Milestones

This summer was not only fun filled with playdates, trips to the zoo, swimming, library story time and crafts, but we reached a few serious milestones.  We got rid of pacis in just 3 days.  My goal was to have the Lovies "off" the pacis before returning to school in September.  So we started very slowly, taking them away first thing in the morning and only be able to have the pacis during nap time and "night, night".  Then finally after a few meltdowns, they both decided that pacis were for babies and they were not babies anymore.  So we "threw" away and never looked back.  Now we only use pacis for baby dolls.  I could not believe how easy they let them go, but they did and have not asked for them again. 

Nighttime sleeping all of a sudden became a huge fight this summer that Sean and I were just not winning.  After sleeping through the night since they were 2 months old, they all of a sudden this summer decided that sleeping was for the birds and they started fighting us every night to go to bed.  It was getting so bad, they were screaming for hours and would basically tire themselves out and finally go sleep.  After about a week of screaming, we decided to convert their beds to toddler beds.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  It was MISERABLE!!!  They would not stay in their beds, they were wondering around the house, no one was getting any sleep.  It lasted about 2 weeks and we decided that they were just not ready for beds, so we converted them back.  After 2 days of being back in cribs and still fighting to go to bed, Brynlee came wondering out her room and into the living room.  She had climbed out of her bed.  Thinking it was just a fluke, we put her back in her bed....and ah, there was again standing in the living room 10 minutes later.  Fighting her for about a week, Chance decided to "throw" himself out of the bed and land on his head.  Scaring us half to death, we decided to take it to the extreme.  So we moved him into a toddler bed, into his own room and moved her into a full size bed in her own room.  After many weeks of trying different routines and many meltdowns, we have finally developed a routine of reading books, singing songs and saying prayers together. Then Daddy takes Chance to his room and Mommy takes Brynlee to her room, and we get our own time to relax and put them to sleep.  It has taken a while, but everyone has adjusted to our new nighttime routine and life is so much quieter in the evenings!!!  Still getting their rooms just perfect so pics to come at a later time!!! 

We worked on potty training Brynlee this summer.  Another goal of mine to have accomplished by September.  She was very interested for a few weeks, then slowly lost interest.  Now she is completely uninterested in potty training and I am currently working on a new plan for her.  I am hoping to have her trained by the end of the year and then have him somewhat interested after he sees her doing it.  Right now, Chance has no interest and will not even attempt to sit on the potty (little or big potty).  I am thinking I need to get him a more interesting potty chair.  HA!  He seems to respond better to Cars or Toy Story.  Keep you fingers crossed that we can reach this milestone before they turn 3 in March!!!