, the list is rounded out with cramps and fatigue. But, all-in-all, I’d say I’m pretty lucky as far as that kinda stuff goes. No fire-breathing dragon mood swings or soreness, which is nice for all of us here at Casa de Tater Tot.

The good thing about canceling the LEEP again is that my mom doesn’t have to drive two hours in the nasty, windy, raininess that we’re having here in Southern California right now to sit with The Tot. The bad thing is that I have to wait again and psych myself up all over again the next time. Blech. I am grateful that the biopsy came back normal and this is just a recommended procedure to take the abnormal cells off or I’d be freakin’ out a little bit.

I have decided that I deserve a day off. How exactly am I going to accomplish this? By changing my mind set. The laundry can wait. The dishes can wait. There are no errands that can’t wait until tomorrow. I’ve got a frozen pizza that’s calling our names for dinner. There are several episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba on the Tivo. And Charlie Brown Christmas on the CD player. It’s going to be a nice, relaxing and cozy day at home today. Famous last words? I hope not.