I just said this to my toddler because he is attempting to walk around in a mismatched pair of my heels.  One very cute black leather with a mary jane look, and one very prissy white eyelet kitten heel.  I have also caught him wearing my jewelry and hair accessories several times in the last week, he insisted on trying on the hair bows I bought for Violet the other day, and I catch him “nursing” his baby doll pretty much daily.  Funny stuff. I guess it’s a good thing we’re not too rigid about gender roles at my house!

Pick your battles. I’m using this one judiciously these days.  My energy is waning and physically I’m reaching a point where I can’t do as much as I was doing.  So when my toddler wanted to wear a bucket hat to church last weekend, I didn’t argue.  When he insisted on wearing my necklace today, I let him.  When he wants to push the button to close the door on the van, I wait patiently for him to do it and make sure he gets out before the door closes on him.  When he wants to pick up a rock in a parking lot, I say OK.  Because it’s just not worth the resulting tantrum for me right now.  When he’s a little older and understands a bit more, I’ll try to reason with him…but at this time in my life (and his) I’ve come to realize that it just doesn’t matter.

To potty train my youngest son, that is.  I very much believe in not pushing the PT because I saw with my first that it can often make the situation worse.  I let him do it in his own time and he did, finally.  So I had resigned myself to waiting until Colin was 3 before we started worrying much about it.  But he’s asked to potty about once a day for the last week or so.  He doesn’t actually do anything in the toilet, but he stands (or sits!) there and tries.  And that’s a huge step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.

Now I’m trying to decide if we should switch from diapers to some sort of training pants.  I used cloth diapers with my oldest son for a while and would love to find some nice cloth pull-up style training pants but unfortunately the fundage is not there.  So I’m now debating whether I want to put him in Pull-ups or stick with diapers.  I hate Pull-ups but it’s really hard to get a diaper off and on in the bathroom when he’s saying he wants to potty and you’re trying to hurry.

Any advice?  Don’t tell me to “just make him” (yes, I’ve heard that one before…from a pre-school director here in town) because it just doesn’t work that way.  I want to approach this gently so we have less stress on the part of everyone.  I also want to cut down on our monthly diaper expense which currently runs about $30 with my Amazon auto-delivery discount.  Not too bad, but obviously we’re saving money where we can right now!  I’d love to have him out of diapers before the baby arrives and we have to incur the diaper expense with her.

We were in the car, going to pick up my oldest son from school.  I hear the sweet voice of my toddler saying “Mommy?” from the back seat.

Me: “Yes, baby?”

Him: “Ah wub woo.”  (For those not familiar with toddler speak, that’s I love you!)

Me: I love you, too.

Him: Appa buhday! (Happy Birthday!)

It’s about 10 days late, but it’s still pretty sweet.  It makes all the yuckiness (including that *very* nasty diaper I just changed and the fight that I’m going to have to break up momentarily) worth it.  It reminds me that I must be doing something right, even if it feels like I’m not!

I am just about the world’s worst mom.  Because I avoid leaving the house with my 2 year old unless I have the backup of another adult.  I’m not kidding.  Inevitably when I take him out by myself, one or both of us ends up crying or having a total meltdown before my errands are done.  Now that my husband is home most of the time, I’m lucky enough that I usually have the luxury of either leaving the little boy at home or bringing the grown-up boy with me to help!

But this morning did not start out well.  My husband had a meeting downtown (fingers crossed that this brings in some work for him!) and as it turned out, Colin woke up right as he was leaving.  This is never a pretty scene…whenever Daddy leaves it means a total and complete screaming fit with lots of “I want a tiss!” even if Daddy kissed him before he left, or “I want Daddy!” or “I want to go!”  This time it was of the “I want to go!” variety so I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere with me.  He nodded a pitiful “yes” so I got us both dressed and we headed out.

I decided to go to Fabulous finds and see if they still had the total body pillow Emily mentioned in a comment, but they didn’t.  They did, however, have a ton of toys and I bought something small to avoid the meltdown that I knew would come when I tried to walk out of there empty-handed.  (Please don’t judge me…I am normally not such a pushover.  But I really am at my limit physically with this pregnancy and the last thing I wanted to do was have to carry a screaming toddler back out to the car.)  This small concession worked and we got out of there without any crying!  I then headed home, only to turn around about a quarter mile from the house because I decided I needed a Bojangle’s chicken biscuit.  Except for some whining from the backseat when I got my biscuit, it was a very successful outing overall.

So, “I did it!”  All by myself and with no tears or meltdowns.  I’m not going to make this a habit, though…